The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,43

I’ve got some things to do in town. How about this evening when it cools off a bit? I’ll bring my tractor over, and we’ll knock it out, the two of us, in half the time.”

I leaned against the counter. “I’ll stay here and make my cake, then. Keep Emmadean company.”

“Thought you needed it for tomorrow,” she said.

“Pound cakes are better the day after.”

I’ll admit, I enjoyed watching them squirm. I wasn’t an obedient child or a self-centered teenager anymore. If they were going to lie to me by omission and defend my damn father, then I was going to make them as uncomfortable as possible.

“Y’all want to tell me what’s going on?” I said.

“Dormer’s taking me to the doctor. Nothing special, just my annual checkup.”

“Want me to go with you? It helps to have an advocate with you, to ask questions you might not think of.”

“It’s just a physical, Nora,” Emmadean snapped.

I glanced at Dormer, who’d fixed his gaze on the floor. He would be easy to crack. Later.

“Okay.” I rinsed my cup out and put it in the dishwasher. “I guess I have no choice but to tackle Ray’s house. They said they’d deliver the Dumpster today. They gave me a window of eight to five, if you can imagine. Kim is coming by later to walk through the house to list it.”

“Already?” Emmadean said.

“Why should I wait?”

Dormer watched Emmadean, apparently as curious about her answer as I was. Oh, yeah. He’d be a cinch to break.

“It’s just all moving so fast. It’s good to have you here,” Emmadean said.

My knees creaked as I knelt in front of Emmadean. I could never stay angry with her for long. She stroked my face. “I’ve been thinking; I’ve got loads of time banked up at work. There’s no reason for me to stay away now.”

“Since you and Sophie made up.”

I smiled. I’d been thinking primarily of Ray being dead. “I’m going to visit so often you’ll get sick of me.”

“That’ll never happen, Bug.”

I stood and kissed Emmadean on the temple. “I’ll come in the morning to make the cake. That okay?”

She smiled up at me. “Anytime you want.” She slid her arms around my waist and pulled me into a tight hug.

I stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Over the top of Emmadean’s head, Dormer finally met my eyes, and I knew whatever they were keeping from me was terrible.

twelve

sophie

My intercom beeped, and my secretary’s syrupy Southern drawl came through. “Your mom’s on line two.”

“Thanks, Sheila.”

I stared at the blinking button. I’d dreaded this call every day this week. As the days passed and I didn’t hear from her, I’d completely forgotten to dread it. In truth, thoughts of Nora had driven everything else from my mind. I went over and over what had passed between us—every word, every argument, every smile, every touch. I could still feel her fingers intertwined with mine. Hear her laugh.

My secretary had found me staring into space at my desk more than once and had teased me about how I blushed when she did. Lord only knew what she thought I was daydreaming about. She would never guess. Would probably have carpet burns on her knees from all the praying she’d do.

I adjusted the photo of me and Nora that lay on my blotter. It was prom night, and we’d been waiting for our dates at my house. We’d posed and vogued for my father’s and Emmadean’s cameras, pretending to be each other’s dates before Charlie and Joe arrived. The adults had laughed along with us at the absurdity of it. A little over a month later, this was the only photo I managed to save from my mother’s frenzied purge of all evidence Nora had been in my life. The faded and wrinkled picture had been held, cried on, wadded up and straightened back out a million times before spending the last fifteen years between the pages of Nora’s copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the last book she’d been reading to me. I’d spent the summer struggling through the rest of the novel to prove the lie to my mother that it was mine so she wouldn’t throw it away. Now, eighteen years later, I was still trying to prove the lie to my mother that I was who she wanted me to be.

Maybe we should leave well enough alone.

The memory of Nora’s even voice, of her emotionless expression, when she said this made my heart