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Wanda headed to the Mr. Coffee coffee pot and poured a white mug full of rich black brew and handed it to Fiona. “You sure you don’t want one, hon?” she asked Violet.
“I’m sure.” She noticed Wanda gawking at her. Same look she’d gotten from Sheriff Modine and Regis Owsley.
Wanda blinked and cleared her throat then busied herself with wiping down a counter.
“It’s neighborly and expected by the Good Lord to take care of those in need, and new mamas need some TLC. You have children?” she asked Fiona.
“Uh. No.”
“Wanda here is my daughter. My only one. I had three boys. Lost two in childbirth. One in Vietnam. But I have lots of surrogate daughters. And sons. That’s why everyone up here calls me Mother. Haven’t heard my given name in probably forty years or more.” She laughed through a cough.
“Did you know Atta well?” Fiona asked.
“Atta was a good girl. I can’t imagine anyone layin’ a finger on her,” she said with strong conviction, and her gnarled fingers gripped the rolling pin tighter.
“No one she might have been involved with or who frightened her? Do you have any idea where she might have gotten a leather purse with a Scripture verse?”
Wanda rubbed her mother’s shoulder. “Several leather shops in town. Could be any one.” She spoke to Mother. “You need to rest, Mother. You been on your feet a spell.”
“Ah, I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Mother waved her off. She appeared perky enough. “Atta was a precious soul. Didn’t have a man in her life.”
“Mother!” a little girl’s voice shrieked, and footsteps stomping on the wood floor sounded before a dark-haired girl with curls approached, a black lab running after her. “Festus ate my cheese curls!”
Her hands were coated in orange paste, and the dog sat and stared at Mother with innocent eyes.
“And you’d like more cheese curls, Lula?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mother dusted her hands on her apron and approached the little girl. “Are you sure you didn’t eat the cheese curls and simply want more? Because tellin’ the truth to Mother is important. The truth gets you cheese curls. Lies get you a switch from the elm tree.”
Well then, every single person in this holler should receive their licks. Not a soul was telling the whole truth if even a sliver. Maybe they needed Mother to take an elm tree switch to ’em.
“I ate the cheese curls, but Festus did take my last one.”
Mother kissed her forehead, and a piece of Violet’s heart ached. She couldn’t remember a single time her mom or grandmother had ever kissed her. She’d forgotten how painful that was until this moment, watching Mother with this child. A pretty little child too, with a heart-shaped face, long lashes.
“You can have a few more, and then that’s it.” Mother pointed to the cabinet. “Get her a little bowl of ’em, will you, Wanda?”
Wanda went to the cabinet and did as she was instructed while the little girl, Lula, let the dog lick away the cheese powder gummed to her fingers. Gross.
Wanda handed the bowl to Lula, who thanked her. Then the child peered up at Fiona then Violet. “I got’s a little dip on my chin too.” She pointed to the cleft in her chin, licked her cheese curl then stuck it right into the cleft.
Fiona laughed.
Violet wasn’t about to offer to do it too. “Nice.”
Lula giggled then snatched it and ate it, leaving a streak of cheese powder on her chin.
“Go on and go play, child. Us women have talkin’ to do, hear?”
“Yes ma’am.” She scampered off, and the lab followed.
“You the town babysitter?” Violet asked.
Mother grinned, her lower teeth crooked and a bit colored from age and years of coffee. “Lula’s my great-great-granddaughter, but my door is open to anyone in need. At any time. Child or not.”
What would it be like to always have an open door she could enter when she was troubled or needed help? Violet didn’t even have a key to the apartment she’d lived in her whole growing-up years. Not only was it far from open, it was locked shut.
