Chapter 40

CHAPTER

FORTY

“ I t goes over there, baby,” Everly said to Clay, who bobbed under the weight of the speaker.

This year, for the Fourth of July celebration in the park, Everly had organized a children’s dance-off to take place in the early evening, right before the food trucks and booths shut down for the concert and subsequent fireworks. The clock ticked closer and closer to four when her event would start, and sweat ran down her neck and forehead from the July heat.

Trace had filled a wheelbarrow with ice, fruit-flavored sodas, and various flavors of lemonade, and he currently stood with all the kids while Everly finished her preparations for the dance. He manned the stroller with Avery in it, their little girl who was about twenty months old now.

Those past twenty months had really taken their toll on Everly, even if she didn’t want to admit it. She had not had quite the postpartum depression with Keri and Clay that she’d dealt with with Avery, and she thanked the good Lord above that she’d started to feel more like herself this year.

She couldn’t quite describe what it felt like to live each day without color. She was awake. She was alive. There was just nothing to it. The sky wasn’t blue. The birds didn’t chirp. Nothing brought happiness or joy. Everything simply existed in shades of gray. She fed her kids. She worried over Harry. She cried more than ever.

Trace had been steady and strong by her side, and she’d seen a counselor and gotten on medication that had introduced a blip of color in her life. But really, it made her numb.

And she didn’t want that either.

But for months, she existed in numb grayness. In the end, she decided that wasn’t working for her either. She did not want to miss Clay’s first day of first grade, or Avery’s first step, or the day when Keri got her ears pierced when she turned eight.

She wanted to live and breathe joy, to experience life in bold strokes and bright color. So she’d gone off the medication, stayed with the counselor, and started working through anything she could.

An alarm went off on her phone, and Everly reached to silence it as she connected the cable from the stereo system to her phone. She turned and faced Trace and all the kids, a smile on her face that felt real for the first time in months.

“All right,” she said as she danced over to the kids. “Who’s ready for this? ”

The kids all jumped and squealed, and one of the things Everly had done to introduce more vibrancy in her life was to return to her studio. She’d never sold it, but she had hired teachers so that she could raise her kids and be there for them after school instead of in the studio.

But in January, she had taken back a tiny tots ballet class and the teen hip-hop class. It took two hours of her week, and Trace didn’t have a job. He could be with the kids in the afternoon just fine—every afternoon if she wanted him to—and she had started to feel more like herself.

“All right, all soda cans have to go in this bucket,” Trace said, and he held up a huge garbage can. “Soda cans here. Make sure they’re empty. Dump them out on the grass over there.”

She loved watching her tall, dark, cowboy husband interact with children, because it showed the opposite side of who he pretended to be in Country Quad.

“Come on out onto the dance floor,” she said, indicating the area that she had roped off with burlap ribbon. “You’re going to need a few feet around you, so spread out.”

She had come up with a simple routine to teach the kids—a twenty-four-beat dance—and then they would do a dance-off. Everyone would go home with a prize and hopefully a smile, including Everly.

All three of her kids attended, though Avery was barely big enough to bounce up and down in her diaper and her red, white, and blue striped romper. She made Everly laugh more than once, and by the time the class finished, it felt like she had climbed Mount Everest.

Trace and the kids helped her clean up, putting everything in one big bin that her husband lifted with his strong muscles and put in the wheelbarrow.

“Let’s go, kids,” he said, and they made the trek from the boutique and food truck area to the three red umbrellas that Cecily set up every year. Those umbrellas were a beacon, a homing call for all the Youngs, the Whittakers, and the Hammonds. Because Everly had done the dance, she, Trace, and their family approached a large group of people who’d already set up and already started to eat whatever Trace’s momma had brought.

When Otis spotted them, he jumped to his feet and went to help Trace by taking the tote off the top of the wheelbarrow. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“We’ve got loads of soda and lemonade left,” Trace yelled, parking the wheelbarrow next to the table where Cecily had spread out the food. “Come on, kids. Come get something to drink.”

Everly loved Cecily and Jerry with her whole heart, and she leaned down to hug the older woman who’d become her mother figure in the past decade.

“How’d it go?” she asked, patting Ev’s shoulder.

“Real good,” Ev said. “Felt good to be out there again.”

Cecily sandwiched one of her hands between two of her papery, weathered ones. “I’m sure it did, dear. There’s plenty of food, and I saved you one of the peach tarts since I know you don’t like cooked apples. ”

Ev grinned at her, her heart filled with so much love. “Thank you, Cecily.” She hugged Jerry and gave him a quick kiss before she moved over to the table to help her kids get dinner.

How Cecily had so many different family recipes that could feed a crowd, Ev would never understand. But this year, she saw that Shawn had brought all the sides, and Cecily had simply made huge trays of sweet and sour meatballs. The rolls and buns she recognized from Pork and Beans as well.

She glanced around to find her brother sitting with Reggie and Kassie, who held Shawn and Enid’s youngest, a four-month-old boy they’d named Isaac. Everly loved that the Youngs included her family as if they’d always belonged to them, and she nodded over to them.

“Can we sit over there this year?” she asked Trace.

“Fine with me,” he said, and he took the chairs that they had set out earlier and moved them over by Ev’s brother.

The kids all sat on blankets, some of the older ones playing cards while the younger ones had toys and coloring books to keep them entertained until the fireworks started. Ev nodded to Graham and Laney Whittaker, who sat next to Bryce and Codi, as she went by. While she could name every single man, woman, and child there tonight, she just wanted to be surrounded by her brothers and husband.

She sat down next to Shawn, and he reached over and squeezed her hand. “How’d it go?”

“It was great.” She flashed him a smile. She sighed as she looked up into the sky that would darken and then have pops of bright white, red, and blue light flying through it soon enough.

She thought, Mama, it’s a day of celebration.

Everly used to talk to her mom all the time, but she only did in rare circumstances these days.

I’m doing so much better , she thought. I recognize myself when I look in the mirror now. But I don’t think you’d recognize me. My life is so different—and so, so good.

She opened her eyes and looked around, and the thoughts in her head weren’t just for her mom anymore, but for her too.

She did have an amazing life, with a beautiful family, though she’d lost her parents too early.

And it felt so good to acknowledge that, and to really, truly feel it.