Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous -- and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving. Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire. Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making. When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

Shaking the Sugar Tree

Jackson came into the kitchen. He held out his hands to Noah.


Beaming, Noah took hold of his hands and climbed up on top of his spiffy Nikes.


Noah stared up at Jackson, his pale-blue eyes boring into this man as if to divine his secrets. Jackson stared back at him, grinning his confident grin that made me feel faint and nervous. Suddenly the kitchen was entirely too hot.


Jackson had his own dancing style. Like a chameleon, Noah mimicked him, following him perfectly, step for step, letting Jackson hold him and swing him and set the pace.


As he rotated into my field of vision, Jackson looked at me, offering a huge smile.


Chapter 21