“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Miss Janie frowned.
“I’m here to help Teresa get you into bed. What happened?” Kayla sat down on the floor beside her.
“My legs don’t work no more.” Tears flowed down Miss Janie’s face. “Please don’t take me to one of them homes.”
Teresa eased down on the other side of her and wiped the tears away with a tissue. “We’ll never do that, Mama. Your girls came home to take care of you. We’ll be right here always.”
Kayla slipped an arm around her shoulders. “That’s right, Mama. If your legs don’t work, we’ll get a wheelchair so you can still have breakfast on the back porch some of the time.”
“You are good daughters. Promise me”—she looked from one to the other—“that you will let me die right here in my house when the time comes.”
“We promise,” Teresa and Kayla said at the same time.
“Call the nurse to come get me up and back into bed,” she said.
“How about you let us do that?” Teresa said. “The nurses are all busy right now.”
“I raised two good girls. Where are the babies?” Miss Janie asked.
Lifting a deadweight, even if Miss Janie wasn’t the woman she used to be, wasn’t easy, but they managed to get her into the bed. She wanted the babies brought to her as soon as she was settled.
Kayla retrieved the dolls from their bedrooms and carried them into Miss Janie’s bedroom gently, as if they were real babies. She wondered how much different her life would have been if she’d gotten pregnant the first time she and Denver had sex. She would have a teenage son or daughter herself right about now. The idea of trying to raise a child almost gave her hives, especially if it was a boy who turned out to be like Denver.
“Here they are,” Kayla said as she came into the room.
“Why are you bringing your dolls in here, Kayla? They belong upstairs in the little cradles I had made for them,” Miss Janie scolded. “Did I break a hip? My legs feel funny.”
“No, you didn’t break a hip,” Kayla answered. “I thought you’d like to see that we’ve kept the dolls nice all these years.”
Miss Janie rubbed her shoulder. “Did I fall?”
“No, you slid down into a sitting position, but I can call the doctor if you think I should,” Teresa answered.
“Why would you do that? You’re a nurse,” Miss Janie said.
“That’s right, but to be on the safe side, I’ll give him a quick call.” Teresa took the dolls from Kayla and whispered, “Stay with her until I get back, and then I’ll help you unload all those groceries.”
Kayla sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “Miss Janie, how old are you?”
“It’s not polite to ask a woman her age.” She pouted. “But I’ll be seventeen on my next birthday.”
“And you came to live here when you were sixteen?” Kayla asked.
“Yes, I did. I was terrified at first, but Aunt Ruthie was so nice to me. She didn’t put me down for what I’d done. Where is she? Did she go to town and leave me with you?” Miss Janie asked.
Lord have mercy! Kayla hoped that when her own time came, she died in her right mind. Poor Miss Janie. This had to be a miserable existence.
Teresa motioned for Kayla to join her in the hallway.
Before she left, Kayla patted Miss Janie on the shoulder. “I’ve got to get the groceries into the house before our ice cream melts. I’ll be right back, though.”
Teresa led the way back to the kitchen and turned around at the cabinet. “The doctor says he’s been expecting this and that she won’t be able to walk anymore. She’s ready for a wheelchair now.” She bit back a sob.
“We’ll do what we can. We promised that we’d let her die at home, but the Miss Janie we knew when we were kids is gone already. It’s only a matter of her heart figuring out that it’s time to stop beating,” Kayla said.
“I’ve got so many regrets.” Teresa wiped away a tear and hugged Kayla for the first time ever.
Chapter Eight
This morning is turning into Freaky Friday, Teresa thought. Miss Janie was the child and she had become the parent. In Miss Janie’s jumbled mind, Tuesday was Sunday, and she’d demanded that she get out of bed and go to church.
“I promise it’s Tuesday, and church services are not held on Tuesdays,” Teresa assured her.
Miss Janie crossed her arms over her chest and said, “If I can’t go worship, then I’ll just starve and go see Jesus in heaven.”
“Which Jesus?” Kayla entered the room. “Our Lord and Savior, or my father?”
Miss Janie picked up one of the dolls beside her and threw it at Kayla. “Don’t you claim to be fathered by Jesus. And why do I have your dolls in my bed, anyway? Good God, I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman, and I want to go to church like I’ve done every Sunday since I came here to live with Aunt Ruthie.”
“Your legs aren’t working right now,” Teresa told her. “Maybe next week the medicine the doctor is giving you will help you walk again. Until that happens or we buy a wheelchair, you can’t go to church.”
“Then one of you go and record the service so I can hear it.” Her eyes finally settled on Kayla. “You need it worse, so you go.”
“How am I supposed to record the services when I don’t have a cell phone?” Kayla asked.
“Find one.” Miss Janie tossed the second doll out of the bed and onto the floor. “And put those back where they belong.”
“Miss Janie, how old are you?” Teresa asked.
“I was thirty on my last birthday.” She raised her voice and glared at Teresa. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“Why is it so important that you go to church this morning?” Kayla asked.
Miss Janie’s face softened. “They already had Aunt Ruthie’s funeral, didn’t they? Did I miss it? I promised her on her deathbed I would never miss church, even if I was still mad at God for taking my babies away from me. I never go back on my word. I’ve been in the church here in Birthright every Sunday except when I was sick since I came to live with Aunt Ruthie. When did they bury Aunt Ruthie?”
“You told me that you went to Aunt Ruthie’s funeral. She’s been gone for years,” Kayla said.
“Are you still mad at God?” Teresa asked to distract Miss Janie from the time shift.
“No. I made my peace with Him when Noah found you girls and y’all came home to me. I’m hungry. When are we having breakfast?” Miss Janie asked.
“How about a chocolate cupcake and a glass of milk?” Kayla asked.
Miss Janie giggled. “Don’t you try that on me. You think if you can talk me into eating a cupcake, then you’ll get to do the same. Eat your bacon and eggs first, and then you can have dessert.”
Kayla went to the kitchen to heat up the plate of food. Teresa picked up the two dolls and laid them on the other bed. Kayla’s lips trembled, probably with tears, when she returned to Miss Janie’s still-angry expression. “Why did you blame God for taking your babies?”
“Daddy was a preacher, and Mama was a dutiful Christian wife. At least she was that in public. She was the boss at home,” Miss Janie answered. “If Daddy had been a farmer or maybe even a bartender”—she giggled—“then he and Mama might have given me a choice in what I wanted to do with my babies.”
“That made it God’s fault?” Teresa asked.
“Of course. Didn’t you hear me? Daddy was a preacher. God ruled our lives.” Miss Janie frowned like Teresa was having trouble following the conversation.
Kayla laid a hand on Miss Janie’s arm. “I understand.”
“So do I, now.” Teresa sat down on the edge of Miss Janie’s bed. “Would you like for us to get a bed that you can lower and raise, and maybe a wheelchair so we can go out on the porch every day?”
“That would be nice.” Miss Janie yawned. “I’m sleepy now, so y’all can go. I’ll call you when I need you. I think I’m going to like this new nurse.”
“That’s
good.” Teresa covered Miss Janie’s feet with a crocheted throw.
Teresa poured them each a glass of lemonade when they reached the kitchen. “Have you been to church since you left Birthright?”
“Not one time. Have you? And are you losing your mind, too?”
“Why would you ask a stupid question like that?” Teresa asked.
“You poured lemonade for me. You never did that before.” Kayla grinned.
“You never deserved it before,” Teresa smarted off. “And to answer your question, I have not been to church. Not even when Luis and I got married. He was a practicing Catholic. The only place of worship I’d ever been to was the one here in town with Miss Janie. He told me that the Catholic Church wouldn’t recognize our marriage.”
“That made it easy for him,” Kayla said. “Did you blame God for the parents you got?”
“Yep,” Teresa answered.
“Do you remember when you realized that you’d gotten lousy parents?” Kayla toyed with her glass.
“Second day of kindergarten.” The pain that came with the way she felt when she got to school that day was as fresh as it had been back then. “The other little girls had bows in their hair and cute little outfits. My hair was a tangled mess. I had dressed myself that morning in wrinkled jeans that were a size too big and a shirt that was a size too small. How about you?”
“Oh, I remember, all right, and Christmas always brings the memories to the surface, even though I don’t want to think about that time,” Kayla replied. “God could have sent a good man to marry my mama before I was born instead of my stepdad. He never let me forget that he’d done me and my mama a big favor by marrying her despite her having an ugly kid. I was supposed to be grateful that he provided a home for me and put food in my mouth. The first time he slapped me across the face was when I asked if I could have a new dress for the Christmas program at school. I was in the first grade, and the other girls were talking about what they were going to wear. He told me that I wasn’t better than his kids, and they dressed out of the free church clothes closet. Mama jumped into the battle and told me I should appreciate my daddy because he worked hard for his family.”
Teresa took a sip of her lemonade. “Mama lived with several men, and I heard the same stories. Daddy worked hard and paid the lot rent on the trailer for us that month. ‘Daddy’ was simply whoever she was sleeping with at the time. I was in maybe the third grade when I figured out that I’d had so many daddies that I couldn’t count them all on one hand. A guy came around that summer handing out invitations to Vacation Bible School and told Mama that they’d take me and bring me home in a church bus. That was my first time to go, and that’s when I decided if God really could do anything, then He must hate me a lot.”
“Ever decide that it wasn’t God’s fault?” Kayla asked.
“Workin’ on it,” Teresa answered.
“Me too, but sometimes the goin’ gets slow.” Kayla kept her eyes on what lemonade was left in her cup. “Look at us, acting like we’re in group therapy. Ever go to any of that kind of thing?”
Teresa drank down several gulps of lemonade. Did she really want to share any more? She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “Yes, I did. There was a group therapy in the basement of a church that dealt with cheating and/or abusive spouses. I went a few times.”
“Did it help?” Kayla asked.
“I learned that until I got ready to admit I was an enabler for letting Luis treat me like he did, there weren’t enough sessions in the world that would help me,” Teresa answered.
“You wanted help in dealing with him, not you, right?” Kayla asked.
“Sounds like you went to a few sessions, too,” Teresa said.
Kayla shook her head. “Not me, but one of the girls I worked with did, and she told me about it. She thought if she went to therapy, she could figure out a way to change him. I kept telling her that it wouldn’t work.”
“What happened?” Teresa asked.
“He left her for another woman. Maybe he was kin to Luis,” Kayla replied. “And then she took up with another man as bad or worse than that guy. We are who we are, Teresa, and we have to want to change that a whole lot to ever get through it or around it.”
“How bad do you want to change?” Teresa asked.
“I’ll ask you the same question,” Kayla shot back at her.
“That’s complicated.”
“Damn straight it is.” Kayla did a head wiggle. “Maybe what we need to change is our choices and our circumstances. Think God will be kinder to us if we do that?”
“Well, we’ve got a chance to do both if we stick around here,” Teresa agreed. “Maybe that old saying about God helping folks who help themselves will apply.”
Kayla finished off her lemonade and pushed her chair back. “I’m willin’ to test that theory. I guess there ain’t nowhere to go but up from here.”
“Yep.” Teresa did the same and carried both their glasses to the dishwasher. “Thanks for the therapy session.”
“Thank Miss Janie.” Kayla headed out of the room and then turned around. “She’s the one who brought up the subject and got me to thinking about being mad at God.”
Noah’s truck smelled like coffee, cheese-flavored chips, candy bars, and pastrami sandwiches by Wednesday morning. Quinn McKay hadn’t made so much as a step outside the door of his house. His wife even brought out the trash and took in the paper. Maybe the insurance company had been wrong to think that Quinn was trying to defraud them.
He was on his third bag of chips when Quinn came out of the house on crutches. According to the files that Daniel had sent over, the man had been hit by a car while crossing a street, suffering a fracture to his leg and some kind of pinched nerve in his neck. Noah could see the neck brace from here. Two years ago, Quinn had been stepping off a curb and someone had run over his foot. A year before that, he’d been rear-ended by another vehicle and had suffered severe neck problems. Either he was the unluckiest man alive, or else he’d cried wolf too many times and this last accident was unfortunately legit. Given his history, his problem now was that no one believed him.
For some reason, Noah had thought that the man would be a big fellow, and it turned out he was right. This guy probably made the bathroom scales groan, and he was every bit as tall as Noah, which would put him over six feet. Noah took pictures of him using the crutches to get into his truck. When he drove away, Noah followed him to a convenience store, where he got out without the crutches and filled the gas tank. Then he drove west toward Texarkana.
“Where are you going, Quinn?” Noah asked himself out loud.
He tailed him all the way to the east edge of Texarkana, where the man got out of his truck with no neck brace, slung a bag of golf clubs over his shoulder, and swaggered off to the links. Noah shot pictures of him through the whole process. Then he got out of his own truck and followed the guy onto the course. Quinn met up with a couple of other guys for some good old boy backslaps, and then Quinn McKay, the man who’d been terribly injured by a car, teed off.
Noah sent dozens of photos to Daniel and then called him. He answered on the second ring and said, “You have made an insurance company very happy, and this is enough to give them cause to go after whatever doctor this guy is working with. Job well done.”
“Thanks. You know . . . this might be my last case,” Noah said. “I’ve had a lot of time to really think about what makes me happy. This isn’t it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but what’s this next step gonna be?” Daniel asked.
“I’m thinking about hanging out my shingle in Birthright,” Noah said out loud for the first time.
“You want to practice law in a town of forty people? Are you crazy?” Daniel asked.
“Maybe so, but I can take the cases no one else wants. Word of mouth will get around the area, and I’ll stay as busy as I want to be. With my inheritance, I don’t need the money, so I could do pro bono work for folks,” Noah answered. �
�I can have my practice in Birthright, and I bet clients will come to me from all the neighboring towns, including Sulphur Springs.”
“How many lawyers are already in Sulphur Springs?” Daniel asked.
“Nineteen last time I counted,” Noah chuckled. “But hey, none of them will work for pennies like I will.”
“You’re crazy,” Daniel said.
“You could be right, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about things these past two days,” Noah said.
“Well, good luck, and when you’re starving, holler at me. We’ve always got a place for you in our firm,” Daniel told him.
“That’s good to know, and thanks. Keep in touch. Bye now.” Noah ended the call.
Fulton, Arkansas, wasn’t much bigger than Birthright. There sure wasn’t a hotel in the place, and Noah had needed to be on twenty-four-hour surveillance. He had taken short catnaps and eaten in his car, and only took fast bathroom breaks to the nearest convenience store, located down the block from where Quinn McKay lived.
Noah got into his truck, made a couple of turns, and was soon back on Highway 30 headed west. His mind kept running in circles and coming back to that word defraud. Since they’d arrived at Miss Janie’s house, Teresa and Kayla had been good about helping, and they both had a lot of patience with his great-aunt. But he had to wonder if they were sticking around to see how much of an inheritance Miss Janie would be leaving them.
Miss Janie herself had said many times that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and he’d proven that day that people aren’t always what they seem to be. He was never sure who she meant when she said that, but when he thought of Kayla, he wondered what the tree she fell from might have been like. The social worker had told Miss Janie about her mother abandoning her.
And Teresa? Miss Janie had told him back when she was still lucid that Teresa had been taken from her mother because the woman was unfit. She hadn’t even tried to get Teresa back. About a year after Miss Janie had kept her from going to a group home, the mother left town, and no one had ever heard from or about her again. Noah had thought that maybe he’d find Teresa living with her when he’d started his search, but her mother was living in Bell Gardens, California, and was working as a bartender.
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