“Where do you hurt worst?” he asked matter-of-factly.
That evening he sat down to write a letter to Cynthia. He told her about Eddie’s sprained ankle from falling out of a tree and how disapproving the superintendent had been. He told her how everyone missed the two of them. And then he wrote about his feelings for her, finding himself embarrassingly poetic for a practical man. But this was for Cynthia’s eyes only and he loved her with all his heart.
Cynthia drank coffee and very deliberately nibbled at a piece of toast, trying to appear calm as she breakfasted with her family. Today was the day. She would meet face to face with Michael and his lawyers.
Betsy didn’t know, thank goodness, and chattered away about the things she and her aunt had planned for the day. “I’m going to help look after Jeremy while you’re gone, Mom,” she said excitedly over her oatmeal. “Aunt Lynne’s going to let me give him his bath.”
“I’d trade places if I could,” Cynthia responded, surprised her voice didn’t shake. “Bathing my favorite nephew or taking care of business with Uncle Moss. Which would I choose?”
Betsy giggled. “Jeremy’s your only nephew, Mom.”
“Well I’m insulted,” Moss contributed. “My own son considered better company than me.”
Betsy grinned at him. “You’re my favorite uncle,” she said.
He grinned back. “Far as I know, I’m your only uncle,” he countered.
“Guess so. Papa doesn’t have any brothers so that makes you the onliest.”
Cynthia scolded, “Now Betsy, Dr. Stephens isn’t actually a member of our family. We’re not married.”
“Not yet,” Betsy stated firmly. “But Eddie and me, we have it all planned out.”
Cynthia couldn’t help thinking that she’d never quite know what those two girls were up to. They’d be a handful when they got to their teens. She only hoped that somehow she got to live through that experience and that Eddie wasn’t far from her in that other time while Betsy was growing up with Michael.
Moss got to his feet. “About time we go or we’ll be late,” he told her.
Her mouth suddenly dry, Cynthia nodded. She waited until he’d kissed his wife and she’d said goodbye to her daughter as though she were only leaving for an ordinary day of taking care of family business with her brother.
She was thankful that Moss drove this morning as she wasn’t sure she could have kept her hands steady on the wheel. Usually rather quiet, her brother kept up a steady stream of talk to distract her and it did help as they remembered early days with their parents and he told funny little stories of events she’d been too young to remember.
When they stopped at a stop light as they approached the courthouse, she said, “I’m not sure I can get through this.”
“Sure, you can. And I’m here with you every step. We Caldecotts are a strong lot.” He flashed a grin in her direction.” Though I suppose you’d rather Papa be here with you.”
Her face felt suddenly hot. With Betsy around, she didn’t have a chance at keeping her most secret feelings private. “I only wish both you and Dr. Stephens could be with me today,” she responded in a prim voice she barely recognized as her own.
His expression turned serious. “You know that may not be possible, Cyn.”
She nodded, tears coming to her eyes.
“We’ll always be with you in spirit, Lynne, Jeremy and me.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t leave you for anybody else, Moss.”
“It’s the way of life. Little sisters grow up to marry and have their own families.”
He asked her then to tell him about Evan and she did so, choosing her words carefully to try to show her brother the man she loved whom he would never meet. She’d barely begun when they arrived at the courthouse and all words faded from her lips.
The environment descended on her like a cloud of doom. Something about the official environment made the nightmare real.
She truly could lose Betsy today. And maybe she was wrong and Michael deserved time with his daughter . . .
No! She’d spent too many years being brain-washed by this man. She’d wanted him to bond with his daughter. She’d longed to have him love both her and Betsy. It hadn’t happened and today wasn’t about her and all the hurt he’d given her.
It was about what was best for Betsy, the little girl who called Evan Stephens ‘papa.’ It was her daughter’s future for which she was fighting.
Her lawyers had tried to prepare her for today. It could get mean, but it would be a controlled environment. The custody hearing would be before a judge, not a jury, and the courtroom would be closed because it involved a child. Neither press or public would be allowed in as onlookers.
She was conscious that her picture was being taken and that reporters pressed close , anxious to hear about how the runaway heiress felt about this day. But her brother kept them at bay and soon she was in the room into which they could not follow. Not even Moss was allowed to go in since he was to be a witness in her behalf.
It was nothing like such scenes in television shows. It was a relatively small room with a raised desk in front, and a few rows of benches. The main things she saw were the prominently displayed American flag and the face of her former husband looking at her from across the room where he was standing with his lawyers.
The two attorneys from the firm that had represented her family for many years came to her side and escorted her to the seat near the front where they would sit with her.
Then they all stood when the judge came in. Cynthia looked at him with dismay. She’d so hoped for a woman judge, a woman who might better understand what it was to be a mother afraid for a child. But this judge was an older man, probably nearing sixty, with gray hair and a stern unsmiling face.
Probably he was the kind of man who would think this man had a right to the custody of his daughter, especially when the mother was flaky enough to run away with her.
Oh, Evan, she thought. If only you were here to show them what a father should really be like.
Chapter Twenty Three
Evan felt gladness grow within him as he realized he was once more visiting Maud Sandford in a dream.
“She’s gone,” he told his friend, feeling a pang that she looked much older than the last time he’d seen her. She seemed shrunken and bent, a woman in her nineties, but her gaze was as sharp as ever and he could see she still had her fighting spirit. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.”
It was dark night and she’d not lit any candles—or whatever they did at this time for light—and they sat in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace.
“Have faith,” she said quietly. “What’s meant to be will happen.”
“Meant to be? I had no idea you were so fatalistic, Maud.”
Her eyes brightened with humor. “Doesn’t mean I don’t believe you have to fight to make it happen, my boy. Life wasn’t meant to be easy, but living either breaks us or makes us strong. You just hang on long enough and you and my granddaughter will be together.”
He couldn’t help being amazed at her optimism, considering her own life story. He knew she’d lost the love of her life when she was very young and had never found another.
Her lips formed a thin smile. “You’re thinking of my own sad little story.”
He nodded. Surely after a lifetime of years she could talk about it now. All he knew was that the man she’d loved had died young before their daughter was even born and she’d outlived her own child.
“The pain doesn’t go away. Sometimes it was as though it happened yesterday. Other times it was long ago. But you go on. You find comfort in the things of daily life. And I have been blessed. I have been gifted with a window on the world here from my lonely ranch and have seen times long gone by as well as something of the times to come. And,” her smile deepened into mischievousness, “’I’ve had visitors like you.”
He would have liked to hug her, but wasn’t sure she would welcome the intrusion int
o her private space. She was such a stately old woman.
She did not pause for sentiment. It was as though she feared running out of time before she said what was needed. “I do not think we will meet again in this life, Evan.”
She looked so fragile, so old. “No,” he protested. “Don’t talk like that Maud.”
“It is time,” she said, “that I join my young love and Mama and my dear Jenny. We will have a family reunion.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she raised a restraining hand. “Fight for your Cynthia and the family you will share together, my son. And know that you can never be truly separated.”
Then the dream was gone and he lay in his bed, waking from restless sleep.
Cynthia sat in apparent calm, though inside her emotions were volatile, as the judge allowed Michael to tell his story of how his wife had turned away from him, keeping him from seeing his beloved daughter by using the resources she’d inherited from her parents. He spoke of his anguish when the two had disappeared and how he’d reluctantly come to suspect that Cynthia had deliberately meant to set him up to be charged with her death. All of this was spoken so sympathetically, of course. He understood, he said, that poor Cynthia was not being entirely rational.
Fighting to keep her rage at the words she was hearing under control, Cynthia allowed her mind to wander back to those childhood books of the Ray family in Minnesota. It seemed so funny that she and Evan had both been mentored by two authors with the same first name whom they would never see in real life.
His was the Oklahoma writer Maud Bailey Sandford who had taught him about courage and hope. Hers was Maud Hart Lovelace who had given Cynthia most of what she had of a sense of family life at its best with her Betsy-Tacy books. Sometimes life’s blessings came in strange ways.
His sense of loss increased by the realization that Maud had left as well, Evan tried to keep from thinking constantly about the negatives in his life.
He took the still limping Eddie, who was so frustrated by her forced inactivity while her sprained ankle healed, on a little vacation since school was out for the long Thanksgiving weekend. His father planned to have dinner with old friends and Mrs. Myers was cooking for her grownup children and their families.
Since it wasn’t possible to actually go very far on a vacation when you lived in Lavender, he tried to make the weekend as special as possible by traveling to the far west end of their territory where the landscape changed from the woodlands and grassy pastures to a drier, flatter area where most of the horses needed for so many tasks were raised on two ranches.
One of those properties, the Merritt Ranch, ran a kind of guest house as a business operated by the two middle aged daughters of the family. He thought this would be the thing to distract his daughter from her woes, even though her activities would be constrained by her damaged ankle.
He found he’d underestimated Eddie. She got one of the ranch hands to lift her up on a good-sized brown pony and was off. He got on Hero and they had a long ride across the prairie-like territory that allowed them to pretend for a while that they were out in the panhandle with its long distances between homes.
When they came back, Eddie had a suggestion to make. “Wouldn’t this pony make a good present for Betsy’s ninth birthday?”
He smiled down on her as they took care of horse and pony and rewarded them with grain. “I don’t suppose you’d have any interest in sharing that gift with her?”
Eddie grinned. “She’d love it and Betsy’s very good at sharing.”
At first he didn’t take her seriously, but that night after she’d gone to sleep, he reconsidered. That particular pony was just the right size for two nine-year-old girls, not one of those tiny creatures for small children, but big enough for them to ride for a couple of years.
Betsy’s birthday was only a couple of weeks away. Buying her the pony would be like stating out loud that he was sure she and Cynthia would be coming back.
Cynthia felt numb as she sat down for dinner with her family that evening. She was only half there as her mind kept replaying the events of the day. She heard again Michael’s infuriating testimony, listened once more to her brother tell what a good mother she was, replayed expert testimony from both sides, and worst of all, assessed her own quiet, self-possessed replies to the judge’s question as she told the story of her life with Michael and how she’d come to be so afraid of him that she’d taken Betsy away.
The judge was stern about this and Michael’s lawyer made a point of how she’d been charged with contempt for missing that last court appearance.
A psychologist brought in by Michael spoke of the meaning of Cynthia’s behavior, making it sound sinister, while an opposing expert whom she had seen regularly until recently, spoke of her soundness of mind and reasons for a very real fear.
She tried to cut off this line of thought, becoming conscious that while her brother and Lynne were keeping Betsy entertained, her own silence was putting a pall on the little party.
Tomorrow the judge wanted to speak to Betsy without either of her parents’ present and she had to get her daughter ready. After that, he would put the whole matter under consideration for a few days before giving his decision.
Cynthia supposed she’d been unrealistic to expect the whole thing to be resolved today, but she felt as though she’d break apart from tension as she lived through the next few days.
If only Evan was here to reassure her with his deep voice, telling her everything was going to be all right.
Oops! She’d drifted away again without saying a word and Betsy now frowned at her as though she’d asked a question and was waiting for an answer.
Lynne seemed to get what was happening with her wandering mind. “Betsy was asking about celebrating her ninth birthday,” she hinted.
Moss jumped in. “Hey, you turned nine months ago.” Then his face flushed as he realized how confused the child must be and wished he hadn’t said what he had.
Cynthia knew she should have talked to Betsy about this before. “Time passed differently, more slowly, while we were in Lavender. It’s winter there and here it’s almost the next summer.”
“But my birthday is in December. Do you mean I missed it? That’s no fair. I was cheated.”
“We’ll have a birthday party,” Cynthia promised, hoping she could live up to that promise and that Betsy wasn’t in her father’s custody by then. “Just as though it was December.”
“But Eddie won’t be here. And Papa. He was going to give me a special present, Eddie said so. And I’m going to be nine and just as old as Eddie again.”
“Betsy, you’re already as old as Eddie,” Moss tried to comfort her. “You’ve already caught up.”
“But she doesn’t know,” Betsy answered mournfully.
Cynthia couldn’t help but wonder what her daughter would tell the judge. She could hardly warn her to be careful of what she said, but what if she went in talking about birthdays that hadn’t happened yet, but had already happened. Or about a town where women wore long skirts and nobody drove cars, but went around in buggies or rode horseback?
The next morning her housekeeper came bringing her a letter from Evan. Never had she been so glad to see a piece of mail.
She kept it hidden away in her purse while she drove Betsy to the courthouse for her meeting with the judge. She was excluded from that meeting, only the judge and a woman social worker were present.
Cynthia sat on a bench outside and read her letter. Moss started off talking about the family. Eddie had been hurt again during one of her adventures, but thankfully not seriously. Forrest and Mrs. Myers were missing them.
She blinked back tears when she read how so many people in town were missing her. She figured it was more for Betsy’s sake and support for the Stephens than genuine attachment to herself. Still it felt good to know that they, at least, weren’t pleased that she was gone.
And then the rest of the letter was entirely hers as he told her of his love and hi
s grief at her absence. His words, simple and sincere, struck her to the heart and warmed her insides. She almost forgot to worry about Betsy in there facing the judge and being questioned about her life with her mother and father.
Chapter Twenty Four
Evan and Eddie’s outing was interrupted, of course, when a rider came out from Lavender to report an emergency, but the pony, whom Eddie had named Thom, ‘spelled with an h and not just an ordinary Tom’ went too, led by the messenger from his horse.
His own father was the emergency this time and, though Evan drove the buggy home at a fast pace, he found the patient improving under the care of Mrs. Myers, Miranda and both young nurses. Forrest Stephens seemed to be enjoying all the attention, though his irritability told Evan that he was a long way from well.
“I was down at city hall listening to the usual complaints, and not feeling too bad when I suddenly keeled over,” he said from his resting place on a living room sofa. “Son, I can’t tell you how humiliating it was when I came to and found everybody hovering over me and telling me they were sorry to have upset me so. It was like they thought I was old!”
Even though he knew his father was fast approaching the Biblical three score and ten, Evan didn’t consider him old. He’d never known his grandfather’s age. He’d been secretive about that. But there were people who’d known him a long time who claimed he’d been close to a hundred when he died. By that standard his father still had years of life ahead.
Examination revealed, however, some possible heart irregularities and Evan had no choice but to sit down with his dad and warn him that he needed to change his lifestyle. He talked about better food choices, mild exercise and, worst of all in Forrest’s opinion, slowing down on the amount of work he did for the community and letting younger people take over.
It was when he suggested resigning from the council that Forrest exploded. “The only thing wrong with me is that I’ve been worrying about Betsy and Cynthia off who knows where! You shouldn’t have let them get lost that way, Evan!”
Letters From Another Town: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 2) Page 16
