Page 53 of The Night the Lights Went Out
“Get in the minivan and I’ll drive you.”
“No need.” She held up her arm with the Fitbit. “I need my steps.” She began walking toward the cottage, hearing Merilee return to her minivan and start the engine only after she’d made it to Merilee’s front steps.
“Hello?” Sugar said after knocking, then opening the front door. She looked into the empty front room, where the TV screen was showing a litter of puppies nursing while a narrator in a sickly sweet voice was explaining what was going on. “It’s Miss Sugar. Your mama asked that I look in on you.” She waited for a response, and when none came she closed the door behind her and moved into the front room, placing the Mason jar and binoculars on the coffee table. “Your mama said I could use thumbscrews and red ants if needed, and the first young person who shows themselves will get to help me make cookies.”
A high-pitched giggle came from behind the sofa as Colin peered over the back. “I win!” he shouted.
“Nuh-uh,” Lily shouted from the kitchen doorway. “I was here first.”
“It’s a tie,” Sugar said. “So you both get to help me. But first we’re going to make a real dinner and you will be expected to eat your vegetables. Trust me, you will want to, because the way I prepare them is guaranteed to be unlike anything you’ve tried before.”
She ignored their groans as they trailed her back into the kitchen. “As long as we have fresh vegetables, we’re in business.” She had to restrain her own groan when she saw that the produce trays in the icebox were empty except for a soggy partial head of iceberg lettuce. And then she felt almost physically ill when she opened the pantry and noticed the name-brand cans of vegetables. She wasn’t sure what offended her the most—the fact that Merilee wasted her money buying the name brand, or that there wasn’t a fresh produce bag to be found either in the pantry or in the icebox. It was a travesty. With a deep breath, she pulled out a can of green beans and set to work, not even bothering to waste her time hunting for any fatback for the vegetables.
After they’d eaten and the cookies were in the oven, the phone rang. It was the babysitter, explaining she’d been in a fender bender and wouldn’t be able to make it. Glancing at her Bulova, Sugar figured she had enough time beforeLaw & Order: SVUcame on and that Merilee would, hopefully, be back by then. Because now that the necessities were done, she had no idea what else she was supposed to do with the children.
She looked down to find two pairs of blue eyes staring up at her expectantly. “Don’t you have homework?” she asked.
“I finished mine and Colin doesn’t have any,” Lily said. Colin just nodded, like he was used to having his older sister speak for him.
Sugar thought for a moment. “Maybe I can read you a story?”
Lily shook her head. “We don’t like the same kinds of books.” She frowned, then shared a conspiratorial glance with her brother. “But there’s one book...” Without waiting for comment, Lily ran down the short hallway toward the bedrooms, returning shortly with a large hardbound book that looked vaguely familiar.
“It’s Mom’s senior year high school yearbook from 1998.”
Sugar looked at her dubiously. “I thought your mother didn’t want you to look at these without her permission.”
“Oh, she changed her mind,” Lily said.
“Did she really?”
Lily nodded emphatically. “She said it was just a silly yearbook and there was no good reason to not let us see it.”
Colin nodded, his attention distracted by the sight of the jar and binoculars. “I didn’t steal those.”
“I know,” Sugar said gently. “They’re yours now—as a gift from me. I already explained to your mother that you didn’t take them.”
He grinned up at her. “So they’re mine? To keep?”
She nodded. “To keep. But I need you to promise me that you’ll take good care of them. They used to belong to somebody very precious to me.” She picked up the binoculars and placed the strap over his head so the glasses hung over his chest.
Colin nodded solemnly. “I will. Can I go look at birds now?” he said, the yearbook forgotten. “I promise to stay on the tire swing and not go anywhere else.”
“Sure. And let me know what you see.”
He ran toward the kitchen and the back door, not pausing long enough to put on shoes. Sugar figured that was something Merilee would need to address. Sort of like Sugar was the grandmother, whose only duty was to have fun with the children, leaving all the heavy responsibility of rearing the children to their mother. As it should be.
Lily tugged on her hand, leading her to the sofa, where they sat down together, the yearbook across their laps. Lily used a fingernail coated with chipped pink polish to open the front cover. “Look at all this writing from her friends. She must have been really popular when she was in high school.”
She said it with an air of reverence, and almost with disbelief, as if she couldn’t imagine her mother having so many friends. “Mom always says that being popular isn’t important. It’s being nice to everybody that’s important.” She frowned a little at the book opened on her lap. The inside of the book was indeed so full of signatures and little drawn hearts and stick drawings in all different colors of pens and markers that it was hard to find any white space. There were lots ofGo BulldogsandSee you inAthensscribbled everywhere, like graffiti, in red and black, the colors of the University of Georgia.
It surprised Sugar. Most UGA grads had an overabundance of red and black among their household items—pot holders, bumper stickers, throw pillows. Maybe all that was in storage. Or maybe she hadn’t gone to UGA—although Sugar remembered the Realtor, Robin, mentioning that she’d graduated with Merilee from UGA but hadn’t known her well in their college years. Not that that was so surprising—UGA had around thirty thousand students, so it was more than possible to never cross paths with a fellow student, or to overlook a fellow student completely. Although, judging by the enthusiastic comments on these two pages, Merilee didn’t seem to have been the kind of person one might overlook.
“They all say ‘To Tallie,’” Lily pointed out. “Maybe this isn’t my mom’s.”
“No—look, there’s a few addressed to Merilee, although it appears those are from teachers or administrators. Her friends all used ‘Tallie.’ That must have been your mother’s nickname.”
“Maybe from her last name, Talbot. That was her last name before she got married to Daddy.”
