Love Is Where You Find It

Part 23

Sometimes she's scared. Not because things are going wrong but because they aren't. She is rather convinced that life can't go as well as hers is going for very long. There has to be some disaster waiting just around the corner.

They are having a harsh winter this year but it won't be much longer now, she knows, as February has almost passed and the month of March is considered to be a spring month.

There'll be a church fundraiser in May and Loretta has been told that she ought to start preparing the youth band, who would participate.

On Sunday night she lays awake, unable to sleep as the lyrics of a song that was begging to be written bounced around her skull.

So she gets up and she writes, and at last she can rest. She doesn't have the time to look at it again until Monday evening, while Henry is reading to the children. Loretta doesn't really understand how he willingly comes over almost every night to read to them and talk with her. She wonders how he even finds these books which all four of them seem to enjoy equally.

All she does in exchange is feed him most days, but Henry started buying her groceries sometime after Christmas. So it makes no difference to Loretta at all, she will be cooking for herself and the kids anyway, what is one more person?

Henry reading with the children gives Loretta an hour to tidy up and do the dishes without them scurrying underfoot and making it all the more difficult to get things done. Though sometimes she likes to listen to him read. He switches voices to speak for different characters and reads with a fluency she could only dream of.

Jack Benny's teacher sent home a note saying that his reading has improved, and that, Loretta is certain, is on Henry.

She smiles to herself as Henry comes sauntering out of the girls room, the boys following along after him. She goes after the boys to sing to them. They are chatting about the fables Henry read to them, how each one of them got to pick out three of the stories.

She kisses them, cuddles them and sings to them, then repeats the entire process on the girls. All the while, Henry is waiting patiently.

"Gettin' those young ones to sleep every night sure is a lot of work," Loretta proclaims as she exits the girls room.

"Yeah, sure is. But you're doin' mighty fine."

"I try. Do you wanna see the song I wrote for the fundraiser?"

"You wrote a song for the fundraiser? I thought you're not gonna perform?"

"Oh lordy I won't. But I thought the kids could if they liked it. It's somethin' I thought of after what we talked about at church." Loretta grabs Henry by the arm and leads him out to the living area.

"Here," Loretta says cheerfully. She beams when she hands him the paper. "I didn't write it down neat yet so..."

"I can read it fine," Henry assures her. He reads the song through once, then twice, before asking, "And how does that sound when you're singing?"

Loretta bursts into song, any shyness she had regarding singing in front of him long discarded.

"You're not gonna get the kids to sing this," Henry proclaims once she is finished.

"Why?" Her face crumbles. "You don't like it?"

"God no, Loretta, nothin' like that. I just don't think your youth band is gonna be able to manage that."

"They would too," Loretta insists. "The kids are real good. You ain't heard them all that much. If I show 'em how they'll do it real well."

"But they won't do it like you. It's your song, you're the one who does it the way it's supposed to be done."

"I'm not gonna be in the fundraiser other than that I'm gonna stand with the kids if they want me to."

"If you asked to be in it they'd let you in a heartbeat."

"I know that, honey, but it ain't about me and besides that, I can't sing in front of all those people."

"You said the same thing about singing at the diner and now it's all routine," Henry points out. "It never bothers you anymore now, does it?"

"No, Loretta admits meekly. "Now it don't."

"It wouldn't be much different at a fundraiser. And you'd do a lot of good."

Loretta twists her lip, seriously considering for a moment. "Yeah, I reckon you're right but I don't wanna take it away from the kids. I don't want them to think them performing ain't good enough."

"But they could still perform. They perform and you perform and the church gets a whole lot of money. And new guitars. You said they need new guitars bad."

"Not new guitars," Loretta corrects. "We need new strings and the guitars is gonna be alright."

"Definitely a new piano though."

"No, honey. They can do somethin' with it. Adjust it or... is it called adjusting?"

Henry gives a helpless shrug. "Don't ask me. I don't know a thing about music."

"Oh, I don't either. I never known anything but how to sing."

"You're teaching a little nine-year-old how to play the guitar."

"Danny? He teaches himself. I just show him how you do the chords and all that, he practices it all by himself."

"But it's because of you that he can do that, Loretta. Don't ever sell yourself short."

"I hear you, honey. Sit with me on the couch?"

Henry smiles. "Sure."

***

It's a Friday morning and Henry Carpenter is on a mission. He finds Loretta wiping down tables at the front of the diner.

"Loretta," he calls, unable to keep from smiling when her head snaps up. "Myra is gonna take over for a bit now. My daddy is letting me borrow you for an hour."

"What do you need me for?"

"I'm not gonna tell you." Henry waves her over and she does come, albeit hesitantly.

"You're not gonna take me somewhere to sing in public, are you?"

"Definitely not."

He leads her to his car. They end up driving mostly in silence, with the radio serving as background noise.

"I know where we're goin'," Loretta squeals out of nowhere. "The lake! The one where you took me the first time we gone on a date."

Turning to the side to look at her, all wind blown hair and big blue eyes, Henry grins and nods his head.

"But you can't just take me away on a trip in the middle of the day."

"It's not a trip."

When they reach their final destination, Henry opens the car door for her and offers Loretta his hand.

"Remember when we came here for the first time?" Henry asks. "You were so excited, you skipped around like a little kid. And we sat on that rock and talked about how it makes me think of that song you wrote then."

"Whispering Sea," she reminds him. "I was still real sad about Doo then. About havin' lost him."

"And now you aren't?" Henry asks in a voice saturated with caution.

"No. But I'll always miss him some in a way. But if we was still together we wouldn't be here now. We woulda never met."

"That's true. And I can't imagine that now." Henry laces his hand through hers. "Come over here, Loretta. Let's go to the rock where we used to sit so I can ask you somethin'."

They stand by the rock, their eyes meeting above the deep blue water. And finally, he asks his question.

"Loretta Lynn, will you marry me?"