Bea Whitlow. The woman who stood up at my daddy service in 2019 and told the whole church that Walt Price had saved her daughter life, and my mother had walked right out into the parking lot, because she could not stand to hear another word about it. I never understood why. I looked at the picture on Mark phone, Rick with his arms around Beatrice Whitlow, and I could not make it fit. Mark said, “Ang, I think we should talk to her, not follow him any more.” For once I did not argue.
The following Sunday I did not set out the pie. Instead, at three thirty, when Rick looked at his watch, I stood up and said, “Rick, I know about Greer.” Mama gasped. Rick went pale, then he sat back down slowly and put his phone face up on the table for the very first time. “Mrs. Price,” he said to my mother, “I wanted to tell you months ago.” He took a breath. “Bea Whitlow was my mother in law. Her daughter was my wife. Linda passed three years ago, and your husband was the reason she had three more years than the doctors promised.”
He told us everything. When Linda was sick in 2016, the insurance refused her last treatment, and Bea went to the one man she trusted, Walt Price, who had been her friend since they were children. Walt quietly paid more than forty thousand dollars out of his retirement and made Bea swear never to tell Joyce, because he did not want my mother to worry. That was what Bea said at the service, and Mama never heard the truth. She only heard that her husband had kept a secret, and the pain of it had sent her out the door.
The woman in Greer was my mother oldest friend, and a secret kindness from my father finally brought them back together.
Mama sat very still. I took her hand. “Joyce,” Rick said, “I never meant to deceive you. I met you at the Bi Lo by pure accident. When I saw your name on the check, I almost walked away. But you laughed at the pickle jar, and I knew I was in trouble.” Then Mark asked the question I could not. “And the phone calls, Rick? The cold voice on the porch?” Rick rubbed his eyes. “That was the insurance company, Mark. I fight them every week. Bea has a bill they keep denying, and I will not let her lose that house.”
“And why do you leave before dessert?” Mama asked in a very small voice. Rick laughed in spite of himself. “Because Bea expects me at three thirty sharp,” he said. “Every Sunday she bakes a banana pudding and a pound cake, and she has dementia some days, so she does not remember if I ate. If I eat yours first, she knows. She watches me closely, Joyce. I cannot lie to that woman, and I could not eat two puddings.” We all stared at him. Then Mark laughed so hard that he had to lean on the counter. Mama laughed until she cried.
Then Mama went quiet again. “Bea Whitlow and I were girls together,” she said. “She stood up at my wedding. We had a fight in 1974 over something so foolish I cannot even remember it, and we never spoke again.” She looked at Rick. “Is she well?” Rick said gently, “She asks about you almost every Sunday, Joyce. She keeps a photograph of the two of you on the refrigerator. She kept it facing the wall, then turned it back, then facing the wall. She told me it was too late. I always told her it was not.”
Mama got her purse. We did not stop to talk about whether it was a good idea. We drove to Greer in two cars, down a gravel road that smelled like pine, to a little brick ranch house with a porch swing. Bea opened the back door, a small gray woman holding a dish towel, and she looked at my mother for a very long time. Then she said, “Joycie, you got old.” Mama said, “So did you, Bea.” And they fell into each other arms right there on the step, laughing and weeping, while the screen door banged behind them.
We stayed until dark. Bea served banana pudding on her good china, and I ate two helpings, because I had waited eleven months for this. Mama told her about Walt, and Bea told her how he used to leave an envelope on her porch every month with a note that said only, For the girls. Mama pressed a napkin to her eyes. “That man,” she said. “Forty six years, and I thought I knew every secret he had.” Bea squeezed her hand. “Joycie, that was the only one. And it was the best one.”
I owe Mark an apology, and I gave it to him in the truck on the way home. He said every firefighter learns that smoke does not always mean fire. Sometimes it is just someone baking. Rick came to Sunday dinner the next week, and this time he stayed through dessert, and brought Bea with him. She wore a blue dress and sat across from my mother, and the two of them argued over whether the pudding needed more vanilla. It felt as if some old light had finally been switched back on in our dining room.
Rick and Mama are still going strong. He asked her to dance at the church fish fry last month, and she said yes before he even finished the question. She still tells him he is too young for her, and he still tells her the pickles were destiny. Every Sunday now there are five at the table, and nobody checks a watch. I set out the banana pudding at three thirty sharp, and I watch my mother and her oldest friend share a spoon, and I think Daddy would be so pleased he would have kept the secret all over again.
