The Lullaby Sky

by Carolyn Brown

  Hannah nodded. “It’s okay. Your father isn’t ever coming back here again, so we don’t have to worry about him getting angry. So bounce away, because this bed will be gone in an hour.”

  Sophie bent her knees and jumped several times before she fell backward on the bed. “I didn’t think you meant it when you said you were fixin’ the room all over. Why isn’t he comin’ back?”

  “Because we got a divorce and he let us have a new name, remember?” Hannah answered.

  “What’s a divorce?” Sophie asked.

  “It’s when a man and his wife decide they can’t live together anymore.” Hannah struggled to keep it as simple as possible.

  “And the judge in the court signs a paper and they aren’t married anymore,” Darcy said to help her out.

  “Then I like a divorce. Can that be our word for today?” She pointed toward the air-conditioning vent at the top of the wall. “What is that, Mama?”

  “It’s where the cold air comes out in the summertime and the warm air comes out in the winter,” Hannah said.

  Sophie continued to point. “No, not that. You got a spider eye, too. I wonder if there’s one at Aunt Birdie’s house.”

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  “Lie down right here with me and you can see it. It’s little bitty and it’s red like a little spider eye.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d found a spider eye in your ceiling?” Hannah asked. Who knew when the exterminator could get out here?

  “I thought it was like the thing in the living room that you turn on to get cold air or hot air. Or”—Sophie giggled—“it was really like Charlotte in the book you read to me. Oh, I forgot to tell Nadine about Charlotte and her web. I got to go tell her.” Sophie bounded off the bed and down the hall.

  Darcy followed her and returned with a kitchen chair and a dinner knife. “If that’s what I think it is, Marty should be shot.”

  Hannah covered her face with her hands. “Please tell me it’s insects and not a camera. I feel violated even though . . . oh . . . my . . . God.” She felt the fire glowing in her cheeks. He’d filmed the abuse so he could watch it over and over again.

  Darcy crawled up on the chair and undid the screws. “It’s a nanny cam. Why would he do this?”

  Hannah went straight to the third step in the grief cycle that she’d read about concerning divorcing an abusive husband. Anger, as hot as a Texas wildfire, raged from her toes to the ends of her jet-black hair. “Hand it down to me, Darcy. And let’s go see how many more are in the house.”

  “I’ll take it to the bank with me on Monday and put everything we find in my safe deposit box. You’re already listed as the only other person who can open it if something happens to me, so if you ever need them for proof of anything . . .” She paused and handed the tiny camera down to Hannah. “I promise I won’t look at what’s on there. Since he hasn’t been home in months, it’s probably run out anyway. Besides, if there’s footage of him hitting you, I’d be tempted to kill the bastard.”

  There was one in Sophie’s bedroom and one in the living room aimed right at his recliner. None in the kitchen or the bathroom.

  “I guess he was only making sure his possessions were where he could check up on them,” Darcy said through clenched teeth.

  Hannah immediately began checking under lamps and in the corners of the cabinets. “What if he’s bugged other places in the house?”

  Darcy slipped all three cameras into a zippered compartment of her suitcase. “I’ll help you. Mostly those things are hidden and they have a live feed into something . . . and here’s a little something different.” She’d removed the back of the telephone, and there another electronic device blinked away. She held it up to her mouth and whispered, “Hello, Marty! This is Darcy and we have your nanny cams. I’d say that they have enough evidence on them that you’d best keep your sorry ass in Dallas, or else there’ll be a stink attached to the Ellis name that folks will smell all across the country.”

  The blinking light went off immediately.

  “Now, it’s just a matter of finding the rest of them. Probably one in each room,” Darcy said as she unzipped the suitcase and added the little thing, along with its spindly wires, to the stash.

  “Here’s the second one.” Hannah found one in the kitchen phone.

  “Did you have a phone in the bedroom?”

  Hannah nodded. “He insisted on one in Sophie’s room and in all the bedrooms upstairs, supposedly to be there when his parents came to visit, which they never did. The only place there isn’t one is in the master bathroom.” Hannah shivered from her head to her toes. “I’m buying new phones tomorrow and having my number changed on Monday. And a new cell phone, too,” she said. “Oh, Darcy, what would have happened if I’d ever talked about him in this house?”

  “The good Lord was protecting you for sure.”

  “I was so embarrassed that I’d let myself fall into that hornet’s nest. The only people that knew nearly everything were Aunt Birdie and my mama. Thank God, I always talked to Mama at her house and not this one,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you call her from here?” Darcy asked.

  “When Liz and I shared an apartment in Gainesville, I always talked to Mama on Monday night right after supper. It was our time, and we enjoyed catching up on everything then. After Marty and I married and I moved back here, it was just easier to call Mama over at Aunt Birdie’s. She held the baby and let me have an hour to visit. Then it got to be habit, I guess. I’m convinced today that it was guardian angels watching over me. I said things to her that if Marty had heard, he would have killed me for telling anyone,” Hannah answered.

  “Thank God that you never had an affair or we’d have never found your body. This is horrible, Hannah.”

  “What’s horrible?” Travis asked as he and Sophie came into the room from the front porch. “Trailer is ready. What goes first? Sorry I took so long, but with what all y’all have to move out of here I decided to bring the work truck.”

  “That recliner, table, and lamp.” Hannah pointed.

  “I bet the shelter will be glad to get it even if Marty’s sorry old ass has sat in it. We’ll tell them to wipe it down with bleach before they let anyone else use it.” Darcy winked at Travis and mouthed, “Later.”

  Hannah eased down onto the sofa. Would it ever be completely over and done with? She wanted to be angry, to recapture that moment when it had washed over her in the bedroom when she’d discovered the nanny cam. But all she felt was disgust and emptiness.

  Travis sat down beside her. “You okay?”

  “I will be, and getting rid of all this stuff will help tremendously.”

  He jumped up and nodded. “Then let’s get this crap out of here. We’ll slide this dolly right up under the back side of the chair, rope it down, and roll it right out there onto the trailer, then up into the truck bed,” Travis said as he worked. “Table and lamp will fit into the backseat along with those garbage bags. Is the dresser ready to go after that?”

  “Yes, it is. Just tell us what to do to help. Lord, I wish I could do more for women who are still suffering like I did,” she said.

  You can. The voice in her head sounded a lot like her grandmother’s. There are four bedrooms upstairs that will be sitting empty. Use them to help those women. Call the shelter and offer your services.

  Hannah picked up her cell phone and then threw it back down on the sofa. “I need to make a phone call.”

  Darcy put a finger to her lips and whispered. “Just to be on the safe side, I’d take it out to the yard.”

  Hannah carried it out into the middle of the road separating her house and Aunt Birdie’s and called the phone number to the Patchwork House.

  “Hello,” Gina answered.

  “This is Hannah O’Malley again. I have four bedrooms upstairs that I would like to offer to you to use if you run out of room, or however else you’d like to use them. Overnight. Hideaways for abused women. I want to he
lp other women who are going through what I did. I will convert one into a living room for my guests so that they won’t feel so cooped up, because I do know they aren’t supposed to be outside a lot when they are in a shelter,” Hannah said.

  “There would need to be home visits, and we’d have to do paperwork to vet you, since we get state aid.”

  “Then get it started. I have a good friend and neighbor who would be glad to serve as a bodyguard when there are guests in my house.”

  “Thank you, Hannah. This idea could be therapeutic for you and for the women. But even a bodyguard wouldn’t keep the women from being at risk. Let’s give it a few days, and I’ll come over to your place and we’ll talk about it then.”

  Hannah sat down on the grass and stared up at the big, round moon, hanging in the sky like a queen surrounded by her subjects. “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” she hummed.

  “Everything all right? I got worried about you.” Darcy extended a hand toward Hannah.

  Hannah patted the grass beside her. “Sit down and hear me out. I’ve made up my mind what I want to do. I’m offering my place as a safe house for abused women. I’ve talked to the lady at the shelter about it. Not on a long-term basis, but only when Gina’s is full and she needs help, or when she needs to put someone in a secret place for a few days. But first there’s paperwork and interviews and things.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus! Do you realize what you are doing? Bringing those kind of women in here will bring all the ugly right back into your life with every one. You need to forget it, not bring it home for dinner,” Darcy said.

  “What are you two fighting about?” Travis sat down beside Hannah.

  “We are not fighting,” Hannah said.

  “Darcy’s tone says otherwise.”

  Darcy shrugged. “She wants to turn this place into a safe house for abused women. Tell her not to do it, Travis.”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, but when you have women living here, I will be staying in one of the bedrooms as a bodyguard,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Hannah smiled. “I kind of volunteered you already.”

  “What about Sophie? You know that your guests will have to be snuck inside the house and not leave until someone comes to get them. And Sophie will tell everyone in church that she’s got friends living with her,” Darcy argued.

  “Sophie has so many imaginary friends that no one will think twice when she tells them about new ones,” Hannah answered. “Are you with me or against me?”

  “With you, all the way.” Darcy nodded with a degree of hesitation. “I don’t think it will help you, but if it’s what you want to do, you’ve got my support. Now, we’ve got work to do.”

  Sophie rounded the side of the house and threw herself down in Travis’s lap. “Work? I can help. Nadine had to go home and it’s starting to get dark.” She jumped up and laid a hand on her tummy. “I’m getting hungry, Mama. What’s for supper?”

  Travis led the way back into the house. “Aunt Birdie made a pot of potato soup, and she said when y’all got to a stopping place to come on over and help her eat up the leftovers.”

  “Let’s get all this stuff that we don’t want anymore out of the house, and then we’ll take a break and eat before we start painting. Think you can wait that long?” Darcy asked.

  Sophie nodded. “If you give me a job to do.”

  “Could you sort through what I tossed on the sofa and put my socks in one pile, my pajamas in a pile, and . . .”

  Sophie held up a hand. “I can do that, Mama. I’ll get three laundry baskets from the ’tility room and put your stuff in them.” Like always, she took off in a dead run from the bedroom, down the foyer, and into the living room.

  “We’ll get through this,” Darcy said.

  “I’m so grateful that I have y’all to help me,” Hannah whispered. “And Travis, I’m going with you to the shelter. I want to talk to Gina again, even if it’s only for a few minutes. My mind is made up and I really want to do this.”

  He hugged her, drawing her close to his side. “Then it’s what you should do.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sunlight streamed into the room through the sparkling-clean windows, waking Hannah with its warmth. She stretched, working the kinks from lifting and painting out of her back and neck. There was a whole new, empty room waiting for furniture downstairs. It was painted a soft blue, and no doubt the sun was pouring through those windows also.

  She’d even taken down the blinds and drapes and taken them to the shelter. While Travis loaded them, she’d popped open another garbage bag and filled it with six sets of king-size satin sheets along with the comforter, the pillows, and the throw pillows. Then at the last minute she decided she didn’t want the pale-gray carpet, either, so Travis yanked it up, rolled it into a long tube and loaded it on the trailer also.

  She sat up in bed and drew her knees up so she could wrap her arms around them. “I love the way that paint transformed the room from cold to warm.”

  When she redid the rest of the house, she would use a Texas bluebonnet theme in one of the guest rooms and maybe a morning glory theme in another. Her house would have a calm, soft effect on the abused women and kids who visited. Gina would let her do this, she was sure of it. There weren’t many places in a small, secluded town like Crossing that would be as perfect as Hannah’s.

  “And I’m going to get out the sewing machine and make valances for the rooms, throw pillows for the beds and for the new living room. Travis can take the bedroom furniture in that room to the shelter, and I’ll buy a small sofa that could be let out into a bed if necessary and put a television in there.” She made plans out loud as they came to mind. “I can see one room in gingham checks,” she murmured. “And another in wildflowers.”

  The aroma of coffee wafted across the room, and her chest tightened. It was Saturday. Marty was home, and he’d be furious that she’d slept in. He liked his coffee made with the french press and his breakfast on the table promptly at seven o’clock. She glanced at the clock beside her bed. Seven fifteen. Adrenaline rushed through her body as she threw back the covers. And then she reminded herself that Marty was not in Crossing.

  “Good morning!” Travis said. “I brought you a cup of coffee. Figured you might need it after that late night we all put in.”

  Her eyes darted around the room and finally settled on him in the landing right outside her open bedroom door. “Thank you. How long have you been here?”

  He handed her the mug, his warm skin brushing hers, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Long enough to locate the extra key under that flowerpot with dead plants on the back porch and make coffee. You really have to start hiding that better.”

  His brown hair looked like it had been combed with his fingertips that morning, with one strand resting on the thin metal nosepiece of his wire-rimmed glasses. His grin shone genuine and sweet beneath his summer sky-blue eyes.

  “Tell you what. You keep that key, and if I ever lock myself out, I’ll come and find you,” she said.

  “Sounds like a solid plan to me.” He nodded. “I’ll put it on my key ring and keep it safe.”

  She straightened her legs and scooted to one side so that she could prop her back on the wall. Hannah could hear every movement—from the squeak of the bed across the hall where Darcy was sleeping to the sound of a lonesome cricket singing a solo somewhere in the downstairs bathroom. She’d learned to be very aware of her surroundings and Marty’s body language through the years. Turning it off wasn’t as easy as flipping a light switch. So how in the hell had Travis sneaked into her house, made coffee, come up those stairs—especially the noisy one three up from the bottom—and gotten into her room without her knowing it?

  “The whole house smells fresh and new,” Travis said.

  That was the answer. The paint smell in the house had thrown off her other senses, including the instinct that told her when someone was near.

  “I love it.” She sipped the coffee.

/>   “How’d you sleep last night?” Travis asked. “Sore this morning from all that work?”

  “Yes, I am, but I have a pretty new room for all the aches and pains. And I never sleep past six and here it is after seven, if that answers your question. How about you?”

  He reached over and touched her on the foot. “I feel better and sleep better knowing this is over for you.”

  “Y’all keep telling me it’s over. Why don’t I feel like it is, Travis?” she asked.

  “This is your first weekend as a single parent. Ten weekends from now won’t be as tough.”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  He set his coffee cup on the floor, raised his right hand, and placed the left one on an imaginary book. “I do hereby swear that each week will be easier than the last one. In six months you won’t even remember these tough times. Hallelujah. Amen. Praise the Lord.”

  “You better move to the other side of the room, Travis Johnson. When that lightning bolt shoots though the window and zaps you dead for blaspheming, I don’t want to be too close.” She giggled.

  “I’ll die a happy man, because I saw a twinkle in your eye for the first time in a long time.” He grinned. “I like the new room a lot, Hannah.”

  “I was sitting here thinking that I might paint every room in the house just like it and do all the woodwork in white.”

  “It will be like a sky full of fluffy white clouds. Sophie will love it.” His grin widened.

  “That’s a phase with her. It’ll fade when something new comes along. At least I’m not painting all the walls like that patchwork quilt she drags around with her. Now that I’ve decided to do this, I’m getting so excited about it.”

  Travis chuckled. “I’m so glad to see you happy, Hannah. But you better whisper about that quilt idea, because if she hears you say that in your sleep, she’ll want her room to be done in a patchwork design. And remember, darlin’, this cloud phase has lasted more than a year. She made me lie in the grass last summer when she called them ‘crowds’ instead of clouds. So we might have a few more years of guessing what the clouds are before she outgrows her love for her lullaby sky.” He hesitated, but the silence in the room felt comfortable between them. “I bet when she’s a grown woman with kids of her own, she takes them out to look at the clouds whenever they get a boo-boo. It’s ingrained in her. It’s her safety net.”