Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  The woman huffed out a breath and muttered as she shuffled back down the hallway. Birdsong stepped through the screen door and pulled the inside door firmly shut behind him. “I never saw any need telling the woman about Lorena. Still don’t.”

  “She’s here.” Jay nodded toward the car. He couldn’t see anything except the very top of Birdie’s black curls.

  “Here?” Birdsong looked like Jay had punched him again.

  “She wants to know if you’re her father.”

  “Where is she? I don’t see her.” There was a timbre of longing in his voice as he stared out at the car. “That girl in the front can’t be Lorena.”

  “She’s in the back. Feeling a little unsure, I guess.”

  The man sank down on the porch step. “You’re thinking I’m some kind of scoundrel and you’re right. But I did what I thought best for the girl. It was best. I went back there once after Iris died. Poor Iris. The woman grieved herself to death after we lost the kids. She couldn’t even bring herself back for the baby. A sweet little girl, but every time she looked at her she saw Lorena. She died before the baby was six months old.”

  The man looked up at Jay with fierce eyes. “What was I going to do with a baby? A man without a wife and no family. I had to work. There were doctor bills to pay. So I gave her up for adoption. Tried to get her back after I married Juanita in there, but it was too late. They wouldn’t even tell me where she was, so I could go see her.”

  The man stared down at his hands hanging loose from his wrists, propped on his knees. Jay didn’t say anything, but the man needed no encouragement to keep talking. The words must have been building inside him all these years and now they had to come out.

  “Guess that was best too. Juanita never had any desire to be a mother. Told me that before we married. But I would have still brought my baby home if they’d let me. We named her Melanie. Iris had a fondness for fancy names.” He looked back out toward the car. “Is she going to get out?”

  “Do you want her to?” Jay asked.

  The man’s face was set, frown lines deep between his eyes, his jaw clenched. He slid his eyes across Jay’s face and then out to the car where more of Birdie’s head was visible now. “You can’t imagine how much.” The man’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Then why didn’t you ever come back for her?”

  The man shot Jay a hard look. “I already told you. I did go back. After Iris died.” He dropped his head down and was silent a few seconds. “I didn’t have anything then. Nothing except a baby I couldn’t take care of. I’d found a job sweeping floors at a warehouse, but they fired me when I missed too many days while Iris was dying. I begged enough money to get the gas to drive back down there to Kentucky. I loaded up the baby and took to the road. It was the summer after we left her there at that church. The day was hot and the baby cried the whole way. I shouldn’t have took her, but I didn’t have anybody to leave her with.”

  “Couldn’t find any church steps?”

  The man pushed up off the step and balled up his fists. “You think I wanted to leave her there? Is that what you think?”

  Jay took a step back from him. “I don’t know what to think.”

  The fight drained out of the man and he sank back down on the step. When he started talking again, his voice was devoid of feeling. “You’re right. You don’t know nothing about it. I doubt you know a thing about going hungry. About watching your wife go down to skin and bones because you couldn’t find work. Or hearing your babies cry because you can’t get them any food.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jay sat down beside the man. He didn’t look at the car.

  “I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t watch her starve. That little town had gardens and fruit trees. Food. And I did go back. Not soon enough for Iris, but I went back.”

  “Couldn’t you find her?” Jay asked.

  “No, I found her.” Birdsong looked up at the sky. “I drove down the road and there she was. In this yard, swinging high in the air. A girl was pushing her and they were laughing. I think that was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. Her laughing.” A smile touched the man’s face. “She looked so happy. I wanted to stop the car in the middle of the road and just listen. I drove by real slow and parked down at the church where we’d left her and carried the baby up toward where I’d seen her. There wasn’t much traffic that day and Melanie stopped crying while I was walking with her. I stayed back in the shadows and watched Lorena while I tried to think about how I could tell her about her mother being gone.”

  “But you never told her that.”

  “No.” The man looked out toward the car. “Not yet.”

  “What happened?”

  Birdsong dropped his eyes back to the ground. “A man came down the road from the other direction. I stepped back behind some bushes. I don’t know why. I just wasn’t ready for anybody to see me. My little girl jumped out of the swing and ran to him. He lifted her up in his arms and he was smiling to beat the band.” A tear slid out of the man’s left eye and traced a path through the hard lines of his face. “And then she called him Daddy.”

  The man stopped talking and stared down at the concrete step. Jay waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, Jay asked, “So what did you do?”

  “The right thing. I turned around and left her there.” The man looked at Jay with eyes that had seen too many troubles. “It’s what Iris would have told me to do. Let her keep swinging high. She’d found a new daddy. One who could feed her and make her laugh.”

  In spite of himself, Jay felt sorry for the man. “You never went back to Rosey Corner again?”

  “Wasn’t no use. I figured she’d forget all about me anyway. And that would be for the best.”

  “But she didn’t. Every night she says her name. Lorena Birdsong.”

  “Her mother used to do that too before she died. She’d whisper Lorena’s name like a prayer and then she’d cry. She wanted me to say it and the boy’s name too, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Just so much pain a man can bear.”

  “The boy. Birdie said she had a brother.”

  “Birdie?” The man frowned at Jay.

  “A nickname I gave her,” Jay explained. “But where’s the boy? Is he here?”

  “No.” The man blew out a long breath. “We left him in Rosey Corner too. Buried him in the woods there after we left Lorena at the church.” The man rubbed his hand across his eyes. “She did evermore love her big brother. It about broke my heart the way she cried when the boy wouldn’t wake up to tell her goodbye. But the boy couldn’t wake up. He’d gone on.”

  “You didn’t tell her?”

  “No need heaping sadness on the little thing. She was barely five years old.”

  They were silent for a minute, both of them thinking about things that couldn’t be changed. Finally Jay looked out at the car where Birdie was waiting and then back at her father who was sitting like stone. “Are you ready to see her?”

  “I never thought about her coming to find me.” The man raised his head and stared toward the car. “I’ve never been afraid of much, but I got to admit I’m scared now.”

  “Of what?” Jay asked.

  “What if she hates me?” His voice was low. “She’s got every right.”

  “True, but she won’t. Not Birdie.” Jay got to his feet and motioned for Kate and Birdie to get out. He wondered if he should go tell them the man’s story first, but then it wasn’t his story to tell.

  The man stood up beside him, straight and stiff. His hands trembled as he waited for Birdie to get out of the car.

  35

  It was hard to stay in the car while Jay talked to the man. She wanted to know what was being said, but at the same time, she had to stay with Lorena, who was so nervous she slid practically down into the floorboard.

  “I can’t look.” Lorena hid her eyes. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “They’re just talking.”

  “Does he look mad?” Lore
na kept her hands over her eyes.

  Kate peered out at the man as he sank down on the porch steps. She couldn’t see his face well. She was about to say that nothing about his posture suggested anger, when suddenly he was on his feet glaring at Jay. But then he sank back down on the step. “No. More sad.”

  “That we’ve found him?” Lorena peeked through her fingers.

  “I don’t know, Lorena. We’ll have to wait until Jay tells us to get out. Then we might find out the answers. If he’s your father.”

  At last Jay motioned to them to get out. Kate held Lorena’s hand as they walked toward the man whose eyes fastened on Lorena the moment she got out of the car as though drinking in the sight of her.

  Lorena stopped a few feet away from the man. “Are you my father?”

  The man shifted on his feet, but he didn’t step toward Lorena. They were like two boxers sizing each other up before they tried to land any blows. Kate whispered a prayer that there wouldn’t be blows, only gentle words, but words could pack a punch at times too.

  “I am.” His voice quavered a little and he cleared his throat. “You’ve grown up pretty, Lorena.”

  “I’m too skinny, and my hair always looks like some kind of bramble bush.” Lorena pushed her hair back from her face.

  “You got hair like mine.” A smile touched the man’s lips. “I just keep my curls all whacked off, but your mama did love your hair. She was forever fussing with it. Tying ribbons in it. She thought it was beautiful. She thought you were beautiful.”

  “Where is she?” Lorena stared straight at the man’s face, needing this answer most of all.

  “She died, Lorena.” The man spoke the necessary words straight out, but Kate could see the truth of them still hurt him. Being married again and years gone by hadn’t changed that. “After the baby came, she never got her strength back.”

  Kate slipped her arm around Lorena, who seemed to have to push out the next question. “And the baby?”

  “A girl.” A ghost of a smile slid across the man’s face. “Your mother named her Melanie. She looked like you.”

  “Did she die too?”

  All trace of smile disappeared as the lines of the man’s face deepened. He looked at Jay and then Kate as though for help before he settled his eyes back on Lorena’s face. “No. I turned her over to the county and some agency found a couple to adopt her. I don’t know who. They wouldn’t tell me.” He looked up and away from Lorena then. “She was just sitting up, trying to crawl a little.”

  “Why’d you give her away?” Lorena stiffened, hardly seeming to notice Kate’s arm around her. She was asking about more than the baby.

  “She was hungry, and I didn’t even have enough money to buy her a banana. I had to get a job, but what then? I couldn’t leave a baby in the car while I worked and that’s all I had. My old car. A car’s no place for a baby. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  When Lorena looked at him without answering, he went on. “That’s why we left you there at that church too. So you could have a better place.”

  “But what about Kenton? You kept him.” Lorena blinked to keep back the tears, but she wasn’t completely successful. “Was it because he was a boy?”

  The question seemed to stagger the man and he grabbed the porch post beside him. Grief deepened every line in his face as he swallowed hard before he answered. “I guess we should have told you. You remember how you couldn’t wake Kenton up that morning?”

  Lorena nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. Kate tightened her arm around her.

  “Kenton died in his sleep the night before we left you at the church. That’s why we left you there. Hoping you would find somebody to take care of you. Keep you from maybe dying like he did. Your mother loved you so much. I loved you so much. Can you believe that?” He peered over at her.

  “I want to,” Lorena whispered through her tears. “I’ve always wanted to.”

  “We parked the car down the road and I walked back to watch from some trees on the other side of the church. I saw the girl get you. I saw her pick you up and carry you away. Like you were some kind of treasure.” The man’s eyes flicked over to Kate. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  Kate could barely speak past the lump in her throat. “The Lord had me take that raspberry jam to Grandfather Reece at just the right time. I’ll always believe that.”

  “I stole the jam you left there. To give Iris, but it was days before she would eat it.”

  Jay handed Lorena his handkerchief to mop up her tears. Then he stepped over behind them to put his arms around both her and Kate. That seemed to help Lorena pull herself together. “But what about Kenton? You didn’t leave him where the rats could get him, did you?”

  “You were always afraid of the rats.” The man smiled sadly. “But no, we’d have never done that. We gave him a proper burial. We turned on an old road up to a barn. Found a digger and a shovel there, like it had been left for me. Took me the rest of the day, but at nightfall we laid Kenton to rest. Your mama read from her Bible. We picked daisies to put on his grave and your mama looked around in the woods until she found four good-sized rocks to lay on the grave. One for each of us and the baby she was carrying. Then I carved his name in the bark of the nearest tree.”

  In the silence that fell over them, a bird singing in the yard next door sounded almost too loud. A few cars passed by on the street and still they didn’t say anything. It was as if they were there at the boy’s grave even now, grieving over him along with his father.

  At last the man said, “Maybe we were wrong, but we did what we thought we had to do. For you. Can you forgive us? Forgive me?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kate caught the movement of the curtain in the front window. The man’s wife peeked out through the window screen. She jerked back out of sight when Lorena moved away from Jay and Kate to go to her father. He held out his arms to her and she stepped into them.

  Kate’s heart lurched inside her chest. She wanted to pull her back. Back to Rosey Corner. Jay must have known what she was thinking, because he held her close against him and whispered in her ear. “She will always be our sister. Nothing can change that.”

  “I know,” Kate said softly. And she did know, but she also knew she wanted her sister in Rosey Corner, not Cincinnati.

  She shut her eyes and remembered catching a butterfly when she was a little girl. Her father had warned her not to hold it too tightly. “But it will get away,” Kate had said.

  “That’s what you want. Part of the beauty of the butterfly is in the flutter of its wings. You don’t want to steal that from it. Open your hand and let it be free.” He had held his hand out flat.

  Reluctantly she had done what he said. For a few seconds, the butterfly had stayed on her palm, its wings still. But then it had lifted up into the air as light as a downy feather. Free to follow the wind.

  Now she slowly opened up her hands. As much as she wanted to clutch Lorena to her, she had to let her choose her own way.

  When Lorena pulled back from the man, he said, “You can stay with us.” He nodded toward the window his wife had been peeking out. “She’ll be glad for the company. But whether she is or not, my home is your home if you want it to be.”

  Kate held her breath waiting for Lorena to answer, but she kept her hands open. Jay tightened his arms even more around her.

  Lorena didn’t look back at them. She kept her eyes on her father’s face. “I have a home.”

  Kate let out her breath and relaxed in Jay’s embrace.

  “I’m glad,” Lorena’s father was saying. “Your mama prayed for you every night. She never laid her head down on the pillow without saying your name and asking the Lord to send angels to watch over you.”

  “And now she’s up there with those angels.” Lorena looked up.

  Kate did too, at a sky that was suddenly bluer than it had been a moment before. She sent up a thankful prayer as Lorena asked, “Do you have a picture of her?”

&
nbsp; He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and took a picture out to hand Lorena.

  She studied it a long moment and then closed her eyes. “I can see her now.”

  When she started to hand the picture back, her father waved her hand away. “Keep it. I’ve got her picture up here.” He touched his forehead.

  But he wasn’t as much help when Lorena asked him exactly where her brother was buried.

  “I came back there once. After your mother died.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Lorena asked.

  “You had a new daddy by then and I didn’t have two nickels to rub together. It was best to leave you where you were happy and all. You were happy, weren’t you?”

  “I was. I am.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He touched her hand. “So I left. I tried to find Kenton’s grave before I headed out, but the woods didn’t look the same. I couldn’t even find the barn or the lane through the field up to it. If I hadn’t seen her pushing you in that swing.” The man nodded toward Kate. “If I hadn’t seen that, I would have thought I wasn’t in the right place. So maybe it can be enough for both of us to know it was a peaceful spot. He’s not there anyway. He’s up in heaven with your mama.”

  They left him standing on the walk in front of his house after Lorena told him to come see her in Rosey Corner. Before they went around the corner and lost sight of the house, the man’s wife stepped out on the porch behind him. Kate wondered what he would tell her about Lorena or if he’d ever come to Rosey Corner.

  They were leaving Cincinnati when, almost as if she were talking to herself, Lorena said, “He was glad to see me.”

  “Yes, yes, he was,” Jay said. “He loves you.”

  She was quiet again for a minute. “It’s okay to love two daddies, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely,” Kate said. “There’s no limit on love.”

  Jay reached across the seat and took Kate’s hand. Then Lorena was scooting up to lean her arms on the back of the front seat. “Do you think Fern saw them?”