Page 40 of Nothing But It All
“Yes, I’ve seen a bunch of them. Harvey gave me a trunkful of pictures last winter. The kids and I had fun going through them and catching up on Jack’s shenanigans through the years.”
She laughs. “He was a wild one. Such a good boy, though. His mother, Myra, used to bring Jack up here all the time when he was growing up. She used to say that this was the only place she could bring him where she knew he couldn’t get into too much trouble.”
I smile, picking up a cantaloupe and sniffing the blossom end of the fruit.
“Myra and Jack were here all the time,” she says. “Harvey would come up now and then. He worked so much that Myra was mostly a single mother all summer. She was such a nice woman. She passed the summer before you started coming with Jack.”
“I wish I could’ve known her.”
“She would’ve loved you. You remind me a lot of her. Determined. Fierce. You both give as good as you get. I think that’s why those Reed men love you both so much—you don’t take their nonsense lying down.”
I set the fruit down and dust my hands off. “They do have nonsense about them.”
She laughs. “That they do, honey. That they do.”
A smile splits her cheeks as she inspects a jar of honey for a price tag. She nearly glows as she marks something down on her notepad.
“Mrs. Shaw, may I ask you something?”
“Sure, honey. What is it?”
I stand by the counter and lean against it. “How long ago did your husband pass away?”
She sets her pencil down. “Fifteen years ago. He was taken way too young. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Frank.”
“How long were you married?”
“A long damn time.” She laughs, holding a hand on her round stomach. “My Frank was a treat of a man, I’ll tell you. A treat. You know how women are always going on and on about those ... what do they call them? Alpha men?”
I giggle. “Yes.”
“I know you know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen your husband,” she says, tossing me a wink. “Well, my Frank was nothing like that at all. There wasn’t an alpha bone in his body. He was a ... I guess you’d call him a beta male.” She laughs again. “He was as soft spoken and passive as they come. The sweetest damn man you’d ever meet.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Oh, it was.” She goes back to her notepad. “Not a day went by without him telling me he loved me. I miss that. I still wake up some days and expect to have a little note beside my head from him. And when reality hits that I’ll never get another note for as long as I live, some days that’s really hard to get over.”
I watch a wave of emotions pass through her features until the nonchalant Mrs. Shaw I know resurfaces.
She busies herself getting all my items into bags. I don’t try to help, because she’ll smack my hands and tell me to go away. We’ve done this before. Instead, I watch her work and wonder what her life was like with Frank—and what it’s like without him.
“I’m going into town today to get some hamburger and lunch meat,” I say. “Would you like me to bring anything back?”
“Do you have to get anything else?”
“Nope. Just meat. It’s a long story.”
She grins. “My granddaughter, Ava, is going to town this afternoon. Why don’t you just let me know what you want, and I’ll have her bring it back for you.”
“How is Ava?”
“Too cute for her own good.”
I laugh.
“She’s going to the butcher shop,” Mrs. Shaw says. “We just run a tab there, and I go pay it at the end of the month. She can bring me the receipt, and you can just pay me tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
