Carolina Moon

over the fields, vowing to pay her back for it, with Piney walking along with me grinning like an idiot. Then I heard the shot. Liked to stop my heart. I started running, but I was still a good piece from the road and the car when the police went by. I saw the explosion. I thought I’d lost you.” He began to rock her. “I thought I’d lost you, Tory.”
    “I was in the car with him, in my mind. I think I wanted to be so I’d know the exact moment it was over.”
    “He can’t ever touch you again.”
    “No. He can’t touch any of us again.” She rested her head on the strong curve of his shoulder. “Where’s Faith?”
    “She’s downstairs. Wade’s here. She can’t keep still.” He leaned back, let his gaze roam her face. “She’ll rev until she falls down, and he’ll be there for her.”
    “She stayed with me. Just like you asked her to.” She let out a sigh. “I have to go to my grandmother.”
    “She’s coming here. I called her. This is your home now, Tory. We’ll get your things from the Marsh House later.”
    “That sounds like a very good idea.”
    Dusk had fallen when she walked the gardens with her grandmother. “I wish you’d stay here with us, Gran, you and Cecil.”
    “J.R. needs me. He lost a sister, one he wasn’t able to save from herself. I lost a child.” Her voice cracked. “I lost her long ago. Still, no matter how you deny it, there’s always that stubborn hope that you’ll get it all back, put it right. Now that’s gone.”
    “I don’t know what to do for you.”
    “You’re doing it. You’re alive, and you’re happy.” She clung to Tory’s hand. She couldn’t seem to stop holding, stop touching.
    “We all have to make our peace with this, in our own way.” Iris drew in a steadying breath. “I’m going to bury her here, in Progress. I think that’s the way it should be. She had some happy years here, and, well, J.R. wants it. I don’t want a church service. I’m holding against him on that. We’ll bury her day after tomorrow, in the morning. If J.R. wants it, his minister can say a few words at the grave site. I won’t blame you, Tory, if you choose not to come.”
    “Of course I’ll come.”
    “I’m glad.” Iris lowered to a bench. The fireflies were out, bumping their lights against the dark. “Funerals are for the living, to help close a gap. You’ll be better for it.” She drew Tory down beside her. “I’m feeling my age, honey-pot.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “Oh, it’ll pass. I won’t tolerate otherwise. But tonight, I’m feeling old and tired. They say a parent isn’t meant to outlive the child, but nature, and fate, they decide what’s meant. We just live with it. We’ll all live with this, Tory. I want to know you’re going to take what’s in front of you with both hands and hold it tight.”
    “I am. I will. Hope’s sister knows how to do that. I’m taking lessons.”
    “I always liked that girl. She mean to marry my Wade?”
    “I think he means to marry her, and he’s going to let her think it was her idea.”
    “Clever boy. And a steady one. He’ll keep her in line without bruising her wings. I’m going to see both my grandchildren happy. That’s what I’m holding on to tight, Tory.”

30
    W ade fought with the knot of his tie. He hated the damned things. Every time he put one on, it brought a flashback of his mother, wearing an Easter hat that looked like an overturned bowl of flowers, strangling him into a bright blue tie to match his much hated bright blue suit.
    He’d been six, and figured it had traumatized him for life.
    You wore ties for weddings, and you wore ties for funerals. There was no getting around it, even if you were lucky enough to have a profession that didn’t require a goddamn noose around your neck every day of the week.
    They were burying his aunt in an hour. There was no getting around that, either.
    It was raining, a thundering bitch of a storm. Funerals demanded lousy weather, he figured, just like they demanded ties and black crepe and overly sweet-scented flowers.
    He’d have given a year of his life to have crawled back in bed, pulled the covers over his head, and let the entire mess happen without him.
    “Maxine said she’ll be glad to look after the dogs,” Faith announced. She walked in, dressed in the most dignified black dress she could find in her closet. “Wade, what have you done to that tie?”
    “I tied it. That’s what you do with ties.”
    “Mauled