The Prayer Box, page 13
There was an old metal recipe box on Iola’s counter. Maybe I would see if the recipe for banana beignets was inside. I’d never been much of a cook, but I’d watched Meemaw make beignets years ago, helped her squeeze the dough through the cutoff corner of a plastic bag into hot oil. I could cook them while I was cleaning in Iola’s kitchen.
Maybe I would. It couldn’t be that hard. When the kids came home, I’d have something special waiting in the cottage. Something homemade, smelling of cooking and love. We could sit down and eat the sweets, laugh and lick the powdered sugar off our fingers. Zoey and I could talk without yelling, the three of us acting like a family for once.
I could freeze a batch for the UPS man, call him and let him know to stop by when he had a chance—I had a surprise for him. A last little gift from Iola.
I’d turned toward the kitchen before I remembered the package. I’d promised the driver I would make sure the bill was taken care of. Aside from that, I was curious about what was inside.
The keys in my pocket worked well enough to slit the tape, and I folded back the thick cardboard flaps, revealing layers of soft white tissue paper with glitter infused. Underneath, the box was divided into a beehive of small cardboard cells, two dozen in all, and in each one, something strangely familiar.
Tiny wings of colored glass, a soft twist of ribbon, a gold ring, brass bells. I slid my fingers into one of the cells, pinched the tip of a wing, wiggled the tiny hummingbird into my hand. Cupped in my palm, it was surprisingly heavy, the body made of molded metal, the wings and the passion vine formed from delicate stained glass.
“What did she plan to do with you?” I whispered, holding the bird up and looking at it eye to eye. “Who needs two dozen suncatchers?”
The paper price tag twisted back and forth on a string, a flash of gold alternating with white. Forty-five dollars . . . times two dozen suncatchers . . .
“Over a thousand dollars’ worth of stained-glass doodads.” I caught the tag with my fingers, turned it over so that I could read the gold label on the other side, but I didn’t need to. I knew what it would say.
Sandy’s Seashell Shop
An Ocean of Possibilities
CHAPTER 11
I DAWDLED IN THE FIELD of salt meadow hay, watching a pair of river otters frolic in a slough lined with saw grass and spike rushes. In the parking lot at Bink’s, the cab of Paul Chastain’s truck was empty. I was hoping to catch him as he came out—to just happen to be passing by with the ladder problem in mind and happen to see him there and happen to ask if I could borrow one of the ladders that I’d seen in his pickup the day he came to mow.
I looked down at the bundle in my hand. The beignets, still warm, had soaked through and made three round grease stains on the napkin I’d wrapped them in. Bringing them was a stupid idea. They were a dead giveaway that I wasn’t strolling by Bink’s at random. But it also seemed like, given the ugly parking-lot scene with Ross, some sort of apology was due. Paul was a nice guy, and he didn’t deserve to have Ross giving him the stiff arm just for talking to me about J.T. and turtle camp.
The front door opened at Bink’s, and the bright colors of a Hawaiian shirt caught the sunlight beneath the overhanging porch. I hurried on to the parking lot as Paul exited the store backward, still talking to someone inside. When he turned around, there I was, passing by his truck.
“Well, hey!” he said, his lips spreading into a smile as he came closer. He had something pinned between his teeth—the stick from a sucker—and he was talking around it, a bulge in his cheek. If he thought less of me after our last meeting in the parking lot, it didn’t show.
“Hey.” I was smiling back before I knew it. Something about a grown man not ashamed to carry on a conversation with a sucker wadded in his cheek was funny. “How’s the crab hunting?” There were buckets in the back of his pickup again—at least a dozen this time. “You planning on feeding an army or just doing science experiments on a larger scale?” I pointed to his cargo.
He shook his head. “Working today.” Setting his drink on the tailgate, he tipped one of the white plastic pails so I could see into it. There were plugs of grass inside.
“Weeding gardens?” I took a guess. He didn’t look like he was dressed for garden work. Today, he had on a pink-and-green shirt with frogs on it, camp shorts that might have been camo-colored once but were bleached to pale tones of cream and peach, and heavy rubber hiking boots. His freckled legs were sunburned in streaks where he’d apparently missed with the sunblock, and a foldable camp-style shovel hung over his shoulder on a nylon strap. All in all, he looked like a cross between a mountain climber and a Captain Kangaroo character.
“Stabilizing frontal dunes and valuable boundary areas.” He cleared his throat and deepened his tone to give the words an exaggerated importance. “The park service doesn’t pay me to crab hunt.”
“Oh, I see.” I pressed a hand to my chest, pretending to rethink my earlier question. I remembered now. He’d said he worked part-time for the park service.
Shrugging, he lifted his palms into the air. “If a crab trap or a fishing line happens to fall into the water while I’m in the performance of my duty, well, I can’t exactly help that, now can I?” One of the buckets rattled, and he cast a wry, one-sided smile my way, a little twinkle in his caramel-brown eyes.
“Well, I suppose not.” I stood on tiptoe, and he reached for the bucket to show me. “I guess you keep the crab traps and fishing lines all baited, just in case one slips into the water . . . accidentally.”
“They work better with bait on them.”
I peeked into the bucket. Crawdads. “Looks like there’s a problem with crawdad seines slipping out of the truck too, huh?” I knew all about seining crawdads. We’d lived on a canal in east Texas once. I remembered walking along the bank with Daddy, helping to pull the seine, netting up dinner.
Paul lifted his hands, palms up, his shoulders rising. “Darnedest thing, really. What slips out usually depends on where you’re working. I was over in the Tidewater today, just down from a crawfish farm, and those seines get rowdy when there’s a mudbug hole nearby. When a net wiggles off into the water, what can you do but pull it back out? Learned that from my dad. He was a county sheriff down in Alabama, so he rambled around in the backwoods a lot.”
“I take it there were also a few fishing poles and a crawdad seine or two in the back of the sheriff’s car.” I caught a whiff of banana beignets and noticed that Paul was giving the napkin a curious look.
“I do come by it honestly,” he admitted. “You know what they say about the seines of the father . . .” He blinked slowly, holding back his lopsided Tootsie Pop smile, waiting for the pun to work.
“Ohhh . . . that was bad.” The joke pulled a groan from me, but I found myself thinking about Paul’s father, wondering what kind of man he was and trying to imagine him. Was he redheaded and fair skinned, like Paul? I pictured him a little like Andy Griffith, with little boy Paul in the Opie role. I had the strangest urge to ask Paul about it—to sift out a scene of boy and man walking down the levee in the summer grass.
Instead, I somewhat awkwardly handed over the napkin with the beignets.
“Ooooh,” Paul appraised appreciatively as he unfolded the napkin and examined the sugar-dusted contents. “These look a whole lot better than crawdads. Can we work a trade?”
“I wanted to thank you for being so good to J.T., and . . . I have a favor to ask.”
“Okay . . . shoot,” he replied, as in, Whatever it is, I’m there, but he didn’t look at me. He was busy comparing the beignets and deciding which one to eat first. I wondered if he’d forgotten that he had a lollipop in his mouth. The thought seemed to occur to him at the last minute, and he quickly extricated the Tootsie Pop, then dropped it into one of the buckets.
I got around to my original reason for being there. “I was wondering if I could borrow that tall ladder you had in your truck the other day.” He gave me a curious look, and I quickly added, “There isn’t anything like that around the cottage, and I need one for a day or two.”
“Don’t imagine Iola did much ladder climbing at her age.” He sampled one of the beignets, closing his eyes and smiling as he chewed. “Ohhh, man, these are heaven. I’ve had some good beignets, but these are top-notch. What’s in there? Bananas?”
I nodded, an unexpectedly light, airy sensation fluttering through my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cooked anything that wasn’t from a box, but it’d felt good to take the supplies from the UPS driver and create something warm and fresh. Sort of a new beginning from an old ending. A rebirth.
I had a feeling Iola would’ve liked that. Maybe she was rubbing off on me a little. Iola . . . and Sister Marguerite. It felt good to do something good for someone else. To add a few deep-fried droplets of kindness to the world. A little act of service. Is it possible that all service is worship? The words were still in my head.
“It was Iola’s recipe.” I slanted a glance toward the store, thinking of the last time I’d been in there, the way Bink had sneered and crossed his arms when Iola’s name was mentioned. How could anyone dislike the sweet little woman who made beignets for the UPS driver?
“I thought I’d heard she was from down in New Orleans, so I guess it makes sense—beignets,” Paul mused. “When I passed through the church office a few days after she died, they were talking about her final arrangements. That was how I knew she’d left the house to the church and what gave me the idea of dropping over to do the mowing.”
“Is that where she was buried—New Orleans?” It bothered me that I didn’t know. That I still hadn’t heard a thing about her funeral. It seemed like she deserved something more than to just . . . disappear.
“I think so. Brother Guilbeau said she wanted to be buried in some kind of family plot.”
“Oh.” A sense of loss struck me suddenly, and the scent of beignets, beach grass, and crawfish turned cloying. I had the urge to tell Paul about the closet, the boxes, the shelf dangling fourteen feet in the air. By my count, the glass box teetering on the broken shelf had probably been placed there just last year. By a woman in her nineties, with no ladder.
I backed away instead of sharing the story. “Anyway, a ladder loan would be great.”
Paul pinched a beignet between two fingers, held it up, and admired it from all angles. “Sure. I’ll stick the ladder in the back of the truck tonight, then drop it by tomorrow after I’m done at the school. I only have classes through the morning—helping to fill in for a teacher who’s taking care of a sister with cancer. Anyway, ladder deliveries are no problem. Is noon soon enough? Otherwise, I’ll run it by in the morning.” He toasted me with the beignet, then popped it into his mouth. Smiling, he murmured, “Mmmm.”
My blue mood lifted like a cloud rolling offscreen in fast-motion video. “I’ll bet your mama loves you.” I imagined a dinner table scene—the happy mom, the friendly fishing dad, and redheaded Paul, all gathered around a big platter of crawfish, rice, and garden-fresh vegetables, a little dog sitting patiently on the floor waiting for someone to toss a crumb his way.
“Yes, she does.” He nodded, then popped the last beignet into his mouth and noisily licked his fingers. His mama hadn’t emphasized manners. He seemed like the type who would’ve grown up with brothers, a family filled with men, where table manners and fashion choices meant nothing.
He was giving me a curious look now, probably wondering what I was thinking.
“Well, okay, thanks. Noon’s fine for the ladder. I appreciate the loan. If I’m not there when you come by tomorrow, could you just leave it on the porch?” I needed to keep the schedule loose in case Ross called, and I also had the box of suncatchers to return to Sandy’s Seashell Shop. If Iola’s estate ended up suspended in some kind of legal battle, they might never get paid for that box.
“Sure. No problem. You mean the porch of the main house or the bungalow?”
There was that funny word again, bungalow. And why had he mentioned the main house? Did he know I was working there? Maybe Brother Guilbeau had told him. . . .
The school bus whirled around the corner, then stopped at the edge of Bink’s parking lot and let off kids. J.T. wasn’t among them, and neither was Zoey. I hoped that meant they’d ridden home with Rowdy, but still, we needed to talk about the two of them running all over the place without letting me know. That talk probably wouldn’t go well even with the beignets, but last night, thinking even for a few hours that I might never see my kids again had awakened me from the sleep of my own life. Something had to change between Zoey, J.T., and me. The more time I spent with Iola’s boxes, the more I could see what a mess we were.
I answered Paul’s question, then said good-bye and hurried off across the salt meadow to get back home before the kids made it there with Rowdy. With any luck, I’d still have time to lock Iola’s house, bring the beignets over to the cottage, and set us up for an afternoon snack and a family conversation, instead of a shouting match.
But when I reached the cottage, Zoey was on her way out the door with her backpack over her shoulder and a towel under one arm. She had on short shorts and a flowered tank top I’d never seen before. She was all legs and curves. At a glance she could’ve been eighteen instead of fourteen.
I recognized the MO of a little girl trying to look way older on the outside than she was on the inside. When I was Zoey’s age, I’d figured out that the right clothes could get you all kinds of attention, and I liked it. It felt good to know that someone could desire me, want to be with me. Want me.
Zoey gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look, and then her eyes turned hard. Icy. Rowdy was sitting in his Jeep out front, his head bobbing to music amped so loud that the bass was creating a minor earthquake.
“I’ve gotta go.” Zoey made a preemptive strike, telling, not asking.
“Wait . . . hold on a minute.” Several quick steps brought me to the bottom of the porch stairs, blocking her exit path unless she wanted to hop over the railing. Which she looked like she might.
“What?” A flash of lashes and a quick tilt of the head. Her hips jutted to one side. I knew the posture. Right now, Zoey looked too much like Gina. My big sister could give attitude like nobody I’d ever known. No matter how wrong she was, she was right. Zoey huffed and jerked her chin toward the house. “The dork’s inside. I brought him home, okay? I made sure he’s all safe in there, since it’s not like you’re ever here to—”
“Stop calling him that.” What was wrong with her lately? She’d been the little mommy since J.T. was born. He adored her, always had. “And all I did was walk over to Bink’s for a minute. I’ve been here all day, waiting for you to come home so we can talk.”
“Whatever.” Zoey fingered the thick silver chain holding an oversize class ring suspended over way too much cleavage. When had my little girl gotten cleavage? When had she become so comfortable showing it? “I figured you’d be gone with Ross again.”
Suddenly I was on the defensive. “Yesterday wasn’t Ross’s fault, Zoey.”
“Of course not. Nothing’s ever his fault.” She rolled her head to the other side, hair skimming over a bare shoulder in a silky curtain. “But don’t worry about it, okay? We’re fine on our own. We’re always fine.” She blinked hard, her dark lashes matted with moisture.
The words sliced through all the soft places, and I saw my sister again, saying the cruelest things, knowing right where to aim to cause the most pain. “What, like those clothes?” I swept a hand in the air between us, indicating the new outfit. “You know what those clothes say, Zoey? Did he buy those for you?” Rowdy must have bought the clothes. Zoey didn’t have any money.
“Like mother, like daughter.” She trotted down the steps and shoved past me, striding toward the car.
“Zoey, get back here!” I hollered, but she just circled the Jeep, slipped in, and closed the door hard.
Rowdy stretched a hand across the seat and strung his fingers into her hair. He didn’t even turn the vehicle around but backed all the way to the street at high speed like he was afraid I’d jump in their exit path. I could imagine the things Zoey had told him about me. He probably thought he was saving her from the claws of a she-devil.
Frustration drove me back and forth across the porch, furious, sad, helpless. I wanted to tie Zoey to a kitchen chair, lock her in her room, force her to listen. She was better than this. Somehow, I had to find a way to show her, to make her see, like Sister Marguerite had with Iola, that she was beautiful, that she was worthy.
Standing here with Iola’s prayer boxes so close, I wanted to be better than I was. I wanted to stop running blindly down all the same paths. The thought nipped and bit, hungry and angry, painful and unnerving. I didn’t know how to be anything except what I had always been.
A car pulled in soon after Rowdy’s Jeep squealed away. I gathered my wits and walked down the steps, meeting the vehicle as the driver turned off the engine and opened his door. He was middle-aged, balding on top, dressed in black pants and a white jacket with some sort of emblem on it. His round-cheeked face made him seem likable enough, but a ripple of concern inched upward inside me. “Can I help you?”
“I just came by to look the property over.” He grabbed a clipboard off the dash.
“Oh . . . are you from the church?” Thank goodness I’d put the prayer boxes away after the UPS driver had surprised me.
The embroidered label on the man’s jacket was from an investment company. He tucked the clipboard under one arm and twirled a pen from finger to finger like a tiny baton, then pointed it at the cottage. “You staying in the rental?”
“Yes.” Up close, he didn’t seem so nice. It was an old horse trader’s trick, not giving a direct answer to a question, and right now he wasn’t really looking at me, but through me, like I was getting in the way of his agenda, whatever it was. I thumbed over my shoulder toward Fairhope Fellowship. “You might want to go by the church because Brother Guilbeau—”
