“I’ve got a job waiting for me when we get back to Sugar Run, and I want as little to do with him as possible. I’m ready to sign and get it over with. I want to thank you for all your help, though. Please send the bill—”

“Oh, no payment is necessary,” he butted in before she could finish. “Smokey was an old golfing buddy, and Tootsie worked for me for years. Smokey talked about you three ladies a lot—like y’all were kinfolks, so let me do this in his memory.”

“Then thank you very much.” Carmen made a mental note to take the lawyer a basket of homemade cookies and breads when she got home.

Everyone around the breakfast table was staring at her when she ended the call. “You probably heard enough to know that was the lawyer,” she explained. “He’s mailing the papers here. I will sign them and send them back. I’m hoping it’s all done by Thanksgiving so when we take turns around the table sayin’ what we’re thankful for, I can simply say ‘closure.’”

“And start off the new year with a new life,” Luke encouraged.

“Amen. And, honey, you don’t need anything Eli has in the way of financial help,” Tootsie declared. “I’ve got more money than I’ll ever spend, so if you get in a bind, you just let me know.”

“Thank you, but I called my friend last night and told her I’d be there for work on December fifteenth. That’ll give me a few days to get settled at home before I start. She said the first day will just be paperwork, but after that I’ll be working from eight to five every day, and I can have all the overtime I want,” Carmen said. “I’d have mentioned it first thing this morning, but this is not about me today. It’s Diana’s birthday.”

“And what better present could I have than knowing that you’re actually about to have closure and that you have a job,” Diana said. “That’s just the best birthday present ever.”

“Do y’all realize that in three weeks, we’ll all be at our daughters’ graduation? And Brett will be home, and the divorce will be done with?” Joanie asked.

“Life sure has taken some strange twists and turns for all of us in the past seven weeks, hasn’t it?” Carmen got up and brought the coffeepot to the table to refill all their cups. “It’s been good to be here in Scrap, so thank you again, Tootsie.”

“Aww, pshaw!” Tootsie waved away the words with a flick of her hand. “It’s me that’s got the blessing. I was crazy with grief, but coming home has helped me come to terms with Smokey’s leaving me so fast.”

Luke pointed at the ceiling and frowned. “I think I hear sleet hitting the roof. I hope we don’t lose power again or, worse yet, have an ice storm closer to the time when we need to leave for the graduation.”

Carmen went to the window and pulled back the curtains. “That’s exactly what you hear, but we’ve got lots of firewood cut, and there’s still two or three bottles of lamp oil in the pantry, so we should be fine. And if there’s ice on the road when we need to leave, we’ll get out some skis.”

“Or hire us a sled and some mules to pull it,” Tootsie laughed.

“I’m going to take mail out to the box and see if we’ve got letters before the ground gets slick.” Luke pushed back from the table and headed to the living room for his coat. “Tornadoes and now an ice storm. Never saw such crazy weather in northeast Texas. Have you, Aunt Tootsie?” He didn’t wait for an answer but disappeared out the front door.

“Answer is yes, I have. The winter before me and Smokey got married, it iced over up here, and we didn’t get mail for a whole week. Smokey and I wrote to each other every day, and I thought I’d plumb die without his letters,” she said. “Weather is like life. It ain’t nothing but a cycle. We’ll have some cold winters, and then we’ll have some that ain’t bad at all.”

“Know what life really is?” Carmen asked.

“Breathing, eating, sleeping, loving,” Joanie offered.

“No,” Carmen giggled. “It’s a four-letter word.”

“Damn straight.” Tootsie laughed with her. “And them other four-letter words come in right handy when I’m pissed at the world.”

“You got it, Tootsie.” Carmen’s giggles were so infectious that everyone started in laughing. “And just so y’all know, if Luke brings in some wood that already smells a little scorched, it’s because I unloaded a whole wheelbarrow full of four-letter words on those logs when I was splitting them.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

They had three days of icy weather, but Carmen insisted on going to the mailbox at the end of the lane every day. The sooner the divorce papers arrived, the sooner she could sign them and be done with it. The first day, she did some fancy footwork to keep from falling either flat on her face or on her butt a couple of times before she made it to the mailbox. The second day, she took a tumble five feet from her destination and had to crawl to the mailbox post to get her feet solid under her again. The third day, she kicked the post. There wasn’t even a letter from one of the girls or a damned bill for her efforts.

She heaved a long sigh of relief when she saw the big yellow envelope on the fourth day. “Thank you, God!” she muttered through the scarf wrapped snugly around her face. She gathered up all the mail and stuffed it inside the coat that had belonged to Smokey. It hung to her knees, and the sleeves were rolled up, but it was warmer than the lightweight jacket she’d brought from Sugar Run. Who would have ever thought that the weather could be so different from one part of Texas to another? Bending her head against the bitter cold, she hurried back to the house.

For the next three days, everyone in the house went over the divorce decree, one sentence at a time. Tootsie called the lawyer several times so he could explain the legalese. One week after Diana’s birthday and with everyone gathered around her, Carmen signed the papers and dated them November twenty-second. It was just her name on the last page in a seven-sheet stack of paper, but somewhere near the bottom it really should have said THE END.

“Six weeks and two days since Eli got this whole process started. Shouldn’t I feel something?” She’d thought there would be relief or perhaps a fresh burst of anger, but there was nothing at all.