Lost & Found Love. Laura Browning

Dearest Jenny,

      Tabitha is writing this for me because I can no longer write. I’m dying. It began as breast cancer, and I found the lump early on, but I was too afraid to see the doctor. When I did, the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes and beyond. By the time Tabby finds you, I know I’ll be gone. I know you probably won’t have a good opinion of me—after all, what Mama runs off and leaves her young daughter behind? And I’m sure your daddy made sure to point that out.

      But I kept track of you, honey. I know you’re a doctor, and I’m so proud of you because I know you’ll be able to take care of yourself. You won’t have to depend on any man for food and shelter. I made sure Tabby was looked after, too, so she can get away from here and never come back. I want her to find you. I want you to find each other. Sisters should stick together.

      Tabby is finding out about you as she writes this for me, and I expect she’s as shocked right now as you’ll be when you read it, but you both need to know what happened.

      Jenny, as I’m sure you already know, your daddy was a moonshiner. I was still in high school when I first met Billy at the harvest dance there in Mountain Meadow. Do they still have that at Halloween? I was a good girl, but your daddy caught my eye. He was a classic bad boy with his long hair and his fast cars. I guess we were drawn to each other. I was looking for excitement, and he was looking for—I don’t know—maybe someone to corrupt. At any rate, we married against the wishes of my family. When you came along eight months after our marriage, there was talk. A lot of folks around Mountain Meadow and Castle County turned their backs on me. They had already turned them on your daddy and the rest of the Owens family a long time before.

      Things went along fairly smooth at first. I pretended I didn’t know how your daddy made his money, and he was content to let me think it was from farming. Then along about the time you turned seven, things got rough. A new sheriff in the county vowed to crack down on what some folks called the Moonshine Capital of the South. Your daddy moved his still off his land onto another man’s farm, but he got caught, and the man was threatening to expose him. Your daddy couldn’t afford to ignore the threat because the man was rich and powerful, so he offered him a deal. What I didn’t know was I was the deal. Your daddy traded my body to keep his still.

      “Jesus!” Evan stopped reading and cleared his throat. He looked over at Jenny. “You’re awfully pale, Jen. You want me to quit?”

      “No. I want to hear it.”

      “All right.” So he continued:

      I was too frightened to do anything but what I was told. My family had turned their backs on me, and if your daddy went to jail, I didn’t know what I would do or how I would take care of you, so to my shame, I slept with this man. It went on for several months until I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a whore and knew I had to get out. You see, I was silly enough to fall in love with my lover, but I knew he would never leave his own family. As much as I didn’t want to leave you, I was also afraid to take you. I had no way to support myself, let alone a bright little girl like you. It tore me apart inside, but I knew your daddy would take care of you. Billy might not have been good for much, but he would do that.

      Jenny’s hands clenched into fists. Oh, her daddy had taken care of her all right. He had set her and Evan up so that Evan believed she’d slept with half the high school basketball team. It destroyed their relationship to the point it took twelve years for them to find each other again.

      So I left. I ended up in Asheville, North Carolina where I met Thomas MacVie. He was a handsome man, a couple of years younger than me, but he was determined to have me. I was anxious too, but for a whole different reason. I realized I was pregnant with my lover’s child. Your daddy wouldn’t touch me while I slept with another man. He kept calling me slut, though he was the one who’d pushed me into his bed. Tommy seemed like the perfect solution at the time.

      I didn’t lie to him. I told him I was pregnant, and it didn’t seem to matter to him. He seemed happy about it. He was controlling and strict in his religious beliefs, but I could live with that. He was about as far removed from your daddy as I thought a man could be. And I thought that had to be a good thing.

      All I will tell you about that is I was wrong, but I won’t tell you more than that. That’s Tabby’s story to tell if she chooses. If Tommy shows up around Mountain Meadow though, you call the police. I will only ask two things of you, Jenny. Forgive me for not finding you, and I beg you to watch over your sister.

      Your Mama,

      Mary

      There was silence in the bedroom as Evan finished reading the letter. It sat on his lap, beneath his hands. “I wonder why Tabby waited a year to find you? She even mentioned that when I caught her at the farm.”

      Jenny shrugged, trying to feign indifference, but the letter left her feeling uneasy and disturbed. Her mother implied Tommy MacVie was not so different from her daddy. Had he done something to Tabby? “Maybe she had to finish school.”

      Evan tapped the paper with his fingertips. “Maybe,” he agreed, but she could see the puzzle it presented in his mind. “I wonder what the story is your mother felt was Tabby’s to tell?”

      Jenny sat up. She had to pee again. Just one of the inconveniences of advanced pregnancy. “I’m sure I don’t know.” When she came back to the room, Evan was looking over the letter once more.

      “You know, the day I met her at the farm, she was running down the hill from Hope’s grave as if the hounds of hell were behind her.”

      Jenny wasn’t ready to bend. “Perhaps she saw you and was trying to get away.”

      “No. I did dismiss it to begin with as just due to her concern over being caught trespassing, but it was more than that.”

      “So she’s got a guilt complex. Maybe she should have.”

      “Jenny, it’s more than that. I’ve seen guilt. This was fear. I think your sister’s childhood might make yours look like a walk in the park, and we know how bad yours was.”

      Jenny, who was ever practical, shook her head. “I think you’re reading things into it that are simply not there. She’s managed to graduate from college. She had to have some support from home.”

      Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to do a little digging and see what I can find out about her.”

      “Well, I, for one, am going to get what sleep this baby will allow me.”

      * * * *

      Joe stood at the door to shake hands with everyone as they filed out following Sunday service. He was anxious, for once, to get home. He thought he’d heard Tabby return early yesterday evening, but her house had remained dark. For now, he’d have to be patient and hide his anxiety with a smile.

      Betty Gatewood, one of the most stiff-necked of his parishioners, pumped his hand.

      “That was a wonderful sermon, Pastor Joe. What a wonderful illustration using the children from vacation Bible school. I guess we’ve all had to learn a little more about helping each other over the past year, haven’t we?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a grin, thinking back to the truce he and the Presbyterian minister managed to forge between two congregations that had battled for decades. He noticed as the congregation filed out that Tyler hung back, even making some excuse to Jake and Holly about walking home. After everyone else cleared the sanctuary, Joe looked at his young parishioner. “Something on your mind, Tyler?”

      The boy shuffled his feet and blushed. “I-I was wondering if you’d seen M-Miss MacVie?”

      Joe shook his head. “Not since last evening when I left her with y’all. Did you have a nice cookout?”

      The boy dug his hands into his pants pockets. “Well now, that’s the thing, Pastor Joe. Miss MacVie didn’t stay. She left right after she got there. Evan said she wasn’t feeling