Page 53 of The Party Line

“Slow down, girl. Of course I’ll come help you. Just give me an address, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Thank you so, so much. The address is ...” She rattled off a place I didn’t recognize.

“Hold on just a minute. Now, repeat that address.” I plugged it into the map app on my phone. “I’ve got it now, and we’ll get you moved out long before noon. Looks like I can get there in ten minutes.”

“I’m all packed and ready to go,” she said. “I’ll be waiting on the steps.”

I picked up my purse, went out to Jasper’s place, and told him where I was going, then got into my SUV. “Looks like the Ides of March is in full swing. WWAGD?”

What in the devil is that?the pesky voice in my head asked.

“What Would Aunt Gracie Do?” I said out loud, and then the answer came to me. She would let Gina Lou drive the SUV when she needed it. I could always drive the Ford in the garage.

“Whether I like it or not,” I said as I made the turn toward Poteet.

Everything happens for a reason.Her voice was as clear as if she’d been sitting right beside me.

“I miss you so much,” I whispered. “Sometimes the memories and the voices in my head aren’t enough. I want to hug you, and sit at the table for breakfast with you, and make Christmas cookies with you.”

Aunt Gracie had painted a vivid picture for me when she told me about the evening she went to bring Mama to Ditto. That memory went through my mind when I saw Gina Lou sitting on her porch with garbage bags all around her. She was moving to Ditto in about the same shape as my mother had been when Aunt Gracie rescued her.The difference was that Mama didn’t stay in Gracie’s house very long. She went to her own place the very next day and made a home for me in the little four-room place.

I popped open the hatch and got out. “Is this all of it?”

“Every single bit, and I left the place clean, so I should get my deposit back.”

“Where’s your car?” I slid a box as far back as I possibly could.

“Daddy dragged it out to my folks’ house last night with his vehicle. It’s toast, but since I’ll be living with you, I won’t need it except ...”

“Except when?” I asked.

“Annie’s closes at three on Sunday, and I try to go to church with my folks that evening. Daddy picks up all the overtime he can, so they don’t often get to go on Sunday morning,” she answered. “It takes both of our vehicles to get us all to church, and now I don’t have one.”

“You can take my car anytime you need it,” I told her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Lord, girl, I thought you had only been out of high school a year or two.”

“Nope,” she said with a smile. “I’ve been working for Annie since I was sixteen, and probably would be until I retire if she hadn’t sold the café. I saved my money and bought my car when I was seventeen. That reminds me—I should drop the insurance on Monday. I can give that money to Mama to help with what my sister Stephanie needs for her high school graduation.”

I’d never had to think about those kinds of things when I was her age. Aunt Gracie bought me a good used car when I was sixteen and paid the insurance until six months after I’d finished my education. I felt like I had entered the adult world when I traded that vehicle in for the SUV that I was still driving.

I didn’t realize I had been woolgathering until it was time to turn down the lane to Aunt Gracie’s house. Someday maybe I would be ableto think of it as mine, but it had been hers my whole life and probably would be for a few more years.

“Do you have a list of things you want me to do when we get unloaded?” Gina Lou asked.

I parked in my usual spot and flung open the door. “Like I told you before, you’ve got the weekend to get settled in, and then we’ll start to work on Monday.”

“What are you going to do today?” she asked.

“First, I’m going to help you get all your stuff hauled upstairs. Then I’m going out to the strawberry fields.” That was another impulsive thing, but maybe Jasper had been right. I could learn the business by January and then make up my mind if I wanted to stay with it.

“What’s going on out there?” she asked as she got out of the SUV and grabbed two bags from the back.

I stacked one box on top of the other and picked them both up. “I have no idea, but I’m going to learn.”

“Why?”

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