A Most Unsuitable Match (41 page)

Once inside, all the girls gathered around to exclaim over the baby’s red hair, admire her dimpled cheeks, and coo over her perfect, tiny hands. Edie spoke up. “This is Sam’s little niece,” she said. “Born just this morning.” She cleared her throat. “Her mama’s gone on to heaven.”

In the chorus of sympathy, the one girl who had yet to say a word squeezed past Roberta and stood on tiptoe to peer into the baby’s face.

“This is Mollie,” Edie said as she put her arm around the girl. Mollie touched the sleeping baby’s cheek. She looked at Edie then and said abruptly, “I could try and feed her. My ma was a wet nurse. I could try.” She looked up at Sam. “If you want.”

“That’s exactly what we and Doc LaMotte were hoping you’d say,” Edie said. “God bless you for offering.”

Mollie held out her arms. When Sam handed the baby over, she leaned down and nuzzled her cheek. “Hello, little one,” she murmured, then wrinkled her nose.

Edie laughed. “Well, I’d say that’s the official word that both ends work. You want me to change her nappy?”

Mollie held the baby closer. “No, ma’am. I’ll do it.” She sighed happily as she looked up at Sam. “I never expected God to care one way or the other when I told him I missed my baby.” Her voice wavered. “I know she isn’t mine, Parson, but I’m so
glad
you brought her out here.”

Sam swallowed. “Thank . . . you.”

“What’s her name?” The question came in a chorus. Sam had been thinking about the problem of a name since he stood at Emma’s grave. “Nnnn.” He closed his eyes. Pursed his lips and shook his head.

“It’s all right, Parson,” Edie said. “Nobody here’s in a hurry. Take your time.”

Taking a deep breath, he finally managed to say the name. “Josephine.” Opening his eyes, he looked first at Lamar, then at the women. “She was . . . my . . . moth . . . errrr.” He reached into the pocket of his black coat and pulled out her Bible. Held it up and said, “This is all I h-have . . . of . . . her.”

“Not all,” Edie said, smiling. “Now you have her granddaughter.”

Sam nodded and blinked away tears. He put the Bible back in his pocket and, together with Lamar, followed Edie up the stairs at the back of the house and into the room that Edie declared theirs for as long as they wanted to stay at Bonaparte’s. “Including forever,” Edie said, then glanced at Sam. “Although I think once you’ve had a chance to pray on it, you’ll realize you belong somewhere where you can tell a lot of people about the One who wrote that book you love.”

She headed back out into the hall. “Supper should be about ready, so you two come on down to the parlor soon as you can. I imagine it’ll be a bit overwhelming until the girls get used to having you around, but they don’t mean anything by all the joshing they do. They’re good girls.”

———

When Sam put the Bible in his carpetbag, Lamar got it back out and put it on the nightstand by the bed. Sam shook his head. “Don’t . . . need it.”

“You need it now more than you ever did,” Lamar said. “I know you’re hurting, son. You prayed as hard as you’ve ever prayed for anything, and God didn’t take you to Emma. And then he brought her to your doorstep and let her die.” He tilted his head and looked up at Sam. “Is that about right?”

Sam shrugged.

“Answer the question, son. Do you know of anybody in the Bible who begged God for something and didn’t get it?”

An entire flood of names cascaded into Sam’s mind. He wouldn’t be able to say them anyway, so all he said was, “Lots.”

“That’s right.” Reaching for Sam’s Bible, Lamar thumbed to a passage and pointed to a verse. “Read it,” he said.

Sam sat down and began to read.

“No . . . read it out loud.”

Frowning, Sam shook his head.

“How are you going to ever learn to talk again if you don’t talk?” Lamar stood up. “Tell you what, Sam. I’m going to go on downstairs. But I don’t want to see you until you’ve read from verse 32 all the way to the end of the chapter. That’s only eight verses. Might take you half an hour. That’s not much. You’ve got a whole lifetime of talking to do. Get to learning how again.” Lamar went to the door. “I’ll see you at supper.” He left, closing the door firmly behind him.

Sam sat on the bed, listening to him clomp down the stairs. For a while, he ignored the open Bible on his cot. Finally, though, he decided it wasn’t worth the argument to resist what Lamar wanted him to do. He’d ask if Sam had read the verses, and Sam couldn’t lie to Lamar. He reached for the Bible.

Hebrews.
Frowning, Sam stared at the verse Lamar had pointed out. He looked back to the beginning of the chapter.
By faith Abel . . . by faith Enoch . . . by faith Noah . . . by faith Abraham . . .
Hmph. It seemed like his own faith had dropped into the hole they’d dug for Emma’s coffin. With a sigh, he found verse 32 and started to read aloud.

“ ‘An’ wut shallll I mmore say? F-For the time would fail me to tell of—’ ”
Great.
A long list of names. Bible names he probably couldn’t say even if he could talk right. He limped through them as best he could. At least he knew how to say one of them.
Samuel.
He kept reading. The first verses were all about amazing things men had done “through faith.” But then . . . “ ‘They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword . . . destitute . . . afflicted . . . tormented . . .’ ” And they “ ‘received not the promise.’ ”

It probably did take half an hour for Sam to mangle the entire passage aloud. By the time he’d finished, he’d broken out in a cold sweat and was in no mood for supper. His jaw and throat ached with the effort. Still, something drew him to reread the passage, and when he came to the end he kept going into the next chapter.
Wherefore . . . let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus . . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross . . . consider him . . . ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. . . .

Sam closed his eyes. He felt so weary. So filled with anguish . . . anger . . . confusion . . . grief.

He glanced at the quilt on the bed and the pillow covered with a pristine white pillowcase. He set the Bible back on the table. Pulling off his boots, he stretched out on the bed. And fell asleep.

A baby . . . wailing . . .
Sam started awake. When had it gotten dark? He sat up and looked around the room. Lamar was asleep in the other cot, snoring softly. Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the door. Whispers. And the baby . . . still wailing.

Someone had covered him with a patchwork quilt. Sam threw it back. He padded toward the door and opened it, then continued on downstairs in his stocking feet, pausing at the base of the stairs and peering up the hall toward the parlor. The baby wasn’t crying anymore. Someone had lighted a lamp, though, and Sam made his way toward the light. As he neared the parlor, he realized that Mollie was sitting in the rocker, her back to the stairs, her shoulder bare. Samuel couldn’t actually see Josephine, but he knew she was there in Mollie’s arms, for she was suckling with enough gusto that he could hear it halfway across the house.

“You’re a greedy little girl,” Mollie whispered, “and you aren’t mine . . . but I’m going to love you, Josephine. You are God’s gift to me for a little while, and I am going to love you.” She began to hum.

Sam sat down on the bottom step. The psalm he’d read over Emma came to mind.
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
As he looked toward the golden circle of light in the parlor, and listened to Mollie humming to Josephine, something changed. He didn’t know what it meant. He was still angry about everything. He still had the same questions, and he was more certain than ever that he wasn’t going to find an answer to some of them. And yet . . . something had changed.

Mollie lifted Josephine onto her shoulder. The baby’s red hair fairly glowed in the lamplight.

Sam retreated to his bed and fell asleep, delighting in the beauty of the newborn baby girl.

There be three things which are too wonderful for me,
yea, four which I know not... the way of an eagle in the air;
the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the
midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

P
ROVERBS 30:18-19

Fannie stood at the window of the boarding house dining room, staring off toward the west. She’d expected things to be strange for a few days, but she hadn’t expected this. She felt empty. Listless. Like nothing really mattered all that much. And she worried. Samuel’s note mentioned “a dark night of the soul.” The idea that sweet, gentle, brave Samuel Beck might have to endure such a thing terrified her. What if he lost his faith? What if he never regained it? What if— She sighed. What if things were never the same between them again? And what did that mean anyway.
The same.
What was it she wanted?

Abe’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “They probably heard that sigh all the way to Bonaparte’s.” He came to the doorway holding a steaming mug of coffee. “You gonna be all right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“About as obvious as the wart on my face.” He smiled. “You’ll see them in a few days. And things are going to be fine. If there was anything wrong, Pete would have come tearing back into town.”

“It’s so quiet compared to before.”

“I told you the winters were long. My wife—”

“I know.” Fannie nodded. “But I’ll be fine.” She forced a smile. “It is an adjustment, though.” She sat down at the corner table and, taking up a pin, began to prick holes along the lines she’d drawn. It wasn’t Braille, but if Patrick could learn to discern even a few letters this way, he’d be a natural when it came to learning the real thing next year at school.

“That boy’s crazy about you, ya know,” Abe said.

Why did he have to say that? Every time she thought about Patrick, she felt guilty. Every time Edmund tried to take her hand . . . and she pretended not to notice . . . she felt guilty. She thought it would help, not seeing Samuel every day. It wasn’t helping at all.

“You going over to the clinic today?”

Fannie shook her head. “Edmund’s bringing Patrick here around lunchtime.” She looked up at Abe. “What?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. Just asking.”

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I told you about my wife . . . right?”

“And I said that I’m going to be fine.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

Fannie waved a hand in the air. “Then . . . finish. You have my undivided attention.”

“There was somebody else,” Abe said. “She really loved somebody else, but she got tired of waiting for him and so she took me instead.” He paused. “And I was crazy for her and I thought I could make her love me. All I did was get us both caught up in something that made us miserable. So that’s what I wanted to say. You want a cup of coffee or not?”