Song of the Brokenhearted (33 page)

Outside the visitation room Ava leaned her forehead against the wall, trying to breathe, trying not to succumb to the sobs as tears dropped to the gray tile floor between her feet.

Thirty-One

C
LANCY SAT ON THE HOOD OF THE OLD
C
HEVELLE, LOOKING LIKE
James Dean except with a baby instead of a cigarette in hand. He lifted his head and frowned.

“That bad, huh?” he said.

Ava closed the distance between them, still unable to speak.

“Please tell me you didn't shock the old man again by telling him you're doing drugs and having sex all the time,” Clancy said as he opened the car door with Emma in one arm. Ava wiped the tears from her eyes and laughed as she scooped up the baby and received a welcoming squeal.

“I was a little more subtle this time,” she said, kissing Emma's cheek.

“That's a good thing. Remember how you wrote him that you'd become a vegetarian and were considering converting to Buddhism?”

“I was angry. And I thought he needed to know there were consequences for what he'd done.”

“Yeah, and a life sentence in prison wasn't enough.”

“All right, all right. I apologized later for that.”

Clancy laughed long and hard at the memory. “I admired you for it, wished I could tell him a thing or two. Anyone else and I'd have done more than said a few words. But Daddy, well, I just never could.”

Clancy turned on the key to the Chevelle and the engine roared to life.

Ava remembered the last time they'd driven away—it had been with the windows down and music blaring.

“It saved you a lot of guilt and a fortune spent on a therapist,” she said, leaning in to buckle Emma.

“This fine specimen of a man wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my own load of guilt and my AA sponsor.”

As they drove, Ava turned back to check on Emma and watched the prison falling away behind them. Daddy was in his box, folded up and put away.

“Want to stay another night?” Clancy asked after a while.

A longing for home came over her. Not her house, the swimming pool, or the stump of a tree, but she longed for Dane and her children and the sweet yearning that they brought of a home beyond this one.

“It's time for me to get heading back home. I need to make some headway tonight.”

She made a mental tabulation of her money. With her remaining stash, she had just enough for gas, a little food, and a stay at the Lonesome Motel again. Perhaps she'd see the waitress, Jackie, and tell the older woman all the ways God had taken care of them in the past few days.

They arrived back at Clancy's with it still early afternoon. Ava packed up from the night before. She'd been wearing the same jeans since Saturday and it was now Tuesday. Thankfully she'd been smart enough to toss in extra underwear, though she'd only planned on being gone one or two nights. Somehow one or two had grown into three or four.

Ava made Emma's bottle, then remembered one last thing she wanted to do.

“Would do you mind watching Emma for me? I want to see something one more time.”

“ 'Course. I might just keep the little peanut if you aren't careful.”

“It won't take me long.”

“The willows?” he asked, taking the baby from her arms.

Ava bit the edge of her lip. Her brother knew her better than she realized.

“Yeah. They still there? No subdivision moved in when I was away?”

“Not with me holding the deed. How about I drive you down there with the little peanut? The road's gotten pretty rough. Emma and I'll take a walk in the great outdoors, give you some time.”

Clancy put Emma in her car seat in the middle section of his work truck, leaning over to entertain her as they went. He made funny faces and airplane noises, which brought smiles and squeals of joy in response.

“I like this kid,” Clancy said, meeting Ava's eyes.

For a split second, Ava nearly said
Want her?
But she vetoed the joke before it slipped from her lips. She'd grown quite attached to the little sweetie herself.

“It doesn't take long for this baby to attach herself to your heart,” Ava said, looking down at Emma.

“You call her
the baby
or
this baby
pretty often.”

Ava was aware of that. “I know. I must be afraid to call her anything else.”

“You don't want to fall all the way in love with her.”

Ava looked at the road ahead, surprised again at her brother's insightfulness. He was wasting his life out here all alone without a woman to love or a larger purpose for his many gifts.

“You know, Thanksgiving is coming in a few weeks,” Ava said.

“I wondered if I'd get an invitation this year.”

“Hmm, I don't know.” She laughed. “You have one every year. You're always welcome. Now the rest of our family, not so much.”

“I've eaten many Thanksgivings alone instead of going to the family circus.”

“The kids haven't seen you in a while, why not come?”

Clancy nodded. “Just might do that.”

“We may be losing everything,” she stated without ceremony. “The company, the house, our retirement . . .”

Clancy turned quickly as if to see if she was serious. “It's been happening a lot, and to unexpected people.”

“Funny how in the last few days it's been the least of my concerns.” She gazed out at familiar fields, bouncing along the road nearly covered in brush and grass.

“You've got a place to come to you, if you need it,” Clancy said, navigating around a large Manzanita.

“You'd be up for us all moving in with you?”

“Sure. I'm ready for a big change myself. And I have job security. Everybody needs their car fixed at some point, though I may be getting trades of eggs and beef with how things are going.”

Ava laughed picturing it. Dane in a flannel shirt out plowing the fields. Jason under a car with his uncle learning the ins and outs of an engine. Baby Emma climbing into a tree fort in the backyard . . .

“You're going to be okay.
Mi casa es su casa
, quite literally.” Clancy laughed. “I don't see that as your future, but it's an alternative if you need it. In any case, I'd love to see my family out here more often.”

“So why haven't you settled down, found someone? You're no spring chicken, you know.”

“Yeah, but I haven't met the right woman yet. I got me some high expectations,” he said with a laugh.

Ava wondered how many single women there were in her old hometown. She wondered what kind of a girl would make a good match. Her mind stopped suddenly on Kayanne. They'd met years earlier before Kayanne's husband had left her. They'd joked amicably about Clancy sitting at the kid table. But she'd never considered setting the two up. Her brother lived out in the sticks, and Kayanne was a city girl. But stranger things had happened.

Clancy stopped at the edge of an overgrown meadow. The path to the river was only a faint trail of dual tire tracks with dry, wheat-colored weeds bent and broken above the new green grass that had only just appeared underneath.

Clancy motioned with his head for her to go on, and Ava suddenly felt like running barefoot and free as she once had as a child.

Instead she walked slowly, running her hand over the tops of straw-colored grass just as she'd done as a child and then a young woman.

There along the river's edge, the five willow trees remained and had grown, though not as much as she expected. Then she realized that her perspective had grown with the years faster than the tree branches. Many things that were grand and exciting as a child were now seen with new eyes—adult eyes—and often found lacking.

The leaves dripped liquid sunshine toward the earth. She bent low and stood beneath the umbrella of leaves and branches. Beyond the trees the gray-blue water of the Black Rock River moved at its laziest pace of the year before the winter rains filled it up again.

Ava thought of her journey here. Less than two months earlier, she was planning a wedding and believed things were darn near perfect. She'd been comfortable in her life, confident in her relationship with God, and proud of the family they'd become.

In such a short time frame, all that she found secure had been shaken. And Ava had taken Emma on a five-hundred-mile road trip. The sweet baby didn't know where she was going, what was happening around her, or who she'd meet along the way. Yet she knew her needs would be met. She cried out and expected someone to hear her.

“I guess we can't all live life like an infant,” she muttered to the air where a breeze stirred up the branches.

After all these years seeking God, it amazed her to realize just how vaguely she could see Him. Emma had such a limited vision of what was happening around her, and still she trusted. Wasn't that exactly how they were supposed to live their lives—with the faith of a child?

She remembered a verse in Job that she'd recited with confidence as if she fully understood it. But the verse held a meaning she'd never known before.

“I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” — Job 42:5–6

Thirty-Two

T
HE SIGN TO HER MOTEL GLOWED WITH A HALOED LIGHT THROUGH
misty night. Drizzling rain came down in long angled sheets and an occasional gust of wind rocked the car.

The old Lonesome Motel was a welcome sight as the weariness of the past few days settled over her on the drive from Clancy's house.

As she pulled into the parking lot, her lights flashed across the front of the hotel lobby. A man rose from a couch and peered out the window, bending to look toward the car. Ava knew that shape, the way he leaned forward, the mannerism.

What was he doing here, she wondered, with a great sense of relief flooding her.

Ava pulled into a parking space and watched Dane run through the rain toward her. She opened her door.

“Hello,” he said with a slight smile on his face, still a few feet away. Ava felt love well up within her in a way she hadn't felt in decades. A shy excitement washed over her. Her tongue felt tied.

“You're getting wet,” she said, biting her lip and feeling the longing to touch him. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I've missed you.” He took her in his arms and spun her around.

“How did you know where I was?”

“I'm kind of smart that way,” he said in a thick Southern accent that made her laugh.

“I have no choice but to agree.”

“It helps that your brother actually answered his phone. But what I can't believe is that you took Old Dutch out,” he said with a laugh. They were both getting wet, and Ava took a quick peek at Emma asleep in her car seat.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You need me, and more than you care to admit. But then, I most certainly need you. I need you, and I want you.”

She actually blushed as he pulled her tighter against him. His body sent shivers through her own.

“We have a baby with us,” she muttered.

“That didn't stop us when the kids were small. And I got us a room with two queen-sized beds.”

“Aren't you proactive? What if I wasn't a sure thing?”

“You aren't a sure thing. But you can't blame a guy for trying.”

“Well, that guy might just get everything he's hoping for, and much more.” She laughed at herself. She was shamelessly flirting with her husband.

“Let's get inside. First thing I want to do is meet that little baby.”

Ava beamed with a pride that could only be found in a mother's love.

The streetlight streamed through the curtains. Emma slept soundly on her back on the bed across from them. Their legs were woven together with the sheet and blanket from the bed.