When the Morning Glory Blooms (14 page)

Chapter three, verse forty-nine.

“My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the L
ORD
looks down from heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city.”

Whoa. Spooky-accurate.

Verse fifty-two. “Those who were my enemies without cause  . . .”

Double whoa!

Her eyes drifted to the bottom of the column of print. “L
ORD
, you have heard their insults, all their plots against me—what my enemies whisper and mutter against me all day long.”

She stopped there. The text veered off into, “Pay them back what they deserve, L
ORD
.” She didn’t want to go there. Lamentations—written before Jesus came to give grace new meaning. Grace that started with disappointment and ended with forgiveness. Grace that took what happened in the backseat of a guy’s car—just guessing—and turned it into the cherished child whose soft breaths told her he might be a snorer someday. Grace that now cradled her uniformed son. Grace that gave the kind of second chances Lauren had been offered.

Tears fell on the pages. She leaned back and rested the back of her head against the stiff headrest.

Lauren.

Monica couldn’t be right, could she? Lauren wouldn’t have lied. What would be the purpose?

Except to throw a little of the gossip limelight off herself.

She wouldn’t!

Becky’s cell phone buzzed. Caller ID told her it was Gil. She answered with, “My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the L
ORD
looks down from heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city.”

“Becky? Becky?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“I take it the talk with Monica didn’t go well?”

Oh, Monica. One of us is a fool. And either way, it stinks
.

The call lasted until Jackson woke from his nap  . . .  two minutes later. It was long enough for Gil to ask a couple of questions that would stick to her soul like fresh tar to a dress shoe. Did it bother her more that Lauren might have lied or that if she did it meant she was pregnant again? Did it bother her more that Monica didn’t believe Brianne had ended an unplanned pregnancy or that Monica didn’t believe Becky? Was she more upset that their friendship seemed over or that Brianne’s relationship with her mother was in serious trouble?

The temporary answer was all of it. She hated all of it. Equally distressing. If she had time to think about it, she might answer differently. But the smell of a soiled diaper and the cry of a hungry child ended the call and all hope of thinking.

Gil had one closing question:
What now?

How often had they asked themselves that in the past months?

What do we do now?

Best-case scenario—someone would come forward on her own with the truth.

Worst-case scenario—Becky would guess wrong about who was right and either alienate her daughter or her best friend forever.

As she pulled into the driveway, she stifled a curse word—a word she never would have thought of using before the current crisis. If Lauren were pregnant again, she’d once more stolen Becky’s “right” to celebrate hearing the words “Mom, Dad, we’re pregnant!”

There was supposed to be a video. Becky and Gil, side by side on the couch, would open a small box while a glowing Lauren and her ultraresponsible husband looked on, filming, elbowing each other and holding back goofy grins. In the box, a tiny pair of crocheted booties and a note in kid scrawl:
I’m so glad you’re going to be my grandma and grandpa! Love, Little One
.

There was supposed to be a shout heard ’round the world, echoed in a flurry of phone calls to every extended family member, neighbor, church friend, college roommate, hair stylist  . . . 

“We’re going to be grandparents!”

“We’re so happy for you!”

There was supposed to be unbridled joy with no smudges.

And now, there was supposed to be a Jackson-sized undershirt with the words “I’m the big brother” announcing an addition to the family. A too-soon addition, granted, which would generate a few raised eyebrows and sympathy for the new mom’s energies. But the congratulations would be encouraging. “Kids that close together will be great playmates for each other. Lauren and her husband will get through it. Why, I had a cousin whose kids were nine and a half months apart. That’s right. And the second child was triplets!”

Becky would post ultrasound pictures on her social network profile page. Gil would carry laminated copies in his wallet and on his cell phone and show any flight attendant who asked, “Do you have grandchildren?” Not that he looked old enough for a question like that.

These days, Becky felt old enough for people to ask, “Do you have any
great
-grandchildren?” Concern ages people. She wondered if the youth-serum scientists knew about that component.

What’s the big deal, Lauren?
It changes everything. It saps most of the joy.
All
of the joy except the sweet warmth of a baby’s hand against your cheek.

And now what?

Wisdom, don’t fail me now!

She didn’t need to know today. God promised there was nothing hidden that wouldn’t be revealed. At one time, that made her squirm. Now she counted on it.

Lord, reveal the truth  . . .  in Your timing. I’m not the center of this, the reason for it, or the only one affected by it. I’m going to need Your hold-me-back grip to keep me from trying to fix this myself. It’s unfixable, isn’t it? No good answer. Someone’s going to be hurt. Someone already is
.

Lauren dropped her backpack and shoes just inside the back door and tossed her jacket over the shoulders of a kitchen chair. “Hey, pumpkin face. How are you doing?” She tickled Jackson’s belly just above the waist belt of the bouncy chair in which he was safely strapped while Becky browned hamburger for spaghetti. She grabbed a ginger snap from the cookie jar. “Hey, Mom. How was your day?”

Becky stopped stirring the hamburger. Such a ridiculously normal conversation. A few glorious seconds of normal. “Tell me about yours, first.”

Lauren poured herself a glass of milk, grabbed another cookie, and pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket. “Sorry. I gotta take this text.”

Perfectly normal.

“Purse Suede. Get it?”

“What?”

“Mom, think about it. Purse Suede. Say it fast. Sounds like
persuade
, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.” Becky kept one ear tuned to Lauren’s exuberance while she listened for the oven timer to signal that the garlic bread was done. Judging by the divine smell of buttery garlic, the ding would come any time.

“It’s perfect, Mom. I wouldn’t even really have to finish this last year of high school.”

Becky thumped her fist to the middle of her chest—two punches—to restart her heart.

“Superdramatic, Mom, but just listen, will you? If I can make enough of these Purse Suede purses—and you know I’m creative because art’s, like, my best grade—I can work from home and sell them online, and then I could help out more with Jackson. And then, by maybe spring, I could get an apartment and you wouldn’t have to watch him at all.”

The bullet points of how many ways Lauren’s career plan spelled disaster lined up neatly in Becky’s mind.

What would grace say? Well? I’m waiting, Lord
.

“I’d  . . .  I’d love to see a sample of a Purse Suede.”

Lauren’s eyes widened. “You would?”

“Do you have a selection, or  . . .  ?”

“Well, not yet. Some sketches. Do we have a sewing machine that will handle suede?”

Great plan, Lauren. If you charge a thousand dollars per purse, you may be able to “persuade” a landlord to rent an apartment to you, and you can buy groceries and diapers and get a car and pay taxes and buy insurance and pay for a website on which to sell your thousand-dollar purses that you will ship in boxes you can’t afford with postage you can’t afford to customers who’ve never heard of you and oh, Lord God!

“How can I help, Lauren?” That’s not what she intended to say. It slipped out like a preemie.

“You really want to help?” The look on Lauren’s face was softer than it had been in months. Becky saw remnants of the little girl Lauren had been moments before a bad decision made her a mother. Likely a
series
of bad decisions. None of the mistakes Becky had made over the years could be attributed to one single wrong move. They’d usually compounded to
the point of awful, like a litter box—not bad the first day, but disgusting if left to build up.

“I want to see you succeed, Lauren. But graduating is not optional. We’ll start there.”

Lauren slumped. “But what if  . . .  ?”

No. No. You’re not pregnant again. You can’t be. You won’t fight morning sickness during midterms. You won’t deliver before you graduate. No
.

“Mom, did you hear what I said?”

“Sorry. Spaced out for a minute.”

“What if my grades don’t cut it?”

The baby food jar of morning glory seeds sat on the kitchen counter on their way to basement storage. Becky picked it up and rotated it, watching the tiny brown nubbins move at her will, lifeless now but with the potential for next year’s blossoms. She’d heard hope—a seed of hope—in Lauren’s concern for her grades. “I’ll help there, too. We’ll get through this together.”

10

Ivy—1951

We’ll get through this together.” The words tasted unfamiliar to her as she said them, and sounded at least as unfamiliar to her ears.

Your mom’s gone, Ivy. We’ll get through this together
.

Oh, Ivy. No! Well, we’ll get through this together
.

Things aren’t turning out as we’d hoped. But we’ll get through this together
.

What if she’d heard words like that from anyone who cared about her? Drew might have been the one person to say them, if she’d given him a chance. She hadn’t because of the burden she was and the burden she carried.

“What’s that, dear?” Anna scooted herself higher in the bed. Ivy hoped the action wasn’t as painful as it appeared.

“We’ll  . . .  we’ll get through this together.”

“My being evicted isn’t your concern, Miss Ivy.”

“You’re not being evicted. Discharged is different.”

Those pewter-gray eyes turned to slits. “How?”

Ivy straightened the blanket at the foot of Anna’s bed. “You’re right. Not much difference.”

Anna’s crooked smile hinted at a less-than-fully-satisfying victory.

“I assume your home was sold to pay for your time here?” How far did Ivy dare nose her way into Anna’s private life? But who else did she have to talk to about it?

“Long ago. Not to pay for my rent in these deluxe accommodations.” She winked. “But, yes. The house is gone.” Pewter turned to glass. “The morning glories. Gone. Except for those in my treasure box.” She turned to face out the window, as if suddenly mesmerized by the view.

Treasure box? Oh. Her mind. “Let’s not give up hope.” Another unfamiliar line bubbled up Ivy’s throat and escaped through her open mouth. Where were these things coming from? Not give up hope? What had hope done for her lately?