Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Now Lorena wanted her to say yes to a walk. They hadn’t finished the beds and they still needed to sweep the floors and dust. Tori sighed and plumped the pillows as the clock chimed two in the front room. She didn’t have time to let Fern get her lost in the woods. Clay promised to be there around six. Only four hours from now. Her heart did a funny lurch at the thought of him stepping up on the porch, sitting with her in the swing, offering her his heart.

  An argument had gone on inside Tori’s head ever since Sunday. She should have said no. She couldn’t do this. Not yet. But what could it hurt to talk to him? They were friends. But it wasn’t a just-friends feeling that tickled awake inside her every time she thought about him. That’s what scared her. She didn’t know why, but it did.

  Lorena smoothed the bedspread down until every wrinkle was gone. “This isn’t just going walking. This is different.”

  “Different how?”

  “She knows where Kenton’s buried.”

  Tori reached across the bed to grasp Lorena’s hand. “I’m sorry, Lorena. I’ve been so busy thinking about myself I haven’t been listening to you.”

  “That’s okay.” Lorena gave the bedspread another tug with her free hand.

  “No, it’s not okay. I’m not being a very good sister.” Tori pulled Lorena around to sit beside her on the bed. “I should have listened. But I can’t imagine why Fern says I have to go with you. Kate and Jay maybe, but not me.”

  “I don’t know why. But please, you have to come. She won’t show me where it is unless you do.”

  “She would.” Tori rubbed her hand up and down Lorena’s back. “Fern would do anything for you. You’re the only person in the world she cares anything about.”

  “She likes all of us. She just thinks you don’t like her. She says you’re afraid of her.”

  “I used to be. She was different before she started staying with Aunt Hattie.” Tori shivered a little. “When I was a kid, I was terrified of her. I think she tried to scare us kids back then.”

  “Maybe, but not now. She helped Kate and then she watched Samantha when she got lost in the woods to make sure she didn’t get hurt,” Lorena said.

  “She could have brought her back.”

  “Clay told you why she didn’t. She thought Samantha would be scared like you used to be.” Lorena leaned over in front of Tori. “Please, say you’ll go.”

  Tori sighed. “I guess I do owe her.”

  “It’s not for her. It’s for me.”

  “All right. I’ll go.” It wasn’t like Samantha would be with them. She could do this for Lorena.

  “Thank you. Thank you.” Lorena bounced up and grabbed Tori in a hug that almost knocked her off the bed. “I love you. You’re the best sister ever.”

  “Better than Kate?” Tori laughed as she stood and smoothed down the bedspread again.

  “It’s okay to have more than one best sister.” Lorena’s smile wavered a bit. “I’ve got another sister too, you know. Her name was Melanie Birdsong, but now it’s probably something different. Kate says that when people adopt a baby they usually pick a new name. I’m glad Mama and Daddy didn’t want to change my name.”

  “You liked your name.”

  “I did.” Lorena’s smile completely disappeared then. “You remember what that Mrs. Baxter tried to name me, don’t you? Pansy. Can you imagine me named Pansy?”

  “No, no, I can’t.” Tori smiled and touched Lorena’s cheek. “That was just wrong, but you’re with us now. As long as you want to be.”

  “That’s forever.” Lorena’s smile spread across her face. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to remember my first family. And know where Kenton is buried. I know he’s not there now, but I still have to see it. I have to.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “Now.” Lorena made a face and hunched up her shoulders as she answered.

  “Now?” Tori stared at her.

  “Kate will be here any minute and Fern’s waiting over in the woods.” Lorena pushed the words out fast.

  “I can’t go now.”

  “Please,” Lorena begged. “I know Clay’s coming, but that’s not for hours and you’ll be back way before then.”

  “Sweaty with spiderwebs in my hair.”

  Lorena laughed. “Clay won’t care. Kate says he loves you.”

  “Kate knows everything, huh.” Tori turned away from Lorena to hide the color crawling up her neck.

  “She does, but it’s not much of a secret that Clay likes you.” Lorena slid around in front of Tori to peer up in her face. “You like him too, don’t you?”

  “I’ve known him forever. Of course I like him.” She hoped Lorena would let it drop, but that wasn’t Lorena. She was too much like Kate. She had to know everything.

  “Do you think you can love him?”

  “I don’t know.” Tori looked up then, straight at Sammy’s picture.

  “Do you want to?” Lorena’s eyes went to Sammy’s picture too. “You said Sammy had been telling you goodbye in your dreams.”

  “But I can’t tell him goodbye. That wouldn’t be right.”

  “Liking Clay doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten Sammy. I’ll never forget Kenton and my mother. But see, I have this second family here now. You could have a second family with Clay.”

  “Let’s not get carried away. He’s coming to see me, not propose.”

  Lorena raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  Tori gave her a little push. “Go put your shoes on. You can’t go in the woods barefoot.”

  Fern barely nodded at them when they found her at the edge of the woods before she took off down a faint path. They made a funny procession with Fern leading the way in her overalls and a man’s T-shirt she’d probably snatched off somebody’s clothesline. Behind her, Lorena was practically walking on her toes with nervous excitement. Kate and Tori brought up the rear. Fern set a pace that had Tori breathing hard and Kate looking pale.

  After they’d walked a ways, Tori put a hand on Kate’s arm. “You need to rest a minute.”

  Kate leaned against a tree to catch her breath. “I hate feeling so weak. The doctor said it might take a couple of months to get my strength back.”

  “You shouldn’t have come.” Tori waved away a fly. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “We had to. For Lorena.”

  “Well, they can just go the rest of the way without us or wait.”

  Kate looked around. The color was coming back into her cheeks. “I’ve never been in this woods, have you? We left Lindell Woods when we climbed that fence a little ways back.”

  “I stick to walking to ponds with fish in them and I haven’t seen the first pond. Just trees and bugs.” Tori smacked at a mosquito.

  Up ahead, Lorena stopped Fern, who glared at them, but then trailed Lorena back down the faint path.

  “Fern says it’s not much farther.” Lorena motioned toward Fern, who had stopped and folded her arms across her chest. “She says you can rest when we get there.”

  “Kate’s resting here.” Tori looked straight at Fern. “This was too much for her.”

  “I’m all right, Tori,” Kate insisted. “If we can keep up with Fern a little longer, we can take our time coming back.”

  “Not Tori.” Lorena went on in a singsong voice. “She’s got a date.”

  “Clay?” Kate smiled.

  “It’s not a date,” Tori said. “He’s just coming over to the house.”

  “To maybe propose.” Lorena whirled around, her skirt flying out around her.

  “He’s not going to propose.” Tori frowned at Lorena.

  Kate pushed away from the tree and put her arm around Tori. “I’m glad, Tori.”

  “’Bout time,” Fern muttered.

  Tori didn’t know whether Fern meant Clay coming to see her or Kate starting up the path again.

  “He’s not going to propose.” But the more Tori said it, the more it didn’t sound so bad.

  “But he wants to,” Loren
a said.

  Up ahead of them, Fern made an odd sound like a rusty gate hinge.

  Tori looked over toward Kate. “Is she all right?”

  Kate laughed. “Haven’t you ever heard Fern laugh?”

  Lorena looked back at them and laughed too.

  Here they were, following the oddest woman in Rosey Corner, maybe in the state, through a strange woods to look for a grave. On top of that, they were talking about a man Tori had never dated once, proposing marriage to her. And they were laughing. Out loud. Even Fern.

  “We’re all crazy.” A laugh bubbled up inside Tori. Sometimes it felt good to be a little crazy.

  39

  Kate leaned on Tori as she stared at the grave Fern finally pointed out to them. Bushes and brambles edged into the little clearing from the woods, but the grave was covered with soft grass and the four stones Lorena’s father had put there. A good-sized tree grew up from the head of the grave. Fern planted that tree to mark the grave when she found it years ago.

  “How did you know it was a grave?” Kate stared at the little plot that was as neat as any in the church graveyard.

  Lorena knelt beside it and ran her hands over the rocks.

  “Fresh-dug dirt. Not full-size, but child-sized. The rocks,” Fern said. “Didn’t take a genius.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” Tori asked. “The sheriff, maybe.”

  “Rosey Corner doesn’t have a sheriff,” Fern said.

  “Rose County does,” Tori insisted.

  “Wouldn’t have brought the child back to life. It was peaceful for him here.” Fern gave Tori a hard look. “They’d have brought trucks and saws and shovels. Wouldn’t nobody have had peace then.”

  Kate thought about Lorena’s parents laying their son to rest here with such love, and she was glad Fern hadn’t reported it. “So you took care of it all these years, not knowing whose grave it might be?”

  “Found it after the girl came.” Fern nodded toward Lorena. “We took care of her. You and me. Somebody needed to take care of him too.”

  “But you didn’t know it was my brother.” Lorena looked up at Fern. “Did you?”

  “Not right away. Not till I found the tree.”

  “The one you planted?” Lorena asked.

  “The other one.” Fern nodded toward one of the bigger trees. “The one with his name.”

  Lorena stood up and went to the tree. Kate and Tori followed to peer around her at the letters and numbers carved in the trunk. Kenton Birdsong. 1929–1936.

  “It must have taken my father awhile to carve this.” Lorena spread her hand overtop the name. “He did love us.”

  Kate didn’t say anything. What was there to say to the tragedy of losing one child to death and abandoning the other child even if it was for her own good? With the loss of her baby still so fresh, Kate could too easily imagine the grief Lorena’s parents must have felt.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Lorena turned to Fern.

  “Too many bad things happening already. Would have made you sad and Victor would have thought the trucks and shovels had to come.” Fern looked from Lorena to the trees around them.

  “Why did you tell me now then?” Lorena frowned a little.

  “You asked,” Fern said bluntly. “You never asked before.”

  “I couldn’t ask what I didn’t know.”

  “What you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you either. Didn’t want you to hurt. Figured someday you’d find out and then you’d ask.” Fern peered at Lorena with a worried look. “You mad?”

  Lorena stepped across the space between them to hug the woman. “No, Fern. I’m glad you took care of Kenton’s grave. Thank you.”

  “I have a question. Why did you want Tori and me to come? Why not just bring Lorena?”

  “You always ask too many questions.” Fern narrowed her eyes on Kate. “Always trying to explain everything. Hattie said everything can’t be thought out. Some things just are.”

  “What things?” Kate asked.

  “Always a question,” Fern said.

  “So how about an answer?” Kate couldn’t keep from smiling when she heard herself asking another question. Fern surprised her by smiling back, at least as much as Fern ever smiled.

  “Sisters help. When sad times happen. I never had a sister.”

  “You can be our sister too.” Lorena grabbed Fern’s hand.

  “Too old.” But she didn’t pull her hand away from Lorena. “Maybe an aunt like Hattie.”

  “Aunt Fern,” Lorena said.

  Fern blinked her eyes shut and shuddered as if the sound of her name with aunt in front of it hurt her ears.

  “How about Aunt Maia?” Kate said softly. Years ago, Fern had told her that her one true love had called her Maia.

  “Once that might have been, but now Fern like the plant fits.”

  “Thank you, Fern, for bringing us here,” Kate said.

  “That one’s not thanking me.” Fern pointed at Tori. “She don’t want to turn loose.”

  “Turn loose of what, Fern?” Tori asked.

  “Sorrow. Like me. I held it too long. You hold it too long, you’ll be an old woman fishing alone on a pond bank.”

  “I’ve got Samantha,” Tori said.

  “Samantha needs sisters.” Fern looked from Tori to the grave. “Here’s a good place to let go of sorrow.”

  “How?” Tori asked.

  “Hattie would say to pray and turn them loose.” Fern flung her hands out like she was flinging something away.

  “You want me to pray?” Kate remembered another time Fern had asked her to pray.

  “Let that one say the out-loud prayer.” Fern nodded toward Tori as she grabbed Lorena’s hand and reached toward Tori.

  Fern’s hand felt rough as sandpaper when Tori gingerly took hold of it. Kate held Tori’s other hand and they stood in a circle, silent and waiting. Waiting for her to pray. But the Lord didn’t listen to her prayers and it was surely wrong to pretend to pray just to please the ears around her. Then Clay’s simple prayer before he’d gone into the woods to search for Samantha echoed in her head. Prayers had risen unbidden from her heart that day. Prayers the Lord answered when Clay carried Samantha out of the woods to her waiting arms.

  “Dear Lord, thank you for those we loved but lost to heaven.” Tori whispered. She’d bent her head to pray, but now she looked up at the blue sky peeping through the treetops and spoke in a louder voice. “And thank you for those we love who are still with us and those who love us.”

  When she paused to think of what to say next, Fern ended the prayer. “Amen.”

  It was enough. Yet, they stayed where they were, continuing to hold hands, as though waiting for something more to happen.

  All at once, Lorena reached toward the sky, pulling Fern’s and Kate’s hands up with hers. “His name was Kenton Birdsong,” she shouted.

  They all lifted their hands then. A circle of love and prayer. After a moment of silence, Kate said, “His name was Marion Bo Tanner and I loved him.”

  “Her name was Hattie Johnson and she loved me,” Fern said.

  Lorena spoke up again. “Her name was Iris Birdsong and she knew my name.”

  Then it was Tori’s turn. The others kept their eyes on the sky, but they were listening for her words next. She pulled those words straight out of her heart. “His name was Samuel Ray Harper and I will always love him.”

  Fern gave her hand a hard shake. “Let him go.”

  A tear slid out of Tori’s eye and trickled down her cheek. Her voice shook a little as she added, “And I turn him loose.”

  Fern released her hand then, and Tori pulled her other hand free from Kate to hold them both open toward the sky. She shut her eyes and remembered her last sight of Sammy before he left on the train to go overseas. After he kissed her, he had studied her face as if memorizing every inch of it. She’d tried not to cry, but tears had traced paths down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry. Be happy.” He gently wiped awa
y her tears with his fingertips. “I want to remember you happy.”

  That was what he would still want.

  “That’s that,” Fern dropped her hands back to her sides. “Better head back. Be near dark before we get there. That man will be waiting for that one.” She pointed at Tori. “’Bout time.”

  And this time Tori knew she was talking about her and Clay.

  They followed Fern away from the grave, each wrapped in her own thoughts. None of them said much, as though they needed the silence. Tori wondered if the names were running through the others’ heads the way they were hers. Sammy, Hattie, Kenton, Iris, and even a name for Kate’s lost baby, Marion Bo. Tori embraced them all, feeling the sorrow of their loss but at the same time knowing the joy of the love they’d known for them.

  Fern set a slower pace back through the woods. Now and again, she glanced back at Kate and slowed her steps even more. When they reached the old-growth trees, Fern stopped. “You won’t get lost from here.”

  “Come eat supper with us.” Lorena grabbed Fern’s hand. “Mama won’t mind.”

  “Can’t.” She pulled her hand away from Lorena. “Got to feed my cat.”

  “Cat? You got a cat?” Lorena sounded surprised.

  They all stared at Fern, not sure they’d heard her right.

  A corner of Fern’s mouth turned up in an almost smile. “House needed a cat.”

  Then without waiting for them to say more, she headed on through the woods toward that house, picking up her pace now that she didn’t have them to worry about.

  “Bye, Fern,” Lorena called after her.

  Fern threw up a hand and called over her shoulder. “Best get on home. That man will be waiting. ’Bout time.”

  Tori watched her disappear into the trees. “Fern’s full of surprises.”

  “Always,” Kate agreed.

  When they came out of the trees, Clay was waiting at the fence beside Jay. The two men swung over the fence to come across the field. Clay hung back a little, not as sure of his welcome as Jay.