Miss Janie’s Girls

by Brown, Carolyn

  As Janie took one last look at the room and waved at Elizabeth, she made a vow that she would march with Greta for women’s rights when she got old enough. She shouldn’t have to leave her babies behind, and she should be able to buy birth control pills if she wanted to have them.

  60 years later

  Chapter One

  Birthright, Texas, population forty, was the only place Noah Jackson had ever truly felt at home, so why was he dreading going back there? He kept time to the country music on his truck’s radio as he fought the Houston traffic. Once he was through town, the drive north would be a piece of cake. In five hours he’d be sitting in his great-aunt’s driveway. By suppertime he should be unpacked and moved into the big two-story house on the east end of the town.

  “Town,” he chuckled. “Birthright can barely be called a community these days.”

  The bumper-to-bumper vehicles finally broke up, and he could drive the speed limit. He’d promised Miss Janie, his great-aunt, two years ago that when she needed him to come stay with her and manage her affairs, he would be there. She was his last living relative, and he owed her that much and more for always having a stable place for him and his parents to land between army bases.

  A week ago, Miss Janie had called him. “It’s time,” she had said. “The doctor told me today that I’ve got cancer in addition to this forgetting disease”—she refused to call it Alzheimer’s—“and it’s not treatable. The cancer is going to cause the other problem to speed up, so I need you to come home, Noah. Please don’t let me die alone in a nursing home.”

  “I’ve just finished a case,” he had told her. “I’ll get things in order here and be there the first of the week. Can you manage until then?”

  “Sam comes by every day,” she answered. “But he won’t let me drive anymore. I forget how to get home even from church. I hate that I have to disrupt your life, darlin’, but I want you here with me”—she paused and took a deep breath—“and I want you to find Teresa and Kayla. You’re a private investigator, so you can do it. I need them here with me.”

  His head had swirled around in circles that day as he’d promised to do his best to find the two girls Miss Janie had fostered more than a decade ago. He had no idea where they might be, since neither had kept in touch with Miss Janie very well. She had mentioned getting a few Christmas cards and a couple of letters from one of them. On her birthday last March, she’d cried because neither of them had come home to see her ever. Noah had wanted to strangle the both of them.

  A loud horn from the vehicle behind him snapped him back to the present. The light had turned green, and he was first in line. He took his foot off the brake, but his mind kept going back to Miss Janie as he drove.

  Two years ago, she’d called him when she was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He’d driven up to see her that weekend, and she had insisted that he start the proceedings to put her affairs in order. Now he had power of attorney and was the executor of her will. For the past year, he’d paid her bills because she couldn’t remember if or when she had taken care of them.

  That was the day she’d told him about the babies she had given birth to back when she was sixteen. He had wanted to do more than strangle his great-grandparents for the way they had treated his sweet great-aunt. Once he’d done some research, though, he found out that it was not an isolated case. Women who were under eighteen had to abide by their parents’ decisions concerning their rights to keep a baby, or babies, as had been the case for Miss Janie. Her parents, Arnold and Ethel, had made her give the babies up for adoption and had then parked her in Birthright, Texas, with an old-maid aunt.

  “I wanted to keep them so badly.” Miss Janie had wept into a lace-edged hanky when she told him about them. “Aunt Ruthie told me later that she even offered to help me raise them, but Mama said I’d shamed the family name. We weren’t supposed to ever talk about it, but Aunt Ruthie and I did, and we celebrated their birthday every year.”

  Just thinking about how distraught she’d been even after so many years put a tear in Noah’s eye. If his father, General Adam Jackson, had been alive, he would have told him for the hundredth time that he was soft—that he should have joined the army so they could make a man out of him.

  Even though Noah had finished law school, landed a job in a big Houston firm, and had been very successful for the next two years, “the General,” as Noah called him, had died a disappointed man. His only child had not followed in his footsteps, or his grandfather Luther’s for that matter.

  The General would have been even more disappointed if he’d been alive when Noah gave up his position in the law firm and went to work with his friend Daniel as a private investigator. The old man probably would’ve turned over in his grave if he’d known that Noah was having doubts about staying with that job and was glad to have a few months in Birthright to decide what to do with his life.

  “You can shoulder part of the blame for this,” Noah whispered as he passed the sign welcoming him to Fairfield, Texas, population 2,951. “You were rooted in the army, but the only roots you gave me was Miss Janie’s place. In my mind, that was going home. I’ve had wings but no roots, Dad. At thirty-one, I’m ready to stop chasing my passion and settle down to it.”

  You will join the army when you finish college. His father’s last words when he and Noah’s mother left him at the university came back to haunt him. Maybe if he had done what the General wanted him to do, he would have put down roots in the army and this feeling of dread wouldn’t be getting heavier with every mile.

  He pretended he was in court and had to defend the feeling in his heart. The dread was not because he was going back to Birthright, but it had to do with the fact he would be watching the only living relative he had left die by degrees. She might not even know him by the time she’d drawn her last breath. That was the sorry culprit taking away his happiness over going home.

  You always were too soft for your own good. The General’s words popped into his head again. I’ve been gone too much to make a man out of you, but the army will take care of that, and then I can be proud of you.

  “The only person ever proud of me was Miss Janie,” he muttered. “She came to my college graduation, encouraged me to get my law degree, stood by me through bad times as well as the good ones. She’s told me more than once to follow my dreams, even if they changed by the week.”

  The chains holding back his happiness began to loosen as he got closer to Birthright, and by the time he’d pulled into the driveway, he was whistling. Miss Janie was sitting on the porch swing, and she got up, shuffled over to the top of the stairs, and held out her arms for a hug.

  Noah was home.

  He walked into her arms, and peace filled his whole being when she hugged him. No matter what happened in the next few months, he could face it, because this was where he belonged.

  “I’m so glad you are home. I can rest easy now,” she said. “Your first job is to find Teresa and Kayla. I need to see them before I die.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Noah promised, but he sure didn’t look forward to bringing Miss Janie’s two foster daughters back into the house after the way they had left and never even returned for a short visit.

  “I have faith in you.” She rolled up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

  Yawning as she left a patient’s room, Teresa Mendoza started down the hall to make sure Opal Cunningham hadn’t kicked her covers off. The poor old dear’s feet got cold in the night, so Teresa always looked in on her right before she clocked out.

  She would be off from the nursing home for two whole days, stuck in her boring, tiny one-bedroom apartment unless they called her to work overtime—better to take any shift they offered her.

  She had reached the end of the hallway and was in the lobby when she heard someone knocking on the glass entry door. When she turned around to see who in the world wanted to come visit patients at almost eleven o’clock at night, she froze. Exhaustion had her seeing things. That co
uld not be Noah Jackson.

  Evidently, he knew she was staring at him because he kept pointing at the door. She blinked several times and then rubbed her eyes, but he didn’t disappear. He had grown from a lanky boy into a tall, broad-shouldered man with the same piercing blue eyes and jet-black hair. She felt like she was in one of those dreams that move in slow motion as she crossed the floor and punched in the code so he could come in out of the hot Texas air.

  “Teresa, I found you.” He grinned.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice sounded flat even to her own ears. “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I need you to come back to Birthright and work for me,” he answered.

  “Doing what? Working at the huge hospital or the fancy nursing home?” she smarted off.

  Birthright had been nothing more than a rural community when she’d lived there with Miss Janie Jackson. The town couldn’t have grown enough that there was a place for her to work there.

  “Miss Janie is dying,” he said. “I need someone to live with us and help me take care of her.”

  Her heart went out to her foster mother but going back would mean returning to the pain of being an outcast who seemed to have no place in any world. Being a foster kid set her apart from the rich kids for sure. Coming from the background that she had before Miss Janie took her in, she wasn’t accepted by the middle-class kids, either. Although she loved Miss Janie and appreciated her for taking her in and giving her a decent home, that couldn’t make up for the feelings of rejection she associated with that area of Texas.

  “I have a job. Hire someone else.”

  His big blue eyes bored into her brown ones without blinking. He wore his hair shaggier these days and kept a little scruff on his face. Apparently, he had not gone into the military like his dad had expected him to do.

  “I don’t want anyone else,” he said. “Miss Janie wants her girls to come home, to be with her these last days. I’ve spent a lot of money and resources tracking you down. You could have at least put a return address on those damn Christmas cards.”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked. “The government stopped paying her when I had my eighteenth birthday. And I’m not responsible for what money you’ve spent. That’s on you, not me. Tell Miss Janie hello for me.” That she didn’t want Miss Janie to be disappointed in her decisions wasn’t any of his business.

  “You can take care of strangers but not the woman who gave you a fit place to live?” he asked.

  There it was. He’d finally played the you-owe-her foster card. She clamped her jaw shut so tightly that it ached, but at least she wasn’t spewing out a line of swear words so hot that they would set the lobby on fire.

  “And what happens when she’s gone? I might not be able to get this job back,” she said through clenched teeth. “Did you think of that?”

  “Why are you so angry?” Noah asked.

  “Have you forgotten about the screened porch at Miss Janie’s house?” she threw back at him.

  “I’m sorry about that, Teresa. I really did like you, and”—he stumbled over the words—“it was only a few stolen kisses, but if my mama or my father had found out, they would have killed me. You know my parents . . . the General . . . they would have thought making out with you at Miss Janie’s house was disrespectful of her hospitality.”

  He blinked and looked down at his hands. “I need help, and Miss Janie wants you girls to come home. She cries for you and Kayla and asks me every single day if I’ve found you. I’ll pay you twice as much as you make here, plus you’ll have room and board and only have to take care of one patient.”

  For any other person she might have jumped on the offer, but this was Noah, the boy she’d fallen in love with at fourteen and had never really gotten over.

  “How long has she been sick?” she asked.

  “A couple of years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The disease has been taking over pretty fast, but until last June she was able to manage with a little help from her neighbor Sam. She said she was fine, but then Sam called to say she was forgetting how to get home from the grocery store and even church. I talked to her doctor and decided it was time for me to come take care of her.” Noah’s voice cracked toward the end of the explanation.

  “Did she really ask for me?” Teresa asked.

  “She keeps begging for her girls to come home,” Noah answered. “When I found out you were a nurse’s aide, I figured that it would take care of two things. She would be pleased that one of her girls came home, and she knows you so she wouldn’t mind you helping her.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Kayla?” Teresa asked.

  Kayla was a year younger than Teresa. Kayla had been a wild card from the beginning, and when Teresa left, Kayla still had a year to go before the government tossed her out into the harsh world.

  “I can’t find her, and chances are that she doesn’t have the training you do,” Noah answered. “I’ve got to get back. Sam is staying with Miss Janie, and I told him I’d be back by daybreak. Here’s my card—the house phone number is written on the back in case you’ve forgotten it. Just think about it. If you don’t show up by the end of the week, I’ll start looking for full-time help somewhere else.” He started for the door.

  “Six, seven, eight, nine,” she called out.

  He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “What does that mean?”

  “That’s the code to open the door.”

  He chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “That would be the first thing most folks would punch in.” He hit the right buttons and disappeared out into the night.

  Teresa turned and started toward the office and tossed the card in the trash can on the way. She punched out, picked up her tote bag full of empty supper containers, and headed back across the lobby on her way out to her truck. Stopping in her tracks, she stared at the trash can for several seconds. Her heart told her to at least pick up the card and take it with her, but she had vowed she would never let her heart make decisions for her again. Besides, she hadn’t been back to see Miss Janie since she’d left all those years ago. Miss Janie would know that she’d failed—both when she quit college and when she had married Luis. When she reached the door, she punched in the code and made it all the way to her vehicle, tossed her tote bag on the threadbare passenger’s seat, and drove home.

  She stripped out of her scrubs, took a long, hot shower, and put on a faded nightshirt. Normally, she went right to sleep when she crawled into bed, but this wasn’t an ordinary night. For the first time in over sixteen years, she’d seen Noah Jackson again. She’d thought when she’d married Luis that she was over that little teenage crush, but evidently not, because merely being in his presence had created the same heat that those few forbidden kisses had caused.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hasty in throwing away the card. He had offered her a lot of money to come back to Birthright, and if she was honest with herself, she owed Miss Janie more than a few months of care. If guilt had a color, it would be black, and if it could be weighed, it would be heavier than a full-grown elephant. The feeling bore down on her so hard that she could barely breathe.

  Miss Janie had been there when she’d needed someone, and now the sweet old lady needed help. That Noah would be in the same house didn’t matter. Those few stolen kisses had happened years ago, and it was time she stopped thinking about them.

  “Dammit!” She sat up and pounded the lumps from her pillow, throwing herself backward once done. Dark clouds floating back and forth over the quarter moon created shifting patterns on the ceiling and the walls of her tiny bedroom. That alone seemed like an omen, telling her that even though she’d been through a divorce a year before, there was light in the darkness.

  “But is going back to Birthright the clouds or the light?” she whispered.

  Never know until you try, the pesky voice in her head told her.

  At three thirty, she slung her legs over the si
de of the bed and stood up. She found a pair of pajama pants in the clean laundry basket and put them on. Then she went out into the darkness, padded down the steps of her garage apartment in her bare feet, and got back into her truck.

  Thank goodness no one was in the home’s lobby, and the code wouldn’t be changed until the seven o’clock shift came to work. She pushed the right buttons, found the card in the trash can, and tucked it into the pocket of her nightshirt.

  When she got back home, she laid the card beside her cell phone and went back to bed. She closed her eyes and crashed almost at once. She awoke at noon and reached for her phone to see if she had been offered an extra shift, but there were no messages. She would have rather worked a double shift that day to give her something to occupy her mind, but oh, no, the fickle finger of fate had to point right at the card on her nightstand.

  There will be no peace until you do this. That voice in her head was back.

  She turned the card over and called the number. When Noah answered, she said, “I’ll be there Saturday afternoon,” and then hung up before he could say anything. She didn’t need his thanks, or even twice what she was making. She just needed a lot less guilt about not making a bigger effort to visit or call Miss Janie and a lot more peace in her heart, and once her decision was made and she’d given her word, she had both.

  The day started off well, and there didn’t seem to be many good days anymore. At least not since Noah had moved into the big old rambling two-story house with Miss Janie. Ever since the doctor discovered that she had a rare form of bone cancer a few months ago, the dementia seemed to be on a fast track.

  Thank God Teresa had said she’d come back to Birthright and help. At least he hoped that her terse phone call had been serious and that she really was going to show up that day. Once he had her number, he’d tried to call her back a couple of times, but she hadn’t answered.