Love Comes Home (17 page)

Kate looked up at him as they went back into the kitchen. The candles, still burning on the table, cast flickering shadows on the wall. “He’s a nice guy. Samantha likes him.”

“It’s not Samantha he needs to like him.” Jay shut the door behind them and reached for the pull string on the overhead bulb. The light glared brightly after the soft darkness outside and candlelight inside.

Kate blew out the candles. “I like him. Mama and Daddy like him. He won Lorena over with that sled he made for Samantha. Even Scout likes him.”

“Scout likes everybody, but the name you didn’t say is the one that matters. Can he get Tori to like him?”

“I don’t know. He keeps trying.” Kate sighed as she began to clear off the table. “I just don’t know. She won’t talk about it. Fern’s right. She goes fishing.”

“You could go with her.” Jay sat back down at the table to eat the last few bites of his pie. “Keep her company.”

“You know I hate to fish. Squishing worms on hooks and getting fishy smell all over your hands.” She shuddered and shoved her untouched piece of pie toward him as if even the thought of fishing had turned her stomach. Then she got a funny look on her face. “You did know that, didn’t you?”

“Nope, I don’t think the subject has ever come up.” He dug his fork into the pie. “See, there’s something I didn’t know about you.”

“I don’t know if you like to fish either.”

“I went with Mike some when we were kids.”

“I did know Mike liked to fish. He used to go with Tori and Lorena on Saturday afternoons before the war. He talked Evie into going with him a few times too.”

“I’m guessing that was a disaster.”

“You might think so, but actually Evie sort of likes to fish.” She looked up from putting the leftovers into smaller bowls to fit in the refrigerator.

“You Merritt girls are full of surprises. Have you told them? The sisters?”

She shook her head. “Not even Mama. Nobody knows but you.”

“You’re forgetting Fern.”

“I’m trying. I’m definitely trying.” The sparkle came back into her eyes. “I can’t believe she saw me heaving up my breakfast this morning and figured out I was expecting.”

“A lucky guess. She likes to keep you off balance. It’s a game with her.”

“A game.” Kate carried the plates to the sink. “Funny to think about Fern playing a game, but you’re right. She does like to aggravate me, but then she tells me things I need to hear sometimes too. Things she sees that I don’t want to see. Or I’m too blind to see.”

“What things are you talking about?” Jay forked in the last of the pie.

“Lots of things. She used to warn me about maybe ending up like her too.”

“Never.” Jay looked up, surprised. “I can’t imagine you hiding out in the woods and popping out of shadows to scare the fainthearted.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds sort of fun.” Kate laughed, but then her smile leaked away. “But she’s right about Tori.” Kate tightened her lips as she stared at the dark window over the sink.

“Uh-oh.” Jay cupped his hands around his mouth and
pretended to yell. “Look out, Tori. Sister Kate is ready to come to the rescue.”

Kate balled up the dishrag and threw it at him. “You’re the one who just got through telling me to go fishing with her.”

He got up and exchanged the dishrag for a dish towel. “Tori will figure things out. Right now she’s sad, but she’ll be okay.”

“If something doesn’t happen.” Kate sounded worried.

“Don’t borrow trouble, Kate. Remember, we’re living in the moment. A moment that’s good, with nothing happening except the dishes getting done and bedtime coming.”

“And a baby on the way.” Kate smiled over at him, as beautiful as he’d ever seen her, even in the harsh overhead light.

Later, as they lay in bed with her head resting on his shoulder, she asked him again, “Are you happy? Really happy?”

“I told you I was happy about the baby, Kate.” He rubbed his cheek against her head. “Very happy.”

“Not just about the baby. But being married and living here in Rosey Corner? With your job and everything?”

Jay didn’t let himself hesitate. “You make me happy, Kate.” And there was no reason for him to hesitate. She did make him happy.

She snuggled closer to him, her body relaxed and content there beside him. “But the other things. Are you happy about them?”

“Do you want me to make a list, Kate?”

“That might be good,” she murmured.

“Let me count the ways.” He held up his fingers and began counting them off. “Alive. Home from the war. A job. A beautiful wife who makes pies almost as good as her mother’s.” She roused enough from her sleepiness to laugh at that and try to poke him. He caught her hand and kept going. “A baby
on the way. Rosey Corner as my address. Fern like the plant to tell me what’s going on. Birdie to make me laugh. Scout to make me happy we don’t have a dog.”

“Scout’s not that bad.” She laughed again the way he’d intended. Then she was sleeping in his arms. He looked down at her peaceful face in the dim moonlight sneaking through the window and his heart swelled.

A baby. Mothering would be easy for Kate. As natural as the sun coming up in the morning. But would he be able to pull off being a father? And how about all the bills? He didn’t mind the work at the feed store, but the pay wasn’t great. They just squeaked by now.

He knew other men home from the war who were going to college on the GI Bill. He hated school when he was a kid, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. College sounded like a good thing now and a path to a better job. Plus, Kate once told him she dreamed about going to college. With the GI Bill paying his way, he’d been thinking of ways both of them could go. He hadn’t mentioned that to Kate. He wanted to plan it all out and surprise her. But a baby changed everything.

He slid his arm out from under her head and slipped out of bed. He couldn’t lay still. He had to be moving. Standing. Watching. A man had to be ready. Not so long ago, he’d been on a battlefield, with artillery exploding in his ears. He’d known what to be ready for then, but now he wasn’t sure. As much as he hated to think it, Fern was right. Something could happen. Even so, a man couldn’t always be peering around the next corner, worrying about what was to come. Live in the moment. That’s what he’d told Kate. That’s what he needed to do. He wasn’t going to be afraid of the future.

Perfect
love casteth out all fear.
That verse came to mind
as it had so many times during the war. He moved quietly through the house to the back porch. The spring air, cool against his skin, smelled damp with the promise of things growing. Above him, the sky glittered with thousands of stars. It was good to stand in the dark without a helmet. Without a gun. With no boom of artillery pounding in the distance.

He was glad to leave the war behind, but he couldn’t forget it. He blocked it out during the day. He didn’t think about it. He didn’t talk about it. He sometimes didn’t flinch now when somebody at the feed store dropped something with a clatter or when a truck backfired. Noise was part of life and all booms didn’t presage death. But at night, the war had a way of sneaking back.

Kate’s father warned Mike and him to expect that. Mr. Merritt knew. In spite of all the years since he’d been over there, he said he still had nightmares about the mud in the trenches of that First World War. “Some nights the mud tries to swallow me. Those nights I wake up not able to breathe. But it’s not the mud. It’s this muck in my lungs.” He coughed and hit his fist against his chest.

They had been sitting around the stove in the front room a few weeks after Jay got home. The noise of the women finishing up dinner had floated out to them. Ordinary sounds. Birdie’s laugh. Samantha’s little-girl squeal. Dishes rattling. A pan top clanging. Wonderful sounds Jay wanted to plant in his head to cover up the memories of war. Mike must have felt the same.

“But I don’t want to remember.” Mike’s face was creased with lines of sorrow. “The dying. The hunger. The fear.” He looked over at Jay. “You know how it was. You might have even had it worse.”

“It was all worst. Except getting to know your brothers.” He hadn’t had to explain. They both knew what it meant to be part of a fighting unit with men ready to die for one another. And in that moment, they felt the bond among themselves. They knew what it was like to go to war.

But he was home now. He gazed at the stars and felt gratitude for that rise within him. He’d made it through the war. Done unimaginable things as a soldier. Being a father had to be easy compared to that. One day at a time. That was how it was in the Army. That was how the Lord said life was supposed to be. One day at a time.

He told Kate to live in the moment. He needed to take his own advice. And the moment was good and got better when the door opened behind him and he heard the whisper of Kate’s bare feet coming across the porch.

She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his back. “Trouble sleeping?”

“Haven’t tried yet. Just out here checking the stars.”

“They’re bright tonight.” She leaned around him to peer up at the sky without loosening her arms around his waist. After a moment, she asked, “You okay?”

He turned in her arms to embrace her. “Better than okay. Always better than okay with you around.”

He wouldn’t worry about months from now when the baby would be there between them. October, she’d said. He had time. They had time. Time. That was the one thing the war had taught him. To treasure time.

18

T
ori didn’t know why everybody was so worried about her. She always had fishing fever once spring chased winter away. So on a Saturday late in April when the sun felt more like June, it was only natural for her to wish she was at Graham’s pond instead of stuck at the store.

They’d had a rush all morning the way they generally did on Saturdays, but by two o’clock, most everybody had headed home to get ready for Sunday or maybe to plant the corn seed they’d bought. Or to go fishing. Business was so slow that her mother told Tori to take the rest of the day off.

“Call a friend and go to a movie since you don’t have Samantha tonight,” Mama said.

Tori managed to keep smiling. Samantha was spending the night with Sammy’s mother. Her very first night away from Tori. Mrs. Harper had started keeping Samantha for a few hours nearly every weekday morning. She doted on the child and wanted to help Tori out, she said.

It was a help. At the store, Samantha was forever getting into things while Tori waited on customers or stocked the shelves. Besides, it was good for Samantha to be with Sammy’s
family, but that didn’t keep Tori from feeling lost without her. Not being able to see her and know for sure she was okay made Tori’s throat so tight she could barely swallow.

“But what if Samantha cries and won’t go to bed?” she said. “They might have to bring her home.”

“Don’t be such a worrywart. Christine Harper raised four boys. I think she can get one little girl to bed.” Mama smiled. “You made her so happy letting Samantha spend the night. And Samantha too. She loves her Mama and Papa Harper. She’ll be fine.”

“I know.” Tori couldn’t keep the tremble of threatening tears from showing up in her voice. “But will I be fine?”

“Oh, my sweet and lovely Victoria. You will be fine. You are fine already.” Mama hugged her close for a moment. They both knew she was talking about more than Tori missing Samantha, but she pretended that was what she’d meant as she went on. “That first night away from your little one is hard, but babies grow up. So very fast. One minute you’re nursing them, the next you’re watching them nurse their own babies. At least I still have Lorena for a little while longer.”

“And you have me.”

“I do, and you’ll always be my baby. But you will find your wings to fly away again. In time.” She stepped back from Tori and cupped her cheek with her hand. “I want that for my girls. It’s such a joy to see you becoming mothers. First you, and now Evangeline and Kate. That’s the way the good Lord intended things to be.”

She did her best not to stiffen at her mother’s words. People always talked about things happening according to God’s will. She’d grown up believing the Lord was watching over her. That if she did what she was supposed to, he’d shower
blessings down on her. Ask and it shall be given. But then she’d asked and it hadn’t been given. Sammy had been taken.

Her mother stroked her cheek. “I’m praying for you, sweetheart. Do you want to know what I pray for you?”

Tori wasn’t sure she did, but she nodded anyway. Her mother expected her to listen.

“I pray you’ll stop being angry at God.”

“I’m not mad at God.” Tori’s denial was instinctive. A person wasn’t supposed to get mad at God.

But her mother simply gave her another hug before she pushed her toward the door with a little sigh. “Go on. Get your fishing pole. I know you’d rather do that than go to the movies, and who knows? A pond bank might be a good place to feel God’s love. To think about the plans the Lord has for you.”

Plans? She had no plans, she thought as she walked down the road toward home. Except to go fishing. Maybe that was what the Lord planned for her too. The Bible talked a lot about fishing. Some of the disciples were fishermen. Maybe with nets instead of poles and hooks, but fishing was fishing.