Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

“Hmm.” Aunt Grace sniffed. “Folks ’round here don’t know a lick about talent. Prudence Jane’s singin’ was looked over by the choir for years.”

Aunt Mercy crossed her arms. “She had the voice of an angel if I ever heard one.”

I was surprised Aunt Mercy could hear anything without her hearing aid. She was still carrying on when Lena began to Kelt with me.

Ethan? Are you okay?

I’m okay, L.

You don’t sound okay.

I’m dealing.

Hold on. I’m coming.

Amma’s face stared out at me from the newspaper, printed in black and white. Wearing her best Sunday dress, the one with the white collar. I wondered if someone had taken that photo at my mom’s funeral or Aunt Prue’s. It could’ve been Macon’s.

There had been so many.

I laid the paper down on the scarred wood. I hated that obituary. Someone from the paper must have written it, not someone who knew Amma. They’d gotten everything wrong. I guess I had a new reason to hate The Stars and Stripes as much as Aunt Grace did.

I closed my eyes, listening to the Sisters fuss about everything from Amma’s obituary to the fact that Thelma couldn’t make grits the right way. I knew it was their way of paying their respects to the woman who had raised my dad and me. The woman who had made them pitcher after pitcher of sweet tea and made sure they didn’t leave the house with their skirts hitched up in their pantyhose when they left for church.

After a while, I couldn’t hear them at all. Just the quiet sound of Wate’s Landing mourning, too. The floorboards creaked, but this time I knew it wasn’t Amma in the next room. None of her pots were banging. No cleavers were attacking the cutting board. No warm food would be coming my way.

Not unless my dad and I taught ourselves how to cook.

There were no casseroles piled up on our porch either. Not this time. There wasn’t a soul in Gatlin who would have dared bring their sorry excuse for a pot roast to mark Miss Amma Treadeau’s passing. And if they did, we wouldn’t have eaten it.

Not that anyone around here really believed she was gone. At least that’s what they said. “She’ll come back, Ethan. ’Member the way she just showed up without sayin’ a word, the day you were born?” It was true. Amma had raised my father and moved out to Wader’s Creek with her family. But as the story goes, the day my parents brought me home from the hospital, she showed up with her quilting bag and moved back in.

Now Amma was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. More than anyone, I knew how that worked. I looked at the worn spot on the floorboards over by the stove, in front of the oven door.

I miss her, L.

I miss her, too.

I miss both of them.

I know.

I heard Thelma walk into the room, a hunk of tobacco tucked under her lip. “All right, girls. I think y’all have had enough excitement for one mornin’. Let’s go on in the other room and see what we can win on The Price Is Right.”

Thelma winked at me and wheeled Aunt Mercy out of the room. Aunt Grace was right behind them, with Harlon James at her feet. “I hope they’re givin’ away one a those iceboxes that makes water all on its own.”

My dad reached for the newspaper and started reading where I left off. “ ‘Memorial services will be held at the Chapel at Wader’s Creek.’ ” My mind flashed on Amma and Macon, standing face to face in the middle of the foggy swamp on the wrong side of midnight.

“Aw, hell, I tried to tell anyone who would listen. Amma doesn’t want a service.” He sighed.

“Nope.”

“She’s fussing around somewhere right now, saying, ‘I don’t see why you’re wastin’ good time mournin’ me. Sure as my Sweet Redeemer, I’m not wastin’ my time mournin’ you.’ ”

I smiled. He cocked his head to the left, just like Amma did when she was on the rampage. “T. O. M. F. O. O. L. E. R. Y. Ten down. As in, this whole thing’s nothin’ but hodgepodge and nonsense, Mitchell Wate.”

This time I laughed, because my dad was right. I could hear her saying it. She hated being the center of attention, especially when it involved the infamous Gatlin Funerary Pity Parade.

My dad read the next paragraph. “ ‘Miss Amma Treadeau was born in Unincorporated Gatlin County, South Carolina, the sixth of seven children born to the late Treadeau family.’ ” The sixth of seven children? Had Amma ever mentioned her sisters and brothers? I only remembered her talking about the Greats.