Part 27 (1/2)

My head rolled in a circle the way it had during the cool downs for my workouts at the hospital.

He touched my shoulder. ”Don't hate her. I think she believed that.”

Okay. Maybe Dahlia as the villain was easier than dealing with the first wife thing. ”I don't hate Sandy, Adrian. How could I? She loved you. You loved her.”

He shrugged. ”She was a good wife, Dana. She helped me a lot, especially with my mother. I don't know why things happened the way they did, but we were happy together.”

A chuckle cracked the tension, surprising us both-especially me, since it came from my mouth. ”I have to hand it to her. She wanted you bad.”

He didn't laugh. ”I guess. I grew to love Sandy and I mean no disrespect to her memory. I forgave her for some of the things she said and did without my knowledge and I asked her forgiveness for using her as a way out, though I grew to love her. I would have liked to never revisit all this, but I needed to come clean with you. Especially about your sister.”

My head moved up and down a bit. Not quite a nod, but close enough. ”Dahlia told me anyway. At Tracey's shower.”

He froze. ”All this time? You knew? Is that what-”

”No. It probably didn't help, but the stroke was the result of many things.” I rolled my shoulders back. ”You know what? We've both done some shaky stuff. I never should have left your wedding with Trevor. The real questions we have to answer are about right now.”

A knock on the gla.s.s interrupted.

We ignored it. The customers would have to heed the sign today.

Adrian rotated the candle plate, watching the pool of wax widen around the wick, now curled over like a bent reed. ”Can you forgive me-can you love me-knowing, well, everything?”

I smiled. ”I do forgive you.” I paused. ”And I couldn't stop loving you if I tried.”

A relieved look pa.s.sed over his face.

”Building a relations.h.i.+p though is going to take some time and effort, on both our parts.”

Adrian nodded and kissed my hand. ”And a lot more candles, huh?”

I laughed and opened my arms to him for a brief, sweet hug. Hand in hand, we walked to the front door, to find Dahlia, crying.

As Adrian clicked the lock and pulled back the gla.s.s, my sister tumbled into his arms and wadded his s.h.i.+rt into her fists. ”It's over. Trevor's called off the wedding. What am I going to do?”

”What? Why?” Adrian pulled his cell from his pocket and flipped it open, dialing furiously.

I clicked it shut. ”What happened, Dahlia?”

A fury of microbraids streaked with blond tumbled over her fingers. ”He overreacted. He-he came by the house and I had a friend over. It was innocent-”

Adrian threw up his hands. ”Who was it?”

Not that I wasn't curious myself, but why did he care?

Don't go there.

She bit her lip. ”Bob.”

Adrian pinched the bridge of his nose. ”The Visa guy?”

I shook my head. ”You didn't.” And what was up with Bob? He was better than that, though evidently he didn't know it yet.

She paced back and forth in front of the door. ”No, I didn't. It was just a kiss. I was lonely. Upset. Confused. I kept trying to talk to Trevor, but he's so scared of doing something wrong that he wouldn't even be alone with me....” Her voice broke up. ”He says maybe we're not ready to get married if I'm kissing somebody. That maybe we should get rooted in Jesus first. How long does that take?”

Adrian and I grabbed hands, trying not to count how much time we'd spent apart. I touched my sister's hair. ”You don't want to know.”

”Looks like that karate is doing some good.”

I shoved the leftover salad into the refrigerator, then dumped the leftover red velvet cake into a disposable container and slid it across the counter. Dad would have to take that home with him. I popped another cube of honeydew into my mouth. ”It's kickboxing, Dad. And thanks. I think so, too.”

My father came closer, smelling of figs and fried potatoes, a refres.h.i.+ng change from the years of beer and Old Spice imprinted on my memory. Caught up in memories, I tread on our moot subject. ”Would you like to go back to church this evening?”

He stroked his beard.

”It's a singing.”

Dad's salt-and-pepper eyebrows bushed upward. Sermons were one thing, but singings were quite another. He dumped the fried chicken grease into a coffee can, replaced the lid and dumped it into the trash. He seemed to have made the healthy transition on most things, but he still thought anything fried with olive oil was healthy eating. He frowned at the can for a second as though saying goodbye to an old friend.

I shook my head.

”I'll tell you what, moppet. If you and your sister sing a duet for me tonight, I'll come.”

The refrigerator door slammed on my finger. ”I don't even know if she's going tonight-” Since Trevor had called off the wedding two weeks ago, Dahlia's church attendance had been scarce.

Dahlia's perfume entered the kitchen ahead of her. ”I'm going to church tonight,” she said. ”And I'll sing if Dana will.”

Now you've done it.

Daddy did a little jig. His laughter filled the kitchen as the scent of his dinner had an hour earlier-fried chicken, baked pork chops with an apple-onion sauce, au gratin potatoes, snap beans, red velvet cake, and my dessert, a wedge of the biggest honeydew melons I'd seen in many a summer. He tugged his beard once more. ”Be sure and sing it a capella now. No music. I want the real thing.”

I took a deep breath and nodded in agreement as my sister's eyes met mine. She smiled. I tried to, but she'd hopped on Adrian's lap after church. He pretty much pushed her on to the floor like she was a giant bug, but I still wanted to knock the taste out of her mouth. Instead, she'd knocked the taste out of mine. I hadn't been able to eat a thing until this melon. Now I was starving, but we were out the door and at the church before I could think about eating more. I didn't like to sing on a full stomach anyway.

For some reason, the church was packed. I wonder now if Daddy didn't call everyone in the church directory. Pastor certainly didn't seem surprised when the Minister of Music asked if anyone would like to share a song. We hadn't done that since the old days, when evening services were a loosely st.i.tched patchwork of prayers and praise. Today's modern programs didn't allow leeway for such sharing. But tonight was different. For the first time since in years, I sang with my sister. My mother's missing alto echoed in the shadows.

Dahlia started first, both in the procession to the front and in the song. I sighed, thinking she was grandstanding, but I followed anyway, urged on by Daddy's pleading eyes.

”I'd rather have Je-sus...” Dahlia lifted the mic to her mouth, singing in a haunting key.

I followed, trailing up and down the scale, both with my voice and my emotions. ”Than silver or gold-” I brought the other microphone closer to my mouth, then farther away. ”I'd rather be His...than to have riches unto-oold.” My cornrows tickled my neck. I looked over at Dahlia for the next note, but she wasn't singing, she was just standing there. Crying.

The preacher started clapping. ”Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Better than gold.”

Tears blurred my vision, but my ears worked just fine, though I couldn't believe what I heard next. A deep gut voice, Mama's note, came out of my sister's mouth. She sang the next verse, but refused to relinquish the song, going on to Christ's nail-pierced hands and beyond. It was as if she'd found her ten-year-old self, tucked away all these years waiting to be reclaimed. Like a master, she pulled the room in until most everyone was singing. At ”sin's dread sway,” she waved for me to join in.