A Rose by the Door Read online

  Chapter Seven

  Paisley and Gemma awakened the next morning to the not-so-hushed conversation of someone else exploring the Garden County Pioneer Museum.

  “Would you look at this china, Ardis? It’s wonderful.”

  “Such a shame no one uses pretty things like this any-more, isn’t it? Got a whole cabinet full, but I never get it out. Can’t bear using something that doesn’t go in the dishwasher.”

  “Oh, but it sets a lovely table, doesn’t it? And it brings back such lovely memories. Oh, my—”

  Gemma rolled to one side, nuzzling her jaw deep into the old feather pillow. She opened one eye. Two women gawked at her through the open doorway.

  “There’s someone asleep in here,” one of them shushed.

  The other gave an awful hoot. “They’re defacing the Cather exhibit!”

  With languid slowness, Gemma rolled onto her back, doddering on the edge of a night’s luxurious sound sleep. Her arm curled tightly over her daughter. She reveled in the little girl’s breathing, heavy and even and moist against her left shoulder.

  “Heaven’s to Betsy, Ardis. We’ve got to do something about this.”

  It took Gemma a good minute or so to acknowledge the implication of the two terrified museum patrons in the doorway. She came fully awake. “Wait.”

  “Mrs. Perkins!” The women fled into the annals of the glass display cases and fire trucks and mannequins, each of them bellowing in a very unladylike way. “Mrs. Perkins, there’s someone sleeping in Willa Cather’s bed!”

  Gemma sat up, swung her feet to the floor. “Don’t. Please wait.”

  She had meant to stay alert last night, wide awake, so she could protect Paisley. When she’d gone back to search the desk drawers after Paisley had drifted off to sleep, she had found nothing useful, only heaps of papers and crumpled files, one gold earring, and a tube of Chap Stick half melted away. Against one wall, she had discovered a nook with cabinets and cups and a miniature refrigerator. The refrigerator hadn’t even been turned on. The cabinets were empty except for several foil packets of coffee, filters, and one tall jar of powdered creamer.

  Gemma had shaken some of the creamer from the jar and mixed it with warm water from the faucet. Then she’d carried it back to Paisley and awakened her, coaxing her gently to drink the concoction so her stomach wouldn’t be empty. Even as Gemma had fallen off to sleep later, unable toward off her own exhaustion, she’d vowed to wake up early, to have them both well hidden before anyone discovered them.

  In their roaming among the displays last night, she and Paisley had encountered a menagerie of ancient pendulum clocks. Not one of them had worked. She’d depended on noises outside to awaken her. She sat on the bed now and heard them, the sounds of Ash Hollow already come to life—traffic whooshing past on First Street, dogs yapping, a garbage truck making the rounds.

  Paisley sat up, too, scrubbing her sleepy eyes and whimpering as a mad ruckus began somewhere near the reception area of the museum. They heard hollering and loud chattering. “Call The Garden County News, Ardis. They’ll want to get our picture.” From the reception desk, Gemma made out the sound of automatic dial on speakerphone, the clatter of a telephone receiver being dropped to the floor.

  “Jay. Mabel Perkins here. Someone’s broken in . . . How should I know if anything’s been stolen? I haven’t gotten the chance to look around . . . No. No, I haven’t noticed anything vandalized . . . No. There aren’t any signs of forced entry. Not that I can see . . . Will you stop asking questions and get over here, Jay? They could be armed and dangerous. They’re still here.”

  Within seconds, the wail of a siren split the morning melody of Ash Hollow. In the reception area of the museum, all went deathly quiet, a sure sign they’d decided to avoid confrontation until the law arrived. Gemma’s hands shook as she folded the jackets neatly and stowed them atop the suitcase. They’d been caught. There wasn’t anyway out of this mess now. She neatened the bed, although they’d both slept so hard that the linens hadn’t even gotten overly mussed. The siren grew louder and then slid downscale to a loud, frightening halt somewhere outside. She adjusted her filthy skirt, which had twisted halfway around her legs, then hunkered forward and tried to finger comb a rat’s-nest tangle out of Paisley’s hair before the arresting officer arrived.

  This is exactly how Sheriff’s Deputy Jay Triplett found them when he jumped through the door of the parlor, his hat slung with low menace over his eyes, his pistol drawn. He swaggered in with his face registering annoyance, towering a good eighteen inches over Gemma, his shoulders as broad as the badlands in the crisp, pocketed shirt he wore. His uniform lent him the appearance of brute authority. A nightstick dangled at his side. His name badge and county insignia and an array of medals dazzled even in the muted light. Paisley clung to her mama’s leg in mute fear.

  Deputy Triplett took one long look at Gemma, surveying her from the top of her snarled hair to the tips of her toes. Up to down, then down to up again. “Well, good morning,” he drawled, his words a careful measure of dispassion. “You got people out there riled up, you know that?”

  Just one nod, just one slight upward tilt of Gemma’s nose. “I know that.”

  “You also know that you are trespassing. You know that you are breaking the law.”

  Gemma didn’t say anything to that. She just stood, her eyes meeting his condemning gaze head on.

  “Well.” He straightened his back somewhat and took a deep breath that paunched out the buckle on his belt. He drummed his fingers on the handle of the pistol as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them, then jutted his jaw in the direction of the silverware. “You come in here to steal something? There’s a lot of stuff in this place worth plenty of money.”

  “We aren’t criminals—” Gemma eyed his name badge. “—Deputy Triplett.”

  “You want to tell me how you and your little girl here got into the museum last night?”

  Because she had been preparing for this, Gemma found the presence of mind to match his slow, measured words. She met his gaze defiantly, eye to eye. “Put your gun away. Please. You’re frightening my daughter.”

  His eyes wrinkled at the corners as if he had to try hard to keep his eyebrows narrowed. He smacked his mouth, evidence that he saw her and her small daughter as a great aggravation, and holstered his pistol. “I’ll tell you what,” he suggested. “You answer my questions, I’ll put away my gun.” He took one step toward her, approaching her the same way he’d approach a cornered badger—as if she might suddenly snarl and leap at him.

  “We’re in here because we got locked in.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Ask that lady out front. She wasn’t at the desk last night. Nobody saw us come in. We went into the exhibit room to look at things for a while. It got to be closing time. Nobody even knew we were here.”

  “That seems a mighty lame excuse for breaking and entering.”

  “All those old clocks back there, and not a one of them tells what time it is.”

  He hooked his huge fingers inside his heavy, black leather belt and all the cases and leather snap pockets that hung there rasped with the movement. “Ma’am, you and your kid have got to come with me. I’ve got to take you up front there and fill out about five hundred duplicate forms.”

  With chin raised and eyes fixed straight ahead, Gemma marched through the ornate parlor with Paisley straggling along, one hand still on her mama’s leg. “We played pretend after we got locked in,” Paisley told the officer. “We pretended we didn’t have anywhere else to go to sleep.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Gemma glanced back and surveyed the officer’s broad expanse of medals and badges and ammunition cases. She thought she saw his expression soften but she couldn’t be sure.

  When they arrived at the welcome desk, the smell of scorched coffee stung Gemma’s nose. Another pot was being brewed on the Bunn Burner against the wall, the stream of brown liquid trickling merrily into the round cara
fe below. Beside that, making these morning refreshments seem even more heartbreaking, stood the tall jar of Carnation Coffee-mate she had used for Paisley’s makeshift milk the night before. Beside that sat a red plate of homemade sticky buns.

  Warm cinnamon oozed in rivulets down the sides of the coiled, baked dough. Pecans had been sprinkled with hearty abandon amidst gooey glaze. The pastries smelled like heaven—yeasty like bread and sweet enough to send Gemma’s stomach into tumults. She heard Paisley’s belly give a deep rumble. Without stopping to think about being under arrest, Gemma reached her fingers to take a sticky bun.

  Mabel Perkins swatted furiously at her. “Don’t touch those.”

  Gemma jerked her hand back.

  “Jay, you’ve got to get these . . . these felons out of the building. They ought to be handcuffed. If nothing else, they have disturbed the displays.”

  But Deputy Triplett wasn’t listening to Mabel Perkins. Gemma noticed he’d begun watching her face instead, as if he wanted to gauge her reaction to something. His eyes conveyed deep kindness, concern. “Can you tell me something? Have you two eaten any time recently?”

  She shook her head, furious at herself because she couldn’t keep tears from welling in her eyes. “No,” she said, her voice gone soft and yearning and sad. “We haven’t.”

  Gemma watched the deputy turn back to the gathering of local biddies, all of them obviously awaiting some severe verdict from him. “I don’t think these two girls need to be arrested, Mabel. I think they need to find somewhere they can take a warm bath and eat a square meal.”

  “Oh, this is ridiculous. They were sleeping in the Cather rooms. Surely you’re going to write them up or something.”

  “Yes, I’m going to write them up. I’m assuming you’re going to insist on pressing charges.”

  “Of course I’m going to press charges. Someone around here needs to protect Garden County property.”

  “Well,” he said. “Let’s hurry and do this then. Let’s fill out the papers so they can be on their way.”

  Ardis chimed in, obviously incensed. “Jay. You can’t just write them up and let them go.”

  “I’m not going to let them go, Mrs. Jacobs. I’m going to release them into someone’s care.” He raised his eye-brows pointedly at Mabel again. “Someone in Ash Hollow who might be kind enough to let them eat a few sticky buns.”

  Mabel Perkins let out one long, disgruntled sigh. “Oh, all right. But I made those buns myself.” She checked her wristwatch. “They were supposed to be for the tour group we have coming through in half an hour.”

  Gemma watched, stone-faced again, while the deputy found two heavy chairs and aligned them along the wall. He thumped the seat of the nearest one with his big hand so Paisley would know it was acceptable to climb up and sit down. He handed her a napkin with three sticky buns on it and turned to Gemma. “You want coffee?”

  She shook her head.

  “Buns?”

  She nodded and her throat went so tight she thought she might cry again.

  The deputy didn’t talk for a while after that. He let them each take time to eat. When they’d almost finished, he rose, his knees cracking, his nightstick swaying. “I’ll be right back.”

  Gemma sat staring at Mabel Perkins and Ardis Jacobs and the other nameless biddy. The three of them sat staring unabashedly right back at her. Now that Deputy Triplett had gone outside, they did not utter a word. Gemma wished for the officer to return. The uniformed man, who only minutes ago had seemed an enemy, now seemed a protector instead. If she jumped right now, or made some sudden movement, she got the feeling all three of these little ladies would jump, too.

  “Here we go.” The deputy stomped back in the door, whistling, with a clipboard, a stack of carbon papers, and a pen in hand. “Just had to go out to the patrol car and get these.”

  Now that he’d returned, it seemed the three ladies had plenty more to say. “You should call Social Services, Jay. They’ll send Jane Rounsborg. She always takes care of the difficult cases.”

  “No, silly. Jane only takes care of the county cases. These—” Ardis gestured toward them. “—are not from Garden County.”

  “Remember when the town council wanted to establish that shelter? Well, this is the reason. So people won’t come to sleep in our museum.”

  “As soon as you know it, homeless people will be moving into the library, too.”

  “Oh, they’ve already moved into the library. You know Dave Morris? He lives at the library. He wears that fedora and pedals his bicycle against traffic and pays all his overdue fines with two dollar bills.”

  “That’s different. He has a house. He just doesn’t like to go home to it.”

  “The only thing he’s got to complain about is that Alva yells when he goes home. She gets mad because he doesn’t ride on the right side of the road.”

  The deputy laid his hat on the floor beside him and poised pen over paper. He smelled like leather. His hair had a furrow in it from where his cap had been, and Gemma sensed that, for the first time in a long while, she had found a friend.

  “You up to answering questions for this report?”

  She nodded, her mouth full, and pulled Paisley across the chair into her lap.

  “Good.” His stiff leathers creaked and all the little compartments on his belt waggled when he sat in the chair beside her. He waited, pen in hand. “Name?”

  She gave him her maiden one, not wanting to burden Mrs. Bartling any more than she already had. “Gemma Franklin.”

  “Do you live in Ash Hollow, Gemma?”

  “No.” She propped her chin atop Paisley’s head, willing her eyes to remain dry. “We don’t.”

  “What’s your address?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t have one.”

  “No?”

  “We had a place, my husband and I. But he died and I—” She broke off.

  He glanced at her left hand, at the simple gold band she still wore. “You lost the place?”

  Gemma nodded.

  “You on your way somewhere?”

  “My car broke down on the highway.”

  He bit the end of the pen. “That your Toyota Corolla we found out there yesterday?”

  She nodded again.

  “Well, that answers a few questions, too,” he said, sounding relieved. “We ran a check and knew that car was registered to a woman. And we found a Barbie on the floor in the back. We were wondering if you were okay.”

  Her eyes leveled on his. “I’m fine.”

  “Lots of folks do that here, you know. This place was on the Oregon Trail. Wagons lost wheels. Oxen died. Roses bloomed. And folks just stayed. Else we wouldn’t have a town named Ash Hollow at all.”

  “Makes for a nice story.”

  “So, you looking for work here or something? Or are you planning to move on?”

  She and Paisley were by themselves, on their own, and the time had come for Gemma to accept that. She leaned back in the chair and inhaled deeply. “Back in Omaha, I was a waitress. The only thing I could think of, maybe I could find work at that place down the street. Maybe I could wash dishes and earn a place to live, or some food, until we get back on our feet.”

  He poked his pen back inside his pocket. “I tell you what I’m going to do about you. I’m going to call George Sissel over at Antelope Valley Church.”

  Gemma hugged Paisley closer. “You’re going to call a preacher? What for?”

  “George Sissel isn’t just any preacher. He’s. . . well, he’s. . . George.”

  Mabel Perkins jumped in again. “You can’t expect George to let these vagrants move in.”

  “I’m not talking about him taking them in to his house, Mabel. I was thinking maybe the church could do a little something.”

  “George won’t let them move into the fellowship hall, either. They might steal something. I’ll bet they’ve got over three thousand dollars worth of canned goods and clothes stacked in boxes over there. You know. That huge
end-of-school food drive they have every year.”

  It seemed as if the deputy hadn’t heard a word of it. He donned his wire-rimmed aviator sunglasses as if he didn’t want to see Mabel Perkins anymore and lifted the telephone receiver, stopping with his finger poised to dial.

  “And just who was that food drive for, Mabel? Tell me that.”

  Mabel raised her chin. “Homeless people.”

  He smiled again, satisfied. “You can’t very well steal something if it’s already been given to you as a gift.”

  Chapter Eight

  Bea sat in Ray’s old, lumpy La-Z-Boy recliner, her quilted robe gathered around her breastbone with one determined fist, her feet propped up, the afghan spread over her legs, and glared across the room at the ancient Sneed family Bible.

  The mammoth black-bound book lay closed and dusty on the oval coffee table beside the July issue of Good Housekeeping and the current edition of the TV Guide. Its embossed leather cover laid split and broken on the larboard side, its pages dog eared, its cowhide worn to a smooth sheen by four generations of her family’s hands. Almost halfway through, a black satin book mark parted the worn leaves, the gold edges gone, marking some long-forgotten psalm.

  Lately, Bea had found it difficult even to muster enough energy to dress for the day. There she sat, the pad of her thumb against her lips, staring at the Bible she’d read through, cover to cover, many times in many years. How well she knew what it said.

  Pray unceasingly . . . Ask and it shall be given . . . Seek and ye shall find . . . Knock and the door shall be opened.

  Bea shed the afghan and set the recliner aright. She picked up the Bible and opened it to the first page. The births, deaths, and marriages of her mother’s family, starting with the marriage of her great-grandmother Margaret Louise Sneed, had all been documented here, first in her great-grandmother’s painstaking hand, then her mother’s hand, and then in her own. Different handwritings and different shades of faded ink. Covenants made. Babies born. Families united.