Small-Town Dreams by Kate Welsh Read Free Book Online Page A

live with us when he was discharged. I was a teacher and I was the most qualified to teach him all he needed to know. Besides, we loved him already.”
    Then his attachment to the Tallingers was almost like that of a child for his parents. “So he calls you ‘Ma’ because you became his mother, but why doesn’t he call Henry ‘Dad’ or ‘Pa’?”
    “Joshua isn’t sure. He said it doesn’t feel like a compliment to him. Maybe he didn’t have a good relationship with his real father. It’s one of those vague feelings Joshua gets—and Henry doesn’t care what Joshua calls him. He just loves his Josh the way he is and is grateful to have him with us.” Irma picked up both bowls, moved toward a pot on the stove and dumped in the peas for cooking. “Besides,” she continued, “he didn’t start out to call me ‘Ma.’ He just couldn’t get his tongue around ‘Ir-ma’ at first, and it came out ‘Ma.’ He laughed. I laughed. And he just kept calling me ‘Ma.’”
    “This is all so incredible. Like a movie of the week or something.”
    “No. It’s a miracle is what it is,” Irma said. “Those doctors didn’t give him a ghost of a chance to live, let alone thrive the way he has.” Irma turned back to Cassidy, her pale eyes lit with pride, though her expression was serious. “His mind’s so quick, all he has to do is read something once and he knows it. I taught school for thirty years and I never had a brighter student. And there’s nothing he can’t fix if it’s broken, either. The only two problems he’s left with are the loss of memory and the fact he just says whatever pops into his mind. Of course, there’s that sense of direction of his, too.” Irma laughed. “But who knows if he wasn’t always like that. He’s a special man, and we’re proud of him.”
    Cassidy could see that they were, but wouldn’t his real family have felt the same way? Cassidy could only imagine their suffering. “Hasn’t anyone tried to find out where he belongs?”
    “I’ve thought from the first that he belongs right here, but we did try. We had people from that TV mystery show come up here and take his picture and film an interview with him about nine or ten months after he came to live with us. They did a whole story on him.” She snorted in derision. “He was terribly embarrassed, and all for nothing. Nothing ever came of it. It’s like he appeared out of nowhere. I like to think that the Lord meant for us to find him and bring him into our home. And Joshua has gone on to built a satisfying life for himself in the Lord’s service.”
    He seemed to have, but Cassidy couldn’t help but wonder about the people he’d spent those first twenty-five or thirty years with. She knew what their grief felt like. She remembered back to when she was eight years old. She’d awakened in a hospital to find her grandfather by her bed, telling her that her parents were dead. A wall of snow had come crashing into their vacation home while they’d sat snuggled around the fire, and had swept them from her life. The people in Joshua’s life would have felt the same tearing grief she had. That she still did feel twenty years later.
    She was glad that at a time when Joshua was all alone in the world he had found the kind of unconditional love parents give. Because though Cassidy’s grandfather had raised her, she still felt she had to earn his love—one day at a time.

Chapter Four
    C assidy wandered aimlessly along the marked trail through the woods. She’d put off her walk until after lunch, having continued to help Irma in the kitchen. Taking the time to cook from scratch was something she rarely did, and she found it, and the time with Irma, strangely soothing.
    Soon after sharing a noon meal with the older couple, she’d returned to her room and had fallen into a deep sleep. When she’d awakened, refreshed but no more settled, she’d set off for the walk she’d planned that morning.
    After hearing about all