She nodded. The tension was building in her hands, and her small fingers were tight.
“Now this is important. You have to relax because if you don’t, the clay will get confused because your brain won’t be able to communicate its happy thoughts through your hands and fingers, right?”
“K.”
“Pretend the wheel is spinning and the blue bowl is, too, and you put two fingers from this hand inside and a knuckle on the outside from the other hand, and you pull up ever so gently, and the clay shapes itself bit by bit between your fingers as you move. Can you feel that?”
“I can. I can do it myself. Like rubbing Gran’s fingers.”
I chuckled softly. “Gran’s fingers?”
“When they hurt, Mommy. Gentle, she says, when I put the medicine on them.” She crinkled her nose and shuddered dramatically. “Stinky.”
“The medicine is stinky? Yes, I suppose it is, but it makes her hands feel better. And yes, gentle like when you put the medicine on Gran’s fingers. Exactly like that, my very smart girl.” My arms moved to embrace her.
She wiggled against my hug. “Mommy, I can’t make the bowl with you hugging tight.”
I kissed her ear. “Or without proper clay, either. How about if I get us some fresh clay to work with?”
“K.”
How could one letter, one syllable, represent a little one’s laughter, the shining eyes, and the excitement, almost like a vibration in her being? I didn’t want to let her down.
“It’ll take a little while before we can do it, but I promise we’ll make bowls together.”
“Thank you, Mommy.” She wiggled off the seat. “Can I take my blue bowl to show Gran?”
“Yes, ma’am, you may.”
I watched her strong, young legs carry her out of the cabin. Her movements were graceful, almost like dancing, and she held the bowl between her hands like something precious. But once in the yard, she broke into a run. I wasn’t so old that I didn’t remember when there had been joy in kicking up my heels and running.
The funny thing was, I’d never missed my mother as much as I did now. I missed the memories we’d never made. I missed having the memory of her arms around me, and kissing my hair, and of her teaching me how to do the things she enjoyed. I didn’t know what she had been good at or what she’d enjoyed. There was a big, huge blank of a missing generation in my mind. Whenever I’d given it any thought, I’d envisioned my mother and father as slimmer, younger versions of my grandparents.
I’d felt complete. Until recently.
I should ask Gran. Surely now, so many years later, she wouldn’t mind. If I ever wanted to know, this was the time to ask.
Grand had ordered clay for me through the hardware store in Louisa, and the Man in Town had paid the bill. Now I knew the Man in Town, Duncan Browne, and I decided to have another chat with him. What would happen when we lost Gran? I was the adult now, the one in charge, and I truly did need to know.
I left the cabin and went into the house by way of the back door, and I heard a voice. A man was standing a few feet inside the front door. In horror, all within the time it took my heart to beat twice, I saw him accusing me, claiming his child, killing Gran and me by taking our child away. Then I heard Gran’s tone, courteous and unafraid, and saw Ellen’s legs swinging from the side of Gran’s bed.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
“Hello, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you.”
“It’s OK, Hannah,” Gran said. “New pastor. Paying visits. I haven’t attended regularly in a long time, and I’m housebound now, Pastor, as you can see. I appreciate your stopping by.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He handed me a card. “I hope to see you soon, in church if you can join us, but regardless, I hope you’ll let us know of anything we can do to help.”
He nodded and left. But my heart was still galloping. I watched him drive away and went back inside. I shut the door slowly. Gran hadn’t let him in, though she might have called to him to enter. But he wasn’t someone she knew. He was the new pastor, a stranger.
“How’d he come to be inside the house?” I asked her.
She nodded at Ellen. Ellen’s face had lost its glow, presumably from the tone of my voice.
Gran added, “I woke up, and there he was.”
I went to Ellen, determined to moderate the fear inside me and instead make the message clear and firm. “You can’t talk to strangers, Ellen. Don’t open the door unless Gran or I tell you to.”
How ironic. The unspoken truth of it nearly knocked me over. I leaned forward and hugged her hard. We’d been the strangers, hadn’t we? And we’d kept her.
No, my heart screamed. She was brought to us. Given to us. Not at all the same.
“Promise, Ellen? You’ll try to remember?”
“Promise, Mommy.” She rubbed her eyes. “Mommy?”
“What, sweetheart?”
“My daddy. That man wasn’t my daddy?”
I was stunned. Gran said, “No, sweet child. He isn’t your daddy.”
She didn’t ask more, but I knew she would later.
Ellen went to play with her doll in our bedroom. Gran motioned me over to her side.
“Should I tell her?” I whispered.
“Tell her what? That her daddy didn’t want her?”
I had a moment of confusion. I was thinking of Mr. Bridger and his son, Liam. Gran was thinking of the first Ellen’s father.
“No, Gran, not . . .” I stopped. I’d lied to this child and had allowed Gran to live her own fiction, too. There was only one thing to do. “When she asks about him, I’ll tell her he died.”
Gran screwed up her face, thinking hard. “And say his family moved away, and you don’t know where, else she’ll want to know them, too.”
My first instinct was no. No and no. This wasn’t right.
But then reality set in.
“I’ll be back, Gran. I’m going to take a walk.” I needed to clear my head. Even my stomach was unsettled.
“You go ahead, Hannah, honey. If Ellen tires of her doll babies, maybe we’ll color.”
I started down the slope toward the small bridge over Cub Creek, but I stopped. I didn’t want to walk to the cemetery. I veered left, and where the creek narrowed, I jumped it and started along the path to Elk Ridge.
Not thinking but only walking and looking and feeling the forest around me as the ground rose toward the ridge. I hadn’t been up this way since the day Ellen was left on our porch.
Back then, she’d been someone else’s child. Now she was Ellen, and she was ours.
And if Liam returned today? If he or his wife came knocking on our door?
It would be incredibly difficult for Gran, and for me, too, but there was no question in my mind that I’d do the right thing.
Would I seek Liam on my own? A father who’d never come seeking his child and, as far as I could tell, hadn’t returned here despite his father’s death? George Bridger himself hadn’t suggested finding Liam. The executor hadn’t mentioned him. George Bridger’s message, in writing to Gran and me, had been that Liam’s child needed a home, not that I should find her father.