When Sparrows Fall (43 page)

Timothy hugged her. Nearly as tall as she was. A young man, growing straight and true.

Gabriel saw her and whooped. “Mother’s here!”

She fell to her knees and opened her arms. The children surrounded her, but Dean and Jack hung back, regarding her with worried expressions.

“Careful,” Jack said. “Be gentle, ruffians. Half hugs.”

“No, I want whole hugs. Lots and lots.” Laughing and crying, she savored each rib-scorching squeeze.

Finally, Jack herded the children away and helped her to her feet. He held her hands so tightly that it hurt. “What happened?”

“The sheriff turned me loose.”

Jack’s frown began to ease away. “Lord, have mercy. Well, I guess He already did.”

“He did. He does. Over and over.”

Dean moved closer. “Mrs. Hanford, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if it had come out any differently.”

“You were only doing your job.” She searched the lawman’s face. “I understand you’ve lost a child too.”

His eyes shimmered with moisture. “Yes ma’am. Twenty-six years ago this summer, my little girl drowned in our own backyard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, ma’am. And I’m sorry about your son. You never—” He cleared his throat. “You never quite get over losing a child.”

“No. Never.”

Dean studied the floor. “Accidents happen. They happen to good people, and life isn’t about divvying up the blame. It’s about—” He stopped short. “What’s life about, Dr. Hanford?”

Jack looked into the distance, perhaps seeing pill bottles on a bedside table. “If I had a quick answer, it wouldn’t be the right one.”

Dean’s lined face eased into a smile. “You’re a wise man. Now, if I recall correctly, you said you planned to pitch a tent tonight. I wish you luck, considering the weather forecast. On the other hand, I think you’re the kind of man who gets things done, regardless of difficulties.”

Jack let go of Miranda’s hand and shook Dean’s. “So are you. Thank you, sir.”

“Call if you need anything, and take good care of those youngsters. Keep countin’ noses. Good-bye, Mrs. Hanford. Bye, kids. I’ll come see y’all sometime.” He walked down the hall and disappeared into one of the cubbyholes that masqueraded as offices.

Taking Miranda’s hands again, Jack searched her face. “Why didn’t you tell me the whole story? Did you think I would report you?”

“No. I knew you wouldn’t. I didn’t want to put that on your tender conscience.”

He shook his head, then drew her close and planted a long, firm kiss on her lips. She kissed him back, her knees weak and her whole body weightless with freedom.

Somebody groaned. Somebody giggled. Somebody—Michael?—said, “There they go again.”

“No wisecracks, please,” Jack said. “Kissing is perfectly acceptable behavior under certain circumstances, so get used to it. Now, we have a lot of work to do this afternoon if we expect to camp out tonight.”

Exploding with questions, the children led the way out of the building. Miranda’s van waited only two spaces from the squad car that had brought her there. Into the lion’s den and out again.

She lifted her eyes to the mountains. Dark clouds grew in the west, sweeping across the sky in a brisk wind. They were every shade of gray, but they were rimmed with sunlight. And Jack’s arm lay across her shoulders as if it belonged there.

thirty-two

T
he sun had barely risen in a cloudy sky when Miranda crossed the kitchen in the half dark. Through the window, the tent was a black bulk in the gray. She imagined Jack out there in the cold and the damp, spending a virtually sleepless night just to make her children happy.

He’d sat up late with her and Timothy, talking about everything. Carl. Jeremiah. Her mother, the jailbird, who wanted nothing to do with her.

Don’t give up on her
, Jack had said with a smile.
Persistence pays off, sometimes
.

Miranda walked back across the room and turned on the light. On the counter, a big pink gift bag sat beside the coffee maker. Jack had written directly on the bag:
A very happy Easter to Mrs. H. Open immediately and see the world with new eyes
. He’d scrawled a sloppy happy face beside the words.

Easter. How could she have forgotten it was Easter?

Reaching into the bag, she grasped a familiar shape. Her hands trembled as she drew out a camera case. She opened it and began to cry.

A vintage Nikon in mint condition. A twin to Jezebel.

Except for the tears, her vision was clear as she aimed the empty camera toward the sunrise, framing it in the window pane. Off center, to make the eye pay attention. Like stories that didn’t have neat endings, Jack had said. They left doors open. They made him think about possibilities.

Oh, the possibilities.

She reached into the bag again and discovered gadgets, filters, and film. Lots and lots of film. Bless the man, he’d known that a camera without film was like a car without gas.

The kitten growled and scampered crablike across the room, her tail puffed up in defiance of some imaginary enemy. Hellion was another of Jack’s gifts, just to make the children happy.

Now, just to make her happy, he’d bought her a camera. Her dream camera. He’d tried to replace the irreplaceable.

Sometimes that was possible. Sometimes it wasn’t.

Sometimes you just had to wait for eternity.

She turned on the living room light and took Jeremiah’s quilt from the couch. With one finger, she touched the square of red calico where she’d once stitched eight letters in blue embroidery floss. She’d pulled them out again, five years later, weeping over her husband’s harsh decree to forget Jeremiah, to hide him in the earth and never speak of him again.

God hadn’t forgotten Jeremiah. God never would. God would raise him up. Jeremiah was home free.

Carrying his quilt, Miranda went into her bedroom to find her embroidery floss.

The rains had come, but the tent held.

Barefoot, because the only shoes he’d brought were soaked, Jack lifted the flap and ventured onto the soggy grass. A few lights shone inside the house, so Miranda was up.

With his feet freezing, he took a few steps and looked back at the tent. It listed to starboard and held a reservoir of water on top. If anybody jostled anything, they’d have a flood.

In the gray light of a stormy morning, rain-driven petals from the cherry tree lay on the grass like pink snowdrifts. The driveway was a river of mud. The sun hid behind a dark cloud like a coquette flirting behind a black fan. It was wild, glorious weather. The kind of weather that bred rainbows.

The kids were still zonked out in a chaos of sleeping bags and pillows, like a litter of kittens. Jack had hardly slept, and his back ached. It had been worth it, though, to lie awake and hear the archangels whispering their plans for a bear hunt someday.

Miranda had spent the night in her own bed, for the sake of her still-tender ribs or perhaps for the sake of her burdens. Jack didn’t know how to lift them. He was reasonably certain she would escape scot-free, but her fears ran deep. At least she wouldn’t face them alone.

Several times in the night, he’d felt in his pocket for the house key. Evidence that she trusted him, not only with her house, but with her family. Maybe she was in it for the long haul.

Was he?

Yes. He could sell his tiny house and buy a big one—except she would never move. Her firstborn child was buried somewhere on her land.

What was he thinking anyway? Matrimony? He gave his head a quick shake but it didn’t dislodge the idea from his brain.

He ran from the tent to the porch with mud squishing between his toes. After stealing some dry wood and kindling from the stash there, he hustled back to the fire pit the boys had made. He would cheat and use matches and the paper scraps he’d stuffed in the pocket of his jacket last night. None of that hard-core Boy Scout stuff for him.

The kindling lit quickly. He coaxed it into a higher flame and fed it with small branches. Within a few minutes, the fire began to cooperate.

Miranda stepped onto the porch, wearing jeans and a pink shirt.

He greeted her with a loud wolf whistle. “I knew I would like you in pink.”

She blushed to match her shirt. “Hush. You’ll wake the children.”

“Oh! Miranda,”
he sang,
“don’t you cry for me!”

In the tent, the children laughed. The flap swayed, and Gabriel popped his head out.

“Uncle Jack, can we wash your car?”

“Now? Again? Before breakfast?”

“Yeah.”

“In the rain?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

“Sure. Go ahead. Get that thing as clean as an angel’s undershorts.”

Gabriel spread the news, and the rest of the kids poured out of the tent like fire ants out of a hill of sand. Timothy took charge this time, and soon they were scurrying around the Audi. Everybody but Martha.

The valiant little fire kept burning through the drizzle as Jack headed for the porch with Martha at his heels.

“Gotta check on Hellion,” she said, passing him. She raced up the steps and kicked off her shoes beside Miranda’s mud-caked gardening shoes, then frowned at Jack’s feet. “Uh-oh. You better not go inside like that.” She slipped inside, the door slamming behind her.

“I need an ol’ fashioned footwashin’,” he said, reaching for Miranda. “And a good-morning kiss.”

She obliged with gratifying enthusiasm, then drew back to scrutinize him as if she’d never seen him before. “You’re almost too good to be true. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Is it—she—the right kind?”

“She’s perfect. Where did you find her?”

“On eBay.”

“I hope you didn’t pay too much.”

“That’s none of your business. What’s her name? Jezebel II? Esther? Pocahontas?”

“You can help me decide.” She patted his cheek. “I’m cold. Back in a minute.”

As she disappeared inside, he settled into his rocker. He smiled at the idea of his-and-hers rockers. It felt exactly right.

Martha poked her head out. “You want me to wash your feet, Uncle Jack?”

“No, I can just turn the hose on ’em.”

“But I want to. Really, really bad.”

On the verge of correcting her with “badly,” he laughed instead, weighing the gift.

Priceless. “Have at it.”

Two minutes later, Martha was back. He held the door open while she came out with a big pan of hot water. She had a dishcloth and a kitchen towel draped over one shoulder.

Ordered back to his chair, he sat, rolled up his pant legs, and lowered his muddy feet into the pan. The hot water was bliss to his frozen feet as she gave them a quick once-over with the dishcloth. Her mother wouldn’t want it back.

The other kids were having a grand time washing the car in a light sprinkle of rain. Timothy was soaked and smiling. He tormented his siblings with a soapy sponge but defended Rebekah when the archangels teased her.

Timothy was one fine kid. All of them were. Messy and noisy and full of life.

The rain began to fall in earnest again, tapping on the porch roof and filling the air.

Water, water, everywhere. The stuff of miracles. Water, walked on. Turned to wine. An ark tossed about on it.

Water and earth made mud. Mud to heal a blind man’s eyes.

Earth to entomb a man, and the voice of God to call him out.

Jack had begun to make some adjustments to his thinking; he was ready to admit that God might send personal messages, if a man had eyes to see and ears to hear. But if a man—or a boy—ignored the messages …

“There,” Martha said. “Finished.”

Out of the mouths of babes. Finished, indeed. Clean all over.

“Thank you, Martha.” Awash in unearned love, Jack could hardly speak.

“You’re welcome.” She peered intently at him. “Your eyeballs don’t look sad anymore.”

“That’s because my heart’s not sad anymore, sweetie.”

Martha smiled. She slipped her feet back into her shoes and ran into the rain, abandoning the foot-washing gear.

The rain had doused the fire. He didn’t care.

“I’m a sinner, Lord,” he whispered, “but I’m Your sinner. May I always be in a condition accessible to mercy. So may we all.”

The water kept running down the driveway, like life kept running, and he couldn’t change any of it. No more than he could retrieve the water that had run from a garden hose so many years before. It was over.

He’d loved his mother. He still did. He could only hope that God still did too. Jack closed his eyes and made a conscious effort to place her in the Almighty’s hands and leave her there.

The door creaked, startling his eyes open. Miranda came out, wearing Jeremiah’s quilt like a shawl. She stood at the railing to watch the children, and Jack moved to stand behind her, absorbing her warmth as his feet turned to ice again on the damp planks.

He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. Not hard, but strong. So strong.

“Miranda—”

“Randi, please. My mother only called me Miranda when I was in deep trouble.”

“Randi,” he said, loving the tomboy sound of it. “Turn around, Randi. Please.”

She did, and he sized up his peasant-princess with that shy and winsome smile. Something felt different. It was a bit of a shock to realize that for quite some time, he’d been looking not
at
her eyes, but into them. Connecting.