Audrey looked up from the sink, where she was washing dishes. “Yes! Can we move tomorrow?”
All three women whipped around to face her.
“Why would you say that?” Macy asked. “This is your inheritance.”
“If you’re lucky,” Grace added.
Audrey made a sour face at her mother. “You’ve moved Raelene into our home. I have to face my friends at school after spring break, and bythen they’ll all know—that’s even if they’re still my friends after what their mothers said. Now that they know Raelene, the queen of tech weenies, is living with me, they’ll turn their backs on me for sure. So, yes, sell this place and let’s move. Can we move to Paris, France, maybe even get a house right next to Crystal and Kelsey?” Audrey asked. “The shopping there would be wonderful.”
“We’re not selling,” Grace said without a hint of a smile.
Macy frowned. “If he did make us an offer and y’all were willing, Imightsign on the dotted line. I wouldn’t have to drive down here from San Antonio every day, and I could use some of the funds to buy the home of my dreams for me and Neal to live in and not feel guilty about spending that much money.”
“Honey, you’ve got enough money stashed away that you can buy a mansion, if that’s what your dream house is,” Sarah said.
“Well,” Audrey huffed and went back to washing dishes, “if I owned this place, I’d sell to the first person who showed me the money.”
Grace’s mama’s voice popped into her head.Bite your tongue if you have to, but don’t argue with her.She’s got some growing up to do—just like you did at her age. In time, she’ll change her mind.
Macy changed her clothes three times that Sunday morning before she finally decided on a simple blue dress and a white cardigan. Neal always complimented her when she wore blue. His romantic nature and kind heart were just two of the many things she loved about him. She held out her engagement ring—a sweetheart-cut carat set on a wide gold band—to catch the sunlight flowing through her bedroom window.
“I’m just the luckiest woman in the whole world.” She smiled as she moved her hand to make the heart-shaped diamond sparkle even more. Neal had promised her a ruby necklace—to match her hair—for their first anniversary. She had told him that his love was enough of apresent and that he didn’t need to buy expensive gifts for her, but he’d just smiled and given her one of those kisses that made her go weak in the knees.
She hummed “Amazing Grace” as she followed the aroma of coffee and bacon wafting down the hallway from the kitchen. The original part of the house was almost a hundred years old and had started out as a small two-bedroom place built of fieldstone not long after the town was named after Judge Thomas Jefferson Devine. One of Macy’s first memories was sitting on her mother’s lap and hearing the story of how Devine had been the inspiration for the name of their doughnut shop.
One of the grandparents had added three more rooms and another bathroom onto it, and then another grandparent had built a second wing with two more rooms and another bathroom on the other side. Macy had always loved the sprawling feel of the place and would miss it when she moved into Neal’s tiny efficiency apartment in a prominent San Antonio hotel. But that was only for a few months. He already had his eye on a couple of houses that he wanted them to look at to buy as soon as his year of being the assistant manager of the hotel was finished. At that time, he would have learned the job and could move to wherever he wanted.
She breezed into the kitchen to find Grace and both girls at the table. The tension was so thick that a machete would have trouble cutting through it, and the air around them was cold enough to freeze every barbed-wire fence in hell. “Good morning. Who’s going to church with me this morning?”
“That would be me and Audrey,” Grace said, “and Raelene, if she wants to go.”
“Mama!” Audrey cut her eyes over at Raelene. “I don’t want to go to church.”
“You need some Jesus right now.” Grace used her fingers to pick up a piece of bacon from the platter in the middle of the table. “Consider it your only day to see your friends since you will be working at the shopthe whole week. You’ll know by the way they treat you if you’ve been kicked out of the mean-girl club.”
“That’s harsh, even for you, Mama.” Audrey pouted. “We are not mean girls. We are popular, and next year Crystal and Kelsey are going to help me get a place with the cheerleaders.”
“I’d love to go to church, if I’m not needed here,” Raelene said.
Macy pulled out a chair and sat down. She slathered a biscuit with butter and then scooped scrambled eggs and bacon onto her plate. “I love Sundays, when we can have breakfast food and sleep later than two thirty.”
“And go to church and sit beside Neal, right?” Grace teased.
“That’s the best part. God is so good to have sent Neal into our shop at Christmas,” Macy said. “I still can’t believe that he loves me. And speaking of that, we’re spending the whole day together, and he says he has a surprise for me. I’m hoping that we’re going to look at a house. His apartment at the hotel he manages is so small that...” She paused and smiled.
“You couldn’t cuss a cat without getting a hair in your mouth,” Grace finished for her. “Mama used to say that all the time.”
Raelene giggled and Audrey shot another dirty look down the table at her.
“What?” Raelene raised a dark brow. “That was funny.”
“Yes, it was,” Grace agreed. “And it was really nice to come home to a clean house yesterday and not have to spend our entire afternoon stripping beds and doing laundry.”
“Or dusting and vacuuming,” Macy added. “I even got my own personal laundry caught up, so now I can spend the whole afternoon with Neal and not feel guilty.”
“If you girls are finished, you should go get dressed,” Grace said.
Audrey pushed back her chair, put on her best hangdog look, and shuffled out of the kitchen.
