Page 75 of Lightning in a Mason Jar

Chives, flowering the most beautiful purple that would return year after year.

Sinking back on her heels once she had it well situated and watered, she reached into her pocket and pulled out two rocks, placing one on each marker before pocketing two loose stones from the ground. Bailey Rae surrendered to the battle with tears and said farewell to the only real parents she’d ever known.

2019

A part of me died the day Russell left this earth. I felt like one of those swans that mated for life, then grieved themselves to death after the lossof that partner. I’d known Russell and I wouldn’t have forever, and that our time had been cut shorter by the accident that night of the fire. He’d lived longer than the doctors expected.

But I wasn’t ready to let him go.

Over the past three weeks, I’d spent most of my time outside in the rocker because it made me feel closer to Russell. He’d wanted to see one more sunset, so I’d helped him into his wheelchair. We’d sat on our porch and fallen asleep under the stars, listening to hoot owls. When I’d woken that spring morning, he’d slipped away in his sleep.

Most days, I felt like I was sleeping too, caught in a fog halfway between this world and heaven. I hadn’t been able to do anything. I’d stopped helping out the network. Quit tilling the ground for my garden. I barely ate when someone placed a plate in front of me. Thankfully, my friends were keeping an eye on Bailey Rae. They understood something inside me had broken.

A creak on the bottom step jarred me. My eyes snapped open, and my ears tuned in to the echo of a Carolina wren chirping.

Libby climbed the wooden stairs with a baking dish in her hands. “Spaghetti casserole. You can freeze it if you’re overwhelmed with food from other people. I would have gotten here sooner, but when I finished at the grocery store this afternoon, I couldn’t find my car in the lot.”

“Thank you,” I said, the words coming up my throat like shattered glass from one of my old projects. “Bailey Rae has been bringing food home from the Fill ’Er Up after her shift.”

Selling the gas station had been rough for Russell, even more so than parceling off acreage. He’d worried about leaving me without an income. I told him I’d learned a long time ago how much more people mattered than money or things. I bit back a fresh sob that wanted out.

Libby ducked inside to put the casserole in the freezer before taking a seat beside me in the other rocking chair. She eased her graying braid from behind her and draped it over her shoulder. “It’s a good thing you’re sitting outdoors, because you need to take a shower something fierce, my friend.”

I didn’t even want to look in a mirror. I knew what I would see. A woman mad with grief. “Back before Bent Oak, when people said I was crazy, I knew deep in my soul they were wrong.”

“They were,” Libby said with surety.

“But I think this time ...” My voice cracked, and I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, shivering in spite of the spring warmth. “I’m broken, and I don’t know how to find my way back.”

Libby grasped my hand as if to tether me to this side of sanity. “Winnie, you weren’t crazy then, and you’re not now.” She squeezed my fingers, her gaze so fierce on mine I didn’t dare look away. “You’re just hurting. And you’re sealing that pain up inside like okra in one of your Mason jars. Except that isn’t gonna work. You gotta pour it out, sit in it for as long as you need, then step back into your life.”

“Why? Why do I have to?” I was past the point of caring if I sounded pathetic. I just wanted to crawl into bed until ... forever. “If you tell me to think of all the women who need my help, I think I’ll scream. When will my debt be paid? I don’t have anything left inside me to give them.”

I couldn’t imagine turning away from my grief. Because then I’d be turning away from Russell. It was easier to hurt than envision life without the only person who understood every facet of me. Russell knew every last piece of my soul. Good and bad. Even the oldest pieces of me that were still pure Eloise.

And he had loved me anyway.

“Of course you don’t have anything to give the network. Because right now you need to focus on yourself and Bailey Rae. She needs you,” Libby said in that quiet way of hers that commanded attention. “Yes, she’s nineteen now, but she’s still a teenager full of attitude and pain. Trust me, I know a thing or two about troubled teens.”

My chest ached at the thought of Bailey Rae hurting too. I knew how much she loved Russell. She needed help that I couldn’t give her.

“I love Bailey Rae. And because I love her, I know she’s in much more capable—stable—hands with you, Thea, June, and Keith even.”This conversation was lasting longer than any I’d had in weeks, and it wore me out. “I know I can trust you to look after her.”

“Of course we are always there for her,” Libby said kindly. “But you are her mother, just as Russell was her father, and she won’t survive losing you both at the same time.”

“Well, aren’t you a bundle of sunshine today?” I couldn’t resist quipping. I even tried to pull a smile but apparently wasn’t very successful.

Libby gave me a look in return that broadcast loud and clear I wasn’t fooling her for an instant.

“Winnie, my friend,” she said, her gray eyes as steely as her will. “Yes, Russell is gone, and my heart is absolutely broken for you and Bailey Rae. Perhaps the two of you can grieve together. And while you do, the rest of us are here to carry everything else.”

Somehow her words managed to filter through, bringing a comfort I hadn’t expected as she shouldered some of the weight and let me focus on myself and Bailey Rae. With my defenses down, I’d allowed old insecurities to creep in, whispers of Eloise. It wouldn’t be easy to banish those ghosts without Russell by my side, but Libby was right. I needed to look toward the future.

I needed to be the woman Russell had believed in. The woman he’d trusted. Loved.

I pushed myself up out of that rocker, feeling decades older than a month ago. “Libby, do you have anything pressing on your agenda today? After I take a shower, I’d appreciate it if you could go with me to the hardware store. Bailey Rae and I need to plant the garden.”

2025

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