Orchard of Hope

by Ann H. Gabhart

“None of them?”

  “That’s what she said. None of them.”

  “So she’s an expert?”

  “I guess. More of an expert than me anyway,” Jocie said. “She has a cousin who’s a senior this year.”

  “Ah, so maybe she does know,” Wes said. “But back to the matter at hand. You think me dropping the broom has woke up the whole house?”

  “I don’t know.” Jocie stood still and held her breath to listen. “I don’t hear anybody, so I guess not.” She leaned over and picked up the broom. “What were you doing?”

  “I was throwing something in the trash can and missed. I was cleaning it up.”

  “By sweeping it under the cabinet?”

  “Why not? There’s probably plenty of other stuff under the cabinet for it to make friends with, and I couldn’t exactly lean down and maneuver a dustpan, now could I?”

  “But you could have waited till morning and let us clean it up for you.”

  “I could have. And since you’re here, go to it.”

  Jocie swept a little pile of white dust and chunks of plaster into the dustpan. “What is this?”

  “Would you believe Jupiter dust?” Wes asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Jocie said as she let the plaster slide into the trash can.

  “Then make me some coffee and I might tell you.”

  “Coffee now in the middle of the night?”

  “It ain’t the middle of the night. It’s nigh on morning and we’re both wide awake. I might as well have some coffee so I’ll have an excuse for not sleeping.” Wes looked at her in the light still spilling out of the refrigerator. “What’s your excuse? Besides curly hair wires.”

  “Would you believe it’s too hot to sleep?”

  “I don’t think so. You’ve got the only air-conditioned room in the house out there on the porch with all those open windows.”

  “I pay for it in mosquito bites.”

  “Make the coffee and then we’ll sit in the dark and talk about it.” Wes slowly pivoted around on his crutches and headed back toward the living room. With his uncombed white hair and long white nightshirt, he looked almost like a ghost in the dim light.

  She told him that when she went in to sit with him after the coffee started percolating. He’d settled in the chair, his back to the box fan propped in the front window. Outside the night was giving way to dawn, and the air the fan was pulling in off the porch looked so grainy and gray that Jocie thought she should be able to feel it between her fingers. If a real ghost had materialized out of that, she wouldn’t have been all that surprised.

  “Sometimes I feel like a ghost,” Wes said. “A ghost of my old self.”

  Jocie didn’t know what to say to that, so she just said, “Where did that stuff come from? It looked like plaster.”

  “Good guess.” Wes used both hands to lift his broken leg up on the stool in front of the chair.

  “Your cast?”

  “You always were sharp.”

  “Is your cast falling apart or something?”

  “Or something.” Wes picked up his pocketknife off the table beside him and rubbed the bone-handle casing. “To be truthful, I’ve been doing a bit of whittling at night when I can’t sleep.”

  “On your cast?” Jocie looked at the cast sticking out from under his nightshirt. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I do. Them hospital people got carried away with their plaster, put the thing clear up to my hip, and it was just too blame heavy. I’ve been taking off an inch or so at night when I can’t sleep. It gives me something to do, and a man needs something to do.”

  “I could go get you a tree branch to whittle.”

  “I might try that once I get this thing whittled down to size,” Wes said.

  “But the doctors must have thought you needed it that big for your leg to heal right or they wouldn’t have put it on.”

  “Doctors don’t know everything. And besides, I left it alone till a few nights ago. I figure my bones have had time to knit together enough that they won’t be breaking apart now just because I take a few inches off the top.”

  Jocie reached up and, without thinking about it, pulled a couple of the curlers out of her hair. Her head seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe that was how Wes’s leg was feeling. “What’s Dad say about it?”

  “I don’t know that he’s noticed.”

  “He has to have noticed. He’s been helping you get dressed and stuff, hasn’t he?”

  “He’s had other things on his mind this week.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jocie said. “I think Leigh has finally caught his eye big time.”

  “That would be my guess. He’s acting pretty twitterpated.”

  “What’s that? Some kind of Jupiter word? Twitterpated?”

  “No, straight earth term. It means his pate—” Wes slapped his hand against his head—“that’s his head. That his pate is all a-twitter over this female he’s noticed. I think the rose he took her last week must have done the trick.” “He took her a rose?”

  “He did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  “She didn’t tell Zella.”

  “You don’t say.” Wes stroked his chin and nodded a little. “Then things must be getting serious.”

  “You think he’s kissed her?”

  “Could be,” Wes said. “It’s been known to happen before when a man and a woman form a mutual admiration society. You got a problem with that? Is that what’s given you the wide-eye here before dawn?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Jocie frowned as she thought about it. “I like Leigh. I can’t see Dad kissing her, but I don’t think that’s what’s keeping me awake. I think it’s more school starting today. I guess I’m a little nervous about that.”

  “Oh yeah, afraid your hair won’t curl so you’ll look like every other girl at the high school.”

  “It probably won’t.” Jocie reached up and pulled out another couple of curlers. She couldn’t feel much curl there.

  “Tell you what. It sounds like the coffee’s quit perking, so run get me a cup and then we’ll talk about how you’re going to take the school by storm, curls or no curls.”

  18

  In the gray light of early dawn, Tabitha eased down the steps to the bathroom. She never made it through the night now without at least one trip to the bathroom. She moved as quietly as possible to keep from waking up the rest of the house and especially Wes since she had to pass right through the living room where he was sleeping to get to the bathroom. But the bottom two steps squeaked no matter how lightly she tried to step on them.

  The truth was she couldn’t do anything very lightly these days. In spite of still flipping her cookies nearly every day, she looked like a pregnant walrus with her round full belly pushing her normally cute little inny belly button out until it looked like it might explode. And she still had over a month to go unless the baby came early. She was hoping for early, but at the same time she was terrified at the thought of actually giving birth.

  Women were always sharing horror stories about giving birth. How bad it was. How much it hurt. How they’d suffered, bled, even almost died. But at the same time some of the ones who told the worst stories were sitting beside Tabitha in the doctor’s waiting room because they had another baby on the way. Surely if it was as bad as they claimed, they would have never decided to go through it again. When Tabitha had told one of the women that, the woman smiled as she touched her extended belly and said that whatever it took, a baby was worth it.

  And each time Stephanie Grace did a little somersault inside her womb, Tabitha knew it was true. She could hardly wait until she could hold the baby in her arms. Her father kept reminding her that she couldn’t be sure she was having a girl and not a boy, but Tabitha knew. She was sure. She wanted a girl. She had to have a girl.

  A boy might look like Jerome, and Jerome didn’t deserve any part of this baby. Before he had split without s
aying so much as boo to Tabitha, he’d given DeeDee money to “take care of the problem” and make the baby disappear.

  Tabitha supposed that had worked. Maybe not the way Jerome had planned and the way DeeDee had advised, but it had made the baby disappear from California. Tabitha had used Jerome’s money to buy a bus ticket home to Hollyhill. Now there were other reasons to hope her baby had no part of Jerome. In California it hadn’t mattered all that much that Jerome had black skin and she had white, but Hollyhill wasn’t California.

  A long way from it. People here held tight to the same old-fashioned ideas they’d always had. Still, the church people out at Mt. Pleasant hadn’t fired her father as preacher when they found out Tabitha was expecting a baby without benefit of matrimony. That had been a surprise. And a relief. So maybe a few things had changed.

  But probably not the black and white race stuff. Of course, who knew if she would even stay in Hollyhill after Stephanie Grace was born? Tabitha couldn’t see herself living there cocooned in her father’s house forever, but for now it felt good to be where she was safe and loved.

  That’s what she wanted for little Stephanie Grace after she was born. Love and security. If Tabitha didn’t think her baby could have that in Hollyhill, then she’d take her where she could be loved and accepted no matter what color her skin turned out to be. Even if that was all the way back across the country to California.

  Not that she could look to DeeDee for any help. Tabitha had written to her mother, but she hadn’t heard the first word back from her. DeeDee didn’t want to hear about being a grandmother. She hadn’t even wanted to be a mother.

  Tabitha had never thought that much about whether she wanted to be a mother or not. She certainly hadn’t planned on being a mother this soon. She’d just been carried away by the moment with no thought about the future. But once she’d realized the baby was growing inside her, all her thoughts changed. She not only wanted to be a mother, she was a mother from the first moment of awareness of the baby inside her.

  And as a mother, she’d do whatever she had to in order to give Stephanie Grace the best chance of a happy life. Her own happiness didn’t matter, even though she did sometimes dream of meeting someone who would love not only her but her baby as well. She didn’t let herself think about that very often. She wasn’t sure she deserved to find love. But she couldn’t deny that her heart yearned for it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Tabitha took a peek over toward where Wes slept. She was surprised to see him sitting up in his chair drinking coffee. And he wasn’t alone. Jocie was sitting on his cot, her lap full of curlers and her hair sticking out in odd angles. Tabitha stopped moving. “Oh, I guess I can quit tiptoeing now.”

  “Never no need in tiptoeing,” Wes said. “I told you it don’t bother me none for you to come down to the toilet.”

  “Morning, Tabitha,” Jocie said. “I didn’t know you ever got up this early.”

  “This isn’t early. It’s the middle of the night,” Tabitha said.

  “It’s daylight,” Jocie said.

  “What’s daylight got to do with it? And I’m not up. I’ve just got some urgent business to take care of.”

  Wes held up his coffee cup toward her. “After you take care of that business, come join us for some middle-of-the-night coffee.”

  “The doctor says I shouldn’t drink coffee,” Tabitha said with a look at Jocie. “And you shouldn’t either, Jocie. You’re not old enough for coffee.”

  Jocie held up her cup. “Iced tea.”

  “In a cup?”

  “Why not?” Jocie took a sip.

  “Okay. Whatever,” Tabitha said as she hurried on to the bathroom. “Bring me some saltines to go with it so maybe I can keep from flipping it.”

  When Tabitha came back from the bathroom, a cup of iced tea and a package of crackers were waiting for her. Tabitha lowered herself on the cot beside Jocie.

  “Thanks,” she said as she pulled one of the big square crackers out, then passed the package to Wes and Jocie who both took one too. “You guys have these middle-of-the-night tea parties often?”

  Wes broke his cracker up into four smaller squares. “Not often. Just on the nights Jo here starts high school.”

  Tabitha looked over at Jocie, who shrugged and said, “Too excited to sleep, I guess.”

  Tabitha took a sip of her tea and then a nibble off her cracker. Usually crackers stayed down even in the mornings. “What have you done to your hair?”

  Jocie touched her hair gingerly. “I rolled it up.”

  “She has to have curls,” Wes said. “All high school girls have to have curls. It’s an established fact.”

  “Not in California.” Tabitha pulled a strand of her long honey brown hair over her shoulder. “There everybody wanted long, straight hair. I knew this one girl who even ironed her hair every morning. But not me. I didn’t mind a few waves.”

  “I may have to iron mine to get it to lay down.” Jocie made a face as she combed through her hair with her fingers. “I don’t think it curled.”

  “It looks like it might have rebelled a little instead,” Tabitha agreed.

  Jocie looked down at her cracker. “Maybe I’ll just be sick and not go to school.”

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” Tabitha said. “Go get a brush and we’ll work on it. And if we can’t comb it out, you’ve still got plenty of time. You can just wet it and start fresh. Trust me, everybody won’t have curly hair.”

  “For sure, if I don’t.” Jocie didn’t look happy, but she got up and went to get a brush.

  When she came back, she sat on the floor in front of Tabitha and let her brush her hair. “You didn’t bring a mirror,” Tabitha said.

  “I’ll just look at Wes and tell by the look on his face how bad it is.”

  “It looks better now that you’ve got them wire contraptions out of it, but I can’t really say I’m much of a judge on hairstyles. I just sort of let mine go where it wants, Jupiter style.”

  “What is Jupiter style?” Tabitha asked. She’d gotten used to hearing Wes and Jocie’s Jupiter stories since Wes had been at the house. It was sort of fun to go along with them. Maybe that’s what she’d tell people about Stephanie Grace’s daddy. That he was from Saturn or somewhere. She hadn’t come up with a very good story yet. Her father said she didn’t owe anybody an explanation, and that was okay for most people. But someday she’d have to tell Stephanie Grace something.

  “The kind of style where you just let your hair grow whichever way it wants without bothering it with combs and such,” Wes said.

  “Well, Jocie might rather have an Earth style.” Tabitha combed Jocie’s hair back and to the side. There were a few humps where the curlers had been, but no real curls. “A little more brushing and you’ll be good as new.”

  “You mean just like always.” Jocie sighed as she leaned back against Tabitha’s stomach.

  “Better than Jupiter style,” Tabitha said with a laugh. The baby jumped inside her and pushed with her feet against the front of Tabitha’s belly.

  “Hey, she kicked me,” Jocie said, leaning forward. She turned around and put her hand on Tabitha’s stomach. “She’s getting really strong.”

  “Swimming around in there like crazy,” Tabitha said. “She must like tea parties in the middle of the night. That doesn’t bode well for the future.”

  “You want to feel her, Wes? She’s really kicking.” Jocie looked at Wes and then Tabitha. “You don’t mind, do you? I mean, if Wes is my granddaddy, that makes him Stephanie’s great-granddaddy.”

  “Now hold on there,” Wes said. “I ain’t going with this great-granddaddy stuff. I may be old, but I ain’t that old.”

  Tabitha laughed. “You can be the favorite uncle. So go ahead and tell her hello, Uncle Wes.”

  Wes hesitated, then reached out his hand and laid it flat on the front of Tabitha’s stomach. Stephanie Grace performed right on cue and bounced her feet off his hand. “I think she’s dancing,” he said. H
e took his hand away and leaned back. “Thank you, Tabby. There ain’t nothing like a new baby.”

  Tabitha looked at him. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “I wasn’t in a spaceship all my life.” An odd look passed over his face.

  Jocie was staring at Wes. “You’ve never told me anything about babies, Wes.”

  “Nobody ever knows anybody else’s whole story, Jo,” Wes said as he held up his hand to stop her before she could say anything else. “And you ain’t going to find it out today, so don’t start in with your questions. You got plenty enough to worry about with having to be the no-curl trendsetter this morning.”

  “There aren’t any curls then?” Jocie said, looking first at Wes and then at Tabitha. “I slept on those rollers for no good reason?”

  “Sorry, kid. No curls.” Tabitha patted Jocie’s shoulder.

  “But look on the bright side,” Wes said. “We got to have a middle-of-the-night tea party. Now I think I hear your daddy stirring upstairs, so you’d better go put on another pot of coffee.”

  Tabitha stood up and yawned. “Stephanie Grace is worn out from all that dancing. Me and her are going to get the rest of our beauty sleep.” She handed Jocie the brush. “Your hair looks fine the way it is, Jocie. Besides, it’s the eyes that really matter, and you have the best eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “I do?”

  “You do.”

  “But boys like curves,” Jocie said. “I don’t have any of those.”

  “Who cares what boys like? That just gets girls like us in trouble. Look at me. I’m a prime example. The important thing is being true to yourself.”

  “And to the Lord,” Tabitha’s father said as he came down the stairs to join them. “Did somebody forget to tell me we were having breakfast an hour earlier this morning?”

  “Talk to these two.” Tabitha pointed at Wes and Jocie. “It must be some kind of Jupiter ritual on the first day of school.”

  19

  Walking into the high school wasn’t as scary as Jocie had imagined. Her heart was beating extra hard when she told her father good-bye and climbed out of the car in front of the school and the nervous ants were dancing around inside her skin, but she never once thought about not walking up the steps into the school. Instead, she practically ran up them to the door.