Kayla had been good about helping, and they both had a lot of patience with his great-aunt. But he had to wonder if they were sticking around to see how much of an inheritance Miss Janie would be leaving them.
Miss Janie herself had said many times that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and he’d proven that day that people aren’t always what they seem to be. He was never sure who she meant when she said that, but when he thought of Kayla, he wondered what the tree she fell from might have been like. The social worker had told Miss Janie about her mother abandoning her.
And Teresa? Miss Janie had told him back when she was still lucid that Teresa had been taken from her mother because the woman was unfit. She hadn’t even tried to get Teresa back. About a year after Miss Janie had kept her from going to a group home, the mother left town, and no one had ever heard from or about her again. Noah had thought that maybe he’d find Teresa living with her when he’d started his search, but her mother was living in Bell Gardens, California, and was working as a bartender.
Bringing Teresa and Kayla into her home might have made Miss Janie feel like she was redeeming herself for giving away her own little babies. She’d said that at that moment she knew she had absolution for her sins.
Each of them had brought their own collection of baggage with them to Birthright. If Miss Janie was in her right mind, she might be able to help them figure things out.
A smile tickled the corners of his mouth as he thought about everything that had happened in the past few days. “You sly old gal,” he laughed. “Somewhere in that tangled mind of yours, you’ve brought us all back to the house so we can sort out our problems, haven’t you?”
It is what it is. The whispered answer in his head sounded like Miss Janie’s voice.
Chapter Nine
Noah was five miles outside of Tyler, Texas, that Wednesday afternoon when he got a phone call from Teresa.
“Hey, are you still coming home tomorrow?” she asked.
“No. I’m on my way home right now. I got finished early,” he answered. Her voice warmed his heart and made him wish he were already there, but he had at least another hour of driving. “What’s going on?”
“Everything is pretty normal for this place, but Miss Janie can’t walk now. She slid down on the floor and couldn’t get up. Since then, we’re having to lift her. We need a wheelchair. A hospital bed and a bedside potty chair would be nice, too, and maybe a shower chair. Thank goodness she had a walk-in shower installed in the past ten years,” Teresa answered.
He could have listened to her soft southern voice read the dictionary, but then, he’d been sitting in a car with no one to talk to for two days. “I’m actually about to reach the Tyler exit, so I’ll pick up what you need there and have it to the house in the next couple of hours. The job I was doing, plus another one, ended quicker than I thought they would.”
“That’s great,” she said. “We’ll be looking for you.”
“Got sweet tea made up?” he asked.
“Always,” she answered.
Her voice changed slightly, and he could imagine her smiling.
“Sweet tea is about the only normalcy left here,” she continued.
“Then by all means, let’s keep some made up. We need something normal around there,” he said. “I see a medical supply place up ahead of me. See you soon.”
Blake Shelton was singing “Goodbye Time” when he ended the call. He sat in his truck and listened to the whole song. The lyrics of the song told the story of someone losing the love of his life and having to tell her goodbye. Noah wondered if the song wasn’t an omen—with Miss Janie’s new development, it wouldn’t be long until he’d be saying goodbye to her. According to his father, men did not cry, but as Noah wiped tears from his cheeks, he disagreed.
“Goodbye time is tough,” he whispered, and tried to think of something he could look forward to saying farewell to. The thought of his PI work ending put a smile on his face instead of bringing tears to his eyes. He could choose his clients and his hours and be doing something for the people of his community at the same time. That would