Mountains of Grace

by Kelly Irvin

  And so was Caleb. So what was the real problem?

  If Mercy were here she would say Juliette ought to mind her own p’s and q’s. She’d rather think about matchmaking for other people.

  Mercy would be right. Juliette’s complicated man demanded far too much. Why Tim decided to pick on her was anyone’s guess. He didn’t like her religion—or lack thereof. He didn’t like her clothes—or lack thereof. He didn’t like her politics—or lack thereof.

  Which begged the question: What did he like about her?

  Juliette groaned and snapped her seat belt against her chest.

  Better to think about Mercy’s love life—or lack thereof. Juliette grinned to herself and took one last look back. Caleb’s buggy had disappeared from sight. Headed to Mercy’s house to make sure she was safely evacuated.

  The battle for Mercy’s heart wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  7

  Eureka, Montana

  Whoever said life sucked and then you died was a wise man. Spencer jammed the stick shift in park and turned the Tundra’s engine off. He leaned back against the warm leather and winced. His left leg—thank God it was his left leg—ached even encased in a boot.

  The doctor wanted him to sit around with his leg up in the air, which made sense. The swelling would go down, and with it, the pain of a fractured tibia. Sitting around wasn’t in Spencer’s DNA. Which made the first eighteen years of life in one classroom after another a hot mess.

  His broken ribs, also on the left side, pierced his chest with more pain. Three broken fingers on his left hand were splinted and bandaged. After a night in the hospital, he’d checked himself out against doctor’s orders. Bruised and battered, he’d come crawling home to Eureka—at least it used to be home—after an abrupt end to his smoke-jumping season.

  His truck sat in the driveway next to his mom’s house. It looked the same as it did the last time he was here. Nine, no, ten years ago. The last knock-down-drag-out fight he had with her about her propensity to drink and drive, drink and pass out, drink and miss his high school graduation.

  At least she hadn’t burned this house down.

  The tick-tick of the Tundra’s engine beat a rhythm in sync with the reel of memories. Slamming doors. The smell of whiskey and cigarettes in the morning. Three-day-old dried egg yolk on plates stacked in the sink next to a skillet filled with congealed bacon grease and two dead cockroaches entombed in it. A stranger in smiley face boxer shorts and an AC/DC T-shirt stumbling past him in the hallway leading to the small A-frame house’s only bathroom.

  “Hey man, what’s up?”

  The guy wasn’t much older than Spencer. And not bad looking. If a seventeen-year-old kid could be the judge of such a thing. Marnie—he started calling his mother by her name when she stopped being anything he could identify as worthy of the title “Mother”—had always been able to attract decent guys with her hippie-angel looks. She didn’t get mean until the third or fourth drink. Like the devil mixed a potion that browbeat the light until it turned dark.

  It took Spencer’s dad ten years to figure out he couldn’t inspire an affection greater than the one Marnie had for cheap whiskey. So he escaped to California where he sold real estate and lived happily in a house by the beach—if his sporadic Christmas and birthday cards could be believed.

  The devil made her do it. That was Spencer’s sister Angie’s explanation. It was easier to believe in such things as evil and the devil than free will gone horribly wrong. Yeah, that red guy with the pitchfork and horns?

  Get it over with.

  Why did you come here? Are you nuts?

  He grabbed the crumpled letter from the passenger seat and smoothed it out on the steering wheel.

  Spence,

  I hope this letter reaches you. I got your address from Sissy. She keeps me up-to-date on your latest doings since you never call me or write me. Which I totally understand. I hope you’ll come see me sometime. Even if you don’t, I want you to know, I stopped drinking. I’m doing my steps. As everyone who’s ever watched a sappy TV movie knows, one of the steps is asking forgiveness. I hope you’ll forgive me for being a rotten, mean drunk instead of the mother you needed. I knew what I was doing, which makes it worse. I couldn’t stop myself. Not even for my own kids. You deserved better and I understand if you can’t forgive me. I truly am sorry. Take care. God bless.

  Mom

  P.S.: I love that you are smoke jumping. You’re like me. It’ll really make you mad to hear that, but it’s true. You’re a risk taker like me. Maybe sometime we can skydive together or go bungee jumping. I would like that.

  So Marnie got religion after all these years. Who would’ve thunk it?

  Spence shifted. Pain stabbed him stem to stern. The docs said he needed to be patient. It would take three months for his fractured shin bone to heal. The ribs and fingers less. The doctor also said he was fortunate to have a head as hard as a brick. That was his medical opinion. No damage to his noggin. All in all, the collision with a tree a hundred times his weight had done no permanent damage.

  Patience had never been his strong suit.

  He dry-swallowed three ibuprofen and stared at the house. Thanks to the media’s coverage of the opioid crisis, nothing stronger had been offered. It didn’t matter. Given his background, he approached drugs with extreme caution. The wood-and-stucco house, built in the late eighties, needed a coat of paint. The brown, patchy grass cried out for watering. Flowerpots on the porch held droopy, on-their-deathbed daisies and sunflowers. The brass address numbers had slipped and turned so a nine became a six and the three lay on its back looking more like a w. Sobriety hadn’t improved Marnie’s station in life.

  She must be forty-nine or fifty now. Not old.

  Alcohol aged a person beyond her years.

  Stop procrastinating, dude.

  Okay, okay.

  He grabbed his crutches and eased from the truck. The September sun warmed his face. He jerked his Denver Nuggets cap down so the visor shielded his eyes. “Here we go.”

  The words were spoken aloud to whoever might be listening. A contrite God who was sorry for putting a teenager through hell?

  Suffering honed character according to his last girlfriend. A good, sweet Christian woman who warded off his advances with a finely tuned sense of humor and pithy proverbs that made him smile despite his frustration. Pretty Patty wanted to save him, that was obvious. But a guy had to want to be saved.

  Had to deserve saving.

  When it became obvious Spencer believed he was neither, Patty had kissed his lips, his cheeks, and his forehead with the sweetest kisses he’d ever received and whispered in his ear that she would never stop praying for him. A comforting gift he sometimes held on to in the middle of a dark night filled with bad dreams. She’d gone back to her life as a bank teller who spent her free time doing respite care for dementia patients and studying to be a physical therapist. Leaving him to fight his own demons.

  He didn’t deserve her. Yet he still had her number in his phone. She said to call him when he was ready. Whatever that meant.

  Ready for what?

  You’re doing it again. Ring the doorbell, you coward.

  I jump out of airplanes for a living. I’m not a coward.

  There are cowards, and then there are cowards.

  He gritted his teeth and limped up the cracked, weed-infested sidewalk, then hoisted himself up two crooked steps to the tiny wood-slatted porch. A wind chime with a huge but delicate metal dragonfly above it swayed in a tepid breeze, the sound sweet music that matched the rustle of leaves in a weeping willow in the front yard.

  Peaceful sounds in a place that had never been peaceful for him. He swallowed and sucked in a deep breath. “Ouch.”

  He kept forgetting about the ribs.

  Knock.

  He rapped hard. Too hard. She’d think the cops were at the door telling her to keep the yelling down when she and the latest “uncle” fought over money and the guy who grabbed he
r behind at the dive bar down the block.

  The door opened.

  Marnie stood behind the screen. Her long raven hair held streaks of silver and white like ribbons. Time had drawn hard lines around her blue eyes and full lips. The lips pursed, then spread in a smile that revealed those slightly crooked teeth no longer yellowed by tobacco. The aroma of cinnamon rolls wafted through the open door, sweet and yet spicy. Like the perfect woman.

  “Spence.”

  “Hey.”

  She jerked open the screen door and tumbled out, all thin arms and high-pitched, nervous laughter. “You came. I didn’t think you would, but Daphne, she’s my sponsor, insisted I try. She said you would come when you were ready and here you are.”

  She wrapped him in a hug that told him she remained skin and bone under the faded but clean white cotton shirt and denim capris. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted bubblegum pink. She wore no makeup, and for the first time in his life she smelled good. Like Ivory soap and Jergens lotion.

  “I just came by to say hello. I’m staying with Angie.” He’d come to Eureka to clean up an old mess. His team IC had told him to go home and not come back until his bones and his attitude were healed. “Where is she? She said she’d meet me here.”

  Marnie grabbed his hand and tugged him inside the house. “She got called down to the church. They’re opening as a shelter for the families evacuating from the fire in West Kootenai. She’s sorting donations of clothes and food and such. You know her, she never misses an opportunity to help. The kids are with her.”

  Spencer stumbled over a Tonka truck left in the foyer that opened up into a living room. Barbie dolls, Matchbox cars, and coloring books were strewn across the carpet. Pain pulsed through his leg. He cursed.

  “No need to be a potty mouth.” The gentle remonstration was laughable. Where did she think he learned to swear like a barfly? “Sorry, the kids spend a lot of time here now that I’m taking care of them while Angie works.”

  His sister had stopped short of moving home when her husband left her and their three kids for a waitress at the truck stop on Highway 2. Instead, she took a job as a secretary at a church during the week and a cashier at a convenience store on weekends. She hadn’t mentioned Marnie was taking care of the kids. Spencer’s stomach launched itself into his throat at the thought.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Marnie motioned to a brown faux-leather recliner with a back covered with white embroidered doilies. “Take a load off. She trusts me. She knows I’m done drinking.”

  She frowned and pushed skinny reading glasses up her nose. “What happened to you, Son? You look like you got throwed by a bull at the rodeo.”

  “Jump went bad.” He leaned on his crutches and surveyed the house. It seemed smaller than it had when he was a kid. It definitely smelled better. “I’m out on medical leave until I heal.”

  Which meant the season was over for him. Being at loose ends during a fire season, or any season for that matter, did not suit him.

  “You look like you need one of my super-duper cinnamon rolls and a nice cup of coffee. Angie got me one of those fancy Keurig machines for Christmas last year.” Marnie motioned to the recliner again. “Let me take care of you.”

  For the first time, her happy-go-lucky, long-overdue-reunion-with-son facade cracked. “I can’t make up for what I didn’t do before. But I can try to do better now. I hope you’ll let me.”

  “Are you dying or something?”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “What?”

  “Is that why you got religion and stopped drinking? Do you have cancer or something?”

  “No. No, it’s not that at all.” She edged back into the room. Her hands twisted in front of her. She cleared her throat. “Although, after my last blackout, the doctor did tell me I would die if I didn’t stop drinking.” She rolled her head from side to side as if her neck hurt. “But I already knew that. For a long time I didn’t care. I liked the way alcohol made me feel. People who aren’t alcoholics can’t understand that. I liked drinking. If one drink made me feel good, how much better two or three or four? It’s a disease. People like to think it’s lack of willpower or discipline or sheer weakness. It’s not. I’ve learned that with the help of my group.”

  She let her hands drop to her side. Her face cleared and her posture straightened. “It was Angie’s kids who made me want to stay around a little longer. She wouldn’t let me see them anymore. She couldn’t let them see me like that. They already didn’t have a daddy or a granddaddy. And you were gone. I’m the only family they have here in Eureka. Angie was hurting. She needed help. They needed me. For the first time in my miserable, godforsaken life, I thought of someone else and got the help I needed.”

  She whirled and strode away.

  Miracles did happen. Pretty Patty always said they did.

  Just not in time for him. He didn’t have a daddy or a granddaddy either. Or a mother like Angie.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

  Spencer eased into the chair and cranked the lever to lift his aching leg.

  The miracle came in time for Angie’s kids. That would have to be good enough for him.

  8

  Eureka, Montana

  What did the Ordnung say about using electricity when a fire was about to consume your home? Mercy’s hand hovered over the light switch in the Knowleses’ rental house kitchen. Dusk made it hard to see Grandma Knowles’s place, which now served as a rental property on Second Avenue near Eureka’s small downtown business district.

  “I’ll light the lantern. You can start unpacking.”

  Mudder squeezed past Mercy. She dumped a box of canned goods and kitchen essentials on the table and pulled out a kerosene lantern. Despite the remaining light outside, the room seemed dark and unlived in. A few seconds later, the flickering flame revealed a large country-style kitchen. A rustic table with four straight-back wooden chairs filled one corner. Myriad cabinets lined two walls around a double kitchen sink, a mammoth stainless-steel refrigerator, a stainless-steel dishwasher, and a gas stove.

  The sparkly white-and-silver granite-top counters were slick and barren, as if waiting for the appliances, pots, and pans of a future renter. The Knowleses had upgraded this room. It seemed unlikely Grandma Knowles had need for such a fancy kitchen.

  It didn’t look like home. No one expected it to, but a fierce ache in the vicinity of Mercy’s heart made her rub her breastbone. Suddenly, misery sucked the air from the room. She couldn’t breathe. “Juliette said they’re setting up an information center and shelter at the First Church of God. That’s only a few blocks from here.” Mercy began to pull jars of peaches, cherries, tomatoes, and green beans from the box. She set them on the table with care. Do normal things like it’s a normal day. “I could walk over there and see if there’s any news.”

  Any news of Father and the boys.

  Mother trudged to the sink. She turned the water on and let it run. Her shoulders slumped. Mercy slipped to her side. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

  “Gott’s will be done.” Mother grabbed a bottle of dish soap and squeezed some into her hands and began to wash them. “I feel so dirty from all the soot and ash in the air. The kinner will need baths tonight.”

  Pushing back a strand of silver-blonde hair that had escaped her kapp, Mother glanced around as if seeing the room for the first time. Mercy handed her a flowered towel from the rack next to the sink. She dried with more vigor than needed. “It will be strange to cook in someone else’s kitchen.”

  “At least Grandma Knowles used a gas stove.” Mercy took the towel from her mother and returned it to the rack. Acutely aware that neither the towel nor anything else in this sprawling two-story brick-and-wood frame house belonged to her or her family, she smoothed it into place neatly. “We can fix hamburgers for supper. The kinner will like that. I’ll cut up some potatoes and make fries.”

  “Go to the church. But take Leesa with you.” Mother’s voice trembled. “And come right
back. I don’t want you traipsing around the city in the dark alone.”

  Mercy hid her smile. Eureka, population 1,086, could hardly be called a city. They’d been coming here their entire lives to Montana Market to buy goods they couldn’t get at the Borntragers’ store in West Kootenai or the Kootenai Store in Rexford. Suddenly even the familiar seemed fraught with danger. “We’ll be fine.”

  “So will your daed. He knows what he’s doing.” Mother tucked a package of ground beef in the refrigerator. So big for an elderly woman who’d lived alone the last few years of her life. “They’ll be here before you get back.”

  “You’re right.” This time Mercy smiled and hugged her mother’s neck. “You’re always right.”

  Her hazel eyes wide with surprise, Mother hugged back. “What’s gotten into you? Do you have a fever? You must be sick if you’re admitting I’m right about something.”

  “I admit you’re right all the time.”

  “Are you ready to admit I was right about marrying Caleb?”

  Mercy let go of her mother and edged away. “I’m happy teaching. I love my scholars.” Now was not the time to rehash why she simply could not bring herself to say yes to Caleb’s proposal. A girl didn’t discuss such things with her mother. She grabbed a flashlight from the box and headed for the door. “We’ll be back soon.”

  Leesa was happy to get out of unloading and unpacking boxes. As the oldest, Mercy’s sister liked to pick and choose her chores. Which meant Mercy often got stuck with the less desirable ones, like cleaning the chicken coop or mowing the yard.

  “Mudder is worried about Daed and the boys.” Mercy shortened her stride to match Leesa’s petite prancing. Everything about her older sister was smaller and more girlish. “She won’t admit it, but her eyes were all teary.”

  “She won’t admit it because worrying is a sin.” Leesa skipped to keep up. “Slow down, will you? I don’t know why we’re going to the church. Daed had the directions to Grandma Knowles’s. He’ll be here when he gets here.”