do stupid things. It’s part of being human, but we have good friends and family to remind us of what is important, to smack us back in line.”
“Yeah,” Blakely said, pausing to kick at the waves, as she’d done as a plump eleven-year-old on that beach in South Carolina, before the hurricane came, before Eleanor lost her store, her marriage and her grip on the woman she was.
But no more.
Eleanor was done with the past, and having Blakely realize her role in weakening Eleanor’s determination to move forward only strengthened her resolve.
She would go to Dez.
He was her future.
No more fear.
Just holding on to the good stuff for as long as she could.
Blakely turned to her. “I’m sorry how I’ve acted. I can’t promise I’ll be the most supportive daughter ever, but I’m not going to hold you back, Mom.”
Eleanor pulled her daughter into a hug, inhaling her sweet scent, her heart bursting. “Of course, I forgive you. I want us to be close, but I realize relationships aren’t ideal. We’ll both piss each other off, and we’ll both have to forgive each other because that’s what family does.”
Blakely squeezed her. “I think Dez loves you. You should go get him, Mom.”
Eleanor bit her lower lip. “You think?”
Blakely lifted her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “I listened to the song. Love is pretty obvious.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
TRE STOOD OUTSIDE Eleanor’s office in his black pants, white shirt and new tie, hands shaking, gut clenched.
It shouldn’t be a big deal.
He looked down at the cardboard box in his hands.
Felt big, though.
He knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she said, loud enough for him to hear, but not all shrieky like Cici.
He poked his head in. “Uh, Mrs. Theriot, can I speak to you?”
Eleanor sat behind her desk, wearing a black dress and red, red lipstick. He’d never seen her looking that way. She looked exotic, like someone from the past who shimmied around in those weird dresses, like in The Great Gatsby. “Hey, come on in.”
He closed the door. No need in Pansy knowing anything about what he’d done in his past. “Uh, I need to talk to you about something, and I need to give something to you.”
“Sure. You want to sit down? You look nice, by the way. Nervous about playing tonight?” She smiled, but her eyes looked weepy. As if she was afraid everything around her might shatter. He knew she and Dez had broken things off, and he hated that. They both seemed happy together, like him and Alicia. Kind of meant to be.
“Yeah, I sort of feel like I could throw up.”
Eleanor smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “To be expected, I guess, but I’ve heard you play, and something happens to you when you’re up there. You become someone else.”
He nodded, shifting the box from hand to hand.
Eleanor regarded him expectantly.
“So, um, you remember when I came in back before Christmas?”
“Sure. I was so glad to see you because I’d gone a whole two weeks with no delivery guy.”
“Yeah, so that wasn’t the first time I’d been in your store.”
Her eyebrows lowered and her nose scrunched. “Okay, so...”
“I came by every now and then to check on the store, and I saw the sign. Don’t know why I came in and applied for the job. Guess I wanted to see everything was okay inside the store or something.”
“Tre, you’re not making sense.”
“I came to the store during Katrina.” He dropped his head. He couldn’t look at her when he said it. “I took some things.”
“You mean you looted my store?” Her voice sounded weird, as if she was choking on a chicken bone.
“Yeah.”
Silence squatted between them. Finally, he peered up at her.
“Well, this is unexpected,” she said, looking as though she didn’t know what to say, how to react.
“I didn’t break the window or nothing. It was days after and my mama was sick. She kept throwing up and looked bad. Everything we had was ruined except for some peanut butter. No water to drink. Shorty D cried all the time, so I told her I’d go get some food somewhere. I walked over this way. People had guns and were guarding the food, but the window of your store was all busted and stuff. I came in to look around and found this.”
He set the shoebox on the desk. Lifting the lid, he pulled out the old ragged brown shirt.
“That’s Skeeter’s old corduroy shirt,” Eleanor said, her eyes on the bundle. She seemed as though she was in