“They weren’t exactly rocket scientists.” He laughed. “This one practically is. I still can’t believe you married a physicist. The way I remember it, the only thing that got you through high-school physics was the fact that Coach Gill taught the class.”
“You’re a damned liar. I got an A in that class.”
“Deserved a C.”
“B minus.”
Ethan grinned and waved the driver’s license. “I can’t wait to tell Dad I won my bet.”
“What bet?”
“The age of the woman you married. He said we’d have to schedule the wedding ceremony around her Girl Scout meetings, but I said you’d come to your senses. I believed in you, bro, and looks like I was right.”
Cal was irritated. He hadn’t wanted everybody to know that Jane was twenty-eight, but with Ethan staring at the date of birth on her driver’s license, he couldn’t deny it. “She doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”
“I don’t know why you’re so sensitive. There’s nothing wrong with marrying someone your own age.”
“She’s not exactly my age.”
“Two years younger. That’s not a big difference.”
“Two years? What the hell you talkin’ about?” He snatched the license away. “She’s not two years younger than me! She
’s—”
“Uh-oh.” Ethan backed away. “I think I’d better go.”
Cal was too stunned by what he saw on the license to hear the amusement in his brother’s voice, nor did he notice the sound of the front door closing a few moments later. He couldn’t take in anything except the date on the driver’s license he held in his hand.
He scrubbed the laminate with his thumb. Maybe it was just a smear on the plastic that made the year of her birth look like that. Or maybe it was a misprint. Damned DMV couldn’t get anything right.
But he knew it wasn’t a misprint. There was no mistaking those grim, condemning numbers. His wife was thirty-four years old, and he’d just taken the sack of a lifetime.
“Calvin, he’ll be comin’ to fetch you before long,” Annie Glide said.
Jane set down the tea she’d been sipping from an ancient white ceramic mug that bore the remains of an American flag decal and gazed at Annie across the cluttered living room. Despite its unorthodox decor, this house felt like a home, a place where a person could belong. “Oh, I don’t think so. He doesn’t know where I am.”
“He’ll figure it out soon enough. Boy’s been roamin’ these mountains ever since he was in diapers.”
She couldn’t imagine Cal ever wearing diapers. Surely he’d been born with a belligerent attitude and a full set of chest hair. “I can’t believe how close your house is to his. The day I met you it seemed as if we drove several miles before we got to those awful gates.”
“You did. Road winds all the way ’round Heartache Mountain goin’ through town. This morning, you just took the shortcut.”
Jane had been surprised when she’d reached the notch in the mountain and looked down the other side to see the tin roof of Annie Glide’s cabin. At first she hadn’t recognized it, but then she’d spotted the colorful wind sock flying at the corner of the porch. Even though it had been nearly two weeks since they’d met, Annie had greeted her as if she’d been expected.
“You know how to make corn bread, Janie Bonner?”
“I’ve made it a few times.”
“It’s no good lest you fold in a little buttermilk.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Before I took so sick, I used to make my own apple butter. Nothin’ as good as cold apple butter on warm corn bread. You got to find you real soft apples when you make it, and watch yourself peelin’ ’em ’cause ain’t nobody on earth likes to bite into a big tough ol’ piece of peel when they’re expectin’ good smooth apple butter.”
“If I ever make any, I’ll be careful.”
Annie had been doing this ever since Jane had arrived, tossing out recipes and bits of folk wisdom: ginger tea for colds, nine sips of water for hiccups, beets to be planted on the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, or twenty-eighth of March, but no later or they’d be puny.