With renewed energy I pick up the pace and sprint home. I bound up the porch stairs, whip open the door, and make a beeline for my checkbook. A quick check of my business bank account balance on my phone and I know I can execute on my plan. Thank God we’ve had incredible sales the last week. I won’t be able to make my mortgage payment this month, but this is more important.
My hand is shaking as I write out the check. I’m almost out the door when I catch a whiff of myself. I double back and hit the shower first. Then I head for Betsy’s house, cobwebs in my brain cleared out. I don’t know if she’s home, but that’s not my plan anyway. This is about giving Betsy the freedom my mother was seeking. Giving Betsy what she’s rightfully earned. Addressingherneeds, not mine.
I take the envelope that contains the ten-thousand-dollar check written out in Betsy’s name and place it under the welcome mat. Hopefully she’ll read the handwritten note inside, the one that has my apology for pushing her. For not listening to what she said she was capable of. And an offer to never see me again if that’s what she prefers. I shoot her a text when I get back in the truck.
Me: Hey, storm cloud. Check your welcome mat.
I put my phone back in my pocket and drive home, hoping my gesture is what she needs.
I just want her to be happy.
Even if it’s not with me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Betsy
Nana turnson the porch light promptly at sunset. No timer or fancy app to automate it. Just a slow, daily rhythm I’ve come to appreciate and rely on since I moved to Heaven. The light is on when I finally get home from the lake. I spent the rest of the day in the shade, watching toddlers with inflatable life jackets falling off their bodies shriek and play and tire out their parents. A whole variety of birds pecked around for little morsels of food that the toddlers dropped. It was a whole ecosystem that somehow calmed my nerves.
But now that I’m home to see an envelope with my name on it wedged under the welcome mat, those nerves return. I’d know Silas’s handwriting anywhere. It’s part choppy lines and the occasional oversized swoop. Despite the accelerating heartbeat and knot in my stomach just seeing his note, part of me sighs in appreciation.
A handwritten note. It’s charming. Calmer. Less pressure to respond before one’s ready. No person on the other end watching for a bubble to appear to know you’re reading theirmessage. My phone battery died at some point this afternoon, which is just as well. Nothing good comes from that stupid thing.
I stoop to pick it up, my hand sliding over the smooth side of the envelope to admire my name in Silas’s writing. Then I flip it over and pop open the flap. Carefully, I pull out a note written on actual stationary, the kind Nana uses when she takes food over to an ailing neighbor. A check slides into my hands before I’ve had a chance to read the note.
Ten thousand dollars.
Made out in my name.
My eyes nearly fall out of my head. The bonus. The one Silas promised me if we hit our revenue goals this quarter. The quarter’s not even over yet, so I’m not sure what this is about. I turn back to his note, holding it just right so the porch light highlights what he wrote.
Dear Betsy Mae,
Please accept this bonus. You deserve it even if the season’s not over yet. I know we’ll hit our goals, thanks to you. Harp and Hemline would have certainly failed if it wasn’t for your timely and unorthodox intervention. Thank you for saving my dream.
I also want you to know that I understand if it’s too uncomfortable for you to come back to work for Harp and Hemline. I won’t apologize for falling in love with you, but I do apologize for pressuring you when I shouldn’t have. Hopefully the money you earned in the short time we were together isenough to get you on your feet. My mother would have loved knowing her boutique helped you.
I already spoke to Mary London and she said she needs help at her boutique and would love to hire you. You belong here in Heaven, Mississippi, and I refuse to be the reason you feel that you don’t.
I’m always here for you, in whatever capacity you need me.
Yours,
Silas
I tuck the check in my bra, clutch the note to my chest, and head for bed. I end up crying myself to sleep. I cry for the girl who didn’t have a mother she could look up to. I cry for the father who never cared enough to stay. I cry for the woman who trusted a man who turned her out on the street. And I cry for the man I’ve fallen in love with. The kind man who thinks I can live happily without him.
I wake up at dawn, splash water on my puffy face, squirt some drops in my eyes so I look halfway human, and head downstairs. Nana is in the kitchen, still in her robe as she pours coffee.
“Good morning!” I come up behind her and pull her into a hug.
Last night I cried for all the people I didn’t have in my life. It was healing, a sort of washing away of the past. Today I’m going to focus on my future and all the people who love me. I may not have had the best example of how to love, but if Silas and Nana will have patience with me, I want to try.
Nana laughs and pats my arms, carefully putting down the hot pot of coffee. I let her go and she turns around.
“What’s gotten into you, my Betsy Mae?” She smiles up at me, ignoring my sunburned cheeks and wild hair.
“I’m fixin’ to call some friends.”
