Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “In here.” Fern again. Not Kate.

  He stepped to the door and froze. The sight of the blood threw him back to that fresh-faced kid stepping on the mine in front of him and Jay carrying his blood forward to the battle the kid would no longer have to fight. Then Artie had bled out on his shoes minutes after changing places with Jay on that street in Germany. Blood draining out of men in every battle. Dying men.

  But this was Kate’s blood. “Is she . . . ?” He couldn’t say the word as his heart did a funny stutter. She looked so limp as Fern held her.

  “She lost the baby.”

  A wave of sadness swept through him. “Oh, Kate.” He knelt down to run his hand across her cheek.

  “No time for that.” Fern frowned at him. “She’s sinking. Fast.”

  Jay reached under Kate and picked her up. She groaned and stiffened in his arms. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Hospital. Only thing.” Fern pointed toward the door.

  “All right. I’ll get her mother.”

  “No time. Lay her in the backseat. Hattie said to put her feet up.” Fern grabbed an armful of towels. “Go.”

  Jay looked around. “Hattie’s here?”

  “No. Hattie’s dying.” Fern said without emotion. “Sent me.”

  “Dying?” Jay felt shell-shocked, but thankful to feel Kate’s breath against his cheek.

  “Too much dying.” Fern shoved him toward the door. “Go! The girl would be sad if you let Kate die.”

  “She won’t die.” Jay held her tighter as he went out the front door. Then he looked back at Fern. “Will she?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Keep the maybe not in your head. Hattie was praying.”

  “You said Hattie was dying.”

  “Don’t mean she can’t pray on the way up. She was talking to angels.” Fern opened the car door. “Do what Hattie said.”

  He placed Kate as gently as he could in the car, but even so, he bumped her against the back of the seat. She groaned and opened her eyes. “Jay?”

  “I’m here, darling. We’re going to the hospital.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I lost the baby.”

  “I know.” He brushed away her tears as his own eyes flooded.

  Fern grabbed his arm and jerked him back. “Go.” She pointed toward the driver’s seat as she pushed a pile of towels under Kate’s knees with surprising gentleness.

  Jay slid under the steering wheel and looked back at Fern. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like tears on her weathered cheek. “Tell her mother.”

  She nodded. “Drive fast. The girl and me, we want Kate breathing.”

  Mashing the gas pedal to the floor, he drove like a mad man. He yanked the rearview mirror down where he could see Kate in the backseat, not caring what was on the road behind him. Only about who was in the car with him. He couldn’t lose Kate. He couldn’t.

  At the hospital, the nurses and doctors rushed out to get Kate. He tried to stay with her, but they pushed him back, told him go fill out papers. What good did papers do?

  “I’ve got to see her,” he told the woman at the desk after he answered her questions.

  The woman looked kind, but she wouldn’t let him through the doors to Kate. “The doctors are treating her. They’ll come for you when you can see her. Right now you have to let them do their job.”

  “You don’t understand. She needs me with her,” Jay pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Tanner.” She sounded sympathetic. “But you’ll have to wait until they send for you. Until then, you can be assured they are doing everything possible for her.”

  When he just kept staring at her, she touched his hand. “Please have a seat. And if you’re a praying man, perhaps that will help you bear the wait.”

  What could he do except what she said? He had his head in his hands, praying without words, when Kate’s parents and Birdie came in. Mr. Merritt’s breathing was ragged after their hurry.

  “How is she?” Kate’s mother demanded.

  “I don’t know. They took her back and say I have to wait here.” Panic formed a knot in his chest.

  Birdie put her arms around him. “She’ll be all right, Tanner. She will.”

  “Of course she will.” Mr. Merritt had caught his breath, but his voice still sounded wheezy. “Kate’s strong.”

  Jay stared over Birdie’s head at Kate’s mother and father. “She lost the baby.”

  “We know.” Mrs. Merritt’s eyes sorrowed with him.

  “Did Aunt Hattie tell you?”

  Suddenly Birdie was sobbing against his shoulder and Mrs. Merritt’s lips went white as she pressed them together and blinked back tears.

  “Fern told us. Aunt Hattie—” Mr. Merritt had to swallow before he could go on. “Aunt Hattie passed on this afternoon. While Fern was with Kate.”

  They held hands then and ignored everybody around them as Kate’s mother looked up at the ceiling and prayed like Aunt Hattie would have if she’d been there. “Lord, we’re here. Missing our dear Aunt Hattie but we know you’re welcoming her home and that she’s running to meet her Bo. Down here, we beg for your mercy. Watch over our Kate. Give the doctors skill in treating her. Give us power in praying for her as we wait. If it be your will—” Mrs. Merritt’s voice weakened a little on those words. She cleared her throat and repeated them. “If it be your will, and we pray fervently that it will be, please heal her body and her spirit. Amen.”

  Birdie echoed her amen. Then she said, “Aunt Hattie would have called her Katherine Reece.”

  Mrs. Merritt smiled through her sadness. “She would.”

  “Can we say Kate’s name?” Birdie said. “All of us together? The way I say mine?”

  “If it would make you feel better.” Mr. Merritt looked at Jay. “Is that all right, son?”

  Son. How long had it been since anyone had called him son? And now that son he’d begun to imagine, had begun to love in his heart, would never have the chance to call him father this side of heaven.

  He moistened his lips but was unable to push words past the lump in his throat. Mr. Merritt grasped his shoulder and Mrs. Merritt took his hand while Birdie leaned against him. They waited for him to find his voice.

  He shut his eyes. Kate was there in his mind. Kate was always there in his mind. He took a breath and opened his eyes to look at Birdie. “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  He started and they joined in, voices strong as they pushed Kate’s name out into the air. “Her name is Katherine Reece Merritt Tanner.”

  The woman behind the desk looked up at them, as did the few people scattered around the waiting area. Jay didn’t care. He wanted Kate’s name in the air. He wanted it lifted up like a prayer.

  Their prayers must have had wings or perhaps Aunt Hattie grabbed them on her way to heaven and laid them right at the feet of the Lord. The nurses came for Jay. The bleeding had been slowed. Kate was going to be all right, but she’d have to stay at the hospital. The doctor wanted to monitor her condition.

  She was pale but awake when the nurses finally allowed them to go to her. Jay stood by her head and held her hand while the others offered words of comfort. They didn’t tell her about Aunt Hattie. Mrs. Merritt thought it best to wait until Kate was stronger.

  It wasn’t until Kate’s parents and Lorena left that the room got too quiet. Words seemed useless.

  A nurse came, poked and prodded on Kate, and smiled at him. She told him the chair wasn’t very comfortable, but she’d bring him a pillow if he wanted to stay. The other bed in the room nearer the hallway was unoccupied, but the nurse closed the curtains with a swish of metal on metal anyway. “In case we have to bring a patient in here later, this will give you a little privacy.”

  After the nurse was gone, Kate said, “You don’t have to stay. They say I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not leaving.” He tightened his hold on her hand. “You’re here. I’m here.”

  A tear slid out of her left eye and down her c
heek. “I lost the baby.”

  He leaned down to kiss away the tear. “I know.”

  “I wasn’t strong enough to protect him.” More tears spilled over and she choked a little on her next words. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shh, you’re the strongest person I know.”

  “Not strong enough.” She pulled her hand free from his and turned away from him as sobs shook her body.

  Nothing had ever hurt him as much as hearing her cry like that. He untied his shoes and kicked them off. Then he crawled in the narrow bed with her and put his arms around her. “I love you, Kate. Don’t shut me out. Please.”

  She twisted in his arms back toward him, and his tears mixed with hers.

  28

  Tori and Lorena rode up in the elevator to the second floor of the hospital. Tori had never been in an elevator before. While it seemed totally foolish to step into it for one flight of stairs, neither she nor Lorena knew where the stairs were and the elevator was right there in front of them. So it was equally foolish to refuse to step into the closet-sized space, even though she felt robbed of air when the doors closed behind them.

  It was all Tori could do not to pant, but Lorena wasn’t bothered at all. She chattered on about the program that was supposed to play her song that night as she clutched the radio Uncle Wyatt had loaned them to bring to Kate.

  Aunt Gertie and Uncle Wyatt were in the lobby waiting, since Kate could only have two visitors at a time. Tori hoped that meant two besides Jay. Her mother said Jay hadn’t left Kate’s bedside, not even to get something to eat. Tori had ham sandwiches for him in her bag.

  Mama and Daddy had visited the hospital that morning to help Jay tell Kate about Aunt Hattie, but she already knew. Jay hadn’t told her. He hadn’t had to. Kate just knew. She and Aunt Hattie had always had a special connection, but then Fern had told her Aunt Hattie was bad. Sinking, that was what Fern had said. But perhaps a better word was rising. Aunt Hattie would have shot right up to heaven. Tori blinked back tears thinking about Aunt Hattie’s son, Bo, running out to meet her. And Sammy too. Aunt Hattie could tell him all about Samantha.

  “I’m so glad Uncle Wyatt had this extra radio.” Lorena grabbed the plug that wouldn’t stay twined around the radio. “I hope the nurses won’t mind Kate listening. Surely they won’t care, will they?”

  “I don’t see why they would, but I don’t know. I’ve never been in a hospital. Dr. Fielding came to the house when Samantha was born.”

  “But you didn’t have trouble like Kate.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Tori thought of Samantha no doubt playing happily with Mama Harper and her heart hurt for Kate.

  “Mama told me sometimes things like this just happen. She lost her first baby while Daddy was overseas during the war. She said she was sad for a long time and that Kate would be too.” Lorena was talking too fast. “She said I’d have to understand if Kate didn’t seem the same.”

  The elevator stopped and so did Lorena’s words as she stared at the door waiting for it to swoosh open. The girl looked worried.

  “She’ll still be Kate,” Tori said softly.

  “But she looked so sick. You don’t think she’s going to die, do you? I don’t think I could stand it if that happened.”

  “You can stand more than you think.” Tori touched Lorena’s shoulder as the elevator door finally opened. Didn’t she know that for a truth? “But Kate will be fine. She just needs time to recover, that’s all.”

  “You didn’t see her last night.” Lorena kept her voice low as they stepped out into the corridor. “Her face was white as the sheets and she could barely lift up her hand.”

  “She lost a lot of blood.”

  “I know. Mama says we all should give Fern a hug for going to see about Kate.”

  Tori couldn’t keep from smiling. “I think we’d better just let you hug Fern. We all start hugging Fern, she’d go off in the woods and not come back for weeks. She’s not exactly huggable.”

  A smile burst out on Lorena’s face too. “You’re right.” But then the smile was gone as quickly as it came. “I don’t know what Fern will do without Aunt Hattie.”

  Tori breathed out a little sigh. “I don’t either, but one worry at a time. Right now, Kate. Fern won’t have to move out of Grandfather Merritt’s house right away.”

  “But will she stay there without Aunt Hattie?”

  “That’s something we have to leave up to Fern.” Tori looked over at Lorena. “And remember, one worry at a time.”

  “Right. Kate first.” Lorena shifted the radio in her arms. “Do you think the radio will pick up in here?”

  “One worry at a time,” Tori said again. “Better worry about finding room 206 now.”

  “That’s no trouble. I know where it is.”

  Tori followed Lorena down the hallway. She needed to heed her own advice. One worry at a time. She needed to think about Kate and how they were all going to miss Aunt Hattie’s prayers and common sense. She was the same as a mother to Tori’s father and a grandmother who didn’t put up with foolishness from Tori or her sisters.

  “Mothering love that allows for anythin’ ain’t the right kind of love,” she’d told Tori time and again about making Samantha mind. “Your little one needs to know what you is expecting of her.”

  When Tori countered with how young Samantha was, Aunt Hattie had narrowed her eyes on Tori. “Ain’t never too young to learn right from wrong.”

  Right from wrong. Aunt Hattie had a clear-eyed view of that. Sunday, Tori had thought about talking to Aunt Hattie about Clay, but time had run out. One worry at a time. Then Aunt Hattie’s voice whispered through her thoughts. Ain’t never no use a-worrying. Praying, that’s what you’s need to be doing.

  But prayers sometimes just floated away into the dark nowhere and weren’t answered. If Aunt Hattie heard her saying that, she’d give Tori a real talking to. Prayers aren’t like being in a candy store where you’s can pick out your answer like choosin’ your favorite sweets. Prayer gets you through when you’s thinkin’ there is no way through.

  Dear Aunt Hattie. Grandmother, aunt, preacher, teacher all tied up in one. Tori was going to miss her. That was enough to grieve along with sorrow over Kate’s lost baby. She had no need to even think about Clay Weber. What had happened was for the best. She told him to go away and he had. She shouldn’t be bothered in the least by Paulette hanging on his arm at church. She had no reason to think about how safe she’d felt when Clay caught her in his arms when she stumbled at the pond. No reason at all.

  But she did think about it. In the last couple of days, it stole into her thoughts at odd moments. His arms had felt much different from Sammy’s arms. Without doubt, a man and not a boy. She and Sammy were so very young when they chose one another. Children still and not much beyond that when they said their wedding vows. They barely had time to play at being married before Sammy went to war. He would have come home a man. The war would have forced him to grow up just as it had her. But together, they’d never gone much past being two kids promising love forever. In sickness and health, till death do us part.

  Death had parted them. She’d never stop loving Sammy. She wouldn’t. But when Clay had caught her in his arms for that moment, something had shifted inside her. She’d realized she could like the feel of another man’s arms. That thought had scared her. That fear had chased Clay right into another woman’s arms.

  One worry at a time, she reminded herself yet again as they went into Kate’s hospital room. An older woman looked up at them from the first bed, but the curtain was pulled around the second bed, hiding Kate from view. If they were in the right room.

  “Come on in.” The woman raised up in her bed and spoke as though inviting them into her living room.

  “We’re looking for Kate . . . ,” Tori started.

  “Well, of course you are. You don’t look a thing like her, but I’m guessing you must be the sisters she told me about. Three of you with one well along in the family way.”
The woman peered at them as she adjusted her hospital gown on her shoulders. “It’s easy enough to see that’s not either of you. I don’t think I was ever that slim, and while I might look in the family way now, if I was it would be a miracle to rival Sarah. Or maybe Mary, since no man would be involved.” She laughed then, her hands against her chest.

  She was on the heavy side with gray hair mussed from being in bed. Tori stared at her, at a loss for words, but the woman didn’t notice.

  “Kate, dear, you have company.” The woman looked at the curtain, then back at Tori and Lorena. “They’ve been sleeping most of the day. Poor dears. But I’m wide awake if you’d like to talk a few minutes while they’re waking up.” She beamed a smile toward them.

  “I’m awake, Miss Myrtle.” Jay stepped out from behind the curtain. “But thank you for making the girls feel welcome.” He winked at Lorena and Tori. “Miss Myrtle had some chest pains last night, so the nursing home sent her here to check out her ticker. Seems to be ticking just fine now.”

  “Like a fine watch. But you know doctors. Once they get hold of you they won’t turn you loose until they stick you with so many needles you feel like a pincushion. But I am meeting all sorts of delightful people. Like dear Kate and Jay here. And now you pretty sisters. One of you with curls and one without. And so tall.” Myrtle smiled. “I love visitors. But don’t let me keep you. I know you’re visiting your sister and not me.”

  Lorena hesitated at the woman’s bed. “You don’t have sisters to come see you?”

  “No, dear. My sisters are long gone. I had four, and three brothers, but I’m the only one left now.”

  “But you have other visitors, don’t you?” Lorena looked sad.

  “I’m sure the preacher will come by to pray over me when he hears I’m here. He’s the nicest young man.” The old lady’s smile faded a little. “But I’m fine whether I have visitors or not. Fine as can be. Well, as fine as an old woman can be with everybody poking on her.”

  Lorena shoved the radio over to Tori and stepped up beside the woman’s bed. “Kate won’t mind if we visit a minute first. Do you like singing? I’m going to be on the radio tonight.”