A Father's Quest (9 page)

“Don’t be silly. I’m fine. We’re at his house now, looking at photos of his daughter. What did you think? He ravaged me on his mama’s sofa?” She glanced over her shoulder. “As delightful as that sounds, nothing has happened. No laws of nature have been broken.”

Jonas shook his head at the obvious innuendo. He realized she was probably worried that they would let the intense emotional circumstances sweep them away, but that wasn’t going to happen.

He grabbed a couple of dessert plates and forks from the cupboard and walked to the patio table.

He had everything set out when Remy joined him a few minutes later. “Sorry. I told her she was turning into a hover mother and if she didn’t stop, Shiloh wouldn’t let her father marry her.”

“Did the threat work?”

“For now.” She didn’t seem too worried about what her sister thought. “What kind of pie did Suzie pick for us?”

“I didn’t look, but guests choose first.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious. This is Catfish Haven pie. Regardless of the disquieting oxymoron of its name, they make the best pie on earth. Two pieces, two forks, one plate. That’s the rule.”

He laughed. How could he not? This was the Remy he’d loved from day one, thought he’d lost forever, and, now, in a strange twist of fate was sitting across from him in his backyard. Despite all the reasons he shouldn’t find pleasure in that fact, he was powerless to resist the sweet synchronicity of being in her company.

He walked into the kitchen and returned a second later with a dinner plate. “Happy?”

“I will be when I start eating,” she said, taking a seat. She pulled his chair a little closer with her foot and transferred both pieces to the larger plate.

“One bite of what looks to be fresh boysenberry, then one bite of my favorite—cherry cream. The gods have smiled on us today, Jonas Galloway, they surely have.”

Birdie was hungry. Real hungry. She had to eat her cereal without milk in it this morning. And for lunch all the kids got was some peanut butter spread inside some limp, skinny celery stalks that didn’t crunch when you bit down on them.

“Brigitte, stop being difficult. We all have to make sacrifices to do the Lord’s work. Be thankful we’re not living in the desert, eating locust.”

Birdie didn’t know what a locust was but she doubted if it could be any worse than cracker pie. “When can we go home, Mommy? I don’t like it here.”

Her mother moved so quickly Birdie didn’t have time to put down her plastic fork. It fell to the ground of the cooking tent, turning instantly black with dirt and leaves. But before Birdie could reach for it, her mother had hold of one of Birdie’s braids. Mommy pulled on it. Hard.

She brought her face close to Birdie’s and whispered, “Never say that again. This is our home. Until it’s time for us to start our missionary work. A mission that will bring the word to the enemies of God. We’ve been chosen, Birdie. It’s an honor to go.”

“G-go where, Mommy?”

Her mother dropped Birdie’s braid and turned to pull a fresh plastic fork from a box. She held it up triumphantly like it was a prize, her gaze focused off in the distance. Toward Brother Thom’s RV. “Wherever God—and Brother Thom—send us.”

She quickly served a large piece of the grayish, mushy-looking pie. “Say grace before you eat, dear. We must be thankful for the good Lord’s gifts.”

Remy couldn’t define that exact essence that made the child so adorable. Was it her gangly legs that churned with happy abandon, running even before she could walk without falling? Or possibly the wide, gap-toothed smile that robbed you of the ability to breathe with its sheer cuteness. More than likely, the sparkle of intelligence and curiosity in her big green-gold eyes had a lot to do with Birdie’s appeal.

“Your daughter is a doll. And I love how feisty she is when the two of you butt heads.” Remy had seen all she could take. Feeling a little bit like a voyeur, she’d tried to skip ahead through the parts that showed Jonas and his ex-wife. But it hadn’t been easy. She was curious. How could she not be? This was the man she’d loved with all her heart, and he’d married someone who could have been Remy’s sister.

He looked up from his mother’s older, dinosaur of a desktop computer, which sat on a boxy oak desk in the far corner of the room. Terrible feng shui, she’d decided, since the person at the desk had his back to everyone. The entire home was in need of a serious makeover.

And Jonas was right about the carpet. It didn’t look bad, but she was quite certain it was the source of the smell that seemed to have settled in her nostrils. Cat? Coffee? Or simply a residual mustiness that came with age?

“Thanks. She is amazing. And you’re right about us butting heads, but I always figured this was a good thing.”

“How so?” She checked her cell phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any calls from her sister. She wondered how far north they would make it today.

“Kids need to feel safe enough to test their boundaries. When you live with someone with mental-health issues, the parameters change daily, sometimes hourly. I tried my best to give Birdie unconditional love with room to take risks.”

“That’s very evolved. Where did you learn to be such a good parent?”

He swung his high-back upholstered chair to face her. “The one positive aspect of Cheryl’s condition was it forced me to read everything I could get my hands on about coping with craziness—for want of a better word. Knowledge saved my sanity and, I hope, made our family a little bit more normal for Birdie. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.”

“Is Birdie the reason you stayed together as long as you did?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His sigh sounded sad and reflective. “Even though life was a roller coaster some of the time with Cheryl, there were moments when it was a fun ride. I’ve never been big on spontaneity. Probably ’cause the one time I acted impulsively, I wound up in a deep, dark well, right?”

“So, having a partner who kept things edgy might have seemed like a good mix.”

“Exactly. Until things got out of hand with her disappearances. She wouldn’t call, text or email. I once filed a missing person’s report with the police, the whole she-bang. They were considering sending out search parties along the river when she strolled in as calmly and carelessly as if she’d been shopping and forgot the time.”

“Where was she?”

“I don’t know. She told the police one thing. Me, another. My mother something else completely. I moved out, totally prepared to call it quits. But a month later, she called to tell me she was pregnant.”

A thought Remy had no business thinking popped into her head, but before she could even scold herself for being so quick to judge, Jonas added, “The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Whose baby is it?’” He made a face. “Not the best way to start a reconciliation. Cheryl insisted she’d been faithful. But, given what happened with my dad, I suppose you could say I’m not the most trusting person in the world.”

“Did you ever…”

“Get a paternity test?” he finished for her. “Yes. Even though I knew the minute I held Birdie that she was mine. I didn’t want some stranger from Cheryl’s past to show up one day and make claims that I’d be forced to disprove.”

“You’re a smart man, Jonas. And a good dad. I’m proud of you.”

He seemed bemused by her comment, but before he could say anything, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. “Oh, crap. I have to take this. And I need privacy. Would you mind?” He looked apologetic.

“No problem. I’ll be outside, soaking up some sun in that beautiful yard.”

He flipped open his phone. “Thanks,” he mouthed before his expression turned stormy. “Goddamn it, Greg, what’s taking so long? How can a caravan of freaking motor homes suddenly disappear off the face of the earth?”

Remy hurried out the sliding door from the kitchen to the covered patio. She made a slow circumnavigation of the perimeter, pausing to admire the brilliant color of a bird of paradise.

When the heat started to get to her, she moved to a padded chaise and sat, letting her head rest against the cushion. For the past hour or so, Remy had felt a memory hovering at the edge of her conscious mind. As she became more familiar with Birdie through her father’s pictures and videos, Remy realized she’d had a second dream.

Last night.

She closed her eyes and the image came rushing back to her.

The child’s hand was icy cold, pale and very small. Fragile-looking, like an old woman’s.

Remy had held the hands of many elderly patients as they prepared for their journeys onward and beyond. But the little girl who had appeared with no warning was young, pretty and very much alive. Only her eyes were dead.

Remy swung her new companion’s hand, back and forth as they walked—the way Remy and Jessie had when they were children. They’d sung made-up songs and chattered the way children who felt safe in their skin often did.

The girl was like a puppet whose strings had come loose. Remy’s heart twisted in her chest.
Poor little kid,
she thought. This isn’t right.

She stopped moving and looked around. They appeared to be in a shadowy jungle of naked trees with exposed roots and a miles-tall canopy of some dubious color that blocked the sun like gauze. A skinny silo of smoke drifted upward from a dying fire. The ring of rocks encircling the smoldering embers was haphazardly placed, small and irregularly sized, as though a child had arranged them.

“Did you build this fire?” she asked the youngster.

The girl’s dull red-orange braids bobbed ever so slightly against the bodice of her old-fashioned dress—the sort a friend of Tom Sawyer’s might wear. Her skinny legs were bare and her shoes didn’t match.

“Are you a ghost?”

“Not yet,” the child answered, then she turned and walked away, disappearing into the maze of dead-looking trees.

“Wait,” Remy pleaded, her own feet welded to the earth apparently. “Come back. Do I know you? Can I help you? Please…”

But her calls and questions went unanswered.

She opened her eyes and looked around. She felt chilled even though the day was hot and humid. Her pulse still raced a little. She didn’t know what it meant, but the overall sense she had was that Birdie was close to giving up.

The dream was legit, but was the child Birdie? If it was, how had Remy come to see this kid hours before she ever saw a photo of her? Was it possible Miss Charlotte had a picture of Birdie in her apartment at Shadybrook and Remy’s mind somehow squirreled away the image?

She rubbed her knuckle across the pain in her temple.
Right,
she thought,
and I fabricate a dream about the kid on the very eve of her father’s reappearance in my life. Sure. Why not?

Jonas popped his head out the door. “Done. You wanna go? You look wiped out.”

She stood. “Yeah. I am. I didn’t sleep well last night. But, would you mind swinging by Shadybrook on the way? I’d like to say a quick hello to your mother.”

“Seriously? You’re not sick to death of my family?”

“No. I’m good. Plus, I can ask the director if she’s picked up any extra funding recently.” She smiled at him. “For after my temporary job is up.”

“No problem. I was going to stop and see Mom this evening.”

He locked the house behind them—a gesture that seemed out of place in Baylorville. Probably a result of living in a big city, she thought. Although when she and Jessie had lived in Nashville, their friends knew the twins’ apartment would be open if they needed a place to crash for an hour between shifts. Mama had prided herself on always offering an open door, which probably accounted for why there were always so many women hanging around Mama’s kitchen—including, on occasion, Jonas’s mother.

“Do you remember coming to our house with your mother when you were a kid?”

“No.” He leaned forward to start the car but paused to look her way. The sunlight, filtered in a dappled effect by the giant magnolia in front of his mother’s home, made the skin of his bare arm seem to glow in a warm, peachy color that made her hungry again.

Not for food.

She forced her gaze out the window. The fields behind his home had long since been built upon. New streets and smaller, less interesting houses had cropped up like watermelons in late July. The empty well he’d fallen into was probably somebody’s basement, she thought with a shiver.

“Are you okay? Did you see something? Was it Birdie?”

“No. I don’t get messages,” she said, angrily. In all truth, she was mad at herself. For thinking things she had no business thinking. “I told you, I’m not a psychic. I do not receive sudden, trancelike revelations from above. I was thinking about something else and I shivered. That’s all.”

He turned on the car. “Sorry. I guess I’m still pissed off about getting blown off by the Memphis P.D. My friend is swamped with work and he’s gone above and beyond checking databases. He’d even called in a few favors from friends in other counties, but there’s no trace of these people, and that’s really got me worried.”

“Why?”

“This sort of traveling gospel show relies on contributions. They usually have a couple advance teams that plaster the target area with posters and give away a bunch of free admissions to drum up interest. If the GoodFriends have pulled out of the revival business, then that might mean they have to find some other source of revenue.”

“Drugs?”

“I have no idea. I’d like to think they simply disbanded and went legit but that would mean people like Cheryl would resurface at home. And there’s been no sign of that.”

They drove in silence for a few blocks then Jonas asked her, “Why did you ask about coming to your house when I was little? I’m positive the first time we met was after I was rescued.”

“Jessie and I were talking about how chaotic it was in our house growing up. Mama had lots of friends. Male and female. There was always a pitcher of sweet tea spiked with a little something—wine or moonshine, I don’t know. Jessie stole a glass one time and said it tasted like rubbing alcohol.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said.

“That our mamas were imbibing in the afternoon?”

“That you didn’t taste the cocktail. You always were the straight arrow. A good girl. You wouldn’t even kiss me good-night till we’d been dating for two weeks.”

She bolted upright. “Stop the car and let me out. That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me. You have your nerve, Jonas Galloway. Asking for my help, then insulting me before…before…” Some of her bluster left when he burst out laughing.

“You’re mad because I called you a good girl? That was a compliment.”

She crossed her arms. “It was not. You’re still mad at me because I wouldn’t put out that night after the spring formal.”

He looked at her, mouth gaping, then pulled to the side of the street between a broken-down Jeep and a brand-new Hummer. The juxtaposition would have amused her if she wasn’t still fuming.

“I know exactly what night you’re talking about. I remember it like it was yesterday. I can tell you what color your dress was and what kind of perfume you were wearing. I even remember the color of your fingernail polish. But the reason I remember isn’t because you said no.”

“You called me a prick tease.”

“Okay, yes. I was frustrated. Blame it on my hormones. You were gorgeous. Sexy. God, I walked around semihard the whole night. My stupid male ego was convinced you were going to put out, even though you told me—oh, I don’t know, a million times—that you weren’t going all the way until after you graduated from high school.”

“That’s because Rita Jean got knocked up halfway through her senior year, and Mama said she ruined her life.”

He turned to look at her. “Did it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so anymore. That child is my eldest niece. She’s gorgeous, brilliant and has three or four colleges courting her to play basketball for them. Rita’s the most stable one of us all.”

“Well, there you go. Our mamas didn’t know everything, after all.”

The comment gave her pause. “But they were friends. Remember when Mama sat us down for the big revelation? She made you promise not to tell your mother because she didn’t want anything to come between them.”

“Yeah. So what? We already discussed this.”

He was right. This was old news. Mama was dead; Miss Charlotte’s memory was fading like cheap wall-paper. Maybe she should let the whole thing go, but…