A Mother at Heart

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Moments later, Miriam realized it wasn’t a tractor, and felt a surge of disappointment.

  The vehicle slowed by the driveway and then turned in. It was a silver sports utility vehicle, its shiny finish coated with a thin layer of dust.

  The license plates told her that it was a rented vehicle. Simon most like, she assumed as she glanced at her watch.

  “Come back here, Taryn. Wait until he’s turned off his truck,” Miriam warned.

  Taryn paused as the vehicle parked beside Miriam’s. Then as it came to a stop, she jumped up and down, clapping her hands. “It’s Uncle Simon!” she shrieked.

  A tall man got slowly out, stopped beside the vehicle and stretched. He wore a leather jacket and blue jeans. His face was half covered with a pair of brown-tinted aviator glasses, and as he turned to look at Miriam, his mouth curved into a distinct smirk.

  “Uncle Simon!” Taryn called out, running directly toward him.

  “Hey, squirt,” he said, bending over to grab the little girl. “How’s my favorite niece? And you must be Miriam,” he said, turning to Miriam. He slipped his glasses off his face and tucked them in the pocket of his coat. His smile grew broad and more sincere. He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Simon.”

  “Yes,” Miriam said quietly, returning his firm shake with an equally firm one. “I remember you. I’m sorry but I haven’t had time to run out to the field and tell Jake you were coming. I thought he’d be back by now.”

  Simon nodded. “Oh, well. I’ll just wait.”

  “Do you want some coffee or tea?” she asked.

  Simon grinned again. “Tea. That’s what we drink in this house, isn’t it, Taryn.” He bounced his niece once and set her down. He turned to Miriam. “So we’ll have a cup of tea and then you can tell me all about what’s happened in your life since the last time I saw you.”

  Miriam doubted that she would, so she just smiled and walked ahead of him into the house.

  Jake pulled up the seed drill and glanced at the gathering clouds. Normally the thought of rain would have made him antsy, but he was done, praise the Lord.

  He drove the tractor to the road and got out to secure the drill for transport. Just as he was walking back to the tractor, the first few spatters of rain hit.

  He had tried not to think about Miriam while he worked. Had tried not to think of her leaving today. But he had spent most of the morning reliving what had happened yesterday. What could he have done different? How could he have convinced her to stay?

  But she was adamant, and no matter what he had said, he couldn’t break through the barriers she had erected. He knew she loved him. Was sure of it. She had said it herself. So why did he have the feeling he was even worse off than before?

  She was holding something back from him.

  So he sat in his tractor, mulling and praying and wondering if he was going crazy all at once or if it had been coming on for some time.

  He reached up and turned on the radio, hoping to find something other than the usual heartbreak and honky-tonk. He settled on a classical station, which soothed him.

  By the time he returned home, he felt as if his emotions were finally under control—until he pulled into his driveway and, with a lift of his heart, saw Miriam’s car.

  Right beside it was a rental vehicle. Probably a salesman, he thought, with a sigh of frustration. The last thing he wanted was to go over the merits of one kind of spray over another or what kind of baler he should buy. Not with Miriam still in his house and getting ready to leave.

  Please give me strength to get through this, Jake prayed, leaning back against the tractor.

  Then he noticed that Tilly’s car was gone, and fear gripped him. There was probably a simple explanation, but he was afraid.

  He looked over the yard that his father had built up all these years. Other than his time with his first father, Tom Steele, Jake had spent some of his happiest years here. Please let everything be all right with my dad. I love him too much. I know I should let go, but I’m afraid to. I don’t have the strength right now to lose another father.

  He leaned against the tractor another moment, knowing that whoever was in the house could wait. He needed to draw on the strength that only God could give him. He felt emotionally vulnerable and drained. His father was ill, and he was in love with a girl who he knew wouldn’t be satisfied living here. Not after the life she had lived. He had been utterly foolish to even entertain that idea.

  He turned to trudge across the yard. The rain was coming down in earnest now, so he started to run.

  As he opened the porch door, the sound of a man’s deep laugh greeted him. It sounded like Simon. Puzzled and apprehensive, he toed his boots off and set them aside, then walked into the kitchen.

  A tall man sat with his back to Jake. Taryn sitting on the chair nearby, chattered away to him. She was looking a lot better. The man turned as Jake entered the kitchen.

  “Daddy, Uncle is here,” Taryn called out as soon as she saw her father.

  “Simon.” Jake felt surprise as his brother stood up to greet him. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  Simon grabbed Jake in a most unmanly hug, then pulled away, his expression serious.

  “I took a chance,” he said slowly, watching Jake’s face intently. “I talked to Miriam this morning, right after I got a call from Jonathan. You remember him? The Mountie?”

  Jake nodded. Jonathan had been instrumental in bringing Simon and Jake together.

  “You might want to sit a minute, and I’ll tell you what I found out.” Simon pulled out a chair and set it out for his brother. “It’s about our mother.”

  Jake chanced a quick look at Miriam, who stood by the sink, watching him, her expression enigmatic. He looked away.

  He didn’t want to deal with this right now. He didn’t want to think about a mother that he had never met, that he had no emotional attachment to.

  Yet here he was, sitting at his own table, listening to what might be the final chapter in his brother’s lifelong quest.

  “I found out our mother’s name,” Simon said quietly. He sat across from Jake, his hands folded on the table in front of him. “It’s Joyce Smith.”

  Jake looked straight at him. “You’re kidding.”

  Simon shook his head. “But I have an address…”

  “So why don’t you phone?”

  “I don’t want to do that. After all these years, I’d just as soon go up, see if it’s true, and if it is—” he shrugged “—we’ll take it from there. It’s the closest we’ve come since I started looking.”

  And it had been a long search for his brother, thought Jake, remembering the number of homes Simon had run away from partly in the hope he would find his mother and partly to attain his independence. The whole point of the search was to reunite the family—Jake, Simon and their mother.

  But Jake had found contentment and happiness with the Prins family, and could not be convinced the last time Simon had wanted to run away.

  So Simon had left. It was only in the past half year that they had found each other again. But even now, Jake wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the time and energy that Simon did in what seemed like a fruitless search.

  And his timing was atrocious.

  “I can’t go, Simon. Fred isn’t feeling good. I’ve got Taryn to think of…” Jake’s voice trailed off as he glanced at Miriam, unable to voice the rest of his thoughts. I need to talk to Miriam before she leaves again. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “What’s ridiculous about it, Jake?” Simon leaned closer. “What’s so hard about wanting to finally meet your mother?”

  “She’s not my mother,” Jake snapped, the tension of the past few days catching up on him. He pulled in a breath, praying again for patience and for the right words to explain to his brother. “We’ve never known her. She hasn’t tried to contact us. She’s not tried in any way to reconnect. She’s out of our lives.”

  Ev
en as he spoke the words, Jake thought of Miriam standing just a few feet away. Thought of her reasons for not keeping in touch, thought of the hard and difficult events of her life that had kept her away.

  “I’m sorry, Simon,” he added, dragging a hand over his face. “I’m tired. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I just don’t think I can do this right now. We don’t even know if she’ll be there when we get there.”

  “If we don’t take this chance, we might lose her again, Jake.” Simon leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I’m going, whether you’re coming with me or not. I just thought it would be better if we both went.”

  Jake understood the wisdom of that and understood Simon’s unspoken request for help and support. Simon never wanted to admit when he needed help. You just had to know.

  And Jake knew. Right now what Simon wanted, as much as to find their mother, was for Jake to come along with him.

  “I’m sorry, Simon. I can’t see my way around this.”

  “I can stay, if that’s a problem,” Miriam spoke up.

  Jake swung around. “What do you mean? I thought you had to leave.”

  “I can put it off a few days.”

  Jake held her eyes with his, as if to delve into her mind. “Why would you do that?”

  Miriam didn’t answer, and instead turned to Simon. “Can you take Taryn for a short walk outside, please?”

  Simon looked at her and then nodded.

  “C’mon, squirt. You have to show me your yard.”

  Taryn jumped off her chair, eager to go out with her uncle.

  They left, and Miriam sat at the table beside Jake.

  “Where’s Tilly?” Jake asked, unable to keep the brusque tone out of his voice. He disliked the vulnerable feeling she brought out in him, he disliked how he kept making himself vulnerable and she kept being evasive.

  “She brought Fred into the hospital. They want to keep him in for observation. They put him on an IV because he was so dehydrated. They figure it’s just a flu.”

  Jake felt relieved. “Now…what did you have to say that Taryn couldn’t hear?”

  Miriam looked down at her hands, pressed her slender fingers together. “I think you should go, Jake,” she said quietly. “I think it’s really important that you try to find your mother. That you and Simon do it together.”

  Jake caught a whiff of her perfume, watched how the light of the window lit up her hair, placed hollows in her cheeks and the delicate bones of her shoulders. They were alone. How was he supposed to listen to her telling him to leave? How was he supposed to keep a clear head and have a sane discussion about a mother he never knew and hadn’t thought much about in the past sixteen years?

  How was he supposed to do that when the woman he had been thinking of all those years now sat across from him, so close and yet so distant? All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her until she agreed to stay, until she agreed to become his wife.

  But that’s not what she wanted to talk about.

  And he knew that was not how things were going to end for them.

  He pulled his attention back to what she was saying. “Why do you want me to go?” he repeated.

  “Because…” Miriam bit her lip. “I guess it’s because I ignored my own mother’s needs so long. I got caught up in the things I wanted to do. I hated her so long for taking me away from you. I hated her because you got married. I still struggle with forgiving her.” Miriam stopped, pressing her hand against her mouth and looked away.

  Jake fought a manly battle to resist pulling her to him; he could tell she wasn’t done.

  “Yesterday after you left, I kept reading the Bible,” she continued. Miriam lowered her hand into her lap, scratched at the polish on her nails. “I haven’t lived the best life since I started modeling. That was my own choice. No one forced me into that. I spent a lot of time taking very good care of myself and making sure I had fun. What you read in the papers wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t too far off the mark when it came to my selfishness. I hardly visited my mother, hardly spent time with her. I thought she had to be punished for what she had done to me.”

  Miriam paused again.

  “Your mother was a difficult woman,” Jake reminded her. “It wasn’t all your fault.”

  Miriam smiled. “Thanks for that. But I never realized what I had been holding back. My mother became a Christian in the hospital. The past few months of her life, when I was struggling with trying to keep my business afloat, I used to visit her more often. She was hard to visit with—she talked so slow. But she kept telling me that I had to lay my burdens on the Lord.” Miriam laughed shortly, glancing up at Jake, then away. “It seemed too easy. I didn’t think God could bail me out of my business troubles.”

  “What business troubles?” Jake was a little lost.

  Miriam shook her head, and Jake could tell that she was hesitant to tell him.

  “Please, Miriam. I won’t judge you.”

  Miriam smiled a sad smile. “That doesn’t matter. It’s not important. What I wanted to tell you was that when my mother died, I still hadn’t forgiven her.” Miriam looked up at Jake, her eyes steady. “The other day, sitting under the maple tree in our old front yard, you showed me something. And I discovered a few things about myself. I found out that I had no right not to forgive my mother when God had forgiven me so much. I accepted that forgiveness last night.”

  “Oh, Miriam.” Jake felt his heart overflow. If God had done that in her life, he thought, what else might lie in store for them?

  “I know I’m not done,” she continued. “I know I have a long way to go. But what I wish more than ever is that I had spent more time with her. That I had taken the time to sit with her. To learn beside my mother’s bed what I had to learn without her around.” Miriam leaned closer, taking Jake’s hand. “You have that chance. You have a chance to meet your mother, to find out why she gave you up. I’m sure you must wonder, just as I wondered why my mother did what she did to me. I still don’t think it was right, but I’ve had to accept that she did it because, in her own way, she cared.”

  Jake wanted to deny what she was saying. What her mother had done was selfish. Her threats had been cruel and frightening to a young boy who was so unsure of his own place in the family he had been placed in. But he knew he had to deal with this on his own.

  Had things turned out differently between him and Miriam, he might have an easier time dealing with it. But Miriam sat across from him now, urging him to leave, urging him to pursue a different part of his life even though he was sure she knew there was something building between them.

  What do I do, Lord? he prayed, his head bent. He clutched Miriam’s delicate hand in his own and lifted it to his face, holding it against his rough cheek. What do You want me to do?

  He felt her fingers curl against his cheek and he turned, pressing a kiss to its soft palm, breathing out in a sigh. Then he let go of her hand and got up.

  “I’ll stay and help Tilly and be here for her,” Miriam said. “I know you’re finished seeding. You shouldn’t miss out on this chance. I don’t think you should do this with a phone call—I think you need to do this face to face.”

  Jake stood facing her, his hands in his pockets. “Why do you want to do this for me?” he asked, still struggling to understand why she seemed so adamant. “I thought you had to go today.”

  “Don’t worry about my life, Jake,” she said. “It’s not worth the effort.” She looked up at him. “But you have a chance to meet your mother. To ask her important questions. Maybe it’s a way of my own mother’s death making sense…if someone besides me can learn something from it.”

  Jake understood her need. But it didn’t seem to fit with what he wanted to do. He prayed they would find a time and place where they could finally speak the truth to each other. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll go. As long as you will be here when I come back.”

  “I will.” She relaxed back in her chair
.

  “I’m pretty sure we won’t be gone long. Probably two days at the most.” This was not the conversation he had had in mind. He didn’t quite know what he had expected. But for now, knowing she would be here when he returned was enough to cling to.

  “Good” was all Miriam said. She got up, and for a heart-stopping moment Jake thought she was going to come up to him, wrap those slender arms around him, pull his head down to hers…

  He forced the thought aside as she walked past him to the porch. “Where are you going?” he asked, his voice brusque with repressed emotions.

  Miriam turned to him, her eyes hopeful. “I’m just going to get—”

  “Taryn wants a drink.” Simon’s loud voice interrupted. He knocked on the open screen door. “Can we come in now?”

  Miriam looked away. “Sure. We’re done.”

  “Good.” The door creaked as Simon pulled it open, and Taryn was chattering about the calves as she came in. She bounced into the kitchen and ran straight to her father. “I need a drink, Daddy.”

  “What do you say?” Jake and Miriam spoke at precisely the same time. Their eyes caught and held, and Jake could see Miriam blush.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “Please can I have a drink,” Taryn said with studied impatience. “Then I want to go outside again.”

  “I’ll go with you, Taryn,” Miriam offered. “I have to clean up the picnic stuff anyhow.”

  “Okeydokey,” Taryn said, then noisily gulped down a cup of juice that Jake had poured for her. She wiped her mouth and ran outside again.

  Jake watched them leave, feeling as if an opportunity had passed.

  “So,” Simon asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’m leaving in about fifteen minutes. Are you coming?”

  Jake glanced out the window at Taryn and Miriam, who were cleaning up around the fire pit. He could see Taryn was excited, and once again he was struck with a sense that this was how it should be. A family—

  “Jake,” Simon called out with a laugh. “I’m over here, not out there.”

  “Sorry.” Jake averted his gaze and took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to come with you,” he said.