Softly and Tenderly Read online

  “Why would God decide you aren’t . . .” June dipped her head to see into Jade’s downcast eyes. “Oh, I see.” Her spoon tapped out a beat against the ceramic mug as she stirred her tea. “You think God would choose you out of all the women in this world who’ve had abortions to say, ‘No baby for her; she blew it’?”

  “Feels like it sometimes.” Jade sipped her tea to hide her emotion. She ignored the yearning most of the time. But it had been stirred today, by the pregnant women, by the doe with her fawns. If she could finally carry a baby to term, not miscarry again, she’d feel like her past was truly forgiven and God was smiling.

  “You’re young, Jade. It’ll happen.” June’s words brought little comfort.

  “Sure, I know.” Jade sipped her tea.

  “I’ve got just the thing for you.” June motioned for Jade to pick up her tea and follow.

  Jade carried her tea up the stairs behind June, whose narrow hips swung from side to side. She’d spent her entire marriage, the past two and a half years, trying to convince herself that children didn’t matter. Max completed her. God, as she was beginning to know Him, completed her. But a child . . . one of her own. Jade could imagine the joy.

  She’d lost their honeymoon baby after ten weeks. It was a long eighteen months before she got pregnant again, only to lose the baby last summer, two weeks before Mama came down for a short visit.

  But her August visit never ended. Mama’s leukemia symptoms had intensified since Jade had seen her the Christmas before, so she refused to let her return to Iowa to live in the old farmhouse, alone.

  Between managing the shops, the Blue Umbrella in Whisper Hollow and the Blue Two in downtown Chattanooga, Jade cared for Mama, driving her to doctor appointments and chemo treatments.

  Into the crisp, golden fall and blustery holiday season, the busyness of the shop and town celebrations kept Jade’s yearning for babies at bay. When she discovered she was pregnant at Thanksgiving, she laid awake that night in bed, pools in her eyes, crunching her fingers around Max’s fisted, sleeping hand. The God of mercy bestowed favor on her.

  “So, June, where are we going?” Then she had her third miscarriage in January. “What’s this thing you have for me? Stuffing envelopes for the club’s Spring Life Auction and Dance? Or licking stamps?”

  “Jade, really, no one licks stamps anymore.”

  At the top of the stairs, June stopped short. Jade nearly sloshed her with tea.

  “What’s wrong?” Jade peered around her mother-in-law’s shoulder. The pink hue of her suit brightened the dim light of the landing. The media room door was ajar with an eerie blue tint emanating from the flat-panel TV screen. “Is someone here?”

  “Constance?” June thudded toward the door, a matronly authority in her stride. “You best not be napping. I warned you . . .”

  “June.” Jade hurried behind her, hoping to cushion the clash between Constance and her mistress. “So what if she fell asleep? It’s not like she ignored her chores. The house is immaculate.”

  “I don’t pay her to sleep.” June raised her voice as if giving Constance one last chance to wake up and feign dusting before June crashed through the door and flipped on the light. “Constance Filmore?”

  Jade hung back. Constance didn’t need an audience when June reamed her out. Be awake, Constance . . .

  “Oh my, oh, oh?” June crashed backward into the door, her teacup toppling to the plush cream and beige carpet. The golden-brown liquid spread through the fibers, sinking into the pile, creating a sprawling stain.

  Jade surged into the room, accosted by the pungent scent of day-old cologne and sweat. As she stooped to pick up June’s mug, her gaze strafed a topless woman standing on the other side of the U-shaped sofa. Her tangled, bleached hair stood high over her head and her unfastened jeans rode low on her hips. Surprise shoved the woman’s name through her lips.

  “Claire?”

  Wasn’t she one of June’s best friends? What’s going on? Jade averted her eyes from Claire’s form and glanced at June.

  Her mother-in-law’s high, rosy cheeks faded beyond pale, her eyes fixed, and for an insane moment Jade wondered if she was even breathing. “June,” Jade whispered, gathering June’s cup by the tips of her fingers.

  “June . . . we didn’t know . . .” Claire Falcon tugged on her cotton top, then hunted around for her shoes. “We thought you were—”

  “We? Who’s we?” June’s blank, unblinking gaze matched her monotone.

  “I gotta go.” Claire peered down at the sofa before darting for the door, her bra, socks, and shoes clutched to her chest. A sour bile burned at the base of Jade’s throat as she moved aside for Claire to exit.

  Suddenly, there was Rebel, standing, smoothing his hair, fixing his belt, and fastening the bottom buttons of his blue shirt.

  Jade dropped June’s mug, barely having the presence of mind to set hers on the edge of the wall table just inside the door. Rebel? Her knees buckled.

  “Maybe you should go, Jade.” Rebel stepped around the couch. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

  “In my own home, Rebel?” June’s tone sent chills over Jade’s skin. “My. Own. Home.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be here.” Rebel casually walked between the women and out the door.

  June dashed after him as he descended the stairs. “Don’t you dare walk away from me.” She smashed her fist into his back.

  Flinching, Jade tucked in behind the wall. For a short moment she was eight again, watching her daddy leave their Iowa farm in the middle of the night, Mama hollering after him.

  But June and Rebel? The benevolent king and queen of Whisper Hollow?

  “My . . . own . . . home.”

  The smack of June’s hand against Rebel’s cheek shocked Jade’s heart. Tears swelled in her eyes. She expected infidelity from her mama, but not from the refined and dignified Bensons. Rebel was a church deacon. June chaired the women’s auxiliary.

  “You disrespect me so much you bring your filth into my home? Forty-one years, Rebel, I’ve been faithful and—”

  Back to the wall, Jade slid down until her bottom hit the hardwood.

  “Forty-one, June? Are you sure you want to stick with that number?” Jade waited for Rebel’s chest-rumbling “Ah, June bug,” paired with a contrite apology. She listened for his tender begging, pulling her into their room to talk in private. But instead he spoke as if June railed on about petty things: a towel on the bathroom floor, a forgotten dinner date with old friends.

  “I don’t deserve this, Rebel, not in my own home. Where’s Constance?”

  “I sent her home. Didn’t need her interfering.”

  “Never again, you hear me?” June’s voice rose with command. She would be obeyed. “Never. In my home. Do you hear me, Rebel Benson?”

  Dread filled Jade’s belly. Never again? Max never mentioned his dad’s affairs. A door slammed. Footsteps hammered down the stairs and tapped across the marble.

  “Jade?” June’s call carried up from the foyer and bounced around the hollow pockets of the second floor.

  She couldn’t move.

  “Jade!”

  Pushing off the floor, Jade scrambled for the stairs. She peered at June as she inched her way down.

  “You might want to keep this to yourself.” June gripped her hands together at her waist, squeezing her fingers.

  “To myself?” The chill of the encounter lifted, but her bones rattled beneath her skin. “What are you saying? Max doesn’t—”

  “Jade, you heard me.” June’s olive-green eyes pleaded, red and swimming. “To yourself.”

  Two

  The shower ran hot down Jade’s neck and back, easing the ache from her muscles. Seven o’clock came too soon.

  It’d been after 2 a.m. before she’d crawled into bed and stretched out next to her husband. After three before her thoughts settled and she finally slept.

  She kept seeing the low, round curve of Claire’s hip. Hearing the fl
at, callous response from Rebel. Feeling a spirited but wounded June trying to maintain her dignity.

  Jade dumped a glob of facial cleanser in her hand and scrubbed. But no amount of soap could wash away what she’d witnessed yesterday. Sighing, she returned the cleanser to the shower caddy and let the water rinse the scrub from her face and tears from her eyes.

  A bang beyond the shower door startled her. “Max?” She squeezed the water from her hair and peeked out to see her husband bent in front of the sink cabinet, hand to his forehead, his expression knotted. “What are you doing?”

  “Bumping my head.” He leaned to assess the damage to his face in the mirror. “I was thinking of making breakfast. You want pancakes?” His silver-blue tie hung down the starched front of his navy shirt. His slacks were Armani.

  “You’re in court today?” She shut off the water and reached for her towel. He always wore Armani to court. Claimed it gave his clients confidence and intimidated the prosecutor.

  “Meeting with the opposing counsel on the class action case against MicroDevelopment.”

  “Are they going to settle?”

  “If there’s any good in the world, yes, oh please yes.” He fell against the sink and reached for her. “Your man’s been on fire lately.” He touched his lips to hers, tugging at her towel with a teasing growl. “In court, I mean.”

  “Of course, in court. I didn’t think you meant in bed.” She kissed him, letting her towel fall around her feet, then spinning from his arms for the bedroom.

  “Ouch, ow, wound a guy.” He stumbled from the bathroom, clutching his chest. “And on a day I might settle a very big case. My ego, darling. My ego.”

  Jade laughed. “Somehow I think your ego can handle a bit of bruising from me.” She tugged open her dresser drawers, selecting clothes for the day. “And you know I’m teasing, right?”

  “I do know.” From the middle of the room, he watched her, a yearning behind his brownish-gold wink. The burn of his gaze tempted her to press pause on the morning and reach for the buttons under his silky tie. “So where were you last night?” He moved past her for the chaise tucked under the dormer window, Jade’s favorite reading place on rainy afternoons, and grazed her hip with his fingertips.

  “Went back down to the Blue Two.”

  After the encounter between Rebel and June at the Orchid House, Jade needed distance between Mama and Max. So she drove back down to the city and attempted to bury the images and sounds by logging inventory and adding numbers.

  “I had to call Sugar Plumbs for Mae to fix something for Beryl and me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jade snapped open her crisp, clean jeans. “I should’ve called.” Poor Mama, sitting home alone, waiting for someone to come.

  “She kept asking about you. Couldn’t remember how long you’d been gone. She was starving.” Max leaned forward, arms on his thighs. “What was so important at the shop you couldn’t come home? Or call? Didn’t you check your missed calls? I called after dinner.”

  “Got distracted. Sorry.” Jade crossed the room to her closet with a quick peek out the window. The day looked cold, like it might rain. “The Blue Two is a mess. I should’ve never hired Wanda. Manager at Bloomingdale’s, my eye.” She took a bell-sleeve blouse from its hanger. “I spent six hours just cleaning half the storeroom.”

  “What about those two part-timers you hired?”

  “Keri and Emma? Tweedledum and Tweedledee?” Jade returned to the bathroom to dry her hair. Why’d she promise June? Why? The secret hidden in her chest burned. “They quit. Three weeks ago. Wanda didn’t tell me until yesterday.”

  Max, your father is having an affair.

  In the mirror, she watched Max watching her wield the blow-dryer. She waited, praying he’d go downstairs, make that breakfast he talked about.

  “You can close it, you know. The Blue Two.”

  “What?” Jade whipped around. “It’s only been two years. We’ve got to give baby Blue a chance. Really, I’ve not put the work into it. It’s my fault it’s failing. I thought Wanda would be another Lillabeth. Wonderful and hardworking. I ignorantly left her to her own incompetent devices.”

  The downtown Chattanooga shop at the bend of the Tennessee River had been Jade’s distraction after her first miscarriage. Remembering the riverfront property her mother-in-law had discovered before she’d married Max, Jade checked on the availability of the warehouse-turned-into-shops. She and Max signed the papers within a week.

  Busy expanding her vintage business after a successful first year, Jade considered her surprise second pregnancy last summer a sign from God. Blessed.

  Max had implored her to hire a manager. “Let’s do all we can to keep this baby, shug.”

  She liquefied when he called her shug and became putty in his emotional hands. Lillabeth, a college girl now and married to a Marine fighter pilot stationed in Iraq, worked at the Whisper Hollow Blue Umbrella after classes. If Jade found someone to look after the Blue Two, then she’d have time to channel her energy into making a baby.

  Enter Wanda, the lying manger. Blissful, naive, and focused on staying pregnant, Jade left Wanda to her devices while she dreamed of motherhood. But near the end of her first trimester, she began bleeding. After the miscarriage, Jade had planned to visit the struggling riverfront shop more often, knowing it needed her tender, loving care. But she rarely made it down the mountain. Once a quarter. Maybe.

  Now, almost two years after opening the store, she’d lost a good bit of Blue Two’s business credibility.

  “Is it still worth it, babe? The second store?” Max watched her through the mirror, arms crossed.

  “There’s a lot of inventory down there. And spring is coming . . . we can make up time and money between the tourists and the festivals. But if I can’t get it going again, then I’ll sell it.” Jade sighed, fluffed her hair with a quick sweep of the blow-dryer over her crown, then hung the dryer on the hook by the sink.

  “You know I heard you. Sell it.” Max’s gaze flickered down, toward the cabinet, then swept upward, meeting Jade’s eyes in the mirror. He smiled.

  “If, I said if I can’t get it going again. Wanda did a lot of damage to the inventory as well as our reputation.”

  “Then I guess there’s nothing left for me to say, except I’ll go make breakfast.” But instead of backing away, he moved behind Jade, brushing his hand over her shoulders. “All this energy to get a second shop going . . . when the Blue Umbrella is going well here in Whisper Hollow. Makes me think you don’t want to try again.”

  “I thought your final word was ‘I’ll go make breakfast.’”

  “Jade . . .” Max turned her to face him, the emotion of his question lingering in his eyes. “Do you?”

  “We tried the other night. And it’s not the Blue Two or the Blue Umbrella keeping me from getting pregnant, Max. Nor is either one the cause of the miscarriages.”

  An anomaly. That’s what Dr. Wokowsky called her: an anomaly. But to Jade, barren trumpeted over her arid soul with a clarion tone. Every day more true than the one before.

  “We don’t know for sure, Jade. Dr. Wokowsky said rest could help.”

  “He made up that answer because you kept pushing him.” Jade freed herself from her husband’s embrace, reaching to the shelf beside the mirror for her makeup bag. “You almost gave him a heart attack, drilling him the way you did. You forget you’re a noted lawyer, Max. I bet all Wokowsky heard was ‘lawsuit, lawsuit.’ And pancakes for breakfast are fine. Use water instead of milk in the mix. Milk makes them too heavy.”

  “Do you even want children, Jade?”

  “Don’t ask stupid questions.” And please give me my bathroom time.

  “It’s not a stupid question.”

  “Max, I’m not on birth control. I’ve been pregnant three times. What do you want from me?” Jade tossed her makeup bag beside the sink. She didn’t want to wear any covering today. “I can straighten out the Blue Two, Max.” Socks, she needed a pair of socks.
And shoes. “I need to straighten out the Blue Two.”

  “Jade.” Max tenderly held her shoulders, touching her in the familiar way that only comes with marriage. Not possessive, not sexual, not harsh. But connecting. I am yours, and you are mine.

  “I love you and will support whatever you decide to do. But I’m thirty-eight. I don’t want my retirement party to compete with my son’s high school graduation.”

  “So you’ve said.” She dug around in her sock drawer. Matching pair, matching pair. “Then you’d better talk to God, because I don’t know what else we can do.” Jade sank to the chaise and tugged on her socks. “Is Mama awake?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard any noise coming from her room.” Max perched next to her, a slice of gray light falling over the high rise of his cheeks and the smooth plane of his face. “Surrogate?”

  “No.” Jade swerved, hooking her knee over his leg. “I can’t, Max. I have no peace about another woman becoming so intimately a part of our lives. It would be like . . . an affair. Look at the women in the Bible who tried to have children with surrogates. It was painful and deceptive.”

  “You don’t trust me? Think I’ll fall in love with—”

  “Babe, another woman would be carrying your precious son. Not me.”

  “But it would be our DNA, babe. Your egg, my sperm.”

  “And what is the plan for all the fertilized eggs we can’t or won’t use?” Jade shook her head. “Once, a very long time ago, a scared and heartbroken teenager decided she had the right to take a baby’s life. Max, I won’t be put in the position again of deciding when and if I should have a child. If God wants us to have children, it will have to be like He designed.”

  She walked across the room. At the closet, Jade dug her feet into her mocha brown leather clogs. The truth of her confession anchored her drifting affections. The only way she’d ever be a mother was by divine intervention.

  “We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Hey, I’m not opposed to having ten kids. We could get, like, four surrogates, line them up, zip, zip, zip, implant the fertilized eggs, and—”