I feel like these cards Stevie was playing with, Leah thought as tears ran down her cheeks. Scattered and strewn, as though my house—my life—is suddenly empty and has collapsed around me. What am I supposed to do now, Lord? And how can I possibly explain this to Jude?
Chapter 20
When Jude entered the kitchen late that afternoon, the atmosphere felt so dark and heavy that a thunderstorm might’ve ravaged the house and blown away all the usual signs of his family’s presence. The house was so quiet, he could hear the soft tick-tick-tick of the battery clock on the wall. Although he saw—and smelled—no sign that supper preparations might be under way, the kitchen was a mess. Utensils were strewn across the countertops and bowls of what appeared to be cookie dough sat near the oven. A couple of cookie sheets were covered with a dozen evenly spaced baked sugar cookies.
Why did the girls leave in such a hurry? I’ve never known Stevie to leave cookies untouched—
Jude sucked air. What if someone had gotten so ill—or injured—that Leah had rushed them to the hospital? Or had somebody . . . died?
“Leah?” he called out as he passed through the kitchen. “Stevie? Anybody home?”
He entered the front room and stopped. Leah sat on the sofa, holding Stevie in her lap. Her face was pale, and both of them looked dejected. Wrung out. The twins were nowhere in sight.
Jude scowled. Where was Betsy?
Leah glumly looked up at him. “We, um, got quite a shock this morning when . . . well, Betsy’s mother came and took her back.”
The bottom dropped out of Jude’s heart. “Took her back? Who was it?” he asked, his mind in an uproar as he approached his wife and son. He sat down on the sturdy coffee table directly across from Leah, gently grasping Stevie’s leg.
“The girls knew her from spending time at the pool hall,” Leah replied sadly. “It went against my better judgment, letting Natalie leave with Betsy—”
“She didn’t even have no clothes for her!” Stevie chimed in forlornly.
“—but how could I refuse her?” his wife continued with a shake of her head. “She wanted her child, and it wasn’t as though Betsy was actually ours—”
“But we loved her,” Stevie protested with a hitch in his voice. “And now she’s gone.”
Jude let out a loud sigh. He recalled how mystified they’d all been when the baby had appeared from out of nowhere a month ago. Now the mother in question had an identity—not that he felt any better, sensing Leah’s reluctance to let Betsy go with her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, because he could think of nothing else to say. “I wish I could’ve been here to help you—or to ask Natalie to reconsider.”
“Would you have done anything different? We’ve always believed that babies belong with their mothers.” Leah’s stark sadness reflected her doubts, her longing for Betsy’s bubbly, sunny presence. “When Natalie said she could use some clothes and supplies I—I sent them along with her. I didn’t want to think about Betsy without her little dresses, or bottles to drink from, or—”
Leah’s sudden sobs tore Jude to shreds. She cried so rarely, and the fact that nothing had gotten done since Betsy’s departure told him exactly how bereft and empty she felt. “I don’t see how you could’ve refused to let Betsy go with her mother,” he assured her. He listened for a moment, noting the stillness in the rest of the house. “Where are the girls? Maybe we should try to go about our usual evening chores. We’ll feel better if we’re all together to discuss this over supper.”
“Supper,” Leah said with a sigh. She shrugged. “Alice and Adeline thought I was absolutely wrong to let Natalie take Betsy—not to mention the clothes and supplies. I tried to talk them out of it, but they were determined to follow Natalie and get her to change her mind.”
“Maybe they’ll bring Betsy home with ’em,” Stevie said with a hopeful smile.
Jude patted the boy’s leg and stood up. “Whether they do or they don’t, we’ve got animals to feed, son,” he said gently. “And whatever happens, we can be sure God’s got a hand in it. Sometimes He—and the folks around us—do things we don’t understand, but we just have to keep on keeping on until we have a better answer.”
Stevie rose from Leah’s lap and started for the barn, but he didn’t look convinced by what Jude had said. Truth be told, Jude wasn’t sure they would ever have a better answer, either. Manual labor would at least give him some motions to go through.
After the chores, Jude went to the phone shanty and called for pizza delivery, a treat reserved for special occasions—or when the women in his life had spent the day in a hot kitchen running the canners. When he returned to the house and saw the depressed, defeated expression that lingered on Leah’s pale face, he went upstairs on a sad mission of mercy. He heard Alice and Adeline in their room and let go of his last shred of hope that Betsy might return.
Jude choked up at the sight of a few little clothes left in the white dresser that doubled as a changing table. Leah was too blinded by tears to see them when she was whisking away the rest of Betsy’s clothing, he realized. He quickly tucked the tiny garments into the white wicker bassinet and carried it to the attic. After he’d placed the white dresser up there as well, he returned to the bedroom.
The corner of the room appeared as starkly empty as he felt.
After a moment, Jude thought he heard happy gurgling . . . could still
