Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “The birthing has to come first.”

  Aunt Hattie must have heard something in Kate’s voice because she narrowed her eyes on her. “You’s lookin’ a mite pale around the eyes. How far along did you tell me you were?”

  “About three months.”

  “That town doctor give you a delivering time?”

  “October.”

  “A good month for birthing babies. Gives them time to get strong before the cold sets in.”

  “I want my baby to be strong,” Kate said.

  “Course you do. And he has ever’ chance of being that way with you as his mama.” Aunt Hattie took her hand. “What’s worrying you, child?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t want to be like Evie and complain about every little thing when I know some discomfort goes along with being in the family way.”

  Kate looked down at Aunt Hattie’s hand on hers. The woman’s fingers were bent with arthritis and her skin felt paper thin. From the time Kate could remember, when she really wanted to know something, she came to Aunt Hattie for answers. Aunt Hattie didn’t jig around the truth. But now for some reason, Kate was tiptoeing around her worries.

  “Your sister looked to be carrying fine last I saw her, but Evangeline never was one to handle bumps without wailing about it some. Between Nadine and that sweet Preacher Mike working to make the world pleasin’ for her, she never got no practice on gettin’ tough. Like you has. You never took to babying. Even when you was a little child. You was always ready to go out there and meet the world head on.”

  “I’m not feeling so tough right now.”

  “How is you feeling?” Aunt Hattie’s eyes bored into Kate. When Kate didn’t say anything right away, she gave her hand a shake. “I ain’t never known you to sashay so around what you’s wantin’ to say. This is your old Aunt Hattie. You can tell me anything. You knows that.”

  Kate swallowed hard. She’d come to Aunt Hattie for advice, but now she didn’t want to give voice to her fears. At last she said, “I’m just so tired and my back hurts.”

  “What kind of hurt?” Aunt Hattie had on her doctor face.

  “I don’t know.”

  Aunt Hattie swept her words away with an impatient hand. “A little passing pain? A lifted-something-heavy pain? Does it ease up when you lays yo’self down and then worsens when you stand up?”

  “Not a little pain. More a gripping pain. Laying down doesn’t help much.”

  “Pressing down on you?” Aunt Hattie’s face lost every hint of smile when Kate nodded. “You showing any issue?”

  “A little spotting,” Kate admitted. Her heart had frozen inside her when she first saw that in her underwear.

  “You call your doctor?” Aunt Hattie asked.

  “He said unless it got worse, it wasn’t anything to worry about and I could just wait until my appointment next week. He didn’t sound concerned.”

  “He’s right. Such is not uncommon in the early months,” Aunt Hattie said. “By itself not reason to worry, but I don’t like that your back’s aching. I never knew you to complain about a backache even at those times of month. Stand up here and let me do some probing.”

  Aunt Hattie ran her fingers up and down Kate’s spine. In spite of the arthritis, her fingers were still strong pushing against the tops of Kate’s hip bones. “Any spot I’m touching hurt more than others?”

  “No, it’s more a cramping type of pain all across my lower back.”

  “Could be you pulled a muscle,” Aunt Hattie said, but she didn’t sound as if she believed it. “Turn toward me and let me touch that baby.”

  “Should we go inside?”

  “Ain’t no need. Nobody’s gonna see us out here in the backyard, ’cepting maybe Fern if she’s around. Just lift out your skirt a little so I can slide my hands up over your belly to see how big you’re getting.”

  Kate did as she said. She felt comforted by the feel of Aunt Hattie’s hands sliding over her tummy. If there was anything wrong, Aunt Hattie could tell her how to fix it.

  “Ain’t much of a baby bump,” Aunt Hattie murmured.

  “But that’s normal this early, isn’t it?”

  “Mamas carry babies in a hundred different ways. Some show on day five. Others not till month five.”

  Aunt Hattie frowned and scooted forward in her chair. She pulled Kate close to put her ear against her middle. When Kate started to say something, she shushed her and told her to hold her breath. Kate was beginning to feel light-headed when Aunt Hattie said, “You’s can breathe now.”

  “Did you hear the baby?” Kate asked.

  “My ears ain’t what they used to be and even when my hearing was strong, I couldn’t always pick up a heartbeat. According to where the little fellow was inside his mama. But the doctors don’t need good ears nowadays. They got instruments to beat out the best ears. And the baby is small. Right now the sweet thing will have fingers and toes, but not be big as your hand.”

  For some reason, Kate felt abandoned when Aunt Hattie pulled her hands away from her belly and sat back. “But he is okay, isn’t he?”

  Aunt Hattie hesitated for a bare second. Then she let out a whisper of breath. “I ain’t never knowingly lied to you and there ain’t no need in me starting now. I’m some worried about what you’re telling me. Perhaps with cause. Perhaps not. I’m hopin’ not. Sometimes worries bedevil us for no reason.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.” Kate sank back down in her chair. “What should I do?”

  “Might be that you should go on home and lay yourself down for a while. Don’t get up ’cepting when you has to relieve yo’self.”

  “You mean for the rest of today?”

  “For today and tomorrow and as long as you needs to so’s you can give this baby a chance.”

  “You’re telling me to stay in bed all day?” Kate stared at Aunt Hattie, not sure she understood her right.

  “That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

  “I can’t do that. Who’ll do the housework? The cooking?”

  “That boy of yours can fix his own eats and yours too for a few days. And houses don’t have to be cleaned ever’ day. Dirt don’t go nowhere. It sits right there and waits till you is able to chase it away. If something has to be done, Lorena or Victoria will run right over to help you. Sisters is good that way.”

  “But I’m the one who helps them.”

  “You has always wanted to hold everybody in your hands and be the strong one.” Aunt Hattie shook her head a little. “But there is times when each and ever’ one of us has to realize how weak we really are. That’s when a body learns to lean on the strength of the Lord. Compared to him, we is all weak as kittens.”

  “I don’t want to be weak.” Kate’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Not when it comes to carrying my baby.”

  Aunt Hattie gripped Kate’s hands. “The Lord will give you strength.”

  Tears edged up into Kate’s eyes. “But my baby is going to be all right, isn’t he?”

  “We is going to pray hard for this baby, and put him into the Lord’s hands. There’s no righter place to be.”

  Kate wanted promises and Aunt Hattie was only offering prayers. Still, Aunt Hattie’s prayers were powerful. “Will you pray for me, for him?”

  “You know I will, child. Day and night.”

  “I mean now.” Kate swallowed back her tears. She wasn’t weak. She wouldn’t lose this baby. She wouldn’t. She stood up and cradled the slight swell of the baby with her hands.

  “Come closer.” Aunt Hattie put her hands over top of Kate’s. Then without closing her eyes, she looked up and began talking to the Lord. “Dear Lord, we knows you are watching over us. That you has loved us from the moment you began knitting us together in our mothers’ wombs. You is knitting this little child now in this mama’s womb and we ask that you give him ever’thing he needs to make the long journey to life. Give this mother strength for the days ahead and shower down your love on her the way you has all the l
ivelong days of her life. We send these petitions to you, Lord, knowing you is in control.” Aunt Hattie suddenly bowed her head and her voice softened. “But your will, not ours, Lord, for you knows best. Amen and amen.”

  Each step Kate took on the way back to her house from Aunt Hattie’s felt like a betrayal of the baby inside her. It wasn’t far. She could walk it in ten minutes, but maybe that was too far for this baby. Maybe going to get Tori at Graham’s pond the day before had been too far. Or driving Lorena to Louisville or standing around the audition area all day. Could be she shouldn’t have gone to church that morning. Or stood and washed dishes after dinner. The worries made the pain in her back worse with every step.

  The house was empty when she got there. She knew it would be. Jay had taken Lorena to sing at a church in Frankfort. Kate told them to go without her because she had to finish a piece for the Edgeville paper. It wasn’t a lie. She had promised to send the editor something.

  Kate stared at her notebook on the kitchen table. Their dirty breakfast dishes were stacked in the sink. She felt guilty turning her back on them, but dishes could wait.

  The bedroom shades shut out the late afternoon sunshine. She had at least straightened the covers on their bed, but Jay’s clothes from the day before were piled on the chair in the corner. She carried them to the hamper in the closet. She’d have to get up early tomorrow to do the laundry and get her article finished before the mail ran.

  The pain shooting through her back reminded her of Aunt Hattie’s orders to stay in bed. Aunt Hattie knew a lot about babies, but she was getting old. Her ideas were from years ago. She could be wrong. She had to be wrong. Kate couldn’t lie in bed all day long. She couldn’t.

  Kate never got sick. Never. She wasn’t like Evie who complained about every twinge or Tori who was sickly as a child. But Tori had carried Samantha without one problem and now Evie was well along and doing fine. Nobody was telling her to lie down.

  Kate caught sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. Worried eyes. A waistline that showed not the first sign of expanding for a baby. Too pale cheeks. She told herself it was just the dusky light. Pale didn’t matter that much anyway. But she’d lie down today so she could tell Aunt Hattie she’d done what she said.

  She slipped off her shoes and lay down on top the covers. No sense in getting all the way into the bed. Not yet. She pulled Jay’s pillow over to hug close to her. Jay would be worried about her when he got home and found her in bed. He’d want to know what was wrong. What could she tell him?

  That she was tired. That would be enough. No sense worrying him. By morning everything would be fine. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t.

  24

  Some of the church people came over to welcome Jay and Birdie before the service started. Jay kept his smile firmly in place as he shook their hands, but he felt a little out of place without Kate beside him to be the one on the front line of the greetings. She was good at making sure everything was organized for Birdie to sing. Since they’d moved back to Rosey Corner, they’d taken Birdie somewhere to sing nearly every weekend.

  The kid had a gift. He smiled over at Birdie beside him in a pew toward the back of the church. If Kate had been there, they’d have been on the third row, but Jay liked being closer to the door. He managed to cover it up when Kate was with him, but he felt easier having a quick way out, even if he wasn’t planning on leaving until the service was over.

  Birdie didn’t care where they sat, but she did seem a little antsy without Kate to buoy her confidence. As people filed in to fill the other pews, she twisted her bracelet around her arm and jiggled her leg up and down. He finally touched her knee to stop her when the pew started shaking.

  He leaned close to her ear to ask, “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m singing a new song,” she whispered back. “What if I forget the words?”

  “Not likely. You sang it about five hundred times on the way over here.” Jay lowered his voice more. “I know the words and I never heard it before today.”

  “Then maybe you should sing it.” A smile jerked up one side of her lips.

  “Well, if you want me to.”

  She put a hand over her mouth to keep the giggle in her eyes from finding its way out.

  “Don’t be silly, Tanner. You can’t sing.”

  “But you can,” he told her as the organist crashed out some gathering notes. Then a woman with tightly coifed gray hair added piano notes to the organ music. She was supposed to play for Birdie. That was how they’d been doing the church visits. Birdie sang out of the hymnbook and hoped somebody at the church would be willing to play the songs for her. If not, Birdie sang without accompaniment. Jay liked her singing best that way, her voice pure and unhindered.

  The congregation stood for the opening hymn. Jay mouthed the words. Birdie was right. He wasn’t much of a singer.

  His roundabout pep talk must have been enough. As soon as the song leader spoke Birdie’s name, she popped up and headed toward the front without the slightest sign of nerves. She was like Kate that way. Ready to embrace opportunity and seize whatever life had to offer.

  He wanted to think he was the same, but most of his life, he’d had his fists up, ready to sock life in the nose instead of embracing it. With cause. Life had a way of blindsiding him. But that was before Kate. Everything was different in Rosey Corner. Life was good there.

  Birdie launched into her first song. “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” That’s what Aunt Hattie would tell him made being in Rosey Corner good. Made everything good. Opening his heart up to the Lord. Sometimes Jay was still surprised the Lord had hunted him up. Aunt Hattie would say that wasn’t true either. She’d say the Lord was there with him all along. It just took Jay awhile to open his eyes and see him. Aunt Hattie could outpreach most anybody.

  Not that he didn’t agree with her. He did. He didn’t know how he would have made it through the war without the Lord. Even so, often as not, he felt closer to the Lord while he was running the corn grinding machine at the feed store than he did in churches like the one he was in this night.

  Kate couldn’t understand that. Being in a church pew every Sunday was important to her. Even necessary. A worry wriggled awake in him. It wasn’t normal for Kate not to want to come with them. Wanting to had nothing to do with it, she’d insisted. She needed to get the article done for the Edgeville paper. She’d promised. But Kate never wrote on Sundays.

  She wasn’t feeling good. He could see that on her face, but she kept saying she was fine. Putting up a front. That was Kate too. The one who made everything fine. She did make things fine for him, but he hadn’t been able to keep his worry about being a father completely hidden. Kate knew him too well. So to keep him from worrying more, she pretended to be all right when he could see she wasn’t.

  They were both doing too much pretending. Losing that closeness he’d so treasured when he first got home. Now for whatever reason, they seemed to be stepping back into their own shadowy corners where neither one of them was willing to reveal what they were thinking. That needed to change. He wanted that to change. He was glad Kate was strong, but he wanted her to lean on him when she needed to. He wanted to put his arms around her and be a good husband. A good father.

  He stared at the men in front of him. Family men. Some maybe home from the war like him. But comfortable there in the Lord’s house with their children beside them. Next year that could be him and Kate with a baby between them. Not between them. Tying them even tighter into a family. He was ready for that. He really was, but at the same time he needed time to get used to families and churches. Things were so different from the war days.

  A man in the Army didn’t get much chance to sit in church pews. Jay’s best churchlike times had been under the stars, talking to Sarge about the Bible. Sarge knew his Bible. He didn’t have to open it to tell the men in their unit what it said. He had verse after verse hidden in his heart so no enemy could ever steal the Word
of God from him.

  There were good times to be had at church too, if Jay could keep his mind from straying from whatever the preacher had to say. When that happened, when he stopped hearing the preacher and started hearing the echo of artillery instead, that’s when he needed to be moving and not a sitting duck for memories of blood and dying. He shut out those thoughts now and concentrated on Birdie singing. With a panicked look, she stuck the word “mountain” in where mountain didn’t fit, but then the right words came back to her.

  She let her eyes slide over him. A person could maybe get teary and sing, but not laugh and do any good singing. As she usually did at revival meetings, she sang “Amazing Grace” last. Every eye in the church was on Birdie as her voice wrapped around them. Even the babies were quiet. Jay had heard her sing that song dozens of times, but it never failed to put chills down his back. He sent up a thankful prayer for the grace he’d been granted and the love he’d been given. For Kate. For Birdie. For living through the war and making it home to Rosey Corner.

  At the end of the services, the preacher extended the invitation hymn through five extra verses. Then, most every person there wanted to tell Birdie how much they enjoyed her songs, so it was full dark by the time they got on the road home. Birdie was keyed up the way she always was after singing.

  “Did I sound all right?” Birdie didn’t wait for him to answer. “Don’t just say what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you really thought. Did the people like it?”

  “You heard them. They thought you were great.”

  “But what do you say?” Birdie pushed him for an answer.

  Jay glanced over at her. “You know I think you’re great. You give me the holy shivers when you sing.”

  “Even when I sing the wrong word?” She made a face and put her hand to her head. “I can’t believe I did that. Didn’t you want to laugh out loud?”

  “Seeing as how that bunch seemed pretty straightlaced, I decided I’d better hang on to my solemn look.” Jay grinned at her.