The Blue Bottle Club (49 page)

It was a portrait of Letitia, Adora, Eleanor, and Mary Love, gathered in a dimly lit room with high gables and exposed beams. On the table stood a candle and a blue glass bottle. But the four weren't young girls, as they had been that Christmas Day in 1929. They were adults, and the illumination from the candle cast their faces in an amazing contrast of light and shadow.

"This isn't a painting," Letitia said solemnly "It's a prophecy."

Brendan gazed at the faces. Tish was right; it was much more than a portrait. In the painting, Letitia stood to one side, alone, with a number of small children in the shadows behind her. Adora was dressed for the stage, but she held a tiny baby in her arms. Ellie was reaching out to a group of old men and women. And Mary Love herself, in a long black dress, sat at an easel in the right-hand corner, painting the entire scene onto a miniature canvas. She had caught them all—not as they had imagined their dreams would be fulfilled, but as those dreams actually had been realized. Letitia with her school children; Adora giving up acting to care for little Nicky; Ellie with the residents of the James Home; Mary Love in the habit of a nun. And in the center of them all, the blue glass bottle was glowing from within as if illuminated by a light all its own.

"It's amazing," Brendan whispered. "How did you do it?"

"I have no idea," Mary Love answered candidly. "I just painted what I saw in my mind's eye. But when I went back to it later, it seemed very different than what I had first envisioned."

"I can't accept this," Brendan protested. "It's much too valuable."

"You don't want it?" Mary Love's face betrayed her disappointment, and Dee gave Brendan a swift jab in the ribs.

"Take it!" she hissed. "It's a gift, for heaven's sake!"

Brendan held the painting up. "I can't tell you how much this means," she began, but tears choked her and she couldn't go on. She was completely overwhelmed, not just by Mary Love's presentation of the portrait, but by the love and acceptance she felt from these dear women. "I'll tell you what," she said when she had regained her composure, "why don't we hang it here, over the mantel, so we can all enjoy it?"

Dee gave her a nod of approval, and within minutes Mary Love's
Four
Friends
gazed down at them from above the fireplace. As stunning as it was, it left Brendan with an eerie feeling, like looking into the past and the future at the same time.

Ellie went to the piano and began to pick out a song. "Mary Love's painting reminds me of an old Christmas carol. Remember the last verse of 'In the Bleak Midwinter'?
What can I give him, poor as I am
. . . ?" she began.

"If I
were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb"
the others chimed in. Brendan didn't know the song, so she just listened. "If I
were a wise man, I would do
my part
..." The lyrics wrapped around her soul and gripped her with a strange sensation of longing.
"Yet what I can, I give him—Give my heart."

Brendan thought she would strangle from holding back the tears. When she could stand the pressure no longer, she let them go, and they spilled over and ran down her cheeks. Dee noticed and drew her aside.

"Is anything wrong?"

"I—I don't know," Brendan stammered.

"Let's go into my study for a few minutes." Dee led the way, and before she knew it, Brendan was sitting in the burgundy leather reading chair sobbing into a soggy tissue.

"Now, give," Dee commanded.

"It was—I'm not sure. The song, the painting. This story. Everything."

"You mean it's stirred something inside you that you don't understand?" Dee translated.

"Maybe. I've never had a story get to me like this. It's made me reexamine everything. My life, my purpose. My future."

"And your dreams?" Dee prodded gently.

"Before this, I never even thought about my dreams. I just did my job, made good money. But—but—nothing in my life has ever lasted!" she blurted out. "My whole life, my career, is sound bites, ninety-second spots on the news. Even this story, which has been an obsession for almost three months, will be a sixty-minute program. A good one, I can feel it. But then what?"

She took a deep, ragged breath and looked up into Dee's face. "When all of you were singing that carol—'What can I give him?'—I kept thinking:
Nothing.
Not a blessed thing. I have nothing to give."

"Yes, you do," Dee corrected softly. "You can give your heart."

"My hearts not worth giving. There's nothing there. It's a stone."

"I don't believe that."

"When my parents were killed, I turned away from God—and from love. I didn't let anybody close, except my grandmother, and then she died too. I've survived by keeping people at a distance, by being independent. Then all of you came into my life, talking about dreams and how God is still present even in darkness and sorrow. It's been very confusing—and yet I can't seem to block it out."

"Maybe you're not supposed to block it out," Dee suggested. "Maybe you're supposed to let it in."

"It's too late."

Dee shook her head firmly. "It's never too late." She pointed toward the door. "Look at them. They've gone through some terrible experiences in their lives, and yet they've found a reason to go on . . . a purpose. A dream—a hope that can't be killed."

Fresh tears rose up in Brendan's throat. "And where do I find my dream? My reason, my purpose?"

"The same place they found theirs," Dee said quietly. "Within your own soul." She paused, and for a moment silence engulfed them, broken only by the faint sounds of laughter and the background of Christmas music coming from the library "Tell me the truth, Brendan—what is it about this story that's got you so agitated?"

Brendan thought for a minute. "There's something important in this story, Dee—something that has the potential of touching a lot of people's lives. Everyone has dreams—" She stopped and grinned through her tears. "Well,
almost
everyone. And everyone has known what it's like to see their dreams crumble. But these women—your grandmother and the others—have found something more stable to hang onto. They're not content and fulfilled because circumstances turned out the way they hoped, but because of their faith in a God who is above circumstance. For a while I tried to pass over it as denial or some kind of Pollyanna religion. But it's not. It's real, and it shows."

She sighed. "The sixty-minute special will be good, don't get me wrong. It'll probably earn me a promotion. But the story's too big for the time slot. Most people, when they go through difficult times, get hard and bitter and angry. Trust me, I know. If people could only experience for themselves what these four women went through, how they managed to come out stronger and wiser and nobler, it would make a difference in a lot of people's lives."

"And that's what you want to do? Make a difference?"

"I guess so. I'm tired of giving my life to throwaway journalism. I'd like to leave something a little more permanent behind—something that might make the world a better place. Does that sound stupid?"

"It sounds like a dream worth pursuing." Dee squatted down beside Brendan's chair and peered into her face. "Brendan, was there ever something you wanted to do with your life that would have that kind of permanence?"

Brendan knew the answer immediately, but she averted her eyes and didn't respond. She felt a flush run up her neck.

"Come on, tell me."

"Writing," Brendan mumbled.

"What did you say?"

Brendan shook her head. "I feel like an idiot saying this to you, Dee. You're a Pulitzer novelist. A professional. But that's what I wanted, a long time ago. To write books. Not news reports, books."

A broad grin broke out on Dee's youthful face.

"You think that's funny?"

"Funny, no. Ironic, yes." She went to her desk and rummaged in the top drawer. "I was going to talk to you about this later, after you had finished production on the special. I kind of—well, did something behind your back."

Brendan jerked to attention. "Like what?"

"I—ah—" Dee shook her head. "When you first came here to talk to Granmaddie, I couldn't get the story out of my mind. The four old women, the blue bottle, the dreams. You could probably tell how fascinated I was with it."

"So?"

"So, I had a little talk with my publisher. Strictly confidential, you understand—sort of testing the waters. And he thinks this would make a great novel—a fictionalized account, based on the true story. He said when you're ready to discuss it, you can contact him."

"I can't write a novel! I'm a journalist."

"Right," Dee said, her tone laced with heavy sarcasm. "Heaven forbid that you should try something you haven't done before. It might be a risk."

Brendan's stomach knotted, a mingling of anticipation and absolute terror. "Do you really think I could do it? And you'd be willing to help me?"

"I'd be willing to do more than that. It's your story, of course, and your decision. But one option might be for us to collaborate, as cowriters—"

It took a minute for this suggestion to sink in. Then reality hit her: Cordelia A. Lovell, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A
Sense of Place,
was offering to lend her name and her expertise to a project they would do together.

The very idea shook Brendan to the core. Not just because Dee was willing to work with her on a book project, but because somehow, in the midst of all the confusion and turmoil, she suddenly found herself faced with the answer to a prayer she had never dared to pray. All the events of her life—good and bad—seemed to converge in a pattern that brought her to this place, this time, this opportunity And she knew, finally, that through all the years of darkness, she hadn't been alone.

A sense of joy and purpose welled up in her soul, a passion unlike anything she had ever known. So this was what it felt like, having direction, knowing peace. Brendan had always assumed peace to be some kind of nebulous cloud of passivity, like being on massive doses of painkillers. But this peace was active, alive, a palpable presence. She wanted to
do
something—to run, shout, find some tangible way to mark this moment, to capture and hold the reality in her soul forever. Some way unaccustomed as she was to gratitude, to say
thank you.

What
I
can, I'll give him—Give my heart. . . .

"We can talk about the details later, when you've finished the sixty-minute special," Dee was saying. "But think about it, will you? My publisher is very enthusiastic."

"I don't have to think very hard," Brendan laughed. "But there is one little detail we'll need to attend to right away."

"What's that?"

Brendan pointed toward the library "Getting their permission."

"I doubt that will be a problem," Dee said with a chuckle. "I have an in with one of the principal players."

Brendan stood up and dried the last of her tears. "Shall we go tell them the good news?"

"And what, exactly, are you going to tell them?"

Brendan hesitated, groping for words. "That Somebody has answered their prayers," she said at last, "and given a rootless journalist a sense of purpose and direction. That one more dream is about to come true."

Dee lifted her eyes toward the ceiling. "It happens," she said with a shrug. "More often than you might imagine."

EPILOGUE

February 11,1995

D
reamers
wasn't exactly an earth-shattering journalistic expose, a candidate for the Emmy nomination. But it held its early prime-time slot—just after the evening news—moderately well, generating a mild flurry of local interest.

"A sweet story," the
Citizen-Times
called it. "A tiny beacon of hope in a bad-news world."

Brendan, for her part, couldn't have cared less about the reviews. She was proud of the story—proud of the work she had done. For the first time in recent memory, she had produced a piece worthy of airing, a story that wouldn't be forgotten as soon as the closing credits rolled.

She pressed the pause button on the remote and chuckled to herself as Dwaine Bodine's face filled the screen. Ron Willard had pitched a fit when she told him she intended to use the gregarious demolition worker in the opening and closing scenes.

"You're going to let that redneck camera-hog get his fifteen seconds of fame in
our
film?" Ron shook his head in disbelief. "What's happened to you, Brendan? If I didn't know you better, I'd think you'd gone completely soft."

Brendan had done her best to contain her amusement, albeit unsuccessfully. "Dwaine's not a redneck," she had insisted. "He's a sweet guy, really. Just wants to help. And besides, he's the one who started this story in the first place, by finding the bottle and giving it to me. He's a crucial part of the whole plan."

"What plan? What are you talking about?"

"What I'm saying is that I want to show him a little appreciation," Brendan had said firmly "All right?"

"All right," Ron conceded. "It's your show. But try to keep a lid on him, will you?"

Dwaine, as it turned out, had been absolutely brilliant. Humble and self-effacing, he fairly emanated the kind of "aw-shucks," homespun philosophy Brendan was looking for. A common, uneducated person, but one whose dreams were every bit as valuable and important as the grand schemes of the educated and elite.

She pushed the play button, and Dwaine's boyish face came to life. "I found it up in the rafters, y'know?" he was saying. "It was a purty thing, that nice blue color. Thought it might make a real good souvenir for you, Miss Delaney." He grinned broadly into the camera. "Just goes to show that you never know what you're gonna find when you keep your eyes open."

Brendan clicked the television off and went into the next room. Everywhere she looked, boxes were piled up—some sealed and ready to go, some still open. She really ought to finish packing.

Tomorrow morning she was moving into the guest house behind Dee Loveil's big home in Hendersonville, and together they would begin work on the new book. The house on Town Mountain had sold in one day, along with a lot of the furniture and other possessions she had acquired over the years. It was time to scale back, to simplify, to streamline. Time to give herself to the new direction her path was taking. She wondered, briefly, if she would miss the old life.