Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “My family too.” The words made him smile.

  Kate checked her watch. “We’re late. We’ll have to go straight to the church.”

  “Mike preaching again?”

  “No.” A frown chased across Kate’s face. “Mike’s not preaching right now.”

  “Mike not preaching?” Now it was Jay’s turn to frown. “You’re kidding me. That’s all he’s ever wanted to do.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know. Aunt Hattie says he must have got tested in the war and the test isn’t over.”

  “Is it ever?”

  “Maybe not.” Kate let out a long breath. “Evie says he likes his job at the bank in Louisville and she still has her job with that lawyer firm. They bought a car and they’re looking at houses.”

  “In Louisville?” When Kate nodded, he added, “No houses in Rosey Corner?”

  “I don’t know. Do you want there to be?”

  “I’ve been wanting to be in Rosey Corner for a long time.”

  “Three long years.”

  He didn’t contradict her, but he’d dreamed of belonging in a place like Rosey Corner most of his life. A place with family.

  Kate sat up straighter to peer out the window when they got close to Rosey Corner. She pointed out a new house or two, but nothing seemed changed much to Jay as he turned down toward the church. The parking area looked full, so he parked alongside the road. Church attendance obviously wasn’t slacking any.

  “They’ll be singing already.” Kate slid out of the car, took his hand, and hurried toward the church. “I hope Lorena and Mama saved us a seat.”

  A tall, long-legged girl exploded out the front door. The strains of a hymn spilled out with her.

  “Tanner,” Birdie yelled and ran across the yard toward him just the way she always had when he showed up at the Merritt house.

  Kate laughed as he caught Birdie up and swung her around as though she were still the ten-year-old he remembered. And she was. Only taller. His little sister of the heart.

  9

  Kate thought her heart was already filled to bursting with love for Jay after the two days in their little honeymoon cocoon, but now seeing him with Lorena, her heart swelled even more. He was going to be such a wonderful father.

  Oh dear Lord, please. The prayer whispered through her head. Her hand slipped down to her middle. The Lord had answered so many of her prayers, and now he’d brought Jay home to her. The same Jay. Well, if not exactly the same, then still the man she loved. The man who loved her.

  There was something almost magical about how time apart couldn’t change love. Aunt Hattie’s voice was in Kate’s head. Katherine Reece, you is always overthinking ever’thing. Leave a few things up to the Lord. And accept the plenty of blessings he rains down on you.

  She was in a garden of plenty here in the chill December air with Lorena’s laughter in her ears and Jay filling her eyes and heart. It was like beginning a story. So many possibilities. So many ways the story could go. Their story. First, they would have to think about jobs and a place to live. Her apartment wouldn’t do for a family. They needed a house. A yard with a picket fence. A dog and some cats. Hens scratching in the backyard. And a cow.

  She smiled at the thought of Jay milking. She didn’t know why. He’d grown up on a farm. Had done farm work before he went to the service. But he was so different from the farm boys around Rosey Corner. So different than any boy she’d ever known. Different could be good. No, not could be good. Was good. Was very good.

  Jay set Lorena down on the ground and stepped back to give her the once-over. “Where’s Birdie? What have you done with my little sister?”

  She threw her arms out wide. “Here I am. Right here.”

  “Can’t be. That girl was only this tall.” Jay held his hand up about the middle of his chest. “And look at you. Taller than Kate. You have to be hiding the real Birdie somewhere.” Jay peered around behind her.

  “No, it’s me.” Lorena hit her chest with her fingers, happiness leaking out of every inch of her. “Just taller. Aunt Hattie says I’m like a sunflower reaching for the sun. But I don’t want to reach any higher. I already look like some kind of goofy giraffe.”

  “Giraffes’ necks are longer. Lots longer.” Jay didn’t crack a smile. “So that won’t work. Remains to be seen about the goofy.”

  “You’re the one who’s goofy.” Lorena smacked his arm.

  “Could be. Love can make a guy pretty goofy.” He grinned over at Kate and then back at Lorena. “I’m surprised a dozen goofy boys aren’t following you around.”

  “Silly.” Lorena giggled. “They can’t. They’re all in church.”

  “So if not for the preacher keeping them in their pews, they’d be out here making eyes at you.”

  “I’d chase them away. I don’t like boys.” A blush rose up in Lorena’s cheeks to give lie to her words.

  “But that doesn’t keep them from liking you.” Jay put his arm around Lorena’s shoulders and reached for Kate’s hand. “Besides, not all guys are bad. You just let me check them over first and you’ll be fine.”

  “You and Daddy. Kate too.” Lorena rolled her eyes. “Even Graham. If it’s up to you all, I’ll never have a boyfriend.”

  Kate laughed. “I thought you just got through saying you didn’t like boys.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean I might not like them someday.” Lorena lifted her chin a little. “When I get older.”

  “Older is good.” Kate kissed Lorena’s cheek. “But right now, we’d better go inside before Mama comes looking for us.”

  “She told me I could wait at the door for you. They’ll stop church when we go in anyway. We waited awhile for you, but then the deacons said Reverend Winston better get started so we could get out by dinnertime.” Lorena looked over at Jay. “He’s not like Mike used to be. If Mike didn’t quit on the dot of twelve, Evie would give the signal to cut it short.” Lorena slashed her finger across her throat. “But if Reverend Winston hasn’t said all he wants to say by twelve, well, we just have to sit there until he’s finished.”

  “Maybe his wife doesn’t have a watch,” Jay said.

  “Then we need to take up a special offering to buy her one.”

  “Be nice, Lorena.” Kate tried to look stern, but the corners of her mouth twitched up.

  “That would be nice! For all of us. We could give it to her for Christmas,” Lorena insisted.

  Jay laughed as he turned Lorena toward the church door. “I’ve missed you, Birdie. You know how to make a guy laugh.”

  “What’s funny about Reverend Winston preaching till your legs go numb from sitting on a hard pew?”

  “A little preaching might be a good thing today,” Jay said. “Let’s go get some religion.”

  “Sounds like somebody needs it,” Kate said, but she didn’t hide her smile this time. It was a day for smiling.

  Lorena was right. When they went inside, everybody stopped singing to welcome Jay home. It had been that way each time one of the boys came back to church after the war. As Reverend Winston said, after everybody finally settled back into the pews, there were all different ways to worship. Celebrating victory with a church family was one of the best ways. Then he surprised everybody by cutting his sermon short at five minutes after twelve.

  It was good to belong. Jay remembered being at Kate’s house on a Thanksgiving Day before the war and wanting to have a permanent place at their table. To be part of the family.

  He’d never wanted to be part of his aunt’s family. Maybe because they didn’t want him. He was nothing more than an obligation and a burden. Love or kindness hadn’t entered into the arrangement. On either side.

  Here in Rosey Corner, he’d found love and not only from Kate. Birdie had wrapped her love around him and pulled him into the family even when Kate was trying to hold him away. This family embraced more than those with the same name. Even Birdie didn’t have the same last name. None of them really knew why she’d been abandoned on the
church steps. Since it was during the Depression, everybody assumed her parents were desperate with no way to care for her.

  That’s what Kate told Birdie. That had to be easier to live with than thinking they simply wanted to be rid of her the way Jay’s father had wanted to be rid of him. If a person didn’t know for sure, why not go with the better story? It didn’t matter that no one had ever come looking for Birdie. Could be neither of her parents had survived the Depression. Or could be they didn’t want to spoil her happiness here at Rosey Corner. Could be lots of things.

  She hadn’t forgotten them. Kate said Birdie still spoke her name every night before she went to sleep. Lorena Birdsong. So while she was part of Kate’s family here in Rosey Corner, his family now too, much of the truth of Birdie’s past lurked below the surface of her memory. To keep from forgetting completely, she said her name time and again.

  Jay had done that while he was under fire overseas. Whispered his name so the Lord wouldn’t forget him. He knew the Lord didn’t forget. The Bible told him that. Perhaps he said it more so he would remember. Jay Tanner, married to Kate Merritt Tanner, with a home and family waiting in Rosey Corner.

  When he had been most afraid, when the rain had soaked him to the skin and the foxhole filled with water, when the man next to him, who had just told him about his family, was hit by shrapnel, that’s when Jay whispered those words. Someday he would be home. In heaven or Rosey Corner. At times, the two had seemed very near the same in his mind.

  Now his prayers had been answered. His feet were on home ground at last in Rosey Corner with Kate by his side and family all around him. It was every bit as good as he’d imagined.

  Not that things were all the same. While he might like to live in that bubble of memory where everybody was fine, he had eyes to see. Just as Birdie had gone from a little girl to an emerging young lady, everybody else had changed too. Some showed it more than others. Kate’s mother had hardly aged a bit, but Kate was right about her father and his cough. It wasn’t a simple cold. Still, his handclasp was firm and his welcome true.

  Graham hadn’t been at church, but he came down off the porch to meet them when they drove up to the house. A shepherd dog trailed behind him. Graham didn’t look right without Poe, his coonhound, beside him.

  “It’s about time you got home.” A big smile spread across Graham’s face that was a reflection of Jay’s own. Graham stuck out his hand.

  “You always did see things pretty straight.” Jay grabbed Graham’s hand and pulled him close for a hug. “You and that Mrs. Henderson who was sweet on you tie the knot yet?”

  “What are you talking about?” Graham stepped back from Jay with a little shudder. “Being in the Army must have addled your brain. I painted her house. That’s all.”

  Jay cleared his throat. “Who painted her house?”

  “I did.” Graham’s smile came back. “Well, I did have some help from this drifter who happened through Rosey Corner. But I never had no intention of moving inside that house. No sirree. Chaucer and me, we like our independence.”

  Jay gave the dog a closer look. Its mottled grayish-tan fur looked like it might have been spattered with white paint at one of Graham’s painting jobs. One ear cocked up while the other one drooped, and it held up a stiff back leg. “I’ve seen better looking dogs, but then Poe couldn’t win any beauty contests either.”

  Graham frowned. “You must’ve forgot what Poe looked like. He was a fine figure of a dog. This one, poor thing.” Graham ran his fingers across the white streak on the dog’s head and its tail flapped back and forth as it rolled up its lips to give Graham a toothy grin. “He’s no Poe, but I gotta admit, he is a dog.” The dog leaned against Graham’s leg.

  “That he is.” Jay looked around. “But where’s Scout?”

  Birdie whistled and shouted Scout’s name. When she spotted the dog racing across the field toward them, she grinned at Jay. “Watch out, Tanner. Here he comes.”

  “Don’t let him tear your stockings, Lorena,” Kate warned before she gave Graham a peck on the cheek and hurried up the porch steps to protect her good clothes from the dog’s paws.

  Seeing Kate there by the post brought back such a flood of memories Jay had to fight the urge to go take her in his arms. That was where she had waited for him while they were dancing toward love. Then the dog was all over him, jumping up and yapping.

  “Whoa.” Jay laughed and pushed him down. “Now that’s a welcome.”

  “I think he remembers you,” Birdie said.

  “Dogs never forget,” Graham added. “They’re like elephants.”

  Scout quivered with excitement as Jay patted him. “Who was it that decided elephants don’t forget?” Jay asked Graham.

  “I don’t know, but they should’ve said dogs.” Graham kept his hand on top of Chaucer’s head.

  “Come on. We can talk about dogs and elephants inside. It’s freezing out here.” Kate held her hand out toward him. “Mama probably needs help with dinner. Mike and Evie will be here soon, and who knows how many more.”

  “True enough,” Graham said. “Fern said Hattie might even walk down here to set her eyes on Jay.”

  “We could go get her,” Kate offered.

  “Now you know Hattie don’t like riding in those machines unless it’s an emergency.” Graham gave the car a wary look. He obviously hadn’t changed his opinion of cars either.

  “It is an emergency.” Birdie grabbed Jay’s hand. “I thought Kate was never going to let you come home.”

  “I’m here now.” Jay followed her up the porch steps where Kate waited, her very presence intoxicating. “Home.”

  He remembered the very planks of the porch under his feet, the feel of the Rosey Corner air on his skin, the smell of home. Dogs weren’t the only ones who didn’t forget. Home.

  10

  Tori was disgusted with herself. She simply couldn’t keep crying when everybody else was smiling. But when Jay lifted Samantha high above his head to make her giggle, tears filled Tori’s eyes. It looked so natural. So right. That was what Sammy should be doing. But Sammy never would.

  “Again,” Samantha demanded when Jay brought her down out of the air.

  The child didn’t shy away from anybody. Mama said it was from being at the store all the time. Perhaps, but more than that, she was so like Sammy. He’d never known a stranger either. In every letter home, he’d told her about a new friend. Men from all across the nation. He probably even tried to make friends with his guards in that Japanese prison camp. The men who had killed him.

  She would not cry. She would smile. For Jay and Kate. For her mother and father who worried about her. For Samantha. Especially for Samantha.

  A few weeks ago, Aunt Hattie had told her to look to Jesus for smiles. “That don’t mean you won’t have troubles. Every soul is burdened down with troubles from time to time.” Aunt Love knew about troubles. After all, she’d lost her son in the first war. “But the good Lord is right there helping you carry that load. That’s how you can pull up those smiles for yo’ little one even when you’re feelin’ sorrowful. And for yo’self. A body has to keep on smilin’ for yo’self same as others, else the dark can overtake you. You’s way too young to not look for the sunlight of the morrow.”

  With Aunt Hattie’s words in her ears, Tori could believe the morrow would be better. But then the dark of sorrow would overtake her again. She hoped Aunt Hattie would come for dinner. That way Tori would have to smile to keep Aunt Hattie from preaching at her. The old woman was getting decrepit, but Fern would walk her down if Aunt Hattie wanted to come. Aunt Hattie had taken Fern in when she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Tori didn’t know what would happen to Fern if Aunt Hattie moved on up to heaven the way she said she was ready to do. Fern had let the dark overtake her for years before Lorena brought light back into the woman’s life with a little simple trust.

  For some reason, Lorena hadn’t been afraid of Fern. Tori had never understood why. Tori wa
s terrified of the woman back then. Any time Fern stepped out of the shadow of the trees, Tori was up on her toes ready to run or slipping behind Kate to hide. She wasn’t afraid of her now, only afraid of becoming like her. Fern had lost her love when she was young. Not in a war the way Tori had lost Sammy, but in an accident.

  Tori didn’t know the whole story. Nobody would talk about it, saying some things were better not remembered. That’s the way they thought she was with Sammy, but it wasn’t true. She wanted Sammy’s name in her ears.

  That was why it was especially good when Jay held Samantha out in front of him and said, “Look at that hair. And are those freckles sprouting on your nose? You’re your daddy made over.” He pulled Samantha close to kiss her nose and make her giggle again. Then he looked over her head at Tori. “Sammy would have been so proud of her.”

  Behind him, Kate frowned a little. Tori knew she was thinking that at any minute, Tori would dissolve in tears at the mention of Sammy. A few tears did spill out of her eyes and streak down her cheeks, but they weren’t bad tears. In fact, she had no problem smiling through them as she said, “I like to think he is. That he watches over her from heaven.”

  At least she thought that when she wasn’t angry with him for being in heaven instead of right there in Rosey Corner with her. Sometimes she was even mad at the Lord. That was wrong. She knew that, but the anger lurked in the bottom of her mind like a snake under a rock that slithered out from time to time to check the weather. Why hadn’t the Lord put his hand over Sammy and protected him the way Tori had so earnestly prayed he would? Others had been protected. She’d read their stories in the papers. Miracle escapes from death.

  Why would the Lord do a miracle for them and not for Sammy? She couldn’t understand it and she couldn’t ask anybody about it. Not even Aunt Hattie. Some things couldn’t be spoken out loud. She shouldn’t even be thinking such things.

  Jay looked at her as the others around them got too quiet. It had been that way ever since she got the news that Sammy was dead. Everybody tiptoed around her like she might fall apart at the first loud noise. But Jay must not have known that. He handed Samantha off to Lorena and stepped toward Tori.