Mae pointed a finger in her niece’s face, “Because you didn’t like that redhead, because you didn’t like talking to him with Jakey around, because…there was a whole lot of shifting that came from you.”
“What?”
“You shift when you want to run, but can’t. You were shifting all over the place. And you were in Jakey’s face, which was probably warranted—I remember how it used to be with the two of you—but you were cleaning a clean counter.”
Dani waited.
“Who was that man?”
“No one.”
“Danielle O’Hara.”
“He’s…no one important.”
“He was that fiancé, wasn’t he?!”
Dani looked again and Mae sucked in her breath as she read her niece’s face.
“He was, wasn’t he?” Mae leaned close and asked quietly, “‘No one important’ my ass. What’s he doing here?”
“He came…,” Dani quit. She surrendered, “He came for a vacation with his brother to get over me. Or…those were his words.”
“Who’s his brother? Why’d they come here?”
“His brother is Drew Quandry. They’re—”
“Oh!” Mae exclaimed in a harsh voice. “They’re here to take over half this town, that’s what they’re here for.”
“Yeah.”
“But Jonah—” Mae quieted abruptly. Realization dawned in her eyes as she looked at Dani again, in sympathy. “Oh honey.”
“I know.”
“Honey, honey, honey. You got yourself in a pinch, don’t you?”
“Jonah knows who Boone is.”
“His name is Boone?”
“Yeah, or that’s my name for him.”
Mae grunted as she knelt down and started to unpack the popcorn bowls underneath her counter.
Dani knelt also and started to help, numbly.
“So I’m guessing that this Boone guy found out about Jakey today?” Mae asked as she studied the closed features on her niece.
“He knew before, but knowing it and seeing it are two different things.”
“Yep, they sure are.”
Dani breathed out and she stilled her movements. She simply turned and sat on the floor with her back to the counter.
“So what are you going to do?”
Dani couldn’t ask the question so her aunt voiced it instead.
“I really don’t know,” Dani relented.
“Well, you’ll sort your way through this. Just don’t be running anymore and I think you made a good choice. I don’t know about that last guy, but I know Jake and I know Jonah.” Her grin was wicked. “I don’t blame you one bit. That boy’s temptation for the devil, herself.”
“Mae.” Dani laughed.
“What? If he had a father around these parts, I’d be oiling up my bedsprings.” Mae shook her head as her eyes twinkled.
“His father lives in the city.”
“I know who his father is,” Mae said softly. “But he ain’t around these parts and his father ain’t like his son, but if he was and if he was available—oil ‘em up.”
Dani looked at Jonah again, remembering his words about his own father. He’d said that his father had a reputation amongst the business highest elite and he shared the same boardroom ruthlessness, but not the same love and passion for nature.
“Jonah said that he was the black sheep of the family.”
“Not his mother’s side,” Mae added. “From his mother’s side, I’d say that Jonah’s the shining star.”
“He said that he was the disappointment of his dad’s side.”
“Well, families like that have their values screwed up.”
Dani looked at Mae.
At the questioning look, Mae explained, “They’re only value is money. Money and presentation. That’s it. Jonah’s momma is a good woman. A smart woman. She raised her kids right and the best thing she did was walk away from Marshall Bannon.”
Dani raised an eyebrow at that, but she didn’t say anything. She knew her aunt well and she knew her aunt wouldn’t share how she had formed that opinion.
“So what’s the best thing about our family?” Dani asked again.
Mae stopped and laughed as she shook her head. “Sometimes I don’t think there’s a damn good thing about our family except that your momma produced the three of you.”
Dani frowned and realized that she’d never questioned the strained relationship between Mae and Kathryn. Or Mae and Julia.
“Do you wish that you knew Julia more?” Dani asked. Watching.
Mae stopped unpacking the second box, which was filled with napkins. She turned and looked hard at her niece.
“I know enough to know that it’s a battle I don’t want to step in. Besides, Kathryn got Julia and I got you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kathryn gave you food and shelter, but I raised you.”
“I know, but you don’t know Julia at all.”
“I do.” Mae nodded. “But she’s Kathryn’s and my sister, even though I love her dearly, I can’t stand her either. Julia’s too embedded in Kathryn to see reason about a relationship with her other aunt. It’s too late for me and Julia.”
“Kathryn’s going to die,” Dani said softly. “Your sister is going to die soon.”
Dani had lost a last chance with Erica. She realized the mistake that her aunt was going to make even if Mae didn’t realize it herself.
“I know,” Mae said gravely. “Kathryn and I came to a peaceful understanding a long time ago. I ain’t going to encroach on it now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. It ain’t for you to know.” Mae shook her finger at her niece. “And don’t go thinking that I’m making a mistake. There’s an ocean between my sister and I and no ship is going to cross it. The both of us know that I’m ready to mourn my sister when she goes.”
Dani was hit with a burst of awareness as she heard her aunt’s words.
“If I’d been here, I would’ve closed the gap with Erica,” Dani muttered to herself. “I would’ve wanted to do that. And I would’ve tried.”
“Yes, you sure would’ve,” Mae murmured and smiled at Dani. She squeezed her niece’s shoulder. “I’m damn proud at who you became. You’ve got the spine of steel us O’Haras have even if the Kathryns and Julias hide that spine. They still got it. We all got it. And you would’ve swallowed that bitter pill and tried to make your peace with Erica. I know you would’ve and Erica would’ve appreciated it.”
“How do you know?”
Mae grinned a closed grin and shrugged. “I just do.” Just then, Mae’s gaze trailed past her. “Your boy’s coming over. I’ll let you two talk.”
“Mae.” Jonah stopped her before she slipped away. “You need help with the crowd tonight?”
“I’d surely be indebted to you, if you’d be willing.”
Jonah smirked. “I’ll be here.”
“Good. Now I best be leaving the two of you to finish some of my work this afternoon before the first wave comes through for supper.” And with those words, Aunt Mae disappeared into the back kitchen area with a wink in Dani’s direction.
Dani grimaced and glanced at Jonah.
Jonah stated, “She knows.”
“She knows.”
Jonah nodded. “I’m not surprised. Your aunt’s pretty sharp. Has to be, to run this get-up.”
“Yeah.”
“So,” Jonah started.
Dani tensed.
Jonah added, “You still wanting to keep you and me going?”
“Huh?’ Dani turned to face him fully. She placed her hands on the counter as if to hold up the protective barrier or to hold herself up. She didn’t know which, but she held on anyway.
“Come on, Dani. I saw how you watched your fiancé. You couldn’t tear your eyes off him.” He shifted. “It makes a guy wonder if you’re still okay with what you and I got going on.”
“What do you mean? Do you…do you want to stop??
??
“Hell, no.” Jonah laughed easily. “But do you? That’s my question. I don’t want you in over your head if you’ve got too much else filling it up. I don’t want you to regret you and me. That’s my worry and I just want it out in the open.”
“I—no. You already asked me and I said no then too.”
Jonah watched her for a moment, thoughtful.
“Are you sure?” he asked huskily.
“Yes.”
She and Jonah was not her and Boone. Of all the decisions and of all that was on her plate, she just knew… “You and me, we’re good.”
They fit. And Dani knew that she needed them to fit how they fit. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why, but she needed them to keep. She needed that.
Jonah nodded and accepted her response. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Did you—if you want to ever talk about him…”
“I know.”
Jonah nodded and flashed a grin.
A woman farther down the counter, who’d been watching, gasped.
Jonah turned and winked at her. The woman winked back and pretended to fan herself.
“Now ask me if I’m regretting you and me,” Dani teased.
Jonah barked out a laugh and pounded the counter once with a fist as he moved away. “I’ll see you later.”
“See you later.”
As he left, Mae came back drying off a pot in hand and nodded in his direction, to his back. “Man oh man, if I were you, I’d jump him every second I got.”
Dani laughed and shook her head.
“I’ll be seeing you, Mae,” Dani said in a farewell.
“Where you off to?” her aunt asked.
“Somewhere that’s none of your business,” Dani called over her shoulder as she retrieved her car keys from her pocket.
The drive to St. Francis didn’t seem as long as her prior visit. Marge was at the front desk and after one swift glance, she produced the same blank name tag and black marker with a smile. Dani filled it out and went in search for Phyllis on her grandmomma’s floor.
Phyliss stood and walked around the counter. She folded her arms over her chest and regarded Dani with reluctance. “I don’t know if she’s up for a visit, Dani.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“She’s pretty weak and down right now. She’s been bedridden for the last three days.”
“Is she sick?”
“She’s not ill, but it’s part of her mental illness.”
“What does she have?”
Phyliss smiled. “You wouldn’t understand it if I just gave you the clinical term. Your grandmomma gets real sad at times and real happy at other times. You got her on a downward cycle last time, but now she’s fully at the bottom. It might take a while for her to come out of it.”
“I thought there were meds for this stuff.”
“There are.” Phyliss nodded, “But sometimes the meds aren’t enough.”
“What about therapy?”
“Your grandmomma won’t do therapy. She says its hogwash. Truthfully, I just think your grandmomma don’t want to talk about some stuff that happened in her past.”
Dani accepted it, but she asked anyway, “Can I see her? Just for a little bit?”
“I wouldn’t want to see my grandmomma as yours is,” Phyliss advised her. “But, if you’d really like, I could see if she wants to see you.”
Dani nodded. “That’s fine with me.”
“Okay.” And Phyliss gave her another smile that shot right through Dani. It was as if she knew something that Dani didn’t, that she knew all the hopes that Dani had yet to realize herself.
The humming lady sat in her usual spot from before.
She stopped humming once Phyliss was gone and stood to shuffle her way to Dani.
Dani held still, stiff, as she raised a finger and poked Dani’s arm.
She shook her head, hummed, and poked Dani again.
Dani didn’t say a word.
After a third poke, the lady turned and shuffled back to her sitting spot. She shook her head and went back to humming.
“What’s your name?” Dani asked.
The humming stopped and she gazed over.
“Clarissa,” she said clearly. And then hummed.
“What are you humming?”
“I’m not humming,” Clarissa clarified. “I sing in my head.”
“Why don’t you sing out loud?”
“Because they wouldn’t understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“The voices. The angels. They wouldn’t understand.”
“What wouldn’t they understand?”
“The angels are dead, but I’m singing about live folk. I can only sing in my head so that the angels don’t get mad.”
Clarissa glanced down the hallway and went back to humming. The volume rose a notch as Phyliss rounded the corner.
“She said you could come in for five minutes, but that’s all she has in her.” Phyliss nodded and they both turned down the hallway.
Outside of Sandy’s door, Phyliss knocked once and poked her head in, “We’re coming in, Sandy.”
Dani heard a creak and a rustling of bedsheets before she stepped around Phyliss and saw her grandmother.
The white hair hung limply off her scalp and the bedsheets seemed to overcome her grandmomma’s pale form.
She had a hospital nightgown on and her eyes were numb.
Dani swallowed quickly as she twitched at the image of her grandmomma.
Phyliss had been watching her, gauging her reaction when Dani smiled and murmured, “Thank you.”
Phyliss nodded and left the room quietly. She gently pulled the door shut behind her.
“You can sit,” Dani’s grandmomma said and gestured towards the open chair at the bed.
The personality had washed out of her grandmomma.