Sadie-in-Waiting Read online

  Praise for

  Sadie-in-Waiting

  “Jones beautifully conveys a range of emotions, from the depth of despair to the pinnacle of joy…. readers will nod their heads with empathy toward characters who seem like real people. Throughout the novel, compassion and family bonds bring hope, and God’s love is shown to shine through even the darkest of circumstances.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

  “Annie Jones writes about characters we all know and—despite their quirks—love. Sadie Pickett is an endearing character whose foibles and charms will leave you smiling as you think, Yes, life is just like that. Carry on, Sadie, and thanks for inviting us along for the ride!”

  —Angela Hunt, award-winning author of The Elevator

  ANNIE JONES

  Sadie-in-Waiting

  During the course of writing this book

  I often found myself turning down some

  metaphoric dark alley and in need of someone

  to light a candle to show me the way.

  Thank you to my many candle lighters,

  who include:

  Chi-Libris KC Mini-Retreaters

  PQALs Prayer Sisters

  My agent, Karen Solem

  The kind editors who caught my mistakes

  And my family, who almost never complain

  when I lose track of the time and end up

  sending out for pizza for dinner—again.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter One

  Sometime in her childhood Sadie’s daddy made a point of telling her, “If you pray for patience, you will be sent adversity for a teacher.”

  So she never prayed for patience. Not once.

  And yet for some reason she still seemed to get dished out more than her share of adversity.

  It seemed to follow her around, in fact, like a lovesick pup. A pup with the sleepy-eyed gaze of her husband, Ed, the persistent whine of her children’s teenage angst and the maddening bite of her sisters’ habitual bickering. To top it off, that puppy traveled with a pack, constantly nipping at her heels.

  President of the contentious Council of Christian Women—contentious not being part of the official title, though she often thought it should be. Nip.

  Unpaid, unnoticed, as-needed, fill-in employee at her husband’s pharmacy. Nip.

  First person everyone in town called to report about the often exasperating actions of her father, Solomon Shelnutt. Nip.

  And ever-present gnawing that made it all the more difficult for her to shake it all off—the seemingly silly, self-indulgent empty ache of being a mommy to teens and no longer having any little babies to mother.

  Adversity, in her case, loved company. For Sadie, more often than not, the biggest helping of it—adversity, not company—came in the form of her seventy-one-year-old father’s never-ending pursuit of what he called “authentic individualism.” That was Daddyspeak for “Nobody tells Moonie Shelnutt what to do.”

  He’d said those very words to her this morning, so she should have had an inkling that this was the day trouble would go out of its way to find her. Find her? It had already phoned her three times! Well, three people had already phoned her trying to pry her out of the house to come down and “deal with your daddy.”

  Not today, she had decided. Today she would hide out from the relentless responsibilities of her life.

  She had planned to let the phone ring.

  She had planned to ignore the petty problems people piled at her feet daily with the expectation “Sadie can fix it.”

  She had planned to let somebody else learn from adversity today, even if it meant she never, ever, ever mastered the noble virtue of patience.

  Adversity, she discovered this fine May Monday morning when she flung open her front door—dressed in high-water overalls, shower shoes and a freebie windbreaker a pharmaceutical rep had given her husband, no less—had other plans. It had come in the form of a brand-new, never-expected variety right there on her doorstep.

  And it had a proposition for her.

  She heard him out impassively before saying, “Earl Lee Furst, I know you’ve been elected mayor of this little slice of Kentucky paradise an unprecedented thirteen times.” Sadie quoted directly from the ruddy-faced man’s mayoral-campaign ads, knowing he’d never allow himself to acknowledge the sarcasm in her doing so. In fact, because he’d got her up out of her safe, comfy easy chair when she was definitely not in a mood to do so, she laid it on extra thick. “And that the Furst family has roots so deep in Wileyville that they not only helped found the town, they grew themselves into the very character of the place, but—”

  “It’s true, Mrs. Pickett.” He beamed, his hand on his low, round belly. “Me and mine have long been pillars of the church, the chamber of commerce and the community at large.”

  “And don’t forget primary sponsors of the Tri-county Bass-travaganza Fishing Tournament,” she droned.

  “Ah, yes, the Bass-travaganza.” His eyes shone with a distant light usually reserved for talk of Mother, God and country. “That sucker really hauls in the cold hard cash.”

  Sadie cleared her throat.

  “That is to say, it’s a real boon to you business owners, Mrs. Pickett. And like most things that keep this town’s head above water—all my idea.”

  “Well, you’ve had some, um, doozies in the past, I’ll grant you that.” And even though the local paper had predicted a scorcher of a day—going so far as to remind the parents of the children taking Lollie Muldoon’s town walking tour to slap extra sunscreen on the kids—Sadie wrapped Ed’s jacket more tightly around herself and took a deep breath. “But I hope you understand, Mayor, that all I can ask about this latest brainchild of yours is…”

  He leaned in close like a kid getting a whiff of pie—or like a thirteen-time mayor getting wind of a palpable piece of praise. “Yes, Mrs. Pickett?”

  “Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?” She plunked her hands on her hips.

  He gave her one of his polished politician’s chuckles, shifted his feet on the chipped-paint floorboards of her old porch then smiled. “Mrs. Pickett…Sadelia…Sadie. May I call you Sadie?”

  She didn’t want him to call her anything, but she did prefer Sadie over her legal name of Sadelia, or the more formal Mrs. Pickett, which even after nineteen years of marriage still made her think someone was talking to her mother-in-law. “Yes. Fine. Sadie is fine. Though I don’t think we need to bother with a lot of these niceties, because we just don’t have anything more to say to one another.”

  “Oh, but I hope that’s not true. I very much hope that this is only the beginning of a very long, very productive working relationship and perhaps…yes, even a friendship, Sadie.”

  She tried to hold back a shudder, failed miserably, then mustered up a meek smile and murmured, “Somebody must be walking over my grave.”

  Instantly she regretted introducing the g word into the conversation.

  The mayor leaped on the opportunity and motioned toward her open door. “Speaking of graves—I was hoping we could. Speak of them, that is.”

  Wileyville Parks and Recr
eation Supervisor and Superintendent of City Interment Locality. Sadie could hardly catch her breath to think of taking on such a title much less the implications of the job the mayor had come to quite literally lay on her doorstep.

  “All right, we’ll talk about it.” She drew a deep breath trying to force her mind to form a cogent, clever, well-worded argument as to why she could not possibly even consider his offer. After a few seconds when no such argument materialized, she simply shook her head and, her voice cracking, said a bit too loudly, “The cemetery lady? You want me to be the town cemetery lady?”

  “Don’t forget the park.”

  “The park is just four swings and a slide. What you are, in truth, asking of me is to take on managing Barrett and Bartlett Memorial Gardens. And since, despite that lovely name, there are only a few shrubs and wild rosebushes to be found on the premises, it’s plain to see you want me to oversee the graveyard.”

  “Maybe if we sat down and talked this over sensibly…” He stepped toward her half-open front door.

  Manners dictated Sadie ask the man inside, but…

  A home reflects the people who occupy it. Chaos in the home meant chaos in the family. That’s one of the first things a girl learns growing up in a small town. Always keep your house—or at least the part seen from the front door—in order, and people will know that you manage the rest of your life with the same sense of style and grace.

  Sadie glanced back over her shoulder into her living room.

  Empty pizza boxes left over from Saturday night lay on the coffee table. Her fifteen-year-old son’s video game system tangled in a heap in front of the TV. Her daughter’s clothes draped up and down the stairs and dangled over the banister—the aftermath of yet another mother-daughter heart-to-headphone talk.

  And next to the chair where Sadie had been sitting this Monday afternoon? A bag of jelly beans with all the black ones picked out and eaten, crumpled tissues lying on the floor in drifts around a virtual tower of unread self-help books. And the cordless phone peeking out from a mound of magazines and throw pillows where she’d tried to suffocate the poor thing to keep from hearing another plea to come and…

  “Actually, Mayor Furst, you caught me at a bad time.” She finally stepped fully out onto the porch and closed the door behind her. Choosing the lesser of two evils, she believed they called it. “I was just on my way out, there’s been kind of a little…emergency.”

  He slid his glasses off and rested the tip of one earpiece alongside his thin lips, a pose he employed for almost every photo they ran with in the Wileyville Weekly Citizen. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “No, no. Just a little…misunderstanding.”

  “Ah.” He nodded and slid his glasses back into place, obstructing the expression in his eyes when he added, “So how is your daddy?”

  “I never said…” She looked out at her quiet street lined with refurbished turn-of-the-century houses then sighed. “He’s fine. I just need to get over to the VFW and collect him.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll walk with you over there, then.” He swept his arm out, inviting her to go ahead of him down the steps, through the morning glory–covered arched gateway and out onto the sunny sidewalk.

  “Oh.” She curled her bare toes against the thick rubber soles of her pink-and-orange shower shoes. “I…I need to change.”

  Into an entirely different person. This Sadie wasn’t about to go strolling through town looking like a walking laundry pile with the mayor at her side. Though it might finally be the one thing she could do to make her daddy proud.

  No, Sadie could practically see Lollie reveling in the role of president of the Wileyville Historical Society, pointing Sadie out to the grade-schoolers taking the town tour today and saying, “What we learn when we study about the people who have built our fine town, children, is that some folks are a lot like the big oaks that line our fair streets. The nuts don’t fall far from the trees.” Then she’d nod to the mayor, smile big at Sadie and add, “On your way to see your daddy today, sugar?”

  “I’m sorry, Mayor. I can’t just up and go with you right now. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course, Sadie. It seems I’ve got you at a bad time. I don’t want to press you to make a decision under these circumstances.”

  “But I think I can safely say I’ve already made my decision and it’s—”

  “Don’t say it.” He held up his hand. “Don’t say no. Not yet. Talk it over with Ed and get back to me.”

  To protest meant to prolong his presence, so she simply smiled and nodded, telling herself she didn’t actually agree to anything. The door creaked as she opened it just wide enough to slip through, and before doing so she turned to the mayor and mumbled the expected, “Thank you for thinking of me.”

  “No, thank you, Sadie.” He grabbed her right hand in a vigorous shake then leaned in, still holding her palm to his and whispered, “You know, given all you’ve been through lately and all you have had thanklessly thrust upon you over the years, I think a new job, a real job, would do you a world of good.”

  “Oh.” She had no idea what to say to that. So she murmured, this time with some actual connection to the sentiment, “Thank you. Thanks…for…for showing faith in me.”

  She shut the door and fell back against it, unable to make perfect sense of what had just happened.

  A new job? A real job?

  Sadie didn’t want a new job. She wanted her old job—the role of wife and mother, just the way it used to be when everybody still needed and relied on her. That was her real job, the only one she ever really wanted.

  But with the kids growing older and more independent, and the Lord having seen fit to deprive her of another chance at holding a new baby in her arms ever again…

  Not that she blamed the Lord. She told herself it was part of His plan. She told her family and friends that He knew what was best and she had to accept it. And times like these, in the dimly lit stillness of her all-too-quiet home, she told the Lord…nothing at all.

  She had nothing to say to Him. She could not pour her heart out to Him, because ever since she’d lost the baby, her heart had been as empty as the tiny crib in the closed-off nursery upstairs.

  That had to change.

  Every day she woke up and waited for that change to come.

  And it had.

  Slowly.

  To some extent.

  Most days now she was…fine.

  Or functioning, at least.

  But she still didn’t feel like her old self. She just felt old. That her time of being somebody, of making something remarkable of her life, had passed her by. She felt bereft, devoid of the possibility of ever becoming her best self. Not an easy concept to convey to those who looked to her to keep their little worlds in orbit. And she knew no way to express it to them anyway, short of confessing that most mornings when she looked at herself in the mirror, one overriding, inescapable thought filled her mind—here is a woman who will never be good enough.

  Never.

  And on days like this, it seemed that life—and the likes of Daddy and now even the mayor of her hometown—conspired to prove her right.

  Chapter Two

  “Wileyville was founded by three main families: the Bartletts, the Barretts and the Fursts.” Lollie Muldoon made generous gestures toward the three mansions standing across from Monument Circle where her walking tours always began.

  One of the once-impressive houses had fallen into disrepair. One had found its purpose housing the Home Extension Offices, the Wileyville Historical Society and the county food bank. The third, and most opulent of the trio, remained the home of Mayor Furst and his family.

  The sight of the Furst mansion made Sadie want to run in the opposite direction—home. But knowing that route held neither answers nor respite for her, she simply put her back to the house and decided to hurry past the tour and get on with her mission.

  Two historical society members of long standing—there, no doubt to offer
their opinions on Lollie’s practiced patter—stopped her cold.

  “Sadelia Pickett? ’S that you?” a woman in a wide-brimmed sun hat asked.

  “It is. It’s her.” Her companion raised a hand to wave then called out, loud enough to cut into Lollie’s well-rehearsed tale about the founders divvying up the town like a pie, “Did I miss out on you having a young ’un?”

  Sadie tensed. She placed her hand over her midsection and told herself to keep breathing, slow and steady.

  “Having a child in this class is not a prerequisite to taking the tour, ladies. Some people come along to learn.” Lollie tilted her head up, which smoothed out the soft folds of her double chin just a little.

  The two tour detractors sniffed.

  Sadie relaxed. She wouldn’t have strictly called Lollie’s sly smile that followed triumphant, but it did have that air about it. Sadie mouthed a thank-you and started to wind her way around the group when the white-haired matron with the brass name badge on her chest motioned to the small crowd to head down the street.

  Before Sadie could clear the cluster of children completely, Lollie called back, “We’re tickled to have you along, Sadie.”

  “Well, I wasn’t—”

  “Most of you probably know that Mrs. Pickett’s family owns the Downtown Drug, there.” She pointed to the three-story wedge-shape building that Sadie’s husband, Ed, had owned for the last twenty-three years. “Of course, we all call it ‘Pickett’s on the Point.’ And that’s where we will be stopping for refreshments at the end of the tour.”

  Every head in the group turned toward Sadie bringing up the rear. Every eye gaped at her.

  Stuck. She conjured up a lame smile. “Well, I can’t stay for the whole tour, but I guess I could walk along for a ways.”