In Search of Eden (47 page)

Miranda saw her another time out on the trail, just walking. She had said hello and smiled warmly, but Sarah just acknowledged her and kept on going. Obviously now was not a good time for making friends. She felt a deep compassion for the little family.

It was a few days later that Miranda saw David. He came into the Hasty Taste for coffee one morning just after Joseph had finished his breakfast and left. David wheeled his way across the restaurant, stopping to visit with several people along the way. It seemed he knew everyone, and there was much pressing of hands and earnest conversation. He finally settled at a table. She took him a glass of water and greeted him warmly. He still looked subdued but not quite as strained as he had the first night at Ruth's house.

“I didn't know you were working here,” he said.

“Temporarily. Elna is due back in a few weeks.” Saying it made her realize the clock was ticking. Was her time in Abingdon drawing to a close? “I haven't seen Eden in a while,” she said. “And I must say I miss her.”

David smiled, and Miranda saw genuine love on his face. “That girl's the light of my life,” he said.

She felt a flash of something then. A longing for her own child, she supposed, but she quickly realized the one had nothing to do with the other. She would not begrudge David his daughter's love.

“She and Grady had plans today. Grady's father is taking them fishing. I was invited to go, but I have something else I have to do. Have you met Grady's dad?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“He seems like a kind man,” David said. “My mother thinks the world of him.”

“Your mother is a very good judge of character,” Miranda agreed. “Can I get you a menu?”

“Two, please,” he said. “I'm meeting Hector.”

She got the menus and another water. Hector arrived. She served the men their meals and kept their coffees full. They were talking intently, and she felt very glad that David had Pastor Hector to encourage him. She thought about the Hound of Heaven again. She had been feeling Him nudge her, gently pull her. Sometimes she felt as if He walked silently beside her, waiting for a chance to speak. Waiting for her to turn her gaze upon Him. She felt longing then, but it didn't last long. For instance, it seemed He was tugging right now, but she wiped tables and made a fresh pot of coffee and her mind was distracted.

Venita sidled up to her and nodded in David's direction. “They say that wife of his has run off. Sorry thing,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Sarah left?” Miranda was shocked to the core. It almost felt like a physical tremor passing through her.

Venita nodded. “I heard she went off day before yesterday. Said she was going to see her folks—they bought a place down near Gatlinburg, but . . .” She shrugged and made a disgusted face.

“Maybe she'll come back,” Miranda said and realized she really hoped so. “She's been through a very hard year. Maybe she just needs to get away for a little while and rest.”

“Maybe,” Venita said, but she gave her a skeptical look.

The two men sat talking for a long time. After Hector left, David stayed and pulled a thick stack of papers from the pack on the side of his chair.

“Do you mind if I take up space for a while?” he asked when she refilled his cup.

“Not at all.”

He worked, reading and scribbling and shaking his head in frustration. She refilled his coffee until he told her he'd had his quota for the day. After an hour or so he came up to the register
and paid his bill. The stack of papers was in his lap.

“It looks as if your project is a big one,” she said.

“It's a book I was writing,” he said, and he didn't look happy.

“Wow. I'm impressed.”

“Don't be.”

“What's it about?”

“It's about what I used to think I knew. David Williams expounds on the meaning of life.” He smiled, and she saw a shadow of bitterness.

“I'd like to read it,” she said boldly, surprising herself with her words.

He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Take it,” he said. “You'd be doing me a favor. Tell me what a fresh, unindoctrinated pair of eyes sees.”

“Seriously?”

“As a heart attack,” he said.

She laughed. She liked David Williams very much. She felt a little guilty because of that fact, a little disloyal to Joseph, but again, what had the one to do with the other?

She took the manuscript gratefully. “I can't wait,” she said.

“Take your time,” he mumbled on his way out the door. “I'm in no hurry.”

She finished her shift, went to the Laundromat, tidied her small apartment, and completed her funeral home chores. Joseph called at suppertime to postpone their plans for the evening. He was busy on a case. She told him to be careful, then feeling slightly uncomfortable, realized she was glad for the opportunity to read David's book. She took a blanket out in back of her apartment and sat on the grass to read. There was a slight breeze. Not enough to blow away the pages, but enough to cool her. She was quickly drawn into David's book.

As she read, the things she had heard a hundred times growing up suddenly stopped being dry facts and became a drama of cosmic proportions. There was the benevolent, righteous king. There was a near perfect member of the court, trusted as a son,
who became evil through envy. There were treachery and revolt. A coup that ultimately failed, but not before battle and shouts and the sound of war. There was the aftermath, the violent expulsion of the rebels, who now ruled planet Earth where the good subjects fought bravely against them. There was the prince who had given his life to redeem the kingdom. And there was a promise that someday each rebel would be hunted down and destroyed and that peace would be restored to all the farthest reaches of the kingdom.

Her eyes were damp and the light failing when she finished reading. The story was not complete, but her mind was full. She understood now. She had a choice. She could cast her lot with the resistance, or she could go on as she had and pretend she'd never heard.

She set the book aside finally and lay back on the blanket till it was dark. Gathering up the manuscript, she went upstairs to bed, but it was a long time before she slept.

She read David's book through again and took it back to him several days later. She knocked softly on the screen door. After a moment she heard the whirring of the chair's electric motor, and David himself came to the door.

“Welcome,” he said. “Come in. I'm afraid Ma and Eden are over at the church, getting things ready for the Highlands Festival.” He didn't mention Sarah, and she didn't ask.

“Actually, I came to see you,” she said. “I read your book. Twice.”

“Really!” He seemed surprised.

She nodded.

“Well, do you have time to tell me what you think?”

“I don't need time,” she said. “I loved it.”

He smiled. “Now, that's the kind of constructive criticism I can use. How about a glass of iced tea or a cup of coffee?”

“Sure. I'll have some tea.”

He whirred into the kitchen, then returned with the two glasses tucked into a holder on the side of his chair. “Here you go,” he said, handing her one. “Shall we sit on the porch?”

“That would be perfect. I think there's a breeze.”

Miranda sat in one of Ruth's ladder-backed rockers, David in his chair.

“I've never heard anyone talk about all of this the way you do,” she said. “It's not boring.”

“That's high praise. Thank you.”

She thought she saw a flicker of interest in his eyes. She looked down at the chapters and scanned the progression he had drawn. The cosmic battle. The expulsion from Eden, the struggle to find the way back—those chapters had caught at her heart.

“It was like you knew me,” she said. “All the places I've gone and the things I've done to try to make things . . . I don't know,
right,
I guess.”

“Did you succeed? In making them right?”

She shook her head. She thought of her child, lost to her. Her mother, never known. “But then the book just sort of
quit.”

“You noticed that.”

“Yes, I noticed, but you can't leave things there. It's like closing a story before the happy ending. Like ending a movie three-quarters of the way through, at the dark moment.”

“The dark moment?”

“You know, the moment when the hero and the heroine are all upset with each other and the worst thing has happened and it looks like they'll never be together.”

He nodded. Soberly.

She could see the sorrow in his eyes. And then she understood. His life had become the dark moment.

“I can't see my way past it,” he said.

She took a deep breath. Who was she to counsel the counselor? But she felt she must try, so she spoke. “You know the way,” she said. “You know it even in the dark.”

He looked up at her, his eyes shiny with tears. “Do you think so?”

“I know it,” she said, and she put her hand over her heart, as if making a promise.

They sat silently for a while. She set down her glass and stood. “Call me when you finish,” she said. “I'd like to read the whole story.”

chapter
50

B
y the last week of July, the town seemed to have shifted into high gear, and Abingdon's streets were full of bustle and activity. The Hasty Taste was busier than usual. Venita said the craftspeople and the first tourists were trickling in. Apparently the Virginia Highlands Festival was quite an event, with musical performances, a quilt show, arts and crafts, lectures, plays, spinning and weaving, nature tours, and food.

On Monday, just after opening, a heavyset woman, bright red hair with white roots, came into the Hasty Taste. She gave Miranda a worried look. Venita went flying out around the counter to hug her. “Elna! You're back! How are you, dear?” Miranda heard before their voices lowered in gossip or commiseration,
. . . knows it's just temporary,
and
don't you worry, another week will be just fine.
She didn't need a memo to know her tenure at the Hasty Taste was almost up. Venita made it official as soon as Elna left.

“We sure have appreciated your help,” she said, “but Elna needs her job back.”

She thanked Venita graciously, and they agreed her last day would be Friday.
And then what?
she asked herself as she went about her work. She supposed she could try to find another job,
but she had come here to find her child, and she had gotten distracted by other things. That other thing came in just then and winked at her as he took his customary place. Henry joined him, and Miranda brought them their breakfasts without needing to take an order. She had a feeling she and Joseph were approaching critical mass, and she wasn't sure yet whether things would end in fission or meltdown.

He seemed a little unnerved, as well. As she cashed him out, Henry poked him in the ribs and said, “Remember what I said. Get the party started, son.” It seemed to rattle Joseph. He fumbled with his wallet, and pictures and credit cards went cascading onto the floor. Miranda came around the counter to help pick them up. She leaned down, he rose up, and their heads bumped. Embarrassing for both of them. Endearing to everyone else, apparently.

“Ain't they cute?” Venita said to Wally, who answered with a grunt. Miranda said a quick good-bye and went back to work with burning cheeks.

She worked hard all morning, and when her shift was over she noticed a missed call on her cell phone. It was C. Dwight Judson, her erstwhile attorney. He was in and came straight to the point.

“I've heard from the attorney in Tennessee about the court order,” he said.

A feeling of shock ran through her, as if the telephone in her hand carried a current. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird's. “Yes?” She held her breath.

“I'm afraid the court denied your petition. The records will remain sealed.”

She was silent for a minute. She thanked him and ended the call.

She said good-bye on autopilot to Venita and Wally, then walked back to her apartment, got into her car, and drove. She passed farms and houses and had a mind to keep on driving. To drive and drive and drive and never stop until she was far away
from anything that would ever remind her of her child again. She would not mind leaving the laptop or her few clothes, but faces flashed in her mind like slides on a blank screen in her heart. Over and over she saw them, and finally she turned the car around, and after another spell of driving she found herself at St. James church.

She parked the car, walked across the graveled parking lot, and sat down on the steps. They were warm from the afternoon sun. She took out her cell phone and, without the emotion she would have imagined, called Nashville information. The last she'd heard, Danny Loomis was still living in town, working for a trucking company. She had not spoken to him in eleven years.