Love Is Where You Find It

Part 13

Henry's gift awakened something within Loretta because from the night of her birthday on, the songs just kept on coming. After the children are tucked into bed and she helped with the chores sufficiently, Loretta sits out on the porch, writes down whatever lyrics that enter her mind and plays around with melodies on her guitar.

It soothes her, keeps her sane. Especially since Doo decided to send divorce papers to Indiana after apparently trying to send them to the house in Washington for months. This spawns many songs about lost love as well as some about the good times gone by.

Sometimes the songs seem good to her, then the next day she looks at them and deems them horrible. But it doesn't matter if they're good as long as it helps. One fine morning, a few weeks after her birthday and a few weeks until her children finish the school year, Loretta carries her book to work on a whim.

Once her break comes, she sneaks out back to finish a song she thought up while washing dishes.

"Hey!" Loretta jumps, her notebook nearly falling from her grasp and onto the ground. Henry looks down at her with a wide grin, which grows only wider when he recognizes what she is holding. "You are using your gift."

A rosy color seeps over recently tanned cheeks. "I don't know how to thank you for it cause it's been helpin' me lots to write."

"I'm real glad to hear that." He sits beside her and glances at the pages.

It causes her blush to grow deeper, because she has made such a mess out of something so precious. There are crossed out words because sometimes what sounds good in her head doesn't when it's written down. Sometimes she would use Betty and Jack's school pencils so she could erase things, but the erasers would smear. To make matters worse, she knows that her spelling is still really bad.

"How many songs did you write there?"

"A few." She turns a few pages and shows him where she transcribed the first two songs she has written, to let him know that she at least started out with good intentions.

"Can I pay for a cup of coffee?" Henry asks.

"I don't drink no coffee."

He frowns. "You don't drink no coffee and you got four kids? How do you manage?"

"I don't know," Loretta admits with a slight laugh.

"Do you write them about your husband?"

Any trace of her laugh vanishes. "I...yeah, I reckon. Most of em anyway. But he's not my husband anymore, he sent me divorce papers."

"He's still your husband until the divorce is final."

"It don't matter. He don't wanna be my husband anymore. Or a daddy to the young'uns neither."

"If you was mine, I would never let you go."

"I thought he would never let me go. That we'd be married forever. But he done wrote me that all the love he had for me was gone now and he can't."

Henry asks, "Did you ever try the hot chocolate? You like hot chocolate, right?"

"Not as much as my kids do."

"You'll like ours." He stands and offers her a hand; leads her back into the kitchen, where he pours two cups of still steaming hot chocolate.

"Are you allowed to just take it?"

"It's pretty much mine, ain't it?" Henry grins. "I own half the diner."

"Half of it?" The words escape Loretta.

"One day I'm gonna get all of it," Henry tells her. He hands her the cup, which Loretta takes a sip, careful not to burn her mouth. She swirls the sweetness around her mouth and smiles.

"See," Henry cries out in triumph. "You like it." He turns more serious as he adds, "I've been talking to daddy about getting you a raise. You've been working hard."

"I'm not a real good waitress."

"You're real good at washing dishes."

"My eight year old is too."

Henry shakes his head. "We don't hire no eight year olds."

For a few minutes, they stand in silence, sipping at their hot chocolate all the while.

"Henry?" Loretta's hesitant voice breaks through the quiet. When he turns to her, she almost changes her mind but then the words come regardless. "How come that you're always bein' so kind to me?"

"Why would I not be? You came in here looking like such a sorry, sweet little thing who could use herself some help. And then I came to like you real well through everything else that happened since. That man of yours, he don't know what he did there. One day you're gonna be somebody and he's gonna regret-"

Loretta bursts into laughter before he can finish. He always does that to her. Henry is funny in a way, always talking about how she'll be a singer or songwriter someday.

"Loretta," he says, "I know a way you can get yourself a raise real fast." She opens her mouth to respond but is promptly stopped by Henry. "Not so fast. Don't thank me yet cause you're not exactly gonna like it."

Loretta can't fathom what exactly there is to not like about a raise, but she asks, "And why is that?"

"Now hear me out. What you'd have to do is sing-"

"I can't," Loretta cuts him off. "Not in front of people."

"Okay. Okay, I hear you. Now answer me this- did you ever try it?"

"Well, I done told you that I done sang around people but they didn't even pay me no mind. Half the time my babies don't and that's who I sing for mostly. Or myself."

"All you'd have to do is pretend that you're singing for yourself or your kids. You see, if you go out there and sing, you're gonna get a bunch of tips. Daddy's gonna like it and finally see how useful you are to us and give you that raise you deserve."

"If anyone would give me tips for it at all," Loretta points out.

"They would. I promise you they would. Just give it a try. Just one week."

"I don't know enough songs." It's a stupid argument, she knows. She has written a whole book full of songs and her head is full of mountain songs she learned through the years.

"Give it a try just once and I'll take you out to dinner."

"Dinner where?" Loretta asks.

"That part is a surprise, honey. If you just try once...you got a real good voice just singing doin' the dishes and you don't even try then."

"Maybe I was tryin'," Loretta counters.

"Nah," Henry dismisses immediately. "If you were  you would be craving the attention, not be embarrassed by it. Unless you're a good actress and that's somethin' I don't think you are cause you're as real as they come."

"I'll take dinner," Loretta says, if only because she loves the prospect of getting out for once and her parents would be at home with the kids anyway.

"But I can't convince you to sing?"

"You already convinced me to write songs and go to dinner with you."

Myra, the main waitress, bustles past them, signaling to them that she was ready for her break.

Loretta turns to rush back to work, but then turns back to Henry one more time when a question enters her mind. "Do you know how many songs there is on a record?"

"Sometimes you get ten, sometimes you get twelve. That's on an album."

Loretta picks up her notebook again and holds it out toward him. "Well, I done wrote an album."

Henry smiles and says, "That you did. Keep on writing."