12

By the time Beth woke up, she was sitting straight up, covered in sweat and gasping for air. She could not seem to get enough.

“Beth! Beth!” Rand pulled her close to him. “It’s just a dream, baby, just another bad dream.”

In the comfort of his embrace, the beating of her heart slowed and quieted. Her lungs finally seemed to get their fill of oxygen. “I’m okay. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Those pregnancy hormones are really working a number on your dream life, aren’t they? That’s the third time this week.”

“Yes, hormones.” But even as Beth agreed with her husband in words, in her mind she knew that he was wrong. This wasn’t hormones. This was buried grief, clawing its way to the top. “I’m okay now.” She climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face and tried to change the direction of her thoughts.

When she went back into the bedroom, Rand was sitting up in bed with his reading lamp on. “What is it you keep dreaming?”

She climbed under the covers and snuggled up against him. “It’s always about me and the baby. Sometimes I get to work and realize at the end of the day that I’ve left the baby in the back seat on a hot day. Sometimes I’m sitting watching a movie and eating popcorn, and then I realize the toy I just gave the baby was a knife, not a rattle. I run into the nursery, but it’s too late. There’s blood everywhere.” The dreams were so vivid, just telling Rand about them made her start shaking again.

“Rand, I’m just not sure I’ll be a good mother. You know how I am—flighty, forgetful. What if I’m a complete failure? What if I do something to hurt our baby?”

“Oh, honey, there is no way you would ever hurt anyone, much less your own child. You don’t have a hurtful bone in your body.”

“I know you’re right that I wouldn’t hurt my baby, not intentionally anyway, but what if the dreams are right? What if I just forget?”

“Okay, I can’t argue with the fact that you are a bit of a space cadet, we all know that and love you in spite of it. But you have the sweetest, tenderest heart I know. There is no way that kind of love forgets her own child.”

“My parents were so completely perfect. There’s no way I can live up to that. There’s no way.”

“Perhaps your parents were the perfect parents for you—or as close as they could be to it—but you are the perfect mother for our baby, that’s why God is giving her to you. Or him. Whichever.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course I do. And in spite of your doubts about yourself, I know you believe that God is in control and knows what He’s doing. It doesn’t seem all that likely that He would make a mistake in this one case, does it?”

“I guess if you put it that way . . .” Beth began to calm a little. “But what about all the abusive parents? God gave their kids to them, too.”

“Babe, your theological questions are going a little beyond what I have an answer for right now. But I do know that you have prayed, and I have prayed, and our families have prayed, that God would finally grant us the gift of a child, and that He would show us how to raise that child to the best of our abilities. It took several years, but God has answered those prayers. Now, let’s not go doubting whether or not He has figured out all the details right down to this kid’s future prom date, although I believe that He has. Let’s just be thankful that in spite of what the doctors predicted, we are going to be parents.”

Comforted, Beth settled back against her pillow and pulled the blanket up under her chin. She began to get drowsy. “Rand?”

“Yes?”

“God knew what He was doing when He gave me you, too.”

He kissed her forehead. “That goes both ways. Now get some sleep.”

I arrived in Amarillo this evening. To be honest, everything about this place is painful.

Today’s travels were almost entirely on Route 66. I stopped at a place just outside of a town called Cadillac Ranch. There are a couple dozen old Cadillacs, their noses buried in the ground, all leaning exactly the same way, but painted in all sorts of crazy variations, graffiti being chief among it all. I heard one man say that the cars were all set at the same angle as the pyramids of Giza. Go figure. My father would have gotten such a kick out of that.

Then I pulled into town and they have all these painted horses all over the place. Big quarter horse statues with scenes painted on their sides and backs. Again, just the kind of offbeat thing Dad would have loved.

He used to take me to Art From Scrap in Santa Barbara. They had a big store they called the ReUse store and it had everything imaginable—yarn, buttons, tiles. We would go and load up a bag full of these treasures, bring them home, and make ourselves a sculpture, or a greeting card, or robot. We would spend the entire day together laughing and dreaming and having a grand old time.

Most people, Mimi most especially, didn’t see the beauty in what we had created from junk, but I sure did. I think Daddy did, too. The woodcarving he did for a living was serious art, and our projects most certainly were not. But he always went on and on about how much he liked them.

Is any memory I have of my father true, or was it all seen through the lens of a naïve kid who just didn’t know any better?

It was late Thursday night when Kelli drove past the city limits sign for Shoal Creek, Tennessee. She drove around the town square, lined by quaint brick storefronts that were perhaps a bit run down, but still charming. The center of the square held a large gazebo, which was lit and pumping out music from speakers that Kelli didn’t see.

What must it be like to grow up in a place like this? It was a far cry from her home in California, but something about it seemed welcoming. Familiar almost.

She was too tired to do any more exploring tonight, so she found a hotel on the main strip and checked in, relieved to see the rooms were clean and quite nice. This would be a good place to call home for the next week. Yes, this would work just fine.

The next morning she was up early. She ate the continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, sipped her hot tea, and reviewed her plans for the day. She would drive out to the store Ken Moore owned and just check out the situation. Did he work back in an office, or was he out somewhere that would lend itself to conversation? After that, she would drive by the address for the home she would have lived in for the first year of her life. She wasn’t sure if her mother still lived there or not, but it seemed like a good place to start. These two excursions ought to give her some idea of what to do next.

She pulled up the map on her phone and studied the route she would use to get to the store. It was about fifteen miles from town, situated out on a country road. Kelli glanced toward the sun streaming through the window of the hotel lobby. It was a beautiful day outside, the perfect time to start something new. She stood up, her stomach already starting to flutter. The search for answers started right now.

It was almost forty-five minutes later when Kelli pulled into the parking lot of Moore’s More Store. The landscape on the drive was gorgeous—rolling green hills, huge lawns that were thick and neatly mowed, and an abundance of trees—their leaves just sprouting out green and new.

The store building itself was mostly nondescript. It appeared to be forty or fifty years old, concrete block, brown shingles, high windows plastered with advertisements for everything from soda to paper towels to spark plugs.

Kelli sat in her car, thinking through her options. Would she just do a walk-through or was she planning to strike up a conversation if the opportunity presented itself? This store was too far off the beaten path for a “just passing through” kind of visit—those kinds of stores were back on the highway. The only reason to have followed this winding and twisting road this far into the country was because you had business or family in this immediate area.

Then she noticed the Help Wanted sign in the window. Perfect. She could go in, feign interest in the job, and ask questions without seeming overly suspicious. She could go so far as to take a job application with her. Of course she would never bring it back, but it gave her the perfect cover story as to what she was doing here and gave an excuse to ask a few questions of her own.

As she crossed the parking lot, two women walked out of the store. One was dressed in a nice sundress and sandals. She was saying to her companion, “I’m telling you, he didn’t even look at my résumé. I don’t think he’s really even looking for someone else to work here. That’s why it’s his son’s phone number on the sign.”

That interesting tidbit of information might make Kelli’s new plan a bit less helpful than she’d hoped, but also less dangerous. She looked down at her Bermuda shorts and blouse and wondered if it would be believable that she was looking for a job, dressed in this casual way. Well, it was time to find out just how far she could take it. Maybe she wouldn’t even say anything on this visit, she’d just wait and see what felt right.

The door opened with a whoosh, releasing the smell of mothballs and dust. Once her eyes adjusted to the interior lighting, she saw a long shop with five or six rows, each overflowing with merchandise of all imaginable kinds. Behind the counter, just to the left and in front of the door, was the man she believed to be Ken Moore. This was her first stroke of luck. At least he wasn’t back in an office somewhere.

In spite of the fact that he had to be in his sixties, there wasn’t a single apparent gray hair in his sandy-blond mop that hung just a little too long across his forehead. He looked like an old surfer, or hippie, or some combination of the two. He wore little reading glasses, which he peered over.

He looked at her and nodded a greeting, and at that moment, she lost her nerve. She turned right down the first aisle and scanned the snack foods and small grocery items on the shelf, then she turned to look at the drink cooler behind her back. Her mouth had gone completely dry, so she reached for a water bottle, took it in her hand, then meandered around the store. There was everything from plumbing and painting supplies to sewing goods and knickknacks. It was a conglomeration unlike anything she’d ever seen—at least for its size.

She started back up the aisle, realizing she was not acting like a job applicant, so that plan was blown. Plan B would involve improvising.

“Looking for anything in particular?” He was watching her approach with a puzzled expression on his face. They appeared to be the only two people in the store.

“Well, uh . . . no, not really. I was just looking around. You’ve got a little bit of everything here. It’s a really interesting store.”

“Why, thank you. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No. Not yet anyway.” With a last jab of determination she plunged forward. “I was kind of thinking of moving to this part of the country for a while. I, uh . . . make jewelry, you see, and I live in California, which is beautiful, but I’ve been thinking of moving out this way and seeing if I can find new forms of inspiration.”

“California, you say?” His eyes narrowed just a fraction. “What part?”

“Central coast. Just outside of Santa Barbara.”

“I see.” He studied her face for several seconds too long. “Well, I think you’d like it around here if you decided to stay. Lots of natural beauty, if that’s the kind of thing that inspires you.”

“Yes, yes it is lovely. Thing is, I’d need to find a job. Are there many available in town?”

“Thought you designed jewelry.”

“I do, but, you know, it doesn’t really pay the rent yet. I’m hoping it will, someday. But I’ve got bills in the meanwhile.”

His eyes had never left her face. He cocked his head to the side and said, “I’m sure you could find a place to work without too much trouble.”

“Good to know.” She nodded back toward the store. “This is an amazing place. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“So you said.” He gestured around with his hand. “This store is the place the country folk come to when they don’t want to make the thirty-minute drive into Lawrenceburg to go to the Walmart.”

“Makes sense.” She nodded, frantically trying to come up with more conversation ideas. “Have you always worked here, at this store?” She knew the second she asked it, the question was too prying, was going to tip him off that she was up to something. And he did pause a long time before he finally answered.

“You ask a lot of questions.”

She shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “I guess I do. It’s just that I’ve never been in the South before. This is all so new and different. Yet something about it feels so—” she paused, thinking about what she might say, when the word just seemed to pop out—“familiar.”

“That so?” He continued to study her. “Well, to answer your question, yes and no. It’s my family’s store, has been since my father was a young man, so I grew up working here. I moved on for a while, then came back.”

“Got it.” She looked around, making an effort to back off yet still keep some thread of conversation going.

“Just for a while, huh?”

He was looking at her as if he knew she was hiding something. “Oh, you know, sometimes in life you realize the grass really was greener on your own side of the fence.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m not sure whether or not I hope that proves true.”

“Planning to climb out of your own pasture for a while, are you?”

“I guess maybe I am. Actually, to tell you the truth, I got kicked out of mine. I got fired last week.” At that, he looked at her with such blatant disapproval that she felt she had to explain herself. For some reason, she couldn’t stand the thought of this man she’d only just met thinking ill of her. “See, I got a job out of college as a receptionist for a contractor, but then I found out he was cheating people, including a dear old woman who lived down the street from my parents. I told her about it, and the boss found out I told. I got fired. She got sent to an assisted living facility. I figured I’d done enough damage to that part of the country for a while, decided it was time for a road trip so I could mess up people’s lives somewhere else.” She faked a little laugh.

He tilted his head back, as if considering whether or not this was a story to be believed. Finally, he said, “Honesty. It’s a good trait. You don’t see it all that often these days.”

“Apparently not, unfortunately for me.”

“You’re better off away from that place. You mark my word, before long you’d be included in the cheating—either by helping him cheat people or by him cheating you. Yep, you’re much better off away from there.” He nodded and stared off into the distance. Then he turned to look at her straight on. “I’ll bet your parents are proud.”

Kelli shrugged. “I’m sure they would have been.” She hated how her voice cracked at the end.

“Would have been? So, they are . . . ?”

Kelli just nodded. She didn’t trust her voice just then.

“I’m so sorry. How long?”

“A little over a month. Car wreck. Killed them both.” Kelli put the water bottle on the counter, as she had run out of conversation ideas. “I guess this is it for me.”

The keys on the cash register made a beeping sound as he entered the price. “That’ll be one dollar.”

Kelli fished a dollar out of her wallet. “Thanks.” She started toward the door.

“Hey, you know what, if you’re interested in a job, I’ve been kind of thinking of hiring some help here, just for the summer. Would you be interested in something like that?”

“Well, I . . .” Kelli was getting ready to answer no when she realized this might be the opening to more conversations with Ken Moore. She could pretend to be interested all week long and see what else she could find out. “Yes, I think I might be.”

“Here, write down your name and number and I’ll give you a call in a day or two so we can talk more about it. Are you going to be in town for a while?”

“A few more days anyway. I was thinking of spending a few days just poking through downtown.” Kelli wrote down her name and cell number on the piece of paper he held out.

“It’s a nice little town. You should check out the City Center Church on Sunday. Nice place, nice people. I’m sure they’d make you feel right at home.”

“City Center Church, huh? Maybe I’ll just do that.” In fact, one of the few things Kelli had found about her mother involved City Center Church, so she had already planned to go there and see if she could get at least a glimpse of her. She turned back to him. “Do you want me to take an application or anything?”

“Nah. I work off my gut, not some mindless, formulaic paperwork. Besides, you already told me you got fired from your last job. I don’t reckon there’s any reason for me to check that reference.”

“I guess not.”

“I’ll be in touch. My name’s Kenmore, by the way.”

“Kenmore?”

“Ken Moore, actually, but nobody calls me anything but Kenmore.”

“Got it. Well, nice to meet you, Kenmore.” Kelli walked away, not certain whether she was glad he had her number or whether she should have lied and given him a fake one. She supposed the next few days would tell.