A Stranger's Gift (Women of Pinecraft)

by Anna Schmidt

  “Hester?”

  She turned to find Grady approaching her with the congresswoman close at his side.

  “I’d like you to meet Congresswoman Elizabeth Carter-Thompson,” he said. “This is Hester Detlef, the woman I was telling you about.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Hester. May I call you Hester?” She had taken Hester’s hand between both of hers and lasered her with eyes that were the same color as John’s.

  “Yes,” Hester replied.

  “And I am Liz. Margery Barker told me about the work you’ve been doing through your agency—MCC, is it? And your father as well with MDS, I believe. Both groups were so key to our efforts after Katrina. Walk the talk, we like to say, but so few of us really ever do.”

  Hester felt herself caught up in the whirlwind that she understood was Liz’s way of drawing total strangers into her circle of supporters. Instinctively she pulled her hand free and took a small step away. She saw something pass across Liz’s eyes that she would not have expected. She saw a hint of embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry,” Liz said in a tone that sounded far more sincere than the bright chatter she’d delivered before. “Give me a second to retire my politician hat.” She pantomimed removing a hat and casting it to the wind; then she turned back to Hester. “I really want to hear any ideas you might have about how best to help those affected by this hurricane,” she said. “Can we go sit somewhere that’s a little quieter and have a real conversation?”

  Realizing that Grady had moved on to another group after making the introductions, Hester hesitated.

  “It’s not a trap,” Liz assured her. “I really want to talk.”

  “All right.” She would take the congresswoman at her word, for now. But remembering the stories that Grady had told her about how government worked, she would also be cautious.

  “Shall we ask my nephew to join us?”

  But it was a moot question since Liz was already signaling to John. Hester glanced over at him, fully expecting him to ignore his aunt and walk away, but to her amazement, he started working his way through the crowd toward them.

  “I know he can be a pill of major proportions,” Liz confided, “but he does have a way of thinking outside the box. That’s what got him in trouble in the first place.” She sighed, then plastered on her brightest smile as John reached them. “John, I believe you and Hester know each other?”

  He nodded and then focused his attention on his aunt. “You summoned?”

  “Oh, stop being so contentious,” Liz replied as she reached up and straightened his shirt collar. John let her without shrugging away. He was wearing jeans and one of the tropical print shirts Rosalyn had pulled for him from the supplies at the center. He was clean-shaven instead of sporting the stubble that she’d gotten used to seeing on him. It surprised her that this pleased her. She had always found the stubble slightly pretentious.

  “Now, then,” Liz said, pointing to a cluster of three upholstered chairs in the atrium outside the crowded ballroom. “Let’s talk. Rather, you talk. I’ll listen.” She nodded to a young man who had trailed them from the ballroom. “This is Alan. He’s a member of my staff. If you don’t object, he’ll sit quietly and take notes.”

  John shrugged and Hester nodded.

  “Excellent,” Liz said as Alan moved a straight chair behind and to her left and pulled out a notebook and pen. “Where shall we begin?” she asked. “Tell me about the efforts MCC and MDS have already made, Hester.”

  It got easier after that. Once Hester started to list the various projects coordinated by MCC and MDS and describe how the two groups worked together with the better-known secular agencies, she was in her element. Now and then John would interject a comment or Liz would ask a question that would lead them into the discussion of something else. They told her about the distribution center, the RV teams, and the work that had been done to get Margery back in business.

  “Tell me about the flooding in Pinecraft,” Liz asked.

  “That wasn’t Grady Forrest’s fault,” Hester said, and then she blushed at her uncensored remarks.

  “Why would anyone think that it was?” Liz said quietly. “Are you saying there was a problem there?”

  “They were busy with me,” John told her. “It’s what happens when people try to pull strings from a thousand miles away.”

  Hester watched as John and his aunt locked eyes. “I was concerned,” she said through a tight smile even as she quietly placed one hand on Alan’s to stop his moving pen.

  “And with good reason.” Hester could not help her instinct to try to smooth things over between them. Now their gazes shifted to her. “I mean, at times like that, it’s hard to know where to put your resources first. The human tendency is to protect those you know and love. You don’t think much about how it affects others.”

  “I was the one at fault,” John said quietly. “If I had left when Hester told me to, then …”

  Liz’s eyes widened with interest. “I wasn’t aware that the two of you knew each other before the hurricane.”

  “We didn’t,” Hester said.

  “Then why send …”

  “Drop it, Lizzie,” John growled. “It’s over and done with. Let’s move on.” He did not look directly at Hester, but she understood that John had come as close as he would ever come to admitting that he had been wrong to stay.

  “All right, then, let’s talk about plans for the future and the resources available to help.” Liz signaled Alan that his notetaking could resume.

  “Whose?” John asked.

  “Yours makes for an interesting case study. How are things coming out there at your version of Walden?”

  Hester’s heart went out to John as she watched his features collapse into an expression of such utter defeat that she had to stop herself from reaching over to comfort him. He had done as much as he could to repair the damage to his property. Did his aunt have any idea what it had been like that first day after the hurricane passed through?

  “I have the first floor of the house fairly livable.” He held up his left hand, cast removed. “I have the use of both hands for the first time in weeks.” He hesitated as if searching for words.

  “But?” Liz asked, her voice gentle.

  “But the undeniable fact is that the orange trees that Tucker planted and I worked at reviving for the last two years are gone.” His voice trailed off as if he had just realized this, when Hester knew that he must have known it all along. The rows of trees had for the most part been snapped off in the high winds, and those few trees not totally wiped out by the hurricane were half buried in the salty muck left behind when the waters of the bay finally receded. They were as good as dead.

  “So how will you support yourself and your work on that place?” Liz pressed, her tone that of a mother nurturing a small child.

  John blinked as if he were just awakening from a nightmare. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “I put everything I had into that property.”

  “You still have the packinghouse,” Hester reminded him.

  “And exactly what would we pack there?” he asked her, but this time he was the one who had assumed a tone that one might use in speaking to an overly optimistic child. He turned his attention back to his aunt. “So there you have one of what must be hundreds of sad stories, Lizzie. What are you and your fact-finding team going to do about it?”

  A commotion just inside the ballroom drew their attention away from the tension that radiated between John and his aunt.

  “Somebody call 911,” a voice yelled. “This lady’s having her baby.”

  Hester was on her feet instantly. With John and Liz not far behind, she worked her way through the throng surrounding Amy and Grady. Amy was sitting on one of the small straight-backed and gilded chairs at a white-cloth-covered table, a pool of water at her feet. Grady was on his knees next to her.

  “Hang in there, honey,” he coached. “They’ve called for an ambulance.”

 
Amy’s response was a prolonged keening of pain that sent everyone into retreat as she gripped Grady’s hand. “Can’t.” She gritted out the word. “Now.”

  “Get back,” Hester heard John order the onlookers, and to her amazement everyone complied.

  “People,” Liz shouted, clapping her hands. “Please follow Alan here out into the atrium while we wait for the ambulance.” The crowd shifted only a little. “That’s the way,” she said, encouraging them to keep moving. “Let’s give these folks some privacy,” she said as the others headed reluctantly toward the doors.

  “When did the pains start?” Hester asked.

  Amy was between contractions and breathing heavily. “This afternoon,” she said.

  “This afternoon?” Grady shouted. “And you didn’t say anything? We should have—”

  “You needed to be here,” she replied, panting in preparation for the next round of pain. “Job,” she managed, as the pain gripped her once more.

  Grady glanced at Liz then back at his wife. “You don’t worry about that. We’re going to be fine,” he murmured.

  Liz waited for the contraction to pass and then knelt next to Grady, taking Amy’s free hand. “Now you listen to me, both of you,” she said. “There is nothing so precious—or important—in this world than the beginning of a new life. That child could change the world.”

  Amy’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  Hester saw John clasp Grady’s shoulder. “Your job’s not on the line,” he said. “Right, Liz?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she grumbled as she got to her feet. “We aren’t monsters. We didn’t come down here to check up on or make anyone our scapegoat, Grady. We came here because…it’s what we do when the media pushes our buttons and we don’t know what else to do,” she finished lamely. “I’ll speak with your boss, okay?”

  “Thank you.” Grady squeezed Amy’s hand. “See, honey? It’s all going to be fine.” In the quiet that followed, they could hear the siren of the arriving ambulance. In seconds the room was a beehive of activity as Amy was checked, then placed on a gurney and rolled away with Grady clinging to her hand and running alongside.

  “You coming?” he shouted to Hester.

  “Sure.”

  Grady dug into his pocket and tossed his car keys in the air. John caught them with one hand, then passed them to Hester.

  “I could have caught them,” she said.

  “No doubt.”

  When he started walking with her toward the exit, Hester hesitated.

  “Lead the way,” he said, holding the door open for her. “It’s not like I know what Grady’s car looks like.”

  Chapter 17

  It took Hester a minute to familiarize herself with the mechanics of Grady’s hybrid car. John seemed to instinctively know that it would be best to remain silent and let her work things out for herself. Still, she could practically feel him wanting to offer his ideas about how to start the thing. Finally, she got it started, and they were on their way to the hospital.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she repeated. “Come to the hospital, I mean.”

  “I’d do pretty much anything not to have to stay another minute at that party,” he said and grinned.

  “Reception,” she corrected. “And I don’t know why you were there, but I was there for Grady.”

  “Sure you were.”

  Was that a smile? Hester clamped her mouth shut and concentrated on driving. “I take it your sarcasm means you think I was there for other reasons?”

  “I think you like being where the action is. I think you really struggle when it comes to being in the background.”

  “I …” She absolutely could not find the words to refute that, but he was wrong. Wasn’t he? “And you know this because…?”

  “An observation. Nothing more. And it’s not like it’s a bad thing.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him study her for a long moment, but she refused to take her eyes from the road. “Anyway, let’s talk about something else.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. We’re on our way to the hospital, where in a few hours Grady and Amy will bring a new life into this world. Did you ever wonder what it might be like to be a parent?” he asked as they stopped for a light that was notorious for taking forever to change.

  She felt herself relax as she thought about Amy and Grady and all the ways this night was going to change their lives forever. “Sure. I think everyone must wonder about that.”

  “Maybe you and Samuel—”

  “What about you?” she interrupted before he could pursue that thought, a thought that she had not really wanted to consider in all the time she’d spent imagining a future with Samuel.

  The light changed to green, and a car behind them honked impatiently. Hester eased the car forward much as she might have coaxed a horse and buggy into motion, deliberately taking her time. “You never married?”

  “I came close, I guess,” he said as the impatient driver passed them on the right, horn blasting.

  “You guess? How do you guess at a thing like that?”

  “Same way you think maybe you and Samuel might marry one day,” he shot back. “It seemed like it was going to happen and it didn’t, in my case.”

  “Fair enough,” she murmured as she turned onto a side street.

  “The sign says the entrance to the emergency room is that way.” He pointed.

  “But the parking lot is down this side street.”

  She pulled into the first available space and had barely turned off the engine before she was out of the car and walking quickly toward the hospital entrance. “It seemed like it was going to happen.” His words beat a cadence that matched her steps as together they hurried along long deserted corridors to the main lobby.

  “Mrs. Forrest has been taken to our obstetrics unit,” the person at the desk told them. “Take these elevators to three, and the waiting room is on your left as you exit.”

  As soon as they stepped off the elevator, a nurse whom Hester knew assured them that Amy was doing fine and Grady was with her. “The contractions have stopped for now,” she said. “It could be a while.” She turned her attention to John. “Are you the family?”

  “We’re friends,” John replied before Hester could.

  “I’ll let Mr. Forrest know you’re out here. There’s coffee and tea,” she said, motioning toward a machine in the corner, “and our vintage selection of three- to five-year-old magazines.” She offered an apologetic smile, and then continued on her way through a pair of swinging doors that whooshed shut behind her.

  “You don’t need to stay,” Hester said.

  “If you keep saying that every time we end up in the same place, I’m going to think you don’t like my company,” John said and sat down on a chair facing away from the television that was on but muted. He picked up a magazine and started flipping through it. The cover featured a colorful summer fruit salad and a bold headline about weight loss. The picture of the fruit salad reminded Hester of rainbows.

  “Do you think there’s any chance your aunt and her group will help get Rainbow House reopened?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. It’s not what they do.”

  “I’ve been checking up on some of the people who were so sick. They seem to be okay physically, but it’s hard for them and the others…all the others….” Her voice trailed off.

  “How’s the guy we left here that day? Dan?”

  “Danny. His brother came and took him back to his home in Georgia. That’s pretty much all I know about him, but at least he had family.”

  “Margery tells me that Zeke also has family, locally.”

  Hester nodded. “Zeke comes from a fairly prominent family in this area. They give him money regularly, but he just gives it away, takes care of the others, especially his fellow veterans. Some of them take advantage.” She paced the room, ending up finally in front of the coffee machine. “Do you want something?”

  John shook his head
and continued paging through the magazine, stopping now and then to skim an article.

  “If we could just find a place,” Hester continued as if there had been no pause in the conversation. She pushed the button for tea and, once it was ready, cradled the Styrofoam cup between her palms instead of drinking from it.

  “Isn’t finding homes for homeless people a little out of your jurisdiction?”

  “I don’t have a jurisdiction. When people are in need, then it’s our mission to try to help them.”