by Anna Schmidt
“I… It hasn’t come up…but…”
Megan stopped herself before she told Jessica that Reba’s daughter in Arizona had been after Reba for some time now to sell or lease the inn and come to live with her—at least for the winters. Reba had made Megan promise not to breathe a word of such foolishness to anyone.
“She’s getting up there,” Jessica continued, “and her arthritis is obviously becoming a factor. I’m just saying if she ever mentions the idea, would you ask her to come talk to Pete and me before she does anything?” Jessica signaled she would be right back and got up to help a customer.
Megan took a swallow of her coffee, lukewarm now. She pushed the mug aside and turned to the window. What if Reba decided to sell? What if her daughter convinced her to leave Singing Springs?
Suddenly she was awash in images of Faith heading off to college and Reba to Arizona. The happiness she had felt an hour earlier might as well have been as much a figment of her imagination as the image of the man entering the barbershop.
Chapter Ten
J eb had just sat down in the barber’s chair when the bell over the door jangled and another man walked in. In the mirror Jeb saw surprise in Fred Hagen’s eyes, but then he recovered. “Owen,” Fred acknowledged as he finished fastening the plastic cape.
“Fred,” the man replied.
“You’re back?” he added a couple of minutes later as the scissors snipped their way through Jeb’s thick hair.
The man had not moved, not picked up the newspaper, not shown much interest in anything except looking out the window.
“We’ll see.”
Jeb waited for Fred to make introductions, but the barber just frowned a little and concentrated on the haircut.
“Any work?” the man asked after several moments of silent tension that Jeb had not yet decided to break.
“Depends,” Fred replied as he set the scissors aside and attached a trimmer to the electric razor. For a few seconds the buzz of the razor took precedence over conversation.
Fred shut off the razor and used a soft brush to clear away any stray hair on Jeb’s neck. Then he unsnapped the apron and swept it away. The motion always reminded Jeb a little of a bullfighter and it had always made him smile. But his mind was on the stranger and the unusual aura that had permeated the small barbershop from the moment the man had arrived.
He offered the man a handshake. “Jeb Matthews,” he said.
“Reverend Matthews,” Fred muttered under his breath with a look at the stranger.
“Owen Osbourne.” The man accepted the handshake and looked directly at Jeb for the first time.
The blue eyes were paler, older and wearier, but they were eyes he knew. They were Megan’s eyes.
“Any relation to Megan Osbourne?” he asked, guessing the answer.
“I’m her father.”
Jeb heard Fred issue a snort of derision and Owen turned on the barber. “You gonna pass judgment or cut my hair?”
Fred indicated the chair with a bow.
“Does Megan know you’re in town?”
“Not yet. I thought I saw her headed out of the post office and over to the Shack. It’s been a while,” he added, as if that explained why he hadn’t called out to her, followed her or somehow made his presence known.
Jeb was a little taken aback at the emotions warring within him. On the one hand, he felt such a strong surge of protectiveness for Megan that it nearly overwhelmed him. On the other, there was something about this man—a neediness, a sadness—that touched Jeb’s innate need to offer comfort and solace.
“Would you like me to be with her when you see her the first time? I mean, I’m her pastor.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed with distrust. This was a man who had been burned before, badly enough that even a simple offer like this one was subject to doubt. “How about you let her know I’m in town and see what she wants to do?”
“All right,” Jeb agreed. “But first I’d like to hear a little more of your reason for coming back at this particular time. What do you want from Megan?”
“She’s my daughter,” Owen growled.
“That’s no answer, sir.” Jeb handed Owen a card. “I’ll be at the parsonage if you want to talk about the best way to let Megan know you’re in town once you’re finished here.”
Owen took the card and glanced at it. “You took Dunhill’s place?”
“He didn’t take nobody’s place,” Fred growled. “He’s his own man. Take my advice, Owen. Go talk to the man before you see Megan.”
Owen tucked the business card in his shirt pocket and looked up at Jeb from under hooded lids, sizing him up. “I’ll be up directly,” he said, then glanced in the mirror. “Not so much off the top, Fred. There’s little enough there to start.”
Jeb nodded to Fred and left the shop. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, wrestling with his choices. Should he go find Megan and alert her that her father was in town without waiting for him to come to the parsonage? Should he step across the street to the convenience store that also sold wine and beer and warn them about Owen’s presence and his drinking history, in case he wandered in there for something to build up his courage?
He thought about what he’d observed of the man. He was clean, even if the clothing he wore was on the shabby side. Jeb had been close enough to the man in Fred’s narrow, cramped space that he would know if Owen had been drinking recently. There had been no sign of that. His eyes had been a little rheumy, but not bloodshot or unfocused. His stride when he’d entered the shop had been hesitant rather than unsteady. And perhaps the most telling thing of all was the fact that Fred had simply accepted Owen’s presence as a given, almost as if he’d been expecting him.
“Hey, Rev Jeb!”
Jeb glanced up to see a flatbed truck filled with teenagers cruising down Main Street. Caleb Armstrong was at the wheel, and Faith was sitting close to him while another boy occupied the passenger seat. In the back of the truck were four other teens—friends of Caleb’s who all waved at Jeb.
“Dad says we can use this to build our float for the Fourth of July parade,” one girl shouted.
“Looking good,” Jeb shouted back. Caleb gunned the engine and tooted the horn as the truck headed on down the street. “We’re going over to Eagle River for decorations,” the girl shouted.
Jeb waved and headed back up the street toward the parsonage. For the first time since meeting her, he truly hoped he would not run into Megan along the way.
But Singing Springs was a small town and someone like Owen Osbourne couldn’t show up after nearly ten years without someone commenting on his reappearance to someone else who then speculated on his return with a third party. So when Megan came down the stairs after changing beds and cleaning rooms and saw Reba glance at her and then focus all of her attention on the computer screen where she kept track of reservations, she suspected something was up.
“What?” she asked, well aware that one of the letters she’d picked up from the post office that morning had featured the familiar fat, loopy scrawl of Reba’s daughter.
“Owen’s back.” Reba swiveled her chair around to face Megan. “Nellie called. She saw him walking up to the parsonage. I was hoping to have more information before we talked about how you want to handle…things.”
So she hadn’t imagined it. She had seen her father going into the shop. She didn’t know what to think about his return.
“Fred told Nellie that Jeb invited him. Seems they met at the barbershop earlier this morning,” Reba said.
Why would Jeb invite her father to the parsonage and not tell her first? Why wouldn’t he have called? What if Faith ran into Owen? “I’ll be back,” she said and headed out the front door and up the hill to the parsonage.
With every step her fury increased—at her father, at Jeb, at whatever cruel fate had brought him back when everything was going so well. By the time she reached the house, she was breathing hard, not from exertion, but from the tightness in her chest tha
t felt as if her heart were hardening into granite.
The two men were sitting on the porch as she came around the side of the house. The low rumble of their voices told her that neither of them was aware of her presence. When she heard her father’s voice, thick with emotion and raspy with regret, her resolve faltered. Suddenly she had no idea what she would say, what she would demand, how she would achieve the one thing she’d come to accomplish—getting her father to leave before Faith knew he was back. Of course, that was an impossible task. After all, Singing Springs was a small town.
She heard the clink of a spoon against a ceramic mug and looked up to see her father sitting with his back to her in one of the four rocking chairs that lined the porch. Jeb had pulled a second rocker close to the first and was sitting forward with his forearms resting on his knees, listening intently to Owen’s story.
And a story it was, Megan reminded herself. The man was a master at rewriting history.
“Hello, Owen,” she said quietly as she climbed the steps to the porch. She did not look at him or Jeb, but focused on her feet, as if at any moment she might make a misstep and fall. She heard the scrape of chairs as both men stood and she still did not look up.
“You used to call me Dad,” Owen replied.
“That was a long time ago.” The effort to keep her voice steady and neutral almost overwhelmed her. She again swallowed the questions and accusations and fury that she’d gulped back for years.
“I’ll get another mug,” Jeb said and started for the door.
“Stay,” Megan said, as if coaching a puppy. She pulled a third rocker into the circle and sat down. “We might as well settle this right now.” She looked directly at her father for the first time.
He had aged, looking at least a decade older than his sixty years.
“Where have you been, Owen? Last I knew you’d checked yourself into the VA hospital in Milwaukee. When I came to see you they said you’d left with no forwarding address. That was nine years ago.”
“I bounced around—ended up in California for a while. But I’ve been back at the VA for the last year.” He met her gaze. “I’m sober, Megan. It’s been almost four years since I had a drink.”
For Owen four years was a lifetime, but Megan fought against being too impressed. “You’ve been at the VA all that time?” she asked, assuming he’d checked himself into some sort of program offered there. “I mean, it’s one thing to stay sober living a normal life out in the world, and quite another to stay sober under the watchful eye of…”
Jeb placed his hand on her arm. “Let him tell it, Megan,” he advised.
Megan slumped against the back of the rocker, folded her arms tightly across her body and pushed the chair into motion with one foot. “I’m listening.”
Owen glanced over at Jeb, who nodded encouragingly. “They gave me a job—part-time, but it paid enough to keep me housed and fed.” Then he sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I came back for one selfish reason, Meggie. I’m dying and I don’t want to die alone.”
Oh, please. Megan could not count the number of times her father had used this ruse. Well, not dying, but the remorse and the desire to be close to family and friends. It would last a month or so and then—boom—right back to his old ways. She tightened her grip on herself and said nothing.
“The docs have done what they can, but the fact is my liver is shot and I’ve no one to blame but myself.”
Megan studied the man sitting not two feet from her and noticed for the first time the slight yellowing of his eyes and skin. Her heart thudded against her chest, warring between camps of pent-up anger and the innate compassion that had made her stay with him all those years, until Reba and Stan had taken her in and Owen had left town.
“Can’t they… Isn’t there medicine or a transplant? What about a transplant?” At the same time the words tumbled from her lips, she was sending up a silent prayer that rocked her to her core. Save him, please.
Owen smiled and shook his head. “I’m on the list, but it’s a long shot.” He shook off the thought and leaned toward her. “So I’m here to ask you to forgive me and let me just be here in Singing Springs. I won’t bother you—or Faith. I promise. I just want to be close.”
Megan closed her eyes. So many times it had happened in much the same way. Owen would go off on a bender and return days later full of apologies and compromises and promises. Bargaining with her for her forgiveness. She’d been a child—eight or nine at her earliest recollection—alone in the rundown house they shared, scared and yet covering for him when people like Nellie Barnsworth or Reverend Dunhill stopped by or called. And always, always terrified that he might not come back.
Early on she built her resources. She would drop by the house of a friend at suppertime and, of course, was invited to stay. She would suggest what fun it would be to have a sleepover, knowing her friends would never come to her house, but would invite her to theirs instead. She would appear at the inn and quietly start helping Stan weed the kitchen garden or Reba hang the laundry. And Reba would send her home with a shopping bag full of food when Megan refused to stay the night, arguing that her father would be home soon.
“Megan?” Jeb’s voice was close and filled with concern.
She opened her eyes and focused on her father. “Can you work?” she asked.
“Some.”
Jeb cleared his throat. “Actually, the church council has been talking about hiring a part-time person to take care of the maintenance and cleaning and such. Now that the summer folks are here and we’re running the youth center every night, there’s more to do.”
As if the job part of the problem were solved Megan pressed on. “And where will you stay?”
Hope fired in her father’s pale blue eyes. “Mike Caspin has a house trailer on his property. I’m staying there for the time being.”
Mike had been her father’s dearest friend. They had served together in Vietnam and he’d stood by him through everything. Mike was the one who’d often brought Owen home, helped him get cleaned up, helped him get work every time he lost a job. It did not surprise Megan that the first person Owen had sought out was not her, but Mike.
When she didn’t say anything for several moments, Owen got nervous. “Hey, you can call the docs yourself,” he said. “Check the story out. They’ll tell you. I came to them stone-cold sober—you’ll have to take my word that it had been almost four years by then. I haven’t touched…”
“Why California?” She saw the quick exchange of looks between Jeb and Owen. Again Jeb nodded, clearly blessing whatever might come next. Megan leaned forward. “You went to see her?”
Owen closed his eyes, suddenly the picture of ex-haustion. “There’s a part of the program—AA—where you need to face what you’ve done and the people you’ve done it to. I’m working on that, but it’s hard. For years I used your mother as rationalization for my drinking, and that took a toll on you and Faith. Poor me.” He opened his eyes and peered at Megan. “I had choices, Meggie. It wasn’t all on her.”
“So did she,” Megan muttered, startled by the depths of her bitterness after all these years. “She could have stayed and worked things out.”
Owen shrugged. “Coulda, shoulda, woulda. It’s the past and we all have our regrets about the road not taken. I expect that you do, as well,” he reminded her, sounding like a parent for the first time since she’d stepped onto the porch.
“Leave Faith out of this,” she snapped.
“I can’t, because what your mother and I realized was that somehow through God’s grace our only child had found a courage neither of us ever had. I have to tell you, Meggie, that there was a time when I couldn’t stand that you were so strong and brave and determined to care for that child no matter what, when your parents had been total flops.”
“And now?”
“Now, if you’ll permit me, I just want the comfort of being near you and Faith for whatever time I have. I’ve been talking with the pastor here
and, if you like, neither you nor Faith ever has to see me without him being there.”
“I need to talk to Faith, see what she wants—and doesn’t want.”
“That’s only right,” Owen agreed.
She rocked for several long minutes as she processed this stunning turn of events, then added, “And if you so much as look at a drink…”
“Agreed,” he said, and something about the way he met her gaze gave her the hope that this time things would be different.
After another long and increasingly uncomfortable silence, Jeb cleared his throat. “Owen, you’ll need to meet with the council about the job,” Jeb said. “Do you want me to set that up?”
Owen nodded. “I’d appreciate that. Thank you.”
Megan stood up and so did both men. “I’ll talk to Faith tonight,” Megan said. She felt her father’s gaze on her, but turned away. Just before starting back down the porch steps, she asked the one thing that had haunted her for all of her life. “So why did she leave us?”
“She didn’t leave us, Meggie. She left me.”
“Funny. It sure feels like she left me, too,” Megan said, and walked away before Jeb or her father could witness her heart breaking one more time over a woman she’d barely known.
Jeb gave Owen a ride out to Mike Caspin’s farm. The house trailer was positioned close to the road, and Owen assured him that he’d either hitch into town or Mike would give him a ride if he passed the council’s interview and was hired on at the church. They exchanged phone numbers, Owen giving him Mike’s since he didn’t have a phone in the trailer.
“Pastor, do you think I’m being selfish wanting to be close to Meggie after all this time?”
“A little,” Jeb answered. The man deserved honesty. “But this isn’t all about you, Owen. Megan has spent her life living for others—you and then Faith. She’s kept a lot of things under wraps all these years and maybe your coming back will help her work through her past so she can move forward and make a life for herself. Just don’t hurt her again,” he warned.