The Truth About Love and Lightning (6 page)

Abby could only hope that twisters were like lightning and didn’t strike the same place twice. She couldn’t imagine what she’d do if anything happened to her mom or her aunts. Nate might be her one true love, but they were her heart and soul.

The cab bumped along for another dozen miles as the last vestiges of deep purple were swallowed by navy blue and night swooped in for real. Abby’s stomach tightened the nearer they got to the farm, and she found herself following the crooked line of the railroad tie fence that encompassed the property, biting her lip when she noticed more than a few lengths missing.

“No wonder you can’t get a call through,” the driver said, ducking his head to gaze up through the windshield.

Abby had to roll down her window and stick her face out to see what he was looking at. The moonlight blackened the tangle of utility lines dangling from the sky.

“Wow,” she breathed.

But that wasn’t what really spooked her.

As the cab veered off the rural route onto the unpaved drive that led to the farmhouse, Abby spotted the broken tree limbs strewn about, like large bones from an enormous skeleton, arms detached, fingers clawing at air.

“Whoa!” the driver said, hitting the brakes and jerking Abby forward. He switched on the high beams as he stopped, wet gravel popping beneath the tires. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

Abby pressed her palms flat against the front seat, holding steady, her heart pounding. “What is it?”

“I can’t go any farther, miss, I’m sorry.”

“What? Why?” she said at first, before she unfastened her seat belt and peered through the plastic partition, seeing quickly enough what the problem was. Something gray and enormous lay in their path, blocking the drive.

Abby’s brain took a second to process what it was, and then she found herself choking up. “The old oak,” she uttered, the words emerging as a sob.

“That’s some tree,” the driver said. “Must be a good nine foot around.”

It had towered over the front lawn since Abby could remember, shading the grass, providing a haven for so many birds that whenever she’d stood below it, it had seemed the whole tree was alive with chatter.

“Guess this is it,” the man said, the interior light switching on as he pushed open the door. “I’ve got bad knees, I’m sad to say. I couldn’t haul your bag all that way for you even if I tried.”

“It’s okay.”

He got out and rounded the car, popping the trunk to remove Abby’s suitcase.

She emerged from the backseat, her legs unsteady from sitting on the train all day, her heart breaking at the sight of the fallen oak. She was too far still to see the house, but she could feel it there, waiting.

“You want me to stay here? You can call from your cell when you reach the door,” the driver said as he came up behind her and set her suitcase down on its wheels.

No, I can’t,
she wanted to tell him. Her cell wouldn’t work on the farm. It never did.

Instead, she said simply, “I’m good, thanks.” Then she dug into her purse for the fare plus a tip. Even on the off chance that no one was home, she knew where Gretchen hid the key. “Don’t fret about me. I’m right where I want to be.”

He pocketed the cash but seemed hesitant to leave. Pushing back his plaid cap, he scratched his thinning scalp and said, “You sure I can’t hang around a few minutes? If no one’s there or the place is damaged, I can take you into town. It’s just another five miles up the road.”

“Someone’s home,” Abby said, because she knew her family was there. She felt it in her gut. Where would they be besides? “You can go, truly,” she told him and smiled, wondering if she was giving off pregnancy vibes. She was too tired to glow, but perhaps he could sense the tiny life inside her. It would explain why he was acting like an overprotective dad.

“Take care, miss.” He tipped his hat to her and left.

She grabbed her suitcase by the handle and dragged it aside while the man got back into the cab, red brake lights sparking as he backed up until he could turn around.

Tires skittered on gravel before he rolled away, quickly swallowed up by the night.

Abby drew in a deep breath, full of cool air and worry, then she began to make her way around the fallen oak, her suitcase bumping over soggy earth and damp grass.

From the fence to the farmhouse wasn’t much more than half a mile, but it seemed to take forever to traverse. There were so many twigs and broken branches to weave around. Abby’s suitcase fell over twice before she pushed the handle down and carried it, panting as she walked and wishing she hadn’t brought so much with her. But she couldn’t leave behind her sketchbooks or her beloved college art history text—heavy though it was—and the weather was so changeable in April that she’d stuffed in plenty of sweaters and jeans and even her boots, just in case. If she could have fit her latest canvas into her luggage—an Impressionistic oil of a tiny raindrop rippling a puddle—she would have packed it as well. Then she reminded herself that she wasn’t going to be gone forever, perhaps a week at most. If she’d wrapped up her paintings to bring with her, it would have felt like she had given up. And she hadn’t, not yet. She’d even left a note for Nate in the kitchen in case he should turn up while she was away.
Went home for a few days,
she’d written.
Need to sort things out.
She didn’t know if Nate would see it; wasn’t sure that, even if he did, he’d care where she’d gone. Between her broken heart and the baby hormones, Abby had cried as she’d filled her suitcase and finally closed the zipper.

You made the right decision, coming back,
she told herself as she shifted the suitcase into her opposite hand, pausing to catch her breath. As she glanced ahead, she realized she’d gone far enough down the drive to see the house through the trees. But instead of discerning the dark shadow of the roofline against the night sky, she saw something else entirely. She asked herself,
How can that be?

Light spilled through the falling night, emanating from the windows along the porch, the whitewashed railing gleaming like teeth, grinning at her arrival.

Maybe her mom had invested in a generator, although she heard no telltale hum.

Nothing else would explain the house having power when the lines were down.

But then, strange things had seemed to happen at the farm ever since she was a kid. Odd things that no one could explain, not with any kind of commonsense answers. Like the day Abby had found her mother crying in the kitchen. She’d broken a bowl, one with alphabet soup letters running around the rim. “It belonged to Sam,” Gretchen had told her and sobbed as though the world had come to an end. “Another piece of him I’ve shattered,” she’d said, sighing as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, or perhaps on the condition of the alphabet soup bowl.

Only seven, Abby hadn’t understood what she meant, but she’d felt Gretchen’s sadness, like a part of her was broken, too. “We can fix it,” she’d told her mom. “We can glue it back together like my piggy bank.” But Gretchen had shaken her head, tears skidding down her cheeks. “No one can fix it, Abs, not even you.” Which, of course, had made Abby start bawling as well, feeling a bit like the unfixable bowl was her fault, even though it was her mother who’d dropped it.

As if their combined sobs weren’t noise enough, a crack of lightning and a rumble of thunder had shaken the walls before the sky had turned entirely black. The rain had begun to fall in earnest as Abby had raced out of the house and up the gravel drive, eager to chase the sadness right out of her soul. The drizzle fell upon her like tears, wetting her face and shirt. But when she got to the fence line and took a step beyond it onto the rural road flush with wildflowers and weeds, she realized the rain had stopped. Well, it hadn’t stopped exactly. It just wasn’t raining anywhere beyond the property line. Not a drop. When Abby had turned around, she saw the sky above the house was gray as gunmetal—but everywhere else, the sky was blue.

Could breaking Sam’s bowl have caused his spirit to cry upon the farmhouse? Her mother insisted that he was and always would be there, looking out for them. “Sometimes, when you’re sad and it rains, it means he’s right beside you, and he’s feeling just as sad, too,” Gretchen had told her.

Abby had rushed back through the rain and inside to tell her mother what she’d seen and what she believed it meant. Gretchen was, by then, mopping up her tears and picking up broken bits of porcelain, clearly in no mood to entertain a child’s vivid imagination. “We live in tornado alley, Abs,” her mom had said, shrugging off any theory of rain-making spirits. “Weird weather is the only kind we get.”

But Abby had known there was more to it than that. She had always believed that some kind of spirit—a ghost or restless soul—lurked around the walnut grove, something that had to do with her father and the past, something that no one else could understand.

Even now as a grown-up, Abby sensed a presence, and it filled her with peace.

“It’s good to be back,” she said aloud and released a slow breath, gazing at the farmhouse, the knot in her shoulders loosening, warmth flowing through her despite a chill in the air. This was her home—it had belonged to Sam’s family, to the grandparents who had loved and cuddled her as an infant, though she’d been too young to remember anything but the idea of them. With every step forward she took, Abby couldn’t help but feel embraced by invisible arms. Her heart thumped with each footstep, as if to say
I belong, I belong, I belong.

From within the cloudless sky, the rising moon illuminated a path bright enough that she could avoid storm-tossed limbs and divots in the grass. Somewhere above, a whippoorwill sang its melancholy song, pausing between each verse as if hoping others would join in. Abby was tempted to coo, “Whippoorwill, whippoorwill,” so the poor bird wouldn’t feel so alone. But she was too anxious to reach the porch and hurried her gait, picking up her suitcase and marching toward the steps.

When she finally made it to the front door and settled her suitcase on the welcome mat, her entire body sagged, thoroughly exhausted. If this wasn’t the longest day of her life, it certainly ranked right up there. She’d been dying to talk to her mother, to tell her about Nate and, more important, about the baby. Not being able to reach Gretchen had made her feel starved in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. To know that her mom was on the other side of the door caused her fingers to tremble as she reached for the knocker and banged it solidly against the wood.

Abby didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she heard the turn of the knob and the creak of hinges. She exhaled a noisy “oh” as the door was drawn inward. She read the concern on her mother’s face as soon as it peered out: all worry lines and narrowed eyes, messy bits of pale hair on her cheeks, loosened from her ever-present ponytail.

“Abigail!” Gretchen said, eyes wide with shock. “How did you get here? You didn’t walk all the way from the station?”

“Not all the way, no,” Abby said as her mom stared at her. “I had a car drive me to the property line.” A nervous smile twitched upon her lips. “The driver was reluctant to leave me here.” She turned her head to see the jumble of wicker furniture at the end of the porch. “You sure got whacked by the storm, huh? Did you know the old oak fell and blocked the drive?” Despite her best efforts, she felt the tears coming. “I never thought I’d live to see the day that monster came down.”

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Gretchen pulled the door wide and reached out, cupping her chin.

“Who’s there?” a soft voice asked, and Abby saw her aunts scurry into the foyer, clutching each other’s arms. “Abigail, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she said, brushing at her tears.

Certainly, Aunt Bennie had recognized her voice the instant she’d first spoken, and Trudy had doubtless breathed in the scent of her once the door had opened. Abby wondered what strange things she smelled like now that she was pregnant. Talcum powder and pickles?

“I’ve been trying and trying to call, but your phone’s dead,” she explained, glancing above her at the porch light. A moth flitted about its weak glow. “I figured your power was out, too, but I was wrong.”

“Oh, yes, that,” her mother said, waving a hand in the air, not offering any sort of explanation. Instead, Gretchen peered around Abby’s head. “Where’s Nate?” she asked.

“Isn’t he with you?” Trudy inquired, hands toying with whatever she’d buried in the pockets of her smock. “Surely he didn’t let you come alone?”

“Sweetheart, what’s got you choked up? You don’t sound right,” Bennie said, picking up on the tremor in Abby’s voice.

The three women huddled in the doorway had such concern on their faces that the dam broke wide in Abby’s chest. “Nate moved out two weeks ago,” she confessed, and her shoulders began to shake. She took in a great gulp of air before blurting out, “And I just found out that I’m pregnant.”

“
What?
” her mother and aunts said at once.

“It’s true. I’m going to be a mother.” Abby gripped the handle of her suitcase, somehow getting the words out. “I took three at-home tests and saw the doctor, and I’ve been a basket case ever since. So can I come in? Because I’m afraid if I stand here much longer, my knees are going to give.”

Five

Good Lord, Abby’s having a baby?

How could that be?

Not that Gretchen didn’t know how babies were made. Of course she did. But Abby and Nate had always been so careful about such things, and she remembered Abigail remarking that she wasn’t even sure she ever wanted to have children, which had broken Gretchen’s heart to hear.

“I don’t know if I’m equipped to be a mother, and I’m too old besides,” Abby had declared this past Christmas, though Gretchen had told her that was utter hogwash. The girl wasn’t yet forty, and plenty of women had babies at that age and beyond. As for feeling equipped to be a parent—ha!—no one ever was. It wasn’t as though you were magically handed all the tools to get it right once the baby emerged. When it happened, you figured it out, day by day, just like everything else. Children were a lesson to which “live and learn” perfectly applied. The most important thing was to love them wholeheartedly. If you did that, the rest would fall into place.