Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 03 - The Recorder's Way by Rohn Federbush Page B

certainly filled a room. She couldn’t help wondering how tall his children might be.
    ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
    Trip Ann Arbor to Adrian
    Max barely remembered which roads led to the Adrian convent. He briefly considered finding a new apartment on the way and drove to the east side of town before heading south. Helen asked him where he was going. “Without Maybell, my studio on First Street doesn’t seem habitable.” He could engage a mover to pack up his belongings. In the meantime, he’d live in a motel and shop for changes of clothing at Briarwood Mall.
    “Your lifestyle doesn’t match the families in the enclaves of condominiums and gated communities on the outskirts of Ann Arbor.”
    Max nodded in agreement. He noticed Helen emphasized the word families . If they became a family, married, and had maybe five children, then they would fit into the newer affluent housing settlements. But for now thoughts of downtown Ann Arbor’s busy pedestrian nightlife, with the sidewalk restaurant trade and street musicians swiftly negated thoughts of relocating. Home meant living near main campus with young people, summer festivals with street fairs, antique car shows, concerts, live theatre, movies. The non-stop cultural life of Ann Arbor was only blocks away from his apartment.
    Helen asked, “Are you going to allow Maybell, Anita, to ruin your bachelor pad?”
    Max grunted. “ Of course, if I’d demanded to be married before being with her, nothing would have happened. No baby harvest while she was married to another man.”
    He remembered an aunt, his mother’s sister, who helped him retain his sanity after his parents’ violent deaths. “Aunt Rose Emery,” Max said. He had lost touch with her after he joined the army to serve in Iraq.
    “Where is your aunt?” Helen asked.
    “ When I was thirteen, my father committed suicide after killing my mother in a jealous rage. My aunt comforted me. I remember smelling her freshness, a baby-powder odor clung to her mourning dress. She said she could help.”
    Helen didn’t comment.
    “At that promise, I broke down, sobbed like a three-year-old.” Max kept his eyes on the road. “Aunt Rose let me weep. Finally, she patted my back and told me, ‘If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, he will take away all your pain.’”
    “ I didn’t believe anyone could stop the raging feelings clenching my guts.” Max looked over at Helen. “I remember hanging my head. It w as hopeless.”
    ‘ What do you have to lose?’ She asked me and handed me her open Bible, saying, ‘Read aloud Verse 16 of John’s Third Chapter.’”
    I blinked through tears to read the words of Jesus, which were printed in red ink. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
    “You memorized the verse,” Helen said.
    “Aunt Rose asked me if I wanted to believe.” Max kept his eyes on the traffic. “I remember asking her how. She tugged on my curls and told me she knew I trusted her. ‘I’m not going to put bad food in front of you when you come to live with me and belief in our Savior will do you no harm. Try to accept the Lord into your heart.’”
    “ Words sprang from my grief, ‘Lord, help me accept you as my Savior.’” Helen touched his arm. Max continued, “I remember Aunt Rose wept, while a feeling without end, as far as the ocean’s reach, filled me with a warmth and unexplainable peace. ‘Wow,’ I said as I reached for Aunt Rose’s hand out of thankfulness.”
    Suddenly to Max, the reality of a child in his future, his child, didn’t feel like a disaster. “Now part of me is going to walk on the same earth I’m treading.” He tried to shoot down his growing elation as he viewed freshly tilled earth on past both sides of the Mustang’s windows. “The weather isn’t warm enough to put the convertible top down.”
    “W ithout catching pneumonia,” Helen said as if