One Step Enough

by Carla Kelly

  He leaned against the door in the kitchen and watched her efficiently moving from range to table. She had tugged her wild mop of hair back with a piece of heavy-duty string, from the looks of it. He admired her small waist and considered himself amply repaid for having the good sense to persist until he wore her down and she decided to give a Welshman a chance.

  “Stare all you want,” she said, and he realized she stood there with two plates in her hand and watched him. “It’s nearly eight o’clock, and we have other things to do besides, you know …”

  “You caught me,” he told her with a laugh, taking the plates to the table. He looked at the clock. “Where is my child?”

  “If I know Mabli, she’s giving us another moment or two. Sit down. French toast waits for no man.”

  He blessed the food and they ate in companionable silence, Della going to the range to turn the sausages and then skewer one and drop it on his plate. He thought of mounds of oatcakes in lean times and realized there hadn’t been any lean times since he married this treasure.

  When she finished, she pushed back her plate. “I do need to know why you didn’t write us.”

  Elbows on the table, he told her how he had moved Angharad’s smaller bed into the carpenter’s shop and slept there, working himself to the limit, measuring and sawing and hinging. “I suppose I was trying to punish myself for being a fool. I wanted to work myself to death, as if that would have brought one single friend back to life.” Might as well admit the rest. “Dr. Isgreen told me you were making great progress, and I was not.”

  “He said he was going to visit you,” she said, after a long pause in which he saw her gather herself together. “I’m glad he did.”

  “After Emil left, we fitted our first timbered unit on Level Two. It held tight, but we waited out a rock fall as everything settled. I was on one side of the rocks and my crew on the other. Between you and me, the Banner is the devil’s mine. I have so informed Uncle Jesse in my letter of resignation. We’ll see what he does with that information.”

  She reached for his hand, her dark eyes boring into his. He saw all the fear, all twelve years of it. For a small moment, she was a child again. He held his breath, relieved when the glimpse passed. He would have to ask Dr. Isgreen if that little girl from the Colorado Plateau might reappear now and then.

  “I sat there in the dark and thought about my friends, from the Farishes to the Hunters to the Evans, of course.”

  “Did you pray?”

  Did he pray? “Not at first. I knew the Lord was unhappy with me. Why bother an angry man?”

  She shook her head slightly, but her eyes were kind. “I figured you would ask the Lord again for his will in the matter. You listened on May 1 and lived.”

  This wife of his was going to make him tell her the whole uncomfortable truth. He could see it on her face. He glanced at the clock. He was only going to say this once. Angharad didn’t need to know how stupid her father was. Sufficient unto the day was the knowledge that his wife already had a sneaking suspicion.

  “I did, finally.”

  “And?”

  “I heard absolutely nothing this time, no eternal wisdom. Nothing.” He saw the surprise on her face and took her hand again. “Della, it finally occurred to this genius you married that the Lord Almighty had already given me the tools I needed to make a smart decision. I made myself comfortable against the smoothest boulder and realized I didn’t need another mine in my life. Not one more.”

  “Is that when you started to sing?”

  God bless the ladies. “You know me pretty well, don’t you?” he asked his particular lady. “I thought about the miners’ song and realized I had it wrong all these years. I was still trying to see the distant scene, when all I needed was the ‘one step enough’ part. Who wouldn’t sing after that?”

  His cup of life filled to the brim when he heard Angharad’s footsteps on the porch. He took Della by the hand and they opened the door together. His other treasure stood there, covered in snow.

  “Heavens, Angharad, was there a blizzard between our house and Center Street that no one told us about?” Della asked as she stepped outside to unbutton Owen’s daughter’s coat, help her out of it, and then shake it off.

  Owen prudently decided not to point out the obvious. The next Ice Age could have happened overnight and a husband and wife who hadn’t seen each other in too long wouldn’t have heard a thing.

  “Mam, I made a snow angel on the lawn.” She pointed to it.

  Could his cup get any fuller? “Daughter, after breakfast I will put on my coat and make another one with you,” Della said. “Come inside!”

  She did, and he held out his hands to her. This lovely child who looked so much like her mother rested her hands in his. “Nadolig Llawen, Da.”

  He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Ac i chithau, Angharad m cara. And a happy new year,” he added in English for Della’s benefit.

  He picked up Angharad and hugged her until she protested and he set her down. She went to the tree and frowned.

  “Da, you already have my present, the singing dragon. I wish I had another gift for you.”

  “Why would I need anything else?” He glanced at Della. “If your mam won’t cut up stiff, I plan to bring in some wood from my workshop and carve a suitable frame for it on the kitchen table. It’s warmer in here.”

  “May I help?” Angharad asked after a glance at Mam, who nodded.

  “I thought you would never ask.”

  He sat his ladies down on the sofa. “I have some presents too. Angharad, you won’t mind if I give Mam’s to her first?”

  “Only if I am next to give her one.”

  “Very well.”

  Owen picked up a little box he had left under the tree before time and tide swept him into the bedroom last night. He handed it to Della with a flourish. “It’s long overdue.”

  Her eyes full of questions, she opened the little thing. He held his breath, hoping it was right. He saw her eyes widen. She nodded and then held up a heart-shaped gold locket.

  Could a man’s heart melt? She put her two hands in his in the Welsh way, this gift of his, better than a present, from the Aegean. “Rwy’n dy garu di,” then, “Did I say that right, daughter? Angharad taught me.”

  “You said it right.” He could teach her Ti Yw fy nghariad later, because the Welsh knew the difference between formal love and the more abandoned kind that he preferred. Poor Englishmen—one phrase for everything. Hard to believe they had conquered his country.

  Angharad laughed. “My turn. Mam, you won’t believe this!”

  She went to the tree and held out her present to Della. It was another small box. Owen felt a great laugh of massive proportion growing inside him.

  Della opened the box, took out another heart-shaped locket, and pulled Angharad down onto her lap. “You rascal!”

  “You needed one, Mam. I could tell you did, almost as much as Da needed a dragon.”

  He watched in delight as Della and Angharad clung to each other. Della pointed to his daughter’s Christmas stocking and a by-now-familiar small box sticking out of the top.

  “What could that possibly be for you, dearest?” she asked as she pointed Angharad to the mantelpiece.

  “Mam, you shouldn’t have,” Angharad teased after she opened the box and took out yet another locket.

  Goodness, what a strange gift-giving this had become. Might as well continue it. “There is my present to you, Angharad,” Owen said. “Better open it and look surprised.”

  His daughter picked up another small box and started laughing even before she removed the ribbon. Della leaned against him and laughed.

  “Let me guess,” Angharad joked, which set them off in another wave of merriment. When they had subsided into weak giggles, she tore off the ribbon and paper and held up a fourth, and hopefully final, heart-shaped locket.

  “Heavens, what a bunch of sillies,” Della said. “I love you both.”

  He was about t
o kiss her when someone knocked on the door. “Do you think we made so much noise that the next door neighbors called the constable?” he asked. “I’ll go peacefully, but I expect bail as soon as the bank opens tomorrow.”

  Sure enough, a man in uniform stood at the door, but it was a delivery uniform of some sort. “Merry Christmas, sir. Does Mrs. Della Davis live here?”

  Thank God she does, Owen thought. He looked down at the handsome cream-colored envelope the man held out to him. “Aye, you’ve come to the right home.”

  “Here you are then, and a Happy New Year too.” He took a nickel tip from Owen and hurried back to his automobile, ready for other last-minute deliveries.

  The package read “Della Davis,” the address, and nothing more. He took it inside and plopped it in Della’s lap. “At least we know it isn’t a heart-shaped locket, m cara.”

  “Oh, please, my stomach hurts and I can’t laugh anymore,” she told him as she opened the envelope and peered inside.

  He looked at her in alarm when her olive skin paled to a sickly white. She stared, covered her eyes, and wept. He picked up the envelope, ready to order Angharad to hunt for smelling salts, if they even had any.

  He opened the envelope wider and knew why his wife sat there so stunned. He pulled out four one-hundred-dollar bills and a note. “ ‘Long overdue, niece,’ ” he read out loud. “ ‘I can never make it up, but this is a start. Forgive me, Uncle Karl.’ ”

  Chapter 42

  L

  The cash went into their bank account two days later during Della’s lunch break at Knight Investment Company. She also sent a letter on its way to Uncle Karl’s law office, thanking him and assuring him she was paid in full and, more to the point, so was Frederick Anders.

  She had kissed her husband goodbye, hair still uncombed, sitting at the kitchen table and already at work on a frame for Angharad’s singing dragon. He hummed as he worked, which made her smile all the way down Center Street to her desk in the Knight Building, where more letters to Canada waited.

  Her hand went to her neck, where she felt the one chain that bore two lockets now, one with a bit of hair from Owen’s head on one side and hers on the other. They were the same color, but her curl had been subdued practically with a whip and chair into the tiny frame. The other locket carried Angharad’s lighter hair and another curly offering of her own, mother and daughter.

  Angharad’s locket—the child vowed never to remove it—held Owen and Della’s hair. By unanimous consent, the one remaining locket went on its way to Knightville with Uncle Jesse to the Tates’ eldest daughter.

  That night they discussed the unexpected windfall from her uncle. Owen assured Della the money was hers, along with all decisions relating to it. He had accumulated enough money working for Uncle Jesse to weather out unemployment, as long as it didn’t last too long, and after all, she was employed.

  Owen knew her too well. He looked at her reflection in the mirror as he brushed her hair. “You have something in mind, don’t you?”

  “It’s perfectly selfish.”

  “I doubt that. Tell me or I’ll tickle it out of you.”

  “You know precisely where that will lead,” she said, and she laughed when he shrugged. “It’s this, my man: My father’s birthday was March 10. I want to take that Anders plaque you carved for me …”

  “Back when you were still Anders.”

  “… and somehow leave it on Papa’s grave in Hastings,” she concluded. “I’ve never been back. We can afford that, can’t we?”

  “That and more,” he said. “If there is no headstone, we can make arrangements while we are there. March 10 it is.”

  L

  She didn’t expect either Will or Ray to come into the office, not during that week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, but there they were one afternoon, the bearers of doughnuts and eggnog, which they insisted on sharing with her.

  Before Ray left, he stopped at Della’s desk. “Can you get Owen to drop by tomorrow morning?” he asked. “Dad has an idea, and we like it too.”

  “Certainly. Do you need some cabinets or flooring?”

  “Something a little larger,” Ray said. He took the last doughnut. “So glad neither of you like the black-and-white sprinkles. Have him drop by around eleven. He can take you to lunch when we’re done.”

  “Whatever can the Knights be planning?” Owen asked over supper when Della announced the request from the Knight brothers. “No one mentioned mines, I am confident in assuming.”

  “Not one word.”

  “M cara, your face will freeze that way if you frown too often,” he teased.

  After he came out of Will’s office the next day, he invited her to lunch with a handsome man, only she was not to tell her husband. Della put on her hat and coat and gave him her arm.

  Without any consultation required, they walked to the Palace and sat at the counter, ordering grilled cheese sandwiches and cherry phosphates.

  “If you don’t tell me really soon what is going on, I can guarantee I will have a splitting headache tonight,” Della threatened.

  “Goodness. For a fairly new bride, you have a vast awareness of marriage politics,” he teased.

  “I mean it, Owen Rhys Davis.”

  “Horrors! Three names! They want me to spend the next two weeks in an architect’s office in Salt Lake, first to learn more about blueprints, then next to visit a construction site. I’ll be getting the same wages I earned in Tintic for those two weeks, and they’ll put me up in a hotel.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Della said. “I’ll send a letter to Kristina and Mr. Whalley, and they’ll be pleased to have you. What are the Knights planning?”

  “Neither would say. They wanted me to assure you it did not involve mines and that I might be useful to them as a citizen of the Commonwealth.”

  “Canada,” she said, interested. “Beet sugar.”

  “Is that a secret code?” he asked, amused. “I couldn’t identify a beet if someone lobbed a handful at me. I didn’t even know you could concoct sugar from beets.” He made a face. “I never cared for beets. If you ever decide to serve them, I’ll get a headache.”

  “Owen, I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “Why would you want to, m cara? I’m so loveable at home.”

  L

  A week later she kissed him goodbye at the Interurban depot and reminded him that he had extra collars and stockings in his valise. She hurried back to work, because most of those letters written before Christmas had turned into contracts to be typed. The Knights’ lawyer on her second floor had left her a barely legible note, throwing himself on her mercy because his secretary had a toothache and he needed her.

  She happily kept herself too busy, because neither Will nor Ray was especially communicative about their reasons for Owen’s trip to Salt Lake. Better to tackle contracts than try to second-guess bosses who were being remarkably mum.

  Owen came home from Salt Lake on Friday night and laughed out loud when Della served him beets. When Angharad asked why beets were so funny, he only smiled and changed the subject.

  “It’s a long week without you,” he told her later, much later, when the house was dark. “The Whalleys don’t help much. Della, if someone had told you that the ever-so-proper manager in Menswear would make a cake of himself over a pretty blond, would you have believed it?”

  “No, but that’s what love does to people apparently. I noticed you ate the beets, oh loving husband.”

  “No hardship.” He pulled her closer. “That’s better. I must tell you I spent two evenings at your favorite house in the avenues visiting your uncle. By the way, I am supposed to call him Karl and not Mr. Anders now.”

  “It’s not a warm place, is it?” she asked and rubbed her arms, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  “It is not,” he agreed, and then he took over the arm-rubbing duty.

  “Were my cousins there?”

  “Karl mentioned they
were both back east, one of them in Vassar and the other at Boston College. I wonder what that tuition costs.”

  She had to know. “Did you see my aunt?”

  “I did not,” he said with a shake of his head. “Karl is worried about her. A nurse lives there now.”

  He kissed her cheek. “He wants you to visit.”

  “No.”

  “I told him it would be your decision. I think he wanted to argue the matter, but I had to leave.” He gave her a pat. “Do you know those architects have been giving me homework? How fortunate that I like blueprints.”

  “As much as you like me?”

  Della thought he would laugh, but he didn’t. “Some things I don’t joke about,” he said, and he kissed her.

  He returned to Salt Lake for the final week, this time to visit the construction site of a brewery. Halfway through the morning on Wednesday, Uncle Jesse’s private secretary hurried into the office.

  “Della, you have a long-distance telephone connection waiting upstairs. Please hurry.”

  Every dark moment of her life seemed to flash through her brain like a burst of lightning, and then she calmed herself. Long distance meant it wasn’t Angharad. Owen wasn’t in a mine. Who else did she know?

  “I’ve never received a telephone call,” she said, “never mind a long distance one.”

  The secretary touched her arm. “No fears, Della. I can ask who it is. Come on.”

  She hurried upstairs, too distracted to think of a prayer fit for a modern device.

  The secretary sat down and indicated a chair by her desk. She spoke to the operator, waited a moment, and then asked, “Who is this, please? Owen Davis? I’ll put your wife on.”

  Della sighed with relief and took the receiver from the secretary. “Owen? Owen?”

  “The very man of your dreams,” came a tinny voice. “Should I sing one verse of ‘Men of Harlech’ to prove it?”

  She swallowed. If he could joke, nothing was seriously wrong. “What’s the matter?” Maybe she could tease too. “Did you forget your train fare?”