More Than Words: Stories of Courage Read online

  “Me, too. Let’s go out to Alsea and spend Saturday night. We can show Molly the sights, take her to Alsea Falls. The colors will be at their peak. Besides, now that the renters have moved out, we need to check the old place.”

  “The old place” was a run-down farmhouse in the picturesque Coast Range mountains that Graham’s parents had used as a getaway during the years he was growing up. When his father took a position as a biology professor at the University of Miami, the senior Wagners turned over the house to Graham and Tracy. Graham was waiting for the right moment to sell it, when interest rates and property prices converged and he could make the biggest profit for his parents.

  At first he and Tracy had hoped to use the house on weekends, as his parents had, but almost immediately it had become clear there was little point in keeping the house for themselves when they were both so busy. So they had rented it out, instead. Now that the latest renters had moved, it was time to either sell or rent again.

  “Do you think she’d want to come?” Tracy asked. “She might have something planned with her friends.”

  “She hasn’t had anything planned since she came to live here. If she has friends, she doesn’t spend time with them on weekends.”

  “It’s a good idea. A great idea.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him. “You’re thinking like a father.”

  “As long as I don’t have to give her a bottle or let her teethe on my finger.”

  She grinned and kissed him again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Molly couldn’t believe that most of the time nobody lived in the old house in Alsea. The whole area was amazing, like something out of a picture book, with evergreens marching so high up the hill behind the house that they seemed to pierce the sky. She could almost touch the blue-green mountains. There was a creek not far away, and a stone path leading down to it. The kitchen was huge, with a table so large you could seat a dozen people around it without anyone tapping elbows. There were so many bedrooms on the second floor, she had been allowed to choose whichever one she wanted for the weekend.

  Sure, the house wasn’t up-to-date, like the Wagner condo. The porch sagged and the wood had weathered to the color of tarnished silver. She knew about tarnished silver. There’d been a lot of it in one of her foster homes, and Molly had volunteered to polish it. The foster mother hadn’t let her. Molly figured that was because she didn’t want to take it out of the locked cabinet. That family had watched her like she was a thief in training because her real mother had been arrested once and sent to jail.

  The Wagners didn’t watch her at all. They knew where she was, of course, but nobody paid attention to the little stuff. Their condo was filled with beautiful things, but nobody seemed to care if she looked at them or picked them up. On Thursday morning Mrs. Wagner had caught her looking at a pottery vase with the coolest metallic swirls all over it, and when Molly came home from the Thaelers’s that afternoon, the vase was on the dresser in her room, filled with flowers.

  Molly wasn’t sure what this meant. The Wagners were just playing at being parents. Molly knew Mrs. Wagner wasn’t all that fond of babies. Mrs. Thaeler made jokes about it. So maybe this was just their way of showing everybody they didn’t hate children even if they didn’t want any. Not that Molly was really a child anymore.

  It was Sunday morning and late. For most of her life she’d been routed out of bed on Sundays to attend some church where nobody knew her. She’d watched foster parents tell pastors the sad story of her life, seen the pity in everybody’s eyes, or worse, the distrust. The Wagners seemed too busy to go to church. She’d never seen busier people in her life. Even when they were home they were always working. She wasn’t sure why they’d gotten married, since they never seemed to spend time together.

  There was a lot to think about here. She was lying in the old double bed in the room at the end of the hall, her quilt against her cheek, sorting it all out, when someone tapped on the door. Before she could respond, Tracy opened the door and peeked inside. “You’re awake?”

  Molly didn’t know what to say. She was always careful to put her quilt away where nobody could see it. It was in sad shape, and one foster mom had tried to throw it away. Molly had learned to keep it under her pillow or in a drawer covered with neatly folded clothing. She bolted up, thrusting the quilt behind her.

  “Do you need me to do something?” she asked.

  “Nope. Not a thing. I just wondered if you were ready for breakfast. Mr. Wagner’s making his famous pancakes and I need reinforcements at the table.” She lowered her voice. “They’re as heavy as lead, and if I have to eat them all by myself, I’ll sink right through the floor.”

  Molly giggled before she could stop herself. Tracy was pretending to sink right where she stood. “What are they made out of?”

  “Some mix with every whole grain known to man. I think he adds ground-up rocks for flavor.”

  Molly made a face. “What do they taste like?”

  Tracy smiled warmly. “Come and see. And after breakfast we’re going over to Alsea Falls. You’ll like it there. There’s a great place to swim at the bottom, but it’s probably too cold by now. Besides after these pancakes, you’d sink like a stone.”

  “I heard that!”

  Tracy grimaced, as if someone had caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Hands appeared on her shoulders, then one masculine arm came round her neck in a pretend choke-hold.

  “Just for that you’ll have to do the dishes, woman. And I’m going to get every bowl in the place dirty, just to show you.”

  “There’s, like, one bowl in the cupboards,” Molly said.

  “Well, there’s a measuring cup and a spatula, and a frying pan.”

  Tracy rolled her eyes. Then she winked at Molly. “You’ll be up in a little while?”

  “Oh, I’ll get up right now. No problem.”

  “Good. Sounds like I’ll need help with all those dishes.” The Wagners left, arms around each other’s waists. Molly watched them go. For just a moment she wished it was a threesome walking down that hallway, arms entwined. But wishes were pointless, and even worse, dangerous. She tucked her quilt out of sight under her pillow and made the bed before she headed for the kitchen.

  By Sunday afternoon Tracy was feeling more relaxed than she had in months. She and Graham had decided—with Molly’s input—to stay another night and drive back to Corvallis early enough in the morning to get Molly to school. Graham had gone to buy fresh salmon and vegetables to grill on the old stone fireplace in the backyard.

  “Do you like fish?” Tracy asked Molly, who had just come inside from a walk to the creek. “How about salmon?”

  “I like almost all fish,” Molly said.

  Tracy was getting good at interpreting the girl’s responses. This one was said with some enthusiasm. “So you’re an aquatarian,” Tracy said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A vegetarian who also eats seafood? Or maybe that’s a vegequarian.”

  “I’m not a vegetarian.”

  “Maybe not, but only because you don’t cook for yourself. Right?”

  Molly smiled a little, but she still looked as if she wasn’t sure she should.

  “I could be a vegetarian easily. Mr. Wagner, too. Except for fish. I don’t think I could give up salmon.” Tracy waited, making a point of her silence.

  “I don’t really like meat that much, I guess,” Molly said carefully. “But I’ll eat it if you want me to.”

  “But why should you? We can fix other things. If you’re all right with fish, we’ll have that a couple of times a week. But we love pasta and vegetables.”

  “Except lima beans,” Molly said.

  Tracy felt her smile widening. “You have a great memory.”

  “I can cook. I learned how a couple of years ago. I like it okay.”

  “What do you like to make?”

  “Cakes. Pies.”

  “Oh, good. A pastry chef. This is incredible news.”

&nbs
p; “You don’t have any cookbooks.”

  Tracy was delighted that Molly had been doing some snooping. “I guess they’re packed away. I don’t do much cooking. I think I have one at home on the bookcase in our bedroom in case I can’t remember how to boil water.”

  “There aren’t any here. I was looking around—” Molly stopped and looked embarrassed.

  “Had a sweet-tooth attack, huh? We should have told Mr. Wagner to get a cake mix or some ice cream for dessert.”

  “I like to make cookies.”

  Tracy tried to remember what was left in the pantry. The last renters hadn’t bothered to pack any of their staples since they were moving across the country. And she’d bought essentials like eggs and butter for the weekend. “If we had a cookbook, we could probably put something together.” She had a sudden inspiration. “The attic. Mr. Wagner’s mother left a bunch of stuff up there for us to sort through. I’ve never really gotten around to it. But there were boxes of books, and I’m sure some were cookbooks.”

  She changed her tone to conspiratorial. “Mr. Wagner’s mom is a chemist. Whenever we visit, she gives me lectures on proteins and carbohydrates. Every meal we eat is like a science experiment. But the food’s pretty good anyway.”

  Molly looked interested. “Did Mr. Wagner ever really, you know, live here?”

  “Just for summers and weekends. But I think this felt like his real home. His parents are pretty formal, but they relaxed more when they were here. He got to run around and be a kid.”

  “Was your life like that, too?”

  “Mine?” Tracy laughed. “Good grief, no. My house was crawling with kids. Still is. There are grandkids now. I’m the only one who doesn’t live nearby. I want you to meet everybody. They’ll like you.”

  Molly looked wary.

  “Not right away,” Tracy assured her. Then she stopped. If she didn’t take Molly to Washington right away, maybe Molly would be living somewhere else by the time she and Graham went to visit her family.

  She changed the subject abruptly, not wanting to examine that thought too closely. “Let’s go see what’s in the attic, shall we?” She put her arm around Molly’s shoulder. “Let’s just hope there aren’t any mice.”

  The fish was a success. The vegetables, although a little on the blackened side, were consumed with enthusiasm, and Molly’s oatmeal cookies were a major hit. She went to bed on a sugar high, and high on praise, as well.

  Tracy and Graham sat outside by the fireplace after Molly went inside, sharing the last of a bottle of wine they had brought from home.

  “The more I get to know her, the less I understand all this,” Tracy said. “She’s a great kid. Maybe I could see passing her around the system if she was setting fire to mattresses or sticking pins in Barbie dolls. But she’s just a normal teenage girl. Too worried about pleasing people. Too quiet and self-contained. But a great kid.”

  Graham swished the wine in his glass. “You spent a lot of time up in the attic with her. Did you learn anything new?”

  Tracy thought about their conversation as she and Molly searched through boxes for cookbooks.

  “We found your baby book, Graham. Apparently you were precocious even then. Walked at nine months, spoke in sentences by eighteen months. I’m impressed. Did you know the book was here?”

  “I’m not surprised. Mom probably thought I should have it. She knew we’d go through all that stuff eventually.”

  “Molly was absolutely fascinated. She forgot to be a grown-up and turned into a kid again. I don’t know if she’s ever seen a baby book before.”

  “She certainly never had one of her own.”

  The two of them fell silent. They had learned the basics of Molly’s past during their foster care training. Her mother was only sixteen when Molly was born. Molly’s father was unknown. At first the mother tried, in her own limited way, to care for the infant, but she was a child herself, with little education and no support from her family.

  Molly was removed from the home several times before she was two. When she was three, her mother was arrested, then briefly imprisoned for forging checks. Once released, she was investigated again for child neglect. By the time Molly was four, she went into foster care and never came back out.

  The story might have ended happily if Molly’s mother had been willing to relinquish her rights so that Molly could be put up for adoption. But even though she’d never made another serious attempt to get Molly back, she refused to give up her legal claim. By the time the courts terminated the woman’s rights, Molly was so old she was considered a special needs adoption. And though there was always hope the right family would step forward to take her, so far no one appropriate had materialized.

  “My mother was always too busy for baby books,” Tracy said. “But she kept shoe boxes for each of us. Locks of hair, hospital bracelets, photographs, notes about the first time we walked, sat up, said ‘Mama.’ You know. Stuff that proves she was paying attention to all my milestones, even if it wasn’t exactly organized.”

  “I’m guessing nobody cared enough about Molly to make notes.”

  “She told me about the first foster home she remembers. It was an older woman with a couple of other foster children—kind of a surrogate grandmother from what I can tell. She was good to Molly. I think she’s probably the person who set her on the right path and taught her what it was like to be in a family. Molly was there until she was almost nine.”

  “What happened?”

  “The woman died suddenly. The children all went to separate homes. Molly never saw any of them again.” Tracy paused. “At least she had some good years when they really mattered.”

  “That was a lot of information for her to share.”

  “It came out in little tiny pieces. She’d say something, then she’d wait for me to respond. If I didn’t jump on her or say something stupid, she’d tell me a little more. It was like walking through a minefield.”

  “And that’s why nobody’s adopted her,” Graham said. “Maybe she’s not sticking pins in Barbie or Ken, but she holds back so much that nobody can get to know her.”

  “So what do these idiots expect? A perfectly normal teenager after all these years in the system? Heck, do they even want a perfectly normal teenager? I mean, I remember what I was like at fourteen. Molly’s easier to love than I was.”

  The words drifted heavenward with the smoke from their fire. Both of them waited for words and smoke to dissipate. But they were left with the residue.

  “Be careful,” Graham said at last.

  “I know. This is temporary. She knows it. We know it. And it won’t pay to get too close. Then she’ll have trouble leaving us when a real family comes along.” Tracy faced him. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And I thought it would be hard. I know kids. I know it’s never easy.”

  “You’re doing a great job.” Graham put his arm around her and drew her closer. “I like watching you with her. It’s a side of you I don’t get to see unless you’re with your brothers and sisters.”

  She punched him in the arm. “Well, you’re pretty squishy with her yourself, you know. Feeding her pancakes, taking her out back to see your old woodworking shop, teaching her how to skip rocks at the creek.”

  “She’s a good kid. I like being with her. I like showing her things. It’s nice to see her in this house. I had some good times here at her age. Being here brings them back, and I like sharing them.”

  Tracy was unexpectedly attracted to this side of Graham. She had always known he was a warmhearted, caring guy. So why was his concern for Molly such a surprise?

  She tried to feel her way. “You were right that night we started talking about taking Molly. Suddenly we’re talking about things that really matter again. Not just what we did at work or where we want to grab a quick bite for supper before we both go home and start working some more.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. When he spoke, it was clear he’d been thinking. “Trace, are you
happy? With our lives? With who we’ve become?”

  The fire was dying down, and she shivered. “I’m happy with you.”

  Graham squeezed her shoulder and drew her closer. “And I’m happy with you. But do you remember the dreams we used to have? Did they involve working so hard at jobs we don’t love?”

  “When did you start thinking about this?”

  “When I started spending time doing other things again. Like coming home at a decent hour. Having family dinners with you and Molly.”

  “Working on your paperwork every night after dinner until midnight?”

  “My job is never going to be nine to five.”

  “Mine, either.”

  “Which is one reason we haven’t really gotten around to having children.”

  “One reason,” she agreed. “But not the only one.”

  “I’ve missed you, Trace.”

  She sighed and turned her face up to his. The fire sputtered and died and the night grew colder. It didn’t really matter. They went inside, and for the rest of the night they kept each other warm.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tracy was so busy for the next three weeks that the dinner hour was the only time in her day when she wasn’t working. She looked forward to preparing the meal and spending time with Molly and Graham at the table catching up.

  Molly still kept to herself too much, but she did answer when they asked questions about school. The picture of a girl with no close friends was emerging. She seemed to get along well enough, but she resisted any suggestions to have friends over to study with her or just to hang out on the weekends. And if she was invited anywhere, she was certainly turning down all the invitations.

  On Friday night three weeks after their weekend away, Tracy knocked on Molly’s door. She opened it when it was clear Molly couldn’t hear her over the sounds of a voice wailing “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman” from the new portable CD player Graham had installed in her room.

  “Molly?”

  Molly looked up from the bed where she was reading, her quilt tucked under one arm.