When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777)

by Ruchti, Cynthia

  “Is it okay if I say both?”

  “Good answer.”

  “But mostly, I’d worry about the bump on his head.”

  “Another good answer. A very motherly thing to say.” Becky patted her daughter on her knee. “Now, let’s go inside before we get frostbite in our own garage.”

  Lauren reached for the passenger-side door handle, then hesitated and turned back to face Becky. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Brianne going to be able to live with herself?”

  “For now, let’s focus on praying she lives, honey.”

  24

  Anna—1890s

  Yes, the days—the years—were laced with both work and joy. With concern that often ended in celebration. But how can I describe the depths of the pit into which I fell when Robyn Anita stood on Morning Glory’s threshold? A slip of a child, with her decidedly unhappy newborn in her arms. She held the bundle awkwardly, as if the babe were flour she’d been enlisted to haul from a barrel in the cellar.

  “Is this the place where you take in people like us? Even if we can’t pay?”

  “This is the Morning Glory Haven for Unwed Mothers. You’re welcome here. What’s your name, dear?”

  She shifted from one foot to the other, not rocking gently, rhythmically, as most mothers instinctively do, but nervously, as if she’d not taken care of “necessary” things far too long and her bladder was about to burst. She flinched as the baby’s cries escalated. When she spoke, she labored through the revelation of her name. I had the sense she was inventing it, syllable by syllable.

  “Robyn . . . with a y . . . Anita. Robyn Anita.”

  “And your baby?”

  “Got no name yet. She’s a girl.”

  “How old?”

  “Three days.”

  “Goodness, child! You’ve been walking? I didn’t hear a carriage.”

  “I rode some . . . with different people.”

  “Where’s your home?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Well, we can attend to those matters later. Let’s get your baby quieted before all three of us lose our minds. There’s a rocker here in the parlor. A quiet spot for you to nurse her. I’ll get you something to eat while—”

  “I can’t nurse her. I’m . . . I’m dried up like a raisin.”

  “Perhaps your milk hasn’t let down yet. If you’ll allow, I can help you learn ways to—”

  “Won’t happen. Have to feed her by bottle. I must be . . . deformed . . . or something.”

  I’m not one to easily give up when I believe there is hope, but the baby’s distress grew more severe. “Come with me to the kitchen then. We’ll get a bottle of milk warmed.”

  Robyn Anita’s relief matched that of the infant, once they both were fed. “Robyn, can you tell me why you’ve come here? Are you looking to find an adoptive home for your daughter?”

  “Give her to some other family? No, I couldn’t do that!”

  “How old are you?”

  “Almost four—um, fifteen. Fifteen and a half, actually.”

  “Do you know how difficult it will be for you to raise your baby by yourself? I assume the father is not around.”

  “Oh, he’s around.” Her eyes grew dark with something akin to rage.

  “But not . . . involved?”

  “Not if I can help it. He won’t touch this child if I have any breath in me and any say-so at all.”

  Robyn Anita was a deepening mystery that I wasn’t sure I had the strength or energy to solve.

  “Let’s get you settled upstairs. Your daughter could sleep for hours, from the looks of it. And I am concerned about you being on your feet so much this soon after delivery.”

  “I’m all right.” She dropped her eyes. “Yes, I . . . I should probably lie down.”

  I gave them the room nearest mine, certain the path between would be well worn before the mystery resolved.

  Rattled, my spirit wouldn’t let me sleep. Ironically, every welcome was tainted, not just this one. It always disturbed me to open my door and find on my threshold a young woman in trouble. I found joy in being able to help, but my heart broke every time.

  Robyn Anita brought with her a restlessness that affected us all.

  “Something’s not right, Anna.” One of the other residents at the time, a repeat customer, I’m grieved to say, voiced her own concerns two days into the saga. “That girl’s not being honest with us.”

  I’d grown to love and appreciate Lily, having had more time with her than with others—short-termers—who made better choices after they left Morning Glory. I didn’t yet trust Lily’s decision making in regard to men, but I did value her sensitivity and insight on other planes. She gave voice to what I’d already suspected.

  “I’ll tell you something odd,” she continued. “When I dumped the commodes this morning, I noticed hers was . . . well . . . there wasn’t any . . . you know . . . blood. You ever know a woman just five days a mother who wasn’t still bleeding like a—”

  “Lily! Please. These are private matters.”

  “I’m saying—”

  “I know.”

  “What do you make of it, Miss Anna?”

  I didn’t want to confess aloud the conclusions I drew. Whose baby, if not Robyn’s? Where was the grieving mother, breasts aching to feed her absent child? Was my first move to send Puff for the sheriff or to confront the girl, a possible kidnapper?

  I opted to ease the truth out of her, if possible.

  We worked together folding sun-bleached diapers before attending to a bucket of hickory nuts Puff had collected for us that afternoon. “Dr. Noel will stop by tomorrow to examine you, Robyn Anita.”

  “What?”

  “He cares for all our residents. He’ll check your daughter, too.”

  “No!”

  The widening of her eyes told me most of what I needed to know. “Don’t worry, dear. It’s his gift to our residents. No charge. We want to make sure you’re both healthy before the next leg of your journey. Birthing babies may be as natural as breathing, but it takes its toll on a woman. And your daughter’s cord has me a little concerned. Does it look weepy to you?”

  “No doctor. Please. It’s not . . . not necessary. And I . . . I’m not fond of doctors. You can understand.”

  I took the stack of folded diapers from her lap and set them on the table near us. “Would Dr. Noel find that you’ve never had a child in your womb, Robyn Anita? Would he be able to tell that this little girl isn’t your daughter?”

  Tears flowed like the milk she should have had.

  “She’s my . . . sister.”

  “Oh, honey. What have you done?”

  “It’s what he done.”

  “Who?”

  Fear knotted the cords in her neck. They stood out as prominently as the first pass of a new plow on a virgin field.

  I stroked her hair, though it needed a good washing, and asked again. “Who?”

  Her story sickened me. A father who beat his children nearly senseless. She wasn’t about to let the same fate befall this newest little one after her mother succumbed in childbirth. While the older children cared for their mother’s body, Robyn Anita overheard her father talking to himself about dealing with this newborn as he would an unwanted litter of kittens, with a burlap sack and a ditch full of water.

  I might have broken a tooth, as hard as I clenched my teeth with fury against a man not fit to live, much less parent. If she now spoke the truth—and all evidence pointed in that direction—Puff had all the more reason to run for the sheriff.

  And I had all the more reason to pray for an answer to another impossible situation.

  To what lengths would I have gone to save those sisters from having to be returned to their father? I wouldn’t have the chance to find out. They were gone by morning, slipping past the creaking stairs and my alert senses. If I’d thought Robyn Anita capable of caring well for that helpless infant, I wouldn’t have worried myself
sick over where they disappeared to.

  When Robyn left, Lily’s demeanor changed, as if she had matured overnight, her latent mothering instincts kicking in with her discomfort over what had brought the girl to our doors and what had made her flee.

  “She’s endangering that baby!” Lily protested.

  “Yes. And there’s little, perhaps nothing, we can do about it. The law is looking for them. I pray they find them before her father does.”

  Lily snapped beans in two as if they represented a man’s neck. “Putting seed in a woman doesn’t make a person a father.”

  I would have asked her to express it more delicately, but she spoke truth.

  “And holding a child in your arms or pushing one through your legs—”

  “All right, Lily.”

  “—doesn’t make you a mother. It takes more than that.”

  I took the pan of beans from her hands and gave her a bowl of yeast dough to knead. “We’ve both lived long enough to know the truth in that.”

  She didn’t talk much the rest of the day. The furrows in her brow said her mind kept pace with how hard her hands worked.

  As pleasant as she’d been to that point, she changed somehow. I don’t believe I heard a hint of a complaint from her about any of the aches and pangs, about the chores she took on, about the short but intense labor that brought her son into the world. This child she kept. His almond eyes and thick tongue spoke of hardships ahead. But she didn’t complain.

  I was the one who cried.

  I could not then, nor can I now, abide whining, even my own. It galled me, as it galled the Almighty to hear His children complaining about the wilderness fare that not only smelled and tasted of heaven but also saved their ungrateful lives.

  I must add that the food I prepared for my girls could not be accused of having either the odor or flavor of heaven in those early days. But it was tasty, filling, and similarly provided as manna. A wild turkey laid at our doorstep by a shy but generous hand. A box of necessities—flour, salt, molasses—tucked in the back of our parked wagon while we worshiped. A venison flank offered humbly by the father of one of the girls.

  On occasion, when his wife was otherwise occupied, Mr. Witherspoon would slip into my order a double portion of sugar or rice or beans. My eyebrows questioned his actions. His wink and smile answered. I knew to silently thank him and praise my God, who had softened a withered prune’s heart.

  It is my studied opinion that those who have known genuine hunger—raw, vacuous hunger—experience a shriveling of the part of the brain from which complaints are generated.

  When one of my girls wrinkled her pert nose at the thinness of the stew or the sameness of repeated potato suppers—when potatoes were what we had—I knew without asking that the young woman had nothing in her memory to tell her what true hunger felt like.

  I was not assigned the task of correcting all the flaws in the girls who came to me. If so, who would the Lord assign to correct the ocean of my own failings and weaknesses? He asked, rather, that I love and provide for them. It was my hope, sometimes realized, that the love itself and the overtness of my own gratitude would create a hothouse in which discontent would wilt and appreciation thrive.

  Learning gratitude proved a more challenging lesson for some than others. I was too often the floundering student. It didn’t take me long to discover that my lack of appreciation almost guaranteed we would have lack in our house. An interesting connection that almost never failed.

  Every meal, however pale or pitiful, was served on a platter of gratitude. Gratitude was, in fact, a more certain element than the presence of meat. We learned to celebrate the simple joy of herbs, which Puff encouraged me to plant near the back door of the kitchen—sage, mint, rosemary, parsley . . .

  And when Puff brought Melody to Morning Glory, both the flavors and joy increased.

  Ivy—1951

  “Puff was a musician, too? I love music.”

  “A musician?”

  “He brought melody to Morning Glory?”

  “Melody, his sweet-faced, darling, song-in-her-heart bride! And oh, could that woman cook!”

  “All that time, Puff had been married?”

  “What? No, dear. All that time Puff had been single. Then one day, he came home from town with more than just the flour and salt we needed. Sitting on the wagon seat beside him was a beautiful woman with clear black eyes and flawless skin the color of a rich walnut stain. She floated down from the wagon, a wisp of a thing, like the feather of an exotic bird, shining in every way.”

  “I can see it.”

  “From a distance, I surmised she was a woman in need of shelter. But she appeared past childbearing age and the exuberant smile on her face told a different tale. She was a woman in love. And Puff! Oh, I’d never seen him so overflowing with life.”

  Ivy set aside the notebook and drew her chair closer to Anna’s wheelchair for more details.

  “You don’t want to miss recording all this.”

  “I won’t. I’ll remember. I just need to sit for a minute in the middle of someone’s love story.”

  Anna patted her friend’s hand. “We don’t know the end of the Ivy and Drew love story yet. But someday, someone will sit in the middle of yours.”

  “You have more hope than I do.”

  “I don’t mind sharing a commodity like hope.”

  “Where did Puff find Melody?”

  “It was the other way around. She found him. They’d been childhood sweethearts fifty years earlier but lost track of each other. The war.”

  “Wars do that to people.” Ivy’s thoughts drifted six thousand miles from where they sat.

  Anna readjusted her position, then pressed her hand to her heart.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “A little catch is all.”

  Ivy waited a moment. Should she press for more details? “So Puff had never married?”

  “He claimed he couldn’t. His heart belonged to someone already.”

  “That’s a long time to wait, to hope, to pray that your true love will come back into your life.”

  Anna laid her head back against her chair. “He had a knowing.”

  “A knowing.”

  “Deep in here.” Anna tapped her heart with a reverence equal to the longing. “It carried him through one season after another—barren winters, springs and summers without her, autumns that hinted of yet another barren winter ahead.”

  Ivy rubbed her hands together as if they were cold. “Winter’s coming.”

  “And so is that precious baby of yours.”

  “I may be all she or he ever has. That’s not enough.”

  Anna chuffed. “Your baby’s name is not Regret. You’ve still so much to learn.” She folded her hands. “Dear Lord, please keep me alive long enough to walk this child all the way to wisdom.”

  “How many of your girls got married, Anna? How many had whole families, more children? How many found grace?”

  “I don’t know. I understood most would not return after they left Morning Glory. Some did, to say thank you or to bring a contribution to the needs of other girls as hurting as they had once been. But we understood that even as a city of refuge might be held as a tender memory, we would not be a destination to revisit. We were no tourist stop. We were there for a time of trouble, a time that most hoped would remain locked away from prying eyes and from the future they worked hard to construct.”

  “A secret? You advocated that?”

  “No, dear. I always encouraged the truth. But I did not encourage my girls to maintain a connection with Morning Glory. They needed to move on, to leave that season of pain and remorse in their past.”

  “Didn’t that make you curious about what happened to them? You poured such love into their lives.”

  “I did. But I wasn’t asked to keep them. The task I faced was to love them, help them heal, and then let them go. What happened after that was between them and God.”

  Ivy tho
ught of the months she’d cared for Anna at the Maple Grove Nursing Home. She’d had no visitors, no family members. She had been alone. Yet never alone.

  “I did ask one thing of them.” Anna slapped her palms together as if anticipating a Christmas gift.

  “What was that?”

  “As they left me, I gave them each a small brown envelope of morning glory seeds. My hope was that those seeds would be planted wherever the women landed. And I asked that when the day came that their morning glories bloomed in their yards and in their hearts, when they understood the grace they’d been shown and were given the opportunity to show it to others, they’d harvest seeds from those blossuns—sorry, that was Puff’s word for them—seeds from the blossoms and send a handful to me.”

  “And did they?” Ivy mentally traced through the possessions they’d moved from Anna’s room at Maple Grove to their bungalow. So few possessions for a woman who’d lived so long. Either too few of those she helped remembered her kindness or the way Anna remembered the stories was heavily laced with imagination.

  Anna smiled and tugged at the engraved book-shaped locket at her throat.

  On Sunday nights, The Ed Sullivan Show proved a shared interest between Anna and Ornell. They laughed together as Ivy repaired tiny garments collected from the secondhand store. She edged cotton diapers and stacked them in neat piles in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom she would soon share with a child.

  Somehow Anna and her father had conspired behind her back on a project that tugged at Ivy’s heart as much as it frustrated her. Her father had brought home what he called an early Christmas present for her—a heavy black Remington typewriter.

  “Thank you?”

  Anna shot her a look pregnant with meaning.

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  The gift was too heavy for her to manage in her current condition, so her dad hauled it to her bedroom and set it up on the small desk that he once had claimed.

  “Dad, thank you, really. But I don’t type.”

  “Not yet,” Anna called from the spot in the hall where she’d wheeled herself. “Not yet, dear.”