“I hadn’t had much variety until I came here,” Kayla said, “but I’ve learned to eat more in these past years. How about a cup of coffee while I make your waffles?”
“Great.” Miss Janie smiled again, lighting up her eyes. “Well, good mornin’, Noah,” she said when she saw him sitting at the table. “Were you glad to see the girls come home?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pure shock registered in his expression. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“Yes, I did. I guess the cancer is keeping me from walking, right?” she asked.
Teresa pushed her up to the table and sat down to her left. “That’s what the doctor says.”
“At least I didn’t drink myself to death like Luther did. Do any of y’all say grace?” she asked.
“We did when we lived with you.” Kayla was still amazed that Miss Janie was in her right mind.
“That’s right.” Miss Janie nodded. “I thought it would be good training for you. Noah, you can say it this morning.”
They all bowed their heads and Noah said a simple prayer. Kayla was afraid that in that length of time, Miss Janie’s mind would slip back to another time in her life. When he said, “Amen,” she looked across the table to see that Miss Janie had snatched a piece of sausage from the platter and was biting into it.
“Mama would have slapped me for this, but I’m dying, so I can do what I want,” she told them. “A good daughter never ate with her fingers, and they did not sneak anything until the husband was served. I’m so glad I never got me one of those husband critters. No offense, Noah.”
“None taken,” he said. “Did you and Luther get along?”
“I idolized him,” she answered as she poured syrup on her waffles. “I didn’t even fault him too much for having a drink or two. Daddy was so against drinking, but then he was the head of the almighty household. That’s kind of funny, really. He put out that myth with his long Sunday-morning sermons, but it was Mama who really ran things. She’s the one that made the decision to send me away and who wouldn’t even let me come back home. Aunt Ruthie told me that Daddy wanted to send me right here to Birthright to stay with her and let me make up my own mind about the babies. But Mama said no, and that was that.”
Everyone at the table waited for her to go on. No way would any of the three of them break this magic moment. “She hated Aunt Ruthie, so she thought it would punish me for my great sin to send me to live with her. When I was a little girl, Aunt Ruthie kind of scared me. She looked like one of those spider monkeys from the zoo—a skinny woman with a thin face and beady little eyes that could look right into a person’s soul and read their thoughts. She came and got me at the home for unwed mothers. She talked to me all the way back, and by the time we got here, I found out I’d misjudged Aunt Ruthie. She was old, maybe fifty.” She laughed out loud. “That’s old to a sixteen-year-old girl who’s scared out of her wits. Aunt Ruthie was Daddy’s aunt, but she was the oldest and Daddy was the youngest of ten kids.”
She stopped long enough to eat a few bites, and Kayla thought that any moment now, they’d lose her, but then she went on. “Aunt Ruthie was one of those free-thinking women. She inherited this place from her mama when she died, because she’d stayed around and taken care of her. My mother wanted this place sold and divided among all the children instead of Aunt Ruthie inheriting everything, but she had taken care of her mama, so, in my opinion, it should’ve been hers. I guess they’ll all work that out in heaven—if they get there.” She giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Kayla asked.
“I’m not so sure about Aunt Ruthie getting to heaven. She told me some stories on her deathbed that made even me blush, and I thought I was pretty worldly by then,” Miss Janie said.
“Were you mad at Luther when he drank himself to death?” Noah asked.
“Yes, I was,” she said.
Kayla noticed that the light was leaving her eyes, so she hurriedly asked, “Why did you decide to be a foster mother to me and Teresa?”