Roots of Wood and Stone

by Amanda Wen

  “But you were there. And she knew you were.” Lauren’s blue eyes grew bright with tears. “Grandma forgot me yesterday. I know, she calls me Barb a lot, but she did that even before she got sick. Yesterday, though, she looked at me like she’d never seen me before. It’s better today, but …”

  Her words were a kick to the gut. Things were worse than he’d thought.

  “She’s slipping away.” Lauren swiped at a tear. “And you’re missing it. And one day you’ll regret it, like I do with Mom. So go. Take her a snack. Stop doing things for her, and be with her. Just for a little while.”

  As usual, Lauren had him nailed to the wall. He was always running around. Doing. And it wasn’t wrong, because things needed to be done. But there was a selfish reason for it too.

  If he stopped, the pain would catch up with him.

  Garrett picked up the tray, dread coiling in his gut like when he was a little kid about to get a shot at the pediatrician. “It’s gonna hurt, Lo.”

  “I know.” Lauren offered a sad smile. “But do it anyway. You’ll be glad you did.”

  The tray seemed to triple in weight as he took it into the living room, where Grandma sat in her favorite chair. She looked his way, and the crepey skin of her face fanned into a thousand crinkles, each with its own story to tell.

  Stories that were disappearing from her memory, one by precious one.

  “Orrin. What a nice surprise.”

  “Hey, Gr—Rosie.” He set the tray on the coffee table and settled into the matching armchair. Grandpa’s chair.

  “When did you come home?” She took the coffee from his outstretched hand. “I didn’t think you got off work until five.”

  “It’s Saturday, sweetheart. Remember?” He bit into a turnover, hot and juicy. Maybe it was healthy, but it was so delicious he didn’t care.

  “Oh. Right.” She looked vaguely disoriented, then smiled again. “In that case, you’d best get to practicing.”

  He frowned. “Practicing?”

  “For church tomorrow.” She nodded toward the dusty piano in the corner with an expression of mild reproach. “I haven’t heard you play in so long.”

  Garrett’s mind raced. Grandpa never played piano. The man was completely tone-deaf.

  But Garrett wasn’t. And during his weekends on the farm, he’d routinely been called on to play a hymn or two for his grandparents’ church. They had a regular organist and pianist, of course, but the aged congregation always loved offertory specials from Orrin and Rosie’s grandson.

  And that she remembered.

  “You’re right. You haven’t.” The last time he played for anyone was at that same little church. Mom’s funeral.

  He’d scarcely touched a keyboard since.

  “What are you waiting for then? Go tickle those ivories.”

  Garrett looked down at his hands as though they belonged to someone else. “I’m a little rusty.”

  “Nonsense. You could play those old hymns in your sleep.” She smiled fondly. “It’s been ages since I’ve heard a good hymn.”

  His heart sank. Lauren faithfully took Grandma to church each Sunday. Their old one had closed, but another nearby still held a traditional service, featuring the hymns Grandma loved. He’d gone with them just last week.

  But that she didn’t remember.

  “I’ll take a look.” A mess of conflicting emotions, Garrett crossed the room, peeked into the piano bench, and there it was. The old green hymnal. Sticky notes marked the hymns his mother had selected for her service. He could still see her clearly, lying on the couch, a scarf covering her hairless head, the summer sunshine giving her emaciated face an ethereal glow. A smile curving her lips as he played.

  The lump in his throat reaching softball size, he sat on the creaky bench and set the hymnal on the music rack. It fell open to “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” a longtime family favorite and the first hymn Mom had requested.

  It was almost like she was there.

  Blowing out a shaky breath and blinking tears from his eyes, he set his fingers on the smooth, firm keys.

  His playing was clunky at first, with more sour notes than he’d ever have liked to admit. But by the second verse, the cobwebs had dissipated. His fingers fell back into the dance he’d spent years training them to do.

  And then a thin, warbly soprano joined in:

  Join with all nature in manifold witness

  To thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

  Garrett glanced over his shoulder. His grandmother’s eyes were closed, her lashes shiny with tears. She wasn’t reading the music or looking at a song sheet. These words, this music, were locked deep in her mind.

  No. Not her mind.

  Her heart.

  That was why they hadn’t disappeared.

  A surge of gratitude overwhelming his usual self-consciousness, he lifted his voice to join with hers:

  All I have needed thy hand hath provided—

  Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

  January 30, 1881

  A strong puff of steam and an even stronger fragrance slapped Annabelle’s face as she uncovered the pot and gave the stew a final stir. Glancing up, she peered through the snowstorm outside to catch a glimpse of Jack and Oliver, choring in the frozen barn. She was determined to have a hot, delicious meal ready when they returned.

  But her other three children had not made that an easy task. Six-year-old Thomas sprawled near the fireplace, nose still red and chafed from a recent illness, stockinged feet hitting the rug with slow, rhythmic thumps. Gray eyes, a gift from his father, scanned the book before him, but the angry slap of each page turn indicated he was still displeased with her decision to keep him inside and away from his usual place beside Oliver and his pa.

  His attitude needed correction, but this latest battle of wills with her headstrong son left her too exhausted to do anything but allow for a silent, if uneasy, truce.

  “Ma-ma?” A chubby, dimpled hand tugged at Annabelle’s skirt.

  “Mary, not so close to the stove.” Annabelle stepped around her sixteen-month-old on the way to the shelf for a stack of bowls.

  “Mama?” Another childish request, this in the more fluent speech of four-year-old Caroline. “Where’s Abigail?”

  “Ma-ma?” Tiny fists grabbed Annabelle’s skirt again.

  “In a moment, little one.” Annabelle ladled the pungent stew into a bowl. “Caroline, I haven’t seen your doll. Where did you play with her last?”

  “Ma-ma up.” With a mighty yank, Mary pulled herself to standing, knocking Annabelle off-balance and nearly causing her to slop steaming stew onto the toddler’s golden curls.

  “Mary, please.”

  Mary’s wail rent the air of the cabin, and Annabelle almost tripped over a child once more. Caroline, this time, chestnut braids dangling as she searched for her beloved doll.

  Biting back her frustration, Annabelle set the dishes on the table and bent to pick up her youngest, wincing at the pressure against heavy, aching breasts. “Thomas, would you please help Caroline find Abigail?”

  The petulant boy looked up, eyes sparking protest.

  “Now, Thomas.” The sharp retort flashed fear across the boy’s face, while Mary wailed all the more. Her final nerve dangerously frayed, Annabelle plopped the child into her chair and handed her a slice of fresh bread, then glanced at Thomas, who—thank the Lord—was trotting off toward the bedroom he shared with his siblings, Caroline at his heels.

  With a weary sigh that puffed up escaped tendrils of hair, Annabelle turned back to the stove. When had this house gotten so small?

  She corrected herself at once. It was a true blessing to have a house of any kind, let alone one that had been built onto time and again by a hardworking husband. It was warm and dry, filled with laughter and love. Yet on days like today, when Thomas was in a mood and Caroline and Mary begged for attention and the weather was such that she couldn’t send them all outside, having her offspring confined in such a
small space was enough to drive her mad.

  Well. It wasn’t the small space or the weather driving her mad. Not entirely.

  It was the same thing that made her breasts ache. Her stomach roil at the scent of the coffee she poured into Jack’s mug. Her eyes pool with tears at the slightest provocation.

  It was a good reason, the best possible reason.

  Despite her exhaustion, her frustration, she felt a wave of love for the little life growing inside her. Her dresses were already tight around the waist, though she doubted anyone else noticed. Jack certainly hadn’t, but he’d been so busy lately, that didn’t come as a surprise.

  This would, though. And she could hardly wait to tell him.

  The door burst open, ushering in a gust of wind and puff of swirling snow along with Jack and Oliver. Mary looked up from her bread and squealed in delight, while a beaming Thomas and Caroline barreled in from the bedroom, Caroline clutching her long-lost doll.

  A broad smile melting away lines of fatigue, Jack hung his snow-covered Stetson on the peg beside the door, scooped up Thomas and Caroline, and dropped a kiss atop Mary’s curly head.

  Adoration squeezed Annabelle’s heart. What a wonderful papa he was. To have taken in Oliver—who at thirteen was nearly as tall as she—and raised him as his own, to have showered the same love on his sister-in-law’s child as he did his own flesh and blood … she would never be able to express how much that meant to her.

  And what of her own dear Papa? It had been years since she had a letter. Was he still living?

  Mercy. What a thing to wonder about one’s father.

  Yet that was all it was. Wondering. The anger that once accompanied questions about Papa had lost its edge. Though it surfaced on occasion, it did so faded and fatigued. A faint shadow of its former self.

  Children crowded around the table then, and while Jack blessed the food, Annabelle peeked at those five much-loved faces. Another would arrive this summer, while dear Emmaline awaited them at heaven’s banquet table.

  And none of them would exist if she hadn’t come to Kansas. If Papa hadn’t left her with Uncle Stephen and Aunt Katherine.

  The family joined in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, and Annabelle’s mouth moved as her mind whirled. Though painful, Papa’s abandonment had led her here.

  To Jack.

  To this hard, messy, wonderful adventure of a life. The Lord had indeed wrought beauty from her life’s most bitter moments.

  “Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.” And when her lips formed the words, realization struck. Somewhere during the last years, in the safety of Jack’s love and care, she’d finally forgiven her father.

  Peace settled over her soul as Jack ended the prayer and Oliver dove into his dinner. Laughter and chatter quieted to the scrape of spoons against bowls and the crispy crunch of bread crusts, the music of sated appetites and filling bellies.

  “Lot of mouths to feed,” Jack commented, raising his coffee to his lips.

  Annabelle leaned over to cut a chunk of meat for Caroline. “And there’ll be another by summer’s end.” Heart pounding, she awaited his reaction.

  Jack paused, mug in midair. His wide-eyed, open-mouthed stare slid down to where the table concealed her midsection. She could almost see the wheels in his head turning, moments from past days that hadn’t made sense now settling into certainty.

  “For sure now?” Emotion thickened his brogue.

  “Sometime in August, I think.”

  Jack’s face split into a broad smile. He rose from his seat. Accompanied by small, questioning gazes and the bang of Mary’s spoon on the table, he slipped his hands behind Annabelle’s neck and claimed her lips.

  Her fingers threaded through the dark hair at his nape, damp from the miserable weather.

  “What’s happening?” This from the always-inquisitive Thomas.

  “Mother and Uncle Jack are kissing,” Oliver replied around a mouthful of stew.

  “I know that,” Thomas shot back. “But why?”

  “Because they’re in love.”

  “Wuv,” Mary repeated. “Wuv, wuv, wuv.”

  Jack leaned his forehead against hers, but the coffee on his breath sickened her stomach. Wincing, she turned away.

  His callused thumb caressed her cheek. “Are you all right, love?”

  She nodded. “The smell of coffee …”

  “Sorry.” Eyes twinkling, Jack covered his mouth with his hand. “’Twas like that with Thomas, if I recall.”

  “But not with the girls.”

  “Another boy then?”

  She smiled. “Thomas will be thrilled if I’m right. The boys would outnumber the girls again.”

  Jack rewarded her with a lopsided grin, that fallen lock of hair giving him an almost rakish appearance. “The lad’s got a competitive streak a mile wide.”

  “And I wonder where he got it,” she teased.

  “Haven’t any idea.” He kissed her cheek, then slid his arm around her shoulders and glanced around the small kitchen. “Well, now. Looks like we might need more room in here.”

  Her breath caught. Could it finally be time? “Really?”

  “You don’t think it’s a bit cramped?”

  Tears stung once more. “Oh, Jack, it is, and I’m so sorry, and I don’t want to complain—”

  “Annabelle.” His gaze held hers. “It’s not a complaint. The house has suited our needs, and I’m most grateful, but God’s blessed us much in recent years. Our cup’s overflowing. So what say after dinner we do some dreaming?”

  She laid her head on his shoulder, her heart so full of gratitude and love she almost couldn’t speak. “Sometimes I think dreaming is what we do best.”

  With shaking fingers, Sloane keyed the name Domenica Brennan into the genealogy website’s search window.

  It couldn’t be.

  Ohio was the wrong state, after all. And Brennan was a fairly common surname.

  So it couldn’t be.

  After a few seconds, a marriage record popped up. One from Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Cleveland.

  Name: Domenica R. Giordano

  Form Type: Marriage

  Marriage Date: 6 September 1904

  Age: 18

  Gender: Female

  Birth: Abt 1886

  Birth Place: Italy

  Father: Antonio Giordano

  Mother: Benedetta

  Spouse Name: John Patrick Brennen

  Spouse Age: 23

  Gender: Male

  Birth Year: 1881

  Birth Place: Kansas

  Spouse Father: John Brennen

  Spouse Mother: Anna Collins

  John Brennen? Anna Collins?

  No. It couldn’t be.

  But Jack Brennan’s given name was John. And Annabelle could easily have sounded like “Anna,” particularly if the room was crowded or the registrar was in a hurry. And the last name could be a simple misspelling, an all too common discrepancy.

  It couldn’t be.

  But it had to be. How many Brennans were born in 1881 in Kansas? To parents with similar names? And a mother whose maiden name was Collins?

  Hope searing her heart, Sloane reached for the diary. Annabelle was pregnant at the end of January 1881. She suspected a boy.

  Confirmation could lie within these yellowed, time-softened pages.

  An entry toward the end stole her breath. One dated August 9, 1881, in a bold, slanted scrawl that didn’t belong to Annabelle.

  My beloved wife gave birth last night to a healthy, good-sized boy, just past nine o’clock. It was a difficult birth—for a few terrible hours I feared the worst. But the Lord saw fit to spare me loss—God be praised!—and sweet Annabelle is still with us. Though she is weak, the sparkle has returned to her eyes, and Stephen assures us she will recover fully. May the Lord answer our continued prayers.

  We named the boy John Patrick—John after both his father and mine, and Patrick after hers. He has a full head of fi
ery red hair and a temper to match.

  Consider yourself warned, love. I told you we’d have a redhead.

  Sloane read the short entry over and over until tears blurred the faded ink and her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the precious book. No wonder these people had reached through time and grabbed her soul.

  Though she’d yet to connect Annabelle with Garrett’s family, she’d found treasure far greater. Proven in Jack Brennan’s own hand.

  John Patrick Brennan, husband to Domenica—to Nonna—was her great-great-grandfather.

  Which meant Sloane’s family—her blood, her DNA—came directly from Annabelle Collins Brennan.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SLOANE GAVE a few firm raps to the weathered farmhouse door, then stepped back and waited. The afternoon air was warm. Heavy with humidity. Gusty winds tugged her clothes and tossed her hair into disarray. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out to glance at the screen.

  The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for portions of central and south-central Kansas …

  Sloane chuckled. The weather-heads had yammered about today’s setup for over a week. Something about cold fronts and dry lines in springtime always got the TV meteorologists so riled up their hair almost moved. And the more they hyped a potentially dramatic weather event, the less dramatic it usually turned out to be.

  Today looked like one of those anticlimactic days. Despite the reminder that conditions were ripe for tornadoes, the sky showed nothing but a towering pile of cotton-ball clouds against a pale blue backdrop. With a slight roll of her eyes, Sloane slipped her phone in her pocket and rapped on the door again.

  No one answered, but Garrett’s car was out front, and faint whispers of music through the door told her someone was home. Gentle pressure against the creaky front door proved it unlocked, and the music swelled. Tinkly chords on an out-of-tune piano underpinned a warbly soprano and a tenor that, though pitchy in spots, was rich and warm.

  She rounded the corner and—that was Garrett playing. And singing along with Rosie. Strong hands drew the strains of “Amazing Grace” from the depths of that dusty old upright; his cello-like voice floated on top.