Page 62 of Make Me Crazy (Loco, Texas 2)

She was so focused on the chest that Jesse’s voice behind her made her jump. She pointed to the boxes by the opening wordlessly and he took several back down.

She turned her full attention back to the chest and lifted the lid. A handmade quilt lay inside, beautifully designed with small squares sewn together. She ran her hand over it and pulled it out of the trunk to find a garment bag underneath. She stood up with the canvas cover and slid the zipper down slowly. White, gauzy fabric appeared as the zipper spread open and she gasped. Afraid to touch it with dusty hands, she closed the bag and set it back inside the trunk with the quilt on top. When Red and Jesse came back upstairs, she asked, “Can you two take this down to my bedroom too, please?”

Red went to grab the handle and groaned. “I’m going to need a four hour massage after today.”

Rand smiled and said, “Well don’t look at me. I’m about to be a married woman.”

Rand stood in front of her mirror and for the first time in her life, she twirled. Her grandmother’s wedding dress. The same dress her mother had worn to her own small affair, and now, it was her turn. It needed a few nips and tucks, but the beautiful satin dress with short sleeves was encased in a layer of lace and pearls. She had also found a veil with the dress, but it was so large it made her look like a ghost and she decided not to wear it. A set of good china and a box of letters were nestled at the bottom, and carefully she removed them. Opening the box, she’d picked up several pictures of her mother with a handsome man in a uniform and looked at the name on all of the postmarked letters. Sgt. Earl Humphries, U.S. Marine Corps.

She’d been surprised to say the least when she’d opened up the first letter and seen them addressed to her mother. She had never asked Earl’s age, but he had to be at least five years older than her mother, if not more. Her mother would have been forty eight this year if she had lived.

The stack of letters started when her mother would have been about seventeen.

Dear Caty-Girl,

I had a dream about you last night, smiling at me so sweetly and asking me how much I missed you. The truth is, darling, I miss you more than I can tell you in a few words. You are the one thing from home I miss. Well, and my dogs, but that’s not exactly romantic is it? I will say that those weeks I spent with you keep me sharp and sane, because I’ve got something more than a crumbling old house to get back to. I’ve got a beautiful brown eyed girl with a heart so sweet, I wonder how in the world I got so lucky. What could a no account like me have done to deserve someone so wonderful waiting and worrying about him?

Its lights out now sweetheart, but I promise to write you again soon.

Missing you like crazy,

Earl

Rand grabbed the next letter and continued reading, surprised by the romantic sentiments Earl wrote, and it was hard for her to think of the crusty old codger being so eloquent. Earl wrote about the first time meeting her

mother, as a freckle faced girl with two braids following him around her daddy’s ranch as he worked. Earl had worked for Granddaddy?

He wrote about seeing her at the Soda Shack while he was visiting on leave when he was twenty seven, how he’d tried not to watch her, until he’d caught her looking at him. So many moments poured out of the one sided conversation. He told her jokes and admitted how scary it was most nights, but her letters got him through it. How he thought about the night she’d snuck over to his house in the pouring rain every time he closed his eyes and told her it had been the best night of his life. Three years’ worth of letters in a shoe box told a story of her mother when she was in love and she was happy, not abused by an awful husband or riddled with cancer. Rand dashed at the tears on her cheeks as she picked up the second to the last letter.

Caty-Girl,

I don’t want you waiting around for me anymore. I’ve got another seven years in and the life of a Marine’s wife is too hard for you. You need to find some nice young man to marry and have a passel of kids. I’ve been selfish, thinking that this would work, but I’ve seen how fast these marriages turn bad, and I couldn’t bear to hurt you. I want you to have a full life, not hopping around the world with me and leaving behind everything you love. I know this will be hard to hear, but you’re young, Caty. You don’t need to spend all your time on military bases by yourself but for a few weeks a year when I’m on leave and raising babies alone. You’ll find someone better than me.

All My best,

Earl

She kept wiping at her eyes as she blubbered, “Oh Earl, you are such an idiot.”

It made sense to her now that a man who had scorned everyone else in this town had acquired a soft spot for a little orphan girl. It had been a puzzle to her much of her life, but she’d only brought it up once.

“Why do you let me come over here? Everybody else is afraid of you.” She’d asked Earl when she was ten.

He’d just given her a grunt and said, “Maybe I just have a soft spot for brown haired nosy hellions.”

She laughed aloud through her tears at the memory and changed out of the white wedding gown and back into a pair of comfy jeans

Jake’s bellow from the front door had her hurrying to zip up the dress and get her clothes back on. Gently, she wrapped the letters that were strewn across the bed back up, placing them in the box and putting it back in the hope chest. “I’m coming.”

She came out of the bedroom to find him unpacking a grocery bag of food, while Red was head first in the fridge rummaging. She wanted to run to him, wrap her arms around his waist and tell him how much she missed him.

Jake looked up from his unpacking and said, “So, Red said you kicked his ass today.”

Red pulled his head out of the fridge, three beers in his hand. “She did, man. Jesse and I smelled like we’d spent nine hours in a gym without air conditioning.”

Rand pretended to sniff. “So that’s what that smell was.”

Red shook up the can of beer and slid it to her. “There you go.”

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