Page 27 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“Say, Meemaw,” I said as I took a seat at the kitchen table. “What do you remember about Lila Steele?”

“Who?” she asked with a frown.

“Magnolia Steele’s mother.”

She looked puzzled. Then her brow lifted. “You’re talkin’ about Lila Brewer.”

“Was that her maiden name?”

“Yep. She was Celia and Jim Bob’s girl. Took off right after high school, if I remember right.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Do you remember anything about her?”

“She was a quiet girl,” Meemaw said. “I hear that Celia’s granddaughter is around your age, but her mother was older than yours. Probably a decade or more ahead in school. I guess she was probably smack between your mother and me in school.” Which wasn’t a surprise since my mother had me when she was sixteen.

“Do you know if Lila Steele—I mean Brewer—ever had any trouble with anybody?”

She frowned. “What sort of trouble?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to give away too much. “Something that would make her want to leave town after she graduated and never come back.”

“Nope. Idoknow her dad was a snarly man, cantankerous as the day is long. Celia was a saint to put up with him.”

“He was mean?” I asked, my interest piqued.

She nodded. “At the end, and became a drunk to boot. After her younger sister died, I think.”

“Her sister died? Before or after Lila left?”

Pursing her lips, she looked out the back window. Then after a few seconds, she shook her head. “I don’t recall. I want to say around the same time, but I can’t be sure. My memory’s not what it used to be.”

I started to protest, but I’d seen a few signs of slippage myself over the past few months. Then it occurred to me that now was a good opportunity to bring up some questions I’d been wanting to ask since I’d come back to Sweet Briar. I’d never known who my father was. Nobody ever talked much about my baby and toddler years, and I had plenty of questions.

“Was Momma wild back in high school?”

Meemaw arched her back and rolled her eyes. “As wild as a cougar on a hot plate. She was born that way. Came out of the womb screamin’ and rarely stopped. Wanted the spotlight.”

“Is that why she put me in all those pageants when I was a baby?”

She gave me a sorrowful look. “She wanted to be in pageants when she was a girl, but I wasn’t havin’ any part of that. The hair and the dresses. It was a lot of pomp and circumstance, not to mention the frivolous expense. After she had you, she put you in a pageant before you could even walk.”

When I was nine months old. She’d used the pageants as a springboard to an acting career in Hollywood.

“Where’d she get the money?” I asked. “Did she have a job?”

“She worked at the Dairy Bar on the edge of town. It wasn’t like she was doin’ her homework after school, and she had little interest in you other than when she put you in a pageant. Your aunt Merilee and I mostly raised you until Bea married Burt when you were six. And then when your momma got tired of playin’ house with you, she’d dump you off, and you’d spend most of your days with your cousins.”

Meemaw shook her head as though she was remembering things she didn’t want to. “Bea graduated by the skin of her teeth, and your pawpaw had to fight her tooth and nail to get her to stick it out. Offered to give her five hundred dollars if she could show him a diploma, so she did. He always seemed to have a way with her I never had.” A soft look filled her eyes, an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on her face, which wasn’t surprising given that she’d faced a lot of hardship in her life. “But that was nothin’ compared to his relationship with you.”

A lump filled my throat. I had many fond memories of my grandfather. I’d never had a father in my life, but he’d filled the void and then some.

“I think your pawpaw thought she’d use the money for something practical, but she used it to buy you pageant dresses and makeup. I thought he was gonna snatch your momma bald. You were needing clothes and shoes, and your momma spent it on frivolous nonsense.” Her eyes tightened, her face strained. “Then your momma married Burt and we hoped she’d settle down and be a good mother to you.”

“Did she?”

“At first,” she said, putting all her weight into the dough. “Burt was a serious man, and he had a good job. He was slightly older than Bea and seemed to ground her. She even cooled it with the pageants, but then someone commented on how you’d stopped makin’ the pageant rounds and some other local girl was winnin’ ’em. Well, your momma couldn’t have that goin’ on in her backyard. So she hit the pageants full force, and you were miserable. You hated those things with a passion. Then your momma started droppin’ you off with us more and more, and your pawpaw told me he wanted to try to legally adopt you so we could be in charge of your life and put a stop to all that nonsense. He was certain she’d agree to it if we paid her enough money.”

My jaw dropped. This was the first I’d heard any of that. “She didn’t agree?”

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