My Heart Can't Tell You No (3 page)

March 1959

Joey McNier opened the door to the Baker house and stepped inside. Bobby Green followed him like a shadow, a sudden shyness coming over the younger boy. Bobby had never seen a real baby close up; the children at the orphanage were always at least three years old.

Joey looked around the kitchen, yearning for the security of Sarah Baker’s smile. Sight of her slowly and painfully walking from the bathroom filled his eyes with tears. He tried not to cry. Boys weren’t supposed to cry, especially boys his age. But the tears fell anyway as he ran to the woman, wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face against her.

“Joey? What’s wrong?” Sarah asked gently as she stroked his dark hair.

“I missed you, Mom,” he choked out. “Why did you have to stay away so long?”

By this time Bobby was crying openly. His nervousness over meeting the newest addition to the Baker family and seeing Joey crying was getting the best of him.

“Oh, Bobby, not you too. Come here,” Sarah said with pity as she reached out to the younger boy, pulling him easily to her as she hugged the youngsters. “You two knew I was going to have a baby.”

“Yeah—but ya didn’t have to stay away so long,” Joey complained.

“I’m afraid I did. The baby came too early. There were some problems, and it took this long to make us better again. Come on now, it isn’t worth crying over,” she soothed the boys. “You should be happy—both of you. I brought home the baby. Think of her as a present.”

“A present for me?!” Bobby grinned as he pulled away and looked up at her.

“For both of you.”

“Hey, Bobby, come look at what we got,” Tommy yelled from the front room, making the blond-haired boy hurry in to join him.

“Come on, Joey.” Sarah took a step toward the room but winced with pain.

“Does it hurt?” Joey’s eyes threatened new tears.

“No,” Sarah lied as she started toward the room with her children. “not a bit. Now come see your present.”

“I don’t want it!” he grumbled, hating the creature that made this woman have pain.

When Joey and Sarah walked into the room they found Tommy playing with his mongrel pup, Johnny on the floor in front of the television, and Jackie on the couch next to Sarah’s twenty-three-year-old brother, Lew.

Lew Cressinger was a fine-looking man, though no more than five-eight, he had a slim build with skin stretched over muscle that his service in Korea had toned. His thick black hair framed a face that seemed to be forever holding a smile. It was the kind of smile that, when flashed your way, made a returning smile curve your lips even if you were filled with apprehension. You never knew what trick the warm-hearted Lew was up to.

Joey saw the man was holding a pillow on his lap, and he knew there was something on the pillow from the way Jackie was gazing down at it with such shining pride. But the object of Jackie’s gaze was hidden from Joey. Bobby stood at Lew’s knees, totally fascinated with the object before him.

“It’s so pretty,” Bobby sighed. “Can I touch it?”

“Just its arm—up here,” Jackie warned in his superior eleven-year-old manner. “We can’t touch its hands or feet yet. It was premature. It’s not all the way done, so we can’t get dirt on it.”

“Hey, Irish,” Lew addressed Joey. “don’t you wanna take a look?”

“No.” Joey sat on the floor next to Johnny.

“Why not?” Lew asked with one arching brow.

“Because. It made Mom hurt.” He kept his eyes glued to the cartoons, as Heckle and Jeckle strutted across the television screen.

“All babies do that. That’s an awful big thing to come out of a woman’s . . . ,” Lew started to explain.

“Lew!” Sarah warned with shock.

“ . . . belly button,” Lew finished, looking at his sister. “I was gonna say belly button.”

His explanation made the three Baker boys laugh. They had already witnessed the process of birth, having watched numerous dogs have their litters. But Joey and Bobby looked at him with fascinated curiosity.

“All babies?” Joey asked.

“Yep. Ya can’t blame her for making Sarah hurt. She was gentle as she could be when she came out,” said Lew.

“How did she come out?” Bobby asked.

Sarah gingerly sat on a chair, waiting for her brother’s words, knowing that in his amusing way, he could take them on a journey without ever leaving the room.

“Well, Sarah says Joey saw that her water broke. That was when the baby first told Sarah she was ready to come out. That was when her little swimming pool in there overflowed and it was time to come out because she was too big for the swimming pool anymore and it was time to go to the hospital. Then once they got there, Sarah squeezed her out of her bellybutton. Sort of like a great big . . . .”

“Lew!” Sarah interrupted again.

“Belch, a great big belch!” He looked at Sarah again. “I was gonna say belch.”

“Well, how did she get in there?” Bobby asked.

“Jack put her in there. He spit a watermelon seed in Sarah’s ear and it grew.”

This last comment not only made the Baker boys laugh, but Sarah joined them as well.

Joey looked at him suspiciously. “Are you lying?”

“What do you think?” Lew asked with a sparkle. “Ask Jack when he comes home. He ought to get a kick out of answering that one.”

“Well, if it hurt at all, she was worth it,” said Sarah.

“Yeah. It’s pretty,” said Bobby again.

“I think it looks like a Chinese monkey,” Tommy told them.

“Oh, she does not,” said Sarah.

“It’s all yellow,” Tommy replied.

“She’ll have normal color in a few days.”

“I think she’s pretty,” said Bobby for the third time.

“Well, I better get back home. Janet’s supposed to have ours any day now. My luck she’s in labor right now and didn’t call out to tell me,” Lew said, referring to his wife as he stood up and placed the pillow on the couch.

“You gotta go now?” Tommy complained as he and Johnny stood up and started toward the door with him, soon to be followed by Jackie.

“Joey, can you sit on the couch next to her until I come back in?” Sarah asked as she stood up and started out through the house with her brother.

Joey looked up at her, seeing that she wasn’t waiting for his answer. Her request made something new stir inside him. It made him feel a little taller, a little stronger. He didn’t know this new feeling was a sense of responsibility over the creature he hadn’t even seen yet. He walked toward the couch slowly, watching as Bobby leaned over the pillow, his hands reaching for the baby.

“Don’t touch it! Didn’t Jackie just tell ya not to touch it?” Joey scolded, expecting to see a little hairy baby with yellow skin as he eased himself down next to the pillow.

“He said I could touch her arm.”

Joey’s eyes moved reluctantly to the baby. The sight surprised him. It’s skin was golden—not yellow, and the only hair visible was the head full of black thickness. It didn’t look like any monkey he had ever seen, but it didn’t look like any dolls he had ever seen either. This baby was pretty. The baby was so small that Joey felt enormous sitting next to it. It seemed no more than a foot long with its little legs drawn up the way they were. Stretched out, it would be closer to a foot and a half. He was certain he had seen pups bigger than this baby.

“I said don’t touch it,” Joey said in a strange voice, this time the reason had nothing to do with what Jackie had said, but at his young age, he didn’t know it or even stop to ponder on it as he pushed Bobby’s hand away.

Bobby looked at his older friend. Sarah
had
said it was
their
present; so, he would wait. He knew his chance to touch her was coming.

Joey seemed mesmerized by the baby, something inside made his chest about to burst with protectiveness as his hands slid under the pillow and pulled it up onto his lap.

“Hey! I thought ya said not to touch it!” Bobby whined.

“She’s mine!” escaped Joey’s lips in a growl, surprising both himself and Bobby. The younger boy backed a step away.

“No she’s not,” said Bobby very quietly. “Mom says she’s for both of us.”

“Come here then.” Joey felt guilt at his selfishness and the way he yelled at the other boy. “Sit down and we’ll both hold the pillow.”

CHAPTER II
 

June 1984

“R
obby, come on. Time for bed,” Maddie called her
y
oungest son as she pulled the bed sheets back.

“No, I wanna watch TV.”

“No more tonight. Everyone to bed. Robby, you’re first. Come on,” she insisted this time.

“Oh, all right,” Robby moped on his way to his bedroom.

“All cleaned up?”

“Yep.”

“Your teeth, I mean.”

“Yep.”

“Did you go to the bathroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. Then you’re ready to go to sleep so you can grow up tall and strong like your brother.” She pulled the sheet up over his waist. “Warm enough?”

“Yeah,” he answered inside a yawn.

“Goodnight then, my little prince.” She leaned down to kiss his cheek, then received a kiss in return before standing up and moving toward the door.

“Night, Mommy.”

“Jackie, your turn,” Maddie whispered toward the living room.

“Right now?”

“Right now.” She went to his side of the bedroom and pulled his sheet back.

“Mom?” He asked as he climbed up on the bed.

“Hmm?”

“Who was that man today?”

“What man?”

“The man in Gramma’s back yard,” he said as she pulled the sheet up over him.

“Oh—
him
.”

“That was Daddy,” Robby answered inside another yawn from his side of the room.

“What did you say?” Maddie asked in a weak voice as she slowly straightened and turned to look at her youngest son.

“He is not,” Jackie spoke up quickly. “Our Dad’s dead. Mom told you that today.”

“His name is Joe McNier.” Maddie turned back to her oldest son, deciding that Robby was reaching out for any father figure, and Joe just happened to be it at the time.

“I know—but who
is
he?”

“He’s an old neighbor. He used to play with your uncles.”

“Did he play with Daddy too?”

“Yes. Your father was in their gang too.”

“Did he play with you?”

“Sometimes, but I was ten years younger than your Uncle John and him. So, I was usually left alone with Gramma and Pap.”

“Is that why you don’t like him?” Jackie asked.

“You ask too many questions, Jackie Green,” she said with an indulgent curve to her lips.

“I don’t like him.”

“Why not?” she asked, a bit surprised at the son who always quietly accepted anyone.

“You ask too many questions,” he answered with a smile.

“Jackie. I don’t want you to dislike someone simply because you think I dislike him. There’s enough blindness in this world. You’re a big boy now, almost eight. I want you to open your eyes and look for yourself, then you can decide who you like and don’t like. Do you understand?”

“I guess.”

“Get some rest, now. Okay?”

“Okay. Night Mom.”

“Night, big guy.”

She bent to kiss a waiting cheek, then moved back to the living room where she switched off the television and lamp. Going to the open doorway, she stood in the darkness, watching through the screen as the moon lit up the rolling hills on the other side of the valley nearly a mile away; those rolling hills with their thick pine forests that she, Joe, and a few others had hidden in nineteen years before.

August 1965

It was hot and muggy that evening when Uncle Lew visited with his four sons (the oldest of whom was younger than Maddie by at least twenty days) and his wife, Janet. Uncle Lew was younger than Maddie’s mother. Lew looked at Maddie’s mother, Sarah, with a fondness reserved for the woman who took over for their own mother, who had died at the very young age of forty-two. Lew had been only three and Sarah almost eleven at the time. Lew teased her mother, using that special right all younger brothers have where their older sisters are concerned. Sarah viewed Lew as another son, but he was also a brother who shared her problems. The pride was in both sets of eyes. Sarah knew Lew had grown into a man of the greatest kind. Everyone loved Lew. He could win anyone over if he had a mind to, and he always did. Children would follow Lew around as if he were the Pied Piper. Even the shyest of children would go with Lew, because they knew they would always have a wonderful, magical time, probably because Lew had a heart that was ageless. And Lew knew Sarah was a woman
everyone
spoke fondly of. She was the listener; everyone knew it, and they had no hesitations telling her their problems, knowing it would go no further. Children also loved Sarah. They loved her gentleness and they loved her caring.

Maddie could see all this at the age of six, although she couldn’t put it into words and didn’t really care if she could or not. The good feeling she would get when she saw them together was enough.

On this particular evening Maddie could sense anticipation in her brothers’ eyes as they looked from one to the other while listening to their parents’ conversation with Lew and Janet.

“The paper says they’ve hit about every farm in this area, all except Foss’s over here,” Lew said as he pushed thirteen-year-old Tommy back onto the couch, only to have the youngster rush at him again.

“They’ll be next.” Jack lit a cigarette, watching his youngest son’s attack on the waiting and prepared Lew.

“Sure. Everyone knows it.” Lew wrestled the boy down to the floor with one arm, where he trapped Tommy’s head between his shins. “But when, that’s the question.”

“I heard they killed five over at Jennings’s farm last week. They’re getting greedy.”

“Lew! Joe, Lew’s here!” Bobby Green called over his shoulder as he walked into the Baker house.

“Bob! Help me!” Tommy called from his awkward position on the floor.

“Well, if it isn’t Ugly and his big brother Uglier.” Lew spotted Bobby and Joe.

“Hi, Lew.” Joe smiled his acknowledgment as he entered the room.

“They’re not ugly, Uncle Lew,” said Maddie as she got off her oldest brother Jackie’s lap and moved over to Joe. She hugged his legs and looked down at Bobby who was now trying to free Tommy’s head from between Lew’s shins. “They’re handsome.”

Even at the age of six Maddie could sense the power she had over her brothers’ two best friends. Joe McNier at sixteen, with his dark hair and slim good looks, held a protective eye on her that would come close to fierceness whenever Bobby Green would steal her attention away. And Bobby, at thirteen, held up his end of the rivalry in a quiet way. His blond handsome features were striking. Maddie knew this from all the teasing Bobby received from her youngest brother Tommy, who would often remark about the girls in eighth grade willing to give him their undying affection (just what
undying
affection
meant, Maddie wasn’t sure, but she decided he was somehow desirable). But unlike Joe, who would pick her up and tote her with him the same way that Tommy carried around that dog of his, Bobby just stood by, waiting for the affection he was sure would be left over for him.

“Yeah, but they’re not better lookin’ than me,” said Lew, bringing a smile to everyone as they looked at his balding head and stomach that had long ago begun its protrusion over his belt.

“There! I’m free!” Tommy said as Lew loosened his grip, allowing the boy to get to his feet and come at him in a rush, only to be turned around and pulled onto the man’s lap with his arms loosely twisted behind him. “Well, I
was
free.”

“So—you got a girl yet?” Lew asked Joe, making Maddie look up at him quickly.

“This is
my
girl
right here.” Joe picked the child up, sending relief through her as she put her arms around his neck.

“Better not tell Lena that.” Sixteen-year-old Johnny lounged against the living room doorway, eating a sandwich.

“Who’s Lena?” Tommy asked from Lew’s lap.

“A blonde from town. She calls him and comes out Saturday mornings,” seventeen-year-old Jackie told him.

“Put me down,” Maddie said quietly as she pushed away from Joe.

“Uh-oh. Now what are ya gonna do, Maddie?” Lew asked. “Joe’s already got a girlfriend.”

“I don’t care—I’ll marry Bobby,” she said smartly as she moved to the corner of the room where Lew’s boys were throwing a small ball at one another.

“But Bob’s got a lot of girlfriends too,” said Tommy.

“I do not!” Bobby spoke up.

“They’re always after ya in school!”

“Tough,” mumbled Bobby.

““See, Bobby’s got some too,” Lew told her.

“I don’t care—I’ll marry him anyway.”

“Well, I guess she put you in
your
place,” Lew said to Joe.

“That’s nothing new. She’s always doing that,” Joe answered.

“Well Gert, you about ready,” Lew asked his wife.

“I guess so. C’mon boys, it’s time to go.” Janet stood up, showing a bulging abdomen that announced her latest pregnancy.

Everyone but Jack got to their feet to follow Lew and his family to the door in a farewell that would last more than five minutes. Finally, reaching his old Plymouth, Lew waved to Sarah as she stood in the doorway, then got behind the wheel.