WHEN THINGS GO SOUTH

Chapter 14 - Only The Good Die Young

There's a steel gray castle tower, standing alone in a field surrounded by broom sage swaying in the breeze. I walk to the tower and open the heavy steel door to an empty circular room with an elevator. I step on, and the elevator takes me to the very top floor. It stops. I step out, and Lyle is sitting on a bench alone. I ask him, "Lyle, what are you doing here?"

He replies, "I don't know, and there is no one to ask; it's like I am waiting on something."

About that time, both of our heads turn to the sound of the heavy steel door slamming shut on the bottom floor. Lyle acknowledges, "Someone else is coming."

Just then, I'm woken by raging storms; I raise straight up in the bed in a complete panic, crying and trying to catch my breath; Anthony wraps his arms around me and pulls my head to his chest.

This wasn't a bad dream I was going to wake up from.

I couldn't go back to sleep.

 If losing Lyle wasn't enough to keep me up, the horrible rolling thunder crashes were.

I had never heard thunder so loud and continuous, especially in February. Still, sometimes Kentucky weather will give you all four seasons in one day.

This has happened before. When I lost Granny Ree. That night I dreamed I was in an elegant room with high ceilings, the windows draped with heavy velvet burgundy curtains.

I was sitting at a beautiful dark wood vanity brushing my hair; as I looked in the mirror, Granny Ree appeared behind me, sitting at the foot of the bed. I turned to her and asked, "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Heaven, and why are you in the same body? I thought we all get new bodies in Heaven,"

Granny Ree replied while raising her arm out and shaking it, "You mean this ole rickety thing? Oh, I do have a new body in Heaven. God just sent me back down here in this, or you wouldn't have known who I was."

Valentine's day had started out perfectly, being woken up by kisses from Anthony and a dozen pink roses on my nightstand. I snuggle into Anthony and lay in bed in the quiet, but not for long. Jordan and Rhett come into our room, trying to drag us out of bed to take them to The Donut Hut for heart-shaped donuts for breakfast. But first I give Anthony his Valentine present. A watch with a leather band from me and the kids engraved, You Are Loved. He needs to know that.

Instead of going out on a date for Valentines, Jordan and Rhett had made plans to cook spaghetti for Anthony and me and serve us at the dinner table by candlelight. After dinner and a night of love stories on TV, it sparked Jordan's curiosity, and she wanted to know how Anthony and I first met. "So," she says, "Tell us how you two fell in love."

I nudge Anthony; I'd like to hear his version myself. Straight-faced and serious, Anthony begins, "Well, the way I remember it, your Momma noticed me at The Redwood House.

I think she must have got my number off a check I wrote for my food. After that, she started calling me every day because the first time she saw me, she fell head over heels in love."

I throw a pillow at Anthony, "Now tell the real story." "Okay, okay," Anthony replies. "I stopped at The Redwood House one morning after work for breakfast. Your Momma came over to the counter to take my order; she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, so beautiful in fact that she made me nervous. I could hardly get my order out.

She looked just like the girl I pictured I would marry. She had the sweetest eyes. I finally got the courage to ask her out; well, I wrote it on a note and stuck it on her car windshield.

Honestly, I thought she would turn me down, but here we are." I confirm what Anthony said and add that I fell in love with his smile, and Sonya and I nicknamed him black velvet because of it. Anthony blushes: that was the first he had heard of this.