Songs for a Sunday: A Novel by Heather Norman Smith

Author:Heather Norman Smith [Smith, Heather Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Iron Stream Fiction
Published: 2023-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

November 1963

THE SQUARE faded-yellow house, with its low-hanging roof and peeled-paint shutters, had been concealed behind the bushy limbs of two short flowering dogwood trees when Annie left. Now it stood exposed behind naked branches, and the burnt red remnants of their foliage littered the narrow patch of yard.

Home. Home. Home.

The hours on the bus with a fussy baby, then the short drive from the station in the Studebaker—even after a joyous reunion with Mama—had felt like days. Now Annie was home, at the only house she’d ever known, save for the four months at Aunt Brenda’s. She was finally home to . . .

Annie paused with one foot in the car and one on the ground. Home to what? Home to raise her nephew? Home to be Thomas’s mother? To finish school and find a job that had nothing to do with dancing? Marry Julian and settle down as an instant family of three?

Julian had said he supported the decision when she’d spoken to him of it on the telephone. He’d said he understood why she was bringing Thomas home instead of giving him to the couple the agency had chosen. But his tone had betrayed him.

Annie sighed as she exited the car with Thomas in her arms. All of it would be sorted out soon enough. For now, she’d just enjoy being here, amid the wonderful familiarity of her surroundings—the tiny walkway to the front door, the row of old houses as far as she could see, all similar in size and shape—and the God Bless This Home sign that Daddy had painted, hanging to the right of the front door.

“We’re home, Thomas. This is going to be your home,” she whispered to the sleeping infant.

In a moment, Annie’s kitten heels tapped at the three concrete front steps, echoing like the sound of a ball-peen hammer on the head of a tack. She reached for the doorknob, then turned back. Though Mama somehow seemed younger than when Annie left, she still took much longer than Annie to get from the car to the house. Annie waited on the top step.

When she felt the gentle nudge of Mama’s hand at her back, Annie went inside.

A lived-in smell greeted her—one she’d always described in her mind as old wooden floorboards and cabinets that had absorbed years of bacon-frying and had been given a lick and a promise with Murphy Oil Soap on the regular. From the small living room, she saw across the half wall into the kitchen to the small table where so many meals had been shared.

She looked down, then scanned the room left to right and back again as she cradled the baby. Walking through that door with Thomas, but without Ruth Claire, had been like walking into an episode of The Twilight Zone. Never could Annie have ever imagined this deviation from the plan. But she remembered Aunt Brenda’s words. Things don’t have to turn out the way we think they should, Annie. That wisdom from her memory was immediately followed by more.

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