When Sparrows Fall (34 page)

The home-printed booklet on top was bound in a translucent plastic folder. The title showed through:
Raising Your Family God’s Way—Heaven in Your Home
. Carl had always referred to this one when she expressed an opinion about discipline. After a few years, she’d stopped trying to change his mind. She’d simply handled things her own way whenever possible.

She carried the pamphlets to the wood stove and opened the door. The blaze toasted her face as she threw Carl’s treasured teachings into the fire. She closed the door and backed away as the stench of burning plastic filled her nostrils. The scent of freedom.

She shut off the living room light, leaving the room in darkness except for the fire. Out on the porch, a small orange glow bobbed in the night as Jack moved his cigar to his lips and lowered it again. He was a sentry, standing guard.

Soon, though, he would return to Chattanooga to stay. She would have to stand alone against Mason.

twenty-four

T
he house reeked of burned plastic in the morning, as it had when Jack had come inside at three. Miranda must have smelled it, but she had neither complained nor explained.

He poured coffee into two mugs and glanced over his shoulder at her red nose and puffy eyes. She’d cried, off and on, for hours.

When a woman’s husband died, a specific word defined her; she was a widow. But a woman who lost a child had no special title. She was still a mother, whether or not she had other children, and she had to carry on.

Jack took the coffee to the table, where he ran one of the mugs under her nose. “Where in the Bible does it say herbal hay water is godly and coffee isn’t?”

She let out a long, appreciative sigh. “It doesn’t.”

“Exactly. Take anything in it?”

“Just a little sugar, please.”

“From the forbidden sugar bowl in the cupboard? Yes, I’ve already learned most of your secrets.”

He stirred in a generous spoonful of sugar. She took her first sip and smiled as if he’d given her a brand-new Mercedes.

“Pretty decent coffee?” he asked.

“Perfect. I haven’t tasted any in years. Carl wouldn’t allow it in the house. He even threw away my favorite coffee mug.”

Overnight, she was talking more and talking faster. Like a spring that had been paved over and broken open again, she bubbled. These were bitter waters, some of them, and they needed to run and run until they ran clear and clean.

He sat across from her, and Hellion jumped into his lap. “Why did he trash the mug? You could have used it for your hay water.”

“It had my unfeminine nickname on it.”

Beneath Jack’s hand, Hellion’s bony back vibrated with a purr. Lucky animal, so far removed from human craziness.

“How long have you doubted Mason’s teachings?” he asked.

“For a long time, but especially after Carl died. I … I sort of fell apart after Jonah was born. I clashed with Mason. He told the men to keep their wives away from me so I wouldn’t contaminate them with my rebellion.”

“And did they stay away? They made you a pariah?”

“Yes. Abigail stayed in touch though. She stuck with me even when I was really down. When I probably wasn’t quite rational.”

“Postpartum depression, maybe,” Jack ventured, “after the shock of losing your husband. But I suppose Mason told you to pray your way through it?”

“How did you guess?”

“I’ve run into his type before. You should have told him to get lost.”

“I needed Abigail.” Miranda’s eyes sparkled with tears. “I was on my own, with six children including a colicky newborn. If Abigail hadn’t stood by me, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I would’ve taken Mason behind the barn and shot him right into a pre-dug grave. Like they do with old horses.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Yes ma’am. Back to your clash with Mason. It was about …?”

“My camera. I wanted to earn money with my photography, but Mason said I had to be a keeper at home and trust God to provide.” She stared into her coffee. “Robert Perini said that if the church wouldn’t let me earn money, the church should make up for it. Mason has mailed me a small check from the benevolence fund every month since then, but he never lets me forget that I’m a Jezebel.”

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

“I try not to. I’ve tried to find scriptures that show he’s wrong, but I’ve found just as many that seem to show he’s right. Sometimes, I don’t want to read my Bible because I always seem to hear Mason in my head, putting his spin on every verse.”

“Enough about Mason. I’d like to hear more about Carl, if you don’t mind. I don’t even know what he did for a living.”

She leaned the coffee mug against her cheek. “He drove a truck for one of the textile mills.”

“What was he like? What were his hobbies, who were his friends, what did he do in his free time?”

“He liked woodworking and fishing. His friends were the men in the church. He spent most of his free time serving the church, being Mason’s disciple. I know you don’t like Mason—and neither do I, now—but he straightened Carl out about a few issues.”

“Like what?”

Miranda lowered her coffee to the table and studied it as if it held answers. “Carl wanted to be separate from the world’s systems as much as possible. He didn’t want to buy insurance, for instance. If Mason hadn’t told him to buy good life insurance, I’d be in a tough spot.”

“When you met Carl, did you realize his beliefs weren’t exactly mainstream?”

She lifted her shoulders in an offhand shrug. “He seemed very spiritual. When he asked me to wear more conservative clothes and throw out my jewelry and my music, he said it was about consecrating our lives to God. He made it
sound good and holy. When I married into his church, everybody believed the same way he did.”

“You’ve been in Mason’s church since you were nineteen, then?”

“No, we didn’t move to Slades Creek until Carl’s mother died and left the property to him. Before that, we lived near Ellijay and went to a church that wasn’t too different from Mason’s. Small. Strict. Very similar teachings.”

“Did it all seem normal after a while?”

“Not really, but I was trying to be a good wife. I was trying to be”—she fell silent but her lips moved, trying different positions, different shapes, as she sought exactly the right word—“obedient,” she said finally. “I was an obedient wife.”

An obedient wife, forbidden to tell her surviving children about their late brother. Forbidden to grieve aloud for her son.

Jack stood, spilling the kitten onto the floor, and pulled the porcelain angel from the high cupboard. “Does this have something to do with Jeremiah?” He set it before her, half expecting a rebuke for having mended the wing against her orders.

She placed her fingertip on the hairline crack. “Last Christmas, I bought seven of these and put six of them on the mantel. I didn’t know what to do with this one, so I hid it in the cupboard.”

“I’m very sorry I broke it.”

“It’s all right, Jack. It’s only a … a thing.”

“When are you going to tell the other children about Jeremiah?”

The color drained from her face. “First, the children. What’s next? The newspapers? The world?”

“Why would the world care? No, just tell the children. Before somebody else does. How hard could that be?”

“Hard. You have no idea.”

“Still, shouldn’t you come clean?”

She studied the angel in a stony silence that sent a prickle down his spine. Perhaps she wasn’t telling him the whole story.

A minute or two late for supper, Miranda stood in the hallway and peeked around the corner. The one dark head among the blond ones gathered around the table, Jack was about to say grace. With his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, he joined hands with Rebekah and Gabriel.

Jack’s quick smile landed on Martha and became a warning glance. She was squirming.

She ceased wiggling. Holding perfectly still, she gave him an angelic smile.

He closed his eyes. “For these and all Your gifts to us, we thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

“Amen,” the children echoed, simultaneously opening their eyes and dropping each other’s hands.

Martha picked up her spoon and examined her reflection in it. “Uncle Jack?”

“Yes, Miss Martha?”

“If my daddy went to heaven, and if babies come from heaven, and if Jonah came from heaven after my daddy went there—” She sucked in a melodramatic breath. “Then they knew each other for a while.” She grinned, pleased with herself for figuring it out.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but babies don’t come from heaven.”

Martha lowered the spoon and studied him. Miranda could almost hear the dangerous question forming in that little blond head.

“Where do they come from?”

All the children trained their attention on Jack. Timothy laughed softly.

Jack cleared his throat. Picked up his fork. Put it down. Stumped by a simple question from a four-year-old, the brainy professor stared at the ceiling. He swallowed.

Any other time, Miranda would have laughed, but she couldn’t enjoy it. She couldn’t enjoy anything until she’d told Jeremiah’s story.

Jack was right. If she didn’t tell the children, Mason might. Even if she told them, he could still supply the ugly details, but at least the children wouldn’t have been completely blindsided.

“Babies … ah … well.” Jack scratched his chin. “Most often, babies come from a conflagration of desires. Gabriel, would you please start the bread basket? Thank you, sir. Rebekah, how’s that new quilt patch coming?”

Rebekah launched into a detailed description of her troubles with her slant-star patch, and Miranda slid into her chair without anyone taking much notice.

Martha gave Jack a puzzled frown. “What’s a con … con … that big word you said?”

“A conflagration? It’s a fire. A big one, like a bonfire. We’ll have another bonfire sometime, and maybe your mom will be up to joining us.” He gave Miranda a friendly smile.

She nodded, feeling strangely detached from him. From the children. Even from herself. As if she didn’t know anymore how to act. Who to be.

Just be Miranda Ellison Hanford, she told herself. Widowed mother of six.

No. Seven. And if she could be honest about it, even with the children, it might help her remember where she’d come from, how she’d arrived at this time and place. How an ordinary Ohio girl came to be in a mess like this. Maybe that would help her find a way out.

There had to be a way out. A way that didn’t put the children at risk.

She took a careful breath, mindful of her ribs. “Children, there’s something I need to tell you. You’re not to share it with anyone outside the family though. This is our business and no one else’s. Our family history.”

Jack set down his fork. He picked up the saltshaker, then the pepper shaker, and scooted them around like chess pieces, his food forgotten.

Timothy had also abandoned his supper. He put his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. His wary expression told her he remembered more than she’d given him credit for.

twenty-five

J
ack’s sleep shattered into shards of garish orange noise. His nerves shot in an instant, he sat up, throwing off his covers in the dim light of early morning.

The cacophony came from the coffee table. From his phone.

“Gabriel! You little devil!” He fumbled for the phone and sent it into blessed silence. “Hello.”

“Hi, it’s Yvonne. Sounds like I woke you. I’m sorry. I thought you were an early riser.”

“The little barbarian. The little—no, not you. Gabriel.”

Jack smelled coffee. That meant Miranda was up. Sure enough, she and Timothy sat at the table, talking in low voices.

“Hold on a second, Yvonne.” Jack wrapped the quilt around his bare shoulders, unfastened the deadbolt, and stepped onto the porch. The mountains were still streaked with fog and nearly blended in with the pale sky.

“Sorry about that,” he told her. “Last night, Gabriel discovered the joys of messing with my phone. He set it to the most obnoxious ring tone
imaginable—at the highest volume—stop laughing. I want to go back to bed. Except I don’t have a bed. I only have a couch and a kitten that wants to sleep on my face all night.”

“Well, that sounds like fun. Seriously, Jack, is everything all right? Somehow I missed your message until now.”

“Long story. Everything’s pretty much okay now.”

“You sure, hon?”

Jack paced the porch with his feet freezing on the damp, rough planks as he answered Yvonne’s questions. Yes, Miranda was doing fine; she was cutting her ties to Mason. Yes, she might try Yvonne’s church someday.

If it were up to him, though, he would steer Miranda away from any church that encouraged its members to spout impromptu prophecies.

Once Jack had extricated himself from the conversation, he set his phone to a civilized vibrate setting and sat in his usual rocker, his feet like blocks of ice.

His brain was frozen, unable to make sense of anything. Why had Miranda kept quiet about Jeremiah for so long? After Carl’s death, she could have told the children about their brother. In fact, they might have noticed Jeremiah’s grave marker when they’d buried Carl.