Page 79 of Leave It to Us
“My name is Yvonne,” she said as if it had to be noted. He’d said everyone else’s name but hers, and she didn’t like it. Nor did she like how the words he did speak had pierced through her heart like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye.
His look sobered for a moment, but still, he reached out a hand to her. She glanced down at it and could feel the expectant gazes of her sisters shooting at her from the side. Without another thought, she accepted his hand and then brought her eyes up to meet his again.
“I’m Cab Henderson,” he said. “It’s my pleasure and honor to meet you, Yvonne.”
There was a smoothness to his tone, something she suspected had won the hearts of Ms.Odessa and plenty of other women back in the day. But not Grandma Betty’s. Yvonne wondered why.
She pulled her hand from his grasp. “Thank you for having us today,” she said. “We won’t take up much of your time.”
He chuckled. “Well, now, these days I don’t have much more than time.”
Sallie spoke up. “I made tea.”
Yvonne hadn’t even noticed she’d left the room or when she’d returned, she’d been so engrossed in the pictures, and then in this man. She should’ve been paying more attention to the whirlwind of emotions that were roaring through her, since she was obviously the sister who’d have to keep her mind right during this little visit. Not that this was anything new.
“Let’s take it in the living room, Sallie,” Cab said, and then walked ahead of them to lead the way.
Lana came to stand beside Yvonne and took her hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she assured her.
But Yvonne wasn’t convinced. She had a feeling that none of them were going to walk out of that house feeling the same way they had when they walked in, and she couldn’t explain why that scared the hell out of her.
“I loved your grandmother with my whole heart,” Cab said after Sallie had served them each a cup of tea that smelled and tasted heavenly. “But she never loved me more than she would have a brother or a very close friend.”
“Because she was so much older than you?” Tami asked.
Cab gave a wry laugh. “No. No, I don’t think that was it.” He dragged a hand over his jaw and settled back on the hunter-green couch.
Sallie sat beside him, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze resting on the man she called her father.
“You know those songs where Betty used to sing about the love of her life? The love that made her life complete? Or the love that would sustain her until the ends of her days?” He sounded thoughtful.
Tami sat at the edge of the armchair she’d taken because it was closer to the side of the couch where Cab was situated. “Oh yes,” she said, flattening a hand over her chest. “I loved her songs and used to dream about the lyrics all through high school. Our music just didn’t have that soulful feel like music in Grandma Betty’s time.”
Cab rested an elbow on the arm of the couch but pointed a finger at Tami as he said, “You’ve got that right.” Bringing that same finger back to his face, he rubbed it along the line of his jaw. “Betty could sing those lyrics like nobody else because she felt them deep down in her soul. She loved ole Riley’s goofy behind from the moment she saw him until the day she stood by his rust-colored coffin and said goodbye to his earthly form. And then she loved every memory of him just as fiercely.I couldn’t compete with a ghost,” he muttered. “Not with everything in my arsenal, I couldn’t compete.”
Sallie reached out a hand to grasp his free one. And when he looked over at her, they both smiled at each other. It was like Sallie understood this man who’d been married to her mother’s love of another woman. That seemed odd to Yvonne—but then, on another level, impactful.
“That’s why you and Odessa took the baby,” Yvonne said quietly. “Because both of you loved Grandma Betty. You were in love with her and would do anything she asked you to do, and Ms.Odessa loved her as a friend and the woman who could make her once-unattainable wish come true.”
The words just tumbled free, the muted sense of understanding seeping through the pain and grief that now threatened to suffocate her.
“And we loved Sallie,” he said with a slow nod toward Yvonne. “From the day we carried her home in that basket, we loved this little girl like she’d been born from us.” His brow lifted and he continued. “Now, just because Betty gave us this beautiful blessing, don’t you go to thinking that she just forgot about her, because she didn’t. Every month she put money in an account for Sallie to have when she was an adult. And she always checked in with me and Odessa to see what, if anything, Sallie needed. She made the decision to watch this granddaughter grow up from a distance, the same way she had to watch the three of you living in the city. She didn’t like any of it, but she always said she did what she had to do.”
He lifted the hands he and Sallie had clasped and kissed the back of hers. “I’m blessed and grateful to have known and loved such a classy and compassionate woman. And I thank the Lord every day that even though she couldn’t give me her heart, she gave me this lovely child, who has grown into a beautiful woman, inside and out. Smart, loyal, and not a bad singer either.” He gave Sallie a wink. “Before you leave the island, you should come to church one Sunday. Hear my baby girl sing like her grandmother used to.”
Those words had Tami gasping and crying again.
“You can sing like Grandma?” Lana asked.
“And Daddy,” Tami added. “Remember, he used to sing us to sleep—and how, at Christmas, we always begged him to sing that Nat King Cole song because he did it so well?”
Sallie looked over at them, her eyes a little watery now too. “I can sing,” she said. “Always thought the gift just came from the Lord, and so that’s where I used it.”
“We’ll come to church on Sunday,” Lana said.
“Yes,” Tami agreed. “We certainly will.”
Yvonne almost chastised her sisters for making another decision for her, but she kept her mouth shut. She was suddenly too tired—or too overwhelmed. She couldn’t tell which to tell the difference. Instead, she mustered what she hoped was a cordial-enough smile and was about to say that they had to leave, when her phone rang.
