Stepping to a New Day Read online

  “So am I.”

  “I know it’s been a long time, but my condolences on losing your mom.”

  “Thank you, and the same to you. Anytime the grief starts rising and you need to talk, you know where to come.”

  “I do. Thanks, Reverend Paula.”

  “You’re welcome. We’ll always have this bond, Eli.”

  He picked up his backpack and like Devon closed the door softly behind hm.

  Paula took a tissue out for herself and wiped her eyes. She hoped he would talk to his dad when the moment presented itself. It might not only bring them closer but would let Jack know his son was doing okay.

  With nothing else on her schedule, Reverend Paula decided to have dinner at home for a change. Like most of the people in town she ate at the Dog more often than not but that day she felt like cooking for herself.

  As she prepared to gather her things and lock up, there was a knock on the door and she looked up to see Rochelle “Rocky” Dancer on the threshold. “Hey, Rock.”

  “Hey, Rev. I know I don’t have an appointment but are you busy?”

  “No. Come on in. Have a seat.” Although Paula wasn’t licensed to counsel adults she was always willing to lend a shoulder or an ear.

  Rocky took a seat on the couch. She was one of Paula’s favorite people. Their trailers were near each other out on the July family’s ancestral land, and when the weather was warm, she often awakened in the mornings to the lilting beauty of Rocky’s flute. “So what’s up?”

  “Jack asked me to marry him.”

  “And?” Paula asked, hoping to keep her excitement under wraps.

  “I’m not sure if I want to.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “I have, and he’s willing to wait because he never pushes, but I’m wondering if I’m being selfish, or keeping him at arm’s length because I’m scared.”

  “Of?” she asked easily.

  “Honestly? That he’ll wake up one day wondering what in the world he’s doing with somebody as screwed-up as I am and leave.”

  Paula smiled. “You know he loves you, right?”

  “I do, or at least I think I do, but I still can’t figure out why.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  She gave a tiny shrug. “I have, and he’s so kind and considerate, and puts up with my crazy moods. I suppose I’m still waiting for the gotcha.”

  “Like your other relationships?”

  “Yeah. Hard to be trusting when you find the man you married prancing in front of the window wearing your underwear.”

  “But what does that issue with your first husband have to do with Jack?”

  She sighed audibly. “I don’t know, Rev. Nothing, really. Guess I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Jack being so good to me.”

  “Feel you don’t deserve it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you do, you know. We all deserve love and peace and safety in our lives.”

  “I guess.”

  “No guess, Rock. We do.”

  Rocky stared off for a minute. “I know this is a decision I have to make for myself, but I needed to bounce it off of you, too.”

  “Always available.”

  “I know. You’re the best. You can have your couch back. I have to get to work. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Paula shook her head after the town’s resident bombshell left her office. In spite of all the toughness on the outside, a scared and scarred woman lived inside. Paula was convinced Rocky being the beneficiary of Jack’s unconditional love would go a long way in helping her heal, but convincing Rocky of that might take some time. Paula puttered around for another few minutes just in case someone else showed up at her door. When no one did, she picked up her coat, keys, and purse and went outside to her truck to head for home.

  Eli came home to the smell of burgers frying and his eighteen-and-a-half-year-old stomach sat up and took notice. His dad was in the kitchen, and the skillets on the stove were sizzling. “Hey, Dad. Smells awesome.”

  “Good to know. How are you?”

  Eli sat at the barlike counter and shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” He wasn’t ready to talk about his visit with Reverend Paula yet and was glad his dad seemed to know that. “You teaching GED class tonight?”

  “No. New term starts in two weeks. Do you have to work next weekend?”

  Eli had a part-time job as a member of the wait crew at the Dog, the town diner managed by his dad’s girlfriend, Rocky Dancer. “Yeah. Saturday morning. Why?”

  “Apparently your grandparents are flying in that Friday.”

  “Your set or Mom’s?”

  “Mine.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “My mother called about an hour ago. She never bothers to check if other people have plans. Her plans are always your plans whether you want them to be or not.”

  Eli loved his grandparents but sometimes his grandmother Stella acted like she was the Queen of England the way she ordered people around. His grandfather Jack Sr. was really the only person who could make her take a seat. “So I assume they’ll be staying with us?”

  “Yep.” He took the now-done burgers from the skillet and put them on a plate. Eli could tell he wasn’t happy.

  “How long are they staying?”

  “Just for the weekend supposedly, but who really knows.” He sighed and looked over at Eli. “Go wash your hands. These sweet potato fries will be done by the time you get back.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  When he returned everything was ready. He sat at the table and after adding his preferred condiments to the burger and dousing his fries with ketchup began eating. “Not as good as the Dog’s but it’ll do.”

  “Hater.”

  Eli grinned and took a draw on the straw in his cola. “Why do you think Gram’s coming?”

  “Truthfully? To try and convince me that Rocky’s not the one.”

  “Didn’t you tell me she did the same thing with Mom?”

  “She did, and you know how that turned out.”

  “She’s batting zero.”

  “And that losing streak will continue.”

  Eli noted the fire in his dad’s eyes. Personally, Eli liked Rocky a lot. She was tough both on and off the job, but underneath all that steel she seemed to love his dad. “You don’t think she’ll stoop to using the race card, do you?”

  “I hope not, but she did use the class card with your mother. ‘Blue bloods don’t mix with no bloods,’ she had the nerve to tell me.”

  Eli was appalled. “Because Mom was Italian?”

  He nodded as he dipped the end of a fry in the small pool of ketchup on his plate. “I was furious, to say the least.”

  Eli was furious for him. Since moving to Henry Adams, the two of them had gone a long way toward being father and son. After his mom died, Eli had been so full of grief, he’d turned on him like a mad dog, accusing him of everything from not loving him to trying to ruin his life by taking him away from California and his friends. Now that he was older and been set straight by the likes of the town elders and Crystal, he knew his dad loved him a lot. “I went to see Reverend Paula today.”

  His dad paused and studied him for a long moment before asking, “How’d it go?”

  “It went okay. She lost her mom when she was a teenager, too.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah. We talked about that and Mom dying, and how I felt. She said I had an advantage she didn’t have.”

  “Which was what.”

  “You,” Eli said softly. He saw his dad’s eyes glisten. “Dad, I’m so sorry I was so mean to you.”

  “You were hurting, son.”

  “But still. I’ve been wanting to apologize and could never find the right time. Reverend Paula said because I wanted to do it, the time would show up and that I should promise myself not to let it slip by, so the time is now.” He took a breath. “Thanks for putting up with me and not leaving me on
the side of the road. And thanks for telling me to go see her. She helped a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Mom a lot lately—about how proud she’d be of me getting ready to go to college even though I’m a year behind and it’s just community college.”

  “That you’re continuing your education is the most important thing.”

  “I know. I have Tamar to thank, too.” The town matriarch hadn’t taken any crap from him, and that made him grow up a lot.

  “I agree.”

  “And Crystal.”

  “How are you two getting along?”

  Eli shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Even though I’m dating Samantha I still got a thing for Crystal if that’s what you’re asking. Not sure where she really stands though. Probably still waiting on that loser Diego to ride in on his bike and save the day.” Diego July was a cousin of the town’s mayor. Crystal fancied herself in love with him and she’d been crushed learning Diego didn’t feel the same way about her.

  “Women tend to be complicated.”

  “Yeah. Finding that out.”

  “It’ll all work out in the end. Maybe the way you want and maybe not, but it will work out.”

  Eli noted that his dad didn’t judge. He rarely did. Even when Eli and the other kids were busted surfing the Net in places they all knew were off-limits, his dad had screamed and yelled and dropped down on him hard, but hadn’t judged. “So are you going to be able to handle Gram?”

  “Yes. I figure it’s only a weekend. How crazy can she make me in two days?”

  “I got your back.”

  “Good. I’ll let you know if we need to hide the body.”

  Eli chuckled and went back to his burger. He had something else weighing on his mind that he hadn’t talked to Reverend Paula about, and until he figured out how to approach his dad about it, he planned to keep it to himself.

  TC sat with Leah and Tiffany at the dining room table. He could smell something burning in the kitchen but being a guest he was too polite to go and see what the problem was. “Does your dad do all the cooking?” he asked the girls.

  Leah sighed. “Yes. He’s not very good at it, though.”

  “You two cook?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “Before they got divorced, Mom used to do all the cooking so we never learned. Dad says he doesn’t have the time to teach us and that he can do it faster.”

  “I see.” TC’s daughter Bethany began helping him in the kitchen as soon as she was tall enough to see over the table. Both his boys, Keith and Aaron, learned to cook from their mom before she got too sick, and after her passing TC helped them refine their skills. TC was an excellent cook and his great-nieces were correct in saying Gary was not, if the meals put on the table since his arrival were any indication.

  Dinner consisted of burnt pork chops, overcooked broccoli, undercooked mashed potatoes, and packaged biscuits. While Gary took his seat, Leah looked at her plate, glanced TC’s way, and chuckled softly while shaking her head at her father’s lack of skills.

  “Tiff, your turn to say grace,” their dad said.

  She offered up a short, quietly spoken prayer, and once she was done, they began eating.

  “So, you got the job?” Gary said, attempting to cut into the dried, burnt chop.

  “I did,” TC replied. “I start tomorrow. Have to pick up a Ms. Gibbs at the airport.”

  “Yes, Genevieve,” Gary said, smiling. “She’s coming back from Washington, DC. Very nice lady.”

  “She really is,” Leah added. “We kids like her a lot.”

  TC saw Tiffany moving her food around on her plate as if doing so might make it disappear. TC wished the same thing. Not only was it badly cooked, it was so tasteless due to the lack of seasoning they may as well be eating cardboard, but he ate it all.

  Later, while the girls were upstairs in their rooms doing their homework, he and Gary sat outside on the old-fashioned back porch watching the end of the day. “I think I’m going to like it here,” he said.

  “Good. Town’s real slow and real quiet but everybody gets along for the most part.”

  “Are you enjoying running the store?”

  “I am. Didn’t think I would at first. I spent most of my life selling cars, not food, but I’m doing pretty good. Having a good staff helps, not to mention Bernadine’s full support.”

  “How long have you been the manager?”

  “We opened just before Thanksgiving. Still trying to learn how to juggle my time, though. Rushing home to make sure the girls have dinner, checking their homework, and doing all the other stuff tied to parenting leaves me just enough time to breathe, go to bed, and get up the next morning to start it all over again.”

  “The girls seem happy.”

  “I think they are. The divorce was hard on Tiff, though. She’s just starting to make peace with the idea that Colleen isn’t coming back. Our priest, Reverend Paula, is also a child psychologist and she’s been helping Tiff sort stuff out.”

  “And Leah?”

  “My rock. Handled the divorce pretty well. Colleen always favored Tiff over her so . . . But as long as Leah has her telescope and her physics, she’s good.”

  “Physics?”

  “Yes. Wants to be an astrophysicist. My daughter has a brain big as the Milky Way.”

  TC chuckled. “Wow.”

  “She and her boyfriend, Preston, are two of the best young physicists in the state—so good they’re taking college courses online. You’ll meet Preston. He’s a good kid.”

  TC couldn’t get over that. Physics. He couldn’t even spell the word. He’d have to make a point to talk to Leah about the subject and her goals. He was always interested in learning new things. “Are you old enough to remember the show My Three Sons?”

  Gary looked confused. “Yeah, sort of. Why?”

  “In addition to the dad, Steve, and his boys, there was a character named Uncle Bub—older guy, lived with them, cooked all the meals, did the housework, which freed Steve to go to work and not stress over the daily stuff that needed doing at home.”

  Gary gazed out at the fields leading to the horizon. “Be nice to have an Uncle Bub.”

  “Or an Uncle TC.”

  Gary paused. “What do you mean?”

  “After your aunt Carla died your cousins were all still living at home, so I did the cooking and cleaning and all the other Uncle Bub stuff. Have to say I was pretty good at it, too. So, how about I be Uncle TC for you? I’ll do the meals, keep the house up, do the laundry, and teach the girls to do the same along the way.”

  “I can’t ask you to stick around and do all that, and I can’t pay you.”

  “Not asking for pay but you could use the help, Gary. True?”

  “Lord knows I do.”

  “Then I’m your guy. You get to do the homework, though. I don’t know physics from a hole in the ground.”

  Gary chuckled.

  TC added, “Tell you what. Let me cook breakfast in the morning, and after I run down and get Ms. Gibbs, I’ll come back and make dinner. If at the end of the day you don’t think I’ve helped, I’ll turn in my apron. Deal?” He extended his hand.

  The emotion in his nephew’s eyes let TC know that making the offer was a good thing.

  “Deal,” Gary said softly.

  They shook.

  CHAPTER

  2

  The following morning, the Clark family awakened to the smells of bacon and they weren’t sure what else, but the house smelled like heaven. When they entered the dining room, on the table sat a bowl of steaming scrambled eggs, a plate piled high with strips of bacon and a pan of biscuits made from scratch. Leah, Tiffany, and Gary stared, amazed.

  “Eat before it gets cold,” the smiling TC invited. “Who wants juice?”

  They all did, and while he went to grab a bottle from the fridge they sat and began eating.

  “Oh,” Leah cried around a mouthful of eggs. “This is so good.”

 
Tiff laughed. “No burned bacon!”

  That earned her a critical look from her dad, but he finally smiled. “It’s okay, Tiff. Cooking is not my strong suit, and I agree, this is really good.”

  There was orange marmalade and honey to go with the biscuits and because the biscuits were so awesome they all treated themselves to some of both.

  They were eating and smiling when TC took his own seat.

  Leah said, “You know you can’t leave town until I go away to college, right?”

  Tiff replied, “Until I go to college, you mean. Thank you for breakfast, Uncle TC.”

  “You’re welcome, Little Bit.”

  Shyness seemed to come over her. “I never had a nickname before.”

  “Little Bit okay?” TC asked.

  Her answer was a soft “Yes.”

  He shared a look with Gary who gave him a nearly imperceptible nod of approval. TC sensed the Clarks needed him to not only run the household but to help them navigate back to being a family, and he felt up for the task.

  An hour later, the girls and Gary left to go about their day and TC had the quiet house to himself. He poured himself a second cup of coffee, then stepped out onto the wide back porch. The weather was a bit chilly for a man born and raised in California but he knew it was something he’d get acclimated to. Having been a big-rig driver he knew how beautiful the sky could be on a spring day in the plains, but to be able to sit down and enjoy it without having to push on to the new stop was something new. If all the smiles at the table were any indication his first morning as Uncle TC had been a hit. Later he’d drive down and fetch Ms. Gibbs, and he hoped that part of the day would be a hit, too.

  On her flight home from Washington, DC, Genevieve Gibbs was exhausted, but it was a happy exhaustion. She’d had such a good time. In addition to taking the White House tour and a nighttime tour of the monuments atop a double-decker bus, she’d visited the Smithsonian, the African American Civil War museum and the Native American museum, and had some of the best salmon she’d ever eaten at a quirky little restaurant called Busboys and Poets. This was the first time she’d ever traveled alone and as a woman in her sixties, she was pretty proud of herself. Not that she’d wanted to go solo. She’d asked her friend and roommate Marie Jefferson to come along, but Marie was still acting like a teenager in middle school in response to last Christmas’s surprise visit from long-lost classmate Rita Lynn Bailey. How Marie could hold onto a forty-year-old grudge about nothing was something Genevieve still didn’t get. She and Marie had been best friends since they were eight years old. Now? Gen had hoped that having Marie with her on the trip to Washington would be a way for them to have some fun and rescue their friendship. Since she didn’t want to come along Gen used the time to do some well needed soul-searching. For as long as she could remember someone else had held the reins to her life: first her parents, then her no-good ex-husband Riley, and after Gen walked out on him, Marie had been the one she’d looked to for guidance. After sharing Marie’s home for the past few years and being influenced by how women like Bernadine Brown and Lily Fontaine July fearlessly approached life, Gen felt as if she’d finally come into her own. She now possessed the confidence she’d always lacked. The old Genevieve would’ve never given her embezzling ex-husband a right cross that knocked him into next week the way she’d done when he had the nerve to return to town a few years back with his so-called new wife, Eustacia Pennymaker. The punch broke a bone in her hand but the pain was secondary to the satisfaction that came from watching him slide to the floor out cold. Just thinking about him and his murderous hog Cletus enraged her all over again, but she drew in a deep breath and willed herself calm. She was a new Genevieve—large and in charge in the words of her young friend Amari July, and she loved who she was becoming.