Lost & Found Love

by Laura Browning

  Jenny’s smile of welcome had faded as Tabby stepped from Jake’s shadow. The color left Jenny’s face. Tabby was sure it must have fled hers too. Despite her pregnancy, Jenny was still quick on her feet. She turned to Evan in such a way that he actually took a step back.

  “You should have told me,” she snapped at her husband. “You should have asked.” She turned a hostile gaze on Tabby.

  From the corner of her eye, Tabby was aware of Holly and Jake hurrying Tyler down the hall to the kitchen. Tabby wished Joseph had stayed. Somehow, she had a feeling he would bring calm to this situation because it always seemed to surround him.

  “Who are you?” Jenny hissed after the door swung shut behind Tyler and his family. Tabby raised her chin and saw Jenny do the same thing.

  With a deep breath, she began, “Tabitha MacVie, from Asheville, North Carolina. My mother…”

  Jenny’s eyes shot sparks. “I don’t want to hear anything about your mother,” she interrupted. She looked Tabby up and down. “How old are you?”

  Tabby shook, and even Evan took a half-step back from the anger and pain in Jenny’s voice and expression.

  “Twenty-three,” Tabby whispered.

  “Why don’t we go into the living room?” Evan suggested, no doubt hoping to move this confrontation away from the hallway that led straight back to the kitchen. He attempted to take Jenny’s elbow, only to be shaken off furiously.

  Jenny’s gaze swept Tabby from head to foot. “For all his faults, and for everything else he lied about, it seems my father did tell the truth on one count. My mother was a slut.”

  “Jenny!” Evan snapped. “Stop it. Tabby is a guest in our home.”

  “She is your guest, not mine,” and with that, Jenny stomped up the stairs.

  Evan stared after his wife, then looked at Tabby with embarrassment. He spread his hands wide in a frustrated and helpless gesture. “I’m sorry. She’s usually not… Maybe it’s the pregnancy….”

  Tabby smiled thinly. Why had she ever imagined this would be easy, that in an instant she would gain the family she had always dreamed of having? “You should go to her. She needs you even if she is angry at you.”

  Evan spared her one quizzical glance before he sprinted up the steps.

  Tabby studied the beautiful house. Her mother had told Tabby what childhood had been like for Jenny, and how it had probably continued even after Mama had run away. The light and furnishings in this house made it obvious that her sister’s life was far different now. And even if she was angry with her husband at the moment, anyone could see how devoted Evan was to her.

  Tabby had known her reception might not be a warm one, but she hadn’t anticipated the extent to which Jenny would reject her. She probably should have. Rejection was certainly not a new experience.

  Head tilted, she listened for a moment to the laughter floating down the hallway from the kitchen. Giggles from Tyler and Noelle, easygoing rumbles from Jake, and Holly’s gentle chuckle…all the sounds of a happy family. She had no right to be here. Family had never been happy for her.

  After reaching into the deep pocket of her skirt, Tabby removed the envelope she had carried with her for more than a year. She knew its contents because she had written them as her mother dictated to her. It was the explanation Jenny Richardson wasn’t ready to hear. She would be, at some point, so Tabby propped the envelope against the drawer of the hall tree and quietly let herself out. She retraced the steps she and Joe had taken just a few minutes ago.

  After letting herself into her house, Tabby allowed the screen door to bang shut and ran for her studio, but she didn’t turn on the lights. She curled up in the corner of the window seat and wrapped her arms around her bent knees, rocking and remembering.

  Chapter 3

  Tabby swiped a tear from the corner of her eye. So much for the fairy tale ending. She should be used to it. Conflict and fear were two things she was way too familiar with. As Tabby stared out the window, raised voices echoed down the long years separating memory from reality. Mama had tried to protect her from Tommy MacVie, largely succeeding up until the time Tabby started school. It was easy enough to hide the artistic talent that had shown up the moment she had first picked up a crayon. Most children weren’t putting together complex compositions, especially ones that already revealed an understanding of life’s harsher realities.

  As dusk transitioned into darkness, Tabby continued to sit in the window seat. The memories of a childhood filled with rejection battered her.

  Within a week of starting kindergarten, the school was already on the phone. They had samples of her drawings they wanted her parents to see. Her daddy had beaten her black and blue that night, stripping her room of every crayon, marker, and watercolor. He had thrown out every blank piece of paper in the house.

  “You are not to draw,” he’d ordered. “Not here. Not anywhere. I’ve talked to the school. If you draw anything other than what the teacher tells you to, I’ll break your fingers. Then you won’t be able to draw.”

  She had been five years old. Eighteen years later didn’t make handling rejection any easier. Whatever grounded, realistic self-talk she’d created about her sister—about how they were really strangers to each other, and would have to get to know each other—in her heart she had hoped there would be some instant communion. Instead, Jenny seemed to hate her.

  Tabby’s daddy hated her, but she hadn’t understood why. It wasn’t until she’d grown a few years older that she realized drawing pictures of children and women being beaten made adults nervous.

  For Tabby it had simply been reality. A reality she was trapped in.

  Her art had been her only outlet. Not drawing wasn’t a choice. It didn’t matter that her father thought she was possessed. He followed his own upbringing and tried to beat the evil out of Tabby. With each whack, he told her he would “break” her from her sneaking around, drawing pictures that had to be from the devil. Only the devil would draw such lies.

  Except, they weren’t lies. They were the truth that Tabby lived, and she still didn’t understand why her daddy seemed to hate her so. When Mary tried to stop him, he shoved her against the wall and continued thrashing Tabby until she passed out.

  Sometimes Tommy’s beatings left welts and bruises. More often they drew blood, but never in places where it showed. Oh no. Tommy was far too smart for that. If Mary tried to interfere or stop him, then he beat her too.

  Tabby rested her cheek on her knees as she rocked back and forth in the window seat. She wished Jenny had known just how bravely their mama had tried to defend Tabby. She swallowed, though her throat felt thick and tight.

  No matter how her daddy tried to keep her from drawing, Tabby couldn’t stop, not even for her mama. She used the dirt on the playground, any scrap of paper she could sneak out of school. Tabby couldn’t make her unusual artistic ability go away, so she learned to hide it and the horror she lived through at home.

  Tabby scrubbed her cheeks, but the tears kept coming as she mourned not only her mother but the relationship it now appeared she would never have with her older sister.

  Tabby and her mama had been enablers as well as victims. She knew that now. She understood that she should have spoken up. She had tried to get her message out several times through her pictures, but Tommy had already convinced everyone in the school system that she was simply a disturbed girl they were trying to help.

  She didn’t want that following her now. She wanted a new life without the garbage of her past.

  And she wanted her sister.

  * * * *

  Jenny stared at the envelope in her hands as if she had caught hold of a copperhead. Opening it would change everything. She had yet to unseal it, though she’d carried it with her all evening. Evan had talked her into coming back down, but when they did, it was to find the envelope propped against the hall tree and no sign of Tabby. Evan made excuses that she was feeling ill and had decided to go home, but Tyler
was the only one still young enough to believe it.

  Jenny felt like an idiot, and for the first time since her reunion with Evan last Christmas, she felt his censure. It was there in the tightness of his mouth, the shadows around his gray eyes.

  “Are you going to open it?” he asked her now as they lay side by side in their big bed. Evan skimmed through the latest Law Review and didn’t even glance over as he asked the question.

  Jenny sighed. She had propped several pillows around herself in an attempt to get comfortable, but with little success. She tapped her fingers on the envelope, seeing the creases in it that showed it had been carried around for quite some time. “It’s not her handwriting,” she said stiffly.

  “Whose?” Evan asked mildly, finally closing his magazine.

  “My mother’s. I saw some letters she wrote when I was going through my father’s things. This isn’t her handwriting. This is too bold.”

  Evan slid his arm around her shoulders and gently squeezed. “There’s only one way to find out what it says and who it’s from. Open it.”

  Jenny turned her gaze to him, pleading for understanding. “I—I can’t, Ev. Would you?”

  He took the envelope and slid one long finger beneath the flap. His elegant hands were steady as he removed the two sheets of paper. “You want me to read it to you?” At Jenny’s nod, he unfolded the sheets. “It’s dated summer a year ago. Tabby must have carried it with her all that time.”

  “Just read it.”

  He began:

  My Dearest Jenny,

  Tabitha is writing this for me because I can no longer write. I’m dying. It began as breast cancer, and I found the lump early on, but I was too afraid to see the doctor. When I did, the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes and beyond. By the time Tabby finds you, I know I’ll be gone. I know you probably won’t have a good opinion of me—after all, what Mama runs off and leaves her young daughter behind? And I’m sure your daddy made sure to point that out.

  But I kept track of you, honey. I know you’re a doctor, and I’m so proud of you because I know you’ll be able to take care of yourself. You won’t have to depend on any man for food and shelter. I made sure Tabby was looked after, too, so she can get away from here and never come back. I want her to find you. I want you to find each other. Sisters should stick together.

  Tabby is finding out about you as she writes this for me, and I expect she’s as shocked right now as you’ll be when you read it, but you both need to know what happened.

  Jenny, as I’m sure you already know, your daddy was a moonshiner. I was still in high school when I first met Billy at the harvest dance there in Mountain Meadow. Do they still have that at Halloween? I was a good girl, but your daddy caught my eye. He was a classic bad boy with his long hair and his fast cars. I guess we were drawn to each other. I was looking for excitement, and he was looking for—I don’t know—maybe someone to corrupt. At any rate, we married against the wishes of my family. When you came along eight months after our marriage, there was talk. A lot of folks around Mountain Meadow and Castle County turned their backs on me. They had already turned them on your daddy and the rest of the Owens family a long time before.

  Things went along fairly smooth at first. I pretended I didn’t know how your daddy made his money, and he was content to let me think it was from farming. Then along about the time you turned seven, things got rough. A new sheriff in the county vowed to crack down on what some folks called the Moonshine Capital of the South. Your daddy moved his still off his land onto another man’s farm, but he got caught, and the man was threatening to expose him. Your daddy couldn’t afford to ignore the threat because the man was rich and powerful, so he offered him a deal. What I didn’t know was I was the deal. Your daddy traded my body to keep his still.

  “Jesus!” Evan stopped reading and cleared his throat. He looked over at Jenny. “You’re awfully pale, Jen. You want me to quit?”

  “No. I want to hear it.”

  “All right.” So he continued:

  I was too frightened to do anything but what I was told. My family had turned their backs on me, and if your daddy went to jail, I didn’t know what I would do or how I would take care of you, so to my shame, I slept with this man. It went on for several months until I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a whore and knew I had to get out. You see, I was silly enough to fall in love with my lover, but I knew he would never leave his own family. As much as I didn’t want to leave you, I was also afraid to take you. I had no way to support myself, let alone a bright little girl like you. It tore me apart inside, but I knew your daddy would take care of you. Billy might not have been good for much, but he would do that.

  Jenny’s hands clenched into fists. Oh, her daddy had taken care of her all right. He had set her and Evan up so that Evan believed she’d slept with half the high school basketball team. It destroyed their relationship to the point it took twelve years for them to find each other again.

  So I left. I ended up in Asheville, North Carolina where I met Thomas MacVie. He was a handsome man, a couple of years younger than me, but he was determined to have me. I was anxious too, but for a whole different reason. I realized I was pregnant with my lover’s child. Your daddy wouldn’t touch me while I slept with another man. He kept calling me slut, though he was the one who’d pushed me into his bed. Tommy seemed like the perfect solution at the time.

  I didn’t lie to him. I told him I was pregnant, and it didn’t seem to matter to him. He seemed happy about it. He was controlling and strict in his religious beliefs, but I could live with that. He was about as far removed from your daddy as I thought a man could be. And I thought that had to be a good thing.

  All I will tell you about that is I was wrong, but I won’t tell you more than that. That’s Tabby’s story to tell if she chooses. If Tommy shows up around Mountain Meadow though, you call the police. I will only ask two things of you, Jenny. Forgive me for not finding you, and I beg you to watch over your sister.

  Your Mama,

  Mary

  There was silence in the bedroom as Evan finished reading the letter. It sat on his lap, beneath his hands. “I wonder why Tabby waited a year to find you? She even mentioned that when I caught her at the farm.”

  Jenny shrugged, trying to feign indifference, but the letter left her feeling uneasy and disturbed. Her mother implied Tommy MacVie was not so different from her daddy. Had he done something to Tabby? “Maybe she had to finish school.”

  Evan tapped the paper with his fingertips. “Maybe,” he agreed, but she could see the puzzle it presented in his mind. “I wonder what the story is your mother felt was Tabby’s to tell?”

  Jenny sat up. She had to pee again. Just one of the inconveniences of advanced pregnancy. “I’m sure I don’t know.” When she came back to the room, Evan was looking over the letter once more.

  “You know, the day I met her at the farm, she was running down the hill from Hope’s grave as if the hounds of hell were behind her.”

  Jenny wasn’t ready to bend. “Perhaps she saw you and was trying to get away.”

  “No. I did dismiss it to begin with as just due to her concern over being caught trespassing, but it was more than that.”

  “So she’s got a guilt complex. Maybe she should have.”

  “Jenny, it’s more than that. I’ve seen guilt. This was fear. I think your sister’s childhood might make yours look like a walk in the park, and we know how bad yours was.”

  Jenny, who was ever practical, shook her head. “I think you’re reading things into it that are simply not there. She’s managed to graduate from college. She had to have some support from home.”

  Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to do a little digging and see what I can find out about her.”

  “Well, I, for one, am going to get what sleep this baby will allow me.”

  * * * *

  Joe stood at the door to shake hands with everyo
ne as they filed out following Sunday service. He was anxious, for once, to get home. He thought he’d heard Tabby return early yesterday evening, but her house had remained dark. For now, he’d have to be patient and hide his anxiety with a smile.

  Betty Gatewood, one of the most stiff-necked of his parishioners, pumped his hand.

  “That was a wonderful sermon, Pastor Joe. What a wonderful illustration using the children from vacation Bible school. I guess we’ve all had to learn a little more about helping each other over the past year, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a grin, thinking back to the truce he and the Presbyterian minister managed to forge between two congregations that had battled for decades. He noticed as the congregation filed out that Tyler hung back, even making some excuse to Jake and Holly about walking home. After everyone else cleared the sanctuary, Joe looked at his young parishioner. “Something on your mind, Tyler?”

  The boy shuffled his feet and blushed. “I-I was wondering if you’d seen M-Miss MacVie?”

  Joe shook his head. “Not since last evening when I left her with y’all. Did you have a nice cookout?”

  The boy dug his hands into his pants pockets. “Well now, that’s the thing, Pastor Joe. Miss MacVie didn’t stay. She left right after she got there. Evan said she wasn’t feeling well, but all the adults looked nervous and wouldn’t look at me, like they do when they’re lying to you. Doc was actin’ funny all evening, too, like she was pi—I mean mad at someone.” Tyler shifted again. “I walked to church this morning so I could knock on her door to see if she was okay, but no one answered. All I saw was the cat.”

  Joe squeezed Tyler’s shoulder comfortingly even though another frisson of unease went down his spine. “I’ll check on her when I get everything wrapped up here. Will that suit you?”