she couldn’t wait, she was too hungry. She didn’t want a check from the field office, either, she wanted real cash money that she could take to the grocery store and buy food before her father got his hands on it and spent it all on whiskey.
So she banged on the door again, reminding herself that she was a Riley, and Rileys were Good People. She could still remember hearing her father say so, back before her mama had picked up and left. In Pa’s case, the stock might have run to seed, but Manie knew better than to act like trash. She might be hungry, but she had her pride.
Her knocks went unanswered, and she was too short to reach the big brass knocker. Finally, blinded by tears of sheer frustration, ten-year-old Manie had slammed out the front gate and run head-on into young Henry, who had heard her out, tears, sobs, runny nose and all. Then he’d kindly explained that her father couldn’t work out at the field any more because he was too unreliable, and on a drilling rig, that could be dangerous, but that he’d see that she got any back pay coming to him.
Then he’d taken her home to his wife—his first wife—who had given her a glass of buttermilk and offered her a job after school and on weekends helping out in the kitchen.
Mercy, had it really been almost sixty years since then? It had been a wild ride, keeping up with the Langleys, but she wouldn’t trade a speck of it for any amount of money. Child to woman, she’d been there through good times and bad, first when old Tex died, then when her father had passed away with the liver trouble, and a year later when Hank was born and a few years after that when Mr. Henry lost his wife and his newborn daughter.
She had watched young Hank grow up, loved him as if he were her own, and done her best to look after him when his father had taken up with one woman after another and gone chasing off to all those fancy places in Europe.
She’d done a fair job of raising the boy, too, if she did say so herself. She knew his shortcomings and his longcomings and would be the first to admit he had his share of both.
But right now, he was going through another dangerous stage, and it was up to her to see him through it. Temptation was a hard thing to resist when it came all dolled up in tight dresses and blue eye shadow, reeking of fancy perfume and using language no lady ever used in front of a gentleman. That kind of temptation spelled trouble, sure as the world.
But Manie had a plan.
Early on a Saturday morning, shoulders squared, head held high, Callie locked the front door, took one last walk around the house to be sure she’d remembered to close all the windows and fill all the feeders and headed for Texas.
“Grace, I’m on my way. Feed my birds about Wednesday, will you?” she called to her neighbor at the foot of the road.
“I’ll check every couple of days. See you in a week or so. Drive safe, have a good time, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Callie promised, her mind already miles ahead. This was a mission, not a vacation. Never given to impulsive acts, she had thought it through carefully, made her lists, pro and con, and checked one against the other. And now here she was, finally on her way.
By Tuesday, second thoughts were rapidly piling up. Back home in North Carolina, it had all sounded so logical. Now that she was actually in Texas, she was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t have talked her plan over with Aunt Manie first instead of springing it on her out of the blue.
Quit fretting, Caledonia, it’s too late now. You’ve done all that work on the house and shut off the mail and paper delivery. You buttered your bread, now lie in it.
She was tired, that’s all it was. Besides, everything out west was so blessed big. This was the first time she’d ever even crossed to the other side of the Blue Ridge mountains. What in the world had she been thinking?
Back when the idea had first come to her, it seemed like the most logical thing in the world. She’d never even met Great-Aunt Manie until Grandpop Riley’s funeral last September, but the two of them had hit it off right away. Aunt Manie was so much like Grandpop, which was perfectly logical. They’d been brother and sister, after all. They shared the same common sense approach to life, the same dry sense of humor. They even looked alike, both being spare of frame and stern of face until you caught the twinkling eyes and the little twitch at the corner of the mouth.
And besides, Aunt Manie used to live in Grandpop’s house. It was Callie’s now. Nobody else wanted it, at least not to live in. Her father, who had grown up there, called it an old relic, which it was, which was why Grandpop had left it to Callie and not his own son.
It had taken practically all her savings, but she’d fixed the old place up so that Aunt Manie wouldn’t give it that sad-eyed look, the way she had after the funeral. A new roof, at least on the south side, where the sun baked the shingles so that they curled up and leaked. A fresh coat of paint in a lovely shade of gray, with contrasting trim. Next she was going to tackle the plumbing and wiring, but first she’d have to find another job and build up her savings again.
But the yard was in fine shape. Surrounded by rhododendrons and weeping cherry trees, flame azalea and the day lilies that Grandpop had called backhouse lilies, it sat plank in the middle of seven acres of woodland a few miles from Brooks Cross Roads. For someone who preferred life in the slow lane, it was ideal.
And Callie was definitely slow-lane material. Driving to Yadkinville five days a week to work was fast enough for her. And at Aunt Manie’s age, she was going to fit right in.
Callie’s father, Bainbridge, had expected her to sell out as soon as the will had been probated. Ever since he’d given up his position with the insurance company and gone to being a full-time potter and part-time fiddler, he’d been looking for ways to make money. Unlike Callie, he hadn’t inherited his father’s philosophy of work hard, live cheap and lay by for a rainy day.
He should have thought of that before he’d quit. Her mother was just as bad, but then, Sally Cutler was only a Riley by marriage. Riley tradition didn’t mean doodleysquat to her, never had. After working her way up to assistant manager at Big Joe Arther’s Motors and playing the organ at the Brushy Creek Church for as long as Callie could remember, Sally had hit menopause. She’d dealt with it by bleaching her hair, eating a lot of soybeans and playing keyboard with a homegrown country rock band who called themselves The Rockin’ Possum.
For the past few years Bain and Sally had taken in every fiddler’s convention and craft show between Galax and Nashville, leaving Callie and Grandpop to take care of each other. Which suited Callie just fine. She’d had her job, and Grandpop had had his garden.
But then last fall Grandpop had passed over. Died in his sleep, peaceful as a dove. And Callie had finally met his sister Romania, and one thing led to another, and now here she was in Texas, of all places.
Manie had told her back when she’d come east to the funeral that her own roots were in Texas, but Callie hadn’t believed it, not for a minute. Her leaves and branches might be in Texas, but Manie’s roots were back in the thick red clay of Yadkin County, North Carolina.
Callie hadn’t mentioned it at the time, but the plan had already started to simmer in her mind when they’d driven around to see all the new development and the old familiar places. Callie was a good planner. So far as she knew, she was the only truly reliable member of her immediate family, because even
