Page 44 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
Pushing the packet of paperwork across the tabletop, I passed on her new identity just as Annette had done for me, and the rush of fulfillment almost drove me to my knees. Was this a part of my purpose? A role in my life that had real meaning?
On some cellular level I’d come into my own, and I knew just what to say next. “Thea, as Annette let you know, I can be trusted. But please understand that stories about your past like that one about your codebreaking grandmother can be as identifiable as fingerprints. You have to be very careful going forward how you spread them about.”
As I uttered those words, stepping into Annette’s shoes, a complete peace washed away the last vestiges of fear. I could do this. Iwoulddo this.
Finally, after all those years ago watching and admiring women on my old television set making a difference, I had found my way. Close on the heels of that revelation came the realization that for the past seven years, I’d still been allowing others to take care of me. Now I felt a soul-deep calling that it was my time to look after others.
Chapter Twelve
2025
Kneeling in the dirt, Bailey Rae plucked a plump red tomato from a vine in Winnie’s garden even though her basket was almost overflowing with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. And of course, okra, okra, okra. Skeeter peered at her with his kind eye from a bed of pine straw, crunching a floppy carrot she’d tossed over from the garden. With some luck, gathering up the last of the harvest before she left would help her sweat out the tension that kept her up half the night.
At least she hadn’t dreamed about Winnie again. In fact, the silence inside echoed—no Winnie, no Russell. So much so, the quiet had chased her out of bed early in the morning to the familiar concert of cicadas and rustling of squirrels racing along their deciduous tightropes.
The crunch of gravel alerted her to a car turning from the road onto the drive, the driver tapping the horn twice in greeting. Bailey Rae squinted to see ... Thea’s sleek silver Lexus wove past the twisted oaks and stopped by the garden. Thea slid from behind the wheel, the luxury car otherwise empty. Surprising. Winnie’s friends usually traveled in a pack.
Bailey Rae pushed to her feet and dusted her palms on the back of her jean shorts. “What brings you out this way?”
Thea scratched Skeeter on the head, wearing leather driving gloves like an auto racer, a far cry from her job as bookkeeper at the papermill owned by her husband’s family. “I’m only checking in on you. You seemed, um, tired at the market.”
“I’m not sleeping well.” She settled for the safer explanation rather than risk crying over Winnie. “My to-do list keeps me awake.”
“Well, I can help with that.” Thea peeled off her driving gloves and tucked them into her purse. “Pass me a pair of gardening gloves if you have them. Winnie always kept extras.” She nodded toward the bucket of tools beside the basket.
“You’ll get your beautiful clothes dirty. How about you sit on the glider and just keep me company,” Bailey Rae said, surrendering.
No doubt Thea had something on her mind, and no one deterred her once she set her course.
“This shirt is ten years out of fashion.” Thea smoothed a hand along her trouser jeans and picked her way down the row toward Bailey Rae. “I won’t cry if it gets a few stains. That will just give me an excuse to throw it away.”
“If you’re sure.” Bailey Rae squatted beside the basket of vegetables. “But I insist that you take some of the tomatoes and okra home, as my thanks for your help and conversation.” A wave of nostalgia hit her as she remembered the many times Winnie had gifted houseguests with a sack of homegrown goods.
“It’s nice to see someone keeping Winnie’s tradition alive.” Thea scooted the basket closer. “Howard loves his tomato sandwiches for lunch. He says mine are even better than the ones his mother makes for her garden club.”
Thea’s refusal to join the garden club when she married into the Tyler family still circulated through the rumor mill.
“There’s no shortage of tomatoes around here.”
“But none like Winnie’s,” Thea said sentimentally.
Tears burned, even closer to the surface than she’d realized. Bailey Rae didn’t trust herself to speak, so she continued to pick from the overburdened plants while Skeeter nudged her in comfort.
Had nine years already passed since Skeeter was left at the top of Aunt Winnie’s drive? Kinda like the owners figured it didn’t matter ifthe pup got run over or rescued on a remote country road. Teenage Bailey Rae had understood the feeling and deemed the dog hers.
Thea shifted to a line of peppers, her own eyes suspiciously bright. “I don’t blame you for wanting to leave Bent Oak.”
Surprised, Bailey Rae sat back on her bottom. “I thought you loved it here. At least that’s what you always say during your husband’s reelection campaigns for town council.”
Thea shot her a wry grin. “Those aren’t myexactwords. I tell everyone that this is my home and how welcome Bent Oak made me feel all those years ago.” Her gaze slid away, and her hands made fast work of pinching peppers free. “Truth is, when I first arrived, I hated it here.”
Bailey Rae hugged an arm around Skeeter, caught up in the revelation. “Why did you stay?”
“My friends and my job,” she said simply in that pragmatic Thea fashion. “Then later because of Howard too.”
Her job? “I never got the impression you particularly enjoy being a bookkeeper at the paper mill.”
Thea stared off in the distance, toward the cabin and maybe even past before returning her gaze to the ground. She picked up a stone from the churned earth and placed the cool weight into Bailey Rae’s palm, closing her fingers around it. “It can be surprising where we find fulfillment. Now go find yours. You’ll always carry a piece of us with you.”
