Granny Livvy’s Secret

“Autumn? Why don’t you make us some lemonade?” Granny Livvy called from the porch.

It was mid-morning and already a scorcher. Through the open window in the kitchen, I caught the squeal of machinery nearby, which had been running since dawn.

I let the water flow until the red tinge of rust faded. Why Granny insisted on continuing to live in this barely functional farmhouse was beyond me. But as long as she wanted to live here, I’d help her out.

I carried a tray with glasses, a pitcher of lemonade, and napkins outside and placed it on the table next to her.

Granny perched in her glider-rocker, watching the activity across the road. A house, Granny’s only neighbor on this dusty road at the edge of the county, was nearly razed to the ground.

I filled my own glass and sat on the steps at her feet. The lemonade felt refreshing in my parched throat.

“I didn’t think they were going to tear it down,” Granny said, sipping her lemonade. The “sold” sign had been up for weeks, but it was only recently the machines moved in. “It’s too bad. A lot of history in that house. I promised Maralee I would keep an eye on it for her. She would be appalled if she knew her children sold it to someone who tore it down.”

She stopped as we watched the excavator tear into the final wall.

I knew Maralee Davis somewhat from my visits to Granny over the years, but her kids shipped her off to a nursing home about the time I arrived to care for Granny full-time. “She was your best friend, wasn’t she?”

“Since birth. We grew up right here across the road from each other. Closer to her than my own sisters. I would do anything for her.” She paused. “I remember when we took her family’s farm truck without permission, wanting to go into town, but we ran it into a ditch. Maralee’s father was furious about the damage to an expensive farm vehicle, so I said I was driving it. I was grounded and had to pay them what I could for the damage.”

“Why would you do that?” I didn’t think I had a friend I would do that for.

“It was for Maralee, so I didn’t mind.”

Granny rocked silently for a minute before continuing. “She once told me, ‘Oh, promise me, Livvy, we’ll always live here, raise our families together and never leave.’  And I promised her, I did, and you know I keep my promises.”

She frowned, as if digesting her disappointment this was one promise unkept.

“It wasn’t your fault she needed to go into a nursing home,” I consoled her. The heat was causing my forehead and my glass of lemonade to break out in a sweat. I dabbed both with a napkin.

“I remember how beautiful the outside of the house was,” Granny continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “The flowers her mama planted around the house were stunning. Roses, oleander, daffodils, larkspur. Those flowers were her mama’s pride and joy and Maralee kept them up once she married. My ma had no time for flowers with all the other things needin’ doin’ on the farm.”

The flowers, like Mrs. Davis herself, had long since abandoned the house.

“Why don’t I fix us some lunch?” I suggested. Granny was gearing up for one of her long reminisces, more frequent of late, and I was going to need the sustenance. I’d already heard about how she stole and read her older sister’s diary and how she met Gramps.

I hurried inside and made some ham sandwiches for us. Too hot for anything cooked.

I handed her a plate with the sandwich and chips, and she absently took a bite, focused on the work across the road. The last wall had collapsed into a pile of rubble, and the cleanup begun. The front-end loader scooped up a pile of broken lumber and dropped it into the dump truck.

“Did I ever tell you about Maralee and John Hascomb?” Granny asked.

I pulled my eyes away from the destruction across the road and looked at Granny. “No. Should I know John Hascomb?”

“Goodness, no. He’d come and gone long before you were a glimmer in your daddy’s eye.”

“Who was he?”

“Why, Maralee’s first husband.”

“Really? I never knew she was married before Mr. Davis.”

“The town right forgot about John after he left and was only too glad he was gone, I reckon.”

Granny had piqued my curiosity about John Hascomb, and I waited patiently for her to continue.

“When Maralee’s family had a working farm, they had over 150 acres of corn, same as us. They’d hire hands to help o’er the summer and fall. John was one of those laborers. Though he seemed to spend most of his time courtin’ Maralee on her front porch rather than working. Lazy, shiftless, I knew right then. But Maralee was just out of school and smitten. They married after the harvest and he brought her right back here.”

She paused, intently watching a loader filling the back of a truck with more debris from the farmhouse. The noise of the demolition faded into the background as I listened to Granny, lost in her thoughts.

“Of course, he was too high and mighty after the wedding to work the farm. But not too good to spend its profits. He racked up debts in town, drinking and gambling, bad investments. Got into drunken fights which cost him a few nights sleeping it off in jail. Probably drove Maralee’s father to his early grave. Her mama followed shortly after with the cancer. Leaving Maralee with a deadbeat husband, two small kiddies, and a farm. She had to sell it off in pieces to keep them afloat. Oh, it about killed her to do it, but she had to provide and the more she provided, the meaner he got.”

Granny handed me her empty plate. I’m not sure she tasted any of her lunch. “Why don’t you cut us a slice of that apple pie you made?”

I cut Granny a sliver. She never ate more than a bite of any sweet I made, despite being rail thin. I cut a bigger piece for myself and rejoined her on the porch.

“Oh! They had such fights.” Granny continued as soon as I sat. “We could hear them clear across the road with the windows open. The screamin,’ the kids wailing, things breaking.”

I was appalled. “He sounds perfectly dreadful. Why didn’t she kick him out?”

“You didn’t do that in our day. The church frowned on it. When you married, it was for better or for worse.”

“But he sounds abusive. Couldn’t you get her help?”

“From who? Police didn’t interfere in what went on in a man’s home. I don’t think it ever went that far, though. Never saw a mark on her and it sounded like she gave as good as she got.” Granny smiled as she admired her friend’s fortitude. “Then he left. Nobody looked too hard for him but for those he owed money. John left her with his debts and she worked hard to pay ‘em off. But she did it. Every one.”

Across the road, someone yelled and the machines abruptly died, leaving an eerie silence. A man pointed at the right, rear corner of the house, which the backhoe had been clearing away. More men gathered around the spot. Another worker pulled out his cellphone.

“I was there, the night he disappeared,” Granny said. “They were yelling as usual—worse than usual, actually—and Mama suggested I go invite those poor kiddies over to our house. But I knew what Mama was telling me. She was telling me to help Maralee.”

Granny turned and looked me in the eye. “Women always look out for their own.”

“I ran across the road and found Maralee crying in the kitchen, dinner on the stove, beef stew about to burn. The kiddies were already fed, bathed, and dressed for bed. I shooed them across the road, promising a sweet if they didn’t dawdle.”

Granny set her pie on the side table with a little more force than necessary.

“Maralee said she and John were fighting because he insisted on selling the remainder of the farm and moving them back east.” Granny’s voice sharpened. “Of course, we could never allow that to happen. Maralee was in no shape to finish preparing dinner, so I pitched in. I ladled out three bowls of stew.”

“’Make sure to add the herbs,’ Maralee said to me. ‘He’ll be furious if his stew’s bland.’   I saw the plants laid out on the counter. I knew what they were. I admired them every day. I chopped them finely and stirred them into John Hascomb’s bowl and placed it at the head of the table.”

Wait. Did Granny just say what I thought she said? My stomach dropped.

“He stormed down the stairs, demanded I return home, then dug in. I ignored him as I usually did and calmly ate my own stew. After dinner, I helped Maralee clean up the mess in the kitchen and went home and told my parents John was gone.”

The Sheriff’s car tore up to Maralee’s former home, traveling faster than the Sheriff ever moved for anything but dinner. I had a bad feeling I knew why.

“What are you saying Granny?” I asked in horror.

“I think it’s best we get inside and tidy up the house.” Granny Livvy stood, resolute. “It won’t hurt to put out some cookies and make more lemonade. We’ll be having visitors soon and they’ll be hungry.”

Author Bio:  After a decade investigating financial crimes, Heidi Hunter now writes mysteries and short stories. She’s a member of Sisters In Crime and their Guppies Chapter and she writes a travel blog.