Saving Tess Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by J. Lynn Bailey

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.jlynnbaileybooks.com

  Cover Designer: Hang Le, By Hang Le, www.byhangle.com

  Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  Proofreader: Julie Deaton

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7341395-2-5

  For my great grandmother, Eledice Douglas.

  Thank you for always being with me.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  17

  18

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  21

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  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  A Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  OTHER BOOKS WRITTEN BY J. LYNN BAILEY

  Prologue

  August 2021

  Present Day

  Dear Reader,

  There are some decisions that stick to your heart, lay against your conscience like rotting soil. It clings; it burrows itself into your skin, pushing you to feel every inch of its pain.

  Some decisions that feel rightfully just simply aren’t because of the way it sits with you for the years that come afterward.

  I’d take back that night if I could. The guilt simply isn’t worth the heartache of what we caused each other and others.

  “Tess and Casey? Please, follow me.”

  I remember how our names slipped past her lips. Concern sat at the forefront of her tone while judgment sat in the back seat, waiting for the right time to announce itself—probably when Corrine went home after her day. I bet she had a hard time sleeping at night just because of what she must do in her line of work.

  The pain began to sear through me like electric shock, and I remember that I dropped to my knees, both from heartache and from the physical pain that pushed against my body.

  That night, I didn’t make it any further. I stopped right there, in the hallway, unable to move, unable to cry, unable to right the wrong or wrong the right that was just about to happen.

  I knew we’d made a decision that night that would cost us our future together and change the course of our lives forever.

  In the end, when you’ve finished this book, I hope you’ll understand, and I hope you’ll continue to root for Casey and me.

  All my love,

  Tess

  1

  Tess

  End of August 2020

  There’s one thing about Sarah Beth you must know. She never cries. Once, I saw her take a punch to the face on accident. Her nose exploded into a mess of red ooze. Her eyes stayed bruised for what seemed like months. She wore it quietly and proudly because when it was all said and done and Tommy Renner apologized profusely because the punch had been meant for Luke DeLoach, not a single tear fell.

  Sarah Beth is our principal at Dillon Creek Elementary and a friend of mine.

  But I suppose this story isn’t about Sarah Beth or the fact that she’s on the verge of tears at this very moment. It’s about why I’ve been summoned to the superintendent’s office, Eric Town—who we also grew up with, though he was more Tripp, my brother’s, age.

  Fear can start as a tiny pin drop that lives in one’s stomach and then quickly metastasize to a gigantic ball of raging fire in just a matter of seconds. But just as quickly, fear can shrink back down to its tiny pin-drop size again because the brain has convinced the fear that this isn’t a big deal.

  This is where I’m at right now when I take notice of the people in Eric’s office.

  Yolanda, the representative from Human Resources.

  Sarah Beth, my supervisor.

  And Eric.

  “What’s this about, Eric?” I say as I keep my hands clasped tightly in my lap, trying to hide the slight tremble that’s started.

  I can see by the dark circles under his eyes that he’s lost sleep. Holds his stress on his shoulders like boulders, a nuisance, an unwanted family member at Christmastime.

  In our district meetings, which include the elementary school and the high school, we’ve discussed our steady decline in enrollment in the past few years.

  My hands begin to sweat.

  On the other hand, I think to myself, not allowing the fear to metastasize to my brain quite yet, we’ve also discussed the need for more teachers for more subjects at the high school.

  The office grows smaller with each second that Eric doesn’t speak.

  This is maybe a promotion, my head says. Maybe they’ve decided to change the grade I teach. First grade is my favorite; however, I’d be willing to learn a different curriculum if it meant I got to be with the kids.

  The fear seems to shrink only momentarily until Eric says, “Our enrollment numbers are declining. They have been for the past three years.” He runs his hands through his short brown hair, and then he folds them together and places them on his desk. “Because of our declining enrollment and because you have the least seniority at the elementary school, I have to …” He pauses.

  And all of a sudden, I connect the dots.

  Yolanda, our Human Resources person.

  Sarah Beth, my direct supervisor.

  The white piece of paper sitting in front of me, which I’ve just now noticed.

  “We have to let you go, Tess.” I think Eric whispers.

  Sarah Beth sucks in a long breath, and I turn to look at her for a long moment, unable to comprehend what Eric just said.

  All I can do is stare at Sarah Beth’s eyes and how she stares back at me. She takes my hand into hers, and now, I’m looking at our joined hands.

  Eric’s muffled voice sounds.

  A loud hum begins in my ears.

  I need to breathe, and I can’t because it’s caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.

  My chest grows heavy.

  The hum gets louder.

  Yolanda says something, touches the white piece of paper in front of me.

  I ache to breathe while the office grows smaller and Yolanda, Sarah Beth, and Eric grow bigger.

  Am I losing my mind?

  Breathe. I need to breathe.

  The hum gets louder in my ears and turns into a drumming noise—a consistent, loud, dramatic drumming.

  “Excuse me,” I say as I stand, trying to hold myself up.

  I fumble into the hallway. I hear arguing, loud voices behind me in the office. I don’t know if they’re calling for me. I just need
to breathe, and somehow, the school corridor has become a small cave of entrapment—dark, lonely, and stifling.

  My legs seem to carry me to the outside. My lungs on fire, my body trembling, my stomach in a fit of knots, I try to collect the information I was just given, but everything is so blurry, so out of focus.

  The coastal air slithers down my throat and into my lungs, and I absorb it, crave it, and swallow another mouthful, attempting to gain clarity of what just happened.

  The fog is rolling in, which means it’s just past three o’clock. I was working in my classroom—

  And then tendrils of reality start to seep in.

  The classroom. It’s no longer mine.

  My new students.

  The new students I’ve been preparing for all summer. The students whose parents I’ve grown up with.

  What am I going to do?

  Purse. You need to go back inside and get your purse and your phone.

  The fog moves in like waves of unwelcome houseguests, and with the fog comes the anger.

  I march back into Eric’s office and slam the door behind me.

  “You’re firing me? After three years of hard work, volunteering for every committee, helping my students after work hours, working summers to tutor my students for free, you’re firing me?”

  Eric sits back in his leather chair. I wonder how much that chair cost the district, and this makes me fume.

  “You goddamn know as well as I do that I am the best first grade teacher you have. I love my kids!” Emotion seeps into my words. I push it down, so it won’t surface again, so I don’t let Eric and this situation get the best of me.

  “I know,” Eric whispers.

  “I know why I’m the person the district needs to let go. I understand. But it also isn’t fair.”

  “My goal is to bring you back next year, Tess. We just need to be patient.”

  Now that Yolanda from Human Resources is gone, I say it. “Diane needs to retire, and you know that.”

  Diane is the other first grade teacher, and she’s been teaching since I was a student at Dillon Creek Elementary. Which is saying a long time since I’m twenty-seven.

  “I know. You don’t think I tried every avenue to keep you before I delivered this news to you, Tess? Come on. You know me better than that.”

  “This is bullshit, Eric, and you know it.” I turn to leave his office for the second time, but before I do, I say, “I’ll leave my lessons in my classroom, Eric, but know this—it’s not for you. It’s not for Diane. It’s for the kids in hopes that she might use them.”

  “Thank you.”

  I storm out of the superintendent’s office, leaving a trail of three years of hard work in my wake.

  Before I shut off the light in my classroom for the last time, I look at the small desks and remember the tiny little bodies that fill them.

  The squeals of happiness on the first day of school.

  The tears.

  The chatter.

  The questions about why I’m a Miss and not a Mrs.

  Why don’t you have a husband, Miss Morgan?

  You’re real pretty, Miss Morgan, and nobody wants to marry you?

  Who takes out your trash?

  Who puts up your Christmas tree?

  I shut off the light in room two and leave behind the memories.

  As I walk to my car, my phone rings in my purse, and I dig it out. It’s Anna. My eyes fill with tears. She knows. I’m sure the entire world knows by now that I’ve lost my job—because it’s been eight minutes and it’s Dillon Creek.

  “Hey,” I say in my best attempt at finding normal in my tone.

  “Meet me at The Whiskey Barrel in ten minutes. I love you.”

  I whisper, “ ’Kay,” as I choke back a sob.

  “And, Tess?”

  “Yeah?” I reach up and wipe the tear descending down my cheek.

  “This is just the beginning of your story. You’re meant for more.”

  “ ’Kay.” I can’t manage any more words than that, for fear I’ll lose it in the school parking lot.

  I hold on to Anna’s words and tuck them into my heart.

  Dave’s tending bar. Sunday nights are slow.

  I sit down at the long mahogany bar, attempting to put this afternoon behind me but I know better. I know I wear my mood like a shawl with holes the size of Texas.

  Dave walks over, drying a glass, and sets it in front of me. “On the house tonight, Tess.”

  I bite my lower lip, willing the tears to leave my eyes before I speak, “You heard.”

  He turns to the bottles of hard liquor, grabs the Elijah Craig Single Barrel, and fills the small glass.

  I nod in acknowledgment of the gesture.

  “Hey.” I hear Anna say and feel her hand slide across my back.

  She kisses the side of my head.

  “Pick your poison, Anna,” Dave says.

  “I’ll have what she’s having, Dave, thank you.” Anna sets her purse around the back of the chair and then puts an arm around me. “It’s their loss, Tess.”

  I nod as I put the glass to my lips and take a sip, allow the feel-good to wander into my mouth and slide down my throat. Dave sets a glass down in front of Anna.

  She takes a sip. “Smooth.”

  Dave walks down the bar and gives us our space.

  “What am I going to do, Anna?” I breathe, putting the glass to my lips again.

  “You’re going to show up for life. Have you ever thought that maybe you’re not supposed to teach? Maybe the Big Guy has bigger and better plans for you. A detour? A lesson to be learned?”

  “I thought … I thought I had my life figured out. I-I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I feel … lost … numb, I guess.” The elixir reaches my head; my shoulders come down, and my head feels lighter.

  “Sometimes, we just have to sit with things. See how they feel against our hearts, our heads. Move through the feelings.” Anna takes another sip of the bourbon. Leans into my ear. “It’s really not that smooth.”

  She tries to stifle a cough, and I feel the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile.

  “It’s not that smooth,” I say as I take another sip. “But it feels pretty good.”

  “What’s Colt up to?” I try to change the subject.

  “Game film via Zoom with the team.”

  “Ah.” I set my glass down. “The famous Colt Atwood watches game film in the off-season with his team.”

  “It’s really just an excuse to see each other during the off-season. I think Pitts, one of Colt’s teammates, is in Paris right now, and a few of the other guys are on the East Coast. I think they just miss each other,” she sighs and proceeds with caution. “Have you talked to Casey?”

  I give her the look. “Is he still in town?”

  “You’re an awful liar.”

  I set my glass down. “No, I haven’t.”

  Anna looks down at her glass. “I believe my best friend gave me some sound advice last year when she said I was just scared with Colt.”

  “She’s a shitty best friend. You should find a new one.”

  What Anna doesn’t know is the secret that Casey and I share. The reason we weren’t there the night Tripp and Conroy were killed—because we were driving back from Oregon, trying to fix the big, gaping hole between us.

  “I don’t know why you both always kept things so casual when it was clear to all of us that you two felt something so much more.”

  I swallow the guilt that starts to reach my heart. “People grow apart.”

  Anna shakes her head. “No, you both grieved. You both lost brothers that day, and I think all that shit pushed you both apart.”

  When Anna says brothers, I feel the pain, the heaviness of the weighty word. I went from living most of my life as a sister to losing some of my identity when Tripp died.

  Tripp and I had been closer than most siblings. And I wasn’t there to help him. I wasn’t there to save him. Tell him not to get in the Jee
p. Tell him to stop being stupid.

  But I try not to live there, so I take down the last of my drink, the last ounces of guilt closer to my toes, farther away from heart so I won’t feel it so much.

  “Hey, Tess. Sorry to hear about the job,” Pixie Puckett says as she and her husband, Tony, leave The Whiskey Barrel.

  “Thank you.” I put my pride and ego aside, try my best to be gracious like Grandma Morgan would have told me to be.

  I look at Anna. “Wonderful. The whole town knows, and now, everyone can acknowledge it.”

  “They care, Tess—that’s all.” Anna finishes her drink. “Come on. Let’s grab a table for dinner.”

  It’s a quarter to seven when I return home. My brother’s ashes sit in my linen closet in the same plastic white box that they were sent home in from the mortuary eight years ago, existing between the hand towels and the washrags.

  “Lost my job today,” I say as I grab a towel to wash the day’s events from my face. “But I’m sure you already know, just like the whole damn town.”

  I shut the door and then open it again. “You were my person, Tripp. And now, there are so many things I can’t share with you.” I shut the door again, only to open it. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”

  The house phone rings.

  “You make me crazy.” I shut the door and walk into the kitchen. I look at the caller ID. Roll my eyes. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Oh, hooooney. We just heard. We’re beside ourselves. Don’t worry. Dad will talk to the school board.”

  I can tell the way she drags out the word honey that she’s been into the wine tonight. Maybe a bottle. This isn’t unusual. I never call Mom past six in the evening, knowing full well that she’ll drawl out her words, condemn the Atwoods again, blame the whole world for why her son isn’t here anymore. As if she were the only person who lost someone that day. As if Dad and I hadn’t lived through it. As if the Atwoods hadn’t lost a son. As if our whole town hadn’t died that day too.

  “Mom, no. You can’t fix this. It’s not your job.”

  “Tess, are you lisssteninnng?”

  “What, Mom?”