She looked at him, startled.
“I mean it,” he continued. “You take care of everybody, Charlie Grace. But it’s okay to let someone take care of you.”
She couldn’t speak for a moment.
“I don’t know how to,” she admitted.
Nick reached for her hand, his voice low. “Then let me be the one who helps.”
Her heart twisted at that—and in the stillness of the mountains, in the hush that followed, she realized something. She felt light. Not just lighter. But free.
Not because her problems were gone. But because someone was quietly willing to hold the weight with her.
21
The call came just after dawn, the soft trill of her phone slicing through the quiet house like a blade. One look at the screen, and Reva knew before she answered.
Kellen sat up in the bed beside her, rubbing his face as she pressed the phone to her ear. A long pause. Then her mother’s broken voice: “Ree-Ree…she’s gone.”
The words landed with the weight of a boulder on her chest. Though she’d known this moment was coming—had braced herself for it—grief hit with a force that buckled her soul. Reva curled into herself, the sobs tearing free in ragged waves, while Kellen gathered her close, rocking her like he would a wounded child.
Time blurred after that.
They packed in a haze of lists and whispered reminders. Dark dresses. Black suits. Little Lucan’s tiny loafers. Tickets were booked, the car loaded. At the airport, Reva kept sunglasses pressed to her face to hide swollen eyes, the world moving around her in muffled tones as if she were underwater.
The flight was long, the air dry and stale. Reva sat stiff and silent, fingers clutched around a crumpled tissue, Kellen’s steady hand resting over hers the whole way.
By the time they arrived in Georgia, the humid air wrapped around them like a heavy quilt. They drove straight to the old family homestead first, the pecan trees whispering in the breeze, Grand Memaw’s absence as loud as a thunderclap in the silence.
The moment Reva stepped through the double doors of Grand Memaw’s house, the weight of her loss was met with something even heavier—her memories.
As a little girl, Reva had wandered these wide halls in patent leather shoes, her fingers brushing the toile drapes and polished banisters, feeling like royalty in a house that always smelled faintly of roses. Every corner held hints of her past—Sunday dinners in the formal dining room, summers spent shelling pecans on the breezy back porch, nights curled up by the marble fireplace listening to Grand Memaw’s stories about the land and the people who had built it.
This wasn’t just a home—it was a southern treasure, polished and preserved with the kind of care born from pride and tradition. The wide foyer welcomed with its gleaming inlaid floors, a grand chandelier sparkling above like a crown of light. To the left, the formal parlor stood as pristine as ever, with its velvet-upholstered settee, carved tables, and a piano that hadn’t been played in years but stood at attention all the same. Floral arrangements—fresh white gardenias and sky-blue hyacinths, of course—had been delivered and placed around the room, a nod to the woman who made hospitality an art form.
Her mother met her near the staircase, arms crossed tightly, her expression barely holding together. “She went peacefully, baby,” she said softly, her voice catching. “Didn’t suffer. Just… slipped away in her sleep.”
Reva closed her eyes, tears rising fast. “That’s something, at least,” she whispered.
Her mama gently lifted Lucan from Reva’s arms, cuddling him close and cooing soft, soothing words against his curls before turning to Kellen with a tearful smile and pulling him into a warm embrace.
They stood in silence for a moment before her mother cleared her throat and gestured toward the study. “There’s something you should see. We found a quitclaim deed in her desk. Everything—this house, the farm, the operation—it’s been left solely to you.”
Reva’s breath caught. “To me?” she said, barely above a whisper. “What about the boys?”
Her mother didn’t flinch. “Your brothers are two halves of a broken compass—Quincy, always pushing forward with investments that are often unsound, and Mason, spinning quietly in place, unsure of where he belongs except for his music. Your grandmother knew what she was doing.” Then, more gently, “She left trust funds for them. But she wanted Sunnyside Acres to go to the one person she trusted would carry it forward.”
Reva wasn’t naïve—she suspected her mother had a hand in all this, pushing Grand Memaw toward a decision that might bring her only daughter back home. She turned toward the office, the old door slightly ajar, the scent of lemon polish and old paper drifting out like an invitation.
She wasn’t sure what her future looked like, but standing in that beautiful old house, hearing the truth wrapped in her mother’s quiet resolve, she realized the decision she’d made to come home, though painful—was the right one.
The day of the funeral dawned sticky and gray, as if even the heavens mourned.
The First Baptist Church—an imposing white-columned building with a steeple that scraped the sky—was already brimming by the time Reva stepped out of the car. She drew a deep breath, appreciating the scent of magnolias and star jasmine as she and Kellen moved for the wide portico, where townsfolk fanned themselves with folded bulletins, murmuring in low, respectful voices.
Inside, the wooden pews groaned under the sheer number of people. Rosetta Nygard had touched every life in this town it seemed—students she taught in Sunday school, neighbors she nursed through sickness, friends she cooked for when hard times hit. There wasn’t an empty seat to be found.
Gospel music floated from the organ loft, swelling and breaking like the tide. Hymns that Grand Memaw had loved poured out, every note a fresh tear in Reva’s heart.
