In a Moon Smile (17 page)

For a long moment, Madelyn stared at Chesney with a rather odd look on her face. It seemed to Chesney that her mother was trying to decide what to answer and how much to say. Finally, a very generic answer, an answer Chesney never truly believed, was offered.

“Grace was too busy with life to look for love again,” Madelyn said.

“Okay, but what about my dad’s dad? Where is that guy?”

“No one knows,” Madelyn shrugged and pressed her lips together, a sign that she was now irritated. “Chez, it isn’t your business, just as it isn’t my business.”

Two years later, Chesney asked Grace the same question. Face-to-face. Woman-to-woman. They were sharing the porch swing with sweet tea in a couple of plastic tumblers. “You know I started my period, right?” Chesney said.

“Yes,” Grace nodded. “You’re growing into a woman.”

That response was exactly what Chesney wanted to hear. Now she had the perfect moment to ask the question again.

“Your grandfather broke my heart,” Grace responded. “When I finally fixed it, I had become an old lady.”

“You aren't old,” Chesney said quickly as she took her grandmother’s hand. “You're wonderful and beautiful. You love to dance. You love to sing and laugh. You would be loved by any man.”

“Thank you, Chesney,” Grace smiled faintly. “But life turned out for me exactly as it was supposed to.” With a satisfied smile, Grace rocked back and forth in the swing, staring at the open meadow. Her eyes had a misty, long ago look. There were many questions Chesney wanted to ask. But she felt like an interloper and decided to leave it alone. Grace’s past, including her heartbreak, was private unless she offered up the details. Grace didn’t seem to feel the need to fill in any family history blanks for her inquisitive grandchild.

Two years after graduating from college, Chesney’s father showed up at her apartment. It was a Thursday morning. She had never seen such a tortured look on his face. The moment she opened the door, Chesney’s legs began to shake. She sank into a nearby chair and a chilly fear, a dread, a heartbreak, hid inside as she squinted her eyes shut, praying not to hear her father say the words. Somehow, she knew already. Grace was gone.

Lyle Blake could barely breathe or find his voice. His heart was shaky in his chest as he cupped his daughter’s shoulders. He could not possibly share with his child how lost he already felt. He could not be brave enough at this moment to say that his mother was the strongest human being he had ever known. She had been his rock, his calm, his place for comfort. “Chezzie honey, I need to tell you...”

“Was she alone?” Chesney whispered. “Oh, Daddy, was Grace alone when she died?”

The thought strangled her. She was overcome with sadness. Grace lived all of her life alone. And now she died alone as well? How fair was that? Chesney imagined her grandmother’s lifeless body, snuggled under the handmade quilt on the feather bed. During those moments before she slipped away, did Grace realize she was leaving? Had she been frightened? Was Grace’s heart sad about leaving the world with no one there to comfort her? “I should have been there,” Chesney said as she buried her face in her hands and sobbed inconsolable. “I will never forgive myself for not being there when she needed me most.”

Three days later, Chesney drove south alone. She refused to ride with family members. She wanted time alone so she climbed into the rusty Toyota she drove during those years and cried all the way to the Bean Blossom funeral home, a one-story gray building crowded with people who loved Grace Blake. Women in their best Sunday dresses dabbed at their eyes near the casket. Old farmers stood outside the funeral home wearing out-of-style suit coats and clip-on ties. There was plenty of food, soggy meatloaf wrapped in foil, deviled eggs clumped together on paper plates, cakes, cobblers, pies. All that Grace loved, everything simple and predictable, and the people who loved her dearly. They gathered to repeat countless stories that Grace had loved to tell. They spoke of the many kind moments when their hearts were touched by hers. Feeling numb, Chesney stood near the casket, occasionally glancing over at Grace’s petite body, which was dressed in one of her favorite soft blue blouses with a beautiful scarf loosely arranged around her neck. Her favorite brooch, a gift from her only child on her sixty-fifth birthday, was attached to the scarf. It was a silver hummingbird with her son and granddaughters’ birth stones imbedded on the bird’s body. Grace’s hands were folded sweetly just below her chest and the faintest smile seemed to barely touch her thin lips.

One after another, Chesney greeted Grace’s friends. She listened to them talk about how they met Grace and why they loved her. She listened to them sob about how much they would miss her. As the older ladies from Grace’s Sunday school class wept against her new black suit, Chesney reminded herself to breathe. She awkwardly patted old men on the shoulder and thanked them for attending. She rubbed the top of her dad’s hand without saying anything comforting. How could she find words to comfort her father when she had none for herself? She understood the silent depth of her dad’s grief. Grace was the rock, the family pillar. She was the strong, relentless single mother who blazed a brave trail through the hardest times and found victory. How do you possibly say good-bye to a hero like that?

Still standing next to the casket, Chesney’s eyes landed on an older man with soft, white hair and piercing blue eyes. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him as he approached the casket. His face crumbled with tears. Chesney could have sworn the old man whispered, “I love you, Gracie.” But his voice was filled with an intimacy the other old men didn’t offer. He nodded an acknowledgment as he walked away alone with slumped shoulders and a blue handkerchief wadded into his hand.

Chesney never saw the man again. After the service, she scanned the church. At the cemetery, she again looked around but he was nowhere to be seen. After the burial, more than a hundred grieving friends crowded into the outdated parlor at Gracie’s home on Chesney Ridge. They rocked on the wrap-around porches, took walks around the pond, spoke in soft, respectful voices.

All these years later, Chesney still wondered if the grieving man next to Grace’s casket might have been her long-lost grandfather, Richard Blake. Would the man who left his wife and son actually return to Bean Blossom for the funeral of the woman he abandoned? Richard Blake, for all the family knew anyway, had never bothered to return, not once.

In the last few months of Chesney’s emotional disasters, Grace’s life had begun to haunt her. Sometimes she feared that like Grace, she would spend all of her life alone. She had not yet loved any man enough to want marriage, yet Chesney stayed in relationships hoping they would grow into something magical. She obviously didn’t have the skills to pick a good man, a man who was honest and loyal, a man who would adore her forever and make her heart melt easily, with no fears of being hurt.

Grace had made her life alone a noble one. Maybe Chesney was too selfish, too needy. Maybe that's why she was here now at her Grandmother’s house. Maybe Grace had somehow brought Chesney back to the place she loved, so her heart could heal and her life could begin again. But the continuing fear in Chesney’s heart was wrapped around the possibility of following in her lonely grandmother’s footsteps. She was afraid to love. She was afraid of emotional pain. But at the same time, Chesney knew she did not want her life to always be so lonely. She swatted impatiently at tears when they dripped over her cheeks and off her chin. But as she turned the corner to walk back to the staircase, her hand rested on the rusty attic door knob.

As a child, Chesney spent hours exploring the attic. Sometimes she sat on the dusty floor to turn pages in Grace’s scrapbooks. Other times, she admired her grandmother’s costume jewelry, fancy felt hats and beautiful gloves, a couple of fur coats and a foxtail-looking fur that Grace draped over her olive-colored coat before attending the Christmas Eve church service.

When Chesney was very young, still lisping frequently because a couple of front teeth were missing, she opened the old trunk filled with party dresses. “Were you a princess before you were a granny?” she asked as she floated across the attic floor, wearing one of Grace’s fancy dresses. Grace had laughed that familiar sweet, velvet laugh and hugged Chesney. “I was not a princess, sweetie,” Grace had said with a grin. “I was a silly young woman.”

With her hand resting on the attic door, Chesney wondered if she might someday get the nerve to pry the door open. She wondered how long it had been locked. And actually, why was the door locked in the first place? The previous homeowners had never tried to enter the attic. It never mattered to them that the door was mysteriously locked. The past owner, a lady named Mavis Logan, worked in the post office with Ruby, the postmistress. Mavis had shrugged and smiled, explaining to Chesney that she had no need to access the attic. The rest of the rambling home offered more than enough space for Mavis to provide a sewing room for herself and an exercise room for Charlie, her husband with cardiac trouble. She declared the two spare rooms as playrooms for the grandkids. No, they never felt a need to go inside the attic, Mavis said. She and her family certainly didn't need additional storage space. So they left the attic untouched.

Now Chesney stood with her hand on the knob, wondering why she was suddenly so bothered about the locked door. She had so many projects to do. Yet here she was, fretting about the locked attic door. Was she so nostalgic about being in Bean Blossom again that she was incapable of keeping her mind out of yesterday? When she turned around to go back downstairs, Dalton Moore was standing on the landing.

“Ms. Blake?”

She nodded and tried not to gaze too long at his ruggedly handsome face.

“I think I'll take a lunch break now,” he said.

“Lunch?” She ran her hand nervously over her hair. “I guess I lost track of time.”

Just walking toward Dalton made her breath quicken. She quietly cursed the adolescent reaction to him and willed her heart to stop flopping around like a fish. His beautiful blue eyes and those lovely dark lashes...he was a beautiful man. And Chesney was suddenly overwhelmed by an incredible urge to rub her cheek against his beard stubble. Just as quickly as the thought entered her mind, she shooed it right back out again. Swallowing hard, she hoped Dalton Moore could not visibly see her insanity. Her lips quivered, not sure whether she might cry or maybe laugh hysterically. “I have cold cuts and cheese in the fridge,” Chesney said quickly. “I'd be happy to make sandwiches.”

Why in the world was she trying to present herself like some kind of
d
omestic
Donna? She wasn’t interested in dropping her paintbrush in order to slap together a sandwich for this man or any man. Why were these weird suggestions popping out of her mouth without notice to her brain? She wanted to stop in the hallway, gently bonk her head against the wall and see if she could knock herself back into reality. Why was she behaving like a pimple-faced girl around this handyman? Was she so quickly forgetting that Dalton Moore could be, and probably was, as big of a jerk as stupid Jack?

Moving like a robot, Chesney walked closer and the hunky handyman stepped backward. She found that reaction rather intriguing, but also hurtful. Why was Dalton stepping away? “I can make sandwiches,” she said again even though she didn’t plan to say anything.

Shut the hell up, you whiney, clingy, needy fungus!

“Thanks, but I'll go home for lunch,” Dalton said. “Rose isn't feeling well today.”

Rose? The name stuck in the pit of Chesney’s stomach with a sting. Who is Rose? Dalton turned to walk back down the stairs and Chesney was thankful that he could not see the disappointment on her face. She was confused by that flood of sadness. For goodness sake, this guy was just a handyman. What did a successful author of romance novels want from a man like Dalton Moore? He might be gorgeous. But Dalton Moore was simple and arrogant. He wouldn't provide an intellectual challenge like Jack did, even though Jack was a pompous ass. He wouldn’t care about corporate takeovers. He wouldn’t notice the stock market. He wouldn’t keep track of the hot list of places to dine and entertain. Heck, Dalton Moore probably didn’t even own a suit. He probably never missed a sunset. He probably loved to watch grass grow and flowers bloom.

Comparing Dalton to Jack made Chesney feel ashamed. Dalton Moore's profession and bank statement certainly had nothing to do with his worth as a man or his worthiness, in general. He certainly didn't strike her as a high roller, stock market watching stuffed-suit like Jack. Dalton did not appear to care about those things. Maybe that's why she realized just now that she had a school girl crush. He was the cowboy, the farmer, the carpenter that Jack would never be. Thinking about Dalton Moore in such a materialistic way; dissecting his strengths and labeling what and who he was made Chesney feel more than embarrassed. That thought process was exactly what Jack would do in a situation like this. Besides that, she didn't know anything at all about this man. She reminded herself that none of this was an issue. Dalton Moore wasn't attracted to her. And just now he announced his plan to spend lunch with a woman named Rose. He said he was going home, which meant they apparently lived together.

“I'll be back in an hour or so,” Dalton said as he skipped the last step and walked loudly across the hardwood to grab his truck keys.

“Take your time,” Chesney said after him, trying to sound flippant.

He walked several steps ahead and she followed like a rejected duckling, trying not to look like she cared about Dalton or his woman or his incredibly broad shoulders and tight ass. Every time she tried to avert her eyes, they deceived her and traveled right back to the handyman’s body, especially that breath taking area between his shoulders and his butt.