“I don’t know. He was going by Richard Fox back then, which was Dora’s married name. But growing up, he went to Marnmouth schools, not Green Branch, so nobody correlated him with us, really. He made sure of it, and he stayed away as much as he could.”
“How did you find out?” he asks her.
“You came into the shop looking for a job.” She sniffs and recalls the moment with a smile. “You came in with your shaggy hair and that smile. I had a feeling. You have that little dimple.” She reaches forward and graces her fragile fingers over his cheek. “Ricky has the same one. You look so much like him. Or what he could have been. After that, I called Ricky and he told me everything. About Danielle. About you.”
Tanner swallows a sob and looks back over his shoulder, hiding his face from us. “How could you not tell me, Dol? All these years, I’ve worked for you. I’ve bought your land, I bring you eggs and flowers, I repair your sinks and change the oil on your car. All this time and you never said anything. Why?”
“Because,” she whispers. “I did such a poor job with my son, I thought that when you and your family found out, you wouldn’t come around anymore. That I would lose you. I would lose you like I lost my son. It was selfish and I am so sorry, but I thought I was protecting you and keeping you close at the same time.”
“Is that why you gave me the land for so cheap?” he asks, and there is a trace of laughter in his voice.
“I only charged you anything at all because you would have been suspicious if I just gave it to you. Tanner all of this will be yours.”
Now he sits straight, dropping her hand. “What?”
“All of this land. This house. The bookstore. Everything. It’ll be yours. Ricky won’t see a square inch or a penny of it.”
Tanner’s eyes flutter shut. “Dollie?—”
“Tanny.” She squeezes his hand. “I love you, my boy. I’m sorry I never said anything. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it was better if you just found out when you inherited everything.”
He nods as he takes in the information and I can only imagine what is running through his mind. His eyes, which usually give his every thought away, are now clouded and distant.
“The apartment was for Ricky,” I say it as the thought pops into my head. “You’ve been saving it for him.”
Dollie nods. “I kept it furnished and cleaned, but he never came. For years I have kept it for him. I’ve let a couple people stay here and there, but yes. It was for Ricky. Then Tanner had been telling me about this girl he met in Chicago. This beautiful woman and how he was going to marry her. He said he just needed to be patient. Then, when she showed up wanting to rent it?” Dollie shakes her head. “I thought if I lent it to you for free, you would stay and you two would finally figure things out.” There’s a small smile on her lips now. “And if I’m not mistaken, it may have worked.”
He said he was going to marry her.
The words ring through my head as Tanner glances over at me, and there is a rawness in his eyes. The confidence I’m sure he was born with has slipped into something more vulnerable.
“I think maybe it did,” I admit as he wipes my tear. “What if Ricky comes back now?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll tell him family is staying there, and he needs to find somewhere else to stay.”
“When is the last time you heard from him?”
“Two years ago,” she admits. “He called from a jail down in Louisiana. Wanted me to bail him out.”
“What did he do?” Tanner asks. “What didyoudo?”
“I didn’t ask. I told him he better not call me again unless he got his act together.”
“And he hasn’t.”
Dollie shakes her head.
I think of Winnie and my heart instantly aches for her. I want nothing more than to take her and wrap her up and never let her go. Then it hits me. I want to do the same for Tanner, too. I want to protect him and love him. I want to wrap him up and never let go.
36
After we leave Dollie’s, I try to convince Tanner to stay home and rest and start processing all the information he just received. Instead, he insists on following me back to the apartment and helping me clean up before Winnie gets home. There was no chance that I was going to tell him no, so, we climb the stairs quietly together. I don’t even make it a few steps in my apartment before my stomach sinks.
“Fuck,” I groan and drop my purse onto the counter.
“Now you sound like Lauren.” Tanner laughs and comes up next to me and freezes when he sees what I see.
“Oh. Fuck is right. Did you feed it before we left?”
