grabbed a tissue from a box on the end table and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Daddy had his heart set on using this property for a religious retreat for his church deacons and the heads of his committees. He thought he might have to buy out Uncle Matthew to get it, so he’d already started a church donation fund to do that. The church owns a nice bus they could have used to transport the people from there to here, and Mama said he was thinking about setting up a fund for a little airplane.”
“Have you talked to him since . . . ?” April asked.
Nessa raised a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve listened to him rant and rave about things, but lately I’ve been ignoring his calls. I got tired of hearing him yell about the unfairness of the court system,” she answered. Then she changed the subject. “Flynn, how do you know anything about rewiring a house?”
He shrugged. “I took classes for that kind of thing in vo-tech when I was in high school. Then I started at the bottom in the oil field business before I ever graduated. They had me doing everything from wiring to digging ditches.” Flynn opened more windows in the living room and dining area. “I learned how to do all kinds of electrical things as well as the regular oil business.” He returned with two oscillating fans and plugged them in.
“Are you going to use the money she left you to rewire the house?” Nessa asked.
“Yep, and then some of my own money to put an air conditioner in that window.” He pointed. “I came here to get my life in order. I don’t have to sweat to death while I’m doing it. Thank God it’s June first and not the middle of July or August when it feels like it’s seven degrees hotter than hell in this part of the world. I don’t mind the heat in the day. I got used to that back when I was working outside all the time, but I hate to sleep without cool air.”
“Want to elaborate on that business about getting your life in order?” April felt like her feet and legs were filled with concrete and she couldn’t move past the middle of the living room floor. Memories of the pain, both physical and mental, that she’d felt in the bedroom she’d used when she was growing up flashed through her mind. The switch across her legs, the guilt trips when Nanny Lucy told her how much she had sacrificed to give April a decent, God-fearing home, and the way the walls seemed to close in on her when she was put in her room for hours on end all flashed through her mind. She couldn’t make herself take a step toward that room. She’d forgotten that she’d even asked a question until she realized Flynn was talking.
“I do not want to talk about anything right now,” Flynn said. “We all three share DNA, but I don’t really know either of you. I hadn’t seen you”—he nodded toward Nessa—“in six or seven years before Nanny Lucy’s funeral.” He turned to focus on April. “And it must be ten years since I’ve seen you. So I don’t feel like baring my soul to either of you.”
“Fair enough,” April said. “I guess we’ll get to know each other pretty quick when we work on the quilt out in the shed, though, won’t we?”
“I’d like to go out there and take a look at it.” Nessa headed for the door. “And then I’m going to unpack. I suppose April and I will be sharing a room.”
“You can have the room.” April didn’t want to sleep in the room where she’d cried herself to sleep too many nights to count. “The sofa folds out into a bed, and it’s a lot more comfortable than sleeping in the back seat of my car or on the trundle bed in that room.” She didn’t even look down the short hallway toward the door leading into the room.
“Poor little April.” Nessa’s condescending tone was just short of pure whining.
April whipped around and pointed a finger only inches from Nessa’s nose. “Don’t judge me. You haven’t walked even a foot in my shoes, so you don’t get to talk down to me. Sometimes one person’s heaven is another person’s pure old hell.”
Nessa threw up her palms defensively. “All right. I won’t fight you for the sofa. I’d rather have