Home to Stay

One of the dogs woofed softly.

“Dogs like cake,” Ruth added, more pouty now than agitated.

“But cake is not good for dogs.” Hank held eye contact with the child, not an easy thing to do.

Ruth rocked from one foot to the other again. The chair wobbled. Her tutu swayed and rustled. She looked over at the dogs sitting at the table next to her then at the man treating her with dignity and yet demanding she show a level of discipline she couldn’t always deliver.

She scrunched her mouth up on one side and lifted one foot slightly, which might have made anyone else seem off balance but somehow seemed to put Ruth at a cockeyed advantage. “Can dogs eat pretend cake?”

Hank had to tilt his head to keep eye contact, which he did. He managed a nod, as well. “I think that would be all right.”

“Pretend pink cake?” Ruth threw it out almost as a challenge, as if she wasn’t ready to believe the man had imagination enough to conjure up canine-safe and Ruth-approved pretend fare.

“Pretend pink cake with pretend pink icing on top.” He lifted up what Emma could now see was an empty cup. “Shall we sip on it?”

Ruth mimicked his motion, reaching for her own cup, then paused to warn him, “’Member your manners.”

“Oh, sorry.” With that, the rough-around-the-edges country vet delicately extended his pinkie finger.

Ruth did the same.

Hank raised the cup to his lips and made an obnoxiously loud slurping sound and that sent Ruth into a gale of giggles.

Emma’s stomach clenched even as her heart warmed. She had come here to clear her head so she could make a decision about hers and Ruth’s future. This was not helping that, but it seemed so good for her precious little girl. “Thank you, Hank—for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” He set the cup down then turned toward her. “Get enough sleep?”

“No, but I think I’m recharged enough to go see my aunt.” Emma stretched then yawned. Her dress rustled around her. “After I change, of course.”

“I didn’t think you were the kind to change for anyone.” He looked at her then at Ruth, who was swirling her empty cup through the air while the dogs looked on. “Certainly looks like you went out and got what you wanted in life after we parted ways. I hope you and your husband are very happy, Em.”

“I never married.”

“Oh?” Again he looked at Ruth.

Her often obstinate child placed hats folded from newspapers on the head of one dog, then the other.

“I…” Emma didn’t know how much she wanted to share with Hank about her choices and her life since she ran out on him all those years ago. Did he really need to know that she had never fallen truly in love with another man since him? Or that from the moment Emma had adopted Ruth straight out of the Neonatal Unit at the hospital where Emma had worked, until last year when she went to work for Dr. Ben Weaver, that Emma had put her child’s needs first and foremost? Did he need to know how all of that tied in to her hasty flight home last night?

She opened her mouth, hoping just the right amount of information would spill out. Instead, her stomach gurgled. Loudly.

So loudly that both of the dogs looked startled. One of them woofed.

“You still aren’t very good at the whole standing up for yourself and saying what you want, are you, Em?” Hank laughed. He stood and moved around to offer her his seat. “If you were hungry you should have said so, not asked me if I wanted something to eat.”

She wanted to argue but she couldn’t. She never had been able to put her own needs ahead of others. That was one of the reasons she felt so strongly about caring for Ruth by herself. It terrified her to think of even people who loved them both barging in with opinions and options that Emma feared might not be best for her fragile child. It humbled and touched her that after all these years Hank still knew her better than anyone, even than Ben, the man who said he loved her.

“Do you suppose Sammie Jo has anything but bird feed around this place?” Hank went to the nearly ancient aqua-blue refrigerator and tugged it open.

Emma sighed. She’d roused from a cold slumber thinking she needed to run to the aid of this poor out-of-his-depth man when he not only had everything under control, he actually wanted to help her. If she’d let him.

“Well, she has chickens so you know she has eggs.” Emma settled into the chair and smiled at Ruth, who was busy trying to dab the corner of a napkin over the bulldog’s lips. “I hope Ruth wasn’t too much for you.”

“Too-oo much,” Ruth parroted, still trying to get all the pretend food off the face of the very real pooch.

“She was…” He set a bowl of brown and tan and white and even pale blue eggs on the counter. Then he turned around and honed his gaze in on Emma’s face. “Surprising.”

“In a good way?” Emma gave her fondest hope voice.

“She made those hats for the dogs all by herself” was the only answer he gave her.

“Yeah.” Emma put her hand on the torn newspaper on the table, folded a corner down then tore the edges to form a two-inch-by-two-inch square, which she pushed toward Ruth. “She does that.”

A moment later the smell of the gas burner being turned on high mingled with the aroma of bread browning in the old toaster.

“Over easy or scrambled?” Hank asked.

“Scrambled. Just like my life.” Emma sat with her shoulders slumped forward. “I’m afraid with Aunt Sammie having this health scare, it might be lousy timing bringing Ruth here. I don’t suppose you have an idea about that?”

He cracked an egg into the skillet, then another. As they bubbled quietly, he turned and seemed to study them both. “I guess that depends on why you brought her here.”

She wasn’t sure if the man was asking her a question or suggesting she needed to ask that question of herself.

He went back to the eggs, gave them a stir. “What’s she making, a teeny tiny hat?”

“Paper crane,” Emma said, watching her child’s fingers manipulate the square of newsprint. “There’s a Japanese legend that says if you make a thousand of them, you can ask for one wish. I bet Ruth has made at least a thousand by now.”

“That right?” He flipped the eggs over. The toast popped up. He got out a plate, slung a tea towel over his shoulder and asked, “So, what would you wish for, Ruth?”

“Crease.” Ruth did not look up.

“Crease,” Emma whispered, at last focusing every ounce of her attention and every emotion in her heart on her child.

Crease. It was the perfect word for the sound of Ruth’s crescent-moon thumbnail sliding down the length of the folded piece of paper. The perfect word for the crisp edge left in that thumbnail’s path. The perfect word for Emma’s heart when she laid eyes on her child—folded in two, pressed down, forced into opposing segments, each cut off from the other but still whole, still Emma.

On one side there was all that she wanted for her child, all that any mother wants and hopes and dreams for her child. Opposing that, the hard reality the world had dealt them.

“Wing!” Ruth proudly held up the half-finished bit of origami.

“Wing,” Hank echoed in a tone that seemed in awe and yet not lacking concern. He set the plate of food down in front of Emma. “It’s not fancy but…”

“It’s all I need,” she murmured, looking up into his eyes. “Thanks.”

He shooed the dogs away from the table with a snap and a gesture. Emma wondered what this man couldn’t do with those strong, capable hands that had held imaginary tea, cooked her meal, lifted her up in a moment of weakness.

He folded those hands in prayer.

Emma bowed her head.