Secrets over Sweet Tea (7 page)

For a moment, life was perfect. At least as perfect as their life could be.

Scarlett Jo stood in the back of the building as Jackson gave a message unlike any he had given since their church had started.
He was broken and deeply passionate and at times even prophetic. His words came out with a boldness and an authority that only a man who had spent time alone with God could deliver.

Last night after the kids had gone to bed, he had told her he needed some time with the Lord. She didn’t know when he’d actually come to bed—or if he’d slept at all. But this morning, he’d said he felt the Lord had a strong message for him to deliver.

Listening to him now, she had to agree. God did have something to say.

She took in the scene before her, all the heads that represented families and lives and hearts. And that was when she felt it. A deep pain in her chest. A pain that took her breath. She hunched over, gripping the large white daisy with an orange center that was clipped to the strap of her sundress. She almost screamed out that she was having a heart attack.

But as quickly as the pain came, it ceased. She caught her breath and straightened, trying to shake off the panic. As soon as she did, the pain struck again, this time harder and deeper. She clutched at her chest, her breathing rapid and short. But right before she broke out in a bad Sanford impersonation, the pain released her.

“God’s heart is breaking today, people. I sense that in my spirit. His heart is breaking over your heart.” Jackson’s words reverberated through the building as if they were coming from a megaphone. “God, help us know what it feels like to have our hearts broken over our own sin.”

Scarlett Jo stood upright and knew immediately that was what she was feeling. It wasn’t a heart attack. Good thing she
hadn’t screamed out like she had wanted to. That might have been a little distracting. Then wonder washed over her. God was allowing her heart to sense his pain. His pain for the people in this room. His pain for the people he had entrusted to her and Jackson’s care.

“You can only live with your heart shut down for so long. Eventually you will fight for your healing, or you will die. Those are your only choices. ‘Today,’ the Scripture says, ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life.’”

With that, Jackson Newberry had said all he was going to say. But Scarlett Jo knew the battle line had been drawn. And she and Jackson had been sent to the front.

Boxwood Bistro had a wonderful Sunday brunch. Zach took a bite of his cheese grits and savored the Southern favorite.

“Are you going to eat that?” Adele asked as Caroline stuck her fork in the tiny dollop of cheese grits she had allowed on her plate. “Do you know how many calories are in that stuff?”

Adele counted calories like Mark Zuckerberg counted friends, and it showed. The woman was stylish and classy. Everything about her screamed “put together”—the nails, the jewelry, the clothes, the short brown, highlighted haircut. And she refused to be called any version of
Grandmother
, not even distant soundalikes such as
Gigi
,
Mimi
, or
Nana
. Instead, she’d always insisted that the girls call her Bella. He had no idea where she got the name. Probably googled it and liked it because it sounded remotely royal.

Zach watched the expression on Caroline’s face change as she speared a lettuce leaf with her fork. He saw satisfaction in Adele’s brown eyes. Caroline scanned the plates at the table. Joy’s plate looked just like her mother’s and Adele’s—practically empty. Zach tried to push down the annoyance that rose at the fact that he had just shelled out sixteen bucks for each of these plates and none of them were eating anything.

“Did Caroline tell you of the changes we’re making?” Adele’s words stirred him from his consuming observation.

He shook his head and dug into his grits just because he could. “No, she hasn’t told me of an upcoming change.” He eyed Caroline, whose eyes were on her mother. To be honest, he didn’t want to hear what they had up their sleeves, but he also didn’t want the hassle of saying so. He glanced at his watch.

Adele’s spine was stiff and straight against the curved back of the wooden chair. “I told her she should think about expanding the store. She needs to carry a line of clothes for girls Joy and Lacy’s age.”

“I can’t stand any of the clothes around here. They are so . . . generic.” Joy’s words came out right behind her grandmother’s.

Lacy picked up her glass of sweet tea. “Well, I love Forever 21.”

“You would. You want to look like every other girl in school.”

Zach sat back in his chair. He studied Caroline’s face as it turned from her mother to him. It offered him nothing. She said defensively, as if he had already expressed his disagreement, “It’s a great idea for future growth. Investment is always good.” She waved her bite of lettuce but didn’t actually put it in her mouth.

He felt heat on his face as his anger stirred. He wanted to scream,
When were you going to tell me about this? At what point did you think I might have a say in what we do with our money?

“Who decided this?” was all he came up with.

Adele spoke first. “We did. This is a woman kind of thing.” She spoke as if she were humoring him.

“Well, I don’t like it.” He turned to his wife. “We should have talked about this together.”

She patted his hand as if he were a toddler. “Zach, Mom’s right. The store is my issue. The law firm is your issue. I’ll take care of what goes on at my store, and you keep the law business doing well. Then Mom won’t have to help us any more than she already has.”

The jab was real and purposeful, though delivered with the sugarcoating that Southern women were so adept in adding to insults. Adele had lent them some money over the last couple of years, mainly to keep this hobby of Caroline’s going. The store lost money most months, not because she didn’t sell things—Caroline had a great eye and top-notch sales skills—but because of all she spent on herself and on the girls. There was no boundary. No margin.

Zach put his fork down. “I’ve told your mother that I appreciate what she has done. If I haven’t—” he turned to Adele—“let me say it again. Thank you for how you helped us this year. But this is something we will have to talk about.”

It was as if he’d said nothing. It was Adele who patted his hand this time, her patronizing manner infuriating. If he cared more, he would hate her. But he didn’t have the energy for that.

“You just don’t worry about it. Bella will handle it.”

He looked at Caroline, waiting for her to do something. Say something. He wasn’t sure why. She never had before.

“Girls, let’s go shopping this afternoon,” Adele announced with a clap of her hands, the pale-pink polish as perfectly
applied as the lipstick she had touched up. “We need swimsuits for our trip to the beach.”

Joy placed her napkin beside her plate, her food swirled around as if it had been tossed by a hurricane. “Oh, Bella, that’ll be so fun.”

“I saw this cute two-piece,” Lacy chimed in.

Adele stood and patted Lacy’s back as she did. “Well, darling, you need to back off on the sweets if you want to wear a two-piece.”

He shook his head in hopeless resignation. It always interested him how Caroline could be constantly concerned about their financial situation yet act as if there were endless resources for whatever she wanted. But then there was an endless resource—standing right there in her pink suit. And she had always been there. A marriage of three, he called it.

Not that he would complain. For this afternoon, at least, she would get Caroline and the girls out of the house and he could do what he wanted. As far as he was concerned, they could spend all the money—Adele’s money—that they wanted to.

Grace loved Mexican; she could eat it every day. And she especially loved Pancho’s, a local Mexican joint located in a strip mall off Highway 96. She loved everything about the place—the burning Coca-Cola, the cheese dip, the chips, and those fajitas. They came out sizzling on the plate. If she were on death row, Pancho’s fajitas would be her final meal. A bonus was getting to practice the five Spanish words she actually remembered from four years of Spanish class. The waiters indulged her clumsy Spanish with a smile.

Fortunately Tyler liked Pancho’s as much as she did, so it was a Sunday afternoon staple. Now they were on their way home, stuffed to the gills with tortillas and cheese.

“What did you think of the church?” she asked as they made the short drive to their house.

“It was okay. Music wasn’t awful. Sometimes the preacher seemed a little too preachy, if you know what I mean, and his wife is kind of ridiculous.” He shrugged. “But it was fine.”

She leaned her head against the black leather headrest in Tyler’s Mercedes G-Class SUV. The vehicle was expensive and big and nothing either of them needed. It was the only compromise they could reach after last year’s car war.

What Tyler had really wanted was a convertible. Grace had bucked against that idea with everything she had inside. It wasn’t because she hated convertibles as such. If their marriage had been normal by any stretch, she would have bought him one herself. But to her, a convertible represented a mind-set with no thought of children and possibly meant he didn’t even want children. So she’d refused, using every argument she could think of to keep that convertible out of their driveway. Which was how they’d ended up with a gas-guzzling monster of an SUV they really couldn’t afford.

She’d bought her Prius to compensate as much as she could. She wasn’t an environmentalist making a statement. She was simply trying to ensure they had some retirement money left when they grew old. With both their careers, they should have been doing all right, but the last house had bitten a chunk out of them. This had been no time to sell. Even though they’d gotten a good deal on the new house, the stock market and housing market had all but destroyed their
savings. And Tyler’s insatiable desire for the best of the latest didn’t help either.

Tyler’s words interrupted her thoughts. “Jeff and Heather are getting a divorce. He told me that last night.”

Jeff was a teammate of Tyler’s, a drinking buddy. And his wife, Heather, was one of the most self-absorbed women Grace had met. “I’m not surprised,” she responded.

“He told me last night. She’s whacked, you know.”

Grace stared out the window. “I think it’s sad.”

“Jeff will be better off without her.”

She could fight that comment, but it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want to start an argument today or give Tyler another reason to get angry or drunk. But it bothered her that no one seemed to fight for their marriages anymore. That was Heather and Jeff’s problem as far as she could see. Jeff could be incredibly thoughtless. And Heather definitely wasn’t the type to make any sacrifices. No wonder they couldn’t hold it together.

But she didn’t want to think about Heather and Jeff anymore. She changed the subject. “What do you want to do when we get home? I was thinking I’d bake some bread for dinner tonight. We could have some of that good soup Rachel brought over.”

“I’m way too full to even think about dinner. I think I’m going to go to the Sportsplex and sit in the hot tub, maybe get more rehab on my shoulder and ride some on the bike. I’m not going to rush home. But the bread would be great. I could have it when I get in.”

She pushed the disappointment aside. At least he was talking about coming home. “Well, thanks for helping me the last couple of days. It made it go much quicker.”

He patted her hand, which rested on the console between
their seats. “ Hey, I wasn’t going to make you move all by yourself. I’ve never done that.” He laughed as if the thought was absurd. “That’s why I scheduled the move for my time off.”

They pulled into their driveway and went inside. The house was taking shape, starting to look remotely like a home. And as she walked through the door of a place with no painful memories, a piece of hope broke loose inside of Grace and made its way to the surface. They headed to their bedroom, where she set down her purse on the small wicker trunk by the door. Tyler went straight to the bathroom and pulled out his toothbrush. And as he started brushing, Grace felt an unexpected surge of desire run through her. Something about the closeness of their day, sitting with him, being touched by him, talking to him—all of that made her feel connected to him. And deep inside, she hoped it made him feel connected to her.

Her heart sped up. She did everything in her power to slow it down. She joined him at the bathroom counter and pulled out her toothbrush too. She pushed the electric switch and tried to let the brush’s humming distract her mind and body. Because her body followed her mind, and she didn’t really want to go where her mind was going.

After all these years without intimacy, she was still amazed that she desired it. She had prayed God would just shut down that desire. She’d begged him,
Take it away. Just take it away, and then I won’t have to deal with the pain of rejection.
But years of prayers and sheer willpower had failed to accomplish that, so she didn’t know how she could make it happen now.

Still, she tried. As she brushed, she tried. She rinsed and wiped her mouth, the ache inside her growing more intense and painful.

Her phone rang in her purse, but Grace let the call go to voice mail. It was probably Rachel. She would call her back.

She looked at Tyler, who was flossing now. What amazed her was that something in her soul still believed this time could be different. Believed that somehow, supernaturally, something had shifted with a touch or a word or an afternoon together that would cause him to desire her. To love her. And that all that was supposed to be would be.

The belief propelled her to his side of the sink. She scooted up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, the warmth of his body now against her own. He patted her hand again, as he often did. His touch was familiar, even comforting. But she wanted more. She wanted to be made love to like a young bride, with passion and longing and abandon. But she also wanted it with the beauty of years, with knowing and commitment. She wanted her husband.

Her hand inched down and ran along the edge of his jeans underneath his shirt. Before she could move farther, his hand grabbed hers and pushed it from his waist.

He rinsed his mouth before he spoke. “Grace, would you stop?” His anger was sharp and real.

“I’m sorry. I just . . .”

“I don’t want to hear it. Can’t you get it? I don’t want to make love to you. But you keep pushing and pushing.”