“Oh, honey,” she said instead of hello. She must have seen my name on the caller ID.
“You heard?” I asked, though I knew the answer. In fact, I didn’t wait for it. “Then come. Please come.”
A hesitation, and then Polly said, “We weren’t sure Birchie would want . . . We weren’t sure.”
“We need you,” I said. “And we need Alston, too, and the Partridges, and Frank Darian. Anyone else that you can think of. Birchie needs her church.”
“All right. Let me start the phone tree, then I’m on the way,” she said, staunch, and I closed the connection.
Not everyone who heard the call would come. Some of the First Baptist members who did hurry toward us would turn back when they saw the house already full of Redemption. In the same way, when First Baptist began arriving, some of the Redemption folks would cool, and some would leave. But not all.
In the intersection of who would come and who would stay was a church that did not exist. Not yet. But I had glimpsed this congregation eating gingersnaps and drinking lemonade in Martina Mack’s yard. I would re-form it now, on purpose.
Together we would comfort Wattie. We would offer Birchie absolution. I could feel it as a nascent presence that might move and grow inside Birchville the way my son moved and grew in me. Something possible. A promise. An intersection where my son belonged.
The first wave of Redemption folks had all been offered greetings and entry, but I caught Birchie and Wattie before they could follow their guests inside.
“I’m staying,” I told them, and I meant it. For as long as Birchie needed me, for sure. Perhaps after, for Wattie, because why should she have to move? Sel had been open to it, and if he could be happy here, I might even stay longer. After all, I was a Birch, and so was my son. This was our town. It would become what we made it. “I’m staying here with you, in Birchville.”
“I know, child,” Wattie said, like no other path was possible. Which it never had been. Not once she and her sister had decided.
“That’s a good baby,” Birchie said, pulling my face down to kiss me.
“We’re putting in a ramp on this porch, though. Those stairs are a death trap,” I told them, stern, and Birchie tutted.
“And ruin the lines of this house?” Birchie said. “Now, that won’t do.”
“It will do, very well, and you’re moving downstairs,” I said.
I’d go back up to my own room, turn the tower room into a nursery with silver-blue walls and true red bedding.
Down the street I could see Polly Fincher’s blond ponytail shining in the sun as she hurried toward us, carrying her own frozen emergency casserole. Frank Darian was coming out of his front door with a bag of store-bought chips, Hugh and Jeffrey in tow.
It was starting. I got out of the way and let it.
Birchie lived long enough to meet him: James Birch Briggs-Martin. He was born the day after Thanksgiving, in Alabama. He landed yelling, slick, and bloody, seven pounds, one ounce, and crazy beautiful. Sel caught him and put him on my chest.
Birchie’s best last hours were spent rocking my son with me beside her. Sometimes she knew him.
“James, James,” she said to him then, rocking and reminding, though more and more she thought that he was one of Wattie’s long-grown babies or her own lost son. Near the end she did not recognize him at all. She would still reach for him, though, readying to take her leave even as she welcomed him, staring down into his earnest face.
“Hello, hello,” she said, when I put him, a small stranger, into her arms. Her eyes brightened, and she smiled. My boy called her to immediate love in that way that babies have; it is their birthright. It is their superpower. She touched his open, tiny palm, his cheek, the burring of black fuzz on his head. “Hello.”
Acknowledgments
Dear Person-Holding-This-Book, thank you, first and most and always, for reading. Without readers, there are no books. You are valuable and precious, and I am one of you. Thank you for buying my books in particular, and for passing them on, and for telling others about them. Thank you, Righteous Handsellers, especially those of you who have pressed my books into the hands of the right readers and said, “You are going to love this.” You make my work possible.
Thank you, Emily Krump, editor, champion, and quite possibly the patron saint of patience. Thank you, Jacques de Spoelberch, for your guidance and your endless supply of spine. This one is for you. Endless gratitude to everyone at Morrow who has had this book’s back: Liate Stehlik, Lynn Grady, Jennifer Hart, Carolyn Marino, Tavia Kowalchuk, Kelly Rudolph, Kate Schafer, Libby Collins, Mary Beth Thomas, Carla Parker, Rachel Levenberg, Tobly McSmith, Ploy Siripant, Mary Ann Petyak, Madeline Jaffe, Shelby Peak, and Maureen Sugden (aka she who stops me from putting the word “little” into every other sentence).
Sara Gruen, Karen Abbott, and Lydia Netzer, you are more than notes and feedback and the right kind of pressure. You are my Almost Sisters. My beloved local writing partners kept this book grounded and me (relatively) honest: Anna Schachner, Reid Jensen, Ginger Eager, and The Reverend Doctor Jake Myers. Thank you, Caryn Karmatz Rudy and Jill James. Thanks, Alison Law—without you there are only technical errors and foul language.
Thanks to the glorious and gifted nerds who helped me get the art part right. All errors are mine: Bobby Jackson, Ross Boone and his alter ego Raw Spoon, and Katie Cook. Speaking of art—I love Cig Harvey, and this cover is exquisite.
Thanks to the folks who helped me get the medical and murder parts right. All errors are mine: D. P. Lyle, MD (author of Forensics for Dummies and the Dub Walker series), Dr. Steven Rippentrop, and novelist-slash-litigator Frank Turner Hollon.
My recent years of teaching have changed my heart, my stories, and my relationship with writing itself. I am grateful to my students at Lee Arrendale State Prison. Thank you, Reforming Arts, both for creating a space where these women can find and explore their voices and for letting me be present in it.
I love you, Scott, Sam, Maisy Jane, Bob, Betty, Bobby, Julie, Daniel, Erin Virginia, Jane, and Allison. I love you, people of Slanted Sidewalk, small group, STK, and The New Revised Standard Version of Fringe. I love you, as well, First Baptist Church of Decatur. Thank you for trying to be a place where we broken humans of all flavors can be welcome and beloved. It’s an uphill walk, isn’t it? But damn, I love the view. Shalom, y’all.