Annie Jones - Home to Stay

From the moment she’d run blindly out of one of the best restaurants in Atlanta, rushed to pick up Ruth and driven from Georgia to Louisiana without even stopping to change her clothes, Emma had prayed. She had prayed for guidance. She had prayed for insight. She had prayed for courage.

Maybe she should have prayed not to run into the last person she wanted to see at the old house on the same day she had come running home with her tail between her legs and her future up in the air.

“Cake,” Ruth demanded with the quiet intensity of the calm before a storm.

“Sorry. No cake.” Hank stretched his long legs out and did not budge. He did not even shift enough to make the somewhat rickety, wildly decorated wooden chair beneath him squawk. That impressed Emma, since she had painted those chairs herself more than a decade ago and knew how little it took to get them to complain under a person’s weight.

The two big-eyed dogs, sitting in front of empty plates on chairs painted pink and lime green, watched solemnly. Silently.

Ruth did not show such grace. She gripped the back of her chair, her face beet-red, and let out a low, threatening growling sound.

Emma rounded the couch and headed for the kitchen. The soles of her bare feet slapped the warped boards of the hardwood floor as she said, “Hank, you don’t understand. About Ruth—”

“I understand enough.” He held his hand up to warn her to keep her distance. “If you want to talk to me about this, Ruth, you have to use words. Okay?”

Ruth shifted her weight from one fat little foot to the other. She frowned. She balled her small hand into a fist against the layers of pink netting of her outfit. After a moment she spread her fingers open wide and shook them the way someone might react to touching a hot iron. She didn’t say a word, but then she also didn’t grunt or growl, either.

Emma wanted to tell Hank that she considered this development a small triumph.

But before she could say anything, the man smiled at Ruth warmly then nodded. “Okay. Looks like we have reached an agreement.”

A shiver snaked up Emma’s spine. Try as she might she could not look away from the man. Not even to keep him from seeing how much she found herself drawn to him with his easygoing approach, kind wit and seemingly endless patience coupled with unflinching sense of purpose. He wasn’t bad to look at, either.

At thirty-seven his still-thick black hair did not show signs of graying. She couldn’t say the same for her own dark brown locks at thirty-three. He still didn’t seem inclined to get regular haircuts, though now the shaggy look seemed more a causal look than a young man too wrapped up in establishing his business to take time for the barber. His skin was tanned and he didn’t show even the first bulge of a belly or suggestion of love handles.

The years had been good to him. He was no longer the kid she’d known and loved, the callow young man who had broken her heart by proposing to her and waiting until the eve of their marriage to tell her he didn’t want children. Hank was a man now.

And she was a mom.

She could not let herself forget that.

She shut her eyes and made herself focus on the situation at hand. The familiar smells of the old kitchen eased into every nuance of her mind and memory. The ever-present hint in the air of Louisiana loam and moss and river grasses, of lemon oil used to polish all the wood in the old house intertwined with the scent of fresh cotton from all the kitchen linens aired on the clothesline. It all comforted her but did not blot out the image of Hank Corsaut in faded jeans and a denim work shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his well-muscled forearms.

Without even trying she could picture the watchfulness of his dark eyes, the way his hair fell against the beginning of smile lines fanning out above his high cheekbones. Whether climbing out of his truck coming to her aid or sitting in the kitchen playing tea party with her headstrong daughter, the man brought an instant sense of order to the chaos Emma seemed to drag along behind her wherever she went.

“Oh, Hank,” she said almost like a sigh.

“What?” His masculine voice, with just a syllable, brought her straight into the moment again.

She pretended to rub sleep out of her eye and took a step in their direction. “Can I get you something for those plates and cups?”

“I unpacked your car for you and found the bag of snacks you had in there.” Hank held up his hand. “So, we’ve eaten, thanks.”

“Not cake,” Ruth shot back.

“I explained about that,” he said softly.

“She likes cake,” Emma said with a soft, apologetic tone of affection she often used when trying to smooth her daughter’s way in the world. “But if you want something to eat, I can look around and see if there’s any—”

“Ruth asked Earnest T and Otis and me to have a tea party with her and we’ve had a very nice time sipping pink tea, which is pretend, by the way.” He gave Emma a quick look, chin down, his dark eyes as somber as an undertaker’s. Only the flicker of a smile gave away his good humor in the face of all he had been putting up with while she snoozed away who knew how much of the morning. “But when I suggested the boys might like some pretend cake to go with their pretend tea…”

Emma winced.

“I like cake,” Ruth muttered.

One of the dogs woofed softly.

“Dogs like cake,” Ruth added, more pouty now than agitated.

“But cake is not good for dogs.” Hank held eye contact with the child, not an easy thing to do.

Ruth rocked from one foot to the other again. The chair wobbled. Her tutu swayed and rustled. She looked over at the dogs sitting at the table next to her then at the man treating her with dignity and yet demanding she show a level of discipline she couldn’t always deliver.

She scrunched her mouth up on one side and lifted one foot slightly, which might have made anyone else seem off balance but somehow seemed to put Ruth at a cockeyed advantage. “Can dogs eat pretend cake?”

Hank had to tilt his head to keep eye contact, which he did. He managed a nod, as well. “I think that would be all right.”

“Pretend pink cake?” Ruth threw it out almost as a challenge, as if she wasn’t ready to believe the man had imagination enough to conjure up canine-safe and Ruth-approved pretend fare.

“Pretend pink cake with pretend pink icing on top.” He lifted up what Emma could now see was an empty cup. “Shall we sip on it?”

Ruth mimicked his motion, reaching for her own cup, then paused to warn him, “’Member your manners.”

“Oh, sorry.” With that, the rough-around-the-edges country vet delicately extended his pinkie finger.

Ruth did the same.

Hank raised the cup to his lips and made an obnoxiously loud slurping sound and that sent Ruth into a gale of giggles.

Emma’s stomach clenched even as her heart warmed. She had come here to clear her head so she could make a decision about hers and Ruth’s future. This was not helping that, but it seemed so good for her precious little girl. “Thank you, Hank—for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” He set the cup down then turned toward her. “Get enough sleep?”

“No, but I think I’m recharged enough to go see my aunt.” Emma stretched then yawned. Her dress rustled around her. “After I change, of course.”

“I didn’t think you were the kind to change for anyone.” He looked at her then at Ruth, who was swirling her empty cup through the air while the dogs looked on. “Certainly looks like you went out and got what you wanted in life after we parted ways. I hope you and your husband are very happy, Em.”

“I never married.”

“Oh?” Again he looked at Ruth.