CHAPTER 5
ABI
Old Friends
I stow the hot, foil-covered casserole dish in the passenger side floorboard on a folded towel. I didn’t think about transport when I baked the lasagna for Mrs. Sturgill.
An insulated carrier I have in the cabinet above the fridge in my kitchen back in Charleston pops into my mind. For a few seconds, I wish I had it. But that means I’d have to go back to Charleston, to my old house, to my old life, to get it, and I’d rather have ten burned fingers and a dozen cooling casseroles than to step foot back in that place again.
I start the car and head across town to the street where my childhood best friend lived. Unerringly, I find my way to the right house, pulling into the driveway to park behind the silver sedan that was at the cabin yesterday.
I didn’t call ahead, mainly because Anna Sturgill didn’t leave me her number. I’m just gambling that she’ll be home because it’s five minutes after six.
I knock once, balancing the hot dish on my towel-covered palm. After a few seconds, I see the doorbell, which I then push. Before the chime can complete its prescribed jingle, the door swings open and Mrs. Sturgill greets me with her trademark “Hi, honey!”
“I brought you a lasagna. As a thank you,” I announce, holding up the casserole. “Be careful. It’s still hot.”
“Aw, you sweet thing! You can bring that right inside and set it on the counter. You’re just in time for supper and I didn’t have a thing thawed.” She props the door with one hand and invites me in with the other.
I step inside, wiping my feet on the wine-colored rug in the foyer. “That’s what I was hoping. I didn’t want you to have to worry about cooking after a long work day.”
“I appreciate that, but I hope you know you have to stay and eat with me. That’s the deal.”
“No, I couldn’t. I—”
“It’s suspicious to turn down your own cooking. Didn’t your momma ever tell you that?” She winks and bumps her shoulder against mine as she passes, waving me to follow her through the small but immaculate living room into the kitchen that’s as familiar to me as my own.
“God, it’s like a time warp in here.” I set the lasagna down on the bar that’s still covered with the same black and white tiles I remember, then I stuff my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and look around. “Everything looks exactly the same, just…smaller somehow.”
“This is no grandiose house, by any means.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I guess when you’re a kid everything just seems bigger. Larger than life. The good, the bad, all of it. Just…big.”
“I’m sure it felt that way to you. You were about as full of life as they come. You and my Christy. Two of the best girls in town. Hearts of gold. Never got in trouble. At least not that I found out about.” She slides me a look that says I’d better not be hiding any salacious details about late-night sneak outs or raucous parties.
“Who are you kidding? If there were parties to find out about, you would’ve found them out.”
She laughs, a sound straight out of my teenage years, and agrees with me. “You’re right about that. A mother needs to keep tabs on her girls. That’s part of her job—protecting her babies.”
I swallow hard. “Yes, it sure is.”
“I’m sorry your momma hasn’t been able to take care of you for a while now.”
I wave her off. “It’s okay. I was grown by the time the accident happened.”
“I mean before that. I know how hard it was on you after your daddy died. Your momma…well, she took it awfully hard. Couldn’t find her way out of it for a while. Sometimes we get so lost in our own pain, we’re numb to everyone else’s. I think that’s what happened to her. And I know you must’ve suffered double because of it.”
I smile into her warm brown eyes. “But I had you.”
She presses a hand to my cheek. “Still do.”
Tears prickle at the backs of my eyes, and I blink them away. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too, honey. You, too.”
She turns away and busies herself gathering two of everything—plates, sets of silverware, glasses, and napkins—to set the table.
“So what have you been into today? Besides cooking, that is.”
“I just did some shopping and then spent the afternoon on the dock, reading.”
“What did you think of Mullins’s since the remodel?”
“It looks great. Glad they kept the green clouds, though.” She laughs. I don’t need to explain what I mean by green clouds; she knows exactly what they are. You can’t go into Mullins Grocery even once and not know what they are. They’re everywhere.
“Did you drive around any? See what’s different? We got a Dollar Tree now. And a McDonald’s.”
“I saw those.”
Only in a town this small would either of those places be new or noteworthy.
“And did you see the new doctor’s offices down on Sherwood? You’ll never believe who took over Dr. Montero’s practice when he retired.”
“Sam Forrester?”
Mrs. Sturgill turns to look at me. “Saw that, did ya?”
“No, but I saw him. In the store. He…he mentioned he’s a family practitioner now and since Dr. Montero was the only one in town… And he was old even then, so…”
She stops and turns, still with a set of silverware in each hand. “Sam’s a good one. Maybe better than Dr. Montero. We’re lucky to have him.”
I walk to the table. I can feel her watching me, so I reach down to flatten the crease of a paper napkin she just put down, anything to keep from meeting her eyes. This woman knew me during my Sam years. I don’t want her to see that some things haven’t changed very much since then. “He, uh, said he married someone he met in college. She’s good to him, right?”
After several long seconds, during which Anna Sturgill doesn’t say a word, I drag my eyes up to hers. She’s smiling at me, an odd smile that brings her expression into a place that’s somewhere between nostalgic and pitiful. “Yes. Sara. She’s a good woman.”
I nod, smiling to show I’m happy for him, which I am. However, that doesn’t stop me from feeling the muffled pain of deep, deep regret somewhere in the attic of my heart. It’s in the place where I’ve kept my love for him all this time, right alongside a dusty box of pictures from high school and the hope chest Momma made me leave behind when we moved because we couldn’t fit it in the trunk of the car. Sometimes I think my actual hope was in that old wooden chest, and that maybe, on some level, I’ve come back here to find it. It isn’t in Charleston, that’s for sure.
“He deserves to be happy.”
“Yes, he does. Sam’s had a hard life. I think everybody in town wants to see him happy.”
“Does that mean he’s not happy now?”
“No, it doesn’t mean that at all. It’s just…well it’s complicated. Probably something best for Sam to tell you himself.”
I want to argue or pout or something. But I don’t. Really, it’s none of my business. I’m here to find peace and do some good if I can. Unless Sam needs help that I can provide, he’s nothing more than a boy I used to know.
“This smells delicious,” Mrs. Sturgill says when she peels back the aluminum foil after setting the lasagna on the table.
“I hope it is. I’m not much of a cook.”
“Makes the gesture even sweeter, then.”
I shrug one shoulder. “I wanted to thank you for cleaning up the lake house and staying to give me the tour.”
“As unnecessary as that is, I’m glad you came by. It gets lonely around here, especially at night.”
Although she hides it well, I can see that Anna Sturgill is living with her own life’s pain. It’s there in the sadness that darkens her eyes, and the grief that pulls her lips down at the corners.
“Why is that? Where is Mr. Sturgill?”
She doesn’t look at me when she answers, but, from the side, I see the tremor in her chin just before she speaks. “He passed away three years ago. Massive heart attack. He was gone before the ambulance could even get here. He was talking to me one minute and the next, he was just…”
“Oh. Oh, God, Mrs. Sturgill, I am so, so sorry.” I reach over to lay my hand on hers. Her fingers are drawn into a fist, like she’s still resisting the truth of that moment, like she still wants to fight against it. I know how that feels, only I didn’t just lose a life.
She pats my hand with her other one, regaining her composure before she glances over at me. “He’s better off. This world…it’s going to hell in a hand basket, don’t you think?”
She shifts the conversation into more emotionally neutral territory, for which we are both thankful. No one wants to talk about painful things. Not really. No one wants to relive his or her grief over and over and over again. That’s no way to live at all.
“Sure looks that way,” is my casual reply. We exchange a quick look that says we both agree to keep conversation at the superficial level for the remainder of the meal. And while I do still wonder about the mysterious situation with Sam Forrester, I will keep my questions to myself. Maybe it’s better not to know too much about the people you’re trying to help. Instead, I ask about my old friend. “So, Christie has four kids did you say?”
Anna Sturgill’s face melts into a smile of pure, happy love. “Two boys, two girls. All of ‘em handfuls, just like the two of you when you were little.” She shakes her head in amusement. “Good thing she’s a stay-at-home mom or she’d be in trouble, I’m thinking.”
“I’m assuming she moved?”
With a nod, Mrs. Sturgill’s smile fades a bit. “Yeah, just after she got married. Her husband is a big man in the banking world, so they moved up to Charlotte.”
“At least it’s not so far that you don’t get to see them fairly often, right?” I hope she gets to see them a lot. In the short time I’ve been with her, it’s become clear that this woman is lonely. I make a mental note to keep her company as much as I can while I’m here this summer.
“Not too far at all. They come home for Mother’s Day, holidays, birthdays, all those, but when it’s your baby, that never seems to be enough.”
I nod. I don’t say so, but I know what she means. Being without someone you love is like a tiny little loss, every single day.