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

Why do you keep asking me that?I asked.


I sighed a bit too heavily. I was tired of this particular conversation. Noah had a deep, abiding insecurity. Nothing I did seemed to make it better.


“Come here,” I said, waving my hand at him.


I put my hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes for long, long moments. I could see all his fear and insecurity in his eyes, his hesitation, his doubts.


I’m going to answer this question, I signed at last, but I want you to promise me you will never ask me this question again. Do you promise me?


You’re my only child and I will never love anyone as much as I love you. I would cut off my own arms for you. Don’t you ever doubt it. I’ve been there for you since the day you were born and I will always be there for you, and that will never change. Do you understand?


Chapter 77