Home to Stay. Annie Jones
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.
“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