When Joy Came to Stay (26 page)

There was a reason for feeling this way and Maggie didn’t believe any amount of counseling or talking to God could ever make it go away. The reason was a living, breathing child who was being raised by someone else. All because she was afraid of telling the truth to Ben Stovall.

As Maggie fell asleep, she couldn’t decide which emotion burned stronger inside her: the aching loss for the child she’d never known or her hatred for the man who had demanded nothing less than perfection from her. The man for whom she’d lived a lie for the past eight years.

The man who had by his standards forced her to throw her tiny daughter over the edge of a canyon, then watch in agony until she disappeared forever.

N
ANCY
T
AYLOR PACED THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR OF HER MODEST
ranch home and wished for the tenth time that hour that Dan were still alive. His lungs had never been strong, not really. So when he caught pneumonia three years back during one of the coldest weeks that winter, doctors said there wasn’t much they could do. His body stopped working, pure and simple, and in two weeks time the illness claimed his life.

At first all there’d been were the memories—fond scrap-book pages that filled her mind and helped her pass the time. Nancy and Dan had been married a month shy of forty years, after all. But eventually time had a way of bringing to light the tasks at hand. Seasons changed, children and grandchildren filtered through the house, until one weekend the previous year Nancy woke up and realized she’d actually done it. She’d learned how to live life without her beloved Dan.

All that changed last night when she got the call.

Ben Stovall was his name, and Nancy had the uncanny feeling he was not some wacko from the big city, not some traveling salesman looking to sell a big-time insurance policy or a Kirby vacuum system. He’d said he was married to Maggie and really that was all he needed to say.

Though Nancy couldn’t be sure of the young man’s last name, back when Maggie lived with her and Dan she definitely was smitten by a boy named Ben. That much was certain. And thinking about Maggie brought every memory of Dan and the kids and that time in their lives back to mind.

Maggie Johnson.

Taking her in had been the Christian thing to do. Nancy and Dan had only discussed the idea for a few minutes before
bowing in prayer and agreeing together that however crowded they might be, there was room for Maggie.

At first, the pale young woman hadn’t opened up much. She’d been helpful and quiet and kept to herself. But as her due date neared she gravitated to Nancy, sharing the feelings in her heart and finally talking about Ben, the boy who made her blush at the mention of his name, the boy she loved so desperately.

Nancy stopped pacing and closed her eyes. For a moment she could see Maggie, lovely and radiant in her ninth month of pregnancy despite the emotional battle waging war in her heart. “Mrs. Taylor, this is the right thing, isn’t it? Giving the baby up for adoption?”

Back then Nancy had been so certain of her answer. “Yes, dear. Of course it is. You have a lifetime of babies and marriage ahead of you. If this weren’t the right thing, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”

In fact it was Dan who had first expressed doubts on the subject. Late one night while Maggie was sleeping he had pulled Nancy aside and frowned sadly. “I’m worried about her.”

“Maggie?”

“Yes. I think she’s getting herself too attached to that baby she’s carrying.” Dan struggled for a moment and doodled a design on the hardwood floor with the toe of his boot. “Ah, I don’t know, Nancy. You and me understand how it is with babies. They’re for keeps. Not something you can give away lightly.”

“Dan, it’s different with Maggie. She’s not married, and she’s not ready to be a mother. She said so herself. Adoption is a beautiful thing when the—”

“I know all that. For goodness sake, Nancy, my own two sisters were adopted. Adoption is wonderful for most people, but maybe not for Maggie. Watch her sometime. See how she holds her belly just so and strokes it when she thinks we ain’t looking. She’s getting attached, I tell you, and I think she might
be making the mistake of her lifetime to give that baby up.”

Nancy remembered the evening as though it were yesterday. She had considered her husband’s words back then, but written them off. Besides, a woman knew more about these things than a man. Yes, Maggie was confused and anxious, but that was to be expected. Adoption still was the best possible choice. How could Maggie be ready for motherhood when she hadn’t been willing to discuss her pregnancy with any of the people who mattered to her? Besides, there were so many childless couples desperate to have a baby. Certainly Maggie’s child would be cared for and loved, nurtured in a way that Maggie never could have done at her age.

Nancy sighed. Eventually the baby was born, and Maggie had given her up. But far from the relief Nancy had expected, almost overnight a light burned out in Maggie’s eyes. For the next month—until she returned home to Akron—Maggie would cry herself to sleep. Even now Nancy could hear the muffled sound of that sweet girl weeping for her baby.

Why didn’t I do something back then?
Nancy gazed out the window, watching for the car Ben had described. In the years since Maggie left she hadn’t stayed in touch…but Nancy had come to believe that Dan’s whispered words late that night so long ago had been right all along.

It had been a mistake for Maggie to give up her baby. The awful truth about the whole thing was that there’d been nothing any of them could do about it after the fact. Dan never brought it up again the way he had that night in the kitchen. But every now and then, when a television program would end and they’d turn off the set and make their way up the stairs to bed, he’d pause at the landing and mutter out loud, “I wonder how Maggie’s doing…”

It was a statement that hadn’t demanded an answer, and Nancy generally said nothing in response. Still the image hung in their home—and in their hearts—a moment. As it always would. And that was when Nancy would wonder why she
hadn’t seen it the way Dan had back when Maggie was nine months pregnant.

Why hadn’t she asked more questions? Made Maggie call her parents and come clean about her pregnancy, or tell Ben—whoever he was—that there was a baby in the picture? She could have encouraged Maggie to keep the baby but she had done nothing of the sort. Why?

Nancy had no answers for herself. Not years ago when Dan was alive, and not now.

She opened her eyes, glanced out the window, and searched for the navy blue Pathfinder. Nothing yet. It was 2:45 and, according to Ben’s call, he’d arrive sometime in the next fifteen minutes. Her feet propelled her from one side of the room to the other as she considered the situation.

She still couldn’t imagine why he’d contacted her.

The man had been polite. He’d introduced himself as Ben Stovall and asked permission to visit the following day. How in the world had he found their number? Nancy stopped pacing and thought about that for a moment. There was only one answer. Somehow Maggie’s mother must have held onto it all these years and now Maggie was in trouble. If that were the case, then Ben Stovall—the same Ben, Nancy guessed, that had caused Maggie to blush eight years ago—needed help.

Nancy began moving again, and this time she paced herself into the kitchen where two envelopes lay on the freshly wiped Formica countertop. The first held a slip of paper on which she’d written the name of the social worker who had handled Maggie’s adoption case. Though Nancy hadn’t doubted Maggie’s choice those long years ago, she had always felt it wise to tuck away that information. After all, if Maggie hadn’t held onto it—and Nancy doubted that she had, as confused and distraught as she had been after her baby’s birth—there might be no one else who would know how to link Maggie with the baby she’d given up.

The second envelope was sealed, and inside was a letter for
Maggie. Nancy had written it a few months after Dan’s death, on a sunny morning with the house absolutely silent…that was the moment she first realized Dan had been right.

In part the handwritten letter was an apology from Nancy for not encouraging Maggie to follow her heart. But it was also a prayer to almighty God. For though Nancy had not kept in touch with Maggie, and though she might never know what happened to Maggie’s baby, God knew. He knew as surely as He knew the number of hairs on her head.

And so the letter was part prayer, asking God to keep special watch over Maggie’s little one and begging Him to reunite them one day, should His will warrant such a meeting.

Nancy wasn’t sure what Ben Stovall wanted to talk about or what could be so important that he would drive straight from Cleveland to meet with her in person. But whatever it was, he would leave her house with the two envelopes.

After so many years of doubting her actions during Maggie’s pregnancy, this one act was the least she could do for the girl who’d been so dear to Dan and her. The only thing she could do.

B
Y HIS ESTIMATION
,
BEN
S
TOVALL WAS TEN MINUTES FROM
N
ANCY
Taylor’s house and he pushed the accelerator as far down as he safely could.

Why, Maggie? Why are you doing this to us? Did you really have to lie to me about Israel?

He asked the questions countless times on the five-hour drive from Cleveland to Woodland, and still he had no answers. There were other questions, too…horrible concerns about the things McFadden had said, but Ben refused to think those things through. He couldn’t stand doing so.

Besides, after today he would probably have more answers than he wanted.

He felt the familiar thickening in his throat and blinked back tears.
Why God? What did I ever do to make her lie to me? We did everything right, didn’t we? Followed Your plan, sought You at every turn? Why has it come to this?
Ben was baffled at what had become of his life. Two weeks ago he and Maggie were happily married, their foster boys were flourishing in their care, and he had never had a run-in with the law in any way, from any angle. Now…

He gave a humorless laugh. Now his wife was in a mental hospital refusing to see him, while her former boyfriend—a drug-dealing street thug, no less—had told who knew how many lies about his relationship with Maggie. A relationship that happened the year before she and Ben had married.

On top of that, the man had very nearly beaten him to death, and now Ben had signed a criminal complaint in a case that would likely drag through court for two years. The foster boys were gone, his job at the office was on hold, and he had
driven three hundred miles south on a crazy search for a woman he’d never heard of before to see if she knew whether his wife had ever had a baby out of wedlock.

It sounded like a soap opera, not the kind of life a man of faith should be living.
How did we end up here? What terrible thing did my Maggie girl do when she dated
—

Judge not, or you, too, will be judged…

The advice filtered through his mind, and Ben dismissed it. He wasn’t judging anyone. He was defending Maggie’s honor. He knew her better than that…that
criminal
ever had. Nothing could have forced Maggie to give a baby up for adoption. And if that part of what John McFadden had said was false, Ben guessed the rest was false, too.

Whatever time and energy he might spend on his trip to Woodland, it was worth every minute. He would defend his wife and perhaps, in the process, help her come to her senses so that when she did, they could resume their lives.

Ben followed the directions Nancy Taylor had given him and turned a corner, which put him in the heart of a middle-class neighborhood with 1970s-style ranch homes. He drove past four houses, then pulled over in front of the largest one on the block. Ben turned off the car and studied the house for a moment.

So this was where Maggie had lived.
Definitely not Israel
.

He paused. Maybe Maggie had lied because she was trying to impress him. Maybe the whole story about Israel was designed to make her look well traveled and educated. The truth—that she’d spent the semester in Woodland with the Taylor family—wasn’t nearly as appealing. But would such a lie cause Maggie to reject him completely, to look him in the eyes and tell him he had never really known her?

Ben doubted it and for a moment he was pierced with fear of the unknown.

What if Maggie
—

He shook his head and climbed out of the car, slipping on a
pullover sweater. He wouldn’t consider the idea. It was impossible.

He walked up a brick pathway to the front door and rang the buzzer.

A woman in her midsixties answered the door and offered him a smile that never quite reached her eyes.
Help me here, God. Please.

“Hello, I’m Nancy Taylor. You must be Ben?”

“Yes, thanks for letting me come.”

The woman opened the door wider and extended her hand. “Come in. Have a seat, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Ben followed her into a front room and sat down while Mrs. Taylor disappeared into the kitchen. The smell of fresh-baked bread filled the air. At the far end of the sitting area a cheery blaze danced in the fireplace beneath a mantle lined with framed photographs of smiling teenagers. Ben had the feeling he’d come home somehow, and he felt himself relax.

No wonder Maggie wanted to spend a semester here.

The place was as warm and inviting as anywhere Ben had ever been. Mrs. Taylor brought him a mug of coffee and a plate of cookies and then settled down across from him. She was weathered and white-haired, but she had an amazing energy and a light in her eyes that seemed to come straight from her soul.

“One question first…” Nancy set her cup down and leveled her gaze at Ben. “Are you the Ben Maggie talked about when she stayed with us?”

Ben thought back to that summer those eight years earlier and his fears faded almost completely. Maggie had talked about him to the Taylors, even though they hadn’t officially gotten back together at that point. “Yes. Maggie and I talked before she moved here. She knew I was waiting for her back in Cleveland.”