hand over his father’s. He’d forgotten what it was like to touch him, even in the smallest way. His father never approved of hugs—too frivolous he’d always said.
“Mr. Wilder?” a voice came from the hallway, startling him.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Nelly Washington, his father’s cook, stood in the doorway looking at him, her eyes wide. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, that’s all right. Come in. And Nelly, when are you going to start calling me Sam? ”
Nelly let a tremulous grin cross her face.
“I know my father insisted on these formalities, but as you can see, he’s no longer with us. You’re welcome to call me Sam.”
“All right. I wanted to tell you that the housekeeper went on home earlier today, but I’ll be here if you need me.”
“I’m glad. Please come in.”
“I’m sorry about your daddy.”
“Thanks.”
Nelly took a few steps inside the room as if she were walking on shards of glass.
“Are you afraid?”
“No, sir . . . Sam. I just know Mr. Wilder wouldn’t want me in here. This was the housekeeper’s domain. Not the cook’s.”
“That no longer matters. Will you wait with me until Edward and Jerald come from the funeral home?”
“Okay. I’ll stay.” Nelly walked toward him and then went to stand on the other side of the bed. She crossed her arms over her ample middle as if it were armor for protection. After a few moments her dark skin glistened with perspiration. They stood in silence for a moment, and then Sam said, “My father didn’t treat you well, did he?”
Nelly pursed her lips and said, “My momma always told me it wasn’t right to talk ill of the dead, and I happen to agree with her.”
“I understand.” Sam looked at his father one more time, memorized the moment, even though it wasn’t something he wished to remember, and picked up the corner of the bed sheet. “Do you mind lifting the other side?”
“Of course.”
Together they raised the sheet and covered the body of his father, the man known to everyone as Mr. Percy Robert Wilder, and a man he’d never really known.
Nelly took a tissue from the belt of her uniform and daubed at her face. “Kind of warm in here.”
“Yes.” Sam stepped toward the foot of the bed and Nelly followed. “I hope you’ll consider staying on here as our cook. I’d give you a very generous raise. I’m sure whatever my father was paying you wasn’t nearly enough. I intend to make amends for him.”
Nelly worked her finger back and forth on her lips. “Well, are you and Miss Audrey going to live here in this house?”
“You don’t like this place either, do you?”
“Not since the day I first set foot in it.”
“And that was a long time ago. I know Mary, the housekeeper, is new, but you’ve been here since . . . ”
“Ever since y’all moved to the Middlebury area. Can’t recall what made y’all move out here.”
“My father said he wanted to get away from the city. Too many people and too much noise. I didn’t like the idea at first, but then later I found plenty of reasons to love the area and the town.” Sam tightened his grip on the bedpost. “There are a lot of memories.”
“I got one for you,” Nelly said. “Maybe you don’t remember, but one time you saved my life. I’d taken a spill in the old root cellar out back and busted myself up pretty badly. If you hadn’t come looking for me, I mighta died down there in that awful place. I’m sure you nearly broke your back trying to haul me up them steps.” She chortled. “And you stayed with me in the hospital. Wouldn’t leave my side. Not even when your daddy called you and told you to come on back home. Do you remember?”
“I do.”
“You were a little bit of a hero to me that day, and I knew then you’d grow up to be a fine man.”
“Not like my father, I guess you mean,” Sam said.
“Now I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to say it, Nelly.”
“I will add this . . . you was always respectful to your father like it commands in the Good Book, but you weren’t afraid to stand up to him when it really counted. When it meant watching out for somebody else.”
“I’m afraid these years have put too much of a glow on your memory of me,” Sam said. “I’m no saint.”
“You’re right about that. Nobody is . . . ’cept for maybe my momma.” Nelly grinned.
“Do you mind if I ask why you stayed so long when I know it must have been very difficult working for my father?”
“Well, it was good honest work, and sometimes in bad times that’s hard to come by. I put it in my mind to stay.”
“That shows a sign of good character.”
“Or a lack of good sense.” Nelly raised an eyebrow.
“You won’t convince me of it.”
She daubed at her forehead again. “I had some friends over the years who kept quitting their jobs over problems with their employers or coworkers and such, and then they’d get into a new job and it’d happen all over again. Lots of reasons to leave. Never enough reasons to stay. My momma always said you could come and go your life away, so I decided that wasn’t how I wanted to live. I thought I’d stay with Mr. Wilder even if it meant I could only find one good reason to be here.”
Sam grinned. “And do you mind if I ask what that reason was?”
“God hasn’t revealed it to me yet, but as soon as he does you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’d be honored.” Sam motioned to the couch against the wall. “Shall we?”
Once they’d settled on the couch, Sam said, “I don’t think I’d want to live here. Too much history in this house . . . too many secrets. Not enough attention to faith or family. Audrey and I haven’t talked about it yet, but I’d like to buy a different house out here in the country. Maybe a little closer to Middlebury than this one. And I doubt I’ll take any of my father’s furnishings or artifacts with me.”
Sam surveyed the room. Even though his father hadn’t cluttered the bedroom with furniture, he did have one of his treasures displayed on the wall. But it certainly wasn’t his treasure. An idea solidified in Sam’s mind. He rose from the couch and lifted an elegantly framed Confederate flag off the wall. He would put the emblem in Nelly’s charge now, since for years, she’d had to deal with the not-so-hidden implications of it. Sam offered it to her. “Please take
