“Of course, it’s good coffee.” April stood up and gathered as much of the canned food into her arms as she could carry. “It was still dark enough that we couldn’t see the man very well, but I’d guess he’s about our age. He was taller than you, and I could see dark hair under his baseball cap. That’s about it.”
“You don’t have to rub it in that I’m not tall,” Flynn said.
“I didn’t say that you were short. I said that Jackson was taller than you,” April said.
“Same difference,” Flynn argued. His dad, who had been touchy about his height, too, was only an inch taller than Flynn.
Nessa could hear them still going at it after they were in the house. She sipped her coffee and watched the morning light slowly turn the dark blobs out there in the distance into individual trees. She could stay right here in Blossom for the rest of her life if she wanted, and peace filled her soul when she thought about doing just that. Before, every time she’d come to Blossom, there had been a dreaded deadline—a week, two weeks at the most, maybe to come back later for just an overnight visit—but today she didn’t have to worry about leaving.
“Your phone has been ringing, stopping, and then ringing again.” Flynn opened the door and crossed the porch. “Can’t imagine who’d be calling any of us this early.” He handed the phone to her and went back inside.
“Hello, Daddy,” she answered on what was probably the eighth or ninth ring, wishing that she’d left her phone turned off.
“Are you in Blossom?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” She was glad that she didn’t have to talk to him face-to-face.
“That court decision isn’t right, and you know it. Mother should have left that property to me since I’m the oldest child. Matthew is too busy chasing women to ever settle down, and Rachel’s been dead since she was sixteen. I would have done something good and right with the place,” Isaac said.
“What makes you think the three of us can’t do something good with it, too, like maybe turn our lives around and get on the right track?” she asked.
“Flynn is just like his daddy. He’ll never settle down to anything. April has always been a problem child like her mother was, and if I thought for one minute that property would make you come back to the arms of this church, I’d be happy.” Isaac had taken on his big, booming preacher tone.
“You know the terms of the will, Daddy,” Nessa said. “We can’t ever sell this place. It says so in the will. Is Mama up and around this morning?” She tried to change the subject.
“She’s at the house, having the church ladies over for prayer group,” Isaac answered. “I’m at the church, practicing my sermon for tonight’s midweek service. You aren’t planning on staying in Blossom and living in that house, are you?”
Nessa shut her eyes and remembered the too many times that she had been made to sit in the front pew of the church and listen to her daddy practice his sermon. If she fell asleep, she’d had to go pray in her room.
“Well?” Isaac said in a stern voice.
“Right now I’m taking it one day at a time. And this day we’re going to start quilting as soon as we all have breakfast.” She avoided his question.
“That was the craziest notion my mother ever came up with,” Isaac growled. “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was losing her mind when she made that will. Too bad the court didn’t agree with me. Making you quilt in order to get a hope chest is downright stupid. What on earth could be in that old piece of junk that would be important enough for any one of you three to follow her orders?”
“Maybe nothing.” Nessa clenched her free hand into a fist and gritted her teeth. “Or maybe she just wanted us to sit still and get to know each other as adults.”
“It’s still a crazy notion,” Isaac said. “Are you planning to spend the whole summer there? Your mother and I are taking a church group to Israel right after Independence Day. We’ve got one place left in the package deal, and we would like it if you would go with us.”
Who dropped out, and do you have to fill the quota to get the deal? she wondered as she shook her head. “Sorry, Daddy, but I am going to spend the summer here. I may even fire up Nanny Lucy’s quilting business. If it does well, I may quit my job in Turkey,” she said, and she waited for his reaction.
She could almost hear him trying to get words to come out of his mouth. “I love to quilt,” she added. “It makes a song in my heart and peace in my soul.”
“That’s got to be the most insane notion I’ve ever heard!” He yelled so loud that she held the phone out from her ear. “But then I’m not surprised. Every time you went to Blossom, you came home bewitched. It’s that house. It’s got a hold on you.”
Nessa wasn’t a bit surprised. Isaac always raised his voice when he was angry or trying to make someone agree with his viewpoint. “Maybe you should bring your Bible and perform an exorcism over the house.”
“You should have been born to Matthew instead of me.” Isaac’s voice dropped to a whisper, like it did when he was about to explode.
“You were the one that said the house was possessed and had a hold on me.” Nessa knew she should hold her tongue, but she didn’t have the power to shut her mouth. “If it’s all that bad, then why did you want it for a church retreat? Who knows what might have happened to the VIP folks if you’d brought them here? The house might have bewitched them all, and they could have left your church, moved to Blossom, and started growing turnips down by the waterfall.”
“I’m not listening to your sass,” Isaac said, and he ended the call.
Nessa rolled her eyes toward the sky. “Thank you, Nanny Lucy, for giving me a healthy dose of sass. I must learn to use it more often than I already do.” She stood up, picked up the litter in one hand and the pan in the other, and went into the house, but her hands were shaking. Her father would have considered her smart-ass remarks blasphemous. She’d put her foot down before and told him that she wouldn’t marry right out of high school, but she had not talked to him in that tone of voice in a very long time—maybe not since then.
“Y’all ready for breakfast?” she called out. “I’m thinking french toast and bacon. And where does this pan go, April?”
“In the garage,” April answered. “Waylon sleeps out there at night. And count me in for breakfast.”
“I’ll second that. French toast sounds great,” Flynn said. “Do we have to start quilting today? I thought I’d get busy on the rewiring.”
“Only after we quilt for two hours,” April said. “I want to get it finished so I can get out there and find a job. You two might have money in the bank, but I don’t.” She needed structure in her life. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Figure out that she was needed.
“I agree with April about working on the quilt a couple or three hours every morning while it’s a little bit cooler.” Nessa got a loaf of french bread from the pantry and sliced it into thick slabs.
“When we get done with quilting today, I’m going to weed the flower beds. Nanny Lucy would turn over in her grave if she saw how pitiful they look. The roses need to be deadheaded and the lantana pruned back.” April took plates down from the cabinet and set the table.