Free Softly and Tenderly by Sara Evans

had taken a hiatus from college and left for a Guatemalan orphanage, joining a humanitarian organization as a medical aid worker.
    “I’ll find someone.” Mama nodded her head, eyes closed, chin set. “Hire someone . . . take the Greyhound.”
    “Take a bus? You are a crazy old woman. How about I ask Max for the company jet?” Mama hated to fly, even on a private jet.
    “Why don’t you just bury me alive, Jade-o? I’d enjoy that about the same.” Mama clutched her fist to her chest. “My heart wants to be home. Take me, Jade, please.”
    All right, she heard. Mama’s plea tapped her heart like the mew of the kittens. But she couldn’t just load up and go. She had the Blue Umbrella and the Blue Two, which at the moment sported a big hole. Last but not least, Max’s parents’ marriage was in a tilt-a-whirl. Jade considered how he might need her in the coming weeks and months.
    “Mama, can we go to sleep for now? Talk in the morning?” Jade stooped to kiss her cheek and clicked off the lamp. “Sweet dreams.”
    “I could hitchhike,” Mama said in the dark. “End my days like they began, on the open road, looking for the next ride.”
    “Times have changed, Mama. It’s not the summer of love, Woodstock, or a Washington rally. And you’re not twentysomething anymore.” Jade hesitated by the door. “The world’s lost what innocence remained.”
    “Rats, I was hoping all of this was a dream.” Mama’s breathing ladened her words with sleep.
    “Sorry, it’s all reality.”
    “But it’s been good, hasn’t it? Most of it, my life?”
    Jade propped against the door, her shoulder cutting into the swath of hall light, hearing what Mama was too shy to ask. “It’s been good, Mama. You had a lot of adventures.”
    “I did, didn’t I? Lots of . . . adventures. But you know the best part?”
    “What’s the best part?”
    “You, Jade-o. You.”

Six
    At the sound of the bells, Jade expected to see Lillabeth coming in from her UT-Chattanooga classes, ready to take over the Blue Umbrella for the afternoon.
    Instead, June’s coiffed and manicured form shot through the shop followed by Rebel. Her heels resounded up the stairs.
    Jade winced, softly hanging the last ’70s granny dresses on the antique rack she used for special displays.
    “I’ve given you almost two weeks.” Rebel’s heavy words drifted through the wood and plaster, falling into the shop. Thank goodness the place was empty except for the cloak of afternoon sun splashing through the front pane. “Plenty of time to stop being angry. What are people—”
    “I’ve stopped caring, Rebel. Stopped. Caring.” The loft door slammed.
    A couple of women entered the shop. Jade smiled, hoping the rabble upstairs was settling down.
    Another door slammed. A voice rumbled. The startled women gazed toward the ceiling.
    “Ladies, have you seen the granny dresses? Up front, by the window.” Jade motioned, smiling. When the ladies started parsing through the display, Jade scurried on tiptoe up the stairs.
    Pausing at the loft’s door, listening to feet shuffling over the hardwood, Jade stiffened, bracing for a . . . what? A smack? A crash? Would Reb become violent?
    After a thick moment of silence, Jade knocked. “June?”
    The door swung open. “The man’s impossible. He refuses to listen. Has cotton in his ears. Tell him, Jade.” June left the door ajar and curved around the wall into the kitchen.
    Jade hesitated, not wanting to become a pawn in this game.
    Rebel caught her eye. “Well? Are you going to tell me?”
    Jade peered back down the stairs. “Look, Reb, this isn’t any of my business.”
    “Sure it is. You’re aiding and abetting my wife. So?” Reb jammed his hands into his pockets with jocular confidence. “What is it I need to know?”
    Jade loved Reb. He had embraced her like a father from the very beginning, but she’d glimpsed his defense lawyer temperament and he could intimidate.
    “She thinks you’re on her like a