Secret Way to the Heart

by Camille Regholec

  “Hannah!” Jayne's mother screamed as she ran around the bed, dropping to her knees beside her. “Hannah!”

  Chaos broke loose. The door burst open, and George hobbled in, his massive hands curling up into fists at the sight of his bleeding wife cradled in Jayne's mother’s arms.

  “What’s happened to my Hannah?” George stammered as he knelt at his wife’s side.

  “Clara pushed her, and she fell,” Jayne said automatically, speaking the truth before realizing the effect her words would have on the elderly man.

  Jayne screamed as the elderly, gentle giant of a man she had known all her life suddenly turn into a terrifying stranger, his frail frame trembling with a mountain of aggression, overflowing with repressed hate finally released. He struggled to his feet and stepped toward the still-screeching Clara, his intent clear in his deep-set, dark eyes.

  Jayne's father, who had entered the room right behind him, grabbed his old friend by the arm, trying to halt his progress while shouting for Mary. Jayne backed into the corner of the room and stared, her eyes wide with fright. She cradled the newborn, her lips trembling as she alternated between praying for Hannah and the world that seemed to be insane in the room. The crying baby boy was likely the only human to hear Jayne’s whispered pleas to God.

  Mary ran in and began to shout for Pete. Grabbing some cloths from the dresser, Mary got between George and Clara and pushed him around and away from the bed.

  “Don’t you bother with that one,” Mary shouted. “God will take care of her, and she will wish I’d let you do the punishin’. We need to care for Mama Hannah.”

  Once Jayne's father and Mary had George across the room, Mary joined Jayne's mother at Hannah’s side. Kneeling down, she wrapped the cloths around Hannah’s head, trying to stem the flow of blood.

  Seeing Pete enter the room, Mary yelled to her husband to get the doctor. Without a word, he was gone, but not before Peter directed a burning look of hate toward the still-screaming woman lying on the bed.

  “Jayne!” Mary cried as she and Jayne's mother tried unsuccessfully to lift Hannah from the floor. “Put the baby in his bed and help us get Hannah to her room!”

  Jayne quickly, but gently, laid him in his cradle but dragged it far from the bedside of his mother before she gave her assistance to the other two women. Hannah’s weight seemed intensified by her unconscious state. George and Jayne's father tried to help, but their own feeble conditions just caused interference.

  “Marc, dear, please stay with the child,” Jayne's mother begged as she struggled to hold on to Hannah’s legs.

  Just then, Mary’s twin sons ran in and grabbed hold of their grandmother’s legs. Jayne's mother looked at her and motioned to her.

  “Stay with your father and the baby. Please pray for healing. In every way.”

  “But, I . . .” Jayne cried. “Please, Jayne.” Her mother choked the words out, tears filling her eyes. “Praying is what needs to be done. Please.”

  “Poppa George, you stay, too, and protect them,” Mary called out. “Don’t know what that crazy woman could do!”

  Clara’s wordless roar of hate halted as Jayne's father’s hand slapped across her face. Clara opened and closed her mouth several times, but no sound came out, her trembling hand rubbing her reddened cheek. Glaring up at Jayne's father, Clara moved as if about to do something until her eyes focused on George standing directly behind her father-in-law.

  “You will calm yourself, young lady.” He spoke firmly as he turned away and led George to the far corner of the room. Dragging a chair, he positioned the seat between the bed and the cradle before helping George to sit down. “Clara, you have inflicted more harm than you know, but it will end right this minute.” Jayne's father limped back to direct George to the chair. Looking at the elderly man, whose gaze alternated between the doorway in which Hannah was being carried through and to Clara, Jayne's father murmured, “Come, George. Sit down. We must do what needs to be done. We must pray.”

  “No! I’m not prayin’ for her,” George growled out as, with a strength that belied his age, he broke free from Jayne's father and hobbled out the door, following those carrying his wife. “I got to go to my Hannah!” Jayne's father bowed his head and reached for his daughter’s hand. Jayne glanced at the now silent Clara and shook her head, but he held tight to her, his gnarled fingers shaking as they gripped hers.

  “Maybe later for Clara,” her father commented, a tear rolling down his cheek. “For now we will lift up our request for Hannah.” The baby’s cries mingled with their moaned prayers, voicing the desperation felt by all but one person present.

  The first two days after the birth, no one spoke of Clara. Only Jayne's mother tended to her during her confinement. Jayne wanted nothing to do with her sister-in-law and focused her attention on the child while Mary was with Hannah. A wet nurse was temporarily hired from town to breast feed the child until the baby could handle cow's milk. Jayne thanked God that Clara refused to acknowledge her son's existence.

  The wet nurse taught Jayne how to strain the cow’s milk and make sure it was the right temperature. She learned how to burp the boy child and change his diapers.

  She flooded the child with love and kisses and prayed for his future. The thought of returning him to his mother was unthinkable.

  Cousin Joel returned the second night and barely listened to anyone before asking to see Clara. For hours, Joel and Clara were locked away in her room before Jayne's mother interrupted them and demanded that Clara have some rest. Joel announced he had a meeting to attend, so he was staying at the local boardinghouse. Joel curtly wished them goodnight, and they silently watched him saddle up and ride away.

  “Father . . .” There was so much Jayne wished to ask her father, but the weariness in his eyes prevented her.

  “Yes, my dear.” He seemed to instinctively know her thoughts. He took her hand briefly and squeezed it gently. “I do not have any answers for you. I wish to God I did.” He released her and, with slumped shoulders, slowly went off to bed.

  Jayne’s prayers intensified that night as she lay in her bed. It was the next day that Jayne felt God had answered her prayers. Jayne's mother went to bring a tray of breakfast to Clara only to find the bed empty, the cupboards bare. All that was left behind was a single slip of paper laid upon the pillow. Whatever the note said that Clara left behind, her mother did not say, but she locked it away in her trunk. “For safekeeping, for Jim when he returns, and for the child when he is old enough to understand.”

  No one could grasp how this convalescing woman and all her belongings disappeared until a messenger arrived. It seemed not only was Clara gone, but so was Cousin Joel. Jayne's father refolded the paper addressed to him and handed Joel’s message over to his wife. “Add this to your trunk. I pray this abandoned child will one day understand what I cannot comprehend.”

  For a week, Hannah did not wake up, her breathing ragged and rough from the rib that had broken in the fall. The doctor’s prognosis was not a good one. Hannah’s frailty due to her age had increased since she’d been pushed, and there was nothing humanly possible for the doctor to do to halt what comes upon everyone.

  Mary refused to let anyone else tend to Hannah. One night, Jayne and her mother tried to help, but Mary refused as she looked up at them with tear-filled eyes.

  “I must do this one last thing for her,” Mary whispered. “Did you know when I was set free by Marc, I ran as far away from here as I could go with the money he had given me? When it was gone, I did things I shouldn’t have. Things I am so ashamed of. Did you know she made George go lookin’ for me?” Jayne's mother shook her head in amazement. “All I remember was Marc going on a business trip with George and them returning with you. Hannah just said you decided to come home to stay.”

  “So like Hannah.” Mary smiled and tenderly lifted and k
issed Hannah’s limp hand. “George found me in a brothel in Manhattan. How he found me in that sea of people was only through the grace of God. Hannah greeted me like the prodigal I had no right to be—not being of her blood. But she loved me back to life and God.” Mary stopped for a moment at the sound of the patter of approaching little feet before quickly finishing her story. “All I have—Pete and the children and grandbabies—all would never have been if it wasn’t for her. So, please understand. I must do this one last thing for my Momma Hannah.”

  The door just then quietly opened, and Jesse looked in, her large, dark brown eyes swimming in tears. “Can we see her, Momma?”

  “Of course.” Mary gently smiled at her youngest daughter but just as quickly warned her, “You make sure them little ones behave. They can’t be jostlin’ Momma Hannah around.”

  “Yes, m’am.” Jayne, her mother, and Mary watched the children and grandchildren as they slowly entered the room. Each approached the bed and paused for a moment to say a soft prayer for Hannah, ever so carefully touching her hand or kissing her cheek while whispering words of love. It was a long procession, and Mary looked at Jayne and her mother, a depth of gratitude shimmering in her eyes. The unspoken acknowledgments were wobbly smiles and silent tears.

  As the days continued into a second week with no sign of improvement, George’s grief was unbearable to watch. The old man paced the floor, his steps shaky and unsteady, but it was like he was unable to stop the movement. The sound of his cane tip hitting the floor was heard throughout the night. His mumbled, prayerful pleas to God heartbreaking to hear.

  Neighbor after neighbor came for short visits, always leaving a bowl or platter of food so that the family did not have to bear the burden of preparing meals as they waited for what only God knew was coming.

  Cindy came with her grandson, William, who awkwardly tried to console Jayne. For the first time, Jayne wished he would just leave as she did not feel the strength to entertain him. William apparently sensed her reluctance for his company. After a stiff formal bow and tilt of his hat, he turned and escorted his grandmother down the path, leaving Jayne feeling guilty at her rude behavior. Her pastor stopped by and offered prayers of comfort, but the person Jayne wished to see never appeared. Jeremiah Bronson was dealing with troubles of his own. The elderly pastor informed them that Jeremiah’s father’s health had taken a turn for the worse.

  Hannah suddenly opened her eyes two Sundays after her fall, and though all rejoiced, the doctor said the end was near. No one said a word of this to Hannah, but she knew. “Let me hold the child,” Hannah murmured, her arms barely lifting from the bed. “I want to pray over him and feel him close to me before I go.”

  “Hannah,” George gasped as he reached for her right hand. “Don’t you talk like that.”

  “Oh hush, dear man,” Hannah gently chided him as she briefly squeezed his hand before releasing it. “No one lives forever, and it’s about time I go home. But not before I hold the lil’ one.”

  While the rest of the house seemed to bustle with activity as Mary and Pete’s children and grandchildren once again began to arrive, a deep sadness seemed to saturate the bedroom. Jayne, holding the newborn, stood beside her parents on one side of the bed, with George, Mary, and Pete positioned on the other. It was clear Hannah’s strong will kept her struggling to stay alert to give her blessings to those she loved.

  “This here child is two weeks old. What have you named him?” Looking toward Jayne, Hannah raised the question after the child was placed in her arms. When Jayne's mother began to speak, the old black woman shook her head and continued gazing toward Jayne for the answer.

  “Me?” Jayne asked, surprised. “Why me? I thought Mother would likely do it.”

  “Why should she?” Hannah countered. “You are the one who saved him from his mother’s hate and have kept him safe and loved since then. Your momma’s gettin’ on the old side of carin’ for babies anyway.”

  “Why, Hannah,” Jayne's mother pretended to be offended. “What a perfectly horrible thing to say!”

  “Well, ya are gettin’ a little long in the tooth.” Hannah chuckled weakly, but again turned her attention on Jayne. “So, what name will be entered into the family Bible?”

  “If it’s all right with everyone . . .” Jayne looked at each of those present. “I would like to have him called David Moses.”

  “Why that choice of names?” Hannah inquired as she tenderly touched the baby’s cheek.

  Jayne hesitated for a second before continuing. “Because David and Moses were kind of rejected by their families when they were young, but God loved them both and used them greatly.”

  “This David Moses will never be rejected by this family,” Jayne's mother interjected indignantly.

  “One cannot hide this child forever from the pain of his mother’s rejection,” Hannah replied sadly. “But you can show him the love of God that he may never have found with Clara.”

  “David is a good name, Jayne.” George grinned widely. “It is the name of Jesus’s great-great-granddaddy, who was a king.”

  “I think there may have been a few more 'greats' to add to that,” Jayne's father laughed. “But yes, that is a strong name of a wise man.”

  “And Moses,” Pete said with a smile. “Well, he was the one to take the slaves out of Egyptian bondage. That is a wonderful name.”

  “So it is agreed.” Jayne nodded. “The newest addition to the van Hoyton family is David Moses.”

  “Van Hoyton?” her father looked at her in confusion. “Why our last name? The boy has a father, and his name is McTierney.”

  “Is it? Is it really?” Jayne replied, looking into her father’s eyes. “You saved my brother and mother from a life of poverty, if not from the angel of death itself.

  “You raised him as your own, but your name will die with your generation as neither you nor Cousin Joel have any male heirs.”

  “But Jim is the father, and his family name may also come to an end if he never has another son,” her father protested.

  “Jim is more your son than his own father’s,” Jayne replied. “There were uncles back in Manhattan, yet Mother herself can testify that no one ever answered her letter notifying them of their nephew’s birth nor the letter of her husband’s death.”

  “It is possible, my dear,” her mother interjected quietly. “That they did not know how to read or write.”

  “Possibly, but in a metropolis as big a Manhattan, there are many who can.” Jayne shook her head, rejecting her mother’s excuse. “If they truly cared about their sibling, let alone his child, they would have found someone.

  “I believe my brother would agree with me on this.” Jayne touched her father’s shoulder and leaned down to kiss his cheek before repeating the act with her mother. “So if a name must end, I believe it is the one that did no good other than to produce Jim, and inflicted much harm during its existence.”

  “But Jim’s father is the reason I am alive today,” He protested. “For that alone, I believe his name should be continued.”

  “Can we not include it?” Jayne's mother suggested, smiling gently at her. “If my late husband had not saved your father, you, Jayne, would not be here this day.”

  “I guess some good came out of that name then. Huh, Jayne?” Hannah chuckled weakly.

  “I guess so.” Jayne chuckled in return. “Then the child will be called David Moses McTierney van Hoyton from this day forth.”

  “Such a long name for a little boy to carry!” George shook his head. “May God bless David Moses McTierney van Hoyton.”

  Hannah nodded, her voice growing stronger for a moment as she called forth the blessing. “May the Lord our God bless him with a heart that stays close to the Almighty and a life that will give glory to his Maker.”

  When Hannah motioned, Jayn
e presumed she wanted to give the baby back to her, but as Jayne reached for him, Hannah took hold of her hand. Looking up into Jayne’s eyes, Hannah smiled with deep love and affection. Her clasp was light, but Jayne did not think of pulling away. Tears came to the Jayne’s eyes, and she leaned over and wrapped her arms around both the black woman and the child sleeping on her chest.

  “May God be with you, Hannah,” Jayne whispered in her ear.

  “And also with you, my dear one. And also with you. May you see God at work as you go through life caring for those who are in need.” It was obvious her strength was fading quickly as Hannah released the child to Jayne and turned to Mary. “Let the rest of my family in.”

  Once again, the procession of young adults and babies passed by the bed. This time, Hannah took a moment to look each one in the eye, telling them she loved them and asking God’s blessing upon them. She grasped her husband’s hand and kissed it as she gazed at the sea of faces before her. “God has been good to us, old man. He gave us each other and brought us back together. He gave us our freedom and children of all colors ’cause our love comes from the heart.” Hannah looked him in the face with such love that Jayne felt a deep ache in her own heart. As she listened to what would be Hannah’s last words on this earth, Jayne knew she would never forget them. “You are mine, and I am yours. Be good while I’m gone ’cause God plans on us being back together again one day.”

  Dear loved ones,

  By the grace of God, your letter has reached me, and my heart is split by two emotions. One part rejoices at the news of the birth of my son and thanks God he is healthy and whole. The other part of me weeps, for my son to be born on April twelfth, when the first shot of this war was fired at Fort Sumter, and that the actions of Clara have taken Aunt Hannah from this life. We will all live different lives from that day forth. May God forgive Clara for what she has done to David Moses McTierney van Hoyton and Hannah. May God somehow help us to forgive her as well. May God protect our country. Jayne, your choice of name for my son has my blessing. I am humbled that the man I consider my father has honored my child with the use of his surname. I ask God’s blessings on you, Poppa Marc, for all you have done. Please stay close to our uncle George. I worry how he will survive without the love of his life.