She dressed carefully for the occasion, but not in the clothes she might formerly have worn for an audience with her mother-in-law. This time, she wore what she’d wear any other Saturday morning around town: a pair of red cotton capris, a red and white striped oxford-cloth shirt, an off-white cable-knit sweater, and a pair of navy-blue skimmers.
After she rang the doorbell at Cherry Hill, she repeated her mantra under her breath, as she’d done countless times on the drive over. “She is not the boss of me.”
Annajane heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the heavy carved door. It swung open, and Sallie offered her a chilly smile. “Right on time. How nice.”
Sallie was dressed in what passed for casual wear for her: black slacks, a peach silk blouse, and a black cashmere sweater that was looped across her shoulders. “It’s such a beautiful morning; I thought we’d sit out in the sunroom.”
Annajane followed her down the wide, marble-tiled central hall and out through a set of tall french doors onto the sunporch. She hadn’t been out here since the divorce, but she doubted that anything had changed in five years. The room stretched the length of the back of the old house, with large, arched windows that gave a stunning view of the back garden and pool area. The floors were made of muted pink and gray brick pavers that had come out of the old smokehouse on the property, and the ceiling was high, with thick cypress beams. Fringy potted palms and ferns filled the corners of the room, which was furnished with comfortably battered white-painted wicker with flowered cushions. A ceiling fan whirred lazily overhead.
Sallie seated herself on a high-backed wicker armchair and gestured for Annajane to sit on a matching armchair opposite hers. A silver tray on the wicker coffee table held a pitcher of iced tea.
“Tea?” Sallie asked, pouring a glass. “Or I could open a bottle of Quixie. Glenn always thought it was so cute how much you enjoyed the stuff.”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Annajane said. “I do still love the taste of Quixie, but I try to limit myself to one a day, and I had one for breakfast already.”
“Oh,” Sallie said, looking faintly nauseated at the idea. “How sweet.”
Annajane looked uneasily at her surroundings, wondering how long it would take for Sallie to get down to brass tacks.
“The garden looks beautiful,” she said, looking out at the sweep of emerald lawn and the blooming flowerbeds. The turquoise of the swimming pool dazzled in the sunshine. It was a storybook setting, Annajane thought, as she had so many other times in the past.
Sallie waved away the compliment. “This is not our best spring. My tulips were anemic-looking, and, I swear, Nate’s gotten so old and blind I believe he mistook most of my perennials for weeds and dug them up back in the fall. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss with you today.”
Annajane steeled herself. “What did you want to discuss?”
“Family,” Sallie said, without hesitation. “I want to talk about my family. You know I love my children, unconditionally.”
“Of course,” Annajane murmured. Although she might have argued about the unconditional part. She’d seen how stingy Sallie could be with her affection if one of her children—especially Pokey—didn’t measure up to her impossible standards.
“I never thought you were the right kind of girl for Mason,” Sallie said flatly.
Wow, Annajane thought. Way to get the niceties out of the way.
“You’ve made that pretty clear over the years,” Annajane said.
“Glenn felt differently about you,” Sallie said. “He admired your ‘spunk,’ whatever that is.”
“Glenn was lovely to me,” Annajane said.
“And I … wasn’t.” Sallie reached under the cushion of her chair and brought out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “Someday, if you ever have children of your own, Annajane, you’ll understand what it’s like, as a mother, to stand by and watch your child make a decision that you’re positive they will regret. And maybe you’ll understand why I treated you as I did.”
Annajane felt her face go hot. “When I have children, and they grow up, I hope I’ll trust their decision-making skills. Mason wasn’t a child when we fell in love and got married, Sallie. He was an adult, and he was fully capable of deciding the qualities he wanted in a wife.”
“Maybe,” Sallie said, conceding nothing. She inhaled and then exhaled a long plume of smoke through her nostrils, waving ineffectively at it. She got up and opened the glass door that led to the patio and pool area. A cool wind swept the room, sending the pale green fern fronds swaying. “Better,” she said to herself.
She gave Annajane an assessing look. “You know, you’re much more attractive than your mother ever was. Your features are softer; you wear your hair in a much more flattering style; and of course Ruth, bless her heart, never did know how to dress.”
For real? Annajane thought. She expects me to sit here and listen to her insult my mother?
“I disagree,” Annajane said. “Mama was much prettier than me at her age. She had a way better figure, and if she didn’t have the nicest clothes, well, that’s because her parents never had a lot of money.” She smiled. “It’s funny you should mention my mother. Do you know, just this week I came across an old Quixie recipe booklet that had a photo of her at a cookout. In the photo, they had her posed with a bottle of Quixie, and Glenn was standing there, too, with his arm around her. They looked like a real couple. Funny, I’d never seen that photo before.”
Sallie exhaled another stream of smoke, and her eyes narrowed. “Your mother never told you she dated Glenn?”
“No. She didn’t even want to admit it when I called her that night to ask about it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sallie said. “It’s nothing to be proud of, stealing a friend’s man.”
That made Annajane laugh out loud. “Mama had a different perspective. She told me she went out with Glenn only a few times that summer, after he’d already broken up with you, but before my father got back from the army.”
“That is not how it happened,” Sallie said sharply. “Glenn and I were engaged to be engaged, and everybody knew it. But your mother had a huge crush on him. And why not? He was the best-looking boy in school, from the best family. He and I had some silly fight that spring, and I broke up with him. To get back at me, to make me jealous, he asked your mother to the prom. The biggest dance of the year, and I’d already bought my dress. Of course, Ruth knew all that, but she went with him anyway.”
“And you never forgave her, or me, by extension,” Annajane said. “She never forgave you, either, although she refuses to talk about her reasons.”
“I wouldn’t know either,” Sallie said airily. “Ruth was always full of spite. Your mother is not a happy person, Annajane.”
“Mama was in her early twenties when my father died. Driving a Quixie truck,” Annajane said, her tone mild, pleasant even. “She was widowed with a young toddler. She had to go back to night school to get a nursing degree so she could support us, and she worked days to pay for the tuition. She hasn’t exactly had an easy life.”
“Oh, yes,” Sallie said, rolling her eyes. “Here we go again, poor, poor Ruth Hudgens. The twice-widowed martyr with a chip on her shoulder the size of a two-by-four.”
“Knock it off, Sallie,” Annajane warned. “I’m used to your criticism, but I don’t have to sit here and listen to you ridiculing my mother.”
Sallie shrugged, unrepentant. “The point is, I knew what kind of girl your mother was, and I figured you’d be the same sort. I didn’t want that for Mason. And besides, you two came from two very different worlds.”
Annajane stood up. “Is there a point to all of this? Because if not, I can think of a more pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning.”