Page 3 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
Then the side panel rolled away and a wheelchair ramp cranked out for Libby, frail and holding a picnic basket on her lap. A cane was hooked on the armrest if needed, since her mobility, though limited, was not entirely gone. June guided the wheelchair carefully onto the packed earth.
Thea held a handkerchief as she activated the remote to retract the ramp. “We’ve brought sweet tea—”
Libby interrupted, patting the basket. “And Southern Comfort for later.”
Bailey Rae hopped off the tailgate, then shifted a crate to the table. “Surely you have something better to do with your time than help me sell off all this ...” She waved toward the boxes under the table and stacked in the back of her truck. “Well, you know what a collector Aunt Winnie could be.”
Thea stuffed the handkerchief into her leather handbag, the small type like Queen Elizabeth had always carried. The kind that, no matter how big or small, couldn’t contain all the mystery of the aloof wearer. “And that’s why we’re here. Libby even circled the date on her calendar.”
Bailey Rae grieved over how calendars had become more and more a part of Libby’s world lately, a memory aid that sometimes worked. Other times, not.
Libby released the brakes on her wheelchair and wheeled herself over the packed earth to the table. Grinning, she patted a jar of peaches. “Don’t let Winnie catch you snitching any of these from her stash. She saves those for your Uncle Russell.”
Silence fell, cut only by strains of the pickup band playing “My Girl.” One minute Libby could recall that the picnic basket contained Southern Comfort, and the next she couldn’t remember that Russell had been dead for years and her very best friend had been gone for two months.
Sixty-seven days. No body to bury.
As best they could reconstruct from footprints, Winnie had walked from her cabin to swim in the nearby river, only to be carried away by the current that had claimed a fisherman just this week as well. Her striped sack had snagged on a downed tree, just barely protruding from the muddy water. A tragic accident. Or had her grief over losing Uncle Russell finally led her to that shoreline?
Bailey Rae’s fingers clenched around the amber jar. “Aunt Winnie canned so many, she’s okay with me sharing the extras.”
That seemed a benign-enough answer that would fit in whatever time frame Libby’s mind currently embraced.
Thea skimmed her gloved hands along a stack of quilts, the one on top a scrap pattern made with old clothes. “I understand needing to clear out some of Winnie’s clutter, but are you sure you want to sell the cabin too? It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“It’s time. I’ll still come to visit.” Bailey Rae had zero regrets about leaving Bent Oak, but the people ... this makeshift family of no blood relation ... she would miss them dearly.
June grapevined to the music, her feet dancing pinwheels in the dirt as she carried a box of wind chimes crafted from kitchen utensils. “Why would she want to stay here? The town’s old and dying. Like us.”
“Shush your mouth,” Thea said. “Bailey Rae, honey, you don’t have to sell off everything.” Easy for Thea to say, thanks to her husband’s generational wealth and her sharp mind for investments. “We’ll give you the money for the start-up cost of your food truck.”
The wheelchair rattled over rocks as Libby joined them. “Then if things don’t work out in Myrtle Beach with the food truck business, you can just pull up stakes on the Airstream and come on back.”
They were like Winnie that way. Generous. But something about the way Bailey Rae had lived the first six years of her life made it tough to accept help. Even owning the farm made her as itchy as sitting in a bed of chiggers.
The cabin and three riverfront acres had actually belonged to Uncle Russell, a quiet man with a genius mind when it came to anything with an engine. Everyone assumed he and Winnie were married, but she’d always insisted a piece of paper didn’t mean squat.
He’d died six years ago and left the farmhouse to Bailey Rae, with the provision that Winnie could live there for the rest of her life. When Bailey Rae had asked the attorney why the will had been structured that way, the lawyer said it was easier legally. Which didn’t make sense. Had Russell been angry with Winnie over not marrying him, even though he never said as much? Bailey Rae had been too busy mourning the great man to untangle his motives.
And now she mourned them both. A double loss that choked her, surrounded by all these memories.
“Thank you, Thea,” Bailey Rae said. “That’s a truly generous offer. But I’m not moving back, so selling makes the most sense.”
“Well, then,” June said, even though the fight hadn’t left her eyes, “at least we get to keep you until the Fourth of July.” She gave Bailey Rae a swift hug, one of those firm kinds that hurt a little as it reminded a person of the tender spots on their heart.
“Ladies?” Thea whispered, which should have been a big red flag coming from the usually assertive woman. She pointed across the field toward the tractor supply store’s parking lot.
Squinting in the sun, Bailey Rae saw a pair of teenage boys wearing camo and an air of troublemaking. Both stood in the back of a shiny pickup with a huge crate.
A bolted-down crate filled with an angry wild pig.
A beast charging the grate, tusks gleaming.
Bailey Rae had lived in this town long enough to recognize that those mischief-making boys were about to set that crazed hog loose in the middle of a crowded market.
And people wondered why she couldn’t wait to put Bent Oak in her rearview mirror.
Chapter Two
