Tomorrow's Sun (51 page)

“I’m so sorry.” Kalisa Harris set a netting-covered infant car seat on the garage floor and brushed a shiny black curl off her forehead with a tapered, manicured finger. She gestured to the cardboard boxes overflowing with newspapers, yellowed documents, and old photographs. “Marvin Greene’s granddaughter called me from the hospital and asked me to meet you. She didn’t have time to explain much, but said you could look through the boxes. I can scan and copy anything you find.” She shrugged apologetically.

Jake smiled at the woman. “What are the doctors saying about Mr. Greene?”

“It was a mild stroke. His prognosis is good.”

“That’s a blessing.”

“Amen to that.” Kalissa lifted the car seat and stepped out the door. “My other daughter’s playing in the backyard. I’ll check on her and then I’ll be back to see if you need anything.”

“Thank you so much for—” Emily stopped mid-sentence as sunlight glinted on something that hung from a fine gold chain on Kalissa’s neck.

A gold frog.

A chill skittered down Emily’s spine. “May I look at your necklace?”

Kalissa grinned. “Of course. There’s a story behind this.” She set the car seat down, unlatched the clasp, and laid the frog in Emily’s hand.

Lexi drew close and gasped. “That’s exactly like yours, Emily.”

Kalissa smiled. “Couldn’t be exactly like this one. I made this from a mold I cast of the original, which is made of wood.”

From the chunky, raised bumps along the spine to the sharp angles of the bent legs, the frog looked so much like the one in the treasure can. She turned it over and echoed Lexi’s gasp.

“An
M
!” Adam lowered his head until his hair brushed Emily’s arm. “Weird.”

“This”—Emily’s hand quivered—“mine has an M on it. It’s the same size and carved ex—”

“Where did you get it?” Kalissa’s eyes sparkled with the excitement that infused the whole garage.

Emily told her about the house, the treasure can, the room, and the letters.

Kalissa sank onto a stack of boxes. “I apologized when you got here because I didn’t think I’d be much help to you.” Wide brown eyes stared in shock. Her lips parted. “It appears I was wrong.” She smiled. “Would y’all like to follow me across town to my—”

“Mama!” Footsteps rounded the garage. A little girl with thick black braids stopped short then wrapped herself around Kalissa’s legs. Kalissa bent and picked her up. “I’d like you all to meet my daughter. Hannah.” She leaned over and pulled the netting from the car seat. A mass of black curls crowned a round little head. “And this is Mariah.”

Kalissa handed the baby to Emily, then set glasses of sweet tea on the kitchen table. Outside, on the expansive deck, Adam and Lexi blew bubbles with four-year-old Hannah. Kalissa sat down across from Emily. “I became obsessed with my family tree while I was in college. My search led me to the Greenes. And these.” She tapped a stack of papers in plastic sleeves.

“My maiden name is Johnson,” she said. “My great-great-great-great-great”—she held up one finger with each great— “grandfather was a slave. George Johnson. He fled Missouri with his young daughter, Mariah, in 1852. Mariah died along the way. Your Hannah and her father hid George and helped him get to a ship that took him to Canada. Sometime later, Thomas and Hannah Shaw came here to Fredericktown to help George’s mother and sister escape. They stayed with Robert and Isabella Greene, who donated the money that Hannah, all by herself according to the accounts I’ve read, used to buy the women’s freedom. They say she…”

Emily sat mesmerized—by the story, and by the smooth, dark skin of the child in her arms. She ran her finger across the infant’s velvet cheek.
Like feeling history
. She thought of Dorothy’s words—
We’re all connected. Like holding a mirror up to a mirror, we’re reflections of the people who came before us and the generations that follow
.

Jake reached over and touched Mariah’s hand, looking into Emily’s eyes. Searching. She smiled at him, hoping he read joy in her eyes. He turned to Kalissa. “Do you know anything more about Hannah?”

“I know”—she slid the papers across the table—“she lived a long and happy life.”

Emily looked down at bold, familiar strokes. The letter was headed,
Rochester, Wisconsin, December 16, 1881
. Her breath froze in her throat. “It’s him.” She scanned to the bottom. “Liam,” she whispered. “His name was Liam.”

Jake read quietly:

Emily pulled a branch laden with almost-ripe apples close to her nose, breathing in the sweet, sun-warmed smells of August. Two little boys sat under the tree, eating the last of the peanut butter cookies.

From several yards away, Cardinal Bob cocked his head and stared at her. As she waved at him, she leaned on the gun-shaped walking stick and ran her fingertips over her name and the engraved date. Like portly Mr. Bottomley in Dorothy’s book, she carried it as a fashion statement. And a reminder.

“I’m going inside, boys,” she yelled.

“To make more cookies?” Michael’s brown eyes peered at her from his apple tree hideaway.

She laughed. “Tomorrow. How about oatmeal this time?”

His nose wrinkled. “Uh-uh. Peanuhbutter.”

“I kind of thought you’d say that.”

She walked through the front door. The new floor plan never failed to make her smile.

Dorothy would be happy here.

And Emily would spend the rest of her life fighting a new kind of regret. Too late, she’d realized her flip had become home. Vanessa would probably say home was just a state of mind. If she could feel it here, she could feel it anywhere. Was there a mantra for convincing herself that was true?

In the kitchen, she picked up the treasure can. Several Squiggles had occupied the can, but Michael had recently declared, “Frogs
hiberate
in really hot summer.” She opened the zipper bag and placed the treasures, one by one, back in the can. All but the tiny carved frog that sat on the windowsill above the new sink. The wooden Squiggles would leave with her.

She opened the cellar door, running her hand over the rough edge.
Like feeling history
. Dorothy agreed the door should remain as is.

She walked down the creaky steps, across the uneven floor, and opened the sliding door. Jake had oiled the wheels and they slid easily. Without picking up the flashlight, she stepped down into the room and sat on the bench, setting the can next to the carved inscription. In a few days, when she moved out to divide her time between St. Louis and the apartment above Tina’s garage, the can would stay. The treasures belonged to her imaginary friends whose memories lived in the walls.

Footsteps sounded overhead. “I’m down here!” she yelled. At that moment, her phone vibrated.

Dorothy. Her finger moved slowly to answer the call. She wasn’t in the mood to listen to more plans for wall colors or room arrangements. “Hi, Dorothy.”

“Emily? I—oh, is Jake there yet?”

“I’m in the cellar, but I think he just got here. Do you want to talk to him?”

“Well…”

“We’re coming down!” Adam called from the kitchen. Laughter and footsteps followed. Breathless twins tumbled in. The rip of Velcro sounded and an LED light lit the room.

“Just a minute, Dorothy.” She looked at the kids. “Is Jake with you?”

“Yeah, but we gotta ask you something before he gets here.”

“I’m on the phone.”

Lexi bent over, hands on her knees. “This’ll only take a sec.”

Heavier footsteps sounded overhead. Adam nudged Lexi. “Hurry.”

Lexi nodded and gulped air. “It’s like this. Jake wants to help you more with your house in St. Louis, but he’s stuck with us, but Adam and I decided it would be really good for us to get away from here for a year after all that’s happened and St. Louis sounds like a cool place to live so we decided we should all move there and since you’re a teacher we were thinking you could homeschool us and it kinda wouldn’t work unless you”—she looked at Adam and he nodded. The cellar steps creaked. Lexi scrunched her face. “Would you”—they said in unison—“marry us?”

“Alexis!” Jake appeared in the doorway, nailing Lexi with a horrified look.

Mouth agape, Emily looked up into lake-blue eyes.

The stunned look slowly melted from his face. He shrugged, shook his head, and grinned. “Well…what they said.”

“Uh…”

Tears brimming his eyes, Jake reached out for Lexi’s hand then Adam’s. In one fluid motion, all three were on their knees at Emily’s feet.

“Emily Foster, will you do us the honor of making us the happiest family in the whole world? Will you marry us?”

Mouth still wide open, Emily nodded. “Yes.
Yes
. To all of you!”

Jake stood and pulled her to her feet. He held her gaze for a heart-stopping pause then bent and pressed his lips to hers. Her arms slid around him.

Adam covered his eyes. “That’s disgusting.”

“Hello? Hello? Emily?” The muffled voice came from somewhere behind Jake’s right shoulder.

“Dorothy!” Emily pulled away, laughing, and put the phone to her ear. “Dorothy, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s me who’s sorry, dear. Jake just left here and he said I should call you while he was there with you and—oh, I know it’s too late, but Jake just showed me how he could knock out just one wall and make my house so much like yours that it…”

Emily narrowed tear-filled eyes at the man whose grin hovered inches from the phone. “It would feel so homey that it just wouldn’t make sense for you to move, right?”

“Y-yes.”

“I understand that feeling, Dorothy. I’ll let you out of the contract.”

“Oh dear, thank you. I’m so sorry for any inconvenience this—”

“No inconvenience, Dorothy.” She traced Jake’s lips with her fingertip. “None at all.” She nestled into waiting arms.

Safe. Warm. Home. Where she belonged.