Dust by Eva Everson (epub e reader .TXT) 📕

heard Westley say, “—thought I’d talk to her about it tonight, but wanted to clear it first with you, sir.”

Daddy cleared his throat to answer as I stepped into the room. “Clear what?” I asked.

Westley smiled broadly and stood, then walked over to me and kissed my cheek. “You look incredible,” he said.

I felt Mama’s smile clear across the room; I hardly had to look to see the gloat on her face. But I gave her a wink to ease the tension. “Mama insisted on a dress,” I said. Then, “So, what were you talking about?”

Westley took my hand in his and returned us to sit on the opposite end of the sofa from where Mama perched. “My brother and his wife have invited us to their place in Baxter next weekend.” His eyes found mine, drawing me into a desire I thought would slay me on the spot and right there in front of my mama and daddy. My breath became so ragged I wondered if they were aware of the sheer discomfort pushing its way through me, especially with them occupying the same room.

It seemed to me that since Westley had proposed I’d felt a greater desire to be his wife than I ever imagined. And, at that moment, it also seemed that December seventeenth was a million years away.

“For what?” I finally said.

A smile as warm as liquid sunshine danced between us. “I think they just want to get to know you better.”

I looked at my father, waiting for his reaction. “What are their names again?” he asked.

“My brother is Paul, sir. His wife is DiAnn. You’ll meet them, of course, at the wedding.”

The thought of meeting my future brother- and sister-in-law in five short days tightened my stomach. What I knew of them was vague. From what Westley had told me, they both had cushy jobs and lived in a lakefront house. They owned a boat, which they enjoyed taking out on the water most weekends and during the long summer evenings. Paul and DiAnn had been cut from the same cloth, he’d said. Both enjoyed the out-of-doors as much as they loved being inside curled in front of a crackling fire, reading a good book. They were both college-grad smart, but laughed easily at the silliest of things, never making those not nearly as smart feel inadequate. A thought that relieved me to no end. “You’ll really like them,” he’d told me, and I believed it because Westley had said it and I took his every word as gospel.

“I don’t know them,” I said to my parents then, as if that settled everything. “But Westley—”

“Baxter is about four hours from here,” Daddy noted. “What are your plans, then?”

Westley released my hand, leaned forward, and placed his elbows on his knees. “Well, sir … I thought we’d drive over on Friday after work—maybe get off a little early if we can—” He glanced at me, then back to my father. “Paul and DiAnn have a large home, sir. Plenty of room.” Westley’s chuckle fell more inward than out and came without the good sense to blush in the slightest. “What I’m saying is, Ali will have her own room. Her virtue is safe with me, sir. I can assure you of that.”

Ali. A name he’d never called me previously, but one by which he’d refer to me from that moment on. A name that lent itself to an intimacy far more exquisite and frightening than we’d experienced on any level up until that moment.

I blinked until my gaze settled on my shoes, a clunky pair of platforms I’d purchased the same day as the dress, their colors complementing each other.

“And you’ll be back Sunday?”

“Yes, sir,” Westley answered. I looked to where my father sat, seemingly relaxed under the notion of his virgin child taking a cross-state trip with her fiancé.

“Mama?” he said then, looking at my mother as though her opinion mattered, even while we all knew that Daddy had the final say in moments like these.

“I’m sure we can trust them,” she said. “After all, they’ll be married soon.”

“Well then,” Daddy concluded. “I don’t see why not.”

And with those words, I unknowingly headed into the rest of my life.

Chapter Five

Sometime after my thirteenth birthday, my father’s parents moved from Georgia to Florida. I never completely understood why—something about my grandmother’s oldest sister’s husband dying and them needing to be closer to her.

Until then, once a month, my parents, sister, and I piled into Daddy’s sedan and drove an hour and a half to their farmhouse. Julie and I spent our time in the backseat drawing an imaginary line and then daring the other to cross it. “This is your half,” Julie said to me. “This is mine. Do not enter into my half.”

Then Julie looked out the window to the world beyond while I dove headfirst into the first in a pile of books that took up most of my foot room.

Being at my grandparents’ was an adventure. A vacation from life as I knew it. The rooms of the old farmhouse wrapped around one another. There were secret nooks and crannies and a two-sided wrap-around front porch decked out with a wooden swing at one end, a wrought iron glider at the other, and plenty of rockers in between. My grandparents were retired tobacco farmers, so ashtrays on stands stood in wait between several of them, typically filled with scrunched cigarette butts and graying ashes. The front porch always smelled of old tobacco and roses, my grandmother’s favorite flower. In the spring and summer months the sweet taste of gardenias lay over them both, which made me nearly intoxicated.

My grandmother—whom we called Granny—had placed an outdoor chaise lounge in the corner of the porch where one side met the other. It boasted blue floral vinyl cushions Granny could wash down with soap and water after rain showers left their muddy and dusty remains. If ever I had a favorite