by Loree Lough
Her father shook his head. “Blessing indeed. This diner is more work than it’s worth. I don’t know if he did you any favors, leaving you this place in his will.”
Liam grabbed for Kirstie’s picture, effectively changing the subject. Jaina held it out for him to see. “Yes, that’s your mommy,” she told him. “Isn’t Mommy pretty?”
“Mmumm-mmumm?” he repeated, touching a fingertip to his mother’s image. Jamming the finger into his mouth, he grinned flirtatiously at Jaina and, crawling across the tabletop, snuggled into her arms. “Mmumm-mmumm,” he said, a dimpled hand on each side of her face.
Her heart lurched as she looked into his wide, trusting eyes. Sweet Jesus, she prayed, is he calling me Mommy?
As if he’d read her mind, the baby rested his head on her shoulder. “Mmumm-mmumm,” he muttered with a satisfied, sleepy sigh. “Mmumm-mmumm.”
Jaina closed her eyes and thought of the morning after the accident, when the somber-faced doctor told her that to save her life, they’d been required to perform emergency surgery…. Liam might well be her only chance at motherhood. But she couldn’t keep him.
Could she?
“It’s an awfully big responsibility,” Ray responded, “and you already have your hands full, what with running the diner and all. We could help some, but with your mother’s heart condition…”
Jaina hadn’t realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.
Rita’s gaze met her daughter’s, held it for a long, silent moment. Then, head on her husband’s shoulder, she said softly, “But, honey, she’s had so many disappointments. If she wants to do this—if the courts will even let her do it—we ought to help her.” She grabbed her husband’s arm. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Mother,” Ray warned lovingly, shaking a beefy finger under her nose, “don’t start with me.”
“It’s a moot point,” Jaina inserted, “because I can’t keep him.”
Liam’s lower lip poked out. Ray’s broad shoulders sagged. “Aw, would you look at that? It’s like he understands.” He ran a hand through thick hair that was going gray at the temples. “Well, folks, I don’t know what’s best here.” And looking from his wife to his daughter, he said, “Let’s pray on it.”
With Liam sitting on the table in the circle of their arms, the adults joined hands, bowed their heads and closed their eyes.
“Lord Jesus,” Ray’s deep, resonant voice beseeched, “open our hearts and minds so we’ll know what You have in mind for this young’un. Give us the wisdom to recognize Your will…and the strength to do it.”
A moment or two passed before he added, “Call Skip, Jaina. He’ll know what to do.”
Rita’s dark eyes widened. “But…but Skip works for Social Services. He’ll—”
“Exactly. More’n likely he’s come nose-to-nose with a problem like this before. He’ll know what to do.” Big callused fingers tenderly tucked a shimmering blond curl behind Liam’s ear. “Besides, Skip’s our girl’s best friend. He wouldn’t steer her wrong.”
Rita stroked the baby’s silky cheek. “So precious, so perfect.” Then, in a lighter, brighter voice, she ventured, “Maybe they’ll let us be his foster family. It’s the least we can do since we’re going to deny Kirstie her last wish.”
“We’re not denying it, Mom. She asked me to take care of Liam, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I only want what’s best for him.”
“Kirstie was right, you know,” Rita observed, raising one dark eyebrow. “You’re a natural-born mother. You’re what’s best for him, if you want my opinion.”
“Now, Mother, is that a tear I see?” Jaina asked.
Rita swiped at her eyes. “Of course it isn’t.” She held up a finger to silence her daughter’s objection. “Don’t tell me you can’t keep him because you haven’t the time. You made time to feed those baby robins every hour on the hour this spring. And what about that little squirrel you rescued last fall?” Rita laughed softly. “Why, it seems ever since you were old enough to walk, you’ve been bringing home stray critters.” She began counting on her fingers. “Let’s see…there was the sparrow that fell from its nest, and the bunny whose mama was hit by a car, and the kitten someone had thrown by the side of the road. And remember the time you brought home a skunk? You couldn’t have been more than six. You said it was lost in the woods. Oh my, I thought we’d never get the stink out of your hair!”
Jaina sat back in the booth and smiled. “I’d been nagging you that whole summer to camp out in the backyard. That night, you suggested it!”
The threesome laughed softly at the fond memory.
“Why the sudden change of heart, Mom?”
Rita’s cheeks flushed and she folded her hands on the table. Jaina had seen the pose before, many times. Her father often said her mother was “just a little slip of a thing.” But when she set her jaw and squared her shoulders that way, she seemed as strong and immovable as a man twice her size. She had no intention of responding to the question, Rita’s tight-lipped, closed expression told Jaina.
“Liam isn’t a puppy or a kitten,” Jaina persisted. “I can’t keep him like some stray animal. There are laws, and he has family right here in Ellicott City. We have an obligation to—”
“Our only obligation is to Liam and Kirstie. She didn’t want her uncle to have him.”
If Jaina had married, if she could have had children, would her mother still be so intent upon keeping the abandoned child with them? “You’re afraid Liam might be your only chance at being a grandmother, aren’t you?”
Rita blanched. “I, uh, well, of all the ridiculous…” she sputtered.
Jaina’s heart ached when she read her mother’s face. Rita detested dishonesty, even tiny white lies told to protect others. The fact that she was avoiding giving Jaina a straight answer was proof enough that Jaina had uncovered a well-hidden truth…a truth that made Jaina painfully aware that her own sad and sorry past had affected her parents, too.
“…it’s just that the longer I look at him, the more I like him,” Rita was saying, “and the more I like him…” She heaved a deep sigh, shrugging. “We’d be better for him than strangers.”
“But Mother,” Ray pointed out, “as far as this young’un is concerned, we’re strangers.”
Rita’s brow furrowed and she stared down her husband and daughter. “I suppose someone has to be the voice of reason.” She shook her head. “How can you two be so hard-hearted at a time like this?”
Jaina and her father exchanged exasperated glances before Ray said, “Rita, honey, I’m sorry as sorry can be that we never had that house full of kids we talked so much about before we got married. But the doctor made it clear that your poor li’l heart couldn’t take the stress of another pregnancy. Why, I nearly lost you when Jaina was born. Much as I wanted those young’uns, I wanted you more.”
Rita crossed both arms over her chest and sent him a loving smile. “I love you, too.” Then on a more serious note, she questioned, “But what does any of that have to do with Liam Buchanan?”
Ray shook his head. “I think our girl here is right—partly anyway. You want Jaina to keep him so you can get a whack at raisin’ another little one.” He slid an arm around her shoulders.
Rita pursed her lips and tapped a forefinger against her chin, squinting her long-lashed eyes. “Why does the name Buchanan sound so familiar?”
“It’s not that uncommon a name, but I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Jaina admitted. “But you haven’t said anything about Dad’s comment, Mom.”
Rita propped her chin on her fist, smiling at the baby. Suddenly, she sandwiched Jaina’s hands between her own. “It’s that nonsense the doctor spouted all those years ago, isn’t it?”
Jaina raised a dark brow in warning. “Please, Mom, don’t.” Not once in twenty-eight years had she spoken to her mother with anything but respect, but this subject was off-limits, and her mother knew it.
“What happened was not your fault, Jaina
. How many years are you going to punish yourself for it?”
She hung her head. “If I live to be a hundred,” she said, her voice barely audible, “I’ll never atone for it.”
“But, sweetie, you were…” She bit her lip. “That awful man. What he did to you…” Rita scowled and shook her head.
Her father grated out an opinion of his own. “He’s a butcher, and if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll—”
“Mom, Dad, please…”
But Rita pressed on. “You were barely twenty at the time. That doctor wasn’t God. He said—”
“I’ll never forget what he said.” Jaina’s voice sounded cold and distant even to her own ears. “‘There’s less than a ten percent chance you’ll ever have children.’” Despite her bravado, the word “children” stuck in her throat. Jaina took another sip of water.
Rita ran a hand through her gray-brown curls and tried again. “There’s still a chance you will have children.”
“He said it’d take a miracle for me to have a baby. You heard it yourself.”
“You’ll never convince me of that.” Rita scowled. “What that man did to you is unpardonable. You should have sued his socks off. You should—”
“Mom, please.” Jaina wearily shook her head. “We’ve been through all this hundreds of times. I didn’t take Dr. Stewart to court because I had no proof that he botched the surgery. It would have cost a lot of time and money and heartache, and for what? A few measly dollars? Money wouldn’t repair me. Money wouldn’t give me the baby I’ve always wanted.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the diner was the steady drip-drip-drip of the leaky faucet behind the counter. Then her father began to drum his fingers on the tabletop. Rita arranged and rearranged the salt and pepper shakers like squat glass pawns on a Formica chessboard. Liam yawned.
And Jaina breathed an exasperated sigh. “It’s getting late.”
Rita leaned across the table and pressed a palm to her daughter’s cheek. “Jaina, sweetie, everything you do has gentleness and sweetness written on it. That’s why you’re still bringing home bugs and birds and turtles and…” She looked toward the ceiling as if the help she sought was to be found up there. “You were born with a mother’s heart because you were born to be a mother. God wouldn’t have given you a heart like that if He didn’t plan for it to happen someday. Don’t you see?”
“What I see,” Jaina said, acknowledging that if she’d made the right decision that fateful night, her mother would have had the grandchildren she so richly deserved, “is that you’re disappointed in me.”
“That isn’t true and you know it!”
But it was true, and she did know it. “Then let’s drop the subject, okay? Let’s bury it and never dig it up again. Because, even if I could have a baby after what Dr. Stewart did to me, what man is going to want a woman with a limp, a woman who’s all scarred and twisted and—”
Gently, Ray cupped her chin in his big hand, compelling her to look into his eyes. “Sure you have a scar or two, but I look at ’em as pockets.”
“Pockets?”
“You need extra pockets to fit all the love you have inside you. If a man don’t see that, well, he’s plumb blind.” He smiled tenderly. “I told you when you woke up from the operation and saw all those scars—” he swallowed hard “—I told you that one day the right man would come along, and when he does, he won’t care one bit if you have a few scars because he’s gonna love you, the girl with a heart as big as all outdoors.”
Jaina sent him a trembly smile. That’s what he’d said all right, and she’d known even in the thick of pain and agony that he’d meant every word. If only she could believe him, maybe her future wouldn’t seem so empty, so bleak. If only she could find a man like him. But what were the chances of that in this world where beauty and perfection were second only to wealth and social position?
She looked at Rita, whose eyes had always lit up at the sight of a baby, a toddler, a small child. It had been a mistake, a cruel joke to play on her mother…behaving for even those few moments as though they might be able to keep Liam. Because if she’d been meant to be blessed with motherhood, would God have let the accident that rendered her barren happen in the first place?
Ray broke the silence. “Jaina’s right. It’s getting late. Let’s hit the road, Mother. We’ll pray on it tonight, figure out what the Good Lord wants us to do next. His answer will be there, I believe, after a good night’s sleep.”
Cooing and smiling, Liam hugged Jaina tighter. It dawned on her, as her arms instinctively wrapped protectively around him, that she’d be changing his diapers, feeding him a bottle, tucking him in…at least for tonight. First thing in the morning, though, there’d be other kinds of duties: a trip to the doctor to confirm his apparent good health, a call to Skip, another to the police….
Somewhere deep in her soul, Jaina felt the stirrings of long-forgotten yearnings. For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted a house full of children. It was hard, very hard, convincing herself that she might well be holding in her arms the only chance she’d have at motherhood.
“Oh, just look at them, Ray,” Rita whispered, lower lip trembling. “She wants to be a mommy to this little guy, and he’s crazy about her, too.” In a louder voice, she said to Jaina, “God is at work here, sweetie. Can’t you feel it?”
God indeed, Jaina thought bitterly. Where was God’s work when I needed it? Jaina leaped to her feet, and with Liam firmly attached to her hip, she grabbed a cleaning rag and began polishing already gleaming tabletops. “What I feel has nothing to do with it. His mother will be back. Of course she will. She’ll get a few miles up the road and start missing him—how could she not?—and by morning, she’ll be—”
“But, sweetie, she’s dying.”
As painful a burden as her infertility was, it paled before the thought of giving birth, only to know you’re going to die and leave a precious baby behind. “Maybe the doctors made a mistake. Maybe Kirstie misunderstood the diagnosis. Maybe—”
“Maybe you’re grasping at straws. Remember my friend, Mary?” Rita asked. “The doctors said she had some rare strain of leukemia. One day she seemed healthy as a horse, the next she was gone.”
Ray stood, then held out a hand to his wife. “Come on, Mother. Let’s go home. Jaina can close up shop.”
“I’d take him in myself—”
“Let’s not even discuss it, Mother. You know you’re not able to care for an infant.” Jaina moved Liam to her other hip, then ran a hand through her hair. “Honestly, Dad…what are we going to do with her?”
Smiling halfheartedly, he shrugged. “I’ve been lookin’ for the answer to that one for thirty-one years.”
Jaina’s lips formed a taut line. “Liam has an uncle right here in town. When he hears what’s happened, I’m sure he’ll—”
“If his mother felt she had to leave him with a total stranger rather than his only living relative…” Rita extended her hands palms up and gave her daughter a look that said, “What does that tell you?” Frustration made her shake her head. “I wish I knew why Buchanan is so familiar. Something in the news, seems to me….”
Her mother was right. A headline story, if Jaina recalled correctly. “I’ll call Skip soon as I tuck Liam in. He’ll know what to do.”
Her mother was out of the booth and at Jaina’s side in an instant. “You’ll be sorry if you do that. Before you know it, you’ll be all wrapped up in legal red tape, and court proceedings, and official documents, and a judge will…”
The mention of court papers and judges jogged Jaina’s memory. She’d read an article a week or so ago about an attorney who’d defended a well-known surgeon for malpractice. Thanks to a series of legal loopholes and expert-witness testimony, the jury could not convict, and the doctor who’d bungled a patient’s surgery got off without so much as a slap on the wrist. She’d have to check a few back issues of the Howard County Times, but Jaina felt sure the lawyer’s name had been Buc
hanan….
“You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”
Jaina was so deep in thought that she never heard the question. Her heart went out to the injured woman who had taken that doctor to court…and her anger grew as she recalled the lawyer who had used the “system” to injure the poor woman further by getting the surgeon off the hook. “Sorry, Mom.”
“As I was saying…things like trust and faith aren’t born into a person. Those traits aren’t passed down from generation to generation like the color of your eyes and hair. Frankly, I wish they were inheritable because maybe then you wouldn’t be such a pessimist!”
Liam rested his head on Jaina’s shoulder, and she automatically began swaying to and fro as if she’d been rocking him that way his entire life. Her mother’s accusation hung in the air like a dusty cobweb. Jaina hadn’t always been a pessimist. She’d had faith once, plenty of it, before that dreadful night. Right up to the moment of impact, she had prayed for Divine intervention. But her prayers had not been answered. Perhaps it was the Lord’s way of telling her He did not approve of the way she’d conducted herself. How else was she to explain that God seemed to have turned His face from her at a time like that?
“I’m sorry if my feet-on-the-ground attitude is such a disappointment to you,” she said, meaning it, “but I prefer to put my trust in things I can count on, like working hard and keeping my head out of the clouds.” Her normally soft, warm voice tightened with weary resignation. “I’ll keep Kirstie’s baby, but only until she comes back.”
“She isn’t coming back and you know it.”
Jaina shrugged. Much as she hated to admit it—for Kirstie’s sake as well as Liam’s—something told her that her mother was right.
Mother and daughter had apparently reached a stalemate and stood facing one another in stony silence. Jaina’s father broke the quiet with a blustery announcement.
“Seems our boy here is about to fall asleep.”
