When Love Returns

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Linda said, “Whoever’s out there, come on in.”

  Tom stepped halfway into the room, his curious gaze flicking across the trio of female faces. “Mrs. Braun, your family’s ready to go. Your husband sent me up to see if you’re done talking.”

  Olivia swished her fingers under her eyes and rose. She pushed the chair back into place, then aimed a weak smile at Tom. “Please tell Andrew I’ll be down in a minute.” As soon as Tom departed, she turned to Suzanne. “May I tell Andrew about Alexa?” She added quickly, “In private—not in front of our girls.”

  Although Suzanne wanted to deny the request, it was silly to ask Olivia to keep it secret. Eventually everyone would know, and it was better to hear about situations firsthand than through local grapevines, where the story had a tendency to pick up embellishments along the way. “Yes.”

  Linda sucked in a breath and gripped Suzanne’s knee. “Anna-Grace…she’s your biological daughter?”

  Suzanne nodded stiffly.

  “But she doesn’t know it yet?”

  She shook her head. “Her father—Paul Aldrich—and I gave Andrew and Olivia letters to tell her who we were, but she hasn’t opened them.” When would she finally do it so this tiptoeing on eggshells could end?

  Linda leaned in, her eyes sparking with fervency. “Then let Mrs. Braun here tell about Alexa in front of Anna-Grace. Hearing a story about a young girl who was denied the opportunity to raise her own baby and who raised someone else’s little girl as her own might give her the courage to find out who gave birth to her and why they didn’t keep her.”

  Suzanne bit down on her lower lip. Alexa’s adamant statement—“She needs to know the truth of who she is, Mom”—blared through her memory. Somehow Anna-Grace discovering the truth got tangled up with Alexa wanting to discover the truth of her birth, and Suzanne couldn’t find the means to agree or disagree with Linda’s suggestion.

  She sent Olivia a helpless look. “I…I can’t make that decision for you, Livvy. I don’t know Anna-Grace well enough to know how she’d accept it.” The realization of how distant she was from the child formed in her womb crushed her. She gulped back tears. “I’ll let you decide what to do.”

  Olivia leaned down and gave Suzanne a hug, squeezing so tight she forced the air from Suzanne’s lungs. Then she straightened abruptly, nodded, and scurried out of the room.

  Linda bounced her palm off of Suzanne’s knee, frowning. “Suzanne Zimmerman, what are you scared of?”

  She swallowed a laugh. Linda knew her so well. But she played dumb. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, yes, you do.” Linda’s expression turned grim. “Something’s eating at you, but we started talking about Anna-Grace and got you off track. I figure she’s part of it, but there’s more. So what is it?”

  Suzanne pulled in a breath and released it slowly, bringing her raging emotions under control. “What you said about Anna-Grace finding the courage to discover who her birth parents are…well, I think Alexa’s already gathered her courage.”

  Linda’s brows descended. “She wants to go looking for her birth parents? She said that?”

  “She said”—Suzanne swallowed a knot of anguish—“Anna-Grace needs to know the truth, and she needs to know the truth, too.”

  Linda slung her arm around Suzanne’s shoulders and gave her several comforting pats. “So let her.”

  Suzanne jerked away and gawked at Linda. “Let her? Didn’t you hear how she came to be with me? I didn’t adopt her, Linda. I didn’t even ask anyone if I could take her. I just did it. As far as the law is concerned, I kidnapped her! Do you think a judge is going to care that I was only seventeen and emotionally distraught? Of course not! If Alexa finds her birth parents, I could end up facing criminal prosecution.”

  Linda sat staring at Suzanne, her brows low and her lips puckered, for several seconds. Then she pushed to her feet, strode to the door, and bellowed, “Tom! Get up here!” She turned to Suzanne and planted her fists on her hips. “You’re gonna tell Tom everything you told me. Every detail of where and how you found that baby girl and how you got your name put on her birth certificate as her mama. Then the three of us are gonna pray together for God’s will to be done. Because you and I both know once our Alexa Joy gets her mind set on something, she sees it through. She’s gonna go looking for the ones who birthed her and then threw her away. And we need to be ready for the consequences.”

  Indianapolis

  Cynthia

  Cynthia hooked the calendar, provided free by the local credit union and bearing scenic photographs of places she’d likely never see in person, on the nail pounded into the wall next to the refrigerator. The heavy pages slanted to the right. She straightened the calendar, then stepped back and stared at the little box indicating the first day of a new year. A new year, a fresh slate…What new experiences, blessings, and heartaches awaited in the months ahead?

  When she was a girl, she’d hated all holidays and especially New Year’s. Another excuse for her mom and most recent stepdad to invite a dozen of their barhopping buddies over and get rip-roaring drunk. Inevitably they ended up fighting. Sometimes with each other, sometimes with their so-called friends, sometimes with her or her brother. Regardless, it was awful. But then she’d met Glenn, and together they’d met Jesus, and her view of a new year changed. It became a time of reflection and renewal.

  She pressed her finger to the square representing January 1, where tiny letters spelled out “What’s your resolution for this new year?” across the bottom of the box. She shook her head in silent response. She didn’t make resolutions. She’d yet to meet someone who kept them. Instead she reflected on the past year, both the good and the not-so-good moments, and prayed for God to reveal things she needed to change to better reflect Him in the days ahead.

  The past week since she received the unexpected gift from Glenn, she’d prayed extra hard. When she met her daughter for the first time—because she’d decided to let the investigator start searching—she wanted none of the mars and stains of her past to show.

  Only You, dear Lord, let her see only You in me…

  “Morning, Mom!” Darcy bounced into the room, still in her pajama pants and stretched-out T-shirt, silky brown hair pulled back in a tangled mess of a ponytail that somehow managed to look cute. She flung the refrigerator door open, forcing Cynthia to move aside or be smacked. Carton of milk in one hand and a jar of strawberry jam in the other, Darcy bumped the door closed with her hip and moved to the counter, humming a tune from one of her vast selection of CDs.

  Cynthia leaned against the wall and watched Darcy pour a tall glass of milk and then prepare two strawberry jam fold-over sandwiches. Glenn teasingly called Darcy a flibbertigibbet, but Cynthia thought her daughter too graceful for such a clunky term. Her hands moved from jelly jar to bread, her motions seemingly choreographed. Cynthia’s heart swelled with love for this lighthearted, flamboyant child, so different from the way she’d been at Darcy’s age.

  Remorse panged. Would she have been carefree and happy if she’d been raised by parents who loved each other and their children the way she and Glenn chose to love Darcy and Barrett?

  One sandwich between her teeth, the other balanced on top of the milk glass, Darcy yanked a paper towel from the holder and scuffed to the little breakfast bar at the end of the counter, leaving a spattering of crumbs, an open bread bag, the jam jar with a knife sticking up out of it, the milk jug sans its lid, and smears of strawberry jam in her wake.

  Maybe Darcy was a bit of a flibbertigibbet…

  Cynthia grabbed the dishrag from the edge of the sink and attacked the disaster zone. But she didn’t scold. Her mother’s screeching criticisms still rang in her memory. She’d vowed never to be that kind of mother. As she swept crumbs into her hand, she said, “I’m surprised you’re up already since you didn’t go to bed until after one.” They’d enjoyed a family movie night to celebrate the new year. “I figured you’d sleep ’til noon at least.”<
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  “Who can sleep when ticket sales open at eight?” Darcy licked jam from her thumb and shot a bright grin across the kitchen. “I gotta be one of the first twenty to call in, or I won’t get the bonus fan pack.”

  Cynthia sent a puzzled look over her shoulder. “Ticket sales? What are you talking about?”

  Darcy froze with her milk halfway to her mouth, her jaw hanging slack. Then she clunked the glass onto the counter. Droplets of milk spritzed over the rim and dotted the gray laminate. “You forgot?”

  Cynthia blinked twice, searching her memory.

  “Mom, you did! You forgot! How could you forget?”

  “Instead of getting all worked up, why not just tell me what I’ve forgotten?”

  “Winter Band Blast? At the coliseum—remember?”

  The sarcasm coloring Darcy’s tone brought back too many memories of other voices from the past. Chills exploded across Cynthia’s flesh, and her pulse picked up an extra beat. She dropped the dishrag and moved to the opposite side of the breakfast bar, inwardly praying for calm, calm.

  “Darcy, please do not speak to me in that condescending way. It isn’t respectful.”

  “But, Mom, I—”

  Cynthia held up one finger and raised her eyebrows. “It’s been at least two weeks since anything was mentioned about the Winter Band Blast, and those weeks have been busy ones, pushing the concert to the back burner.”

  Darcy pulled in a breath and blew it out slowly. Glenn used the same technique to bring his aggravation under control. He set such a good example for the kids—amazing, considering his own volatile upbringing. Resting her elbows on the edge of the counter, Darcy met Cynthia’s gaze. “I’ve been doing a countdown during Christmas break, and I’ve mentioned Winter Band Blast every day. At supper last night Dad asked if I had enough baby-sitting money saved up to pay for my ticket. I know you worked at the library every afternoon, but you had to have heard me talk about Winter Band Blast at least once during the break. Unless you haven’t been paying any attention at all.”

  Now a hint of hurt feelings crept into Darcy’s voice, and Cynthia couldn’t blame her. The concert was important enough for her to save her baby-sitting money, count down the days, and pull herself out of bed early when she could have stayed under the covers all day if she’d wanted to. And somehow Cynthia had missed every reference over the past several days.

  She reached across the counter and pushed a strand of hair away from her daughter’s cheek. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I haven’t paid attention. I’ve been…distracted.”

  Darcy tipped her head. “Thinking about the PI?”

  Although her thoughts had been centered on how the girl the private investigator was seeking might respond to being found, she nodded.

  “Bet you’re thinking more about your baby girl, though, right?”

  Cynthia swallowed a startled cough. Her daughter was more perceptive than she’d realized. She picked up the dishrag and went to work scrubbing the half-dried smears of strawberry jam on the countertop.

  “Hey, Mom, can I ask you a question?”

  Cynthia offered her daughter a wry grin. “Obviously you can. You just did.”

  Darcy rolled her eyes. “That’s something Dad would say.”

  Cynthia laughed. She moved to the sink to rinse the rag. “What’s your question?”

  “Why’d you give your baby away?”

  The question struck like a stone from a slingshot. Cynthia took her time rinsing, wringing, and draping the rag over the edge of the sink. “What did Daddy tell you?”

  “That you were young—like, fifteen. Not old enough to be a mom yet.”

  Cynthia turned slowly and leaned against the cabinet, needing the sturdy support. Her legs felt weak and rubbery. She folded her arms over her chest and forced a glib tone. “That’s about right.”

  Darcy frowned. “But there’s gotta be more to it than that. I mean, yeah, fifteen is pretty young, but I know of at least three girls who are fifteen or even younger who have babies, and they kept ’em. There’s even one in my class.”

  Only a year ago Darcy boxed up her Barbie dolls and asked Glenn to put the box with their other stored belongings above the garage rafters. Cynthia shook her head. “There can’t be. You’re only in the seventh grade.”

  Darcy nodded, wide eyed. “It’s true. Her name is Charity Webber, and she’s gonna have a baby before the end of the school year. She says she’s keeping it.” Furrows marched across Darcy’s girlish forehead. “She’s thirteen. Lots younger than you were. So why didn’t you keep your baby?”

  Ugly images from the past flashed through Cynthia’s memory. She’d worked so hard to paint pleasant pictures of family in her children’s minds. She didn’t want to give Darcy even a tiny peek into the awfulness that had been her childhood. But how to answer honestly without sharing the bleakness and strife of her upbringing?

  She prayed for discernment and then formed a careful question. “What do you think you’d need to take care of a baby?”

  Darcy shrugged. “A crib, lots of diapers and bottles, burp rags because they spit up a lot. At least the ones I’ve baby-sat do. Maybe some toys and a little swing. You know, baby stuff.”

  “Oh, Darcy…” Cynthia smiled sadly. “You aren’t wrong. All of those things are helpful. But what babies need most of all is love and attention. They aren’t a toy you can set aside when you’re tired of playing with it. Babies are a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, for-the-rest-of-your-life responsibility. And most teenage girls aren’t ready for that kind of commitment.”

  “Then why do so many of them keep their babies?”

  Pain stabbed. “Well, maybe the girls you know have someone who is willing to help them. A mom or grandmother or the baby’s father—someone to share the responsibility so it isn’t so overwhelming.”

  Understanding bloomed across Darcy’s face. “You didn’t have help, did you?”

  Cynthia shook her head. To her knowledge her mother had gone to her grave without ever knowing she had a granddaughter somewhere in the world. Not that she would have cared, considering how little she’d cared about her son and daughter.

  Cynthia’s throat went tight, turning her voice into a raspy whisper. “No, I didn’t. And I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I wanted something more, something better, than what I could offer to my baby. So I gave her away.”

  Darcy slipped off the stool and rounded the breakfast bar. Without a word she grabbed Cynthia in a stranglehold hug. Gritting her teeth against the threat of tears, Cynthia held tight. After several seconds Darcy released her hold, stepped back, and tipped her head. A loose strand from her ponytail swished across her shoulder and curled up under her chin, giving her an elfin appearance that made Cynthia want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  “Can I ask another question?”

  Cynthia braced herself, pulled in her breath, and gave a stiff nod.

  “Would you call the ticket hot-line number on your phone while I’m calling on mine? It’ll double my chances of being one of the first twenty to get through.”

  Her lungful of air released on a snort of laughter.

  “What?” Darcy held her hands outward, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I really want one of those fan packs. An autographed T-shirt, two backstage passes, a poster, and a stack of CDs all in a custom-designed tote bag to commemorate Winter Band Blast Indianapolis!”

  Shaking her head, Cynthia moved toward the wireless phone receiver in its base next to the sink. “What’s the number?”

  Arborville

  Suzanne

  Suzanne lifted the coffee mug to her mouth. The rich aroma of the fresh-ground Arabica blend teased her senses. The first sip of the morning was always the best, and she slowly drew in the steaming liquid, allowing it to pool on her tongue briefly before letting it slip down her throat. Wind howled outside the old farmhouse, ringing in the new year in a boisterous manner, but the kitchen was warm, cozy, and—with everyone else still slee
ping—solitary.

  On the worktable in front of her, the December 30 edition of the Indianapolis Times—the most recent edition to arrive via mail—lay unopened. She gave it a lazy glance, both hands cupped around the warm mug. Did she want to read beyond the headline or not? In spite of the gusting wind, her morning felt calm and peaceful. So often events outside of Arborville disturbed her. She took another sip, contemplating. Then she pushed the paper aside. She’d enjoy an hour or two of peacefulness before peeking at the pages.

  Floorboards creaked, and Suzanne turned toward the hallway. Linda scuffed around the corner in fuzzy red slippers, her hair standing on end. When her gaze met Suzanne’s, she broke into a smile that stretched comically into a yawn.

  Suzanne stifled a giggle. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  Linda snapped her mouth closed and shot a mock scowl across the worktable. “Ha-ha. Where’s the coffee I’ve been smelling? I need a cup. A big cup.” She plopped onto the second stool and yawned again.

  Suzanne retrieved a mug, filled it, and handed it over with a smile. “Why are you up so early? Your flight doesn’t leave until after four o’clock.”

  “Who can sleep with the aroma of Alexa’s special blend of beans wafting up the stairs and tormenting my nose?” She took a deep draw of the mug, smacked her lips, and sighed. “Mm-mm, that’s good coffee. You gonna be able to mix it up right when you’re the one in charge around here?”

  Suzanne’s stomach rolled, and she set the cup aside. “I’ll do my best.”

  Linda raised one eyebrow and pinned Suzanne with a steady gaze. “You sure you’re okay with all this?”

  After praying with Linda and Tom and giving the situation much thought, she’d agreed to assume responsibility for the bed-and-breakfast so Alexa could travel to Indianapolis and begin a search for her birth mother. Agreeing to it and aligning her heart to it were two completely different things, however. Even so, she smiled to reassure her friend. “As Tom so wisely said, Alexa wanting to investigate her birth during the quietest time in the B and B business and my being here to assume her duties does seem providential. Who am I to question the Lord’s leading in her life?”