Elaine Hussey - The Oleander Sisters

“What?” The funny look Emily gave her said she’d done it again, gone off and said something that didn’t have a thing to do with the conversation at hand.

She racked her brain trying to figure out what the latest subject had been. Emily was now looking alarmed.

She had to say something that made sense or Emily would tell Sis, and Sis would fetch Doctor...what was his name? He was an old fart. That’s all she knew.

“You said you were going to Pikes Peak, Sweet Mama.”

“Not this very minute, silly. But I’m getting so old, I’m liable to kick the bucket any day, and wouldn’t it be nice to be up so high I could see Heaven?”

“I don’t think you can see Heaven from Pikes Peak.”

“I was just kidding.”

Feeling backed into a corner, Sweet Mama looked around for a means of escape. And there was her poor grandson, leaning against the wall as if he could no longer see his place in the family.

“Help me up, Emily, and let’s take your brother some of that Amen cobbler.”

Food, that’s all Sweet Mama could remember anymore. She watched as Emily scooped up a big helping and then put a smile on her face as she carried it to Jim.

Sweet Mama got that heaviness in her bones again, an uncomfortable feeling that could be anything from old age to angels whispering in her ear. If she could just ground herself in the café, she’d be all right.

She glanced around at the pictures on the wall. They told their own story—the history of a bakery that became a café and a woman too fierce to give up, the friendship against all odds with Beulah, who had been with her every step of the way, the ever-increasing number of patrons who carried on meandering conversations spun out like a roll of silk ribbon, linking the past to the present and binding people together as surely as tree-ripened peaches blended with fresh cherries in Sweet Mama’s Amen cobbler.

“Amen cobbler, Jim,” Emily was saying. “I made it.”

Fear stung Sweet Mama as unexpectedly as a red wasp. Lord, she could have sworn she made that cobbler. Hadn’t she stood in the kitchen not more than two hours ago adding peaches to the batter? Or had that been last week?

“I’m not hungry, Em,” Jim said.

“Take a little bite, anyway. It’s your party,” Emily said. “Tell me if it’s as good as Sweet Mama’s.”

The way Jim was looking at his plate, you’d think it was filled with mud pies. What do you say to a grandson who’s standing close enough to touch but is so far away he’s no more substantial than the moonlight laying a path over the water?

Beulah’s shadow fell over Sweet Mama, a huge umbrella to shield her from a downpour of sudden sorrow.

“Honey, if you don’t eat that cobbler, old Beulah’s gonna think you don’t appreciate none of this cooking we nearly killed ourselfs over.”

“You’re still a con artist, Beulah,” Jim said. “And you don’t look a day older than when I left.”

“If you keep up that sweet talk, you’re gonna have a girl before we know it.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“I ain’t holding my breath. I’m gonna put out the word to the reg’lars to be looking. Now, eat that cobbler pie.”

Sweet Mama puffed up with pride as she watched Jim pick up his fork and dig in. The war might have taken his leg, but it hadn’t stolen one iota of the Blake honor. She glanced at her granddaughter’s fiancé over there with all his body parts intact, sleek as a tomcat.

“Emily, did What’s His Name serve his country?”

“Please, Sweet Mama. This is a party. Let’s not talk about that now.”

“It’s a legitimate question, Em,” Jim said. “Did he?”

Suddenly, Andy shouted, “Com’ere, quick! That’s him. There’s a man on the moon!”

Emily raced off like somebody saved from the guillotine.

“Oh, it is, sweetheart!” She sat on the bar stool beside her son, her color suddenly so high she looked as if she might be the one standing on the moon.

Even Jim moved toward the RCA TV, and suddenly the whole family was riveted by the pictures being beamed back to them all the way from the moon. Relieved that she was no longer under scrutiny, Sweet Mama poured herself a glass of sweet tea and sat at a table close enough so she could see what was going on. It didn’t look like much to her, just a bunch of blurry black-and-white images. For all she knew, this man on the moon stuff could be a big hoax.

“He looks like a monster, Mommy.”

“That’s the astronaut Neil Armstrong in his space suit,” Emily said. “Listen, Andy. You’re watching history.”

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong said.

An impossibly huge moon shone through the plate-glass windows. That a mere mortal—somebody not so different from her, except younger—was up there this very minute walking around in the moondust filled Sweet Mama with such hope the café could hardly contain it. Her grandson was home safe, one granddaughter was at the beginning of a new life and the other granddaughter had the grit and the brains to turn this café into the finest restaurant in the Deep South.

Sweet Mama looked around the room till she found the picture she sought, hanging on the wall beside the clock and dated April 1, 1921. There she was, posing behind the cash register in the bakery she’d opened herself, with Beulah as her only help.

If anybody happened to ask Sweet Mama what she thought about the lunar landing, she’d say she’d already been to the moon and was planning to go again.

Two

EMILY DIDN’T NEED AN alarm clock to wake up. She loved sunrises and rituals and the small, everyday miracles of family. When dawn pinked her lace curtains she hurried to the window to admire the sky, and then she raced back to the bedside phone to call Sis.

“Sis, are you awake?”

“I am now, Em.”

Emily grinned. Sis might try to act like an old grump, but she counted on their early morning phone calls as much as Emily did. When you love a sister, you know her songs as well as her secrets. You know what makes her shatter and what it takes to put the pieces back together. You understand her as if you were standing inside her skin, counting the beats of her heart.

“I’ve decided to have a summer garden wedding,” Emily told her sister. “In Sweet Mama’s backyard.”

“It’s a disaster area.”

“It’s beautiful. All we need are a few chairs and some white satin bows, and it will be gorgeous.”

“Good Lord, Emily. Are we talking about the same backyard? It’ll take a ton of fertilizer, six weeks of rain and a flat-out miracle to get Sweet Mama’s backyard even halfway decent.”

“It might take all that if I didn’t have you, Sis.”

“Are you trying to flatter me?”

“Is it working?”

“A little bit.”

Sis’s sigh was audible, and Emily felt a prick of guilt.

“Listen, Sis, I don’t want to cause too much trouble. You need to spend time with Jim instead of fretting over a garden wedding.”

“If you want a garden wedding, that’s what we’ll have. Jim’s going to be fine. I won’t have it any other way.”

“He didn’t seem so fine to me, Sis. Bring him to the café today so we can feed him and fawn over him.”

“I don’t think he’ll come.”

“Why wouldn’t he want to come down to the café so he can be with all of us?”

“Because...” Sis hesitated. “Because he’s as stubborn as I am.”

What had she been going to say? Emily was certain it was something frightening Sis had edited out in order to protect her.

“You’re not stubborn, Sis, just certain. I wish I had more certainty.”

“If you’re not certain about Larry Chastain, don’t marry him.”