Evvie grunted. “Makes us even, I guess. Why are you here? Now? After all this time?”
Lizzy groped for an answer, but the truth was she didn’t have one. At least not one she felt comfortable sharing. “There are some things of my grandmother’s I wanted to take care of personally. Things I know she’d want me to have.”
Evvie’s eyes narrowed again, but she made no reply. Instead, she offered the barest of nods before turning away, her battered UGGs scuffing the floorboards as she headed for the kitchen.
Lizzy followed, noting for the first time that Evvie was wearing one of Althea’s floral aprons. “Are you cooking something?”
“Supper.”
Lizzy watched as she lifted the lid from the soup pot simmering on the stove. After a taste, she pulled a jar of something from a nearby cabinet and sprinkled a pinch into the pot.
“You live here?” Lizzy asked as the truth slowly began to dawn.
Evvie turned, still clutching her spoon. “I do. Unless you’re here to give me the boot.”
Lizzy stifled a sigh. She was too tired to do battle, especially with a stranger. “I’m not here to give you the boot. I didn’t even know you were here. Were you . . . her caregiver?”
Evvie laid down her spoon and wiped her hands on her apron. “She didn’t pay me, if that’s what you’re asking, but I suppose I was. It’s what friends do for each other—give care.”
Lizzy felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry, I’m just trying to understand.”
“You hungry?”
Lizzy blinked at her. “What?”
“Hungry?” Evvie repeated, as if speaking to a particularly dull child. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I guess . . .”
“Good then. Set the table.”
They ate in silence at the kitchen table—a rice dish of some sort, made with tomatoes and beans, and plenty of spice. It was delicious and exotic, full of ethnic flavors Lizzy couldn’t place. And thankfully it contained no meat, sparing her the potentially awkward vegetarian discussion.
“She never told me she was sick,” Lizzy said when the silence grew heavy. “I would have come if she had.”
Evvie nodded as she drizzled a wedge of corn bread with honey. “She knew that. It’s why she didn’t tell you. Even at the end, when I begged her to let me call you. She was a stubborn old thing. Said you were too. Somehow, I don’t have trouble believing that.”
Lizzy looked down at her plate, toying with her food. What was it about the woman that made her feel like a naughty schoolgirl?
“She wanted you to want to be here,” Evvie said finally, licking honey from her fingers. “And if you didn’t, she wanted you to be happy wherever you were. That’s how much she loved you. Enough to let you go.”
Lizzy put down her fork and wiped her mouth. “I didn’t just leave her, Evvie. I went away to school—like I’d always planned to do. I never hid the fact that I wanted out of this town. When I got accepted to Dickerson, I knew it was time. Althea was sad that I was leaving, but she understood.”
“She knew that if she tried to keep you, she’d lose you for good. And I guess she knew best, ’cause here you are—finally.”
“Then why the shot about me leaving?”
Evvie turned coppery green eyes on Lizzy. “I didn’t take a shot. Least not the way you think. It isn’t the leaving I have a problem with. I get that part well enough. It’s the staying gone that gripes me. Everyone’s got a right to go looking for themselves, but once they manage it, they should come back home and deal with what’s past, look things squarely in the eye.” She paused, pushing back her plate, then fastened her eyes on Lizzy’s face. “Or maybe you haven’t really found yourself.”
The remark chafed, as it was almost certainly meant to. But there were things Evvie didn’t understand.
“There was a reason I wanted out of Salem Creek, Evvie. Something happened—”
“I know all about those girls,” Evvie said, cutting her off. “And what people thought, and what they said, and how they treated your gran. I know about your mama too, how she lost her mind that day in the coffee shop and said those awful things about cursing the whole town. How she packed up her clothes and hightailed it out of here, leaving everything in a shambles. I know it all.”
Lizzy only needed to meet Evvie’s eyes to see that it was true. She did know it all. Or almost all. “Is there still talk? About Althea, I mean. Do people still think—”
Again, Evvie cut her off. “I didn’t hear it through the grapevine, if that’s what you’re asking. Your gran filled me in. As for this town, I don’t know what they think. I can tell you no one’s ever uttered a word where I could hear it, but then they wouldn’t be likely to.”
The sudden intensity in Evvie’s voice took Lizzy by surprise. “Why not?”
“They know better, I expect.” The ghost of a smile appeared, showing teeth as white and even as a well-knotted string of pearls. “I think they’re a little scared of me. Not too many faces like mine in Salem Creek.”
It was Lizzy’s turn to smile. She had no trouble believing people in Salem Creek were afraid of Evvie. She was nothing if not formidable. And yet there was something about her that was inexplicably comforting, a curious sense of the familiar.
“Tell me about my grandmother,” she said softly. “How long was she sick?”
“Dishes.”
“I’m sorry?”
Evvie pushed to her feet, scraping her chair across the oak floorboards. “We can talk while we do up the dishes. Bring your plate.”
Lizzy finished clearing while Evvie filled the sink. It felt strangely good to be back in the kitchen where she and Althea had spent so many happy hours, like stepping into a pair of old slippers you hadn’t worn in a long time, and for a moment she could almost forget the terrible chain of events that had changed their lives forever. Almost.
“So my grandmother . . . ,” Lizzy prompted, accepting the dripping plate Evvie was holding out.
“Her liver,” Evvie said, fishing another plate from the soapy water. “It just gave out. She finally broke down and went to the doctor, but there wasn’t much they could do. Sometimes we just wear out. And she didn’t want any heroics. You know how she was. Never one for a fuss.”
“Were you here when she . . .” Lizzy let the question dangle, unable to say the word out loud.
“I was.”
“And her ashes—that was you too?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Lizzy put down her towel, her throat full of razor blades as she captured Evvie’s soapy hand. “I don’t know what to say except thank you. For being her friend. For being here. For doing the things that needed doing. It should have been me. It should have been family.”
Evvie looked up from the sink, her chin wobbling as she blinked away a film of tears. “It was,” she said thickly. “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes you just recognize someone. That’s how it was with your gran and me. We were kin. A special kind of kin.”
Anyone looking at Evvie, at her mahogany skin and copper-flecked eyes, would have a hard time believing she could be any sort of kin to Althea. And yet Lizzy had no trouble believing it.