“And praying that you don’t catch anything on fire,” she added morosely.
“That, too.”
Together they added the last of the ingredients to the pot, a pungent onion and three smashed garlic cloves.
Within minutes, he was on his way to John Lawrence’s house, the filled stockpot in his hands.
Mr. Lawrence still slept soundly, he was gratified to see. Mrs. Everett sat beside him, humming softly. Isaac handed the pot to Aunt Ruth, who made a face. “That’s a strong onion!”
He breathed a sigh of relief. The onion had covered whatever smell of smoke might be lingering on him.
After reassuring himself that Mr. Lawrence was stable, he hurried back to his uncle’s house.
He’d have to focus on the patients at hand and get his mind off the feeling of Christal in his arms.
He’d known her such a short time. He needed to rein in his feelings for her. She was a minister’s daughter, after all, and although he’d never romanced one before, he was sure that the daughter of a churchly man would require a slower approach. Plus there was the fact that any courting would have to wait until he finished his studies.
Nevertheless, what had he done? He’d kissed her! Not on the lips, but that nuzzling the top of her head was kissing as sure as the sun rose each day.
He shouldn’t have, but it seemed so right.
“How’s John?” Uncle Alfred asked when Isaac entered the house, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
“He’s congested, and his lungs are filling.” The answer was short but to the point. The image of Christal was driven from his mind and replaced with the thin face of John Lawrence. “He’s failing.”
Isaac dropped onto the overstuffed chair and buried his face in his hands. “How do you do this, Uncle? How?”
Uncle Alfred walked to him and patted his shoulder. “In order to be strong in death, we have to believe in life. You believe in life, don’t you?”
“Yes.” His answer was muffled against his locked fingers as he willed himself not to cry.
The only sound was the ticking of the clock atop the cabinet. Isaac breathed deeply and sat up. It wouldn’t do for him to lose control like this.
“Sometimes the patient will die. Despite our best efforts, despite our best medicines, the patient will die.” His uncle sighed and stared hard into the fireplace. The dancing flames were reflected in his tired eyes. “Every time that happens, my faith is tested, Isaac. I wonder how a God who loves His people, a God who gave them life, can take it away from them, and often with great suffering.”
Neither of them spoke. A log fell and sparked, sending tiny glimmers of light onto the hearth, where they burned out quickly.
It’s a metaphor, Isaac mused. We’re like those little pieces of the log, beautiful and shining as we arc through the air, and yet we end as ashes on the brick, burned, with only the ash to show that we were ever there.
“Except for memories,” Dr. Bering said, and Isaac realized that he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. “People stay on in the lives of others. They’ve shaped the people around them by loving them, or, in some cases, by hating them—or perhaps worst of all, by their indifference.”
Isaac frowned. Indifference?
“Ignoring the cries of your fellow human beings is reprehensible,” his uncle continued. “It is a sin beyond sin. But fortunately, most of our lives are formed by the love around us. Parents who love us, siblings, relatives, friends, spouses—every time we are told we’re loved, either in word or action, we are strengthened and bettered.”
“Christal’s mother and aunt are there with Mr. Lawrence, tidying and making chicken soup.”
His uncle chuckled. “He’s in good hands then. So what did you do to treat John?”
Isaac ran through the regimen he’d prescribed, and his uncle nodded approvingly. “Good. That’s perfect.”
Uncle Alfred motioned toward the examination room. “Now we go from near-death to near-life. I’d like you to meet Mrs. Bonds. I think we can expect a Christmas baby from her.”
❧
Christal bent down and swooped up the last stray carrot peeling before leaning against the stove and wiping her forehead. At last, the kitchen didn’t show the signs of the chaos that had occurred. The smell of her burned hair still hung in the air a bit, but it was dissipating. She’d opened every window in the house, and a beeswax candle lit in the kitchen was helping to disperse the odor.
She tucked the burned part back into the other hair at her temple and pulled a pin out from the bun at the nape of her neck and used it to keep the short section in place. Stuck in at the right angle, the pin might hide the singed area well.
The memory of being held by Isaac flooded back, as real and palpable as if he were still there. She could feel the imprint of his fingers in her hair as he soothed her. Had he—had he kissed her head? Or had she wanted it so badly that she imagined it?
If he had kissed her—the thought made her smile.
She had liked it very much, being close to him. Maybe it might happen another time, and it might even be on the lips.
She hugged herself, as if doing so could keep the event fresh in her mind.
He’d kissed her! Or, she corrected herself, he maybe kissed her!
“Are you cold?” Her father spoke from the doorway of the kitchen, startling her so much that she nearly jumped.
She shook her head. “Sorry! I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve got your meal all laid out. It’s not much.”
As they walked together into the dining room, she filled him in on the events of the day.
Her father frowned, but as he said the blessing over the food, he included the line, “And we pray for those who are sick and for those who tend to the sick.”
They ate quickly, because, as he explained to her, the Christmas charity group was meeting and he had to return to the church.
“I’m hoping to get Isaac on the team,” he said as he stood up after eating. “He’d be—oh! I nearly forgot. Come with me.”
She followed her father to the entryway, where he reached into the pocket of his overcoat and handed her a small tin. “I don’t know what this is about,” he said. “Isaac stepped out of the door of his uncle’s house and asked me to give you something. Then he went back inside and got this.”
He put his coat on and wrapped a scarf around his neck. “I know, I know,” he said with a grin. “I’d better button up, because if I don’t, as sure as anything I’ll see Aunt Ruth!”
With those words and a hasty peck on his daughter’s forehead, Papa was gone.
She looked at the tin curiously. Ornate flowery golden letters spelled out Garden Delight Hair Pomade. She opened it, and a faintly familiar scent floated up.
Why did she know this aroma? Where had she smelled it?
Six
The next two weeks were filled with a flurry of activity. Christal’s usual trips to the library were curtailed as she worked on becoming knowledgeable about homemaking. She stood in the kitchen every morning and evening, trying to learn the fine art of cookery. Her motivation was real and her mother was patient, but there seemed to be so much to remember.
Baking soda and baking powder were actually two different products, and cream of tartar had nothing to do with cream. Egg whites were actually clear until they were cooked, and separating an egg required steady hands.
A pinch was bigger than a smidgen, and a sprinkle could mean one shake or two, depending on whether she was adding cinnamon, which required two shakes, or salt, which took only one.
Two cups made a pint—or was that a quart? Were there sixteen tablespoons to a cup measure? And which was the bigger one, the teaspoon or the tablespoon? The numbers spun in her head until she’d gotten the idea to write everything down in a little book she kept in her apron pocket—her own personal guide to the art of cookery.
At last the evening came when she leaned over the stove and pulled out a pork roast that was fragrant with herbs and oil.
It was beautiful and smelled wonderful. The proof, of course, was with the tasting, and she held her breath as, at the dinner table, her father stood to slice into it with great ceremony.
He served each of them a piece, and as one, they all tried it.
The meat was done perfectly, tender and aromatic, and she smiled with relief as her family congratulated her. She felt ridiculously happy. She’d done it!
She’d never mentioned the incident with the chicken, although she suspected that her mother and aunt knew something was amiss from the burn marks on the bird, but neither had said a word. She’d managed to get the kitchen back to its usual pristine state by the time her father had gotten home, and had, in fact, made a quite passable lunch of cold beef with carrots and bread and butter for him.
They had just finished their meal of the pork she’d roasted and she was putting the dishes away when a knock sounded at the door.
“I’ll get it,” her father said.
The voices of their next-door neighbors carried into the kitchen.
“Isaac is here!” Christal said, untying her apron and flinging it onto the small table. She stopped and grinned sheepishly at her mother and aunt. “I know, I know. I’ll hang it up.”
She retrieved the apron and put it on the hook properly. She left the kitchen, then slowed, smoothing down the front of her dress and checking the hall mirror to make sure the burned lock of hair wasn’t sticking straight out. From her position in the hallway, she could hear her mother and Aunt Ruth.
“She’s learning quickly,” Mother said, and Christal smiled at the pride in her mother’s voice. She pulled herself up straighter and walked toward the parlor. “Something in her has changed, and I’m very pleased with what she’s doing. Whatever her motivation is, it’s working.”
“She’s in love,” Aunt Ruth said, and Christal stopped so suddenly she almost tripped.
“Do you think so? They’ve just met, although—” Her mother’s voice continued but became too faint for Christal to hear. She must have moved to the far side of the kitchen.
Aunt Ruth’s voice was strong enough to carry, though. “I knew immediately when I met my Theo at the skating party that he was the one for me. And the minute Matthew laid eyes on you, dear Sarah, he was smitten and has remained so.”
Her mother said something that Christal couldn’t quite make out, and her aunt responded with vigor, “Love at first sight, or love at hundredth sight. It doesn’t matter. Love is love.”
Was it possible? She had barely seen Isaac since the fiasco with the chicken, and when they had been together, they had either been at church or in passing outside. She had finally convinced herself that the kisses on the top of her head had merely been flights of fancy and that she had imagined them.
The question was: Why had she imagined them? Could it have been because she wanted them so badly that she had let her mind create them?
Was it because she was in love with Isaac Bering?
Her heart fluttered a bit at the thought.
From the parlor she heard his laughter. Her pulse raced, and the palms of her hands grew sweaty.
Maybe her aunt was right, but that wasn’t why she was learning the fine art of housekeeping—was it?
“Are you waiting for an invitation from the queen herself?” Her father stood at the door of the parlor. “Come on! Dr. Bering has brought more of the spice cookies you enjoy so much.”
“I’ll be in soon,” she answered, marveling at how calm and collected she sounded. “If he has cookies, we’ll need tea. I’ll help get it ready.”
“Don’t take long!” he said before he vanished back into the parlor.
She turned to go back into the kitchen and met her mother and aunt on the way out. Her mother held a tray with a teapot and cups on it.
“How did you manage that?” she asked. “I just now said that—”
“Christal, dear, what your mother heard was the sound of guests coming. One always prepares tea for guests,” Aunt Ruth chided a bit harshly, and Christal felt herself coloring from the rebuke.
“It wasn’t difficult to do,” Mother said with her usual gentleness. “The water was already hot. Tea is the easiest beverage in the world to make, I believe.”
“Christal, there is much you need to know.” Her aunt’s tone was brisk but loving. “This is simply a fact, something every woman should be aware of. It’s a matter of etiquette.”
“Men don’t have to make tea,” Christal muttered. “Don’t they have to be polite?”
Her mother ducked her head, but not before Christal saw the smile on her face.
“Well, of course they do.” Aunt Ruth put her arm around her niece’s shoulders. “Don’t you hear your father in there? He’s making our guests feel welcome by talking to them. It’s just Alfred and Isaac, but your father’s had to develop the talent of carrying on a conversation with anyone and making them feel like they’re his favorite people. Sometimes, Christal, what seems the easiest can be the hardest.”
Christal’s spirits flagged. Just as she took one step forward, she realized that there was a whole flight of steps ahead of her, like a stairway of life. How would she ever catch up? How many times had she seen her parents in exactly this situation, her father talking with the guests in the parlor as her mother made tea and served it? Yet she’d never taken notice of it.
She would never catch up. She should have started a long time ago, paying attention to the operations of the house.
Well, she’d gotten as far as learning to make a savory pork roast, and she already knew how to brew a pot of tea, and she was remembering to hang her apron on its hook when she was done, but that wouldn’t be good enough when she had her own household to tend to, unless she and her husband wanted to live on pork and tea.
Her own household! Her husband!
Like wild butterflies, her thoughts flew back to Isaac. It was easy—too easy, perhaps—to imagine him in the role, sitting in his chair in the parlor reading the newspaper. Or across the table from her, eating his roast pork and drinking his tea. Or greeting her each morning with a kiss.
“If we’re going to serve this tea, we really should be in the same room as our guests,” her mother prompted, her eyes twinkling.
Her mother led them into the parlor. The men all stood when the women came in. Isaac looked directly at Christal, and suddenly she felt as awkward as a schoolgirl.
Is that what love is like, God? she asked silently. Is it being flustered and tongue-tied around him? She glanced over and noticed how her mother’s eyes immediately focused on her father, and the slow smile that curved her lips spoke volumes—silently.
She couldn’t stop herself from sliding her gaze over to Isaac, who now sat on the small sofa. Heat climbed up her neck and onto her cheeks in a sudden flush, and beads of sweat sprang out on her upper lip, and of course, the singed section of her hair chose that moment to escape the pins that held it back. She could see it on the periphery of her sight, its edges poking straight out as if it were waxed.
Isaac stood up so quickly that his shins knocked into the table in front of him, and Mother had to steady the cups she was in the process of placing there.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her, and as he tried to assist, he succeeded only in clinking them together and dislodging them from their saucers.
“It’s fine,” Mother said. “No harm done.”
He stepped away and sat back down self-consciously as she put the tray back to rights and then took her place beside her husband. “I’ll—” he began, but Aunt Ruth interrupted him.
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping around Christal and taking a seat in the chair covered in ruby-toned velvet.
Christal stared at her aunt. Plush and soft, with deeply carved wooden arms—the chair was always hers. Her aunt liked to sit on the small sofa near the fireplace. Where Isaac was now sitting. Where the only empty seat was. Where she was going to have to sit.
Apparently he realized it at the same time she did, f
or he stood up again and nodded as she crossed the room to join him.
They both sank to the sofa together, and Christal kept her body as rigid as possible, trying to avoid squishing herself against him. The sofa was small, though, and coziness was unavoidable.
She tried not to think about the fact that he was so close to her, so close that she had no choice but to let her elbow touch his. It was either that or she’d have to crane herself backward or hunker over forward. Well, she told herself, if it didn’t bother him, it didn’t bother her.
She was not a good liar.
This close to him, she could smell the clean fragrance of soap and bay rum. It certainly was an improvement over their encounter in the kitchen, when the air had been full of the awful smell of burned hair. Her fingers stole up to her temple, and she tucked the singed lock back under the safety of the hairpin that tried to conceal the damage.
The conversation drifted from one topic to another, until at last Dr. Bering asked if a family had been selected for the church’s goodwill project.
Her father shook his head. “We had a family selected, but they left to go back to Indiana, so we’re without one at the moment. We’ll need to find someone else, and quickly.”
Dr. Bering leaned back and laced his fingers across his stomach. “Could I make a suggestion? I have in mind a young couple expecting their first child. They’re as poor as church mice but quite pleasant and kind. I don’t believe they have a church home yet, so this would be a good way to reach out to them.”
Papa nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds splendid. I’ll stop in tomorrow morning, if you don’t mind, and pick up the details.”
“It would be perfect for the season, wouldn’t it, Matthew?” Mother said softly. “So reminiscent of the first Christmas.”
“Except this woman won’t be giving birth in a stable, I can assure you of that,” the doctor said with a deep chuckle. “Not in these days and times!”
“That new hospital is supposed to be quite the place, I understand,” Papa said, and Aunt Ruth agreed.
“It’s got the latest gizmos and gadgets, everything a doctor could want or need,” she said, grinning at Dr. Bering. “All a physician has to do is push a button, and the machine takes it from there.”
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