When the Morning Glory Blooms (33 page)

“The
dare
?”

“Could we save that for later?”

“Later comes eventually.”

Lauren quieted. “I know. The hardest part was telling you and Dad. What was the hardest part for you?”

“You’ve never asked that before, Lauren.”

“I know. Mature, huh?”

Oh, that girl has her father’s sense of humor. Great
. “I guess the hardest part for me was lying awake that first night after you told us. Okay, the first week. All I could think about was how much harder things were going to be for you than they had to be. How many things were changed now. How much narrower your choices, and how much it would cost you.”

“You and Dad have paid for most of it.”

“Not in dollars.”

“Oh. Right. You didn’t lie awake thinking how stupid I was?”

The temp in the car quickly plummeted with the heat off. But this was too important to hurry. “If Jackson rolled off the couch and bumped his head on the coffee table  . . . ”

“Mom!”

“Stay with me. If he did, despite the fact that you told him to stay put, and he got a concussion  . . . ”

“Good grief, Mom! That’s a horrible thought!”

“
If
that happened, would you lose sleep over his not staying put or over his pain and the consequences?”

“Is it okay if I say both?”

“Good answer.”

“But mostly, I’d worry about the bump on his head.”

“Another good answer. A very motherly thing to say.” Becky patted her daughter on her knee. “Now, let’s go inside before we get frostbite in our own garage.”

Lauren reached for the passenger-side door handle, then hesitated and turned back to face Becky. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Is Brianne going to be able to live with herself?”

“For now, let’s focus on praying she lives, honey.”

24

Anna—1890s

Yes, the days—the years—were laced with both work and joy. With concern that often ended in celebration. But how can I describe the depths of the pit into which I fell when Robyn Anita stood on Morning Glory’s threshold? A slip of a child, with her decidedly unhappy newborn in her arms. She held the bundle awkwardly, as if the babe were flour she’d been enlisted to haul from a barrel in the cellar.

“Is this the place where you take in people like us? Even if we can’t pay?”

“This is the Morning Glory Haven for Unwed Mothers. You’re welcome here. What’s your name, dear?”

She shifted from one foot to the other, not rocking gently, rhythmically, as most mothers instinctively do, but nervously, as if she’d not taken care of “necessary” things far too long and her bladder was about to burst. She flinched as the baby’s cries escalated. When she spoke, she labored through the revelation of her name. I had the sense she was inventing it, syllable by syllable.

“Robyn  . . .  with a
y
  . . .  Anita. Robyn Anita.”

“And your baby?”

“Got no name yet. She’s a girl.”

“How old?”

“Three days.”

“Goodness, child! You’ve been walking? I didn’t hear a carriage.”

“I rode some  . . .  with different people.”

“Where’s your home?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Well, we can attend to those matters later. Let’s get your baby quieted before all three of us lose our minds. There’s a rocker here in the parlor. A quiet spot for you to nurse her. I’ll get you something to eat while—”

“I can’t nurse her. I’m  . . .  I’m dried up like a raisin.”

“Perhaps your milk hasn’t let down yet. If you’ll allow, I can help you learn ways to—”

“Won’t happen. Have to feed her by bottle. I must be  . . .  deformed  . . .  or something.”

I’m not one to easily give up when I believe there is hope, but the baby’s distress grew more severe. “Come with me to the kitchen then. We’ll get a bottle of milk warmed.”

Robyn Anita’s relief matched that of the infant, once they both were fed. “Robyn, can you tell me why you’ve come here? Are you looking to find an adoptive home for your daughter?”

“Give her to some other family? No, I couldn’t do that!”

“How old are you?”

“Almost four—um, fifteen. Fifteen and a half, actually.”

“Do you know how difficult it will be for you to raise your baby by yourself? I assume the father is not around.”

“Oh, he’s around.” Her eyes grew dark with something akin to rage.

“But not  . . .  involved?”

“Not if I can help it. He won’t touch this child if I have any breath in me and any say-so at all.”

Robyn Anita was a deepening mystery that I wasn’t sure I had the strength or energy to solve.

“Let’s get you settled upstairs. Your daughter could sleep for hours, from the looks of it. And I am concerned about you being on your feet so much this soon after delivery.”

“I’m all right.” She dropped her eyes. “Yes, I  . . .  I should probably lie down.”

I gave them the room nearest mine, certain the path between would be well worn before the mystery resolved.

Rattled, my spirit wouldn’t let me sleep. Ironically, every welcome was tainted, not just this one. It always disturbed me to open my door and find on my threshold a young woman in trouble. I found joy in being able to help, but my heart broke every time.

Robyn Anita brought with her a restlessness that affected us all.

“Something’s not right, Anna.” One of the other residents at the time, a repeat customer, I’m grieved to say, voiced her own concerns two days into the saga. “That girl’s not being honest with us.”

I’d grown to love and appreciate Lily, having had more time with her than with others—short-termers—who made better choices after they left Morning Glory. I didn’t yet trust Lily’s decision making in regard to men, but I did value her sensitivity and insight on other planes. She gave voice to what I’d already suspected.

“I’ll tell you something odd,” she continued. “When I dumped the commodes this morning, I noticed hers was  . . .  well  . . .  there wasn’t any  . . .  you know  . . .  blood. You ever know a woman just five days a mother who wasn’t still bleeding like a—”

“Lily! Please. These are private matters.”

“I’m saying—”

“I know.”

“What do you make of it, Miss Anna?”

I didn’t want to confess aloud the conclusions I drew. Whose baby, if not Robyn’s? Where was the grieving mother, breasts aching to feed her absent child? Was my first move to send Puff for the sheriff or to confront the girl, a possible kidnapper?

I opted to ease the truth out of her, if possible.

We worked together folding sun-bleached diapers before attending to a bucket of hickory nuts Puff had collected for us that afternoon. “Dr. Noel will stop by tomorrow to examine you, Robyn Anita.”

“What?”

“He cares for all our residents. He’ll check your daughter, too.”

“No!”

The widening of her eyes told me most of what I needed to know. “Don’t worry, dear. It’s his gift to our residents. No charge. We want to make sure you’re both healthy before the next leg of your journey. Birthing babies may be as natural as breathing, but it takes its toll on a woman. And your daughter’s cord has me a little concerned. Does it look weepy to you?”

“No doctor. Please. It’s not  . . .  not necessary. And I  . . .  I’m not fond of doctors. You can understand.”

I took the stack of folded diapers from her lap and set them on the table near us. “Would Dr. Noel find that you’ve never had a child in your womb, Robyn Anita? Would he be able to tell that this little girl isn’t your daughter?”

Tears flowed like the milk she should have had.

“She’s my  . . .  sister.”

“Oh, honey. What have you done?”

“It’s what
he
done.”

“Who?”

Fear knotted the cords in her neck. They stood out as prominently as the first pass of a new plow on a virgin field.

I stroked her hair, though it needed a good washing, and asked again. “Who?”

Her story sickened me. A father who beat his children nearly senseless. She wasn’t about to let the same fate befall this newest little one after her mother succumbed in childbirth. While the older children cared for their mother’s body, Robyn Anita overheard her father talking to himself about dealing with this newborn as he would an unwanted litter of kittens, with a burlap sack and a ditch full of water.

I might have broken a tooth, as hard as I clenched my teeth with fury against a man not fit to live, much less parent. If she now spoke the truth—and all evidence pointed in that direction—Puff had all the more reason to run for the sheriff.

And I had all the more reason to pray for an answer to another impossible situation.

To what lengths would I have gone to save those sisters from having to be returned to their father? I wouldn’t have the chance to find out. They were gone by morning, slipping past the creaking stairs and my alert senses. If I’d thought Robyn Anita capable of caring well for that helpless infant, I wouldn’t have worried myself sick over where they disappeared to.

When Robyn left, Lily’s demeanor changed, as if she had matured overnight, her latent mothering instincts kicking in with her discomfort over what had brought the girl to our doors and what had made her flee.

“She’s endangering that baby!” Lily protested.

“Yes. And there’s little, perhaps nothing, we can do about it. The law is looking for them. I pray they find them before her father does.”

Lily snapped beans in two as if they represented a man’s neck. “Putting seed in a woman doesn’t make a person a father.”

I would have asked her to express it more delicately, but she spoke truth.

“And holding a child in your arms or pushing one through your legs—”

“All right, Lily.”

“—doesn’t make you a mother. It takes more than that.”

I took the pan of beans from her hands and gave her a bowl of yeast dough to knead. “We’ve both lived long enough to know the truth in that.”

She didn’t talk much the rest of the day. The furrows in her brow said her mind kept pace with how hard her hands worked.

As pleasant as she’d been to that point, she changed somehow. I don’t believe I heard a hint of a complaint from her about any of the aches and pangs, about the chores she took on, about the short but intense labor that brought her son into the world. This child she kept. His almond eyes and thick tongue spoke of hardships ahead. But she didn’t complain.

I was the one who cried.

I could not then, nor can I now, abide whining, even my own. It galled me, as it galled the Almighty to hear His children complaining about the wilderness fare that not only smelled and tasted of heaven but also saved their ungrateful lives.

I must add that the food I prepared for my girls could not be accused of having either the odor or flavor of heaven in those
early days. But it was tasty, filling, and similarly provided as manna. A wild turkey laid at our doorstep by a shy but generous hand. A box of necessities—flour, salt, molasses—tucked in the back of our parked wagon while we worshiped. A venison flank offered humbly by the father of one of the girls.

On occasion, when his wife was otherwise occupied, Mr. Witherspoon would slip into my order a double portion of sugar or rice or beans. My eyebrows questioned his actions. His wink and smile answered. I knew to silently thank him and praise my God, who had softened a withered prune’s heart.

It is my studied opinion that those who have known genuine hunger—raw, vacuous hunger—experience a shriveling of the part of the brain from which complaints are generated.

When one of my girls wrinkled her pert nose at the thinness of the stew or the sameness of repeated potato suppers—when potatoes were what we had—I knew without asking that the young woman had nothing in her memory to tell her what true hunger felt like.

I was not assigned the task of correcting all the flaws in the girls who came to me. If so, who would the Lord assign to correct the ocean of my own failings and weaknesses? He asked, rather, that I love and provide for them. It was my hope, sometimes realized, that the love itself and the overtness of my own gratitude would create a hothouse in which discontent would wilt and appreciation thrive.