In Search of Eden, page 36
On Monday, just after opening, a heavyset woman, bright red hair with white roots, came into the Hasty Taste. She gave Miranda a worried look. Venita went flying out around the counter to hug her. “Elna! You’re back! How are you, dear?” Miranda heard before their voices lowered in gossip or commiseration, . . . knows it’s just temporary, and don’t you worry, another week will be just fine. She didn’t need a memo to know her tenure at the Hasty Taste was almost up. Venita made it official as soon as Elna left.
“We sure have appreciated your help,” she said, “but Elna needs her job back.”
She thanked Venita graciously, and they agreed her last day would be Friday. And then what? she asked herself as she went about her work. She supposed she could try to find another job, but she had come here to find her child, and she had gotten distracted by other things. That other thing came in just then and winked at her as he took his customary place. Henry joined him, and Miranda brought them their breakfasts without needing to take an order. She had a feeling she and Joseph were approaching critical mass, and she wasn’t sure yet whether things would end in fission or meltdown.
He seemed a little unnerved, as well. As she cashed him out, Henry poked him in the ribs and said, “Remember what I said. Get the party started, son.” It seemed to rattle Joseph. He fumbled with his wallet, and pictures and credit cards went cascading onto the floor. Miranda came around the counter to help pick them up. She leaned down, he rose up, and their heads bumped. Embarrassing for both of them. Endearing to everyone else, apparently.
“Ain’t they cute?” Venita said to Wally, who answered with a grunt. Miranda said a quick good-bye and went back to work with burning cheeks.
She worked hard all morning, and when her shift was over she noticed a missed call on her cell phone. It was C. Dwight Judson, her erstwhile attorney. He was in and came straight to the point.
“I’ve heard from the attorney in Tennessee about the court order,” he said.
A feeling of shock ran through her, as if the telephone in her hand carried a current. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird’s. “Yes?” She held her breath.
“I’m afraid the court denied your petition. The records will remain sealed.”
She was silent for a minute. She thanked him and ended the call.
She said good-bye on autopilot to Venita and Wally, then walked back to her apartment, got into her car, and drove. She passed farms and houses and had a mind to keep on driving. To drive and drive and drive and never stop until she was far away from anything that would ever remind her of her child again. She would not mind leaving the laptop or her few clothes, but faces flashed in her mind like slides on a blank screen in her heart. Over and over she saw them, and finally she turned the car around, and after another spell of driving she found herself at St. James church.
She parked the car, walked across the graveled parking lot, and sat down on the steps. They were warm from the afternoon sun. She took out her cell phone and, without the emotion she would have imagined, called Nashville information. The last she’d heard, Danny Loomis was still living in town, working for a trucking company. She had not spoken to him in eleven years.
“I’d like a number for Loomis,” she said to the operator, “Daniel Loomis.”
She wrote it on her hand, then dialed quickly before she could think.
A child answered on the third ring. A little girl, and she felt a thrust of pain.
“I’m trying to get ahold of your daddy,” she said. “Danny Loomis?”
“He’s at work. You want to talk to my mom?”
“Do you have your daddy’s work number?”
“Just a minute.” Heavy breathing, paper rattling, then the number read to her.
“Thank you,” she said just as a woman’s voice spoke in the background.
She signed off, then dialed again, quickly.
“Beauregard Trucking. This is Kip.”
“I’d like to speak to Daniel Loomis.”
“Just a minute.” She was put on hold. The phone picked up after a few seconds.
“Loomis,” the voice said. It didn’t sound familiar in the least.
“Danny,” she said, “this is Miranda. I mean, Dorrie Gibson.”
A long silence, which she broke herself. “This isn’t a social call,” she said bluntly. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need some information.”
“Okay.” He sounded cautious, and she began to feel angry.
“I’m looking for our child,” she said.
A deep expulsion of breath. “Look, Dorrie, I can’t talk about this now.”
“I don’t want to talk. I just want to know everything you know. Don’t you think you owe me that?”
Another pause. “I don’t know anything.”
“Danny, someone got the original birth certificate. Was it you?”
A deep sigh, and her anger flared.
“You have it?” she demanded.
“Had it,” he said. “I gave it to your mother.”
Miranda felt stunned. She felt once more like the victim of treachery.
“All I know is that it was a girl. Your mother said she had a good home for her. Christian people. That’s all I know.”
“You told me you didn’t know anything.”
“That’s what your mother told me to say. You know how it was, Dorrie.”
She knew how it was, all right.
“Look, I’ve got to go,” he said.
Her anger was replaced by desperation. “How much did she weigh?” she pleaded. “What color were her eyes?” She could hear herself almost wailing.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Look, I have to go. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but that was all in the past. Let’s leave it that way.”
And then he hung up.
She held out the phone and looked at it. Then she laid her head on her knees and wept. Deep wrenching sobs. And somewhere during her sorrow someone came near. She knew because she could feel it, a sweet presence, and then a warm small hand on her back. She could smell her. It was the sweet smell of childhood. Soap and sweat and grass.
“What’s the matter?” Eden asked quietly.
Miranda couldn’t speak. She shook her head.
“You want me to get somebody?” Eden asked. “Pastor Hector or Mom or Uncle Joseph?”
Miranda shook her head again. “Just you,” she said. So Eden sat down beside her and slipped a warm hand into her own and stayed there without talking until Miranda’s sobs became shuddering breaths.
By morning she had made a decision. She had to tell Joseph. And she would do it today. She would do it this evening, she decided, for they had agreed to go walking on the trail for an hour or so when he finished work. She would do it now if she could, so eager was she to have it done.
“We’ll stop by the Dairy Freeze, and I’ll buy you a burger for supper,” he’d said when he called her last night. It was the perfect opportunity. Their long walk, surrounded by the beautiful mountains, would give her the courage that she needed.
The other decision she had made during the long sleepless night was to go public in her search. It was her only chance to find her daughter. As soon as she told Joseph, she would tell her other friends. She would ask the four pastors. She would put an ad in the newspaper if necessary.
She went to work as usual. She made coffee, filled the cream pitchers, and did the morning prep work, and while she was working, she slipped the picture of her baby girl out of her purse. She set it under the edge of the register so she could see it and be comforted. The tiny face peeked at her and made her smile. At six o’clock she unlocked the door. Joseph arrived a little after that and greeted her with a warm smile. She brought him his coffee, and he told her he was looking forward to seeing her tonight. She told him she was looking forward to it, too, and tried to ignore her churning stomach. No mature man would hold a fifteen-year-old girl’s mistake against her, would he? And then she suddenly repented of calling her daughter a mistake. Now that she knew a little more, the child was real to her, not someone she had only dreamed of. Her child wasn’t an it any longer. She was a she. She, Miranda DeSpain, had a daughter. A little girl.
Joseph and Henry ate. After a half hour or so Henry left and Joseph came toward the register. He took out his wallet and then she saw something that changed everything.
Joseph smiled at her, lowered his eyes to his wallet, withdrew a bill, and set it on the counter. Then he frowned, something having apparently caught his attention. She followed his gaze. He was looking at the photograph of her baby. Her heart began thumping. Why had she been so foolish as to leave it out? She prayed he wouldn’t ask her about it now.
As she watched, he reached over and picked it up. And then the oddest thing happened. He looked at the picture, not as if it was unfamiliar and he was studying it or trying to make sense of something, but fondly, as if it were someone he knew. Even loved. A brief smile played on his lips, and then he did something that stunned Miranda even more. He tucked it into his wallet.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d hate to lose this. Where was it? Under the counter?”
She didn’t answer, but suddenly she was seeing yesterday’s cascade of photos and credit and business cards all over the floor as their heads bumped. She stood watching and thinking, her mouth slightly open. Was it? No. It couldn’t be. She stood absolutely still, as if moving too quickly might banish the vague picture that was beginning to form. She nodded and smiled, as if she knew what he meant.
“I thought I’d picked up everything,” he said, “but obviously I missed one.”
“It’s a good thing you saw it,” she said. “I didn’t know who it was.” Truth. Clear truth.
He met her honest gaze. “Couldn’t you recognize those cowlicks?” He set two bills on the counter and waved away the change.
“Such a sweet baby,” she said, wanting him to say something to confirm what she already knew. What she supposed she had known at some level since their first meeting.
“She’s still a sweet girl,” Joseph commented, giving her another warm smile. “But then, you already know that.”
She finished her shift somehow, her mind overwhelmed with what couldn’t be. There had to be a misunderstanding. After work she went into her tiny apartment and shut the door. She thought. About Eden and Joseph and Sarah and David and what she knew and what could not be true. Sarah had been pregnant, hadn’t she? With David’s child? Then how could Eden be her own daughter? She didn’t understand how it could be true, but she had a feeling it was. There was only one way to know for sure. With her hands shaking, she phoned Ruth’s house and asked for Eden.
Eden’s voice was innocent and out of breath. “Oh, hi, Miranda,” she said. “Dad and I have been playing Ping-Pong. He can still beat me, even in his chair.”
Miranda made some kind of response. And then she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. “Hey,” she said. “I just realized there’s something important about you that I don’t know.”
“What’s that?” Eden asked, and once again Miranda was struck by the innocence of her voice, and she had the urge to stop right then. To say never mind and leave the question unanswered. But the scale had been tipped and the slide toward movement inexorable.
“When’s your birthday?” she asked, and in the seconds it took for the answer to come, worlds could have been created and destroyed.
“I’m gonna be twelve,” Eden said, “on December fourteenth.”
chapter 51
*
Miranda spent the rest of the evening working out the how. Joseph came to the door at five o’clock, and she told him she wasn’t well. If she told him the truth, he would think her insane or a liar. She must have looked authentically sick, for he gave her a concerned look and told her to get some rest.
She phoned Reverend Webb. He answered on the seventh ring, just as she was ready to hang up. His voice sounded frail, but she needed answers. She had waited long enough for them.
“Reverend Webb, this is Miranda DeSpain. I visited you the other day and asked you about Noreen Gibson.”
“Yes,” he said. “I remember.”
“I forgot to ask you something then. Could I ask you now?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“Mrs. Tallert said that Beck used to let Noreen and Bobbie go to church outings and trips. Do you remember what some of those were?”
“Oh dear. It’s been a long time,” he apologized.
“I know. That’s all right,” Miranda said and wondered if she should have bothered him. He became agitated when he couldn’t remember things.
“Wait. Wait. There was a trip we took to Lewisburg to the state fair. I believe Noreen went to that.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“There were singings we went to from time to time at other churches. We went over to Hinton once and another time to Beckley.”
She took a deep breath and asked the question. “Was there anything in Virginia, Reverend Webb?”
There was a silence. “I believe there was, now that you mention it,” he said. “There was a camp the children used to visit. I believe Noreen went once. I can’t remember the name of it, though, or where it was.”
“Could it have been in Abingdon, Reverend Webb?”
“I suppose it could have been.”
“Could it have been Camp Berachah?”
“It was!” he said triumphantly, his voice full and his memory sound now that he was on solid ground. “That was it. The valley of blessing. I remember because it was in the valley of blessing that Jehoshaphat cried out to the Lord with his enemies attacking, ‘Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.’”
“You’re sure about the name of the camp?”
“Oh yes. I’m sure. Now that you tell me, I remember it well.”
She thanked him, her hands shaking.
“I’ve helped you, haven’t I?” he asked.
“You certainly have, Reverend Webb. Thank you, again.”
She hung up the phone and sat there putting the pieces together. When she was finished, she had a feeling she knew who the person was that her mother had trusted.
chapter 52
*
Ruth waved good-bye to Eden and David and watched as they proceeded down the hill together, David in his power chair, Eden on her bike.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” she’d asked.
“Ma, we’ve got wheels,” David had joked. “We don’t need a car.” She had smiled at her son and kissed them both before they left. Eden and David had exchanged tolerant grins, and she had felt her heart lift. She had the sense that her son’s spirit was beginning to heal just as his body had. Even in the absence of his wife.
Neither David nor Sarah had explained Sarah’s absence. They had talked behind closed doors and then announced that Sarah was going to visit her parents. David and Eden would stay here if that was all right with Ruth, which, of course, it was. Eden’s jaw had tightened when Sarah had kissed her good-bye, but she had become her sunny self again with her father. Her mood darkened only when Sarah’s name came up or at certain random times when Ruth was sure she was thinking of her mother.
She watched David and Eden proceeding down the hill, David going entirely too fast for a wheelchair on the sidewalk, Eden sticking her hands out at her sides. She shook her head and turned away before she could worry herself into an early grave.
She hadn’t seen much of Joseph during the past few days. He was busy with the festival. There was never much crime in Abingdon, but more people meant traffic and crowds, both of which were the police department’s bailiwick.
She checked her watch and went back inside to fetch her purse. She was meeting with Johnny today to talk about the campground. She felt a pang of discomfort when she thought of Joseph and what he would say about the arrangements she’d made, but then she reminded herself that she was still the mother and he was still the son. She was a capable adult and could make her own decisions. And the truth was, she didn’t want anyone, not even Joseph or David, not Hector, not anyone, not even Vi and Henry to point out the obvious flaws in her dream. She had always longed to see the campground open again. And now it seemed possible. She was not going to let go of that hope easily.
She closed the front door, climbed into her car, and made the short drive to the camp, passing under the sign with the same joy she always felt. It had been a valley of blessing, not only for her and her husband and her sons but for hundreds of children who had come there. She had a desire, a holy desire, she believed, to see it happen again.
Johnny and Grady were waiting on the porch of the lodge, sitting in new ladder-backed rockers. She parked the car and got out, waving a greeting their way.
Johnny rose up and greeted her with a hug. “Good day to you, Ruth. How are you?”
“As fine as this day, Johnny,” she said. “Just look what you’ve done here!” She looked around with joy. The dock had been repaired, and the canoe was actually sitting on top of the water instead of hanging listlessly beneath it. She could see that the roofs on several of the cabins had been patched, and there were new gutters on a few places that had rusted through or fallen down.
“Come inside here and look,” he said, opening the door to the lodge. She followed him through the dining hall and into the kitchen. “I’ve taken out this wall here where the dry rot was and replaced it. I put new pipes in this one here. There was a small leak. And I laid new vinyl on the floor.” She looked down and sure enough, there were shiny new black and white squares under her feet.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”
He held up a hand. “Hold on,” he said. “Let’s look at the big picture. Will you have a cup of coffee?” he asked. He pointed toward the counter where he had set up a small coffeepot that was bubbling.
“I’d love a cup,” she said.
Grady took the opportunity to go outside and play tetherball, also a new addition. Ruth took the cup Johnny gave her and sat down with him at one of the long tables in the dining hall where he had placed several folders.
