“How come you don’t like Daddy anymore?”
Beth set down her coffee and stared at Brianna. What had Bobby said? Something to poison their daughter’s mind about who the bad parent was? Something to soften the blow in the battle that was about to be their lives? She leaned in, already angry. “Did Daddy tell you that?”
“No.” Brianna gave an angry pout. “You keep sleeping in the TV room without Daddy and that means you don’t like him.”
Guilt hit Beth hard. Brianna was waiting for an answer, but Beth had none to give. How had Brianna found out about the sofa, and when had she grown so perceptive? “Well, honey … ” She tapped her fingers on the table and tried to smile. “That’s because Mommy isn’t feeling good. It’s almost Christmas and I don’t want poor Daddy to get sick.”
The excuse sounded ridiculous even to Beth. Brianna only rolled her eyes. “If you liked him you’d sleep in your own room, Mommy. You sleep with me when I’m sick, remember?”
They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence, and nothing felt quite right between them even after Beth dropped her off at day care.
Beth leaned hard into the seat of her car as she headed for work. Suddenly she remembered the old woman at the retirement home. Sarah Lindeman, the woman with the beautiful voice and that melody, the one Beth hadn’t been able to get out of her head. Great. She gritted her teeth as she parked her car in the back lot of Greer Retirement Village. How many more people would she let down before Christmas?
Beth locked her door and headed across the parking lot. What had the woman said? If Beth listened to the story, then she’d tell her the secret of love? Yes, that was it. The secret of love.
Fine. Today she’d go see the old woman. Her own life might be falling apart, but that didn’t mean she had the right to ignore a sweet old dear like Sarah Lindeman. The woman was probably suffering from dementia, among other ailments, but that didn’t matter. She had something important to say and the woman didn’t get many visitors. Beth might be the only person who would listen.
Crazy or not, the old woman deserved at least that much.
That morning she made sure Sarah was on her list of residents, and after she helped the old woman finish breakfast and wash up, Beth took a spot at the end of the bed. She looked intently at her. “You think I’ve forgotten.”
Sarah angled her head, unblinking. “Yes. I guess so.” She shifted her attention to the crooked plastic Christmas tree perched on her bedside table. “Today’s the sixth day.”
“I know.” Beth folded her hands on her lap. “I’m sorry. Things … well, things haven’t been good at home.” She hesitated. “Is it too late, Sarah? Could you catch me up so I could hear the story?”
“Yes.” Sarah sat a little straighter in her bed. Her smile said she wasn’t mad about Beth’s absence these past few days. “Yes, that would be very nice.”
Beth stood, closed the door, and pulled a chair up to the bed. “What have I missed, Sarah?”
The old woman looked at Beth again and cleared her throat. Then she began. She talked about her love for Sam Lindeman, but her greater love for a career in Nashville. She shared about her decision to leave Sam and Greer and everything familiar in order to follow her dream of finding a recording contract. Then she shared about her job at Trailway Records and meeting Mitch Mullins.
“Mitch Mullins?” Beth narrowed her eyes. “I’ve heard of him.”
“Yes.” Sarah’s expression changed, and something sad haunted her eyes. “He was quite well known in his day. By the fans … and the women.” She paused and looked out the window. When she spoke again, she was a million miles away. “I toured with him. He was going to make me famous.” A sad laugh died on her lips. “I thought … I thought he loved me.”
Beth waited, studying the woman spread out on the hospital bed before her. For the first time, she tried to picture her not as the old woman in Room II, but as she was back in her day. No doubt a beautiful girl with a voice and a figure that stopped even celebrities in their tracks.
When Sarah didn’t speak, Beth leaned forward.“Sarah?”
“Yes?” She cast a sideways glance at Beth.
“What happened? Did you and Mitch stay together?”
Sarah made a sad, tired sort of sound. “No, dear. That’s the story behind the fourth and fifth ornaments.” She pointed a bony finger at the little tree. “Four is Rebellious and five is Exposed.” Her head moved up and down in a slow, trancelike manner. “Yes, indeed. I was rebellious. I knew what I was doing but I did it anyway.”
She explained how the touring life grew crazier with each week. Always she would ask Mitch what was going on with the other girls, and he’d say the same thing. They needed his time, his attention. Hanging out with the fans was part of the act, part of making it big.
Was he sleeping with them, Sarah wanted to know. His answer was the same every time—definitely not. She was the only one he was interested in, the only one he cared about. And one day soon he would listen to her songs and make her a star. One day very soon. Meanwhile, he paid her less than she’d been making at Trailway Records, always with promise of raises and bonuses. Any day, he’d tell her, just a few stops down the road.
The extra money never came, but things definitely got wilder, Mitch’s nights away more frequent. One night he sent one of his band members to her room when he was out with his groupies.
“It was past midnight and there was a knock at the door. I opened it, and there was Mitch’s drummer. ‘Mitch says you’re up for a good time tonight, Sarah,’ he told me. ‘Whad’ya say?’”
Beth leaned closer, sucked in by the story. “No!”
“Yes.” Sarah pursed her lips, as if talking about the memory left a terrible taste in her mouth.
“Wow.” Beth tried not to look surprised. Sarah had said her story took place in 1941, a time when the American life was supposed to be wholesome and innocent. Beth had no idea such craziness went on so many decades back.
Sarah stared out the window again and finished the story.
When she realized Mitch’s intentions, that she should offer them the same favors she’d been offering Mitch, she felt dirty and cheap and ugly.
“Like a rotting bag of leftovers,” Sarah frowned. “Sitting too long on the curb.”
Two nights later, Mitch took his own room instead of sharing hers. Suspicious, Sarah waited until the early hours of the morning, donned a bathrobe, and strode down the hall to his door. After ten minutes of incessant knocking, Mitch answered. He had a towel around his waist. Over his shoulder, in the hotel room, Sarah saw a young blonde in his bed, the sheet pulled up to her neck.
“The lie was out,” Sarah turned her attention back to Beth. She pointed to the tree again. “See, there. The fifth ornament says Exposed because Mitch Mullins was never going to lie to me again.”
Beth sat back in her chair, captured by the story. “So what happened?”
“What happened?” Sarah looked startled, as if the answer was obvious. “With Mitch, you mean?”
“Yes. Did you let him have it there in the hallway?” Beth willed her words to come more slowly. Sarah wasn’t in a rush. If she’d planned twelve days to tell her story, the answers weren’t bound to come in as many minutes.
Sarah said nothing in response. Instead she reached a shaky hand to the table by the bed and picked up an envelope with the number six on it. “That’s today’s story. The part that changed everything.”
“Oh.” Beth looked at the clock over Sarah’s bed and winced. Her boss would never understand her spending so much time in one room. She started to stand, started to tell Sarah she’d have to catch up the next day. But something made her stay seated, riveted to her chair.
With slow, careful fingers, Sarah opened the envelope flap and pulled out the ornament. Like the others, it held just one word. A word Beth hadn’t thought about for years, but one that obviously held special meaning for Sarah.
The word was Dance.
CHA
PTER SEVEN
SARAH COULD FEEL HERSELF getting sicker, slipping away a little more each day. But her heart hadn’t been so full in a long, long time.
Not even a visit from her children or grandchildren had brought her the purpose she felt sharing her story with Beth Baldwin. The woman had an edge, a sadness Sarah recognized. Something she’d said when she first arrived, about having trouble at home, explained some of it. But there was something else, something deeper.
And it still reminded Sarah of herself, the way she’d been the summer of 1941. Sarah wasn’t sure how, but God was going to do something amazing for Beth Baldwin, something that could only happen as Beth listened to the story, as she heard the song.
It was Day Six, the day that represented the turning point, the moment when things changed for Sarah. With Beth sitting nearby listening, Sarah connected once more with a series of events that were over six decades old.
The epiphany took place the day after she found Mitch Mullins in a room with another girl. As shallow as his stories about groupies had been, Sarah had always believed him, always wanted to believe him. But after catching him in the act that night, she went back to her room and never fell asleep.
For the first time since leaving Greer, she missed Sam Lindeman, missed him with every fiber of her being. Strong, handsome, dependable Sam, a man who had loved her enough to let her follow her dreams. But now, after giving her virtue to a man who had cheated on her and lied to her from the beginning, Sarah was sure of something else.
Sam would never be interested in her.
She wasn’t the same girl she’d been when she left home, and no matter how much she missed Sam, she wouldn’t mess with his heart by calling him now. Instead she sat on her hotel bed and wept. What had she been thinking, taking up with a man like Mitch Mullins? So what if the whole world adored him; his nature had been obvious from the beginning.
Since when does Trailway Records hire angels?
Indeed. Mitch was master of the come-on lines; he’d had her following him around like a puppy dog after just one dinner.
Sarah paused and looked at Beth. “At that moment, the lights in my conscience came on again.” She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “After weeks of living in darkness, I was suddenly able to see the horrifying mistakes I’d made—all of them spread out like a train wreck.”
One by one her bad choices screamed at her that night. She’d turned her back on everything her parents had taught her, everything that had ever mattered to her. She had given up on God and His plans for her life, and her promise to remain pure until marriage was gone. Her virtue was forever lost.
But worst of all, she’d walked away from Sam.
Sarah stared at the tiny blue-bonnet wallpaper. The smell of the hotel’s musty carpets filled her senses as she choked back quiet, desperate sobs. All of life was a dance, the steps measured out to the music of the days. But since she’d arrived in Nashville, she’d checked herself at the door and let an imposter take over.
Now, though … now it was her turn again. Time to find her way back to all she’d once been.
Mitch Mullins had no plans of making her into a star, no plans of hearing her songs or giving her a pay raise. He was using her, the way her parents had warned he would.
That night she packed her things, and the next morning, long before Mitch and his band members were awake, she took a cab to the train station and spent nearly all of her remaining money on a train back to Greer. Over the hours, the clickity-clack of the train became music, and her heart pounded out a rhythm she could live with, one she could dance to.
The next day, when she arrived home, she had one place to visit before taking a cab to her parents’ house.
Greer Community Church.
“Wait for me, please.” She gave the cab driver an extra quarter and ran lightly across the church lawn. It was Thursday, in the middle of the afternoon, but she was sure the doors to the sanctuary would be open. They were always open at Greer Community.
Once inside, she took slow steps toward the front and slid into the second row. She was the only one in the building, but she felt surrounded by love and peace and acceptance, the way she hadn’t felt since meeting Mitch Mullins.
“God … ” She closed her eyes. “I’m … I’m so sorry. I was wrong about everything. I walked away from You, from all I know to be good and true and right.” A single tear slid down her cheek and she dabbed at it with the back of her hand. “But if You’ll have me, I’m back, Jesus.” She sniffed, and the sound of it echoed across the empty room. “I’m back for good. I promise.”
Sarah exhaled, the sixth part of the story told.
She looked at the young woman sitting across from her and saw that she’d been right earlier. The story was touching something in Beth’s soul, because the woman was crying. Not loud or with dramatics. But tears had formed two trails on both sides of her face and there was something broken in her expression.
Sarah reached her hand out to the woman and patted her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Beth snatched a tissue from the bedside table and wiped it beneath her nose. “That moment at the church … it sounds … it sounds very freeing.”
Sarah smiled. “It was.” She inhaled until her lungs were full. “It’s time for me to move to the window.”
“To the window?” Beth made a strange face. “You’ve been walking to the window by yourself?”
“Once in a while.” She felt her smile creep a little higher. “But today I could use your help, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Beth tossed her tissue in a nearby trash can and stood, easing Sarah up until she was on her feet and positioned over her aluminum walker. “Why the window, Sarah?”
Sarah focused on the path in front of her and shook her head. When she reached the windowsill, she turned to Beth and held up a single finger. “That will come.”
She stared out the window at the park until her eyes found the bench—the park bench that meant the world to her. And with all the energy she had left, she began to hum the melody, the notes that would always fill her heart and soul.
The notes to Sarah’s Song.
Throughout the humming, Beth remained at her side, quiet, respectful. When she’d hummed the last line, Sarah pulled her eyes from the park bench and nodded at Beth. “That’s all. I can go back now.”
Beth helped her, and when Sarah was too tired to swing her legs up onto the bed, Beth lifted them. Once the old woman was settled back beneath the covers, Beth hesitated and then gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “The music is beautiful, haunting.” She glanced at the window and then back. “But why no words, Sarah? Didn’t the song have words?”
“Indeed.” Sarah yawned and squeezed Beth’s hand. “I’m tired, dear. I think I’ll take a nap.”
Beth nodded, but she wouldn’t let the idea go. “What about the words?”
“Later.” Sarah could feel her eyes beginning to close. The familiar peace surrounded her again—a peace that defied all understanding. God was doing something here, something in young Beth’s heart. And that was knowledge enough for Sarah.
She was almost asleep when Beth asked her question one final time. “When, Sarah … when will the words come?”
Slowly Sarah opened her eyes. “Day Nine.”
There. She let her eyes close again. That would bring Beth back for sure. Not because she wouldn’t survive without knowing the words to the song. But because God had placed a special truth deep inside Sarah’s heart: A miracle was underway, a miracle for Beth Baldwin.
And God would bring her back if He had to move heaven and earth to do it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS TUESDAY, December 21, and the good weather had finally given out.
That morning Beth woke to a six-inch blanket of snow spread across Spartanburg, and she mumbled under her breath as she headed for the shower. White Christmases were overrated. The city would take a week to dig out from beneath the snow, and until t
hen the commute to Greer would be unbearable. Snow would turn to ice, leaving the roads slick and dangerous. Beth was scheduled to work every day that week, and the snow meant she’d have to get up an hour earlier each morning.
Her shower was quick, and as soon as she was dressed she hurried into Brianna’s room. “Get up, sleepyhead. Time to eat.”
Brianna moaned.
“Come on, honey. We gotta eat if we’re going to be on time.”
Brianna rolled over in her bed. “No! Don’t wanna eat!”
“Mommy’s not giving you a choice.” Beth yanked the covers from her daughter and waited, arms crossed. “Get out of bed.”
“Do I have to, Mommy?” Brianna’s tone was more whine than words.
“Yes. One … two … three … ”
Brianna spilled out of bed and stopped short of scowling at Beth. “Help me get dressed.”
Beth hesitated, then went to the closet and sorted through the clothes. Her daughter’s accusations regarding Bobby had dropped off, but she was grumpy or pensive most of the time. Earlier that week, Bobby had asked about it. “Did you say something to Brianna—something about us separating?”
“No.” Beth’s answer was short, the way she felt most of the time toward her husband. “Did you?”
“Of course not.” He scowled at her. “We agreed.”
“Right.”
“So why’s she asking about us, telling me I don’t like you all of a sudden?”
Beth shrugged. “She’s telling me the same thing. Maybe she feels it.”
“Feels it?”
“Yes. That her parents don’t love each other anymore.”
“Listen… ” Anger flashed in Bobby’s eyes as he pointed a finger at Beth. “I never said I didn’t love you. Those were your words.” Then, as if he somehow caught himself, his expression eased and his voice grew calmer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. All I’m saying, Beth, is I still love you. For whatever that’s worth.”
The conversation had stayed with her because it seemed so unlike Bobby. Sure, he had tried initially to change her mind about leaving. But when things didn’t go his way, he was usually quick on the defensive. That time, though, he had backed off, even told her he was sorry and he loved her. Not just once, but several times after their initial confrontation, he’d pulled her aside in an effort to talk to her or apologize. Beth tried not to look too deeply into it. Probably last-minute remorse over their failed marriage, or maybe the Christmas season getting to him.
The Red Gloves Collection Page 23
