When Sparrows Fall (30 page)

Her face colored. “They haven’t managed to sell one to me.”

“Glad to hear it.” Jack tilted his head and imagined her in jeans and a T-shirt. Again. It was becoming a habit, and he knew why. By controlling her choice of clothing, Mason controlled her freedom to choose, period. But it wouldn’t be prudent to say so.

She nodded toward the mail. “Were there any medical bills? Or a check?”

“Just the electric bill. And something from your church.” He handed her both envelopes just as Martha trotted into the room.

Miranda made a face. “I was hoping I’d get the bigger check today, the one from Carl’s annuity. This one’s so small it’s ridiculous. The church gives me a little check, and I give a teensy tithe right back.”

Martha tugged at her mom’s skirt. “What’s a tithe?”

“It’s a certain percentage, a certain part of your money that you give back to God.”

“Uncle Jack, do you do that?”

The issue was a shibboleth in some circles, but he wouldn’t lie. “No, Miss Martha, I don’t tithe, but I give. How much I give is between me and God, but I don’t believe He would smite my flocks or curse my crops based on how much I do or don’t give.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Are you a farmer?”

“No, sweetie. Flocks and crops … that’s a figure of speech. But if I did have flocks and crops, and if they failed, I wouldn’t blame it on my decision not to tithe.”

“Your uncle is generous,” Miranda said. “He doesn’t cheat God or anyone else.” She walked out of the room, hardly limping anymore.

While he was still enjoying the novel sensation of being on Miranda’s good side, Martha sidled closer. “Mama’s still fasting,” she confided. “But she’s trying not to be grumpy.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” It worried him. Since the night he’d made pancakes, four or five days ago, she hadn’t eaten. “She’s still trying to hear God talk, eh?”

“Yes sir.”

He scooped Martha up and plunked her down on the counter so she was nearly at his eye level. “I wish we could hear that conversation. Do you think she and God ever talk about you?”

Martha grinned. “Maybe.”

“I’ll bet they say nice things about you.”

“And you.” She poked his chest with one finger.

“Maybe.”

But he didn’t tithe. He drank a little and smoked an occasional cigar. He mocked modest clothing. He snooped through Miranda’s mail, drugged her food, and teased her without mercy. And those were his minor flaws. It would be a cold day in hell before the Almighty said anything nice about him.

Martha frowned at him. “Uncle Jack, why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad.”

“Yes, you are. In your eyeballs.” She pointed at his left eye, making him flinch. “Right there.”

“No, Miss Martha, you’re imagining things.”

“No. I see it.” She squinted at him, shifting her attention from his left eye to his right and back again. “Did you do something bad?”

“That’s a strange question. Why do you ask?”

“I get sad when I’ve been bad. You know?”

Disarmed by her sweet honesty, he sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Like when I dropped Mama’s new teapot. That was pretty bad.” She drummed her heels against the cabinet door. “Did you do something really, really bad?”

“Well, when I was little, I threw a rock through the neighbor’s window just to see if it would break.”

Martha’s eyes widened. “Did you get a spanking?”

“I sure did.”

She searched his face so long that he half expected her to come up with the right diagnosis of his soul sickness. “You can tell me the other stuff too,” she said at last. “Not from when you were little.”

He felt like an escaped convict with a persistent hound on his trail. “Nope. God and I belong to a mighty exclusive club, and you’re not going to horn your way into it, young lady.”

“Huh?”

“God and I are the only ones who know why I’m sad, and that’s how it has to stay.”

“If you talk to Jesus and say you’re sorry, He’ll forgive you.”

“That’s what I hear.”

He checked his watch. He might as well risk running into Yvonne’s father again, because Martha was nearly as bad.

“Tell your mother I’ll be back in a while with the surprise,” he said, swinging Martha down from the counter. “She’ll know what I mean.”

Martha needed something new to think about, and so did he.

Lost in drowsy memories as she leaned against her headboard, Miranda closed her eyes and pictured Auntie Lou’s cheerful smile. She’d been so careful to be an aunt—a great-aunt, actually—instead of a replacement mother. A child should still love her mother, she’d said. No matter what Mom did, she was still Mom.

But when Karen Ellison didn’t want to be a mom anymore, Auntie Lou stepped in. She was a rescuer from afar, like Jack, except she had volunteered for the job. She’d known what she was getting into.

“Mama?”

Startled, Miranda looked up to see Martha tiptoeing near. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Mama,” Martha whispered. “Uncle Jack told me he’s bringing a surprise.

What is it?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“You know what it is? Tell me.”

“No, love. You’ll have to wait.”

Martha made a face. “Okay.” Still in a whisper.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I know a secret.” Martha climbed onto the bed and snuggled close. “Uncle Jack did something really, really bad. That’s why he’s sad in his eyeballs.”

“In his … oh. You mean his eyes look sad sometimes?”

Martha nodded against Miranda’s shoulder.

“You’re exaggerating.”

“No.” Martha’s head moved sideways this time. “He said nobody knows what he did. Nobody but him and God.”

“Martha, do you know what you are?”

There was a long silence. “A tattletale?”

“Yes. And a gossip. You shouldn’t have repeated what Uncle Jack told you. Now, scoot.”

“Yes ma’am.” Martha climbed off the bed again and ran off, leaving the door open.

“Ah, Jack,” Miranda said softly. “We’ve all got secrets.”

She knew what it was like to have a guilty conscience. Sure, she’d been obeying the authority God had placed over her, but she could have refused to go along with it.

Too late now.

She closed her eyes. With effort, she transported herself into a pleasant daydream of springtime, with flowers blooming and the girls helping her in the garden. They all wore jeans. Bought and paid for too. Not stolen. And pretty shirts. Martha would be adorable in pink.…

Jolted back to the present, Miranda realized she’d dozed off. Outside, Jack yelped, his voice an octave higher than usual.

By the time she made it to the porch, the girls were there, gawking at Jack as he came up the walk with a kitten clamped to his shoulder. A squirming,
gangly creature, it was all long legs and big ears, and obviously older than eight weeks.

Jack surrendered the kitten to Rebekah, who snuggled it to her heart.

“Who’s it for?” she asked.

“Anybody who’s brave enough to take her.” Jack massaged his shoulder with a scratched hand. “The little monster clawed her way out of the carrier on the way over.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Miranda said. “I’m sorry you were injured in the line of duty.”

“It was worth it.”

Rebekah carried the writhing kitten to the middle of the rug and sat, cross-legged. The kitten looked around with big green eyes and stilled.

“Look at all her colors,” Rebekah said. “Orange and black and brown and white, all swirled together like—like clouds.”

“One of God’s dappled things,” Jack said, smiling.

Nose to nose with the kitten, Rebekah laughed. “Oh, she’s sweet.”

The other children got wind of the excitement through some mysterious communication system that brought them from all corners of the house. Timothy stood at a distance, but the others crowded as closely as Rebekah would allow.

Two years ago, Miranda couldn’t have adopted a kitten. Carl wouldn’t have allowed it. Now she didn’t have to worry about his preferences. The realization was like the closing of a door in a series of doors. Life never stayed the same. Everything kept moving, kept changing.

Rebekah nudged Jonah away when he tried to lay his head on the kitten. “She’s not a pillow.”

He sat up and stroked the kitten with one finger, then gave Rebekah an inquiring look.

“Yes, that’s good,” she said. “Because kittens are fragile.”

“Not this one,” Jack said in a tone of grim amusement. He sat on the corner of the hearth and stretched out his legs.

“What’s the kitty’s name?” Martha asked.

“Miss Yvonne calls her Hellion,” Jack said, “but your mother might insist we change it to something more genteel, like … Helen.”

“That doesn’t sound like a kitten name,” Rebekah argued.

“Picture her as a grown cat,” Jack said. “An elegant, snooty cat with a rhinestone collar. Helen. Beautiful Helen.”

The kitten twisted onto her back and swatted Rebekah’s dangling braid, then latched on to it with both paws. Rebekah squealed, hunching over and cuddling the kitten to her cheek.

“I think Hellion is appropriate,” Miranda said.

Jack smiled. “Do you object to that, Rebekah?”

“I think it’s nice.” Rebekah kissed the kitten’s head. “Beautiful Hellion.”

The kitten flipped over again. She sat with her tail curled primly around her feet and scrutinized her new home with wary eyes.

Timothy moved closer. “We can’t let her go outside,” he said.

“Because of the wolves?” Martha asked.

“Coyotes.” He scratched the kitten’s white chin with one finger and smiled when she tilted her head to beg for more.

Martha giggled, her face smudged with dirt and her eyes shining.

They were so sweet, each one of them. So vulnerable. And their mother was so tired of living in the fear that she would lose them.

Fasting and prayer. For now, those were her weapons.

Blinking back tears, Miranda tried to focus on the moment and savor the pretty tableau. Six beautiful children and one homely kitten. Everybody was watching the kitten.

Everybody but Jack. From the corner of her eye, Miranda saw him, watching her.

twenty-two

A
fter almost a week of fasting, Miranda didn’t have the energy to join Jack at the window to watch the children as they blew bubbles in the yard. They’d used up the first refill jar already, and he’d produced another from the trunk of his car. It must have seemed like Santa’s sack to the children.

The bubbles were cheap, of course, but his generosity drove her crazy. The photo developing. Construction paper and crayons. Replacement glass for the lily photo. Smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, safety latches. A soccer ball. She was grateful, yet she hated to be in debt to him, and he refused her offers to reimburse him.

“School went well today,” he said. He had Hellion tucked under his arm like a football, and she purred like a rattle-trap jalopy, in fits and starts.

“Yes, it did. Thanks to you.” Another debt.

She would have laid her head on the table and wept except she couldn’t let Jack see her weakness. Once he’d realized she was fasting, he’d made it abundantly clear that he disapproved of the practice.

At the moment, she wasn’t too fond of it herself. Emptiness gnawed at her stomach. She felt faint, airy, disconnected. Every hunger pang was a sharp reminder of her goal: to overcome the flesh so she could hear what God had to say to her, if anything.

Hellion plunged to the floor and galloped out of the room.

“Ungrateful beast,” Jack said, picking a black cat hair from his white shirt.

Except for the cat hair, he could have stepped out of an ad in a men’s magazine. A fashionable bit of stubble on his jaw, a white button-down shirt, khakis. He jingled coins in his pockets. That habit, more than the faint family resemblance, reminded her of Carl. But Jack was kind.

There. She’d admitted it, at least to herself. Carl hadn’t often been kind. Jack drove her to distraction with his teasing and his bossy arguments, but beneath it all, there beat a compassionate heart. He’d become a friend as well as a brother, and he treated her as an equal. That was something Carl had rarely done.

But Jack thought he had all the answers when he didn’t know half the questions.

Miranda’s stomach growled. She tried to pretend it hadn’t.

“When are you going to eat something?” Jack asked, facing her.

“When I’ve finished fasting.”

“Why do you fast? Are you trying to manipulate God into doing something for you?”

“I’m trying to hear God. There’s a big difference.”

“Personal messages from God don’t fit into my theological framework.”

“Neither does God, then. He’s too big for any man-made box.”

“Touché. But if God speaks to you, please tell me. I want to know if I agree with Him.”

“Oh, listen to your arrogance. Just hush.”

Again, he played with the coins. “I know your history, Miranda. Learned it from Dean, the sheriff’s deputy, who heard it from Tim.”

“Excuse me?”

“When you fast, you faint. When you faint, you fall. Falling isn’t a recommended activity for someone who’s recovering from a brain injury. I’ll be spending less time here, shortly, and I want your word that you won’t starve yourself when I’m gone.”