by Naomi Musch
"This is...your son." Her voice broke, but she cleared it and went on. "His name is Bertie."
He glanced at her and back at the child. "Bertie, huh?" His heart hammered as he studied the tiny stranger's face.
"His full name is Langdon Albert, but I call him Bertie." Her voice was soft and wondrous. He looked at her again, taking a moment to examine her while she studied the child. She had named the baby Langdon after him. Why? He couldn't be more surprised.
"May I?" He set down his bag and held out his arms. She flinched but nodded and passed the infant into them. A feeling he had never experienced before rushed over him. It hadn't been like this when Emmett was born, had it? He didn't remember, and Dora... He couldn't remember that either. He'd been too busy just being with Delia that day. He glanced down at the little girl. "How old is she now? I forget."
"Dora is a year and a half."
"She wasn't much bigger than this little fellow when I left." He squatted down with the baby and looked at his daughter. "Hi, sugar. Is this your little brother?"
Dora tucked herself close beside Rilla, trying to hide in her skirts.
"Awe, you don't remember me, do you? That's okay. I'm your daddy." He patted her hair, but she pulled away. He stood. "I'll have to warm up to her."
The baby stirred and sought for its fist. "Here," Rilla said, reaching for him.
Lang gave the baby up and picked up his bag. "Where are you parked?"
"This way."
She turned away with the children, and Lang followed. There. They'd broken the ice. Well, maybe not broken it, but at least she had shown up to collect him at the station. There was no sign of anyone else from the family.
One step at a time. He followed Rilla to the car.
Chapter Thirty-One
Marilla's hands trembled as she laid Bertie on the bed to undress and change him. Lang. Home! He seemed like a stranger to her. She wished Jacob were here. He would bring calm and normalcy. He would talk with Lang and make them all feel like friends.
But we're not friends. Lang is my husband, and Jacob is... She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Jacob was not her friend either. Not really. Not if she were honest with herself. They had never crossed a line. They had never been intimate in any way, not even in their speech. Not really. Not particularly. Yet, it lay there just below the surface of their lives, a growing feeling that she dare not linger on. Not at this moment anyway.
"Rilla, I'm starting some coffee. Did you move the container?" Lang's voice sounded through the cabin.
"Yes. It's on the second shelf in the Hoosier pantry, just beside the oats."
"All right."
Bertie squirmed, and she fumbled with the pins. Dora stood beside her, sucking her thumb. She glanced down and pulled Dora's hand from her mouth. "No thumb-sucking." Dora's big blue eyes drifted up to hers, and her hand wandered back to her mouth. Oh, never mind. She finished swaddling Bertie and carried him into the other room. She tucked him in his crib to entertain himself. Moving into the kitchen area, her hands searched for something else to do. Lang was opening a canister of coffee grounds. She reached for it. "I can do that."
"It's okay. I've got it."
Grasping her hands together in front of her, she backed up and watched. There was nothing else to do. Her parents had planned lunch for them. The house was clean. She had risen at five to milk her cow and churn her butter. There wasn't even a piece of laundry to iron or fold. She'd been flying around like a bee since Jacob brought the message last week that Lang had called and was coming home. Now she just stood there and looked at him. Dora hugged Marilla's leg, her thumb rooted in her mouth. Marilla stroked her head and gathered words. "Did you have a good trip?"
He shrugged. "It was long. Three weeks on ship."
"That is long." She hadn't considered how much time he had spent on the ocean. In some ways, his entire absence seemed surreal. She took short looks his way before pulling out a chair at the table and sitting down. Dora still clung, so she picked her up and set her on her lap. It felt comforting having the child between them, giving her something to do, shielding her.
"It was better than the trip going over, never knowing what to expect, always being on high alert. Coming home, we didn't have to worry about sub attacks or anything. They fed us good."
She furled her brow, trying to imagine what he'd been through but not really knowing. "Was it awful? Fighting, I mean? You...you fought?" Since he'd not written in months, how was she to know?
He sniffed and lifted the lid on the stove. After adding another piece of wood, he settled the lid in place and turned to face her. Slowly, he nodded. "Awful? Yes. You've probably heard things."
She murmured she had.
"Let's just leave it at that."
He was a different Lang as much as he was the same. He had changed into someone she barely knew, but then she wondered if she ever did know him. All the time they had shared a home together he had been pining after her sister. She hadn't known about that for a long time. She hadn't known she was his second choice.
She cleared her throat. "All right. If you like."
"Tell me about Emmett." He leaned against the sink and folded his arms, waiting.
She shifted Dora. "What do you mean?"
"You didn't say much in your letter."
She tucked a strand of Dora's hair around the girl's tiny ear and shrugged but couldn't look at him. "He just died. One day at dinner, we saw he was getting ill. By the next day—" She blinked away the creeping pain. "By the next day he passed."
"We?"
She shot him a look. She wouldn't say Delia. She didn't even want to bring up her name. Let him ask about her sister first if he so desperately needed to hear about her. Of course, she had almost said it was Jacob who'd been there that day. Maybe she should admit it. "Yes. The family and I. Jacob had joined us for dinner. And then I came down ill too," she added. "I don't really remember much of that."
"You were very ill then?"
She nodded.
His eyebrows flinched. "You could have died."
What was he thinking? Did he wish she had?
He moved from the sink and pulled out a chair in front of her, sitting close. He reached for her hand. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd found out something had happened to you."
She stared at their hands and then extracted hers. "I'm fine, Lang." She set Dora on her feet and moved to rise but he gripped her wrist. She sat back down.
"Rilla."
She tugged from his grip, but he held on.
"Please. Don't pull away."
She clenched her hand into a fist and twisted, but still he held her wrist. It didn't hurt, but it angered her.
"I know I should have written."
"You did write," she hissed with a jerk of her arm that tore it free from his grasp. The anger tamped down inside for so long bubbled to the surface, yet she hadn't intended for it to spill over. Not now. Not right away. Still, it seethed. She burned her stare into his and he leaned back.
"I'd never hurt you, Rilla."
"Oh? You've already hurt me, Lang."
He dropped his gaze, nodded, and looked at her again. "Yes. You're right, but it wasn't my intention."
"What was your intention, I wonder?" She stood and moved across the room. She lifted the baby from his crib. He wasn't fussing, but Lang couldn't touch her again, not while Bertie was in her arms. "Never mind, I already know."
"No. You don't."
She gasped. He was ridiculous. Didn't he understand that the letter—the love letter—he'd sent to Delia told her exactly what his intentions were? "What did you plan to do then, have us both?"
"You would have been all right without me. You would have found someone."
She blinked and sat in the rocker to nurse Bertie, taking care to cover herself first as though Lang were a stranger. His words stung as her thoughts flew to Jacob. Still, she didn't want to let go of the anger or give him any credence in what he'd said. "That's r
idiculous. I married you, Lang, because I thought you loved me. I can see how very foolish I was, but it doesn't change the fact."
"Yes." He nodded. "And I was foolish too."
She set the rocker in motion as she nursed, her anger coming out in darts she could throw with the power of her words. "She doesn't love you, you know."
Lang flinched again, but schooled his features. He stood, like a man older than her father. He reached for a cup off the open shelf and poured himself some coffee.
Bertie finished nursing as silence engulfed the room. She tucked herself together and burped him.
"Mama," Dora whispered, standing next to her. Rilla looked at the child without seeing her.
Lang spoke again, his voice sounding tired. "What time are your parents expecting us at the farm?"
"Any time now." She stood and took Dora's hand.
Lang pushed their chairs back under the table. He looked down at little Dora. "Come on, Dora. Let's go see your grandmother." He scooped her up, and she kicked, stretching her arms for Rilla. Rilla moved to take her, but Lang shook his head. "Leave be, Rilla. I'm her father."
He might as well have slapped her. She turned away and sucked in a breath, shaking again as she reached for the coffee pot on the stove and moved it to the back. Coffee sloshed and sizzled on the stovetop. The door banged open and Marilla spun around. Lang had gone out, taking Dora with him. She wrapped Bertie's blanket closer and fetched Dora's coat off a chair back. Outside, the car was already running, and Lang waited inside with Dora. Rilla squared her gait to join them. She lifted her chin as she got inside and wrestled with the baby to pull the door closed. "You forgot her coat," she said, tucking it over Dora before she turned and glared out the window ahead.
~~~~~
Dora clamored off his lap and snuggled close to Rilla. He didn't blame her for not wanting to sit with a man she didn't remember, but she'd felt soft and good within his arms, truly a part of him, flesh and blood. He'd breathed in her curly dark hair, and her blue eyes, just like Rilla's, shone up at him. They looked so pure and so innocent, the way Marilla's used to look. He could hardly bear the memory. It ate at him in a way it never had before.
The air between them crackled with her anger and hurt. She probably wished he had died and been buried over there an ocean away. Yet he hadn't died, as much as he had wanted to at times. He sighed as they turned up the drive to her parents' farm. His in-laws met them in the yard, coming out of the porch screen door waving their arms in welcome. Mrs. Eckert even shed tears. She would cry for different reasons all together if she knew the mess he'd made by marrying her daughter. Even if…even if he had continued to pursue Delia after she married Theo, Lang should never have turned his lust on Rilla. It would have been one thing if he'd won Delia, and she had gone away with him, but now he'd wrecked her sister's life and their children's. Why would Rilla’s mother ever care a whit about him after having done that?
He was thankful that Cordelia and Theo weren't there at the farm too. He wasn't ready to face Delia yet. The time would come, but he had hoped it would happen in private. That way he could discern her true feelings without the shadow of everyone's presence lying over them. If she hated him, he could handle his humiliation between the two of them. If she did care and hadn't wanted to write—hadn't wanted to risk another loss to war—then he'd know that too. In the meantime, he intended to do what he could to be a better father to Theodora and Langdon Jr. He would be a better husband too, in name anyway. He'd try to help Rilla adjust.
He stole glances at her while they were at her parents'. She showed no emotion that let on what had happened between them. She behaved as though everything was fine. He hadn't known she was such a good actress. It gave him time too, to consider how fiery she'd behaved toward him at the cabin. Lang had always thought her gullible, easily fooled, and easily won, but Rilla had shown him her spine. She was stronger than he ever realized. She was changed.
The fog of morning had burned off when they arrived at the farm, and by afternoon when they returned home, the day had become brilliant. It was a beautiful, early June day. Lang had seen so much carnage and blackened countryside in the past months he had forgotten what a northern Wisconsin spring could be like. When they returned to the cabin, he took a moment to look around and soaked it in as Rilla hastened inside with the children.
He strode to the back yard, happy to see that the small barn he'd put up last year for the cow had held well. He went inside and looked at the animal. She appeared healthy. Her bag was full. Rilla must have gotten her bred back after Lang left. His horse Sandy nickered as he approached her stall. "You remember me, don't you?" He scratched the horse's ears, and it shook its silky head. He reached for a handful of corn, and the horse dipped its muzzle into Lang's palm. Maybe tomorrow he'd saddle up and go for a ride. It had been a long time.
He wandered out to the edge of the yard at the road and gazed down the length of it. Delia's house stood a half-mile distant. What would her reaction to his homecoming truly be? How was she getting on taking care of her injured husband? Lang sighed and turned from the road. Perhaps it wasn't a question of how long Delia would bear with Theo, but rather how much longer Rilla would endure him.
He wandered over to the foundation he'd laid for the new house. He should continue. The wood that had been cut into boards was completely seasoned and dry. He could begin hammering up the frame any time he wanted. She would like that. It was the least he could do. After everything she had been through, after everything he'd put her through, building her a house was the least he had to offer by way of apology.
Lang went back to his workbench and pulled out a greasy notepad. He wrote lists and drew sketches. It was well past dinnertime when he went indoors. He found a plate of dried out hash on the back of the stove. He didn't mind. He had eaten much worse in the army. At least this had good flavor.
The sun had set, and he noticed the children were quiet. He heard Rilla in the bedroom humming. She must be trying to put the baby to sleep. An urge to peek in at her overcame him. He set his plate in the dry sink and walked stocking-footed across the wood floor. The door lay open a few inches. He stood back from it in the shadows where he could see her.
A smile lay on her face. All traces of the anger she'd carried all day with her had vanished. Rilla was young, and yet she looked like a woman. Her hair fell like angel hair over one shoulder. She had taken it out of its coronet, so now it lay in ripples from the unbound braid. It was light as sunshine. He hadn't seen anything like it in a long time. It touched her hip where she sat on the bed, her head tilted as she rocked and hummed to Bertie. Dora lay on the bed beside her, her small body limp in sleep.
A lump gathered in Lang's throat, and his vision blurred. He frowned and blinked until his eyes were clear again. Then he cleared his throat so that she knew he was coming. Her face turned upward, her eyes darting to the door. He pushed it open and slipped inside.
She looked back at the infant and began to rise. He saw the cradle positioned against the wall in the corner, where she could easily get to the baby in the night. He moved around to the other side of the bed and bent to scoop up the sleeping girl.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm carrying her to her bed."
"Lang." She blurted his name, and he understood she didn't want him there.
"I won't touch you," he said.
He tucked sweet Dora in her crib and returned to the bedroom a minute later. Rilla had already crawled beneath the blankets. He glimpsed the cradle and saw it was empty. Walking to the other side of the bed, he saw the sleeping baby ensconced in the center tightly against his mother. Lang smirked. Whatever you want, Rilla. He peeled off his shirt and britches and, as he lowered his arms, saw that she had closed her eyes. His weight pressed the bedsprings down as he pushed back the covers and sat. He turned down the lamp and nestled into his pillow.
It felt right. After a year sleeping in every kind of mire and on hard bunks and cold tent flo
ors, having slept upright on trains and in lice ridden hotel rooms, having sometimes not slept at all, Lang was finally home in his own bed.
With his wife.
He turned to his side facing her. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the full moon shone through the window behind him. He was able to gaze at her face, contoured like ivory. The moonbeams cast a glow on her hair, and a longing to touch it swept over him, but he restrained himself. Had he felt sure she was asleep, he might have tried. He might even have whispered her name. She was like a sculpture, and he could only appreciate her beauty.
He studied her shape where it lay molded under the blankets. Her arm rested above them, covering Bertie. Her hip rose beneath the white bedspread enticingly. Yet, even though there had been many a night he had craved a woman's body close to his, he didn't burn with lust looking at her. He filled, instead, with something unnamable, confusing even.
Then he realized she was looking back at him. Maybe she wasn't aware he could see her so clearly with her face directed at the moonlight filling the window, or maybe she was. Even in the dark, her gaze was brilliant and filled with silent thoughts of which he wasn't privy, and of which she didn't reveal. When he could not take the burning of it any longer, he swallowed and reached into the depths for his voice.
"Good night, Rilla."
He turned over to his other side when she didn't answer.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Marilla listened for a long time, as the moonlight moved across the sky, and Lang's breathing deepened. His smell was familiar to her, and she closed her eyes and inhaled it, imagining for the slightest moment that things had never gone bad between them. Then she took hold of her imagination as she recalled that they had never truly been good. He had always loved Delia. He said so in his letter. Why, oh why, had he married her? She had asked the question a thousand times, and a thousand times she had been unable to come to a conclusion that was anything other than painful.
