Tomorrow's Sun (5 page)

“No!” Scrambling to her feet, she hobbled to the window. Across the street, Russell dribbled the basketball. Michael sat on the beach ball, crying. Relief coursed through Emily, disarming every adrenaline-activated nerve. She unlatched the window and pulled on the brass handle at the bottom.

It didn’t budge. As her shoulder wrenched, she noticed the strips of furring nailing the window shut.

She whirled. Even from here, she could see the strips of wood sealing the other window.

She banged on the glass. “Russell! Up here! Michael!”

After a minute it dawned on her—if she couldn’t hear the slap of the basketball on the cement, they couldn’t hear her.

Don’t panic
. She reached for her phone.
It’s not an emergency
. Back home in Traverse City, she knew several guys on the volunteer rescue squad. She’d heard their stories, and she wasn’t about to become a Friday night laugh. She was resourceful. Hadn’t she heard that very word from professors and coworkers? Hadn’t her therapist told her over and over that she was stronger than she thought she was? She scanned the room for a rope, a hammer, anything. On the other end of the attic, a large square of gray linoleum covered the floor. It matched the flowery pattern showing through the hole in the kitchen floor. If she could find a way to secure it, she could use it as a slide.

And end up back in the hospital.

Along one wall, an old quilt covered something about ten feet long. She yanked the quilt. Dust plumes danced in the shaft of gold sunlight straining through the west window. A church pew, dark-stained and shiny. Clusters of grapes with pointy leaves and curling tendrils decorated the back. On the end of the bench sat a Bible, the edges of the black cover ragged and curled. With the quilt at her feet, Emily sank to the bench.

On the wall directly across the room from her hung a three-foot-high black iron cross.

With it, she could break a window. But the thought of breaking the old glass seemed as sacrilegious as using a cross to do it.

Who had hung it here in this silent sanctuary? And who had made the decision to leave it?

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, opened to her contacts list, and scrolled it. She knew two people in this town. Matt Rayburg and Jacob Braden.

Banishing the last shred of her pride, she decided to call the arrogant man who lived in the neighborhood. When she’d finished leaving a message, she sank back on the pew and stared at the cross. This would be a perfect place to pray.

She looked down at the faded quilt and began counting stitches.

September 2, 1852

“We need more.”

Hannah knelt in the stifling attic and dropped a buffalo robe onto the two quilts in Papa’s open arms. Only one blanket remained.

“Bertha Willett said we’ll find some in the buggy after church.”

“Bless that woman.” She put one high-laced shoe on the ladder step, straightened her skirt about her ankles, and climbed down. “She’ll be blessed in eternity, and we’ll get just the opposite for lying to her.”

Papa stood at the top of the stairs, petting his newly plastered wall as if it were a prized heifer. He shook his head. “When faced with two moral dilemmas, always choose the greater good. We’ve done no harm to Mrs. Willett by letting her believe she’s making quilts for orphans.”

Hannah shook the dust from her skirt and held out her arms for the blankets. “What was it that made a man with a spiritual answer for everything become a shopkeeper instead of a minister?”

A sad smile crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. “A sweetheart who wanted to marry a man who would indulge her.”

Mirroring his smile, Hannah touched the wall in the same endearing fashion. “You did well for Mama.”

A long sigh echoed off the empty walls. “If only she could have seen the house finished.”

She refrained from saying
We will not speak of what might have been
. It was good for them to talk of Mama, to keep her memory alive. “She had three years to enjoy her stove and the cupboard…” She almost added
before
, but the word didn’t need to be spoken. “She was happy. You built her ‘the best new house in the best new state.’” She watched Mama’s phrase darken his eyes. Hard as it was, he needed to be reminded.

Papa walked into the room that would be Hannah’s as soon as the wallpaper arrived—a room with an actual closet with shelves on the bottom, and Liam’s hooks on all three sides—the closet she’d already covered with a gingham curtain to hide the bit of carpentry she’d done herself.

She took him by the arm and steered him away from her closet. “The pies should be cool by now.”

T
aste?” Jake held his cone out to Lexi. She licked it, a splotch of green ice cream landing on her chin, another on the picnic table. He handed her a napkin.

“Mine’s better. Taste?” Eyes gleaming, she proffered a heap of neon blue with colored bits.

“Not a chance. You gotta wonder how this came about. Some dude coughs a wad of gum into the custard mix and says, ‘Hey, let’s call it Batman Bubblegum!’”

“A stroke of genius.”

Jake shook his head. “There are names for people like you. Weird, for one.” He handed her a second napkin for the blue moustache sprouting on her upper lip. “You look like your mom when you smile like that.”

“Like this?” She punctuated a warped grin with a blue tongue.

The sassy face, meant to make him smile, felt like a curled fist pressed to his sternum. She’d inherited Abby’s comedic timing. “Yeah. Just like that.”

Lexi handed her cone to him. “Okay, be serious for a sec.” She pulled the band out of her ponytail and fluffed her hair over her shoulders. “Do I look more like Mom with my hair long or short?”

Jake shook his head. “Unfair question. You know I only like long hair. All men prefer long hair.”

“I didn’t ask if I should get it cut. I asked which way I look more like Mom.”

Grasshopper custard dripped across his knuckles. “Long.”

“Good.” She pointed to the puddle collecting under his hand. “I think it really bugs Ben that I look like her.”

In the time it took him to lick the back of his hand, Jake experienced an emotion bordering on empathy. Thankfully, it didn’t linger. “So how are things at home this week?” He watched Lexi’s force field slide into place. “Be honest. I promise I won’t worry.”
Not
. He would worry, and he would write it all down.

Lexi shrugged. “He took Adam’s phone away, and I only get mine until the end of the week when the contract is up. Oh yeah, he has a girlfriend.”

The cake cone crackled under Jake’s fingers.

“Adam heard noises downstairs last night.”

Acid rose in Jake’s throat. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to—for the record. “What did he hear?”

“A woman’s voice. They were laughing. What kind of person would laugh at Ben’s stupid jokes? Anyway, that’s the real reason Adam got up to feed Pansy—so he could check it out. They were in Ben’s room.”

Jake turned away and slammed the rest of his ice cream at the trash can.

“Ben came out and went nuts on Adam.” Lexi wiped her mouth. “Don’t say anything, okay?” Her tone pleaded.

“I won’t.
” Not yet
. He’d reported Ben to Human Services before. The guy slid through cracks like sewer water. He had to bide his time, bite his tongue, and trust his lawyer to work it out. In the meantime, he’d keep taking notes. And keep stashing away as much money as he could. Taking these kids out of Ben Madsen’s grasp could take everything he had.

“Promise?”

Jake tapped his knuckles on the table, trying to remember what he was supposed to promise. “That I won’t tell? I’ll promise for now, if you make one to me.”

Lexi tipped her head to one side.
Déjà vu
. Jake could have been eight years old, tagging along with his big sister, eating frozen custard at this very table. Lexi scrunched her nose, wrinkling pink-tinged freckled skin. “What?”

“Promise me that if Ben ever hits you or Adam or touches—”

His phone, sitting on the table between them, rang. He glanced down, expecting the electrician or someone from his drywall crew. He was
not
expecting the name on the screen.

Emily Foster.

What part of “not interested” didn’t she understand? True, he hadn’t said it quite that clearly, but she should have gotten the gist. Did the woman think he was just playing the business version of hard-to-get? As he shut off the sound, something in Lexi’s eyes grabbed him. A shuttered look, the force field sliding back into place. “Lex, has Ben ever touched—”

“No! Don’t be dumb! I’d deck the slob if he ever—” She ended with an exaggerated shiver. “Ewww.”

Jake stared at her, at the way her eyes didn’t return to his. Maybe she wasn’t lying. But she wasn’t telling the truth either.

A sense of urgency swept over him. He stared down at the silenced phone then back at Lexi’s guarded expression. It would kill him to knock down a wall that was over a hundred and sixty years old, but there were things that would hurt much worse. “I need to return this call.” He stood and walked across the parking lot, swallowing pride with every step, and pushed the buttons that would connect him with compromise.

“Hello?” The cool, calm house flipper sounded distraught.

“Miss Foster, this is Jake Braden returning your call.”
And eating crow
.

“Thank you for calling back. I know you’re probably extremely busy.” Her voice crackled on the last two words. “But I don’t know anyone else in town, and I’ve gotten myself in the strangest predicament….”

Lexi held the ladder at the bottom. An ethereal sight greeted Jake as he poked his head through the opening to the attic. Emily Foster sat on a bench on the far side of the attic, hugging a blanket. A tunnel of late afternoon sunshine landed in a square of light at her feet. Jake felt as though he was climbing the stairs to holy ground.

She rose slowly, the blanket falling to the floor. “This is so embarrassing.” She walked toward him with what were clearly painful steps. “Thank you so much for coming. I’ll pay you for your time.”

Jake stood, surprised he didn’t have to duck to clear the rafters. “No problem. As my grandma would’ve said—’round here we do fer each other.” He let the grin he’d been suppressing since she’d called have rein and took two steps toward her. Why, he wasn’t sure.

On the wall across from the bench hung a large black cross, striking in its simplicity. “Kind of a peaceful place to be stuck in a predicament. Did you hang that?”

“No. It was—”

“Can I come up, Jake?” Lexi’s voice echoed through the hole in the floor.

“Sorry. That’s my niece. Mind if she comes up and looks around?”

Emily lifted both hands and smiled. “Might as well make it a party. Wish I had some
peanuhbutter
cookies to serve.”

Looking from Emily to the cross on the wall, Jake wondered if being stuck in this place hadn’t been good therapy. She was a very different woman from the all-business person he’d talked to just hours ago.