The Promise of Rainbows (24 page)

“Don’t be ugly to me just because he left when I was in diapers,” Sadie said, her mouth tight now. “Why can’t I tell myself that? It’s a better story.”

“Sadie? Do you think about Daddy leaving us a lot?” Shelby asked softly, a contrast to the intensity radiating from her eyes.

Their youngest sister nodded and hung her head. “I just want to know why sometimes or what happened to him. That’s all. I don’t…remember him.”

“I don’t either,” Shelby said, fiddling with the couch’s upholstery. “I was only two when he left.”

How they had gotten to talking about Daddy, Susannah would never know. “Thinking about it doesn’t change what happened. You know what Mama always says—”

“Yes, but there are things we deserve to know,” Shelby interrupted. “Important things. Things like…”

There was a passion in her voice, one Susannah hadn’t heard before.

“Things like his medical history and that of his family,” Shelby continued. “Gail recently discovered she has a familial disorder, and it got me to thinking. I don’t know anything about daddy’s family’s medical history. What if we have genetic things in our bodies that we don’t even know about, ones that could be prevented beforehand?”

“Oh, my God, Shelby,” Sadie cried out. “I never thought about that. Not once. Poor Gail. How is she?”

Susannah shared her concern. Gail was a wonderful woman if not a tad eccentric.

“She’s on medication,” Shelby said, “but she’s angry she didn’t know about her family’s medical history. She outright suggested I find out for my own health—and that goes for all of us.”

Susannah didn’t like the sound of where this was going. Her sisters had always been more curious about their daddy than Susannah felt was healthy for them. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see him again because the hurt of him leaving had so weighed on her.

“Well, you can’t ask Mama for it,” Sadie said with a pronounced frown. “I’ve tried. She won’t say a thing about his family.”

“You tried?” Shelby asked, her hand loosening from Susannah’s. “When?”

“I asked in high school when we had a class genealogy assignment. I had to make a family tree.” She made a few squiggly motions in the air. “That was pretty much my tree. It was worse than the one in Charlie Brown’s Christmas.”

They were getting riled up, and for no good reason. “Well, you’ll just have to trust that your health is good and that God and modern medicine will take care of anything that might come your way.”

Shelby cast her eyes down, and Sadie’s face had fallen.

Susannah felt a different hurt rise, the kind that always came when she thought about Daddy’s abandonment. “The reasons Daddy left us were his own, and Mama always said speculating about them wouldn’t change anything. They had nothing to do with us.”

But even she wondered if that were true. Had the weight of raising and supporting four children been too much for him? Or were there other factors they didn’t know about?

“It still sucks,” Sadie whispered.

“Yes, it certainly does,” Shelby said slowly. “I’ve…ah…been thinking of hiring a private investigator to see what…he might find out. Gail thought it was a good idea.”

Susannah gasped in shock. The idea of hiring a private eye to find their daddy had never dawned on her. And if Gail had seconded Shelby’s notion…well, it would only make her sister more intent on this foolishness. “What? Why in the name of all heaven would you do that? Mama would be furious. Besides, nothing good would come from it. Nothing. Do you hear?”

Sadie and Shelby were looking at each other, and she could see a thread of solidarity developing between them.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Sadie confirmed.

How had they gone from comforting her about Jake to discussing hiring a private investigator to find their daddy? “Shelby. Sadie. Listen to me. This is
not
a good idea. It would hurt Mama, and it could hurt the rest of us too.”

“I’m already hurt,” Shelby said in a voice laced with anger. “We all are. Why not be hurt
and
have answers to the questions that have plagued us our whole lives?”

“J.P. would be against this idea if he knew,” Susannah said, using her brother as a trump card. Everyone respected him. After all, he was the de facto head of the family. Mama hadn’t married Dale until they were mostly grown up.

“You and J.P. are such fussbudgets,” Sadie fired back. “And it’s not nice to bring J.P. into a discussion he’s not a part of.”

She was overtired, and her anger was growing in leaps and bounds. “It
will
involve J.P. if Shelby goes ahead with this hare-brained scheme.”

Her sister raised her head, and from the look in her brown eyes, Susannah could tell she had wounded her. “I’m sorry, Shelby. I’m…it’s been a day.”

Sadie finally pulled her hand away, and Susannah felt the absence profoundly. “We should go so you can get some sleep.” With that, she rose and carried the tray into the kitchen.

Shelby swept up the crumbs from her toast with a napkin and then balled it up and deposited it into the trash can in the corner.

“I’m sorry I got upset,” Susannah said, not knowing how to make things right. “It’s just…there’s a lot of hurt with Daddy.”

“I know,” Shelby said, biting her lip. “I didn’t mean to throw this at you after such a rough day. But when Sadie said that thing about Daddy… I thought it might be the sign I was hoping for. Well, it was as good as a rabbit hole, wasn’t it?”

And they all knew where rabbit holes led, didn’t they?

“I’ll just help Sadie tidy up and then we’ll head out,” Shelby said and left the room.

Both of her sisters returned a few minutes later, and Susannah embraced them fiercely. They were upset now, and she hated that—especially after they had been so kind to her.

“Thanks for coming over,” she said, trying to give them a smile. As it was, her mouth felt like it was weighted down by lead.

“You’re welcome,” they both said all polite-like.

“Talk to you tomorrow?” Susannah asked.

They answered, “But of course,” but the words had a strain to them.

After they left, she forced herself to rummage in her purse for her cell phone. Jake might call her if he needed something tonight. Threads of emotion moved through her body. Fear? Excitement? It was hard to pinpoint her feelings. They were all jangled up—rather like she was with him.

When she picked her phone up, she read the texts all her siblings had sent her. Her heart warmed, but it was the one from her mama that brought tears to her eyes.

Sleep with the angels, darlin’. I’m praying for you and Jake.

And with those words to comfort her, she sought her bed, asking the angels to work overtime on all their behalf.

Chapter 18

Since Jake had done more tossing and turning than sleeping, he greeted the dawn like J.P. had suggested and made a decision.

He was going to take the bull by the horns again. He would do anything to overcome his PTSD, anything to become totally balanced. Of course, the added incentive was that he got to see Susannah and be the kind of man she deserved. But he had to do it for himself first and foremost. He’d talked with way too many vets who had shown up for therapy at the behest of their wives, mothers, or girlfriends. It didn’t seem to stick if it wasn’t the person’s choice one-hundred percent.

This was his choice, and since Louisa thought she could help him, he planned to let her.

The homework she’d given him was folded neatly in the pocket of his jeans. He’d struggled over it mightily.

The church parking lot was mostly empty when he arrived, what with it being so early. When he entered the office, the church secretary greeted him and ushered him in straight away.

He closed the door and tugged on the collar of his neatly pressed white shirt. “Louisa,” he said by way of greeting.

She rose immediately and came around her desk to give him a hug. When he tried to pull back, she only held on tighter.

“Settle a minute,” she said softly. “You look like you need a good hug this morning.”

It was a little awkward, being held by her, but when she finally released him, she was smiling. He, on the other had, had broken out into a sweat.

“Seems you had a breakthrough yesterday,” she said. And the unexpectedness of that pretty much made his mouth plop open.

“Ma’am?”

“I told you not to call me that, Jake. Come. Let’s sit.”

He took the couch, but mostly because he knew she preferred her chair. Leaning forward, he put his elbows on his knees. “A breakthrough?” he said slowly, wondering about her kind of counseling.

Her brow rose. “From what you said on the phone last night, things intensified again all of the sudden, didn’t they?”

He finally noted that she was wearing a pale yellow suit coat, which seemed at odds with the darkness he was about to level on her. “That’s a mild way to describe it. I had a full-blown episode. With your daughter. Ah…can I have some water?” he asked, his mouth suddenly bone dry.

“Absolutely,” she replied, rising to pour him a glass.

After draining the whole glass—he couldn’t seem to stop with a couple sips—he set it down on the end table, more than a little alarmed to see his hands were shaking. He decided to sit on them.

“When you were being counseled before, did your episodes ever intensify with your sessions?” she asked.

“Some of the exposure therapy made me throw up,” he said, remembering how devastating that had been. He’d made sure not to eat at least four hours before a session, but the dry heaves hadn’t heeded him.

“What happened yesterday was like that,” she said, giving him an encouraging smile. “This isn’t a backward step, Jake. It’s called momentum.”

He blew out a long breath. “Louisa, you do have a funny way of looking at things. My old therapists thought I was re-traumatizing myself.”

“Perhaps what you were doing with them
did
re-traumatize you, but yesterday sounds different to me. From my perspective, two important things triggered it.”

“All right,” he said, bracing himself. “Let’s hear it.”

“The first was the young woman who asked for your autograph,” she said, and then leaned forward. “Did you bring your homework, by the way?”

He gulped. “Yes.”

“How did you find it?”

Shaking his head, he dug out the piece of paper and handed it to her. “Ah...well…I couldn’t think of too many things, to be honest.”

She opened the piece of paper and scanned it. “The only people
on this whole planet
whose lives have been changed by you being alive are your fans?”

His face reddened. “Well…yes. I mean…they tell me my music changes their lives. Well…some of them. Like Mary yesterday. Of course some can’t stand it. But I doubt you meant the haters.”

She folded up the paper and handed it back to him. “You didn’t include your family.”

“No ma’am…I mean, Louisa,” he said immediately. They surely couldn’t care one way or another.

“As a mother, I can tell you that despite your current relationship with your own mama, you
did
change her life.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I agree that I changed it. I’m just not sure she would concur that I did so in a positive way.”

“Ah…” she drew out. “Do you ever remember her loving you, Jake?”

Well, wasn’t that question a punch to the gut? “I remember some nice birthdays when she made me my favorite cake and let a few of my friends come over.”

“All right,” she said, handing him another glass of water. “Let’s leave your family aside for the moment.”

His hands weren’t shaking as much this time, he was comforted to see.

“You didn’t mention any of the men you served with in the Army,” she said.

He’d figured she would pick up on that. “There wasn’t anyone I could rightly name. I mean Monty, Darren, and Randy didn’t have their lives changed by knowing me. We’re just friends.” It wasn’t like he was the only one who’d carried Monty to the Humvee after his leg was blown to bits. He sure as hell wasn’t going to talk about Booker.

“Jake, I find that hard to believe,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “I’ve read all the press I could find about your military service. You received a Silver Star. Someone in the Army must have thought you warranted such distinction.”

He grimaced. The article about the events that had led to him receiving that star had made him livid. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it. “Any guy would have done what I did.”

She shook her head, her silver hair bobbing around her ears. “And yet, you were the one who charged into a building to take out the sniper who had most of your unit pinned down, saving the lives of seventeen men. And you refused treatment for the bullet wound in your shoulder since so many of your men were down.”

He shifted in his seat and broke eye contact. “I also got my butt chewed out by my commanding officer for going into that building without proper back-up,” he told her. “The bottom line is, Louisa, none of us wanted to get shot.”