Caro sat outside of the kitchen.
“Good. Stay right there.” Ada held her hand up at her. “You’re too tall to be in here right now.” She went into the fridge for the romaine lettuce and tomatoes. She’d already grilled the chicken, and next, she’d slice it for the salad.
“I still can’t believe somebody gave me all that money for school. Myrtle won’t tell me who it is, and Beau swears he doesn’t know, but I can’t tell if he’s just a good liar,” Caro said.
“I’m so excited for you, no matter who it is,” Ada said, going in the knife drawer.
“So, should I remind Beau that I turn eighteen next week?” Caro asked.
Ada started chopping but stopped to check Caro’s coconut cake in the oven. “Looks almost ready. And yes. Get a T-shirt that says OF LEGAL AGE right across your boobs in big red letters with an arrow pointing up at your face and another arrow pointing down at your itsy-bitsy, Caroline,” Ada said. “I’m serious. Well, half-serious. Let’s throw a party at the lake house and invite him, and I’ll order a big one balloon and a big eight balloon, and we’ll tie them to the posts out front. He won’t miss that. He probably has his own countdown going.”
“He does not,” Caro said, shaking her head.
“Do you want me to throw you this party or not? You’d said something about having a small one, but let’s have a huge one. Everything’s been so sad lately. Let’s make it happy,” Ada said.
“Okay,” Caro said.
“Okay!” Ada said. “Now get your bony ass in here and pull the cake out of the oven, please.”
Ada was extra excited about the party since that meant she could plan two birthday parties back-to-back. First Caro’s, then hers. Anything to take her mind off Kasey and Kasey’s mom and her own mom was a win.
The week before, Holly Plum had drunk one and a half bottles of red and tripped over the puppy and fallen down their front steps, throwing her back out so bad she needed surgery. She’d been laid up, high on pain pills, and although they had a nurse and a maid and plenty of help if they wanted, Ada and her dad had been doing everything the maid didn’t do. So, Ada had been either going to the restaurant to get meals or making them all herself in their kitchen.
She heard Grayson and Silas walk up the deck steps, meaning that soon there would be more tall people filling the room. She chopped faster.
2019
33
Kasey
As predicted, on Thursday night there was a small tornado in Adora Springs that uprooted some old trees and tore part of the roof off a high school. On Friday morning, Kasey was out by the lake behind the farmhouse—mostly for the fresh air and distraction—moving some smaller branches away from the big ones that had fallen during the storms. The water would rise soon. She envisioned herself a few hours into the future, down there with Trey, luring him closer and closer until he was wet and wetter, going under. She wondered if she’d have to hold his head, if he’d make a lot of noise. If Nosy Nancy would be able to hear him yell. She remembered all the times Roy yelled. All the times her mom screamed. No one seemed to care.
Her mom had told her that after he finished building it, her dad said the farmhouse felt like the only farmhouse in the world. That was what her daddy meant it to be, and there was something hidden and untouchable about it.
That was the attitude Kasey had to keep if she was going to do this right.
“This is the only farmhouse in the world,” she said aloud to no one.
She heard Silas say, “Hey, Fritz,” and turned to see him walking across the grass. She was relieved he wasn’t in his uniform for reasons directly related to murder and prison.
“Hey, Castelow,” she said. He got next to her and pulled a big broken branch out of the tree, down to the grass. She thanked him.
“I’ll finish doing this. I can bring the truck back later today and take care of it for you.”
“Not today, no. Don’t worry about it. Later this weekend, maybe?” she said, not wanting to be too weird about it, but she definitely couldn’t have Silas popping up tonight.
“All right. Sounds good,” Silas said. “Do you know when you’re going back to New York? You’re hanging around until Caro’s out of the hospital?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I have a ton of vacation days saved up, and I can work from home a lot and make my own hours anyway,” she said. She’d had a conference call with a few of her coworkers that morning, and she was grateful everyone was so understanding about everything. She’d told them a little about the farmhouse, a little about Caroline. One coworker went above and beyond and even ordered flowers from Plum Florals and had them delivered to Caro’s hospital room.
“Your man’s not stressing yet?” Silas asked.
“My man,” Kasey said with a snicker. She thought of Trey calling Devon her man when he’d asked about him at the wedding reception. When Trey said it, it was annoying. When Silas said it, it was cute. She’d taken her engagement ring off. When she looked down at her bare finger, Silas did too. “He’s fine. He’s very patient and busy. He has plenty of things to do with his brain.”
“Right. Well, I heard Beau tried to beat Trey’s ass in the hospital parking lot yesterday. Were you there for that?” Silas asked.
“Yep. I wish he had.”
“Grayson wants to kill Trey too. I mean, he wants to forreal kill him. I had to stop him from coming into the police station the other night when Trey was there.”
“Okay, so, I guess y’all need a sign-up sheet for people who want to kill Trey Foxberry, and go ahead and put everybody but his mama on that list,” Kasey said, with ice water in her veins. She wondered what time it was. Trey wasn’t coming over until nine, because he had to go to the distillery in Jesse County.
Maybe he’d die in a car wreck on his way. Her daddy died in a car wreck; the drunk driver died too. If her daddy could die in a car wreck, so could Trey.
“This cop buddy of mine wants to kill him too. He and another guy are taking shifts at the hospital, watching and making sure Trey doesn’t try anything with Caro. Although, he’d have to get past Mimi first, I know,” Silas said, letting out a short, breathy laugh.
She loved when he laughed like that after making a dumb joke. She remembered it from high school, and she remembered it from the other night when he came by the hotel, the night before Trey put Caro in the hospital. They’d had two beers and shared a small plate of devils on horseback in the bar downstairs—all swank with bare, hanging lightbulbs. They played two rounds of pool and listened to Neil Young and Aaliyah. P!nk and Gorillaz. James Brown and Kings of Leon and the Notorious B.I.G. and Kenny Chesney. Kasey’s mind was full of worry about Caro, and Silas knew that. He distracted her by telling her more funny stories about the Goldie stuff she missed over the past fifteen years.
What really happened to Katie Brunswick’s houseboat last summer and how the insurance company didn’t believe the lie. How Stanley Morrison saved a man’s life in Myrtle’s Diner when he choked on a meatball. Why the mayor ordered the fountain in the town square to remain empty for the second half of 2012. Silas had done The Smile and his breathy laugh then too. He’d smelled so good—woodsmoke and apples—like he always did. Once, when she was bending over to aim at the corner pocket, he walked behind her, and someone accidentally bumped him. My bad, Castelow, the guy said. No worries was Silas’s reply. Kasey felt the warmth of the front of Silas’s thigh on the back of hers and he said, Sorry, Kase, touching her shoulder. She denied herself the pleasure of pushing her body against him. To tell him she remembered. She remembered everything.