Anna Rose jumped and gasped at the same time. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”
“Sorry about that,” Taryn apologized. “What’s got you coming out here on this muggy night?”
“I kept worrying about Jorja,” Anna Rose admitted. “She’s a pain in my ass, but she’s blood kin, and she was an innocent. I lost my virginity at sixteen. I thought I was in love with Jeremy Baker, and he told me that he loved me. We’d been dating for two years, and it seemed the right thing to do at the time. Jorja was different than me and you, Taryn. She had all that religion drilled into her from birth, and Aunt Yvonne was so prim and proper.”
“Do you think that Nana Irene found out about what happened, and she expects us to fix Jorja?” Taryn asked.
“Maybe, but maybe we just need her to kiss the Blarney Stone and learn to live outside of a church family.” Anna Rose looked up at the sky. “I’m not saying that you aren’t good, God. I’m saying that—”
“Are you praying?” Jorja asked as she opened the door.
“I’m just telling God what I think.” Anna Rose’s voice held a sharp edge.
“That’s praying.” Jorja sat down on the other side of the top step and stretched her long legs out past the bottom one. She wore a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top that showed off her lean figure. If she ever wore a pair of tight jeans and a fitted shirt to a bar, Taryn thought, she dang sure wouldn’t be sitting alone at a table for more than ten minutes.
“Not in my book,” Anna Rose said. “What are you doing out here?”
“I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about that baby, Esther Elizabeth O’Malley. I wonder if she died because something was wrong with her, and if my baby had the same thing. If I did decide to move on and trust someone with my heart, would I ever carry a child to full term?” Shepaused and took a deep breath. “I bet little Esther’s mama wanted her to live and was devastated when she didn’t.”
Taryn set the rocking chair in motion with her foot. “Probably so—but then, she was having that child with a man she loved. Your circumstances were a whole lot different than whatever happened to that child.”
For several minutes, there was no sound except for a cricket and a tree frog’s duet over near the big pecan tree at the end of the porch. Taryn was not a therapist, and she didn’t know what else to say, but a nagging feeling in her heart told her that she needed to say some more comforting words—yet nothing would come.
“Y’all are right,” Jorja said. “It’s time for me to find myself—not who Mama wants me to be or who y’all think I should be. But to figure out what I want out of life.”
“That requires putting the past in a box, taping it shut, and either burying it or setting it on fire,” Taryn told her, but she wasn’t sure if she was advising her cousin or herself.
Jorja jumped up and headed inside. “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”
Anna Rose shifted her position and leaned her back against the porch post. “If she brings her Bible and a match out here, I’m heading for the shop. There are stars in the sky, but I bet lightning could come down and zap this whole trailer if she does that.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Taryn said.
“I’m a little superstitious,” Jorja said as she came back out with a shoebox, a roll of tape, and the metal trash can from the bathroom in her hands.
“You don’t expect us to dance around a fire and chant, do you?” Anna Rose asked.
“Only if you take off all your clothes and do it naked,” Jorja snapped. “I’m going to figuratively put all those memories of that summer in this box, tape it shut, and burn it. Hopefully, that will help me move on.”
“Can I put some of mine in there with yours?” Taryn remembered the heartache she had felt when her military boyfriend told her he had a wife and a couple of kids, and that what they’d had was just a good time between two consenting adults.
Jorja opened the box and set it on the railing. “If you’ve got crap you don’t want in your life anymore, close your eyes and put it in the box.”
“I’ve got a few things I want to add,” Anna Rose said and stood up.
The three cousins gathered around the box, but before they could close their eyes, Taryn reached out and took Jorja’s hand in her left one and Anna Rose’s in her right. “All right, we’ll close our eyes now and mentally pack away all the bad stuff from our past.”
“Do we forgive the ones who hurt us?” Jorja whispered.
“I’m not in a forgiving mood tonight,” Anna Rose said.
Taryn nodded in agreement. “Tonight, we just burn the past. Maybe later, we’ll have a forgiving ceremony.”
“With wine,” Anna Rose declared.
“I don’t drink,” Jorja said.
“Even Jesus drank wine, girlfriend,” Taryn reminded her. “Heck, hemadewine.”
