Ellis’s smile and the way her face changed at the words made Cherry relax even more. And it was true—she did trust Ellis. She blew out a breath and was on to the next letter.
In the end, most of the letters were very similar in tone and message. Lila loved her and missed her and wished Cherry would call, here’s the number. The earlier ones talked about her new life in North Carolina and how she’d made a room for Cherry if she ever came for a visit. As time went on, the letters got shorter. Simpler. The same message, but in fewer words, as if Lila was slowly giving up. Cherry’s tears flowed pretty much nonstop, and they’d finished the bottle of wine. Lila had sent twenty dollars for every birthday and fifty for every Christmas. The letters had stopped three years ago—likely because Cherry’s father had passed away and the house was no longer his address. All told, there was one thousand eight hundred twenty dollars in cash in a pile near her knee.
“Do they still mark things Return to Sender?” she asked.
Ellis scrunched up her nose. “Good question. I don’t know. Why? Oh, ’cause the letters stopped after your dad passed away.”
“Exactly.”
“You could ask Lila.” The suggestion was gentle. Cherry had relayed the story of their conversation as they went through the pile, how she’d started out so angry and how Lila was a little bit defensive until the fact of the letters was revealed. “Does she know you found them?”
Cherry shook her head. “I haven’t had any contact with her since our conversation. She may have assumed my dad tossed them. I did.”
Ellis nodded as if she understood. Did she? “What are you gonna do now?”
A big sigh slipped from Cherry’s lungs. “I mean, I want to call her. I should call her. I will call her. I just…I need to absorb all of this first, you know? It’s…”
“It’s a lot,” Ellis said with a snort. “Like,a lota lot. Wow.”
“It is, right?” Cherry laughed softly. “I was worried I was making it too big a thing.”
“What?” Ellis barked a laugh. “Too big a thing? It’s ahugething. No, you can’t possibly make this into too big a thing. Don’t worry about that.”
They laughed together for a moment at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. When the laughter died down and they were just smiling, Cherry met Ellis’s gaze. “I’m really glad you’re here. Thank you.”
Ellis stayed for a while longer, but somehow, they’d silently agreed it wasn’t the time to talk about their issues. Cherry was too exhausted, too mentally overloaded to deal with one more thing, and Ellis seemed to get that. She made a mental note to thank her for that, down the road. When Ellis left, they hugged in the entryway for a long time. Just held each other. No kissing. Nothing sexual. Just comfort. It was exactly what Cherry needed.
The second she shut the door behind Ellis, it was as if any scrap of energy she had left just vanished. She went back to her room, crawled under the covers, and was asleep in seconds.
Chapter Twenty-three
The week came and went before Ellis even realized it. On Sunday morning, she’d actually forgotten that the diner was closed and she had a day off from work. She went in anyway. There was always something that needed to be done. And also, she needed to try to focus her mind on something other than Cherry Davis.
She was failing miserably at that, staring off into space and doing a hell of a lot of sighing, when the back door to the diner opened—right next to her open office—causing her to jump up out of her chair in frightened surprise.
“Relax, baby girl, it’s just me,” Kitty said, chuckling as Ellis pressed a hand to her pounding heart.
“Jesus Christmas, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry about that. Just swinging by to pick up a batch of biscuit dough Cal made for me. Having my mama and sisters over today for a barbecue.” Her eyes scanned over Ellis’s desk, likely taking in the scattered papers and open laptop. “You wanna come? You’re more than welcome, and Lord knows there will be plenty of food.”
“Oh, that’s really nice of you. Thank you. I’m good.”
“Mm-hmm,” Kitty said, arching an eyebrow. “That’s why you’re in here on a Sunday, working.” When Ellis didn’t say anything, she asked, “Why aren’t you off doing something with the redhead?”
Ellis thought about shooing it away, waving a dismissive hand and laughing about how that was over, and it hadn’t really been much of anything anyway. She really did. But something in her stopped the words from leaving her lips. Kept her waving hand on the table. Madeher roll her lips in and bite down on them in thought…just a quick moment of thought…
And then she sighed again, dropped down into her chair like her legs had given out, and spilled it. She just spilled it all. She told Kitty everything, from beginning to end, leaving nothing out. When she finished, she was literally out of breath.
“Well.” Kitty found a folding chair, unfolded it, and sat down in front of Ellis’s small desk, as if the story was too heavy for her to keep standing. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean”—Kitty shook her head, her eyes wide—“wow. That is atale.”
“I know, right?”
“And the solution for you is to come in to work on a weekend and, what, write orders until your eyes cross and fall out of your head?”
