Edith’s expression was so sour that Ella was surprised the woman wasn’t spitting on the floor in disgust.
“It’s why we moved here. He thought putting distance between me and Gigi would allow him to indoctrinate me to his beliefs easier.”
“It didn’t work,” Edith said, with an assurance that made Ella feel good…and bad. Because in truth, there had been a brief time when her fatherhadwon. Though Ella knew it wasn’t the praying and the Bible studies and the Sunday sermons that made her subservient and quiet her senior year.
It was the abuse and the broken spirit that had knocked her down.
Until Gigi dragged her back up.
“When we moved back to Idaho my senior year, I kept my head down and made a plan. Dad believed education was wasted on women, so there was never any talk of me attending college. I worked hard in school to get good grades, and, unbeknownst to Dad, I spent countless hours applying for every scholarship I could find. After graduation, I told him I was going to attend classes at a local community college.
“He said no, said he wouldn’t waste money on something like that. He’d never allowed my sister or I to work, because money was another way he could control us. We were forced to ask for everything, which allowed him to decide what we could and couldn’t have. When I told him I didn’t need his money, because I’d gotten a full scholarship, he said he’d kick me out of the house.”
Edith’s smile grew. “And that was when you moved in with your grandmother.”
“When he realized he couldn’t stop me by withholding tuition money, he thought threatening to throw me out onto the streetwould work. That was when I told him I’d already packed, and that Gigi was waiting outside—she wasn’t allowed into our house—to drive me to her place.”
Edith reached over and grasped Ella’s hand. “Brave girl.”
Again, Ella wished she could accept that praise, but in truth, she’d been trembling during the confrontation. And for good reason.
Furious, her father had backhanded her hard enough to knock her out of her chair. As she struggled to her feet, he called her a sinner, a child of the devil, Eve in the garden, and a host of other things she’d already heard a million times in her life.
Standing there, Ella had looked toward her mother. But Mom didn’t move, just cried in silence.
Realizing she was on her own, Ella walked to her bedroom, where she’d stashed her suitcase. Her father raged at her the entire time, claiming she was no daughter of his and that if she left, she’d never be allowed back.
Eventually, he relented on that, acknowledging her as part of the family again, but only because he’d needed her. Mom had become deathly ill with the flu. Martha had just given birth to her first child and was still recovering. Dad viewed “nursing” as women’s work, so he’d called Ella, told her she needed to come over to care for her mother because he had to work. She’d agreed, not because it helpedhimbut because it allowed her to spend time with her mother.
Despite being “disowned” by Dad, Ella had continued to get texts and calls from Mom, and she’d never failed to send gifts on her birthday and Christmas, always assuring her that Dad would come around eventually.
“While I see my dad occasionally, we’ve been estranged since that day. Our relationship never recovered. When we’re in the same room, and he speaks to me—which isn’t often—it’s rarely civil, always with a tone of disgust.”
Edith massaged the knuckles on her right hand, something she did frequently due to pain from arthritis. “Your father wouldn’t have approved of Maverick, so you kept the relationship a secret.”
“To be honest, there wasn’t that much to keep secret at first. Maverick walked me to classes, started volunteering in the library with me during lunch so that we could be together. Because I wasn’t allowed to participate in any after-school events, we only saw each other during the day. Then summer came and…”
Edith turned on the couch so that she was looking at Ella more fully. “You used to volunteer for Beverly at the public library every summer.”
“You have a mind like a steel trap,” Ella said, smiling.
“’Tis a necessary thing when you aspire to be a top-notch busybody,” Edith joked.
The two of them laughed.
“My dad thought I volunteered all day at the library, but I actually left for a few hours around lunchtime. Maverick came to pick me up every day and we…” Ella paused, aware she was blushing.
Edith chuckled. “I was young once. I can fill in that blank well enough.”
Ella wished Gigi had met Edith. She was certain the two women would have become the best of friends, both of them so similar.
She recalled one of the last conversations she and Gigi had. As she sat here in Edith’s house, she realized it was really Gigi who’d sent her back to Gracemont, and she wondered if her grandmother had somehow known that the time would come when Ella would need this town, and these wonderful people.
Shortly before her death, Gigi told Ella to let go of the past, to stop making decisions based on her family, and to find herhappiness. Then Gigi said point-blank she wouldn’t find it in Meridian…but she might find it in Gracemont.
Ella had played those words over and over after receiving Edith’s invitation to visit, and they had been the primary driving force behind her acceptance.
“That summer was the best one of my life,” Ella confessed. “Maverick was…” She shrugged. “He was perfect.”