“I know, but I almost got tickled.”
She laughed now. An easy sound that warmed Jay’s heart. She’d changed so much while he was in the Army. Grown nearly as tall as him and become a young woman. He’d been afraid she wouldn’t feel the same about him as she had when she was ten, but they were still buddies.
He laughed with her. “Nothing wrong with laughing in church. I’m thinking the Lord probably laughs at us plenty when he looks down on us at church.”
“That’s what Mike’s always saying too. Or he used to before the war.” Birdie sighed, her laughter gone. “Do you think he’ll ever be like he used to be?”
“Mike had a hard time in that German prison camp. War can test a man’s faith.”
“But you found faith.”
Jay gripped the steering wheel. What he believed still sometimes seemed too raw and fresh to put into words, but he wanted to be able to talk about it to Birdie. “That started with you and Kate here in Rosey Corner before I went off to the war. And believe it or not, Graham. He has a way of setting a man’s thinking straight. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have plenty of testing times during the war. But I didn’t get captured. I stayed free to keep fighting.”
Birdie reached across the seat to give his arm a butterfly touch. “I prayed for you every night, Tanner. Right after I said my name.”
“I felt those prayers, Birdie. Mike knew you were praying for him too. I’m sure the whole church was praying for Mike, but everything has always been sort of easy for Mike. A good family. Knowing what the Lord intended for him early on. Falling in love with Evangeline. Your church here thinking he was the best preacher they ever had.”
“He was the best. I don’t know anybody who didn’t like Mike.” Birdie hurried to change her words. “Everybody still likes Mike. Do you think he’ll start preaching again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He’s talking about it again some.”
He’d talked about it to Jay last Sunday. The day was sunny, so they’d walked out to lean on the fence and watch Mr. Merritt’s two cows in the pasture.
Mike broke the silence between them. “Evangeline wants me to get a church.”
“Why?” Jay asked. “The Lord been talking to her?”
“You don’t have to sound like you don’t think that possible. He talked to you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, nobody was more surprised about that than me.” Jay looked over at Mike. “So is that what happened? She get a sign from the Lord to prod you back onto the preaching road?”
Mike stared back out at the field and let out a long sigh. “Just the sign coming in with all our bills. With her having to quit her job, things are a little tight. If I had a church along with my job, that would bring in extra money for the baby and all.”
“Babies don’t need a lot.”
“That’s what I thought before Evangeline let me know different. You’ll see when Kate starts talking about fixing up a nursery.”
Jay didn’t say anything. They both knew that while Kate and Evie were sisters, they weren’t much alike. Somebody from the church would loan Kate a cradle and baby blankets and she’d be fine with that. Not Evie. She wanted everything to look like the pictures in the magazines. “Preaching isn’t the only kind of extra job you could get.”
“I know, but it’s not just the money. She thinks I’d be happier if I’m preaching.” Mike kept his eyes straight ahead. “She needs me to be happier with the baby coming.”
“You’re happy about that, aren’t you?”
“I am. I dreamed about getting home and having a family while I was in Gulag 5. It was all that kept me sane at times. How about you? Did you feel that way too?”
“I wanted to come home for sure.”
“And now here you are settled down with a baby on the way.” Mike smiled over at Jay. “Funny how things work out. Us being best buddies and marrying sisters and now both of us about to be dads.”
“Yeah, funny.” Jay kept his smile on. It wasn’t the time to talk about his worries about being a dad. It was time to help his friend figure out how to be happier again. “Do you want to preach again, Mike?”
“I loved preaching. You know that, Jay.” He gazed up at the clouds drifting across the sky as if searching among them for the right words. “It was good to share the gospel with my church family and be part of their lives in good times and bad.”
“Then why aren’t you preaching now?”
Mike stared down at the ground. “I don’t know.”
“Do you still believe?”
Mike whipped his head around toward Jay. “Of course, I believe. Nothing could ever change that.”
“Okay, so what’s the problem?”
Mike looked back out at the field. When he finally spoke again, his voice was so low Jay had to strain to make out his words. “I was afraid, Jay. I didn’t have enough faith. A man of God shouldn’t have a spirit of fear.”
“You reading the same Bible I am?” Jay didn’t give him time to answer. “Because in my Bible, people get scared all the time.”
“Daniel didn’t. Or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Or David when he faced Goliath.”
Jay couldn’t argue about that. Staring at sure death in a fiery furnace or going up against a giant with nothing but a slingshot was more than he could imagine doing without trembling no matter how much he believed. He had charged into enemy fire, but he couldn’t say it was without fear. He ran his hand over the weathered wood fence rail and said the only thing that came to mind. “You didn’t have a slingshot.”
“I could have made one.”
“It wouldn’t have been much good against machine guns.”
“David’s brothers didn’t think a slingshot would be much good against giants with eight-foot swords.”
“But it never says he wasn’t afraid.”
“It doesn’t say he was,” Mike said. “What it does say is that David trusted the Lord.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t jumping up in his throat when Goliath was stomping down toward him. But even if it wasn’t, even if he wasn’t afraid, there are plenty of others in the Bible who were.” Jay picked at a piece of cedar bark on the fence post while he tried to remember his Bible stories. “What about Elijah running to hide in a cave right after he brought fire down from heaven? Or Moses cowering in front of that burning bush telling God he had the wrong man? Or Peter saying he never knew Jesus? What about those? Afraid in the presence of miracles the likes of which we’ll never see.”
“But they went on and did what God had for them to do.”
“Exactly.” Jay peeled the bark off the post and pitched it into the field.
Mike laughed. “I can’t believe we’re talking Bible and you’re the one trying to convince me instead of the other way around.”
“Things change.”
Those words echoed in his head now as Birdie brought him back to the present by saying, “Mama says he’ll never come back to preach at our church.”
“She could be right.” He pulled out the same words he’d told Mike. They were just as true for Birdie as for Mike. “Things change. People the most of all.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Way wrong. I’m as changed as can be. From a loner to a man with family on every side. Here coming home from church with my little sister.” Jay stared out at the road. “You can’t imagine how different that is to how I was before I came to Rosey Corner.”
“And now you’re going to be a daddy.”
“I am.” Jay kept his eyes on the road and made his hands relax on the steering wheel. He could do this. Men became fathers all the time. But was that the same as being a daddy?
“You have a sister, don’t you?” Birdie asked.
Her question caught him off guard. “I’m surrounded by sisters. You, Tori, Evie. When you marry a Merritt girl, you are gifted with sisters. But I do have one favorite sister.” He glanced over at Birdie. “Since she
was the first sister to really like me.”
She covered her mouth to hide her pleased smile. “You were funny.”
“Funny, huh? That’s me. Jay like the bird good for a million laughs.”
“That’s what Fern calls you. See, she thinks you’re funny too.”
“I didn’t think Fern thought anything was funny.”
“She laughs.” When Jay shot her a look, she added, “It’s just that her laugh is so rusty, hardly anybody knows she’s laughing.”
“Maybe she needs a bottle of laughing oil.”
“See, if she heard you say that, she’d laugh. Fern’s not like everybody thinks she is. She really loves us.”
“You anyway.”
“And Kate,” Birdie said. “Kate doesn’t think so, but she does.”
Birdie was quiet then as they rode along the dark road. Jay pretended he had to focus on driving and hoped she wouldn’t remember he hadn’t answered her question about his sister. He didn’t like thinking about Amanda Faye. It brought out too much guilt. Not that he had any reason to feel guilty. As far as he knew, Amanda was fine. She’d be—he had to stop and think about that—twenty-five. Probably married with kids. She’d been a sweet kid of around eight when he last saw her. She had other brothers. Those his father and stepmother had after they shipped Jay off to his aunt’s house. Amanda wouldn’t have missed him being around at all.
But Birdie wasn’t one to be sidetracked when she wanted to know something. She was like a bulldog shaking whatever was hiding what she wanted to know until it fell out. Another thing she’d learned from Kate.
“That sister,” she said. “The one you had before you came to Rosey Corner. You should go see her.”
“It’s been a long time, Birdie. I figure she’s forgotten all about me. And it’s better that way.”
“She wouldn’t forget you. She probably wonders about you all the time, no matter how many years it’s been.” Birdie paused a moment before she pushed out her next words all in a rush. “I wonder about my brother. Not you. But the brother in my first family.”
“Yeah, you told me about him once. He was a couple years older than you, wasn’t he?”
“He’d be sixteen now. Old enough to drive.”
Jay quit trying to steer her away from whatever she wanted to say. Instead he reached for it. “What was his name? Do you remember?”
“How could I forget my brother’s name?” Birdie sounded a little incensed at his question.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Jay lifted his hands off the wheel in a quick gesture of surrender. “I was just asking.”
“Kenton. Kenton Birdsong.”
“Could he sing like you?”
“Maybe. We sang in the car before he got sick.” Birdie sighed. “I can’t remember his face. All I can remember is him being so sick and not waking up when I had to get out and not go on with them.”
“That must have been tough.”
“Mommy said she’d come back for me, but I don’t think she will now.” Birdie fiddled with the clasp on the purse in her lap. “I think I’ll have to go find her.”
“Not by yourself,” Jay said quickly. “At least until you get out of school.”
“Right. That’s what Mama says too. It’s sort of weird asking Mama about finding my mother. Since Mama is my mother now.”
“And she loves you. We all love you.”
“My mother before loved me too. And so did Kenton.”
Jay noticed she didn’t mention her father, so he didn’t either. “I’m sure they did.”
“Kate said she’d help me find them. Someday.”
“How was she going to do that?”
“I don’t know.” Birdie sighed again and clicked her purse open and shut a few times. “I thought maybe she’d told you.”
“Things have been a little hectic lately.”
“Right. With the baby and all. My mama was expecting too. So that might mean I have another brother too. Or a sister.”
“I guess so.”
“Kate’s worried I’ll leave Rosey Corner if my mother hears me on the radio and remembers she promised to come back for me.”
“Oh.” Jay didn’t like to think about Birdie being gone from Rosey Corner any more than Kate did. “Would you?”
Birdie raised her head, but she didn’t look at Jay. Instead she stared out the windshield. They were almost to her house. “Not forever. I’d always come home to Rosey Corner.”
“It’s a good place to call home.” Jay pulled in the driveway. The porch light was on and through the window he could see Kate’s mother and father in the sitting room, waiting for Lorena to get home.
She gave him a hug, then was out of the car, running for the steps. Scout raced out to greet her and she laughed as she danced away from him to keep the dog from messing up her Sunday dress.
He waited until she was inside before he backed up and headed home. Kate had left a light on for him, but she was already in bed. Before he turned out the light, he stood a moment and watched her sleeping. He could barely keep from touching her face, but he didn’t want to wake her. She’d been so tired that day. Because she was carrying his baby. His heart swelled inside his chest. He loved her so much, and he would love their baby.
She woke when he crawled into bed and turned into his embrace, murmuring a hello. Yes, indeed. Rosey Corner was a good place to call home.
25
Clay Weber didn’t have a good start to his Monday. His shoestring broke when he laced up his shoes. The bossy cow kicked over a half full pail of milk and then swished her tail in his face. Twice. When he got corn for the hogs, the mice were having a party in the corncrib. He’d have to find a black snake to put a stop to that nonsense before nothing was left but cobs.
At breakfast, he snapped at Mary when she asked if he’d given the doll dress to Victoria. Big tears welled up in Mary’s eyes. He was sorry at once and hugged the little girl, but that didn’t make it all right. Mary had nothing to do with Victoria telling him to go away.
His mother shooed the girls off to get their schoolbooks. Aaron blew the horn on the old jalopy Clay had helped him buy. He wanted his brothers and sisters to have a way to school. Aaron would graduate this year, the first high school graduate in the family. Clay would have been the first if things had been different, but they weren’t. They were what they were, and he’d never have that rolled-up piece of paper that was the ticket to a better life. Instead he’d keep wrestling a living out of the ground for his mother and the kids.
Maybe that was why Victoria told him to go away. He wasn’t smart enough for her.
He stared down at his eggs and bacon and biscuit smeared with blackberry jam. All products of his or his mother’s hands. Thankful, that’s what he should be. He had a good family. A farm to work. Enough schooling to get by. He tried to push thankful to the front of his thinking, but it didn’t work. Grouchy was what he was. Not a bit thankful.
He moved his eggs around with his fork as he listened to Aaron’s car going down the lane. The boy needed to patch that muffler.
His mother came back in the kitchen and told Willie to stop playing with his food and eat. She looked ready to tell Clay the same, but instead she poured a cup of coffee and sat down across from him. “Something bothering you, son?”
“No, ma’am. Just didn’t sleep so well.”
“I see.” She took a sip of coffee and gave Willie another look that at last got the little boy to spoon some oatmeal into his mouth.
Willie was a dreamer. Being the last and a child who never laid eyes on his father had made them all spoil him too much. Maybe Clay should talk to his mother about giving the boy some regular chores. At five, he could feed the chickens or gather sticks for kindling.
Willie would be easier to talk about than Victoria. Her words telling him to go away had sounded in his head over and over the night before. Then when he did drift off to sleep, he dreamed she was looking at him with longing eyes. That was a dream he might have want
ed to keep on dreaming, but something jerked him awake. Reality, he supposed. He lay there in bed and stared up at the dark, trying to replace Victoria’s face in his dream with Paulette’s. Paulette was the one looking at him with longing. Not Victoria. That was what would make sense, and hadn’t everybody always said that Clay had good sense?
He looked at things straight on. Wasn’t much use imagining things were different than they were. The ground on their rocky farm was so hard a man could spill blood on it and still not grow a decent potato. But even more than the farm, he knew the man who stared back at him from the mirror every morning was only a farm boy without much to offer any girl except a lifetime of work like his mother had.
It didn’t much matter that his mother claimed she would never have chosen a different path than marrying his father. That didn’t have anything to do with the choices Victoria was ready to make. He was lucky to have any girl wanting him to come around. So he should be glad Paulette was ready to grab his arm and sit with him at church on Sunday.
He hadn’t wanted to go to church, but he couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse to stay home. Besides, he had nursed this tiny hope Victoria might take back her words. After all, for a while there on the pond bank, she’d almost seemed glad he was there. He’d even had his arms around her for a few seconds when she stumbled toward the water’s edge.
All the way to church, he thought up what he could say to her. Victoria, I know what you said, but we’ve been friends a long time. We don’t want to throw that away. Can’t we just keep talking now and again? Won’t you let me hang on to a shred of hope?
But he didn’t get a chance to say any of that. Paulette captured him as soon as he set foot on the front walk. He did see Victoria come in the church, but he could hardly get up from beside Paulette and go talk to her then. Even if that was what he wanted to do. The very sight of her pulled at him. He’d have gone down on his knees right there in front of the whole church and begged her to change her mind about him if he thought that would make a difference. But he figured a scene like that would make her even more eager for him to disappear from her life.
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