Contemporary Women's Fiction: Agnes Hopper Shakes Up Sweetbriar (Humorous Women's Fiction) (27 page)

“You said all that?”

“Yep. Isn’t that what you would’ve done?”

“Well, come to think of it—”

“There’s one other thing. I told Alice you would read some Scripture
to her, and the two of us would sing her a song. I don’t know if she can still hear us, but I’d like to think so.”

“Me? Sing? I love music, but I sound like a donkey with a bellyache.”

“Come on, Sis. You can do this for Alice.”

I took the Gideon Bible out of the bedside table. “What should I read?”

“Well, let’s see. One passage Alice especially likes is in Zephaniah.”

I thumbed through the Bible, searching. “I know that’s Old Testament, but where?”

“Near the end. She loved chapter three, verse seventeen. I could nearly quote it, I’ve heard it so many times, but you go ahead and read it. She liked to hear you read.”

I found the verse that meant so much to Alice, and even though I didn’t recall ever seeing it before, the words were a great comfort.

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.

Yes, our Lord is mighty indeed. I thanked him for watching over Alice.

A few moments of silence passed before Smiley started to sing. I joined him and gave it my best attempt. We sang “I Come to the Garden Alone,” one of Alice’s favorites.

Afterward, we hugged each other and cried, but we didn’t have great weeping filled with sorrow. We both knew our friend would soon be having a celebration in her Father’s mansion.

Smiley asked for a few moments alone, and while I waited for him in the hallway, a nurse entered the room. When she came out, she shook her head and said what I already knew.

“She has slipped away, very peacefully.”

Smiley joined me right after that, looking pale as a bedsheet. When he pulled his handkerchief out to blow his nose, he was trembling all over. I waited for a moment, but then I put my arms around him and patted his back. “I know you’ll miss Alice something fierce. She was one fine lady.”

He nodded, blew his nose again, and said, “She told me not to be sad, but I can’t help it.”

“She understands and the good Lord does too. You’ve got to give yourself some time.”

He nodded again and let out a quivery sigh. “Thanks, Sis. I could
never have done this without you.”

We made it to the elevator and I pushed the button. “It was God’s plan that got us here before she passed. Couldn’t have happened without him.”

Smiley’s watery Coke had been tossed in a trashcan, so I said, “Let’s stop by the hospital’s coffee shop and rest a bit before we catch our bus. Besides, with what we’ve got facing us, both of us need some nourishment.”

We found an empty booth right away and ordered breakfast since neither of us had been able to eat earlier. The coffee was strong and hot—just what I needed. Smiley liked his cool, with lots of cream and sugar. He poured little bits in his saucer to slurp. He seemed relieved of a great burden now that his Alice was no longer suffering.

When our food arrived, Smiley dug in, but I buttered biscuits and grits, peppered eggs, and arranged my bacon. As I fixed everything to my liking, I said, “I knew Alice only a short while, but I’ll always remember her saying, ‘When I die, don’t you come around here with a sad face. Remember the good times.’ Tell me about some of those good times. That’s what I like to do when I think of my Charlie.”

Smiley glanced up, looking lost in his thoughts. He laid down his fork and pushed his nearly empty plate aside. His dark eyes had turned soft and watery with remembering.

“Alice was the kindest person I’ve ever known, next to my Lucinda. Never had a bad thing to say about anybody, even if they deserved it—even that man who didn’t marry her like he should’ve. Or that couple who gave her money, took her baby, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Even them. Alice never turned bitter, never shook her fist at God and demanded answers like I would have. No sir, she forgave them all. Even Miss Johnson.”

“Miss Johnson?”

“When Alice first came to Sweetbriar Manor, she brought her liquor, of course, and all kinds of pills, prescriptions included. Well, you-know-who discovered the hard stuff first. Made Alice pour it out. All of it. Said she had to keep the empties as a reminder. After that, Alice hid her pills everywhere you could imagine. Sometimes she took too many. Then she started drinking Nyquil at night, along with some pills.”

While Smiley slurped the remainder of his coffee, I waited, knowing he had more to say.

“That’s not what killed her, though. She was dying of cancer and
she knew it. But she had to sneak around to find some comfort, and I blame Miss Johnson for not allowing her any peace. And taking Alice’s money? That’s mighty low. That woman is the most mean-spirited—”

“I know,” I said, reaching out to cover his hand with both of mine. “We’re going to give her all she deserves.” I wanted to reassure this dear man, though I didn’t yet know for sure how it would happen.

“Tell me about—”

“The good times?”

I nodded.

“Well, Sis, it’s like this.” As Smiley doctored his fresh cup of coffee, he continued. “Alice and me? We were never an item, like you might think. I always had hopes, but that never happened. I looked after her, best I could, and we became comfortable with each other don’tcha know. Both of us had trouble sleeping, so lots of nights we would meet in the garden unless Alice had taken something. I would always be there first, waiting.”

“What about the alarm?”

“Found out how to disarm that blame thing. Wasn’t hard.”

“You did? Didn’t know you could be so, so—”

“Sneaky?”

“Well, resourceful or adventurous might be a better word.”

“No, I can be sneaky if I think it’s justified. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Maybe things you wouldn’t want to know, if the truth be told. But then maybe that’s for the best. Sometimes making new friends gives us a chance for a new start.”

“You sound like—”

“Alice?”

I nodded and he smiled. That smile of his lit up his face and that warmed my heart, in spite of my best intentions. It would be necessary to keep my distance since my time at Sweetbriar Manor was most likely coming to a close. No sense becoming too friendly with a man and then leaving him all in the same day—unless I could find a way to take him along.

He added more sugar to his coffee. “Yes, well, I have to admit that when Alice Chandler spoke, I listened. Our best times were in that garden late at night. We would sit on a bench near the fountain, and if the air was cool or damp, she’d let me slip my arm around her shoulder. Sometimes I even held her hand.”

He hesitated and I nodded for him to go on.

“She did most of the talking. Not so much in the quotes you heard when everybody was around, but sometimes she’d wonder out loud about her little boy and what kind of man he had grown up to be. Said she prayed for him and for his mother and daddy every day. Only Alice would pray for that preacher and his wife who never kept their promise to stay in touch.”

Smiley fished a clean hanky out of his back pocket and wiped his eyes. “Those were the good times. In the garden … at night … alone. Before Alice got so sick she had to take pain pills and started sleeping a lot.”

“Do you have any thoughts about her funeral?”

“She has every detail planned.”

“Expected as much.”

“You can help me get it all lined up, can’t you?”

“Certainly,” I answered with assurance, hoping I’d be around long enough to do it.

“Also need to contact a Tom Thompson, her lawyer,” Smiley added. “She told me he could be trusted and to follow everything he said to the letter.”

“That sounds mysterious. Why would she have a will? I thought she was practically penniless, except for the money in that old box in her closet.”

“I don’t know what that means either.” He frowned. “I’m just telling you what she said.”

“You don’t have to get snippy,” I shot back as I stood and snatched our bill from the table. “Leave a generous tip. Waiting tables is hard work.”

I left Smiley fumbling with his billfold, headed to the cashier, and nearly crashed into Miss Johnson.

“I thought you people might be in here. Virgil, I mean Mr. Snoddy’s Funeral Home, called me about Alice. They’re ready whenever I say so. Did you talk to her or is she still in a coma? Did she say anything at all?”

At first I ignored her questions. I had some of my own. “Virgil and Earl Snoddy? Those brothers and their mortuary? Alice has an angel army standing guard. And besides, she left specific instructions.
Written
instructions, I might add, for her funeral, and they didn’t include the Snoddy brothers.” I didn’t know that for a fact, but I’d heard questionable things about that place, and Alice was not going there if I had anything to do with it.

“Well, Virgil and Earl have always been most gracious to take care of any of our residents at a moment’s notice.”

“Always on standby, so to speak,” I said under my breath. Then I added, just to stir things up, “Alice was fully aware of our visit, and Smiley had a lengthy conversation with her before I got there. You might ask him if she had anything more to say.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll do that,” she said, looking as nervous as a cat in an alley full of bulldogs.

S
miley joined us, and I excused myself to pay for our breakfast—which he never offered to help with. When the three of us were standing outside the hospital in the hot sun, I could hardly contain myself. I had to know how Smiley handled his encounter with the director.

“What time is it?” I asked, squinting at my watch.

“Nearly ten,” Miss Johnson answered before Smiley could open his pocket watch.

“No,” he said, snapping his watch shut. “You’re slow. It’s exactly 10:02.”

“Either way,” I said, “we’ve got a good thirty minutes before our bus. You reckon Roses would have any Vick’s Salve? I’m fresh out.”

Dark eyes glared at me. “I’m headed back
now
. You people can have a ride, but I can’t wait around for you to shop. With Alice’s passing, I’ve got my plate full.”

I knew she wasn’t making the offer to give us a ride out of kindness. She probably wanted to get us all to herself so she could find out how much we knew about her shenanigans.

“You go on ahead,” I said as I opened my umbrella against the hot sun. “We need to pick up several items, and we certainly don’t want to keep you from your duties, do we, Smiley?”

He stopped fanning himself with his straw hat. “Certainly not.”

“What time is our meeting this afternoon?” I knew, but there was some other information I wanted this woman to know.

“Have you already forgotten? Three o’clock—and don’t be late. I hope you’ve decided what you’re going to say for yourself.”

“I have some things in mind. I think some other people do also. Your little office may not be large enough to hold us.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

I pulled Smiley across the street to Roses, turned and waved, and smiled my best smile. We left her there looking dumbfounded before she huffed around and headed for the hospital’s parking lot. We stepped inside the store where it was a sight cooler.

“Sis,” Smiley said after checking his watch again, “it’s 10:18.”

“That’s okay. I’ll shop another time. Now tell me before I bust. What did you say to that woman about Alice?”

“I told her that most of what Alice and I discussed was of a personal nature, and that I was sure she would not be interested. I told her we didn’t talk about the five hundred dollars that had gone missing, but you were filing a report with the sheriff.”

“How did you know I was going to do that very thing?”

He smiled, puffed out his chest, and thumbed his suspenders. “Didn’t know, Sis, but I figured you would. Got to bring the law in so we can get this mess straightened out.”

I hugged Smiley so hard I nearly knocked him off his feet.

We straightened ourselves without falling, just as Lollipop and his brother passed us on their way outside. Lollipop turned and waved. I raised my hand in reply.