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CHAPTER TWO
“I DIDN’T EVEN graduate high school, Nonnie. College isn’t for me.”
“You graduated, Mark.” Eighty-one-year-old Gloria Heber glanced pointedly at the GED certificate that she’d lovingly framed and hung on their living room wall next to a cheap Mona Lisa print that she’d also lovingly framed.
Mark didn’t put a lot of stock in a certificate he’d hardly had to work for. But he’d already played his age card. His grandmother didn’t think thirty was too old to start college. Not by a long shot. She’d spouted off a list of people, one of whom was in her sixties, that she’d heard of from so-and-so and such-and-such, who’d graduated from college.
“I’m a Bierly boy,” he said now, feeling like a twelve-year-old again as he faced down the determined curmudgeon who’d had him quaking in his boots since he wore baby booties. “I’ve never lived outside this town. Hell, I’ve never lived outside this house. And you want me to go all the way to Arizona? It’s a desert out there! And hot as Hades.”
Ella thought he was leaving. She’d gone to the pig roast. And then pretended like she’d had a good time. She’d also asked if he’d made his decision yet. And he figured, just as soon as he wrote and officially turned down the scholarship, she’d agree to marry him.
“What’s wrong with summer all year long?” Nonnie’s tone was strong. “I’ve never known you to have a problem with the heat.”
Yeah, well, he didn’t like to sweat. At least the kind of sweating she made him do.
“You’re good at what you do, Mark, but there’s so much more you could be doing. And you ain’t goin’ to get there from here.”
Nonnie quoted a familiar saying in their small West Virginia town.
Technically, wherever he went, Arizona included, he’d get there by way of Bierly. But...
Perching on the edge of the armchair across from Nonnie’s wheelchair, he leaned over, elbows on his knees, to face her head-on. “I’m not going to leave you, Nonnie. You can’t take care of yourself. They’re offering me money for living expenses, but there’s no money to hire someone to look after you, and even if there was, I wouldn’t do it. You took care of me from the time I was born and now it’s my turn. Period. End of story.”
He didn’t often use that tone of voice with her. Almost never. He didn’t use it much at work, either. Didn’t need to. But when he did, he got results. Always.
“Fine.”
He blinked. “Fine?” He’d been sweating over nothing? She’d never really expected him to accept the scholarship offer that had been delivered by the U.S. postal service the week before?
Nonnie must have written to this scholarship committee on his behalf. He sure hadn’t applied. But why would she have done that if she hadn’t expected him to go?
“I’m going with you.”
“What?”
She handed him a folder. It was half an inch thick, mostly stuffed with pages she’d printed off the internet. Glancing through it, Mark saw housing for rent in Shelter Valley, cost-of-living estimates and driving directions from Bierly, with a map. There were lists of local shopping establishments in the area—privately owned, nonfranchise places with one exception. And a couple of receipts.
“You rented a duplex for us?”
“Two bedrooms are more than we need, but the price was right in line with the scholarship allowance, and I liked the woman who owns the place. Caroline Strickland. She’s a Kentucky girl from right around the corner. Moved to Shelter Valley eight years ago and is a little lonely for her own kind.”
Nonnie probably knew the woman’s birth date and deepest fears, too. She just had that way about her.
“If she’s not happy there, how do you expect us to be?”
“She loves Shelter Valley! Says moving there is the best choice she’s ever made. She’s just glad to have us joining her.”
“You’ve lived in Bierly for eighty-one years. You were born in this house. And you expect me to believe you want to leave?”
“I want you to have this chance, Markie-boy.” She used the nickname she knew better than to utter outside their private communications.
Eyes narrowed, he studied the indomitable woman trapped in a frail body that was all sunken skin and brittle bones—helped along by the multiple sclerosis that had been slowly weakening her over the past fourteen
years. “You wrote to the scholarship committee, didn’t you? You read about it on the internet and you wrote to them.”
“No.” Her chin lifted. Mark wasn’t going. He adored Nonnie, owed her, but he was a hands-on learner, not a classroom type of guy.
And she’d never survive the trip.
