by Annie Jones
“Then promise you’ll get help.”
“Claudette Addams said I should see a doctor.”
“Yes. A doctor and maybe even…maybe drive over to Louisville or Lexington once a week to see a Christian counselor.” April recoiled as if she thought Sadie might lash out at her. When Sadie gave no such immediate response, April rubbed her fingers along her braid and rushed to clarify, “You could just see a regular counselor, I suppose, but I was thinking you might want someone who could help you address your spiritual pain.”
Sadie’s face burned. She put her hands to her cheeks. “Has it been that obvious?”
“That you’re a little mad at God? That you’ve stopped speaking your heart to Him?”
Tears stung Sadie’s eyes, but she set her jaw and bid them not to fall. What had seemed a good idea before, now rang hollow in her ears. She did not want a lecture on how she should live her faith. To talk about things that April had observed, their mother, even Sadie’s behavior these last months was one thing. But this…her sister simply had no idea how deep it cut into Sadie’s soul to have been granted a second chance at motherhood only to have the One she loved and relied on, the One in whom she placed all hope, take that chance away. It was like the Heavenly Father had confirmed to Sadie the very worst of her fears—that she was not good enough. That she would be, given another chance, a failure.
What could she say to God after that?
The theme music for the old TV show blared loudly in the silence.
When it faded, they could hear Hannah talking on her cell phone in the bathroom.
“Thank you for caring enough to speak truthfully to me, April, but can we let it go now?” Sadie pulled her shoulders up. “I need to sort of regroup my emotions so I can give Hannah whatever kind of support she needs, you know, whatever the outcome of her test.”
“Sure.” April turned to face the television and began searching again for something suitable to watch.
Sadie fixed her gaze on the phone. She blinked, and though the tears slipped from her eyes, she did everything possible to keep from showing her pain.
After a second and without moving to look at Sadie, April set the channel changer down. “Sadie? About Hannah.”
Sadie cleared her throat before asking, “What about her?”
“She doesn’t really think we are going to find Mama alive and well and living in Alphina, does she?”
“That’s our Hannah. She always wants to believe the best possible outcome.”
“What about you?”
“I know better. That is, I know that whatever the outcome, we have to accept it.”
“I’ve never said this to anyone, Sadie, but I accepted a long time ago that Mama…isn’t here anymore.”
Mama, dead? That’s what Sadie believed, and had believed for a very long time now but, like April, could never bring herself to say it out loud to anyone. Maybe now that they had vowed to speak frankly to each other—
The phone rang.
Sadie seized it. “Hello?”
“Hello? Is that better, Payt?” Hannah stepped out from the bathroom with the cell phone hidden under the waves of her tousled hair.
Sadie stuck her finger in her ear. “You’ll have to speak up—there’s a lot of interference coming from this end of the line.”
“Don’t worry, I’m taking this outside.” Hannah headed for the door in long, brisk strides. Her hand slipped on the knob at the first try, but when she flung the door open, sunlight came streaming in.
Sadie shaded her already smarting eyes.
Hannah giggled.
The door fell shut.
That didn’t matter. Sadie did not have to see her baby sister’s body language to know the news she was giving Payt was better than the news the local pharmacist had called to give to Sadie.
“No, that’s all right. I understand.” Sadie hung up.
April glanced at the closed door, then back to Sadie. “Well?”
Sadie just shook her head and hung up the phone.
“What does that mean?” April mimicked her sister’s gesture. “That he didn’t find anything out or—”
Sadie held one finger up to ask her sister for a moment. “Just let me make one more call. Maybe two.”
“Why? Can’t you give me an answer?”
“I can give you part of an answer,” she said. “But it’s the part that will only lead to more questions.”
Outside, Hannah squealed in delight.
April stole a quick look in the direction of the door, then glared at Sadie and whispered, “Spare me the soap-opera dramatics. Just tell me what the man said.”
“In a minute.” Sadie had already slid her own cell phone from her purse and punched in an all-too-familiar number. “Hello? This is Sadie Pickett, the cemetery superintendent? Can I please speak to the sheriff?”
“You’re calling Kurt Muldoon?” April’s eyes went wide. She curled her fingers into the hem of her camp shirt. “Why are you calling Kurt Muldoon?”
“I’m going to ask him if he has a girlfriend.” For the first time in a while her natural sarcastic streak buoyed Sadie’s spirits. In this long journey back from whatever darkness had seized her, the presence of mind to crack wise—no matter how much she knew she shouldn’t give in to the impulse—had been one of the first signposts of her old self returning.
From the look on her face, Sadie could tell April did not appreciate that subtle distinction.
“Why are you calling the Wileyville Sheriff’s Department, Sadie?”
“Because…yes, I’ll hold.” Sadie lowered the mouthpiece to better try to keep the two conversations separate. “Because…”
“Guess what, y’all?” Hannah burst into the room looking green around the gills and radiant all at the same time.
“We’re going to have a baby!” April leaped up and rushed to take her youngest sister into a big hug.
“We?” Sadie scoffed, but with a tentative smile. “Remember that commitment around the twelfth hour of labor, Hannah, and see if you can’t get her to do her share of having the baby then.”
“Oh, Sadie, you’re such a…” Hannah kept one arm around April and held the other open to her other sister. “Weren’t you on the motel phone a minute ago?”
“She’s trying to reach Kurt Muldoon in Wileyville,” April said, her eyes narrowed at Sadie.
“Whatever for?”
“She won’t say. She got a call from that pharmacist and won’t tell me what she found out, but apparently has no qualms about calling a stranger to discuss it with him.”
“Kurt is hardly a stranger, April.” Sadie strained to listen to the noises on the other end of the line as they transferred her call from the switchboard to Kurt’s office.
“What are you up to?” Hannah put her hand on her hip.
“I am up to getting out of here so I can talk to the man in peace.” Sadie stood, and like her sister before her but with much less enthusiasm, went to the door of their room to step outside.
April snagged her by the elbow. “You can’t walk out of here until you tell us what you know about Mama.”
“I know…Yes, Kurt, I have a favor to ask of you. Can you hang on just one sec?” She pulled her arm free and crossed the threshold to the sunny sidewalk, then turned, and seeing the sweet expectant glow on Hannah’s face, sighed. “I know where Mama is, and if you give me a few minutes to pull some strings, I hope to be able to tell you how she got there.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hannah was crying.
Well of course she was crying. In the duration of a few short minutes she had learned of her own impending motherhood and of the death of her own mother almost thirty years ago.
April was stoic.
April was always stoic. But in this case it went beyond a state of mind or way of carrying one’s self in an uncertain world. Now it seemed to sink into the lines around her hard-set mouth, to have gotten under her skin. Her face looked gray, her eyes devoid of light—a
nd of tears. She had followed Daddy’s chosen biblical admonition and girded her loins, and in doing so she had thrown up such a wall of defense around herself that she had blocked off the tentative new inroads she and Sadie had made earlier.
Sadie felt…
It didn’t matter what Sadie felt. She’d have plenty of time for mulling over the news she had heard and trying to make peace with it all. Right now Sadie had a job to do.
“Come on, y’all. It can’t be far now. Daddy’s note said the old downtown was just a couple blocks away, and the desk clerk at the motel said that the cemetery where Mama is buried lay just across the railroad tracks that run behind the old courthouse.”
They reached the town square. Alphina, for all its population advantage over Wileyville, looked deserted, almost ghostly. They had not kept up the old buildings. Most of them sat empty. Some looked in real disrepair. There was no quaint café. No antique mall to reclaim the ruins of what must have once been thriving businesses.
Things called superstores and retail chain pharmacies, quick-stop markets and the fast-food restaurants that had lined the highway into town must have taken the place of what had once been the hub of the community. Even the government buildings looked shabby. And the town monument to its fallen veterans stood lonely and unkempt amid what could have been a lovely garden.
Seeing this made Sadie appreciate her quirky old Wileyville more than ever. Walking along broken sidewalks past padlocked doors filled her with a longing to be back home again. She didn’t kid herself. The circumstances that she and her sisters now found themselves in only fanned the flames of that longing.
“Tell me again, Sadie, what the death certificate said.” Hannah wiped her nose and pulled her shoulders back as if to reassure her sister she could withstand hearing the coroner’s finding again.
“Overdose,” April said without a single spark of emotion.
“Accidental overdose,” Sadie corrected. “Of a prescribed medicine.”
“Did it say which one?”
Does it really matter? Sadie wanted to bark. Instead, she swallowed the lump lodged high in her throat and shook her head. “Hannah, honey, I did this all long-distance and quick. The death certificate came from someplace in Arizona, and I told you everything the local cemetery superintendent told Kurt.”
As a daughter, she probably could have gotten a look at the burial permit and pertinent information required for it without having gone through the Wileyville Sheriff’s Department. But that would have taken time and cutting through who knows how much red tape. Because of her job, she had known exactly what to have Kurt ask for, and she had her answer, such as it was, within the hour.
“And Daddy knew?” Hannah sniffled but did not break down again. “Do you think he knew?”
“I don’t dare speculate, Hannah. The information listed no next of kin to notify. It showed Mama as divorced.”
“Divorced. That’s the part I don’t get.” April lifted her chin and stared straight ahead. “Daddy never mentioned divorce.”
“Yes, but you didn’t think…If you suspected that Mama was alive, you didn’t actually think they would still be married, did you?” Not that it mattered, of course, beyond it being yet another piece of a puzzle that Sadie was reluctant to try to put together without more information.
“I guess not.”
“Daddy’s pride would never have let him confess that Mama divorced him.” Hannah spoke without looking at either of them.
“Not pride.” Sadie couldn’t help thinking back on the pain in her daddy’s face when he had mistaken Sadie for his beloved wife, a woman who obviously had always been, and now would always be, unreachable to him. “He loved her. He still loves her. You know he taught us that marriage means forever. Maybe in his heart they never really got divorced.”
“Poor Daddy.” Hannah began to cry again, but this time without making any real sound, just tears and sniffles.
“Poor Hannah.” Sadie wanted to join her in those tears. “Poor tenderhearted Hannah. Whatever happened between Mama and Daddy, he’s dealt with it as best he could.”
“And now it’s our turn to do the same.” A strand of hair blew across the bridge of April’s nose. It was the closest thing to change that fell across her unwavering features.
They walked on another half a block before Hannah spoke again. “Since no one knew to notify us…”
“We were kids,” Sadie reminded her, thinking back on the date of the certificate.
“Okay, since I assume they didn’t notify Daddy, does that mean she was buried in an unmarked grave?”
By unmarked, her sister meant a pauper’s grave. She wanted to know if their mother had died unnoticed, unclaimed and alone. Suddenly she thought about the serene stretch of land where she and Daddy had last looked for Mr. Green, and her father’s empathy for the indigent man became all the more poignant to Sadie.
“No, Hannah. She had two plots in her name there already. Bought when she and Daddy lived here, I’d imagine. Guess that’s why she didn’t end up interred in Arizona. She must have left instructions to send her body back to Alphina.”
“Maybe that’s because she was…happiest here.” Hannah’s hand brushed Sadie’s. Her fingertips felt like ice, but there was warmth in her trembling voice as she finished her simple, heartfelt thought. “You know, because we were born here. We were a family here, if only for a little while.”
“I’d like to think that.”
It was a hot, humid day. July in Tennessee was rarely anything but. Yet somehow, Sadie felt a chill that settled deep into her bones.
They crossed the street on green, and as soon as they reached the other side, April came to a halt, her arm out stiff to hold them back. “There it is.”
“We don’t know this town at all. It might not be the right cemetery. Maybe we should have done some more research,” Hannah said.
“It’s the right one,” Sadie whispered.
“How can you know?”
“Because…” Sadie reached out to guide Hannah forward by giving her shoulder a push, but instead her hand curved around her sister’s upper arm. Without over-thinking the need to make contact, Sadie slid her palm down until her hand fit nearly inside her sister’s. She cleared her throat, but that did not make her voice strong when she gave Hannah’s hand a squeeze and said, “Because Daddy’s car is parked on the far side of the fence.”
“This is it then.” April stared emotionless in the direction of the spot at the end of the block.
“What do we say to him?” Hannah asked.
“I’m more worried about what he’s going to say to us,” Sadie said. She had to shut her eyes to keep from searching the quiet graveyard for the solitary figure of her father.
“Why?” Hannah took a step and then another, her hand trailing away from Sadie’s.
“Because, Hannah, what can he say to make this all right?” April’s tone was sharp. She did not follow her youngest sister’s movement toward the goal they had come so far to find. “Mama is dead. And maybe at her own hand. She didn’t run off from us. She’s dead. Daddy lied to us.”
“April, that’s enough,” Sadie snapped.
What had they done? The bond of silence between them all had been broken. They could not go back. They could no longer create elaborate fantasies to quell their fears that their mother might be out there, that she might one day come back to them. They could not pretend that their father was simply some eccentric victim of his own charm who never meant anyone any ill will.
As of this moment, everything had changed. It had been on the pathway to change for some time now. But here and now, when they walked up to that cemetery, looked into their father’s eyes and waited for him to tell them why he had done what he had done, nothing in their lives would ever be the same.
“What are we going to say to him, Sadie?” Hannah asked again.
“Why are you asking me? I can’t talk to my Heavenly Father Who has only wanted the best for me. What makes yo
u think I know what to say to this father, the one who has deceived me my entire life?”
“You’ll know what to say, Sadie, because you’ve waited on the Lord to prepare you for this moment.” Hannah held her hands out to beckon her sisters to come on with her. “I’ve watched you this summer. I’ve seen how you’ve come around, how you’ve taken on new challenges and made every effort to fix your mistakes. I’ve seen you grieve and I’ve seen you grow.”
“True enough,” April said with a nod. She took Hannah’s hand.
Hannah gave her oldest sister a quick hug. “April here, she’s not the one to approach Daddy. She’s our warrior. She’s girded up good in her Godly armor. April is the one we’ll need in the aftermath.”
April hugged the youngest girl right back and murmured, “Peace, be strong, Hannah.”
“See? That’s me. In the midst of this, I’m here to bring peace and strength. It’s not for me to confront Daddy.”
“Confront Daddy,” Sadie said under her breath. A trickle of sweat snaked down under her collar. “I’m not…ready.”
She had said ready when in fact she’d meant worthy. Who was she—an awful mess of a person—to confront anybody about anything?
“You are ready.” Hannah shook her dark red hair back off her face. “You’ve got what Mary Tate calls ‘the fire’ in you. You’d lost it for a time there. But it’s back. At least enough to do this thing.”
Sadie started to shake her head no, but Hannah threw her hand up to stop her.
“You’ve waited on the Lord long enough, Sadie. You’re ready.”
Worthy! She wanted to scream it in correction. No amount of waiting would ever make her worthy. Why couldn’t anyone see that?
Sadie lifted her eyes to scan the graveyard at last. “It’s going to change everything.”
“Well maybe it’s about time something did.” April held out her hand.
“What are you waiting for, Sadie?” Hannah’s hand reached out, as well.
What was she waiting for?
It didn’t really matter now. They had arrived at this place of no turning back, and her sisters had chosen her to speak for them. She would face their father and somehow she would find it in herself to open her heart and ask him to finally tell them the truth.
