When Sparrows Fall (27 page)

Timothy found the box and brought it to the bed. She pushed the fabrics aside—scraps from a dozen different projects—and revealed neat rows of envelopes, carefully slit at the top.

“I kept them in chronological order, in case your father ever wanted to start at the beginning and read them all.”

“I think he would have been mad that you opened his mail.”

“Maybe, but it was my mail too.” She chose an envelope at random. “See? They were all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hanford.”

She checked the postmark. It was dated three days before Carl’s last Christmas, when he’d finally loosened up enough to allow wrapping paper that depicted Santa Claus. Poor Carl. Maybe he’d had the scent of freedom in his nostrils, but he’d died before he could pursue it.

Timothy started with the first letter.

Jack might not have approved. He might have wondered what had become of the letters, might have assumed or even hoped they’d gone straight to the landfill, as Carl had threatened.

She glanced at the closed door and pictured Jack sitting in the living room, writing on his laptop. Unaware that someone still cared about the words he’d penned years before.

Each letter had been a shaft of sunlight shining through a crack in the walls Carl had built around his family. Carl had never relented, but Jack had kept hammering away at those walls.

Timothy’s new bedtime came and went as he and Miranda browsed through the letters. Jack must have decided to pretend that Carl’s hostility had
never existed, because most of the messages were upbeat and friendly. Occasionally, though, there were a few lines that hinted of loss and sadness.

Finally, Timothy read the last one, the sympathy card, and looked up. “This one’s sort of sad,” he said slowly, as if he were weighing every word. “It says, ‘I wish I’d had a chance to know my big brother.’ ”

Miranda nodded, unable to speak.

After a long silence, Timothy stuffed the card back into its envelope and dropped it on the bed. “Jack’s still a bossy bully.” He left the room before she could reply.

She ran her fingertips across Jack’s return address and then across Carl’s name, scrawled in that messy penmanship. “I wish you’d known your brother, Jack,” she whispered. “You might have changed him.”

If Jack had come in time, he might have changed everything.

nineteen

M
iranda sat on her bed, leaning against the wall with a pillow behind her back and a sick lump of dread in her stomach. Her unexpected visitor might bring up a variety of unpleasant topics. The move. Those suspicions about Mason. Miranda’s own secrets—except Abigail didn’t know those, did she?

Abigail’s footsteps signaled her return from the kitchen with the tea tray. She set it carefully in the place she’d cleared on the bureau.

Hardly aware she was doing it, Miranda framed a mental shot of Abigail, her face in three-quarters profile and her hands moving busily over the tea things. A portrait of a woman who’d spent her life serving others. Even her austere dress and old-fashioned crown of braids spoke of practicality.

“I don’t remember,” Abigail said. “Do you take anything in your tea?”

“No, thank you.”

Abigail poured Miranda’s tea into one of the bone china cups from Auntie Lou. “There you are.”

“Thank you.” Grateful to be free of the sling, finally, Miranda took the cup and saucer in both hands and studied Abigail. It was a rare woman who looked anything but drab when she went gray. Mason was several years younger than his wife, and the age difference had become more apparent recently.

After pouring her own tea, Abigail closed the bedroom door and sat in the chair beside the bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you any warning.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good timing.”

Jack had left for Chattanooga with Michael and Gabriel. Jonah was napping, Timothy and Martha were reading in the living room, and Rebekah was upstairs, practicing on her recorder. No one was within earshot. Still, Miranda was glad Abigail had shut the door.

“I wish I’d known about your fall sooner,” Abigail said. “I thought you stayed away from church so long because the children were sick. I should have checked on you.”

“How did you find out?”

“About your fall? Your brother-in-law stopped by a few weeks ago and told me—and then Mason told me. He hasn’t mentioned it to anyone else, as far as I know.” Abigail looked over the rim of her teacup. “He’s afraid the ladies will bring meals, and you’ll infect them with your opinions. I put a bug in Wendy Perini’s ear though. Don’t be surprised if she shows up.”

“Please, Abigail, don’t do anything that will get anyone in trouble. Has Mason decided I’ve gone off the rails again?”

“Not exactly. He’s just afraid you’ll speak up against the move, and he’ll have a mutiny on his hands. You don’t intend to move, do you?”

“No.”

“I can always rely on you to be honest. That’s why I’ve come to you, our black sheep.” Abigail started to lift her cup to her lips, then lowered it to the saucer instead and stared out the window.

Trying to grasp Abigail’s ominous words, Miranda fidgeted against the headboard and nearly spilled her tea.

A blue jay flew past the window, squalling, and the noise jolted Abigail out of her reverie. “I’m afraid I have some bad news about my marriage.”

It was true, then. Wanting to cry, Miranda ducked her head in an awkward nod. “I’m very sorry.”

Abigail gave her a puzzled look. “You act as if it isn’t a surprise.”

“I’ve seen a few clues.”

“Do you know who the other woman is?” Abigail’s voice was flat and lifeless.

“I have a hunch.”

“Nicole?”

Miranda nodded again, her throat sore from holding back the crying jag that ached to be released. She imagined Nicole in the apartment she shared with a fluffy black cat. The red geraniums in the window box. The bright white Priscilla curtains. Nicole at the window, her dark eyes searching the sidewalk as she waited, not for the husband she’d thought God would send her someday, but for an older man. Another woman’s husband.

“Does Mason know … that you know?”

“Yes,” Abigail said. “He claims it was Nicole’s fault. She looked for ways to be alone with him, to entice him. I don’t believe it for a minute. This isn’t the first time he’s stumbled. In Nebraska, years ago, there was a similar situation. The elders there confronted him, but he would rather change towns than change his heart. And he expected me to forgive him and tag along.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I,” Abigail said with a cracked little laugh.

She rose and returned to the tea tray, where she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea, the spoon clinking against the china. She took a second spoonful of sugar, and that was as startling as her new frankness. Abigail’s kitchen hadn’t held sugar in years, unless she, like Miranda, had a secret stash of it.

“Does anyone else know?” Miranda asked. “The elders?”

“I certainly haven’t told them. And it’s over now. Nicole has left the church.
She’s going to her parents’ church again, and her father told Mason to leave town if he wants to keep it quiet.”

Miranda clattered her cup down on the saucer. “What? That’s why he’s uprooting the whole church? And the church will go on thinking he heard from God, when he only heard from Nicole’s daddy?”

“That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“Well, is it true? Is he moving so he can hide his sin?”

“That’s part of it.” Finished stirring her tea, Abigail sat down again. “It would be awkward to run into Nicole, of course, but I think she’ll keep quiet for the sake of her own reputation. And I’m not going to talk about it. But the affair isn’t the only reason for the move.”

“What’s the rest of it, then?”

“He’s tired of the home-church setup.” Abigail balanced her teacup on her knee. “He wants the legitimacy of having our own building. A larger, more conventional church. People ignore a church that has only a few cars in the parking lot, but crowds collect crowds. If he can move the whole flock, he’ll be well on his way.”

“So he’s moving the whole church? Even me, when he knows I don’t want to go? That’s the part I don’t understand.”

“He’s made a commitment to buy a building there. You own a big piece of prime acreage, free and clear. If you pay a tithe on the sale price of your property, there’s his down payment.”

“I don’t believe it.” Miranda rubbed her face with her hands, as if that could erase the conversation from her ears.

“Thirty years ago, I never would have believed any of it.” A sad smile played on Abigail’s thin lips. “When we were first married, Mason was a gem. Some men are, you know. But I wasn’t able to give him children. He was sure it wasn’t his fault. He was righteous. He prayed, he studied the Word, he tithed, he did everything right. Therefore my barrenness must have been my fault.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“No, but he does. Or he used to. I’m not sure what he believes now,
because he can’t claim to be the blameless one anymore. Now, of course, I’m long past the childbearing years.” Abigail lifted her hand to pat her gray braids. “I’m old enough to be a grandma. Oh, what does it matter? I’ve forgiven him—and I have to forgive him again every time I think about it—but I have scriptural grounds for divorce.”

“You’re leaving him?”

“I’ve started packing, right under his nose. He thinks I’m preparing for the move.” Abigail’s mouth tightened. “In all the years of our marriage, he has hit me twice. I don’t intend to provoke him into a third time. One of these days, I’ll load my boxes into my car and drive. By the time the church starts asking questions, I’ll be gone.”

“Will he still move to McCabe without you? Will the church follow him?”

“Probably not, once they know their pastor preys on innocent young ladies.” Abigail shifted the cup and saucer to her other knee, sloshing tea on her skirt. She didn’t seem to notice.

“But they might not find out in time. They’re putting their homes on the market. They’ll find buyers. They’ll quit their jobs. That’s not fair to them.”

“I’m sorry, but I only want to get out of town before he knows what I’m doing.” Abigail’s voice shook. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“If you don’t want me to talk about it, why did you tell me?”

“To encourage you to put your foot down. You belong here, Miranda. This is your home.” Abigail wiped tears from her eyes. “But Nebraska is mine. Once I’ve left town, you can tell the church what I’ve told you.”

“But if I tell—” Miranda stopped short.

Once the church knew the truth, she would have nothing to use against Mason. Worse, with his marriage and his ministry falling apart, he would have nothing left to lose. He would be dangerous.

Not for the first time, she wondered what had become of the notes he’d taken during that miserable counseling session nine years before.

The afternoon trip to ’Nooga with the archangels wasn’t strictly necessary except to escape the incessant piping of Rebekah’s recorder, but that was reason enough for Jack.

The boys kept busy on the drive by counting the mile markers and pointing out the sights, including a billboard for the aquarium. The realization that they were counting things made Jack chuckle; the compulsion may have been hereditary. But the fact that they’d never been to an aquarium troubled him. Too expensive for Miranda? Or too far removed from her family’s cloistered world?

The boys hollered when they spotted the state line. The closer they came to Chattanooga proper, the more awestruck they became. They’d never seen so much traffic. They were impressed by the bridge over the Tennessee River too. In a few minutes they were on Jack’s street. From three houses away, he saw Ava’s paperwhites and yellow daffodils spilling down the bank.

Deprived of babies, Ava had plunged into landscaping sprees and decorating projects. She’d decorated the soul out of the place, doing her level best to turn a man’s simple house into a woman’s fussy showplace. Bit by bit, he was stripping it of its froufrou elements and returning it to its former simplicity. Ava’s boot prints on his heart weren’t so easily erased.

He ushered the boys inside, then took in the view from the living room to the kitchen. Evidence of his book addiction lay everywhere, but the boys were more likely to notice a few other items. The latest
National Geographic
on the end table, for instance. He couldn’t remember whether or not it included photos of scantily clad natives.

Two empty Guinness bottles stood on the kitchen counter, and a nude hung on the wall in the hallway. One of the few things that hadn’t been sold when his mom died, the print was tasteful enough, but there was no telling how the boys might describe it to Miranda. She was probably in the same camp as the parents of one of his students, who’d censored her textbooks by placing black tape over certain photos—like Michelangelo’s
David
.

Jack breezed past the boys and opened the door to the backyard. “Y’all go
outside, all right? See if you can find the varmints digging up my lawn. Moles, probably.”

They raced outside, nearly bowling over the wrought-iron chairs on the patio.