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“She wasn’t. Not in the way you mean. Helen never looked at life like that. She just got old, and she was ready to go,” Annie said.
Shirley moaned. “But I could have been there to help.”
Annie hesitated before answering. “Honestly, I think Helen knew you already had more on our plate than you could say grace over. This was how she wanted it, and you have to honor that.”
“I feel like someone just cut the rope to my anchor,” Shirley said, then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “So, what do I need to know? What do I need to do? I can’t be there before tomorrow at the earliest.”
“No, no. No need to hurry here at all,” Annie said. “Helen always said she didn’t want to waste money on some big funeral, and she didn’t want people looking at her in a coffin. She wrote it all down years ago and showed me where her papers were kept. She will be cremated, and her ashes will be saved for you. She always said when you come home to claim your heritage, she wants you to sprinkle them where the mountain laurel grows. She said you’d know the place.”
Shirley hadn’t thought past the shock of the loss until she heard the wordscome home to claim her heritage. Her brother, and only sibling, had died in a car accident some years back, and knowing she was the sole heir to the land and the home in which she’d been raised, felt like one last hug from her mother.
“Yes. Yes, I know right where she means,” Shirley said. “Thank you for calling, Aunt Annie. I am so sad right now, but the thought of going home to Pope Mountain feels like a godsend.”
“I know,” Annie said. “We all know what’s been happening to you and your boys, and we’re so sorry for your suffering. Come home, darlin’. We love you. You’ll be safe here. This is where you’ll heal.”
“Yes, yes…I will. It will take a while, but I’ll let you know. Thank you for calling. I love you too.”
After the call ended, Shirley sent a group text to her sons, calling a family meeting for that evening, and after the year they’d just lived through, the text sent them all into a panic.
Getting that message from his mom stopped Aaron cold. He didn’t even go back to his apartment after he got off work at the service station, and drove straight to her home, worried all over again as to what else might be happening.
His younger brothers had all moved home after the fall out to help pay the bills and look after Shirley, but the moment they got the messages, a feeling of dread came over them.
That evening they began arriving within moments of each other, leaving B.J. the youngest, to be the last to get home from his job at a fast-food drive-in. He parked his Harley in a skid, then came running into the house, wide-eyed and pale.
“Mom! What’s wrong?”
“Sit down with your brothers,” she said, then drew a slow, shaky breath.
“Your grandma has died. Aunt Annie said they found her in her bed. She died in her sleep.”
“Oh, Mama!” they said in unison, and jumped up and ran to her, hugging her and commiserating with her, which brought on another round of weeping.
“I’m so sorry,” Aaron said. “We were all going back for Easter right after Kelly and I got married, and then Dad broke your nose, and we made excuses. We were going to go a year ago last Christmas and that shit with Dad happened and we didn’t. Now this.”
Shirley wiped her eyes. “Your grandma knew what was happening. She always knew. We talked weekly, sometimes more. She didn’t blame us for the situation. Aunt Annie said there won’t be a funeral. Mom didn’t want one. But when we do go there, she wants us to spread her ashes on the mountain.”
“So, we’re going now? After she’s gone?” Wiley asked.
Shirley swallowed past her tears. “As the only living child, I have inherited the home and land where I grew up. I own it now. We haven’t been welcome in this town for a long time. I want to go home to stay, and I’m asking if any of you want to come with me. We’ll be living in a home that’s paid for, surrounded by family and people who love us, and there is always work to be had in Jubilee.”
Sean sighed. “But Mama, what will they think of us? I mean…we’ll still be Clyde Wallace’s sons.”
Shirley’s chin came up. Her eyes were still teary, but her voice was sure and strong. “They’ll think I have raised four fine sons,” Shirley said. “And none of us have to bear Clyde Wallace’s name or sins if we don’t want to. You’re not just your father’s child! You’re mine, too, which makes you Popes. You carry the DNA of generations of honorable men within you, and you might as well carry the name as well.”
Aaron stood, his fists clenched. “I choose to change.”
Sean nodded where he sat. “I choose to change.”
Wiley was grim-lipped. “Hell yes, and thank you!” he said.
B.J., the youngest, had tears in his eyes. He’d known nothing but his father’s abuse and rage, and now the shame of being his son. “I choose you, Mama. I always have,” B.J. said.
Shirley nodded. “Then we’ll do it! Since there are so many of us doing it at once, I’ll contact a lawyer to get us through the process.”
Within the month, it was done. They’d cut the last link they would ever have with Clyde Wallace by rejecting his name.
After that, leaving Conway was easy.
