Love Remains (5 page)

Mamm slid the kettle forward on the ancient gas stove and turned the front flame on high. She leaned against the countertop. Dressed in cropped jeans—much like Zarah’s—flip-flops, and a short-sleeved blouse, Mamm could have passed for a woman twenty or thirty years younger than the eighty-three he knew her to be. She even had pink toenails with little rhinestone designs on the big toes.

“Are you trying to tell me she’s an undercover superhero or something?” Mamm winked at him. “Ooh, is she Wonder Woman? I always suspected she might be.”

He rolled his eyes and fought against smiling at her. “No, Mamm. What I mean is: When you sent me to that party, knowing full well that Zarah Mitchell would be there, did you know that she and I already knew each other?”

The kettle shrilled, and Mamm turned to get a fresh tea bag and pour the water over it into her cup. A perfect stall tactic. He’d interrogated too many people over the years not to recognize such a typical method of trying to gain oneself time to formulate an answer. And as with all of them, he waited. People with guilty consciences hated long, uncomfortable silences.

Mamm carried her teacup back to the table, and from the matching china bowl in the middle of the table, she added two sugar cubes. Bobby hadn’t known any companies out there made sugar cubes anymore. He was tempted to grab a handful of them and eat them like he had as a child, but with everything he’d eaten at the party tonight, he’d already sentenced himself to several extra hours at the gym next week—once he joined one.

“What’s a five-letter word for
slip past?”
Mamm picked up her
pen again and tried to be convincing with her act that she was more interested in the crossword puzzle than in their conversation.

Bobby didn’t buy it. “I asked you a question. Did you encourage me to go to that party tonight because you knew Zarah Mitchell would be there?”

Mamm pulled her reading glasses off her nose and let them dangle by the bejeweled chain around her neck. “You’ve only been back in town three days. I told you that the reason I thought you should go was because you would see people there you already knew.”

“I thought you meant Patrick Macdonald and the few other people I went to high school with who are still around.” Unable to resist it any longer, he reached for the sugar bowl, extracted a cube, and put it in his mouth, where he held it between his back teeth as it dissolved.

“If I knew of any specific reason why you would not want to see Zarah, then I might not have encouraged you to go. But since no one will tell me anything more than that you and she knew each other when you were stationed at White Sands, I had no way of knowing you wouldn’t enjoy seeing her again after all that time. Did I?”

Bobby scrubbed his hands over his face, then leaned his elbows on the table. “Well, some things are better left in the past.”

“See? That’s exactly why I didn’t know any better than to send you to one of Zarah’s parties. Because there’s not a lot about your past—at least the years you’ve been gone—that you’re willing to share with anybody.”

He had to hand it to her—she had a point. Though he and Zarah had clandestinely dated for more than six months, he could only remember once mentioning to his parents he’d gone out with someone while he was stationed in New Mexico. He had not mentioned her name. And he had never told them he intended to ask her to marry him, because they would have tried to talk him out of it. And they would have been right. Twenty and eighteen were too young to get married. Not that he’d even had the chance to ask.

“Suffice it to say, Zarah and I knew each other well for a brief
period of time, but it ended with some hard feelings.” Bobby picked up another sugar cube, but this one he held between his thumb and forefinger. “What do you know about her?”

“I know she came here to attend Vanderbilt. She studied history, and I believe she has her PhD.” Mamm tapped her pen against her chin. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember Kiki and Victor feting her when she received her doctorate.”

He supposed it was nice to know she had gone on and accomplished the dream she had left him for. “And what does she do now?”

“She works for a local history museum or historical society or something.” Mamm shrugged. “I’m not certain precisely what she does or where she works. All I know is it has something to do with history.”

Preservation of historic sites had been something of a passion of hers back when he’d known her.

“So does this mean you aren’t going to go to church with us Sunday? I’ve been telling everyone you’re going to be there.” Mamm looked so crestfallen, so sad, he couldn’t bear to disappoint her.

“No. I’ll go with you Sunday. I’m not going to let some…trivial incident from the past interfere with my getting involved in what seems like a great group of people.” Between the way the younger single women had checked him out tonight and the presence of a few of his high school classmates he’d like to reconnect with, becoming an active member of Acklen Avenue Fellowship—the church he grew up in—would be a great way to create the opportunity he’d wished for since leaving New Mexico: to show Zarah he’d moved on, had made something of his life.

Mamm patted his hand, reminding him of the sugar cube he still held. He put it in his mouth. Yes, showing Zarah he had far exceeded her father’s dire predictions for this juvenile delinquent’s future would be sweet.

He stood, then bent over to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Evade.”

“Do what?”

“A five-letter word for
slip past:
evade.” He grinned. He’d missed hearing people say
Do what?
instead of
Sorry?
or
Pardon?
or
Huh?
when they didn’t understand the first time. He squeezed his grandmother’s shoulder before slipping past her to continue on up to the guest room he was occupying until he found a place of his own.

Mounting the stairs, he whistled an old Johnny Cash tune. Though he hadn’t been too keen on the idea of staying with his grandparents for weeks, perhaps months, while he searched for a place, closed, and moved, tonight’s talk with Mamm made him almost glad Mom and Dad had sold the house he grew up in and bought a luxury condo in one of the new mid-rise buildings in midtown Nashville—a luxury condo with more than three thousand square feet and two guest bedrooms that were far too small for him to consider staying in. At Mamm and Greedad’s house, he had the whole second floor to himself, almost.

He stepped into the back bedroom and turned on the light. Maximus, the Great Dane, thumped his tail against the denim patchwork quilt covering the queen-size bed. Yes, he had the second floor
almost
to himself.

“Dude—off the bed.” He snapped his fingers. After a few more thumps of the tail, Maximus complied, though slowly. And once down, the massive dog took time to stretch and yawn, sniffed Bobby thoroughly to see if he’d been anywhere interesting, and then ambled out of the bedroom, nails clicking on the hardwood floors. “Go see Greedad.”

Maximus cast him a glare over his shoulder before continuing down the hall to the front staircase.

Bobby shook his head. Dogs. While having one around the house provided more safety against break-ins, he wasn’t sure he could live with one. Especially not one the size of Maximus—who answered to nothing but his full name.

He pulled the denim quilt off the bed to reveal a nice, colorful one with an actual pattern to it underneath. Mamm had explained when Bobby chose this bedroom that Maximus liked to take naps in
here occasionally. But as the room at the back corner of the house, it was farthest away from Mamm and Greedad’s room on the opposite corner in the front of the house downstairs. Though Mamm always stayed up late, Greedad was a firm believer in early to bed, early to rise. Bobby usually was, too, but just in case he decided to stay out late sometimes, he didn’t want to disturb his grandparents’ sleep and make them regret their decision to ask him to stay with them.

Perched on the side of the high, antique four-poster bed, Bobby pulled his shoes off, then carried them to the closet.

In short order, he completed his nightly rituals and soon climbed into the bed. As soon as he turned out the lights, Zarah Mitchell’s face formed in his mind’s eye. Still beautiful after all these years. Still stubborn and unwilling to accept help from anyone. Still disdainful of him—well, she hadn’t been feeling her best tonight, so her real emotions toward him had yet to be discovered.

Now he understood why God had so adamantly pushed him into returning home to Nashville. He had to show Zarah Mitchell not only that he’d moved on with his life, but that he was also ready, willing, and able to meet someone new, fall in love, and get married. He might even be magnanimous and invite her to the wedding.

Chapter 4

Z
arah checked her reflection one last time. The extra makeup added the right amount of color to hide her sickly pallor. Even though she felt much better this morning, after taking it easy and limiting herself to only working six hours yesterday, she still looked sick—and Patrick would be true to his word and cause a scene if he didn’t believe she was completely well.

She glanced down at the prescription bottles lining the countertop beside the sink. Stuff to take at night. Stuff to take during the day. Decongestants. Expectorants. Antibiotics. Ibuprofen drug for the lingering headache and other sundry pains. Ever since the upper respiratory infection she’d developed after the seemingly unceasing rain in April and May, she couldn’t remember more than a few days this summer that she hadn’t been sick.

And she was tired of it. Her own blue eyes stared back at her from the mirror. Did she really need to force herself to go to church this morning when instead she could put her pajamas back on, climb into bed, and stay there the rest of the day? Kiki would probably even make her some chicken soup—with the baked dumplings on the side.

Guilt overrode any thoughts of indulging her laziness. Here she was, a perfectly capable thirty-two-year-old, thinking about creating
more work and worry for her eighty-two-year-old grandmother. Besides, after this relapse, which included spending four days in the hospital, she’d already missed the last two Sundays. The records were probably a mess. And she needed to follow up with anyone who’d visited during her absences—because no one else would have thought to do it since she hadn’t reminded Patrick to get someone on it.

With her Bible and spiral-bound sermon-notes journal tucked in the crook of her left arm, she grabbed her purse, keys, and sunglasses off the table by the front door. After checking to make sure she had at least half a pack of tissues in the small handbag, she got in the car—and felt like she was sitting in a hole. The backrest was halfway into the backseat of the small sedan.

Her skin tingled. Bobby—he’d driven her car last, and leaning the seat back must have been the only way he’d been able to fit into the compact vehicle. She readjusted it, once again weighing the merits of crawling into bed and staying there. Forever.

No. She would face him eventually. Might as well be today. Just like taking off a bandage—best to do it quickly to cause the least amount of pain.

She checked the clock. Good. She had enough time to stop for coffee. And God must have thought it was okay, too, because someone pulled out from a parallel spot on Twelfth Avenue South just as she drove up to The Frothy Monkey. With no traffic coming, she hung a U-turn in the middle of the street and slipped her car into the vacated spot.

Several people she knew from the neighborhood greeted her from their tables on the front porch. She pushed her glasses up to the top of her head, shoving her mass of curly hair back away from her face.

A few minutes later, she fought to get the glasses untangled from the snarls of hair with one hand while holding her large, sugar-free, fat-free caramel latte in the other. Mission accomplished, she waved at her neighbors and turned the car around in the middle of the road again to go to church. For the thousandth time, she wished Becker’s
Bakery hadn’t gone out of business. For the first couple of years she lived in the 12 South area, it had been the perfect place to stop to get pastries to take to church or work. Of course, she loved the table and chairs she’d gotten for her back porch at the furniture store that had moved into the old bakery building after Becker’s closed, but she missed the ease with which she used to buy snacks for everyone.

This area had changed so much, just in the fourteen years she’d lived in Nashville. What must Bobby think of it, coming back to a city nearly half again the size it was when he left? She was still surprised by some of the changes that had happened, seemingly overnight, especially in areas like the Gulch and the Demonbreun Avenue corridor.

Though traffic on Wedgewood was minimal, she got caught at the light at Sixteenth Avenue South, giving her time to enjoy a few sips of the latte. Last April during the Country Music Marathon, her cousin and his band had played on a stage set up in the median triangle here, between Belmont University and Music Row. She wished she’d felt well enough to walk over and hear them play. Even after fourteen years, her maternal aunt and cousins still felt like strangers to her. Of course, only the oldest of her four cousins, Lee, lived here—he’d just started his sophomore year at Belmont.