Page 70 of Lightning in a Mason Jar

“And I hope you know that you can count on me. I can’t wait to hear more.”

Whatever he might have said in response was delayed a moment as the PA system crackled to life with a sudden, frantic call for a doctor to the emergency room. The insertion of that tense voice into our quiet conversation reminded me of the life-and-death battle we’d already fought tonight. We needed time to recover from what had happened, and the hospital was a poor place to settle anyone’s nerves.

Before my brain could spiral down that unhealthy path, Russell’s voice was warm in my ear again.

“I want to honor my grandmother’s memory by expanding her network.”

His words stunned me silent for a beat, shock scrambling my thoughts.

“You what?” After tonight’s debacle, I could barely wrap my brain around continuing, much less expanding. I’d spent the last hours looking for ways to scale back and, even then, enlist the aid of my friends with the smaller operation. For now I tried to sidestep a discussion. “We don’t need to decide anything tonight, about that or your career.”

“Winnie,” he said, squeezing my shoulder, “I’m a pretty easygoing fella, but when I decide something, I’m focused. Like the first time I saw you. I knew you were the only woman for me, and I was willing to wait however long it took.”

I skimmed my fingers along his bristly jaw and thought of all the years I’d wasted out of fear. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve this man, but I didn’t intend to squander this second chance we’d been given. “I’m sorry it had to take me so long to realize we should be together.”

“You’re worth the wait,” he said. “You’re my lightning in a bottle, that once-in-a-lifetime event. Difficult. Challenging. And exciting beyond belief.”

“We’re in the South,” I reminded him. “So that should be lightning in a Mason jar.”

His chest rumbled with his laugh, hoarse from the smoke but so very wonderful and familiar. “True enough. Now kiss me good night so we can rest up. We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Nineteen

2025

Packing up decades of memories made in the cabin got tougher rather than easier the higher Bailey Rae stacked boxes to take to the July Fourth farmers’ market. But this would be her last load, for her last market. Motown music played on the porch, a cassette unearthed, along with memories of Russell spinning Winnie around the kitchen. Tomorrow, she would sell the remainder of her wares. Everything else remaining inside the cabin would go to charity—a few well-loved pieces of furniture, the curtains Winnie had sewn, and for good measure, a cookbook left on the counter.

After a final scrubbing of the place, she would be on the road.

Skeeter cast a woeful look her way, sprawled on top of his dog bed. He sure knew how to work the soulful hound dog eye while hiding the icy-blue other one.

June knelt to place a bowl of water beside him before sitting on a sealed box of soy soaps and candles. She fanned herself with an old magazine. “Take a breather, girl, until Keith gets back from the dump with the truck so we can load up for tomorrow. Is there a bee in your bonnet sending you into such a frenzy?”

Bailey Rae traced a finger along the growth marks notched into the doorframe, a safer subject than the reason for the unsettled feeling that had plagued her since her lunch with Martin. “I wish I could havea do-over on so many of those years that I gave Winnie grief. I wasn’t the easiest child to love.”

How tough it must have been for Winnie to raise a surly teen while protecting her from the harsh realities of the lives she’d touched.

June’s fan kept a steady pace to make up for the air conditioner wall unit on its last legs. “I think you were spunky, which was charming. But I understand your point. My early years in Bent Oak were much like yours. I was angry at life and my parents. Winnie was a seasoned veteran when it came to ‘spunky’ by the time you came around.”

Bailey Rae sat on the wood floor, the braided rug already rolled up against the wall for charity. “I always assumed you were an orphan.”

“A more appropriate statement would be that my parents were dead to me.” June forked a hand through her hair. “My folks were heavily into drugs and the whole ‘free love’ scene. Large parties. Guests passed out all over our apartment. Occasionally, one would wander into my room ...”

Bailey Rae gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

She’d suffered her fair share of abuse from Yvonne and her boyfriends, but never that.

Skeeter nudged June’s knee, and her hand drifted to rest on his spine. “At times different relatives would take me in for a while. I tested boundaries often. Sometimes for fun and sometimes to see if the love and protection being provided was conditional.”

“Did you go into foster care?” Bailey Rae asked. “Sorry if I’m being too nosy.”

“Not at all, kiddo,” June answered with a bittersweet smile. “After my parents landed in prison, I was shuttled back and forth from a group home to relatives who pimped me out to pay their rent. The cycle continued until a teacher took notice. I had an early miscarriage in the tenth grade, just before a history final exam.”

Her jaw jutted on the last part, her hand stroking Skeeter faster and faster. Bailey Rae wanted to reach out and hug her hard but understood how sometimes comfort kicked holes in walls that needed to bedismantled one brick at a time. She hugged her own knees instead and stayed silent, listening.

“I told my teacher everything after she found me having a panic attack in the girls’ bathroom. She reached out to a pastor in town with connections to the network.” June motioned at the cabin. “I ended up in Bent Oak. Winnie and Thea helped tutor me until I was ready to take the GED. I got into college ... and here I am.”

Her GED? And now she taught college? “You sure did turn your life into a tribute to that teacher who saved you.”

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