The Hummingbird House

by Donna Ball

  Derrick was about to reply that melting hummingbirds were the least of their concerns at this point, but then the woman behind him stepped forward. “Maybe I can help,” she said.

  The chef stared at her. “Megan?”

  Megan smiled, a little uncertainly, and thrust the painting into Derrick’s hands. “Hi, Nick,” she said, a little uncertain now. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.”

  He looked her up and down, slowly, and then more rapidly, as though trying to convince his brain of what his eyes were telling him. “I do,” he said hoarsely at last. “I do want to see you.”

  Megan took a step toward him, and another, and as she felt her husband’s arms wrap around her she knew what she had really come here to find.

  Josh looked at his father in disbelief. “Do you mean she was coming here? To this place, to meet you? Leda was bringing Amy here? Today?”

  “I had a private detective tracking her down for months,” said Lester. “Not her, of course, but the baby. My granddaughter. We had no idea …” He cleared his throat. “We didn’t know if you were alive or dead, Josh, but I couldn’t let that little girl grow up without a family. Of course, every time we’d get close, she’d move, and when my detective was finally able to talk to her, I think she thought we were trying to buy the baby. She wasn’t going to let her go, Josh,” Lester assured him quickly. “As hard as things were for her, she was determined to keep her promise to her sister, and to you. She’s living with her mother about ten miles from here, and she finally agreed to bring the baby to meet with me, and give me a chance to prove who I was. That’s why I was on the road when all this happened.”

  “Me too,” Josh said. “I was on my way to find her too.” And then a streak of panic crossed his face. “But we have to get out of here! They could be out there in that traffic! If she had Amy in the car—she could be hurt! We have to go look for her!”

  He turned to barrel his way to the door, but his father caught his arm. “Maybe,” he said, with an odd, quiet smile on his face, “we won’t have to look very far.”

  Josh turned to follow the direction of his father’s gaze and saw Leda standing only a few feet away, the hood pushed back on her yellow slicker, a flowered diaper bag over one shoulder, and on the other a bundle wrapped in a big teddy bear blanket that was speckled with raindrops. As she stared at him, her expression went from uncertainty to relief to joy, and the smile that finally came transformed her face from plain and weary to radiant.

  “Josh!” she exclaimed. “Josh Whitman! Thank God! They didn’t tell me you were going to be here. I’ve never been so glad to see anybody in all my life!”

  But Josh barely heard her. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

  “I almost didn’t come out in the rain,” Leda said, “and then Mama heard about the wreck on the highway and said I shouldn’t try to make it. I figured she was right but something told me … anyway I decided to give it a try on the back roads, and man, am I glad I did.” She beamed at him and, letting the damp blanket fall away, shifted the weight in her arms so that the baby was turned toward him. “She just had her nap in the car,” she said. “She’s a sweet girl. No trouble at all.”

  She was plump and bright eyed and happy looking, sucking on her fingers as she surveyed all the lights and movement and people round her. She wore a pink teddy bear romper, and Leda had tied a pink bow in her curly honey-colored hair. Josh couldn’t stop looking at her. The smile in his heart was so big it hurt his chest.

  Leda put his little girl on the floor and said to her, “Can you walk to Daddy? Can you?”

  Josh knelt on the floor and opened his arms. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said. “Remember me?”

  Leda let go of her hands, and his daughter, laughing, toddled across the floor to him. Josh laughed back and when she reached him he scooped her up, holding her, losing himself in the scent and the sweetness and the simple presence of her. Somehow, by the time he straightened up with Amy bouncing in his arms, the laughter had turned to something wet and warm on his cheeks and he had to blink his eyes to clear them. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.

  “She looks like your mother,” he said softly.

  Josh smiled, and Amy squealed happily in his arms. He kissed her cheek. “I know.”

  Then Josh’s attention was caught by something across the room. He stared for a moment, and then grinned, lifting his hand in a wave to the ugly little man in the red plaid pants. Artie returned his grin, and raised his glass in a toast.

  His father followed Josh’s gaze. “Who’s that?”

  “A friend of mine,” Josh replied, adjusting Amy’s weight in the crook of his arm as she began to kick and squirm. “I’d introduce you, but I have a feeling he won’t be staying long.”

  And sure enough, when Josh looked back, Artie was gone.

  ~*~

  “Now this,” declared Bridget, lifting her glass to the two hosts, “is what I call a party.”

  “We’ll get the cleaners out for the Aubusson tomorrow,” said Paul. He tried to sound cynical but it was hard to do with the pride of satisfaction shining in his eyes. He lifted his hand and called out across the room, “Hello, my darling! Marvelous to see you!”

  A middle-aged woman in jeans with curls frizzed by the rain blew him a kiss and accepted the plate of risotto offered by the waiter. Lindsay said, “Who is that?”

  “That’s Eleanor Pakard,” Derrick said, “she raises Bichons. Her mother used to oversee the entire science section of the University of Virginia library. Homebound now, poor thing, but sharp as a tack. Hello, Mrs. Bushnell,” he called, and raised his glass to yet another lady who paused from her enjoyment of a corn fritter to return his wave. He answered Bridget’s unspoken query with, “She runs the daycare for the Baptist church, has the most gorgeous petunias. I can’t believe you don’t know her. She was on her way to pick up her son from Little League practice when she got caught in the traffic jam.”

  Cici grinned. “I can’t believe we were worried about you making friends.”

  Paul seemed to consider this as he looked around the room. “Everyone does seem to be having a good time.”

  Bridget wound her arm through his in a brief half-hug, pressing her face against his shoulder. “That’s because, like I said, you don’t know how to give a bad party.”

  “I can’t believe,” Lindsay said to Derrick, “that you’re going to let that perfect stranger have a two-thousand-dollar painting.”

  Derrick took a sip of his wine, mostly to hide his wince. “Two thousand dollars?” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything to her until I was sure, but unless I’m very much mistaken, her great-grandfather’s name was Jackson Moncrief—also known by all and sundry as Hogpen Montana.”

  Lindsay breathed. “Holy cow.”

  Derrick nodded, his lips tight with resignation. “The last known Hogpen Montana original sold at Sotheby’s for $263,000.”

  All three women immediately began to search the crowd for the mysterious traveler whose life was about to change in more ways than she could guess, but Derrick saved them the trouble. “She’s in the kitchen,” he said, “making dessert.”

  Harmony came up, beaming her magnificent smile, and inserted herself into the group. She slipped one arm through Paul’s, and the other through Derrick’s. “Fellows,” she declared contentedly, “I’d say we are a smash.”

  Bridget raised an eyebrow as she relinquished her place at Paul’s side, but smothered any protest she might have made in a sip of wine. Lindsay gave Harmony a crooked smile and stepped away from Derrick.

  Paul said, “Who was that woman you were talking to in the Jimmy Choos? Striking looking, silver hair, white dress—and not a speck of mud, may I say, which was refreshing. I was going to come say hello, but then she went into the kitchen and I lost track.”

  “I thought you invited her,” Harmony said. “She said she stayed here as a
child. Fascinating woman. Her name was Annabelle, I think. She said her granddaughter was here, helping with dessert.”

  Derrick’s face lost some of its color, and he stopped with his glass midway to his lips. “What did you say?”

  But before Harmony could reply, there was a clatter and commotion from the foyer, followed by large men in black tee shirts rolling in big black crates of what looked very much like sound equipment. Paul looked at Derrick in utter bafflement, and they both started forward … then stopped dead.

  Purline, dressed in skin tight jeans with a sequined butterfly on each back pocket, was followed by a cute blonde wearing a rhinestone studded cowboy hat, fringed snakeskin boots, and silver sequined mini-dress. She stopped every few feet to wave and shake hands and smile the smile that was known around the world. Everyone turned to stare, and a buzz went through the crowd. Those who had cell phones whipped them out and began snapping photos, others clutched each other and tried not to squeal like children. Derrick almost dropped his glass.

  “Patty McClain,” he said. He clutched Paul’s arm, his voice growing higher. “That’s Patty McClain!”

  Purline, snapping her gum, made her way over to them through the crowd. “Hey,” she said, “you should have seen the wreck that held us up. We ended up going around the back way.” She glanced around. “Nice crowd, but I don’t see anybody that looks even close to Ryan Seacrest. Where do you want the boys to set up?”

  She turned and called over her shoulder, “Hey, Trish!” She waved her over and the blonde in the silver mini made her way through the crowd. “These are the guys I told you about,” said Purline, gesturing. “This is Paul and this is Derrick.”

  Derrick said in a voice that was so high it was almost squeaking, “You’re … you’re …”

  “Patty McClain,” said Paul, stunned.

  Purline frowned at them. “Of course she is.”

  Patty McClain leaned forward and pumped each of their hands in a firm, enthusiastic handshake. “Pleasure to meet you, gentlemen,” she said in the lush, deeply Southern-accented voice that had won American Idol, launched three platinum albums, and sung to sold out audiences around the world. “I’ve got to say when cousin Purline first asked me to do this I wasn’t all that wild about it. It didn’t sound too much like my kind of crowd. But, boy, am I glad I changed my mind. These are my people!” She turned to the crowd and raised both arms to the air in a wide embrace. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she cried. “I’m home and I want to sing! Are you ready to party?”

  ~*~

  Basses thrummed, wine flowed, the crowd cheered, and melodies rang through the house. The Twittersphere lit up with snapshots and videos of the impromptu concert in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley at an unknown little place called The Hummingbird House. Lester Carson filed a story that would later win him one of the most prestigious journalism awards in his field. And as dusk fell and the rain stopped, Cici, Bridget, and Lindsay wandered on to the front porch, wine glasses in hand.

  “I think,” said Cici with a nod of satisfaction, “they are going to be all right.”

  Lindsay smiled. “I think they always were.”

  The door opened on Patty McClain’s soulful rendering of At Last and Paul came out, followed in a moment by Derrick. “Roll your eyes all you want,” Derrick was saying, “but the next time Harmony talks about spirits, I for one will be listening.”

  Paul groaned. “Oh my God, that’s right. There will be a next time.”

  Bridget lifted her glass to them. “Congratulations,” she said, “on an absolutely stellar success!”

  “Patty McClain,” said Derrick, and gave another amazed shake of his head. “Purline’s cousin is Patty McClain.”

  Paul leaned on the rail beside them, wine glass dangling from his fingers, and adopted a philosophical air. “You know, it’s amazing how sometimes what you’ve been looking for can be right under your nose all the time.”

  “It’s just that sometimes,” Bridget pointed out, “you have to stumble to see it.”

  Paul nodded thoughtfully, sipping his wine. “Of course, this whole thing is costing us a bloody fortune.”

  “I don’t think the coverlet in the Indigo Room can be saved,” Derrick confided.

  “And the floors will have to be completely refinished,” added Paul.

  “We’ll have to order all new towels.”

  “And, oh my God, did you see the sofa in the library?”

  Cici started to laugh. So did Bridget. Lindsay raised her glass to them, grinning.

  “Welcome home, boys,” she said. “Welcome home.”

  ~*~

  Reader’s Discussion Guide

  1. Personal responsibility is a theme that runs through The Hummingbird House. In what way was each character avoiding responsibility? How did the decision to accept responsibility affect his or her life?

  2. Cici says that the difference between men and women is that men are accustomed to having things done for them and therefore expect life to be easy, while women expect life to be difficult and are accustomed to putting forth the effort to overcome hardship. Do you agree or disagree? How is Cici’s theory proven or disproven throughout the book?

  3. Despite their catastrophizing, Paul and Derrick seem to live charmed lives. Cici says they have “magic”. Do you know anyone like that? Do you think this kind of luck is more likely to come to people with good hearts? Why or why not?

  4. In the beginning, the ladies stage an intervention to discourage Paul and Derrick from their dependence on them. Were they successful? How do they continue to enable their friends’ dependency throughout the book?

  5. Bridget suggests that Paul and Derrick are masters of self-sabotage. In what ways do they prove her right?

  6. Ida Mae says it’s not the soil that caused the vegetables to grow so large at the Hummingbird House, but the place. Do you agree that some places have special qualities that can’t be explained? In what ways does the Hummingbird House show its power throughout the book?

  7. Who (or what) do you think Artie was? If he had a mission, what do you think it was? Why do you think Artie deserted Josh in Kansas City?

  8. Someone once defined a miracle as “when God rescues us from the consequences or our choices”. By this definition, which were the miracles in The Hummingbird House, and which were consequences of the characters’ choices? How do you define miracle?

  9. Megan eventually comes to understand that the reason that her grandmother kept taking her on adventures was to teach her courage. Why did Megan need courage on this particular adventure more than she ever had before? What do you think Annabelle really hoped to accomplish on this final journey?

  10. Do you believe in coincidence? Or is everything, as this story suggests, simply a thread in the tapestry of destiny?

  This guide is also available at http://www.donnaball.net

  ~*~

  If you enjoyed THE HUMMINGBIRD HOUSE, you’ll want to read how it all started with

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