Read The Tidewater Sisters: Postlude to The Prayer Box for Free Online Page B

cancer and she was looking after my affairs for me. If I turn her in for all of this, what are they going to do to her?” Guilt. I instantly feel guilt . As if I’m the one being cruel here.
    “Tandi,” Paul warns firmly, “you’re not actually thinking of letting her get away with it?”
    “I just . . . There’s the wedding and the honeymoon and all of that to think about. The museum opening . . . Everything is finally good, you know? I don’t want to mess it up for us.”
    “Nothing can mess us up, Tandi. I’m here, no matter what. I’m not going anywhere.”
    “I just don’t want you to feel like you’ve invited Typhoid Mary into your perfectly good life.” There. I’ve said it. I’ve done the thing that Brother Guilbeau over at Fairhope Fellowship Church has advised during our premarital counseling. I’ve trusted Paul with the ugly truth. Some of it, anyway.
    I’m still afraid that I can never measure up to the wife he lost to cancer. The one he traveled the world with, made a dream list with, and lived as many of those dreams as possible with before it was too late.
    “I don’t,” he promises. “We all have our baggage, Tandi. I mean, for instance, you’ll probably be stuck playing Thursday night dominoes at the church with my grandma for the next thirty years, because she’s not about to let you give that up. And then there’s my questionable fashion sense. How many people would be willing to marry that , right?”
    “You do have a point there.” But he doesn’t. He’s just being silly, and he knows it. The kids and I love Thursday night dominoes at the church, and Paul’s sense of fashion is what makes him Paul. He’s famous for it.
    Not infamous and certainly not criminal , which makes our baggage completely different. But we exchange I-love-yous and let it go, and he makes me promise one more time not to do anything rash.
    I agree not to rush into the confrontation with Gina. Not yet.
    I tell Paul I’ll call him later when I’m checked into a motel, but I’ve barely set down the phone before I’m staring in the rearview, thinking. Then action follows thought, and the car makes a U-turn in the deserted road almost by itself.
    While I still can, I’m going back to my grandparents’ farm to see what else has been left there.
    I may not get another chance.

CHAPTER 5
    The house’s shadow stretches long across the grass as I turn into the driveway again. I look down the road briefly, wondering if I should go tell Laura that I’m here. I don’t want to scare anyone, and I doubt she would argue with my right to look through what remains and claim mementos before they end up in some sort of court-mandated sale.
    But at the same time, there’s that tiny bit of fear. What will I do if she tells me I shouldn’t go back inside?
    The decision is made before I exit the car. There’s a black kitten lounging on the porch railing as I cross the exposed joists. Its wary amber eyes are the only ones to offer concern as I grip the handle, open the door, and disappear into the past.
    At least, I reason, if I get arrested for this, Laura can honestly say she had nothing to do with it.
    The search I begin this time is systematic. It seems more clinical that way, less like a potential criminal act. But in truth, the criminal act has already been committed here. Everything else of obvious value has been stripped from the place. I gather a small pile of keepsakes from the kitchen—things I remember Meemaw cooking with, the little salt and pepper shakers she and Pap-pap bought on their honeymoon to the Grand Canyon, a platter with the invitation to their fiftieth wedding anniversary decoupaged on.
    A wedding photo of the two of them has been shellacked to the back of the platter. Even through the crazed, yellowed coating, I marvel at how young they are, how happy they look, how beautiful my grandmother is in her satin, 1940s-era wedding gown. The fabric hugs her body and cascades around her