Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Graham got to his feet, but Fern didn’t pay him the first bit of attention. Her eyes bore into Kate. Kate stared back, thinking of all the years she’d known her. Strange Fern who had no interest in being like other people. Scary Fern who stepped out of the nightmares of kids in Rosey Corner—the bogeyman behind the bushes. Brokenhearted Fern who shut away the world for fear of being hurt again until Lorena pushed her way into Fern’s heart. Because of Lorena’s easy acceptance of Fern’s oddities, Kate had begun to see Fern as more than the weird woman who lurked in the shadows of the woods. And now she was seeing her as Aunt Hattie saw her. A woman in need of a friend.

  Kate smiled as much as she was able with the sadness weighing down on her and held a hand out toward Fern. “Come, sit with us.” Kate’s voice sounded loud in the quiet church.

  Fern didn’t smile back, but her face softened the barest bit. Lorena hurried up the aisle to lead Fern down to their pew. Fern’s rubber boots squeaked on the wood floor.

  When they got almost to the front of the church, Lorena whispered something to Fern. Fern didn’t bother whispering but spoke out loud. “I don’t need to see Hattie dead. I saw that already. Better to wait and see her next in heaven.”

  An uneasy murmur traveled around the church, as though some doubted Fern would have that chance. She was too different. She hadn’t spent enough time in church. She wasn’t like they thought she should be. Kate wanted to tell the whisperers the Lord didn’t care about rubber boots and shapeless dresses. He didn’t care about combed hair and washed faces. He cared about hearts, and he could see into hearts that nobody else could.

  But Fern didn’t need Kate to defend her. She didn’t care what other people thought. She was who she was, and she had come to say goodbye to a friend. That was why Kate was there too. Nothing else mattered right now. Later, other worries could horn in. Where would Fern stay with Aunt Hattie gone? Would Lorena want to go live with her birth family? Would Daddy’s cough ever get better? Would she and Jay have more babies? So many worries.

  It took the good Lord six days to make the world. Ain’t no way you’re gonna be fixin’ everythin’ about it in one day, Katherine Reece.

  Kate’s smile felt a little more at home on her face then as Tori scooted over to make room for Kate and Jay. Then they moved even closer together so Fern could push in the pew with them. She smelled of the woods, but it wasn’t a bad smell. Instead it was fresh and somehow right for Aunt Hattie’s funeral. The aroma of nature enduring through the ages. Storms and fires came. Branches and leaves fell, but the trunk of life continued putting out new growth.

  Kate was empty now, but she wouldn’t always be empty.

  As Mrs. Taylor played the last chords of the hymn, Kate reached across Jay to touch Fern’s hand. Fern seemed surprised for a second, but then she turned her hand over and tightened her fingers around Kate’s.

  “I’m glad you didn’t die, Kate Merritt.” Again she didn’t bother whispering, and her words were plain in the quiet of the church as Mrs. Taylor turned to a new page in her hymnbook.

  Kate spoke aloud too. “I am too, Fern Lindell. Thank you.”

  Fern let go of her hand and Kate sat back, surrounded on all sides by those who loved her. A hush fell over the church as Lorena stood to sing “Amazing Grace.” Her voice was so pure and sweet that chills ran up Kate’s back.

  Then Mike stood up and grasped the pulpit behind Aunt Hattie’s coffin. He opened his Bible and began to read. “‘The Lord is my Shepherd . . .’”

  He sounded like the old Mike, the Mike from before the war who knew he was meant to preach. Kate imagined Aunt Hattie smiling down on him with joy at the confident belief in his voice as he continued to read the psalm.

  “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . .’”

  The familiar words fell gently on Kate’s ears. A laying to rest of not only Aunt Hattie, but Kate’s lost baby too.

  “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’”

  Kate waited until Saturday to tell Lorena about the man named Birdsong. Lorena was planting the iris bulbs Mrs. Alvers next door gave Kate. Other neighbors brought food, and of course, her mother made Jay a brown sugar pie. Kate hated feeling so weak she couldn’t sweep the kitchen floor without sitting down twice, but time would heal her body and soften the pain in her heart.

  The morning air carried the fresh, sweet smell of lilacs, and the sun felt especially good on Kate’s shoulders as she sat on the porch steps watching Lorena. It seemed the perfect time to tell her what Miss Myrtle had said.

  “Do you think he’s my father?” Lorena sat back on her heels to look at Kate, her face a mixture of sadness and hope.

  “I don’t know, Lorena. Maybe. Maybe not.” The peaceful beauty of the day faded as Kate berated herself for not thinking through how the news of a man named Birdsong remarrying might upset Lorena. She should have waited for Jay to be home, but the words were out now. There was no taking them back. “But Birdsong is not a very common name. He might know your family.”

  Lorena stuck her trowel in the ground and turned over some of the dirt. “Poor little worm,” she murmured as she picked up a fishing worm she accidently sliced in two.

  “He’ll be all right. He’ll grow on a new end.”

  “I know.” Lorena gently put the worm over in the part of the flowerbed already planted. Then she looked at Kate. “I’ll be all right too. Whatever we find out.”

  Kate held out her arms and Lorena dropped the trowel to come lean against Kate the way she used to when she was little. Now Lorena was taller than Kate, but she would always be her little sister.

  “Do you feel sliced in two?” Kate asked her. “Divided?”

  “Not in a bad way.” Lorena raised her head to look directly at Kate. “I want to know about my family. My first family. But the Lord took care of me the way he does the fishing worms. He sent you to find me that day my mommy left me at the church and gave me a new family.”

  “I’m glad he did.” Kate tightened her arm around Lorena, who rested her head against Kate’s shoulder again.

  They sat like that for a few minutes before Lorena asked, “Do you think we can find this man with the same name as mine?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll try.”

  When Lorena didn’t say anything, Kate pushed her back where she could see her face. She looked the way she did sometimes before she sang at a church. Eager and scared at the same time. Kate touched Lorena’s cheek. “But only if you want to.”

  That was what she always told her about singing. Her voice was a gift, but she didn’t have to sing in front of people unless she wanted to. She always wanted to. Kate knew she wanted to do this too, but Jay’s warning from the night before when she told him about Miss Myrtle’s cousin played through Kate’s head.

  “Birdie might find out things she’d rather not know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Think about it, Kate. They deserted her and never came back. They couldn’t know she found a good family to take care of her. For all they ever knew, she could have starved on that church step. That doesn’t sound like a very loving family.”

  “It was hard times.” Kate felt compelled to defend Lorena’s unknown mother.

  “Could times ever get so hard that you would have given up our baby?” He pushed the question at her.

  Her hands had gone instinctively to her abdomen to protect what was already lost. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I know. It wouldn’t happen. You would have found another way.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “We would have found another way.”

  “But she wants to know.”

  “She thinks she does.” Jay sighed a little. “She’s still not much more than a little girl. She wants a fairy-tale ending, but there aren’t many of those out there in the real world.”

  Kate had tried to lighten his mood. “You’re m
y prince. My knight in shining armor.”

  It had worked. He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “I’m not much of a prince or knight either. But if you’d been a damsel in distress, I’d have fought the dragon for you without a moment’s hesitation. What do you say we just skip the fighting dragon part and go straight to the kiss?”

  Now Kate watched the emotions race across Lorena’s face. Doubt, worry, hope. Kate did so want a fairy-tale ending for her, but Jay was right. Life didn’t offer many perfect endings, not without pain mixed in.

  “I have to know, Kate.” Determination chased the other emotions away. “Even if it’s bad. I have to know.”

  “Then if Jay can get off next Saturday, we’ll go.”

  Lorena was right. Sometimes it was better to know than to wonder.

  34

  The next Saturday, Jay drove Kate and Birdie to Cincinnati. He wasn’t sure he was doing either of them a favor. Kate had her hands clutched so tightly in her lap, her knuckles were white. Birdie looked every bit as nervous when he peeked in the rearview mirror at her.

  The drive up was very quiet. No singing. No laughing at his silly jokes. A few pathetic smiles were all he could get out of Kate, and Birdie acted like she didn’t even hear him. Maybe she didn’t, in the backseat with the windows down.

  Smiles hadn’t been coming easy for Kate or Jay either the last couple of weeks. The sadness had settled in their hearts like silt at the bottom of a mud puddle. The puddle cleared when the water was left alone and regular life went along, but with every thought of the baby, the mud got stirred up again.

  Nobody talked about it. People acted like losing a baby so early in the pregnancy was either of no importance or something too embarrassing to mention. Not that everybody hadn’t been great. The church people had loaded them down with food. Kate’s mother and Tori cleaned their house top to bottom, even the windows. Mike came to pray with them.

  Preaching Aunt Hattie’s funeral helped restore Mike’s confidence in his calling to preach, and he was ready to serve a new church. He said the Lord let him know he wasn’t chairman of the results committee. His job was to deliver the messages the Lord gave him and believe in the power of his Word to change lives.

  If anybody knew that was true, Jay did. For years, Mike had preached at him with no visible results, but seed was sown and eventually took root in Jay’s heart to change his life. That didn’t mean he had this whole faith thing down pat. So it felt right having Mike back praying for him and prodding him to be a better man.

  Jay wished he’d asked Mike to say a special prayer about this trip. The closer they got to Cincinnati, the more he thought they needed prayers. Lots of prayers. Jay didn’t want either of the girls he loved most in the world to be hurt by whatever they might find out.

  With an extra week to think on it, Miss Myrtle had remembered her Cincinnati cousin’s address. When they visited her at the nursing home, she had it already written out in her shaky handwriting.

  “I wrote it down, because I knew you’d come.” Miss Myrtle had looked at Birdie. “A person needs to know about her family.”

  But what if that person found out something she’d rather not know?

  When they got to Cincinnati, they stopped at the first phone booth they saw. Kate found a listing for Miss Myrtle’s cousin and rang her number. Kate had to tell the woman all about Miss Myrtle before she got answers to her questions.

  But she did get the answers. She hung up the phone and looked at Birdie. “The man’s name is Andy. Andy Birdsong. Does that ring a bell?”

  Birdie shut her eyes. Jay could almost see her combing through long-buried memories. Finally she opened her eyes, pressed her lips together, and shook her head. “No.”

  “They don’t have a phone, but she gave me their address,” Kate said.

  After a few wrong turns, they found the right street where Kate spotted a mailbox with A. Birdsong painted on it in black letters.

  Pots of flowers and a green metal yard chair filled up the little porch that was not much more than a stoop. Like chairs leaned against the side of the neat white house. The front door was open to the breeze, but a screen door kept out flies. A shiny black sedan was parked in the driveway.

  Jay drove past the house. At the corner, he pulled into an empty church parking lot and turned off the motor. Everything sounded too quiet then.

  He twisted around to look at Birdie behind him. “Okay, Birdie. What next?”

  Kate reached over the seat to touch Birdie’s knee. “Whatever you want to do is what we’ll do.”

  “It was a long drive up here.” Birdie sounded hesitant.

  “The drive home is the same distance whether we go back to the house or not,” Jay said. “We can stop at that ice cream place we saw down the road. I bet they have fudge ripple.”

  Birdie smiled then the way he intended, but the smile didn’t last. She slipped her eyes from him to Kate. “I’m afraid.”

  “I know.” Kate grabbed her hand. “It’s okay.”

  Birdie stared at Kate for a minute. “Miss Myrtle’s relative can’t be my mother.”

  “No, she can’t,” Kate said gently.

  Birdie blinked a couple of times. “He might not want to see me.”

  “If that happens, then we’ll go get that ice cream.” Kate squeezed Birdie’s hand. “But I think if we don’t go back to the house, you’ll end up wishing you had.”

  “It could not go well,” Jay said.

  Kate shot a frown toward him, but a person needed to be prepared.

  “I know that, Tanner.” Birdie blew out a long sigh. “But Kate’s right. I want to know. If he slams the door in my face, that can’t be any worse than leaving me on the church steps when I was five.”

  “He won’t slam the door in your face. You’ll stay in the car while I go to the door to check the lay of the land.” Jay started up the car. “If any door slamming happens, it’ll be in my face.”

  He didn’t know whether to hope the man would slam the door in his face or open it wide to let them in. Maybe Jay would just knock on the door and punch the man right in the nose and get it over with. Then maybe he’d drive on down to Gaffney on the Tennessee border and knock on his father’s door and punch him in the nose too. Surely the Lord didn’t mean a kid had to always turn the other cheek.

  At the house, Jay knocked on the screen door. After a minute, he knocked again, harder this time, rattling the door.

  “Hold your horses.” A woman shuffled up the hallway, drying her hands on the apron tied around her ample middle. Gray perm-set curls circled the plump face that peered through the screen at him. She shifted on her feet as though they were hurting and with reason. Her fleshy ankles lapped over the edges of well-worn house shoes.

  “Mrs. Birdsong?” Jay did his best to sound nonthreatening.

  “Who wants to know?” The skin around the woman’s eyes tightened.

  “My name’s Jay Tanner. I’m looking for Andy Birdsong. Does he live here?”

  “You the police?”

  That surprised Jay. “Police? Why would you think that? Is your husband wanted for something?”

  She lowered her voice. “I don’t know. But the man hasn’t ever told me one thing about what he did before we got married.”

  “How long ago was that?” Jay decided it wasn’t all bad to be suspected of being the law.

  “Eight years this August.”

  Jay did quick math in his head. Birdie had been with the Merritts since she was five and she would be fifteen in June. That was all she knew for sure from her past. Her name and her birth date. “Happily, I hope.” Jay gave the woman his most convincing smile.

  “Happy enough, if it’s any of your business. But I want you to know that if he done anything illegal before we married, I didn’t know nothing about it. Nothing at all.”

  “Ma’am, I assure you I’m not the police.”

  “You look like some kind of police.” Her hand was on the doorknob. “But I listen to ra
dio programs. I know you can’t come in if I don’t let you.”

  Jay shot her another smile and moved to the side so she could see past him to the car. “I’m not police. See, my wife and her sister are out there in my car. We just need to speak to Mr. Birdsong about a family matter. If he’s here.”

  “Family matter?” Her frown grew fiercer. “The man don’t have no family.”

  A door slammed somewhere inside the house and then a man’s voice called out. “Who’s at the door, Juanita?”

  “Just some salesman.” The woman stepped back to close the door.

  Jay was tempted to turn back toward the car. He could say the woman let him know this Birdsong man was not Birdie’s father. But instead he opened the screen and put his hand against the door to keep it open. She shrieked and jumped back.

  “Mr. Birdsong?” Jay called. “I’m not selling anything. We just need a little information.”

  “Information about what?” The man came up the hallway.

  The woman shrank away from the door. “Make him go away, Andy.”

  Jay took his hand off the door, but kept the screen door open. The man was tall and thin, but his scoop-neck undershirt revealed the muscles of a working man. His hair was streaked with gray, but it was easy to see it had once been as black as Jay’s. As Birdie’s.

  “She’s worried I’m the police,” Jay said. “But I’m not.”

  “So not police and not a salesman. What are you then?”

  “Just a friend and brother to a girl called Lorena Birdsong.”

  The man recoiled as though Jay had actually given him that punch in the nose.

  “You told me your wife died,” the woman said.

  The man didn’t take his eyes off Jay as he told the woman, “She did, Juanita. You go on out to the kitchen and let me handle this.”

  When she didn’t move, he gave her a hard look. “Go on. Do as I say. None of this has anything to do with you.”