Free Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins Page B

show her how generous he could be in the face of how badly she’d treated him. She slammed her fist against the wheel and set off the horn, scaring herself half to death.
    Pulling it together, she stared at the road ahead. Andthis was the reason she had dull old Winston in her life, at least for now. With him there was no drama—at all. Of course, there wasn’t much of anything else either.
    When she got back to the house, Marie had her keys in her hand. “I need to do some grocery shopping, you want to ride?”
    Lily nodded. “Is Ms. Agnes going?”
    “And miss Regis and then The View ? Nope.”
    Agnes called from the living room. “You got that right. See you when you get back.”
    Minutes later they were on the way. Lily knew her godmother didn’t like a whole lot of talking when she was driving, so while Marie drove, she contented herself with watching the wheat fields roll by.
    For the first time in months felt relaxed. Unlike Atlanta, on the plains there was no stress causing traffic, no hip-hop bass rumbling from cars, no breaking news of man’s inhumanity to man every time you turned around. She was enjoying the peace so much she was toying with the idea of extending her stay. Winston on the other hand hadn’t been happy when she talked to him about it on the phone last night, but she had no intentions of letting him have the final say.
    Something else was in the mix too. Bernadine Brown’s plans for Henry Adams seemed to have infected everyone with its purpose and hope and Lily was no exception. Ms. Brown and her revival campaign were the topic of conversation all over town. Lily wanted to help too, and who wouldn’t want to be in on something so exciting and so real? Bernadine not only wanted to revitalize the community, she wanted to impact lives; children’s lives. She blew Lily away.
    They passed a road sign noting the remaining distance to Hayes, and Lily cracked, “Do you think Bernadine can build us a mall so we don’t have to drive to east west hell every time we need something?”
    “I don’t see why she can’t. The woman’s going to build everything else. She is something, isn’t she?”
    “Yes, she is.”
    “And the beautiful thing is that she’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She’s going to be blessed for the rest of her life for wanting to take care of a bunch of old people and children.”
    “I know.”
    Marie turned her cat’s-eye framed gaze toward Lily, “You’ve been awfully pensive this morning. Something going on you want to talk about?”
    “I’m thinking about staying an extra week or two.”
    “You know I’d love that.”
    “I would too, but—”
    “But, what?”
    “I feel like I’m going nowhere. Not professionally but personally and spiritually. Like I should be doing something different with my life.” She thought back on all the angst she’d been dealing with for the past few months, how she felt about her Davis moving on with his life now that he’d graduated and had a real job, and about living the rest of her life with comfortable old Winston. In her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t want to marry him, but finding the inner strength to chuck everything and go in a newdirection was hard for a woman who liked the universe drama free and well ordered.
    Still, she felt constricted, as if her life and the future were conspiring to choke her to death when all she wanted to do was breathe. “Can you stand having me around for another two weeks or so?”
    “Sure, and if you want to stay for good, I can do that too.”
    “Quit reading my mind.”
    “Was I doing that? Sorry. It’s an old fairy godmother habit.”
    They shared a grin, and afterward Marie said in a more serious tone, “If you are thinking about moving back, you and Trent are going to have to settle up.”
    “I know.” Squaring things with him was one of the larger items on her to-do list, but at least she’d admitted out loud that she wanted to change her life. It