When the Morning Glory Blooms (19 page)

Between Jackson’s flu, followed by Lauren’s, followed by Becky’s, followed by Gil’s—all four of which involved Becky as caregiver—they’d missed three Sundays before Becky gave serious consideration to her earlier reaction:
We have to change churches
.

She’d entertained the thought before—when the world discovered that the extra weight Lauren gained was an embryo named Jackson.

Gil talked her out of it that time, insisting the church should be a bastion of forgiveness, a forerunner in the race to show mercy. Yeah, right.

This time Becky’s reasons were a combination of embarrassment and altruism. If Lauren was lying about one too many pregnancy tests, the family could start over at another church that didn’t know their history. If they were careful enough with their introductions, others might assume Lauren was a very young-looking new mom whose husband was  . . .  was  . . .  teaching English as a second language in a small but strategic-to-the-national-interest country. And how sweet of Becky and Gil to take her into their home until he returned.

If Brianne was the one keeping a secret, the kindest thing Becky could do for Monica was disappear from their daily lives.

Right?

Remove a layer of their embarrassment. Let their family handle it without the added guilt and remorse from the way Monica had treated Becky and Lauren.

And  . . .  without Becky and Lauren’s unconditional love.

Okay. Bad plan.

Silence wasn’t working. Assuming new identities wouldn’t mend a relationship.
Monica, I wish you’d just talk to me!

God, I wish You’d just talk to me!

That, Becky could do something about.

With Lauren back in school, Gil on the road, and Jackson napping—not quite his cherub self yet—Becky located her Bible—under too many things.

Somewhere in there was a verse about the danger of planning to be deceptive—a new church, a creative story about Jackson’s daddy serving his country in a makeshift classroom. God bless America. Too bad she didn’t know where that reference was. And who would believe that after they told them about Mark and Iraq?

In the pages somewhere was a verse or two about casting stones.

And chapter after chapter about a God who loves those who don’t deserve it  . . .  and instructions to follow His lead.

I want to, Lord. But how?

The pages that fell open to her seemed unrelated to the cry of her heart until she read them a second time.

Ephesians 5:8-10: “
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord
.”

Truth and secrets. Light and darkness.

No more secrets. No more darkness. No more waiting for light.

Becky booted up her computer, logged onto the Internet, and sent Monica a gift—a pair of hand-dipped candles connected at the wick—with a note:
From your forever friend. We really need each other. No matter what. Becky
.

She paid the exorbitant extra fee for overnight shipping, but slept soundly that night for the first time in weeks.

Four days later Becky called the local flourist and ordered a Thanksgiving centerpiece for Monica—a cinnamon-colored pottery pumpkin-shaped container with rich autumn-colored mums and a hurricane-lamp center. With a candle. To light. To throw light.

Two days of silence later, she pulled Monica’s Christmas gift from the hall closet shelf where she’d stored it since finding it on sale midsummer, before  . . .  before everything. It was one of the lighted village pieces Monica didn’t yet have in her collection. A flower shop with—
what do you know?
—morning glories trailing up the side of the ceramic building. She tucked it in a neutral, non-Christmas gift bag, surrounded it with cornflower blue tissue paper, and left it on Monica's doorstep, under the overhang, away from stray snowflakes.

On Friday that week, a package arrived in the mail. A pink flashlight with rechargeable batteries, and a simple note: “Brianne said it was a girl.”

With Jackson playing at her feet, Becky clicked the flashlight on and off, on and off, tears flooding her cheeks and making her nose run. That’s how Gil found her.

“Hi, home! I’m honey!” His standard lame but endearing greeting.

She looked up from the couch and crumpled at the sight of him.

“Becky, my deliciousness, what’s the matter?” His arms were around her before she was conscious of his crossing the floor to her.

She waved the flashlight at him.

“Is it broken?”

“N-no.
She
is.”

“Who?” Gil pulled back just far enough to shed his coat.

“Monica. And sh-she needs me. I have to go to her.”

“Go!” Gil said, rubbing courage into her back. “I’m here for Jackson. Take as long as you need.”

She leaned into his strength. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“What are you doing home so early?”

Gil stiffened. “We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

“No secrets. No darkness. Just light.”

“What?”

Becky swiped at her tears, then framed his familiar, bristly face with her hands. “No secrets. Why are you home so early?”

“The good news is I’ll be around more often to help out now.”

“Oh, Gil! You were laid off?”

14

Ivy—1951

Dear Drew,

I was laid off today.

Next sentence. What’s the next sentence?

What was Ivy’s next step? How much of the truth could she share without destroying any hope of Drew still loving her? Mistakes made love disappear. A fact of life. It was not the life Anna preached, but the reality Ivy knew from the day she made the mistake that sent her mother away, the mistake that shriveled her father’s heart.

She erased what she’d written. Even “Dear Drew” didn’t seem right.

Showing up at work, going through the motions, and crossing paths with Jill wouldn’t be easy for the next couple of weeks. Training her replacement would take the kind of courage it took Drew to poke his head out of a foxhole.

If you’d gone to college, Ivy, you could have majored in melodrama
.

What was wrong with her? Maybe she was as selfish as people said. It shouldn’t be this hard. Other girls had babies out of wedlock.
Those
kinds of girls.

If she didn’t care what Drew thought, she’d outright tell him the truth and let the chips fall where they may. She’d figure out what to do with the kid when it came. If she had a job. And a place to live.

Getting rid of the baby hadn’t really been an option, not even in the beginning when she could have taken care of the problem and no one would ever have known. Because she was so noble? That wasn’t it. Could she even define the reason? The baby was a part of Drew. That sweet man who treated her better than she deserved, who looked at her as though she were beautiful, who held her hand as if it were something precious, who talked to her with words that fell on her ears like music and melted in her heart like butter on hot toast.
Oh, Drew!

His seed had grown into a seedling in her. She carried part of him with her as she walked through her miserable days. The problem had a face, ears, hands, legs, toes.

And when the truth came out and Drew knew what she’d done, even if he walked away from her, she’d still have—

A flutter! She held her breath waiting for another. There! Life inside her. She held her hand over the spot. A faint tickle against her palm said, “I’m here.”

Dear Drew,

I lost my job today. And felt our baby move.

The tears she’d been sandbagging let loose as she tipped her pencil upside down and erased every word.

Anna—1890s

The dawn of my grief-healing over Elizabeth and her tiny son came not a day too soon. Dr. Noel caught my arm after church and pulled me to the side to speak with me privately.

Have I told you about Dr. Noel? Noel Milbourn. Another of God’s gifts to us. He registered a bit crusty on the outside but soft as down on the inside, like a good loaf of peasant bread. He knew up front that we had few resources with which to pay him. Looking back on it now, I cannot believe my brashness! First Puff and then Dr. Noel.
Could you please give of yourself, long hours, intense labor, day and night, with no hint of reward except my gratitude?

Who but God could have motivated these men to say yes?

As we visited after church that Sunday morning, Dr. Noel stood at my elbow, half whispering his request. A young woman, late teens, had been found asleep in the alley behind the hotel, scavenging food from the waste pails. The sheriff, responding to the hotelier’s request to remove the girl from the premises, noticed that her thin coat bulged with more than pilfered goods. Dr. Noel was called in. And now, he called on me.

As sweet-tempered as was my Elizabeth, Corrie was foul and uncooperative. The birth of her baby was imminent. I took comfort in that. Corinda Blake’s presence in my home fogged the air, but it would not last long.

There was no question whether she would keep her baby. She made no bones about her view that “it” was a parasite she was eager to be rid of. I have never been closer to violence against another human being than with Corrie. More than once, my heart reached up to slap her, though my arms remained at my sides.

Corrie spat on my house rules and refused to work. I considered refusing her food in exchange, but relented for the sake of the baby. Had I a similar opportunity today, I’d tie her breakfast to the broom handle, her dinner to the laundry tub. I’ve learned much about being taken advantage of. I don’t believe I helped her by letting her sulk and pout and poison our air with her foul words and attitude.

Puff kept to himself while Corrie lived with us. I don’t blame him. Some nights I wished I lived in a corner of the barn rather than in the house where her complaints resided.

“I’m only here because the sheriff said it was this place or the orphan home.”

“I know, Corrie. But since you’re here—”

“I don’t have to listen to your lectures. Nobody said I did.”

Need I explain why I was so troubled that Corrie’s baby was born as healthy as a horse, and that the mother herself slipped quickly from labor pains to relentless complaining about the loss of her figure?

On the hill behind the orchard lay a snow-covered mound. And now an
un
wanted child lay squirming and love-hungry under a borrowed blanket in a room down the hall.

Corrie refused to care for the child. Frankly, and ashamedly, I was grateful. Though my own workload mushroomed because of it, from the start the robust boy heard good things whispered in his downy ears. Gentle, though work-worn hands tended his needs. A voice laced with tenderness sang his lullabies. An appreciative heart noticed that his baby breath was as sweet as clover honey. Love diapered his bottom and prepared his bottles and eased his tummyaches in the middle of the night while the woman who gave him birth caught up on her beauty sleep and regained strength enough to walk away forever.