Читать книгу Home to Stay - Annie Jones - Страница 9

“It’s pretend cake, Ruth. This isn’t my house. You aren’t my kid. I can’t feed you real cake. That’s just the way it is.”

At the sound of a man’s voice holding a potentially temper-tantrum-inducing conversation with her daughter, Emma sat bolt up and almost tumbled off the edge of the couch.

Her mind raced back frantically over the events of the past twenty-four hours. She tugged at the neckline of her only really nice dress then ran her fingers over her diamond bracelet. She never should have accepted it as a birthday gift from her boss, Dr. Ben Weaver. She had told him it was too expensive, not to mention impractical for her as a nurse and single mom. But he’d made her feel like an ingrate for refusing the gesture. He liked to see her happy, to give her nice things, he’d said. That decision lead to another date and then another. And then last night, an out-of-the-blue proposal.

Emma shut her eyes. Why hadn’t she just said no? Running away wasn’t an answer. She of all people should know that.

“I think you’ll find, Miss Ruth Newberry, that there is a lot to be said for having pretend cake. Starting with not having to do dishes after eating it.”

Emma swept her gaze over the cluttered but homey living room of the old Newberry home and thoughts of Ben and the choice she had avoided making fell away. How did she get to this couch? How long had she been sleeping? And why was Hank—Mr. “kids are great—for other people”—Corsaut talking to her daughter about pretend cake?

“Ruth?” Emma pushed up to her feet and for a second the momentum made her head go woozy.

“But if you throw a fit—” Hank kept his tone matter-of-fact sounding, smooth and soothing “—you will upset Otis and Earnest T and the three of us will have to go have our tea somewhere else.”

Emma pressed her fingertips to her temples and clenched her back teeth to force herself to focus. The room stopped swimming. She turned to find Ruth, still in her ballerina tutu and tie-dyed top, standing barefoot on a wooden kitchen chair painted banana-yellow, glaring across the 1950s’ style dinette table at Hank.

Hank Corsaut! Her pulse kicked up. She couldn’t catch her breath. She’d been too exhausted and too upset for it to really sink in earlier.

From the moment she’d run blindly out of one of the best restaurants in Atlanta, rushed to pick up Ruth and driven from Georgia to Louisiana without even stopping to change her clothes, Emma had prayed. She had prayed for guidance. She had prayed for insight. She had prayed for courage.

Maybe she should have prayed not to run into the last person she wanted to see at the old house on the same day she had come running home with her tail between her legs and her future up in the air.

“Cake,” Ruth demanded with the quiet intensity of the calm before a storm.

“Sorry. No cake.” Hank stretched his long legs out and did not budge. He did not even shift enough to make the somewhat rickety, wildly decorated wooden chair beneath him squawk. That impressed Emma, since she had painted those chairs herself more than a decade ago and knew how little it took to get them to complain under a person’s weight.

The two big-eyed dogs, sitting in front of empty plates on chairs painted pink and lime green, watched solemnly. Silently.

Ruth did not show such grace. She gripped the back of her chair, her face beet-red, and let out a low, threatening growling sound.

Emma rounded the couch and headed for the kitchen. The soles of her bare feet slapped the warped boards of the hardwood floor as she said, “Hank, you don’t understand. About Ruth—”

“I understand enough.” He held his hand up to warn her to keep her distance. “If you want to talk to me about this, Ruth, you have to use words. Okay?”

Ruth shifted her weight from one fat little foot to the other. She frowned. She balled her small hand into a fist against the layers of pink netting of her outfit. After a moment she spread her fingers open wide and shook them the way someone might react to touching a hot iron. She didn’t say a word, but then she also didn’t grunt or growl, either.

Emma wanted to tell Hank that she considered this development a small triumph.

But before she could say anything, the man smiled at Ruth warmly then nodded. “Okay. Looks like we have reached an agreement.”

A shiver snaked up Emma’s spine. Try as she might she could not look away from the man. Not even to keep him from seeing how much she found herself drawn to him with his easygoing approach, kind wit and seemingly endless patience coupled with unflinching sense of purpose. He wasn’t bad to look at, either.

At thirty-seven his still-thick black hair did not show signs of graying. She couldn’t say the same for her own dark brown locks at thirty-three. He still didn’t seem inclined to get regular haircuts, though now the shaggy look seemed more a causal look than a young man too wrapped up in establishing his business to take time for the barber. His skin was tanned and he didn’t show even the first bulge of a belly or suggestion of love handles.

The years had been good to him. He was no longer the kid she’d known and loved, the callow young man who had broken her heart by proposing to her and waiting until the eve of their marriage to tell her he didn’t want children. Hank was a man now.

And she was a mom.

She could not let herself forget that.

She shut her eyes and made herself focus on the situation at hand. The familiar smells of the old kitchen eased into every nuance of her mind and memory. The ever-present hint in the air of Louisiana loam and moss and river grasses, of lemon oil used to polish all the wood in the old house intertwined with the scent of fresh cotton from all the kitchen linens aired on the clothesline. It all comforted her but did not blot out the image of Hank Corsaut in faded jeans and a denim work shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his well-muscled forearms.

Without even trying she could picture the watchfulness of his dark eyes, the way his hair fell against the beginning of smile lines fanning out above his high cheekbones. Whether climbing out of his truck coming to her aid or sitting in the kitchen playing tea party with her headstrong daughter, the man brought an instant sense of order to the chaos Emma seemed to drag along behind her wherever she went.

“Oh, Hank,” she said almost like a sigh.

“What?” His masculine voice, with just a syllable, brought her straight into the moment again.

She pretended to rub sleep out of her eye and took a step in their direction. “Can I get you something for those plates and cups?”

“I unpacked your car for you and found the bag of snacks you had in there.” Hank held up his hand. “So, we’ve eaten, thanks.”

“Not cake,” Ruth shot back.

“I explained about that,” he said softly.

“She likes cake,” Emma said with a soft, apologetic tone of affection she often used when trying to smooth her daughter’s way in the world. “But if you want something to eat, I can look around and see if there’s any—”

“Ruth asked Earnest T and Otis and me to have a tea party with her and we’ve had a very nice time sipping pink tea, which is pretend, by the way.” He gave Emma a quick look, chin down, his dark eyes as somber as an undertaker’s. Only the flicker of a smile gave away his good humor in the face of all he had been putting up with while she snoozed away who knew how much of the morning. “But when I suggested the boys might like some pretend cake to go with their pretend tea…”

Emma winced.

“I like cake,” Ruth muttered.

One of the dogs woofed softly.

“Dogs like cake,” Ruth added, more pouty now than agitated.

“But cake is not good for dogs.” Hank held eye contact with the child, not an easy thing to do.

Ruth rocked from one foot to the other again. The chair wobbled. Her tutu swayed and rustled. She looked over at the dogs sitting at the table next to her then at the man treating her with dignity and yet demanding she show a level of discipline she couldn’t always deliver.

She scrunched her mouth up on one side and lifted one foot slightly, which might have made anyone else seem off balance but somehow seemed to put Ruth at a cockeyed advantage. “Can dogs eat pretend cake?”

Hank had to tilt his head to keep eye contact, which he did. He managed a nod, as well. “I think that would be all right.”

“Pretend pink cake?” Ruth threw it out almost as a challenge, as if she wasn’t ready to believe the man had imagination enough to conjure up canine-safe and Ruth-approved pretend fare.

“Pretend pink cake with pretend pink icing on top.” He lifted up what Emma could now see was an empty cup. “Shall we sip on it?”

Ruth mimicked his motion, reaching for her own cup, then paused to warn him, “’Member your manners.”

“Oh, sorry.” With that, the rough-around-the-edges country vet delicately extended his pinkie finger.

Ruth did the same.

Hank raised the cup to his lips and made an obnoxiously loud slurping sound and that sent Ruth into a gale of giggles.

Emma’s stomach clenched even as her heart warmed. She had come here to clear her head so she could make a decision about hers and Ruth’s future. This was not helping that, but it seemed so good for her precious little girl. “Thank you, Hank—for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” He set the cup down then turned toward her. “Get enough sleep?”

“No, but I think I’m recharged enough to go see my aunt.” Emma stretched then yawned. Her dress rustled around her. “After I change, of course.”

“I didn’t think you were the kind to change for anyone.” He looked at her then at Ruth, who was swirling her empty cup through the air while the dogs looked on. “Certainly looks like you went out and got what you wanted in life after we parted ways. I hope you and your husband are very happy, Em.”

“I never married.”

“Oh?” Again he looked at Ruth.

Her often obstinate child placed hats folded from newspapers on the head of one dog, then the other.

“I…” Emma didn’t know how much she wanted to share with Hank about her choices and her life since she ran out on him all those years ago. Did he really need to know that she had never fallen truly in love with another man since him? Or that from the moment Emma had adopted Ruth straight out of the Neonatal Unit at the hospital where Emma had worked, until last year when she went to work for Dr. Ben Weaver, that Emma had put her child’s needs first and foremost? Did he need to know how all of that tied in to her hasty flight home last night?

She opened her mouth, hoping just the right amount of information would spill out. Instead, her stomach gurgled. Loudly.

So loudly that both of the dogs looked startled. One of them woofed.

“You still aren’t very good at the whole standing up for yourself and saying what you want, are you, Em?” Hank laughed. He stood and moved around to offer her his seat. “If you were hungry you should have said so, not asked me if I wanted something to eat.”

She wanted to argue but she couldn’t. She never had been able to put her own needs ahead of others. That was one of the reasons she felt so strongly about caring for Ruth by herself. It terrified her to think of even people who loved them both barging in with opinions and options that Emma feared might not be best for her fragile child. It humbled and touched her that after all these years Hank still knew her better than anyone, even than Ben, the man who said he loved her.

“Do you suppose Sammie Jo has anything but bird feed around this place?” Hank went to the nearly ancient aqua-blue refrigerator and tugged it open.

Emma sighed. She’d roused from a cold slumber thinking she needed to run to the aid of this poor out-of-his-depth man when he not only had everything under control, he actually wanted to help her. If she’d let him.

“Well, she has chickens so you know she has eggs.” Emma settled into the chair and smiled at Ruth, who was busy trying to dab the corner of a napkin over the bulldog’s lips. “I hope Ruth wasn’t too much for you.”

“Too-oo much,” Ruth parroted, still trying to get all the pretend food off the face of the very real pooch.

“She was…” He set a bowl of brown and tan and white and even pale blue eggs on the counter. Then he turned around and honed his gaze in on Emma’s face. “Surprising.”

“In a good way?” Emma gave her fondest hope voice.

“She made those hats for the dogs all by herself” was the only answer he gave her.

“Yeah.” Emma put her hand on the torn newspaper on the table, folded a corner down then tore the edges to form a two-inch-by-two-inch square, which she pushed toward Ruth. “She does that.”

A moment later the smell of the gas burner being turned on high mingled with the aroma of bread browning in the old toaster.

“Over easy or scrambled?” Hank asked.

“Scrambled. Just like my life.” Emma sat with her shoulders slumped forward. “I’m afraid with Aunt Sammie having this health scare, it might be lousy timing bringing Ruth here. I don’t suppose you have an idea about that?”

He cracked an egg into the skillet, then another. As they bubbled quietly, he turned and seemed to study them both. “I guess that depends on why you brought her here.”

She wasn’t sure if the man was asking her a question or suggesting she needed to ask that question of herself.

He went back to the eggs, gave them a stir. “What’s she making, a teeny tiny hat?”

“Paper crane,” Emma said, watching her child’s fingers manipulate the square of newsprint. “There’s a Japanese legend that says if you make a thousand of them, you can ask for one wish. I bet Ruth has made at least a thousand by now.”

“That right?” He flipped the eggs over. The toast popped up. He got out a plate, slung a tea towel over his shoulder and asked, “So, what would you wish for, Ruth?”

“Crease.” Ruth did not look up.

“Crease,” Emma whispered, at last focusing every ounce of her attention and every emotion in her heart on her child.

Crease. It was the perfect word for the sound of Ruth’s crescent-moon thumbnail sliding down the length of the folded piece of paper. The perfect word for the crisp edge left in that thumbnail’s path. The perfect word for Emma’s heart when she laid eyes on her child—folded in two, pressed down, forced into opposing segments, each cut off from the other but still whole, still Emma.

On one side there was all that she wanted for her child, all that any mother wants and hopes and dreams for her child. Opposing that, the hard reality the world had dealt them.

“Wing!” Ruth proudly held up the half-finished bit of origami.

“Wing,” Hank echoed in a tone that seemed in awe and yet not lacking concern. He set the plate of food down in front of Emma. “It’s not fancy but…”

“It’s all I need,” she murmured, looking up into his eyes. “Thanks.”

He shooed the dogs away from the table with a snap and a gesture. Emma wondered what this man couldn’t do with those strong, capable hands that had held imaginary tea, cooked her meal, lifted her up in a moment of weakness.

He folded those hands in prayer.

Emma bowed her head.

“Thank You, Lord, for the bounty of life,” he began softly. “Thank You for all that we have to eat, all that we have to share, all that we have to hope and for the gift of Your grace, Amen.”

“Amen,” Emma murmured.

He took the seat next to her, angled his shoulders back and folded his arms. “So, what’s the deal with your daughter?”

She didn’t know if he was asking why she had brought Ruth to Gall Rive or if he was curious about her medical diagnosis and story. But he was the first person she had ever met who had had the insight, courage and kindness to sit down and ask outright, so she told him the things that she had tucked deep in her heart. “Ruth can’t say her whole alphabet. She still struggles to use a fork or a knife. When she dresses herself she usually tries, at least once, to force her head through an armhole.”

He leaned forward, listening intently.

“When she does her hair, she usually rats it into little blond puff balls more than actually comb it. If the tangles aren’t too bad, she puts a sparkly clip on them and looks up, smiling, for approval.” Emma smiled, but it did not last long as she added, “If she gets angry about it, she pulls the clip out, and some of her hair with it.”

“A lot of little kids—”

“She’s eight years old.”

“Eight?” He looked at Ruth, his head tipped. “Am I wrong in thinking she’s small for her age?”

“She was a preemie.” Emma looked at her daughter. Her heart filled with love and yet she still felt the twinge of hope and fear of all the nights she’d spent by the child’s crib in the infant ICU, praying, singing to her softly, making plans for a nursery, a relationship, a life that she knew might never be realized. “I came to work at the hospital on the night she was born, took one look at four-hour-old Ruth with her oxygen tubes and terrified teenage birth mom who knew she couldn’t possibly take care of a special-needs child and I knew I was looking at my baby.”

Hank tipped his head to the right. He seemed to be making a study of Ruth but there was, in his expression, a gentleness and depth that he had never shown as a younger man.

That look warmed Emma’s heart and yet made her uneasy at the same time. Rather than trying to sort out those conflicting emotions Emma took a bite and savored the simple goodness of her meal. “Mmm. There’s nothing like farm-fresh eggs, eaten in a familiar kitchen, cooked by someone who…”

Someone who…cares about you? Someone you share a history with? Someone who let you walk away and never once tried to come after you, never tried to make amends? She stirred the eggs on the plate again, unable to finish that sentence.

He strummed his fingers on the tabletop, giving her time to conclude, then finally asked, “So you adopted as a single mother?”

“Eight years ago.” She nodded, glad for the distraction. “Aunt Sammie or Claire never told you?”

“I never talk to Claire about personal things. As for your aunt? I never asked.” He laid his hands, palm up, on the table and lowered his gaze to them. “That first year after you’d gone when you didn’t come back, not even for the holidays, I told Sammie Jo I didn’t want to hear about you again. Not ever. I guess she got the message. And right or wrong, I just felt—”

“Bended.” Ruth pressed down a pointed tip on the paper then moved to the final stage. “Pull, pull, pulled. Careful, it can still be broken.”

“You said a mouthful, kid.” He seemed transfixed by Ruth’s fingers working over the tiny piece of paper. “She does this a lot, huh?”

She nodded. “She can’t dress or feed herself without help. But this she can do. Folding and unfolding, creasing, pressing flat, turning, lining up, tucking in then opening up. You show her how to do it once, and…”

Ruth opened her hands to reveal her creation, an understatedly elegant origami bird. “Crane!”

“Very pretty.” Hank held his hand out toward the girl.

“Too-oo much.” She dropped the crane into his open palm.

“That about sums us up, I guess. Very pretty but too-oo much.” Emma tried to smile.

Hank put his hand on her arm.

“Static encephalotrophy.” She said the diagnosis out loud then followed up with, “Brain damage that won’t get worse…or better. Same diagnosis as cerebral palsy, only Ruth’s is less physical and more learning- and behavior-based.”

“So you have to learn to work with what you have,” he surmised.

“Not exactly the Newberry way, is it?” She bit into her toast and tore a corner off.

He sat back in his chair and chuckled. “No, I’d say the Newberry way is—”

“Who belongs to that SUV out there with the Georgia tags?” The front door went banging against the wall as Samantha Jo Newberry’s rasping voice rang through both stories, each of the five bedrooms, down the hallways and most definitely into the big, open kitchen. “If it’s a birder, I’m here to help. If it’s my baby Emma come home at last, I’m here in the doorway with my arms open wondering how long I have to wait before I hobble in there, hunt you down and hug the stuffin’ out of you!”