Thirsty Pelican: Chapter Six - 2019

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person or event is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

Copyright 2025 Royce F. Houton

Last Call at the Thirsty Pelican

Chapter Six:

2019

By Royce F. Houton

She was as beautiful and radiant as any bride I had ever seen, but I had known for nearly 23 years that she would be. I told her so as we finished our father-daughter dance at the reception, the floor to ourselves, surrounded by awestruck friends and family.

"Thank you, daddy," Butterbean said in response.

I placed my hands together in a prayerful gesture and bowed slightly to her in a show of respect as the song -- the Darius Rucker cover of Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" -- faded and the DJ segued into "Jump Around" by House of Pain, a signal that the ceremonial part of the reception was over and it was, at last, time for youth to claim the dance floor and begin the revelry in earnest.

Siobhan intercepted me as I headed toward the bar for a large glass of icewater before I found Sarah and walked with her into the cool but humid late May night air. My tuxedo shirt had the beginnings of perspiration rings under my armpits and a respite in the gardens just outside the clubhouse appealed to me.

"Kirk, that was a wonderful moment just now with our baby girl and it touched me," she said. Then she placed a soft kiss on my cheek. "Thank you."

I gave her a brief, chaste hug and smiled.

"You raised a perfect little girl, beautiful just like you. Now she's all grown up now. So thank you," I said. "Now if I don't get some water and cool off, I'm going to have to jump in that garden fountain."

Sarah was waiting for me at the bar, anticipating my parched condition. She handed me a glass of cranberry juice on the rocks, I guzzled it and asked for an icewater refill.

"How you holding up," Sarah asked as we stepped into the garden, her fingers interlaced with mine as a breeze sweetened by magnolia blossoms caressed us.

"Better now. Long but great day. Don't see you firstborn marry and start her own family every day. I had been sweating it for days: would the weather hold out for an outdoor sunset wedding? It did. How would it go with Siobhan? Well. Would the wedding planner, photographer and caterer and everybody else to whom I was paying a king's ransom show up? They did," I said. "I guess I'm relieved."

"Good." She smiled and put her arm around my waist as we strolled.

"Can I tell you something?"

Sarah shrugged and nodded.

"I felt a little guilty today. All eyes are supposed to be on Butterbean, and she is the prettiest little bride. Admittedly, I'm biased," I said.

"You should be," she said.

"But the whole day, I can't take my eyes off you. You are radiant. You are beautiful. And you weren't even the bride! I don't think I've ever seen anyone as gorgeous as you are today... as you are right now."

She blushed as her arms enveloped me, she stood on her toes and kissed me, softly but intently.

"Thank you," she whispered as she rested her head against my chest. "And you're not half bad for a dad of the bride, either, Mr. Weeks. So handsome. I couldn't take my eyes off you, either."

We stood there in each other's arms for long minutes under the silvery three-quarter moon, saying nothing, relishing the moment of holding and being held, the quiet of the gardens all to ourselves against the party music and full-throated celebration inside the country club ballroom behind us. I inhaled the clean, sweet fragrance of Sarah's hair and pressed soft kisses into it. Her small hands traced gentle patterns on my cotton shirt.

You know it's something special, maybe sacred, when you communicate without saying a word. We did. Neither of us would doubt what was shared in those wordless moments on that sweet, late spring night, and it would guide our path together from that point on. But neither of us would speak it for many weeks to come. We didn't have to.

▼ ▼ ▼

It had taken a Jefferson County Circuit Court jury just 42 minutes on the hottest afternoon in July to find Waymon McClendon guilty of two counts felonious assault.

Going to trial was a big mistake for him, but Waymon was hopelessly captive to his own hubris, just as he had been while he ran Anchor Bank right up to his quick, unceremonious firing by the board nearly nine months earlier. The Jefferson County district attorney offered him a deal that would allow him to plead guilty to a reduced simple assault charge in exchange for a suspended sentence and three years' probation. His own attorney advised him to accept it, but Waymon turned it down, somehow convinced that he was morally and legally right. Now, he would own a lifelong felony record and was assured of at least several months behind bars.

Even more ominous, he was also a target of a federal grand jury investigation into an alleged conspiracy to commit bribery, bank fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. The FBI and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had spotted troubling signs and became suspicious of him during the LoanFast probe, but the investigation caught fire after Brantley Melton turned over an electronic copy of the violent, recorded encounter at the Pelican to the U. S. attorney's office.

According to news reports citing anonymous Justice Department sources, Waymon had begun diverting and bank funds into a numbered account in a bank in the Cayman Islands. This was going on many years before the LoanFast scandal and before he tried to buy my silence, but this was the secret stash worth millions he would have used to covertly pay me $750,000 over five years.

Waymon's defense lawyers in his assault trial, unable to controvert facts of his attack on me at the Pelican, took the mind-boggling step of trying to portray Waymon as the victim, as a man abused, baited and pushed beyond his limits by Sarah and me. In a stunning effort at deflection, the lead defense attorney unspooled a preposterous theory that Sarah and I were trying to silence McClendon from going public with a claim that Sarah and I conspired to tilt the loan-servicing software trials in favor of her employer, WAS Solutions. While the lie was unpleasant for Sarah and me, it failed spectacularly for the defense and, in so doing, vindicated us.

Results of the federal investigation into the corporate espionage that imploded at Anchor and forced the global collapse of LoanFast were entered into evidence by the prosecution to refute McClendon's claims. But there was an even more devastating witness against him: his former executive assistant for more than a dozen years at Anchor, Glenda Ferry.

Buried deep in the FBI reports about the LoanFast scandal was a notation that in addition to spying for the China-based company on sensitive communications about activities in the competition for the loan-servicing contract, Glenda had placed tiny, concealed spy cameras at strategic points on the main administrative floors that the FBI's bug hunters found quickly. That included areas where printers and copying machines were housed to track who was doing what with printed copies of information. It was in one of those copier rooms that Waymon falsely alleged that Sarah and I had hooked up several times after hours during the side-by-side software trials. Glenda's motion-activated cameras, provided clear, time-stamped views of the copying and printing room. The images and data accompanied by her testimony disproved beyond dispute that those assignations never happened.

With our names cleared in open court and the press, Sarah and were intent on disengaging ourselves and unplugging, at least for a while, from the ongoing legal battles and the media coverage surrounding them. At this point, Waymon McClendon was a fully discredited and ruined man and could no longer harm us. I was ambivalent about whether Brantley Melton should take our civil suit against Waymon to court. I told him I'd be fine with a settlement that represented a reasonable payday for Melton, Sarah and me -- particularly if we could seize assets McClendon had squirreled away in the Caribbean -- and let this ordeal die without a trial.

Bobo Mitternicht had made me an irresistible offer: overseeing AmeriBank's loan operations across Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana with the title of senior regional vice president. It would pay me half again more than my old job at Anchor with raises and stock options possibly more than doubling my Anchor earnings within two years. I could remain in Birmingham or, if we want, relocate to Atlanta because the busiest airport in the world is there with direct daily commercial flights to places as distant and hard-to-reach as Fayetteville, Arkansas, or Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Accepting the job was the easy part. Figuring out whether to move had to involve Sarah, and we needed some extended time away together to do that. We chose the last week of July. And by "get away," we meant way away: glamping at a very private, exclusive, couples-only resort in the mountain jungles of northern Costa Rica.

The 12 hours spent either in airports (plane changes in Atlanta and Mexico City) and the four hours spent in transit (half of the ride from the capital city San Jose to our tropical paradise was on unpaved roads) was worth it.

The "rooms" were spacious, modern geodesic domes built on decking 15 to 20 feet off the rolling jungle floor, almost giving them the feel of treehouses. They were made of tough, white, waterproof nylon stretched over an aluminum skeleton -- incongruously resembling an igloo in the humid Central American heat -- with all the comforts. It technically qualified as a tent, so our pampered stay qualified as camping.

A fully private rear balcony faced a lush canopy of green forest about 30 feet away ― close enough to easily spot indigenous parrots, toucans and spider monkeys in the boughs but not close enough for deadly tree vipers like the green fer-de-lance to drop off a branch and onto us. Each room had toilet facilities, Wi-Fi and high-definition television, but showering required a short walk to a cluster of outdoor stalls, centered in our pod of three igloos, each with a shoulder-high modesty barrier of cured bamboo poles. Robes were provided in each unit for transit to and from the showers, but we spotted one couple arriving and departing from them naked except for their flip-flops and towels. While this was not a nudist resort, any clothing requirements -- at least within our pod -- went unenforced.

Sarah and I packed light with only a couple of pairs of shorts and one dress shirt apiece as well as sandals and swimwear. It all fit in one small carry-on suitcase, and she protested the evening before our departure that it would not be enough.

"Hon, we'd have been fine packing nothing more than a toothbrush," I said as we watched the naked couple, seemingly in their twenties, saunter nude and arm-in-arm back to their igloo. "We could go all week naked as jaybirds and nobody would notice."

"You go right ahead," she said.

I chuckled and pulled her closer. "Why? Afraid you'll put them all to shame."

She playfully smacked my chest. "You know better, but I love you for saying so."

"I don't think it, I know it," I said, tilting her chin upward before kissing her softly. No sooner had our lips parted than she came in for an encore, full of passion and lust, hooking a leg behind mine and pressing her hips into me.

The last traces of sunset were fading fast and the Milky Way was already on vivid display in a cloudless sky far from the nearest city and its light pollution. But it would be hours before we would sleep. We were both naked before we ventured onto the fully private rear veranda and felt the unexpected, fragrant cool air from beneath the jungle canopy wash against our bare skin and heard the night sounds of exotic creatures in the dense and lightless tropical foliage.

I had hardened instantly as we removed each other's garments, and my erect length bobbed and weaved with each step. In the pale, amber illumination of a small solar light on the decking, I could already see her excitement gleaming on the inside of her upper thighs.

"There," she grunted, pointing to a deck chair. "Sit... now."

I did as commanded. Whether it was adrenaline or anticipation, she felt light as a pillow as she straddled me and as I lay back, semi-recumbent, in an oversized Adirondack chair. Sarah's breathing had already accelerated as she adjusted her knees to accommodate the chair's arms. With my arms no longer needed to support her, one hand kneaded her breasts and tweaked her puffy nipples while the other found her pubic garden and the slippery wetness beneath. Her bean was already outside its pink shroud, and I covered it in her rich juice before fanning the lubricated pads of my index and middle fingers quickly back and forth over it, something I knew would bring her swiftly to orgasm. But her hand stilled mine.

"No," she said, grabbing my shaft and positioning me at her opening. "Make me cum from this," she said, lowering herself onto me until her bottom nestled against my nuts in one smooth, sweet motion.

A dreamy look transformed her face -- her eyelids more closed than open -- as her hips began rocking, driving her clit against my skin as she rode my cock. Her tempo quickened and we added our own night sounds to those of the jungle. Anyone outdoors in our group of igloos was bound to hear us. Sarah's eyes rolled backward, her legs began to shake and she cried out.

Maybe it was the primeval setting. Maybe it was the wild feeling of freedom and being far from courtrooms and lawyers and banks and Waymon McClendon. But whatever it was, Sarah surrendered herself to the most uninhibited climax I had seen from her. It seemed to last for minutes, aftershocks caroming through her, causing her to flinch and whimper as she drifted back to the safety of my arms.

"My God, Kirk," she whispered, somewhat chastened as she realized the noise we had made. "Do you think they..."

"Probably," I said, gently kissing her forehead as a tendril of sweat trickled between her breasts, the product of her exertion and the humid tropical air. We kissed and laughed softly for several minutes as we savored our al fresco moment of physical and emotional nakedness.

Eventually, she realized that I remained hard within her.

"You didn't...?" she asked, somewhat apologetically.

"No. Besides, we might need this boner later."

She smiled impishly. "Guess what. It's later."

With that, she climbed off me, causing my eager erection to slap wetly against my belly as we decoupled. She stood and offered me her hand.

"On your feet," she said. She took my hand and tugged me off the chair.

"Whatcha got in mind, beautiful?"

She grabbed the railing of the balcony, bent forward and leaned into it, presenting her delectable backside with drenched labia protruding between the splendid orbs of her bottom. She glanced over her shoulder, leered at me and said, "Use your imagination."

I let my flanged, livid glans glide up and down dripping folds several times before sliding easily inside. Sarah edged backward as I entered and sighed as I filled her. She widened her stance slightly, better allowing her to wriggle her bottom in time with my thrusts and affording my free hand room to tease her button, her nipples or both.

She intended this only for my release but quickly felt her encore orgasm building as my cock plunged slightly downward over her G-spot and my fingers thrummed her mons and her clit. The untamed, rapturous exultations she had yelped into the wild a few minutes earlier resumed, her hips began something not unlike twerking and her legs tensed. I joined her climax this time.

Just before I lost control, I felt wet warmth gush onto my sex and legs as Sarah unleashed a guttural cry into the darkness. I gasped something incoherent just as I lunged hard and shot my hot load deep inside her. I shuddered as the muscles clenching in her pelvic floor seemed to milk me.

We rode out our wild, outdoor orgasms until we decoupled and lay next to each other on the painted boards of the veranda floor. "Dear heaven," I muttered as our bodies cooled and we inhaled the fragrant, nocturnal jungle air.

"Yeah," she said between gasps. "Me too."

We lay there, side-by-side flat of our backs, for a good 10 minutes before our athletic-level exertion gave way to a satisfied, peaceful languor.

"No question they heard us that time," I said with a chuckle.

"Well, if they wouldn't stroll around buck naked then maybe we wouldn't get all worked up and come out here and rut like animals of the bush," she said.

"Exactly."

We stared heavenward at light that had taken thousands, millions of years to travel from distant stars and galaxies to our little pinpoint of a constellation on the edge of our massive galaxy pinwheeling through the black void of the universe.

"I've waited all my life to love and be loved like this. I doubted it was even possible or, if it was, that it could really be like this," she said. "Other than these hard wooden boards beneath us, I can't imagine a more perfect place or time."

"Me too, angel. This is the closest to perfection that my life has ever gotten."

She rolled onto her side, looking me in the eyes. Her fingers traced my jawbone, then down my neck to my chest. "You complete me in a way I've never felt before. I don't know how many ways to tell you how much it means to me to love you and know you love me."

I pulled her to me and kissed her tenderly; her breasts flattened against my chest. Neither of us wanted it to end, but when it did, we spent more long moments just staring into the other's eyes, lightly tracing the contours of the other's face, consigning the feel to muscle memory to the extent that were we struck blind, we could identify each other by touch.

Somewhere deep in the wild beyond our veranda, a beast emitted a sound that was somewhere between a roar and a cry. We sat up and scanned the darkness but saw nothing and heard nothing else.

"Well, if we can do it...," Sarah said.

"They should be so lucky."

With that, I got to my feet and helped her to hers.

"We need a shower," I said. We were both covered in each other's congealing love fluids.

"Well, you know what that means," she said.

"I'll get the robes," I said.

"Forget that," she said. She grabbed my hand, marched us both, fully naked, out the front door, across the decking of the common area to one of the dimly lit shower stalls.

We used the scented liquid soap in dispensers on the shower wall to lather each other from head to toe before rinsing off in the unheated fresh water. When we were done, we ambled back, still naked but dripping wet, and toweled each other off inside our igloo before collapsing onto the king-sized bed.

"My demure little angel certainly overcame her modesty of a few hours ago. Jungle fever?"

"Hey, if that other couple can...," she said spooning and snuggling her bottom against me. "Now just hold me and let's sleep 'til we can't sleep anymore."

▼ ▼ ▼

It was the fourth of our six days of luxury "camping" in the Costa Rican rain forest. We had spent about half our time here unclothed, including almost all our hours in our igloo or its veranda and, late at night, walking to and from the showers and jacuzzi. We wore the minimum that decency dictates into the restaurant, coffee shop and the bar.

The time we spent alone without barriers, including clothing, facilitated an emotional intimacy and ease in communication between us that went far beyond anything we had yet achieved. That and plenty of really great sex. That alone validated this trip not only as timely but essential.

It was in the easy afterglow of lovemaking that some of the most momentous issues we needed to resolve were addressed.

We were agreed on my accepting the AmeriBank position. We had both decided, independently, that we should move in together because she was just two months away from the deadline for renewing her lease. And that meant, ultimately, leaving my downtown condo for a more conventional home with a garage and a fireplace and three or four bedrooms and a fence in the event we got a dog. But where?

Unresolved was whether to live in Atlanta, where the home offices for both our employers would be just a couple of miles from each other or stay in Birmingham. Atlanta was so close that flying there from Birmingham was impractical when trips to headquarters would be necessary for either of us, but it was far enough that a round-trip drive was a commitment of eight hours, minimum. We met in Birmingham, we had each lived the majority of our lives in Alabama, real estate and the cost of living were much lower than Atlanta and we felt comfortable there.

We were under no hard deadline to decide. WAS Solutions clearly didn't care where Sarah called home. All Bobo Mitternicht really cared about was my getting my work done and being where I needed to be when I needed to be there across my four-state region and four or five VP-level gatherings a year in Atlanta.

"Might have to cut back on ballgames in Tuscaloosa if we move to Atlanta. You good with that?" Sarah said, stretching languidly on the Adirondack chair as we baked in the tropical sun, intent on eradicating tan lines.

I shook my head as I pondered the point. "This is Alabama football we're talking about, you know," I said, raising my sunglasses and giving her a sidelong glance to impart levity to the moment.

"Then again, sooner or later Meghan and Neil are going to start producing grandbabies. Are you going to be OK seeing them maybe once a month and driving to Atlanta every time you want to visit?"

I sighed and shook my head. "You're not making this any easier, sweetheart."

She giggled.

"What time do we meet the guide for that donkey trek up the mountain to that old coffee plantation?" she said.

"One o'clock outside the atrio," I said, referring to the central building that included the main restaurant, bar, a ballroom, registration and business offices. I checked my watch, the only article of clothing I wore. "So we've got... 45 minutes to get presentable."

We met Alberto Jinojosa with three pack mules -- not burros as we assumed from the brochures -- at the appointed time and place. Alberto rode lead up a steep, narrow trail which was only a little under two miles in total distance, but a total elevation of just over 750 feet, which I thought was a pretty low bar for a mountain.

"These are not mountains like in the Sierra, Señor Kirk, but you must remember that where you are staying is closer to the top of it than the bottom. You cannot see all the slope because of the selva," he said.

I looked quizzically at Sarah, on the mule behind, me for a translation. "Jungle," she mouthed silently.

For most of the climb, through the densest vegetation, we traveled in a single-file mule caravan, much of it swarmed by mosquitoes and flies. Then, as though emerging from a tunnel, the foliage gave way to a vast clearing sloping gently upward, ringed by waist- to chest-high bushes and a magnificent, sprawling hacienda at its apex. The close humidity and shadows of the jungle floor gave way to sunshine and a cool wind as we entered the clearing and made our way through the coffee bushes. As we did, we got a breathtaking vista of the unspoiled, emerald-green forest for miles in any direction and, through the haze, the blue of the Pacific Ocean about five miles to our west.

The hacienda had been in the same family that had produced coffee beans on the land from the 1600s until the early 20th century when mechanized, corporate coffee production had made the beans picked by human hands and packed back down the same trail in burlap sacks on pack animals financially uncompetitive. Now, it was maintained by the Costa Rican government as a national park, Alberto explained. It wasn't overrun by visitors because it was so difficult to reach, he said. Upkeep, usually by crews and supplies helicoptered in, was augmented by fee of $110 (U. S. dollars) for each person, paid in advance to guides like Alberto. He added his own $200-per-person fee on top of that -- the same price other guides maintained -- also holding down the number of mountaintop sojourners.

Guests could walk around the unoccupied hacienda, built in classic Spanish style with their beautiful, red porcelain ceiling tiles. There were plaques throughout the property (all written in Spanish and translated by Alberto) explaining the early days of coffee production on the plantation and in Central America generally and how it ramped up with the expansion of the United States. There were picnic tables for those who brought food. The only hard, inviolable rules were that guests had to port all trash back with them and leave the property before 4 p. m. to guarantee plenty of time before darkness and its manifold dangers didn't overtake them in the jungle.

"Many animals in the selva at night -- very dangerous, Señor Kirk. Snakes, very deadly, hunt after dark," he said. "One bite will kill a large mule in an hour."

It was already 3:20. Time was running out. I suggested that before it got too late, we check out the tower on the highest point of the property, reportedly once used to keep watch on merchant ships coming and going on the distant ocean and to signal to townspeople living in the broad plateau below when coffee was ready to be picked and hauled down the mountain. The online tour guides generally agreed that the view from the tower alone was worth the price of the trip, that it was unlike anything else, and something people remembered rapturously to their dying day.

A total of 132 steps to the top. The structure, though nearly 300 years old, remained sound, and the vista was as advertised.

The color contrasts were stunning. Below us, falling away in all directions, was deep green. The haze at the horizon gave way through the distance to unbroken azure overhead except for the sun in the western sky. With nothing to break the breeze off the ocean at this altitude, Sarah's curls flitted and danced around a face filled with wonderment.

"Just... glorious, Kirk. Worth the trip," Sarah said, allowing the splendor to wash over her.

"Yes, precious, it is," I said, my eyes locked on Sarah so intently and for so long that it caught her attention.

"What?" she said with a bemused smile, brushing unruly ringlets from her eyes.

"There's one way to make this even better."

She shook her head, puzzled. "How?"

"Well, I could ask you to marry me, and you could say yes."

Her face went momentarily blank. Her eyes blinked repeatedly as the moment registered with her. I retrieved a small box from the pocket of my hiking shorts and opened it before her, allowing the three-carat solitaire diamond ring to glint in the brilliant sunlight.

Her first sound was a gasp. It took a few moments more for her first words, a whisper: "Oh... my God."

"Will you?" I said. "Marry me?"

Her composure dissolved. She sobbed and threw her arms around me. I curled the arm that wasn't holding the ring around her and held her close. I can only imagine the rush of emotions within just before she looked me in the eyes and said yes.

"You are my whole world, Kirk, and I love you. Yes, I will marry you."

"Then, this," I said, pulling the ring from its box, "... belongs here."

I took her left hand and slid the ring gently onto her third finger, adorning it for the first time in her life with a commitment to enduring, committed love. She looked at it in fascination for a few seconds, seemingly to convince herself that the ring and the moment were real.

"I love you, Sarah. Fully. With all that I am and all I ever will be."

There, on the rooftop of Costa Rica, we kissed for uncounted minutes. Nobody was watching the time, except maybe for Alberto Jinojosa.

"I never want to leave here," she said. "I want to look around, imprint this moment forever in my heart. This place is sacred to me."

"Me, too," I said. "From this day on."

We took selfies -- her ringed finger conspicuous in all of them -- letting digital photography objectively archive the images for posterity. We used the panoramic photo feature on our phones to take two 180-degree sweeps, capturing the scene from every direction exactly as it was in this blessed hour. Before we descended the 132 steps, we took one last video selfie of the two of us that we would use on social media when we publicly announced our engagement. Alberto was getting nervous about packing two Yankee gringos down the steep trail through the dense selva with dusk closing in, even if they were freshly engaged.

I tipped Alberto well when we arrived back at the lodge just as the orange ball of the setting sun dipped beneath the jungle canopy and set the sky ablaze with brilliant colors as if to celebrate Sarah and me. We strolled into the bar and celebrated with basic beer and burgers before shedding our clothes in the common area near the showers, took turns thoroughly washing each other in one of the stalls, and walking back to our igloo just as we had seen another couple do on our first night here -- happy and naked.

Except for her ring finger.

▼ ▼ ▼

Life had been a whirlwind since we returned from Costa Rica and announced our engagement, first to family and closest friends and, in September, to the public generally.

Meghan and Perry, whom we notified immediately in a FaceTime chat from Costa Rica, weren't surprised. They wondered what took so long. They later broke the news to Siobhan who reacted with what Perry thoughtfully described as "stoic good will and acceptance." Sarah, having lost her dad when she was a child, and her mom and son in the past decade, told a cousin in Tennessee with whom she maintained occasional contact. The most uncertain seal of approval was my elderly mother whom we told in mid-August. Though she knew of the engagement, nobody knew the extent to which she would approve. That is something Sarah desired but that could not be taken for granted.

I had explained to Sarah that mom was very much a product of her deep-South 1950s upbringing. She was big into peerage, genealogy and starchy relics like Daughters of the American Revolution and United Daughters of the Confederacy. When I told her that I had filed for divorce from Siobhan, she accepted the news stoically, mercifully sparing me the lecture throughout my childhood about how the scandal of divorce forever stained patrician families like hers had been. That she withheld overt condemnation was a sign that she at least understood that my actions were not without considerable justification. She might have embraced it more fully had she seen the dossier Skeeter Neaton had compiled on Siobhan, but that was something I would never permit her to learn about the mother of her grandchildren. I hadn't even told Sarah those details and never will.

Siobhan had been quite close to "Miss Elizabeth," as my ex had called her, a formality that appealed to mom's Southern-ness. That put Sarah more on edge than mom's philosophical aversion to divorces and second marriages.

Sarah's apprehensiveness was palpable as we drove to Huntsville and the homeplace mom -- at age 77 -- still maintained, mostly by herself, 55 years after she and my late father moved into it. Sarah stared quietly into the distance ahead or out the side window, nervously chewing gum as the low, north Alabama hills sped past along Interstate 65 on the third Sunday of August. For someone as engaging as Sarah, that was unusual. By the time we pulled into the long gravel driveway leading to the Victorian-style home in one of Huntsville's oldest neighborhoods, her hands were sweating and fidgeting.

"So... OK," she said, finally looking at me and swallowing hard as I killed the engine, "we're doing this."

"Sarah, look. Mom's going to love you. She's not a warm-and-fuzzy person: never has been. Don't take that as disapproval. Just be you. It's impossible not to love who you are. And remember, it's me you're marrying," I said.

Mom greeted us on the wide, wrap-around veranda. A silver tray containing a pitcher of sweet iced tea, a matching silver bucket filled with ice cubes and three crystal tumblers sitting on white lace doilies waited on a glass-top table surrounded by four white, wicker chairs. True to form, my mother greeted Sarah with a distant, practiced hug and air kisses and only scant small talk. To my relief, she opened by noting that Sarah was "even more beautiful in person" than she had imagined.

It was a rite of passage in the Weeks ancestral manse that guests I brought there would listen to a digression that could last from about 15 minutes to half an hour about how my late dad had bought the house -- built by former Confederate soldiers who had survived "the War of Northern Aggression" and needed jobs, she always felt compelled to disclose -- and renovated it for central air and heat and yada yada yada.

She always noted that I had been a very conscientious child and a pleasure to raise in contrast to my wilder, more rebellious older sister, Kathryn. She would point out the tree from which once hung a tire swing that, at age eight, I had fallen from and broken my left arm. To me, it was boilerplate -- an oft-heard recitation to be endured -- and I had warned Sarah to expect it. Smartly, she absorbed every word, seemed fascinated by it and even asked follow-up questions. I could see the gap between these women closing.

Then we reached the part about Siobhan and the grandkids she adored. I knew that part was coming, too, and dreaded it more than the rest. Mom had always spoken almost beatifically about her former daughter-in-law, and I feared Sarah would take that as rejection. Some part of me hoped mom would just cruise right on past it, but she couldn't.

"Butterbean and Perry both speak very well of you, my dear," mom said, looking away from Sarah and onto her lawn, dappled by midafternoon shade from great oaks and pecan trees. "They do love their mother, too. You understand, I'm sure. I adored Siobhan myself: a delightful girl." She paused for a few seconds, and my stomach tightened not knowing where the next few words might lead.

"She was a wonderful mother. She was a thoughtful daughter-in-law, too," she said. I could see Sarah avert her gaze downward, toward the tabletop and the half-empty glasses of iced sweet tea. "But Siobhan betrayed all of that. I shall never understand why. It broke my heart, and it still does. I was very angry with her -- angrier maybe than my son -- but I prayed every night to the Lord to help me forgive her."

Mom had gone way off the expected script. I was encouraged. And terrified.

"But things happen for a reason, reasons not always clear to us," mom said, returning her gaze to Sarah and gently touching her arm. Sarah looked at her.

"My Presbyterian church teaches me that faith is what is required of us when the Lord doesn't immediately grant us answers to our questions or to our prayers. Without faith, all we have is science. And while I haven't always gotten what I prayed for, my faith has not let me down."

"The first I really heard about you was from my grandchildren. Oh, Kirk told me that he was seeing someone he really liked, but he's always been cautious telling me things," she said, smiling sardonically in my direction. "But Perry and Butterbean, they've always been Gammie's eyes and ears, my little secret agents. They were the first to tell me that they were worried about their mother's behavior. They were the first to tell me about how alone and sad Kirk became during that time and the divorce, and they were the first to really tell me all about you."

It was a good sign that mom had used her grandchildren's pet name for her, but now her eyes were locked intently on Sarah's.

"My dear Sarah, please understand that I will always love Siobhan because she's the mother of two of my five precious grandchildren. And yes, the Lord has given me sufficient grace to forgive Siobhan," she said, pausing again to monitor Sarah's reaction as those words sank in.

"I want you to understand that, Sarah, because I don't know if I could have forgiven her had the Lord's grace not brought you into Kirk's life. You lifted my son up after life had crushed him like a beer can. You brought love a purpose back into his life. You are the answered prayer that, on faith, I trusted the Lord to provide. As I said, my faith did not let me down, and because of that, I had to share the grace I had received and forgive Siobhan."

Sarah's mouth hung open, unable to form words. Mom stood and opened her arms wide, and Sarah rose and walked into them. Sarah's tears spilled onto her cheeks as they embraced, holding each other tightly -- something Miss Elizabeth Weeks rarely did and never to strangers. With Sarah in her arms, mom cut her glance toward me. It was a clear-eyed, loving look that conveyed everything. She knew it and so did I.

"Sarah, I am blessed to have you in my family," she whispered to my fiancé.

As evening fell and a cicada chorus filled the late summer air, we moved indoors where dinner awaited. Mom knew that Sarah had a special needs child who had passed away but had never heard the whole story until now. It had mom drying her eyes with her linen napkins before coffee was served on this Sunday night.

We had intended to leave no later than 8 o'clock. But the conversation continued until almost 10 when mom was the first to realize that we would not make it back to Birmingham until almost midnight and that Sarah had a job to attend to the next morning.

It had been perhaps the best gathering with my mom that I have had in decades. I saw a wiser, more empathetic and spiritual side of her than I knew existed. Now, Sarah and I would look forward to Huntsville, and we didn't have to wait long.

The holidays were more of the same, but bigger. Mom's spacious, high-ceilinged, four-bedroom house with a Murphy bed and a pull-out sofa gave her a convincing argument for a large, all-family Christmas in her home -- the first with Sarah.

Butterbean and Neil were the main attraction: their news eclipsed anything Sarah and I might impart about our upcoming union.

Just before we gathered to head to the Presbyterian Church for the early Christmas Eve service, Meghan announced that the cycle of life would renew itself with her firstborn due in late July.

My firstborn would soon have her own firstborn. I would be a granddad. And Miss Elizabeth would be a great-grandmother.

NEXT, THE FINAL CHAPTER:

2020