Like Sweet Potato Pie (48 page)

“What?” Adam stood there, branches poking out of his arms and eyes dark with sorrow or anger—or both.

“You said part of the reason you decided not to go to Georgia with Rick was to make something of yourself. What was the rest? Why did you decide to stay?” Adam didn’t speak for a minute, pursing his lips. Then he turned around, marched straight toward me, his face coming so close to mine I had to tip my chin up to see his eyes.

“Because I love you, Shiloh,” he whispered, mouth quivering. “That’s why.”

And he turned on his heel and stalked through the trees, leaving me standing there in the glen full of green.

E
verything spun. I stormed back through the grass, stumbling twice, and pushed my way through dozens of camo- and plaid-clad relatives, gathered in clumps talking about bow hunting and how to skin a rattlesnake. I needed nothing but a bathroom with a lock on the door. And maybe a psychiatrist.

Here I stood in my yellow dress in the middle of Faye’s carpeted hallway, a folded acceptance letter from
Yomiuri Shimbun
tucked in my purse to show Becky and Tim.

“Please confirm with the human resources office to schedule your flight,”
the letter read in crisp, formal kanji.

Finding all the bathrooms occupied with shrill-voiced women heating curling irons and issuing clouds of hairspray, I shut myself inside a spare bedroom closet and leaned against the door, trying to calm my shaking nerves. Pressing a tissue to my eyes and willing myself not to cry. Not to smear my makeup.

Of all the absurdities: I, Shiloh P. Jacobs, was offered free tickets to Japan while Adam stood there in the woods and said he’d stayed in Staunton for me.

What on earth am I supposed to do NOW, God?!
I held my head in my hands, trying not to scream.

Life, as usual, had thrown me an oxymoron.

I pressed my eyes closed and tried to pray. Then I took a deep breath and stepped through piles of shoes and shopping bags, dodging two kids in coonskin caps throwing a deer antler back and forth while a hefty, red-faced aunt yelled at them to stop.

I didn’t stop until I came to the wedding arch. Adam had finished the lower part of the left side already, and he barely turned when I appeared. The yard already full of people.

“Can I help you finish this, Adam?”

He gave me a brief side look then handed me a thin roll of black tape and scissors. I snipped off a length and tied it around a pink-flowered bunch of redbud, fluffing the blooms into place. Working our way up one side of the latticework, and when the trellis went over my head, Adam brought me a folding chair.

The tape ran out. I excused myself and headed into Faye’s house then returned with a bag of rubber bands, wire bread-bag ties, and even a few hair elastics from my purse. I stepped off the chair and surveyed our work then scooted it forward and blended in a few ugly spots, slipping in lilies and stray gerbera daisies.

The Virginia creeper vine wrapped easily, covering the rest of the spots like a leafy green scarf.

It worked. It was magic. I stepped back to survey our work, and Adam gave me a brief smile, arms crossed.

I nodded in satisfaction. We’d accomplished something great together, Adam and I. Two people, one purpose. We made a great team. The thought reverberated through me with unexpected warmth.

Just before Becky appeared by Adam’s shoulder, saying that Faye needed his help.

I watched him go, wishing I could say something—anything—to fix this mess, and instead keeping my lips pressed shut, not even daring to say his name.

Before long, guests—including a rare cigarette-less Stella in an actual dress, not a housedress—began to fill up the folding chairs. Earl stepped out of his car in a suit, looking starched and pressed and nervous, but not without his beaming smile. He shook hands with all of us, making small talk with Faye’s relatives in true, understated Earl-style.

His son’s family pulled in right behind him, unloading children and presents, and one of the violinists started to tune up.

I finally found Faye speechless at the kitchen window, staring out with a gaping mouth while a dozen voices talked and laughed behind her.

“Land’s sakes, what’ve ya’ll done?” Her hand trembled as she pressed it to her lips, pushing the curtains back. “Where’d all them flowers come from? I didn’t order all a them!”

“Do you like them?”

“Like ‘em? They look like they come out of a magazine!”

“Well, then, that’s all you need to know.” I grinned at her. “And don’t look now, but your groom’s here.”

She dropped the curtains and laced and unlaced her hands then immediately tried to cover it by straightening stuff on the counter. “Is he? Well, I’ll be. How does he look?”

“Like a million bucks, Faye. Just like you. Now don’t you let him see you in your dress!”

The violinist began to play. Soft, straining notes of “Pachelbel’s Canon,” wavelike and so throbbing it almost hurt. It seemed too refined for our country gathering, with Faye’s young nephews having burping contests and crunching Cheetos and the older guys wearing cowboy hats with feathers in the brim and describing field-dressing techniques.

But somehow, like the Virginia creeper on the trellis, it melded together beautifully.

“Here are your flowers.” I took the daffodils out of their vase and wiped the ends. “Don’t be nervous. Just stand up straight and walk like you’re a queen.”

I was bossing again. “Sorry, Faye. It’s your day. You do things however you want.”

Faye looked up from the bouquet in surprise. “Doll baby, this is one of the best days of my life, ya hear me? I could walk on my head and still be happy!”

I bit back a laugh. “Do you have all the something-borrowed and something-blue stuff?”

“I got my man borrowed from the Lord an’ his are the bluest eyes I ever seen.” She bent closer, smoothing my hair. “Listen, Shiloh. Before all this gets goin’, I need to tell ya somethin’. Somethin’ kinda important.”

The singing notes of the violin shifted.
My cue.
Urging me forward.

“What did you want to tell me?” My head wavered in the direction of the music. “There’s no time now. You’d better tell me afterward.”

“There won’t be no afterward. We’re goin’ to North Carolina straightaway.”

Somebody rushed past the glass square in the door to find me, gesticulating frantically, and I put my hand on the doorknob. “The wedding’s starting, Faye! Tell me later.”

“Wait, sugar!” Faye rushed to stop me. “Ya forgot yer bouquet!”

“My bouquet? I thought I was just going to walk.”

“Adam didn’t think so.” Faye reached for something in a vase, fluffing the ribbon. “I was tryin’ ta tell ya. He wanted me ta give ya this.”

She handed me a little bouquet of small daffodils and cobalt-blue grape hyacinths, all wrapped in yellow ribbon just like Faye’s. All day long I’d told myself I wouldn’t cry in front of Faye, but now she and the flowers morphed together in a shimmering radiance.

“Grape hyacinths are my new favorite flower,” I blurted, steadying my shallow breath. “Ever since I found them in my flower bed. He planted them last year.”

“I know.” Faye beamed back at me. “He told me that, too.”

The music outside rose in throbbing circles, spinning toward a heady pinnacle. Frenzied footsteps clacked through the house, desperate to hunt me down, and probably mount my head on a wall next to somebody’s six-point buck. A fist pounded on the locked side door.

Through the window I saw faces turn. Horrified aunts half-stood in their chairs, whispering together.

Faye barely caught my arm as I rushed toward the door, the fragrance of grape hyacinths making me light-headed. “He loves ya, Shiloh,” she whispered. “Don’t forget that.”

“Who loves me?” My heart knocked as loud as my knees, which quivered like Japanese pudding.

“Adam Carter.” She stepped closer. “You know who. And I told him—” She paused suddenly, fingers twisting together.

I couldn’t breathe. “Told him what?”

“Somebody spilled to you about Rick before Adam found out, didn’t they?”

I dropped the bouquet. Right there in a beautiful blue-and-gold smush on the floor.

“Why do you say that?” I picked it up with shaky hands, trying to smooth the smashed petals.

“That day you sat in my livin’ room. The phone call. I remember.” Faye’s eyes bored into mine. “An’ if I’m wrong, you’d better say so right this second because I done told Adam. While you was finishin’ up the arch.”

My mouth opened and closed. For a split second I forgot the music. The flowers. Everything.

“I think y’all could be real happy together, you an’ Adam. A man who loves God and loves you is a real find. Maybe even worth leavin’ everything for.”

“How am I supposed to do that, Faye? I’ve got no house. I’ve got … nothing. Nothing but a job in Japan.”

“God can find a way. He always does.”

Whispers droned from the folding chairs like worried honeybees, louder and angrier. The side door flung open with the rattle of a key, and a clump of women rushed inside, nearly bowling us both over. Somebody grabbed my arm, sputtering, “Where the tarnation you been? I oughtta tan yer hide! Ain’t ya comin’?”

Faye pushed me through the open door, and I stumbled into the bright sunlight, barely seeing the blur of faces turned in my direction. The indignant voices died into soft sighs of relief, and people sank back in their chairs.

The violinist spun quivering notes across the breeze-trembling grass, note by smooth and painful note, as I walked through the folding chairs. Step and slow step. Past the silk Adam and I had hung along the aisle. Past the yellow and white of gerbera daisies.

Each step perfumed by the little bouquet of indigo and yellow, clutched tightly in my nervous fingers.

The arbor dripped blooms in pink and white, thick with leaves. At the base crowded pots and pots of fragrant lilies and colors, making the whole scene flower like a garden come alive.

And there off to the side burned those blue eyes of Adam’s, looking right into my heart with unexpected tenderness. He sat next to Tim and Becky, holding Macy on his lap and entertaining her with his truck keys. Not dazzling. Not polished. Too young and too plain.

But never before had he looked so dear to me, a familiar face radiating joy.

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh …”

I hadn’t even thought Adam handsome when I met him nearly a year ago, holding a gas can and covered with mulch. The day of Mom’s funeral, which had now become a tender memory.

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother …”

Pastor Davis smiled at me, and I walked under the fragrant arch, breathing in the sweetness of its flowers on the cool breeze. Leaves and petals quivering, light dancing over their curves.

Over to my right stood Earl, arms stiff in his pressed suit, but his smile fresh and alive. He winked at me, and then I saw his eyes quickly drift over my head and back to the house.

The violinist drew out his last silken note.

I took my place next to Pastor Davis and turned as the violins raised their bows for the wedding march.

“… and is united to his wife …”

Everyone stood. Faye emerged from the house in her heels and dress, the yellow ribbon on her daffodils fluttering. Just as I’d imagined. Walking toward Earl with a glow on her face.

Walking toward a man who, though not her kin or blood, would become her family.

She stopped at his side, and he reached out and took her hand. I watched his fingers wrap around hers, covering the lines and scars of the years with his caressing palm. Her eyes as they met his in a happy, nervous smile.

When I peeked into the crowd again, Adam wasn’t watching Faye and Earl. He was watching
me.

“… and they become one flesh.”

F
ishing,” he whispered in my ear as soon as the ceremony had dissolved into a kiss, cheers, shouts, and laughter. Gobs of people milling about, starting the fire for the barbecue and setting out an enormous homemade spice cake. The crooning violins were replaced with fiddles and banjos, whole rows of people stamping their feet and clapping in time to the rollicking tunes.

“Fishing?” I jerked my head up from the punch bowl where I stood serving something pink, fizzy, and lemony, clogged with ice.

“Tuesday afternoon.” Adam took his keys out of his pocket. “Can you get off work?”

“Work? I—I don’t know. I can try. I’d planned to talk to Kevin on Wednesday about … well … stuff, but …” My heart pounded, picturing the letter from
Yomiuri Shimbun.
“He does owe me some time off, though, after I worked all last weekend.”

“I’ll pick you up Tuesday afternoon then. Around three-ish.”

“Wait, what?” I gasped, dropping the ladle and grabbing a towel to dry my hands, rushing after him.

“That’s it. I have to go. Can you call me if you’re able to get off work?” Adam waited for me to catch up, but he didn’t stop walking.

“Sure, but … what’s this all about?”

Adam paused only briefly before unlocking his truck door and swinging it open. “Do you trust me, Shiloh?”