by Joyce Alec
“Yeah, well, if you want to have food for you or your kid, I need to keep staying down in the barn. That’s what happens when there are more mouths to feed.”
Haddie flinched. Those sorts of comments about Katherine were starting to become all too frequent.
“I understand that,” she said as placidly as she could. “And I am very grateful for all of your hard work, but—”
“I’m sorry, but I did warn you about this before you came all this way,” Jack replied, putting his hat on his head, wiping his face and beard with his handkerchief. “Why don’t you go into town? Get some fresh air?”
Get out of his hair, more like, Haddie thought.
“Perhaps I will,” Haddie said. “Though I would likely have to impose on Betsy or Alice. It would be too long of a ride to get back out here before nightfall.”
“Well, don’t be a burden on anyone,” Jack said. “Bring some of that coin I left you to pay them if it is going to be too much trouble.”
Haddie felt a lump in her throat. Does he really think this little of me?
“Of course,” Haddie said. “Have a good day.”
Jack said nothing as he walked out the front door.
She collapsed into one of the chairs and started to cry. His aloofness was not something new. He had not warmed up to her, even though she had been living with him for months. Although she had not hoped for love, she did hope to have a friendship with her husband.
A few nights later, Haddie woke up to Katherine screaming in the middle of the night. It took her a few moments of listening hard in the dark to understand why.
There was howling out in the forest.
Haddie rubbed her heavy eyes and pulled herself from the bed, crossing to Katherine’s cradle. She lifted her into her arms, noting just how much she was growing and how much heavier she was, and began her usual stroll up and down the length of the room, bouncing Katherine with her head on her shoulder. She whispered and hummed some hymns quietly, but Katherine was resilient. Nothing seemed to shake the fear that she had experienced.
There was a banging on the door, and Haddie nearly leapt out of her skin.
“What’s the matter?” Jack’s voice was low and gruff. It was obvious he was not happy to be woken. “Can’t you get her to calm down?
“I am trying,” Haddie protested.
“Well, what’s the matter then?”
“She heard the wolves,” Haddie replied. “Out in the woods. They were very close to the house tonight.”
“They aren’t going to hurt her,” Jack replied angrily.
“I am sure the noise just startled her. She is too young to know how dangerous wolves can be,” Haddie cried.
“This is three nights in a row,” Jack growled. “The one thing that I need when I come back to this house is rest. And what am I not getting right now? Rest.”
Haddie just stared, dumbfounded, at the door. Really, he can’t be this cruel, can he?
Her eyes welled up with tears.
“She’s just a baby, Jack!” she cried. “You knew that, and you still took us in! If you didn’t want us here, then why did you agree to marry me in the first place?”
Silence.
“This is what children do! They need care and tender affection! When they are hungry, you feed them. When they are scared, you comfort them. She is doing what babies do, and I promise you, she is not trying to bother you intentionally.”
Still, he said nothing.
She rolled her eyes, tears splashing down her burning cheeks.
“Just…get some sleep. The both of you.” His tone was more defeated, less heated than it had been.
She didn’t see Jack for almost three days after that.
On those long, lonely days, she found herself thinking of Adam. She missed his smile, his jovial nature, and the way that he loved Katherine.
He was a very sensitive sort of man, but one with moral fiber and integrity. He was well respected by his peers and never missed an opportunity to help someone in need.
When she was angry with Jack, she compared what he did to what Adam would have done. Adam surely would not have scolded poor Katherine for crying. Instead, he would have lifted her into his arms, the tiny bundle she was, and smile and kiss her soft forehead as he rocked her, singing to her until she calmed down.
Haddie choked back more tears as she forced herself to continue hanging the laundry up on the line. Katherine wasn’t Jack’s child, and it seemed like he wouldn’t even be the father figure she hoped he would be after getting to know the child.
She knew it wasn’t fair to Jack. She barely knew the man. In all of the time they had known each other, she had only spent a handful of nights with him. A few nights were just spent talking, and those were the nights she felt like she might like Texas after all. Haddie saw glimpses of kindness in Jack when he actually made time for her. However, there hadn’t been many of those nights. Mostly, Jack hardly spoke to Haddie at all.
It wasn’t that she hated him, but he certainly did not feel like her husband.
At meal times, they sat across the table from one another, and Jack would eat so fast that they barely had time to talk. He apologized about it over and over again, saying that he got in the habit before he married her so as to not spend too long in such a lonely state. He had made an effort once in a while to linger and talk to her, but she could see that he was so eager to leave and do something that she gave him permission to leave the table, which he seemed to take happily.
She was beginning to understand him a little bit more every day. He was the sort of man that always had to be doing something. If he was standing still, it was wasting time. Haddie had started to pick up on his antsy behavior whenever he was around. If he were moving and doing things, she felt she must, too.
As such, everything was done faster and more efficiently, but she found herself longing for things to be done in a gentler way. She made a comment about it to Jack one morning over breakfast.
“You never stop moving, do you?”
He blanched and stared up at her in shock from his chair, the newspaper spread out in front of him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Look at you now,” Haddie said, setting the hot tea pot down in front of him. “You can’t even read the paper on its own. You must be writing down a list of what you need in town, having your tea, and jostling your leg.”
He looked around at the great many things before him.
“And?”
Haddie laughed. “And? And when do you rest, hmm? When do you ever take a moment to just breathe?”
She reached in front of him and pulled the list out from beneath his elbow.
“Wait a minute—” he protested.
“I have been here long enough to know what you need,” Haddie replied.
“But there are things that only I will remember.”
She wiggled her finger in front of him. “No. You eat your breakfast in peace and quiet for once. Work will always be there. You need to learn the value of rest.”
But even as she watched, she could see him growing more anxious by the second, as if he were swelling and about to burst.
She eventually returned his list to him, but she hoped that he was starting to learn that he was going to need to make some changes in his life. She couldn’t stand the idea of never having a moment’s peace, and she was going to make him understand it as well.
It was early April when Betsy arrived at the house, a large basket of dried herbs and spices clutched in her hands. It was a windy day, and Haddie had to help her inside by taking her hand and pulling her across the threshold while she held onto her hat.
“Well, good afternoon, Haddie,” Betsy said, grinning up at her.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” Haddie replied. “What brings you all the way out here?”
“Well, it’s been a while since I saw you. I wanted to see how you and Katherine were holding up all the way out here!”
Haddie smile
d gratefully at her. Even if things were difficult with Jack, she had found that those people who lived in town were pleasant and warm.
“Why don’t we sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?” Haddie offered.
“That would be lovely, dear.”
Haddie led the way to the kitchen and set a pot on to boil.
“So, how is everything?” Betsy asked, winking at her. “How are things going with Jack? Are you two settling in here together?”
Haddie hesitated. She certainly didn’t want to lie, but Jack had a good reputation in town, and she didn’t want to ruin that either.
“It has been…an adjustment,” Haddie decided to say. Katherine was happily chewing on the end of a spoon in Haddie’s lap. “I suppose that is normal though…since we didn’t know one another before we were married.”
Betsy’s face fell ever so slightly. “Have things been all right?”
“Yes…” Haddie said, but even as she said it, she knew it was mostly a lie. “No…I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Jack is such a hard person to read. He keeps to himself, and I think that it’s been hard because he isn’t here very much. Many days I don’t see him at all.”
Betsy sat back in her chair, the steam from her cup curling lazily up into the air in front of her.
“Well, surely he’s taken a liking to the girl?” Betsy asked, gesturing to Katherine.
Haddie looked down at her and frowned.
Betsy’s eyes grew wide. “Truly? Why ever not?”
Haddie shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t know. I wonder if he just has never had a chance to be around children very much. He just…it almost feels like he is annoyed with her all the time. She can be fussy at night, you see.”
“She’s just a baby,” Betsy cut in. She sighed heavily. “He treats you well though, doesn’t he?”
Haddie wanted to say yes, but she didn’t know how to word it.
Betsy’s mouth opened in astonishment. “My word, girl, he hasn’t hurt you, has he? He hasn’t—”
“No, no, nothing like that!” Haddie replied hastily, waving her hands. “It’s just…it’s more like living with a ghost, if that makes any sense. Every day feels mundane. I hardly ever see him. And when we are together, it’s as if we have nothing to say to each other.”
Betsy shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” Haddie said, reaching across the table and squeezing Betsy’s hand. “I didn’t mean to make this visit so dreary! Come, let me refresh your tea—”
“No, dear…” Betsy said. “The very last thing that I would want is for you to be unhappy. Let me fill you in on a little secret, perhaps something that I should have told you as soon as you set foot in my carriage that first day. Jack Richards is a very hard-headed man, with very thick skin. He has been through a great deal in his life. He also lost the woman that he loved in a terrible fire.”
Haddie gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth.
Betsy nodded. “I assumed he would have told you all this. I assumed you knew! Well, the poor girl was home with her folks when it caught fire. There was nothing anyone could do. Jack was always a bright lad, always smiling. But after she died…”
Haddie stared at the table, transfixed with the idea that Jack had dealt with the very same pain that she had.
“Well, he was never really the same after that. Kept to himself, mostly, up here at the ranch. He still smiles pleasantly, but there is always a sort of distant look in his eyes. I thought he agreed to marry you because you both had been through the same thing…and that maybe you would find a way to make it through the pain and torment together.”
Haddie’s mind raced.
“I suppose that’s why it has been so hard for you to reach him,” Betsy went on. “He thinks that he won’t ever be able to love another woman the way that he loved her, but he is wrong. Very wrong indeed.”
“What do you mean?” Haddie asked.
“You, dear. I am talking about you,” Betsy said, smiling broadly. “Jack happened to pick one of the prettiest, sweetest, most tender-hearted women in the world to marry on a whim. He is going to fall head over heels for you, just as soon as you are able to crack that thick shell of his. And you will. He won’t be able to resist you for very long.”
Haddie said goodbye to Betsy a short time later, closing the door with a strange ringing in her ears.
Can it be true that Jack’s true self is just buried deep inside of him, because of his own loss?
Is that exactly what happened to me?
Are we both just so afraid of losing someone again, of opening our hearts to someone again, that we are doing all we can to shut the other one out?
When Jack arrived home that night for dinner, Haddie found her heart skipping a beat as she stared at him.
He certainly was a very handsome man.
And now knowing what she did, she felt like she was looking at an entirely new person.
“Jack?” she asked him as they sat down to eat together.
“Yes?”
“There’s something that I think we need to talk about. Betsy told me something today when she was here.”
5
Haddie and Jack seemed to make a breakthrough after Haddie’s understanding about his past. She asked him why he had never told her what had happened. He told her that he didn’t think it would affect her in any way.
She told him that if she had known, she would have understood him that much more. They could have related to one another, as they both had been through the same type of loss.
“I do not understand why this is so important to you,” Jack send tenderly.
“It’s important because it has everything to do with our marriage, and whether we like it or not, we have both grieved the loss of someone we loved dearly. However, we are the ones still living, having to pick up the pieces. It’s much easier to share feelings with someone who can understand, and now I feel as if we are lucky to have found each other.”
Jack didn’t say anything, but instead he took her hand in his and gave her a warm, sincere smile.
After that, Haddie found that it became easier to open up to him. She forced him to sit down and listen to her one night as she told him about the night that Adam died. She had started talking about it, and Jack had been halfway out of the room. He was rooted to the spot, his eyes wide as she spoke, as she grew emotional.
By the time she started crying, he had resumed his seat across from her.
It took a few more weeks before he even mentioned Lily. That was the name of the woman he had loved. He told Haddie that he had built the house they were in for her, in the anticipation of their wedding. He told her that he had never felt sorrow so full and so complete as when she passed away.
Haddie held him as a single tear slid down his cheek. It was the most emotion she had seen from Jack since her arrival.
Late spring in Texas was beautiful with warm breezes and bright flowers. Jack started taking Haddie and Katherine out into the fields and the surrounding forests, showing them different trees and sharing the names of the plants. He showed Haddie plants that were edible, and those that were useful for medicines, good for both humans and animals.
It was slow, very slow, but Haddie started to develop a friendship with Jack. It was tough work, but Haddie felt like Betsy’s conversation with her had opened up a door to Jack that had been locked, and would have remained locked, otherwise. It gave her hope that not everything was lost.
It was the first of May, and Haddie woke to a dense fog pressing against the windows. It was as if they were in a cloud; everything was obscured, even the rocking chairs on the front porch.
Haddie watched Katherine sleep for a few moments, her small chest rising and falling, before quietly sneaking out of her room, closing the door behind her.
She found Jack in the kitchen, already reading a book over his cup of tea.
“Good morning,” Haddie said.
“Good morning,” he replied. “How did
you sleep?”
“Well enough,” she replied. She pulled a loaf of bread from a basket on the kitchen table. She took the butter from the crock and slathered some on after slicing herself the end of the loaf. “And yourself?”
“Just fine,” he said. “Katherine was quiet all night.”
“That’s almost a week now,” Haddie replied. “She was still sleeping when I checked on her.”
“Well, it’s good to let her sleep, I suppose. She’s getting bigger every day, isn’t she?”
Haddie smiled. She certainly was.
She said goodbye to Jack as he left for the ranch, reminding him to be careful in the fog, and decided to wander back toward Katherine’s room, wanting to wake her before she became grouchy with too much sleep.
“Katherine,” Haddie cooed, stepping inside her room as quietly as she could. “Katherine, wake up.”
The tiny form shifted, and then became still.
Haddie smiled.
“Come now, dear. It is morning, though I know it doesn’t seem that way with the fog, now, does it?”
She sat down on the side of the bed and pulled the blanket off of Katherine and withdrew her hand almost immediately.
Katherine’s leg was sweltering hot.
Her heart started pounding quickly, and she reached up to feel the back of her neck. It was also burning.
She gently rolled Katherine onto her back, and Haddie stifled a gasp as she saw how pale Katherine’s face had become.
No wonder she hadn’t wanted to wake up. She was so weak that she could not even cry out. Her little fists were knotted in her blankets, and her dressing gown was soaked through with sweat.
All she could see was Adam’s face, glassy-eyed, and grasping for life.
“Oh, Katherine…” Haddie said.
She quickly undressed her and wrapped her in her blankets. She rushed to the large basin that she used to bathe Katherine and stared filling it with hot water from the kettle in the kitchen. She immediately set another on to boil and pumped cold water into a bucket. She wanted it warm, but not scalding for the girl.
