Home to Stay

“Thank You, Lord, for the bounty of life,” he began softly. “Thank You for all that we have to eat, all that we have to share, all that we have to hope and for the gift of Your grace, Amen.”

“Amen,” Emma murmured.

He took the seat next to her, angled his shoulders back and folded his arms. “So, what’s the deal with your daughter?”

She didn’t know if he was asking why she had brought Ruth to Gall Rive or if he was curious about her medical diagnosis and story. But he was the first person she had ever met who had had the insight, courage and kindness to sit down and ask outright, so she told him the things that she had tucked deep in her heart. “Ruth can’t say her whole alphabet. She still struggles to use a fork or a knife. When she dresses herself she usually tries, at least once, to force her head through an armhole.”

He leaned forward, listening intently.

“When she does her hair, she usually rats it into little blond puff balls more than actually comb it. If the tangles aren’t too bad, she puts a sparkly clip on them and looks up, smiling, for approval.” Emma smiled, but it did not last long as she added, “If she gets angry about it, she pulls the clip out, and some of her hair with it.”

“A lot of little kids—”

“She’s eight years old.”

“Eight?” He looked at Ruth, his head tipped. “Am I wrong in thinking she’s small for her age?”

“She was a preemie.” Emma looked at her daughter. Her heart filled with love and yet she still felt the twinge of hope and fear of all the nights she’d spent by the child’s crib in the infant ICU, praying, singing to her softly, making plans for a nursery, a relationship, a life that she knew might never be realized. “I came to work at the hospital on the night she was born, took one look at four-hour-old Ruth with her oxygen tubes and terrified teenage birth mom who knew she couldn’t possibly take care of a special-needs child and I knew I was looking at my baby.”

Hank tipped his head to the right. He seemed to be making a study of Ruth but there was, in his expression, a gentleness and depth that he had never shown as a younger man.

That look warmed Emma’s heart and yet made her uneasy at the same time. Rather than trying to sort out those conflicting emotions Emma took a bite and savored the simple goodness of her meal. “Mmm. There’s nothing like farm-fresh eggs, eaten in a familiar kitchen, cooked by someone who…”

Someone who…cares about you? Someone you share a history with? Someone who let you walk away and never once tried to come after you, never tried to make amends? She stirred the eggs on the plate again, unable to finish that sentence.

He strummed his fingers on the tabletop, giving her time to conclude, then finally asked, “So you adopted as a single mother?”

“Eight years ago.” She nodded, glad for the distraction. “Aunt Sammie or Claire never told you?”

“I never talk to Claire about personal things. As for your aunt? I never asked.” He laid his hands, palm up, on the table and lowered his gaze to them. “That first year after you’d gone when you didn’t come back, not even for the holidays, I told Sammie Jo I didn’t want to hear about you again. Not ever. I guess she got the message. And right or wrong, I just felt—”

“Bended.” Ruth pressed down a pointed tip on the paper then moved to the final stage. “Pull, pull, pulled. Careful, it can still be broken.”

“You said a mouthful, kid.” He seemed transfixed by Ruth’s fingers working over the tiny piece of paper. “She does this a lot, huh?”

She nodded. “She can’t dress or feed herself without help. But this she can do. Folding and unfolding, creasing, pressing flat, turning, lining up, tucking in then opening up. You show her how to do it once, and…”

Ruth opened her hands to reveal her creation, an understatedly elegant origami bird. “Crane!”

“Very pretty.” Hank held his hand out toward the girl.

“Too-oo much.” She dropped the crane into his open palm.

“That about sums us up, I guess. Very pretty but too-oo much.” Emma tried to smile.

Hank put his hand on her arm.

“Static encephalotrophy.” She said the diagnosis out loud then followed up with, “Brain damage that won’t get worse…or better. Same diagnosis as cerebral palsy, only Ruth’s is less physical and more learning- and behavior-based.”

“So you have to learn to work with what you have,” he surmised.

“Not exactly the Newberry way, is it?” She bit into her toast and tore a corner off.

He sat back in his chair and chuckled. “No, I’d say the Newberry way is—”

“Who belongs to that SUV out there with the Georgia tags?” The front door went banging against the wall as Samantha Jo Newberry’s rasping voice rang through both stories, each of the five bedrooms, down the hallways and most definitely into the big, open kitchen. “If it’s a birder, I’m here to help. If it’s my baby Emma come home at last, I’m here in the doorway with my arms open wondering how long I have to wait before I hobble in there, hunt you down and hug the stuffin’ out of you!”

Chapter Three

“Great-aunt Sammie!” The chair legs complained against the old floor as Ruth pushed it away from the table. It almost tipped backward.

“Whoa!” Hank caught it with one hand.

Emma darted her hand out to help her daughter. Her hand landed firmly on top of Hank’s.

Ruth scrambled down off the tilted chair unaware of either of them. “Great-aunt Sammie. Great-aunt Sammie! It’s me! It’s your pretty-great favorite kid, Ruthie!”

Emma watched her daughter lope away to greet Sammie Jo. Emma should have jumped up with equal enthusiasm and done the same, but she couldn’t seem to move. All the importance of her rash rush to return home settled over her. Hank, Ruth, her aunt, her sister, Gall Rive, the past, the future she had come here to contemplate and everything they carried with them settled like a mantle onto her shoulders.

Hank’s dogs followed Ruth, their tags jingling rhythmically.

Emma returned her attention to Hank. She realized she had closed her hand over his, her grip tightening.

Hank did not shy away or even flinch at her touch. He met her gaze, his eyes kind but unrevealing as he asked a “safe” question. “Pretty-great kid?”

“The last time Sammie Jo came to visit us in Atlanta, we explained that she was Ruth’s great-aunt, to which Ruth let it be known she was a pretty-great kid herself.” A combination of love and recognition resounded from the foyer, with Sammie Jo laughing, dogs snuffing, their tags jangling and Ruth demanding to know where they kept the cake around this place. Emma managed an amenable smile. “It stuck.”

“I can see why. The kid has a point.” Hank settled Ruth’s chair’s legs onto the floor but did not withdraw his hand from beneath hers. “They are both pretty great.”

Had she heard right? Hank Corsaut admitting he wasn’t totally put off by a kid?

“Cake. Pink cake. Mom doesn’t know where it is. My dog-friend’s daddy doesn’t know, either.” Ruth’s voice echoed a bit through the high-ceilinged house. “Come get it for me.”

Emma sighed and shut her eyes. It was all too much to process given her state of mind and the state of her life.

“You want cake? Then cake you shall have!” Sammie Jo’s own voice rang out with a regal tone. “If I don’t have any, we shall make one. Hang what the doctors say about diet and restricting cholesterol.”

“Great, yes.” Emma pulled back her shoulders and slipped her hand away from Hank’s. She stood. “But she’s also a very big responsibility.”

“You talking about your daughter or your aunt Sammie Jo?” Hank grinned at her.

That grin gave her just the boost she needed to deal with the double trouble of her two most childlike and demanding relatives. She turned and headed toward the foyer, compelled to make one thing perfectly clear as she did. “Sammie Jo is my sister Claire’s responsibility.”

He stood up so quickly it made the table wobble and strode behind Emma, adding, “Except when Claire is busy.”

“Which is, like, all the time, to hear her tell it,” Emma chimed in, winding her way through the cluttered living room toward the front door where she could hear Ruth, Sammie Jo and the pair of dogs scuffling around.

“Which is, like, all the time,” Hank affirmed, keeping up with every sidestep and curve in the path Emma was blazing. “When Claire is busy, your aunt, and by extension, this sanctuary, has become my responsibility. Of course now that you’re here—”