A Family for Gracie

by Amy Lillard

  “Noted,” he said and Stephen breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And that talk may have to wait until we get back from the doctor,” Gracie said.

  Alarm ran through him like a jolt of lightning. But he pushed that anxiety aside. If something were terribly wrong, Gracie wouldn’t have stood there chatting about crawdads and screen doors, she would have taken whoever it was immediately to the doctor. He took a breath. His family was there, fine and whole. “What now?”

  “After I got everyone unstuck, Henry decided to check his traps and fell in. He cut his chin on a piece of glass or something. He’s going to need stitches.”

  * * *

  It was well after dark by the time Gracie and Henry made it back to the house. Henry, normally so energetic, had fallen asleep on the way home, his head in her lap. She watched the miles go by, running her fingers through his fine blond hair.

  Something had happened today. Something with Matthew, and she needed to know what it was. She was hopeful, but couldn’t allow herself to overshoot what it all meant.

  She woke Henry up when they pulled up to the house. She paid the driver in cash and threw in a couple of bottles of goat-milk lotion to sweeten the deal.

  Then the two of them made their way inside.

  The entire time they had been at the medical clinic waiting for a nurse to come clean the mud and creek water out of his scraped leg and cut chin, she had been thinking about Matthew, the shift she had seen in him when she had come back from the creek.

  She had meant what she said. They could never be a true family if he couldn’t accept God’s will for what it was. But she knew that it was possible that it might never come to pass. And she was prepared to accept that. They would always be two parents with five children between them and nothing more. She couldn’t say that was the way she had imagined her life would be, but she was willing to accept it as part of God’s plan for her. God’s will. And if Matthew couldn’t see that for what it was . . .

  There are none so blind as those who will not see.

  But she was home now and there was a glimmer of hope that Matthew had had a change of heart. She knew she was reaching, but after seeing him with Baby this afternoon, that hope had flared. Then he had offered to take Henry to the doctor so she could clean up instead of riding to the medical center and waiting for hours for Henry to get treated. That hope grew bigger. Big enough that she was having to keep it contained. And still it swelled like yeast bread rising.

  “Pull your shoes off by the door,” Gracie told him. It was summertime and if she allowed him to take them to his room she would never see them again.

  “Jah, Mamm,” he mumbled sleepily.

  “Then go on upstairs to bed. I’ll be there in a minute to tuck you in.”

  “Jah,” he said, then dragged his way up the stairs. The house was quiet, so quiet, and she hadn’t realized just how late it had gotten until that moment. Everyone was in bed. She wondered if Matthew had had any problems with Baby. Then she saw them. Matthew was stretched out on the couch, Baby sleeping happily on his chest. They looked so sweet she didn’t want to wake them, but knew that if she didn’t, Matthew would have a sore neck in the morning.

  “Matthew?” She gently shook his shoulder, needing to wake him but not wanting to startle him.

  “Jah,” he mumbled. He started to turn over then realized that he had a baby on his chest. “Can you take her?” he quietly asked.

  Gracie plucked the sleeping baby from atop Matthew and carefully cradled her close. Thankfully she opened her eyes for only a moment before closing them again as if one quick glance at her was all she needed to know that things were right with the world. How Gracie wished she had the same confidence.

  “Henry?” Matthew asked, pushing himself to his feet.

  “He’s fine,” she assured him.

  “Jah,” Matthew mumbled. “God’s will.”

  Gracie’s heart skipped a beat, then started back up in double time. God’s will? Was he just saying that or was he really prepared to let God be in charge? And if they let Him control things, where would that take them? The possibilities were endless.

  “Time for bed,” Gracie told him, willing her heart to beat a little slower. There was no sense getting worked up this late for what could essentially be Matthew talking in his sleep.

  “Jah.” He smacked his lips together, then leaned in and gave her a small buss at the corner of the mouth. Not a real kiss, but a sweet peck. But he kissed her as if he had been doing it for years instead of this being the first time for a good-night kiss and the second time for an any-reason kiss.

  He started toward his room, then turned back for a moment. His blue eyes weary yet happy. “Tomorrow we’re going to talk,” he said.

  “Jah?”

  He nodded, then swayed on his feet as if about to fall asleep standing there. “Jah,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  * * *

  Gracie barely slept that night. She kept turning Matthew’s words over in her mind, trying to figure out what he meant and what they were going to talk about.

  She would not get her hopes up, she told herself. She couldn’t afford to. Her heart would be broken into a thousand pieces if she allowed herself to believe that things between her and Matthew were about to change, only to find out not the way she had hoped.

  Family. That had been the most important thing. And having a baby of her own. But she had learned something being married to Matthew: Having a family was about much more than giving birth. It was about broken arms and stitches, lost toys, getting stuck in the creek mud, and loving each other despite everything else. She knew that she loved Matthew, though she wasn’t sure how it happened. One day she was nearly scared of him and the next she knew that he was a lot of bark with little bite to ruin the effect.

  She was willing to accept the family that she had been given. She had prayed for a family and God had provided. She was grateful even if her family came in a different form than she had anticipated. But she couldn’t allow Matthew to go around thinking that somehow he was responsible for his wife’s death. He had to understand God’s will. He had to know that God was in charge, that God had a plan and he and the rest of them were part of that plan whether they wanted to be or not. Denial was not going to help him.

  But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen when she got up the following morning. And there was no note. She supposed that there had been a reason why he had gone out so early, but right at the moment she couldn’t imagine what it was, and she dare not speculate. She would have to wait and see when he returned.

  It seemed like hours she had to wait, and she found herself pulling all the stuff out of the kitchen cabinets, rearranging it, wiping everything down, laying new contact paper, then putting everything away again.

  By noon she had just about given up any hope of talking to him during the day. He was a farmer, after all, and it was the growing season. She couldn’t expect too much from him.

  Then the terrible thought occurred to her that maybe the night before was a fluke thing. He had been talking in his sleep and didn’t remember a word of it. It was all nothing.

  Deflated was the best way to describe her feelings when Matthew came in the door for the noon meal.

  “How’s everything today?” he asked after they had prayed and as she fixed them all a plate.

  She settled back in her chair and smiled at him. She hoped it seemed natural and not expectant, but it was hard to tell from where she was. “Fine, fine.”

  He nodded and listened as his children told him about their morning. Gracie ate and tried not to be disappointed.

  Then lunch was over and she was clearing the table when he came up behind her.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She whirled around, pasting on a smile as she faced him. “Of course.”

  “I went into town this morning to get a new screen door,” he told her. “I thought I would hang it here in a bit.”

  “That
sounds fine,” she said, nodding and smiling and feeling a little like a fool. Perhaps she had imagined everything from the night before. Maybe she dreamt it. But she knew. The late night. Henry’s stitches. Matthew’s kiss.

  All that only reinforced that some things that happened last night had been real. But she couldn’t say about the others. Why did it have to be that they were the most important ones?

  “I, uh . . .” he started, then shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know how to do this.” He ran a hand across the back of his neck and shook his head. “I . . .” He tried again. “I want to talk to you about last night, but . . .”

  “You don’t know how to start?”

  “Jah. I mean. There are some things we need to talk about.”

  She swallowed hard but tried to keep her hopes in check. “Like?”

  He took her hand and led her toward the living room. He sat on the couch and pulled her down next to him.

  “Yesterday,” he started, turning her hand over in his and studying each finger in great detail. “I learned a lot about myself. Things that I had never known. And God’s will.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” She started to pull her hands from his. She wanted to hear what he had to say and yet she didn’t. She wasn’t sure how any of this was going to turn out and it scared her. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t know. Things between them were fine just the way they were. No sense rocking the boat, as they said, and overturning things that were better left alone.

  But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

  She wasn’t one hundred percent certain that the adage applied, but it seemed to fit and it had popped into her thoughts.

  “Yes, I do. Because I decided that I do want to have a family with you. A real family.”

  “We have a family,” she said, her heart beginning to pound.

  “I want all of it. I want to know that you are my wife and you are taking care of our children while I am making a living for us all.”

  She nodded.

  “I know that I didn’t have anything to do with Beth’s drowning.”

  She shook her head. “Please don’t say this if you don’t mean it.”

  “I do. I read part of one of her journals. She was a lot more depressed than she ever let on to me. And the more I read, the more I realized that things happen the way they’re supposed to.”

  “Please don’t tell me this.”

  “I’ve never had anyone try to talk me out of telling them the truth before.”

  “I want it to be the truth and not just what you think I want to hear.”

  “It is the truth.”

  “Matthew.”

  “I love you.” The words were close to a shout.

  “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said. But I don’t want you to say it if you don’t mean it.”

  “Gracie.”

  “Matthew.”

  * * *

  He did the only thing he knew that he could do. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to him. Then he pressed his lips to hers and he felt her melt under his touch.

  “I love you,” he repeated.

  “You do?” she asked.

  “We share a kiss like that and you are going to ask me if I really love you?”

  “It’s not just me?” she asked.

  He laughed. “No. It’s not just you. It’s me. It’s us. I love you, Gracie Byler, and I’m so glad you’re my wife. And I’ve changed my mind. I do want to have more children. If it’s God’s will. And I want us to be a true family. That’s something I’m pretty sure God wants from us. From there I’m hoping that everything will fall into place.”

  And as long as they put their trust in God, he was certain it would.

  Epilogue

  “What’s this?” Henry looked at the cake on the plate as if it might jump up and run away any second.

  “It’s an Alabama Earthquake Cake,” Gracie answered.

  “But we don’t live in Alabama,” Stephen said.

  Matthew ducked his head, and she knew he was hiding his laughter.

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t eat a cake with Alabama in the name,” Gracie said. “The cake you said you liked so much. See the big white globs?”

  “Are you sure it’s not called a Mississippi Hurricane?” Henry turned his head from one side to the other as if that would somehow fix whatever problem he had invented in his mind.

  How she loved these boys. She had realized a lot of things reading what little she had of Beth’s journals. She had learned to look at things from another’s point of view. She couldn’t imagine herself not being happy after having a baby, but seeing Beth’s words, every sentence filled with such pain, she understood that there were things out there she didn’t understand. Might not ever understand. And as long as she did her best to keep her mind open, she would be able to learn from those things even if she didn’t completely agree.

  “Pretty sure,” she said. “I found this recipe in a box behind the salt and the extra-large container of cinnamon up in the cabinet over the refrigerator.”

  She winked at her husband. In the last couple of months she had learned a lot about Matthew, more than just how wonderful he was with his children, how he had a soft spot for all dogs, and how he made good on his promise to show her every day how much he loved her and was happy they were together. She had also learned that he loved anything made with cinnamon: cinnamon toast, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon biscuits, snickerdoodles, cinnamon cake, the list went on and on.

  Gracie turned her attention back to the children and showed them the recipe box she had found.

  “That’s Mamm’s,” Stephen cried. His voice was a cracked mixture of joy and sadness.

  “I figured,” Gracie said. “And that means this is her recipe for the cake with the big white globs on it. But for certain, it’s called an Alabama Earthquake Cake.”

  “I think we should rename it,” Henry said as she doled out slices of the cake for them as an afternoon snack.

  This was a special treat and she had already explained to them that cake wasn’t going to happen every afternoon of the summer. And neither was pie, she continued before Henry could ask. But they had been thankful for the treat and anxious to try it again. Gracie supposed that it might remind them of their mother and that was an added bonus.

  “I like Mississippi Hurricane much better,” Stephen agreed. “What do you think, Dat?”

  “I think you should call it whatever suits you.” Typical Matthew, keeping the peace over something as simple as cake.

  As if agreeing with the male members of the family, Baby pounded on her highchair tray.

  “That’s right,” Gracie said to the baby. She leaned in and kissed the top of that sweet blond head. Then she straightened and lightly touched her stomach. In seven more months they would have another baby in the house.

  They hadn’t told the boys yet, hadn’t wanted to get them excited too early. And Gracie wanted a little more time for Baby to be the baby. The nickname had stuck and although she still thought Angel might be a better one, Baby just seemed to fit.

  When the time came to share their news, Gracie had a feeling Henry might not take it as well as the other boys. He was covetous of her time and attention and had taken to being something of her shadow these summer months. In a couple of weeks he would start to school, and for all his bluster and confidence she thought perhaps he was a little nervous. He had such energy and spunk that school was going to be a challenge for him. But she knew he was up for it. In time he would see it too.

  “I think it’s a better name too,” Thomas said.

  “Me too,” Benjamin agreed.

  “Fine by me,” Gracie said. “As long as you realize that if you want this kind of cake anywhere else, you’ll have to call it by its correct name.”

  “Deal,” they chorused.

  Gracie forked up a bite and held it in the air. “To cake,” she said.

>   Only Stephen and Matthew knew what she meant. They scooped up their own pieces and held them close to hers. The other boys followed suit.

  “To cake,” she said again, and they all echoed the toast. Then they clinked their forks together and got down to the serious business of eating cake. And being a family.