“Finish your breakfast, young man, you’re going to be late for your lessons. I’ve packed extra sandwiches so you won’t get hungry delivering groceries after school.”
“Delivering groceries for ten measly cents a week.” He sneered, contempt in his tone. “Zeke Penman is the same age as I am and he’s making big money working at the mine already.” He gave Zelda’s beseeching look. “I want a bicycle and a good catcher’s mitt, Zel. I hate school. I want to quit and get a real job, so I can help pay the bills around here and have some money left over to buy things I want.” His voice had risen. It fluctuated from a boy’s falsetto to the deep bass of a man, reminding her that it wouldn’t be long before he was fully grown.
“Lower your voice, Eli, you know Dad’s sleeping,” she warned in a scandalized tone. “And not another word about quitting school. I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense. Now off you go.” She handed him his satchel and the packet of lunch, entirely forgetting about the wash water.
He gave her a nasty look and slammed out the door, and Zelda collapsed into a chair, her coffee forgotten, her joy in the day tarnished.
Eli had always been headstrong and impulsive, but she managed to control him with reason and patience and plenty of love. Their mother had died when he was a tiny baby, four months old, and Zelda had raised her brother, lavishing on him all the love and devotion she would have given her own child, had she been lucky enough to have one. And until recently, Eli had never defied her like this. His rebelliousness troubled her.
She stoked the fire and remembered the wash water. Muttering under her breath, she pulled on an old jacket. She took the water pails out to the pump and filled them, pouring the water into the stove’s reservoir and also into the big copper tub she’d set on the kitchen stove to heat.
On her third trip, Isabella called her from the fence. She had Pearl on her hip, and she was clutching Eddy by the hand. She looked panicky and totally distraught, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach, Zelda wondered if Nestor had come home and was again causing trouble.
Isabella poured out a garbled torrent of words in some mixture of her native Dutch and what she thought was English, not one syllable of which Zelda understood.
“Eddy, can you tell me what your mama is saying?”
The solemn little boy nodded, “She say my papa, he is not come home all night.”
“Oh, I see,” It wouldn’t do to discuss this in front of the children. “Eddy, there are cookies in my kitchen, in a bowl on the counter. Take Pearl with you. Go through the back gate and into our yard, and you can each have a cookie. Close the door quietly. Mr. Ralston is sleeping.”
Eddy held up two fingers questioningly, and Zelda smiled and nodded. “All right, two cookies each.” The poor little rascal deserved all the cookies he could eat.
He said something to Isabella, and she set Pearl down. Eddy grabbed his sister’s hand and towed her away.
Zelda watched them for a moment, thinking it would be a blessing for all of them if Nestor had indeed disappeared. But Isabella was now wringing her hands and weeping.
“Gone,” she proclaimed, her huge eyes swimming with tears. “Nestor, he is gone, not come back, maybe.” She struggled with the language, and then added, “Me, I have no money. Nossing.”
Zelda understood all too well. Isabella was an immigrant, without friends or family, totally alone and dependent on her husband.
“Maybe he’s gone straight to work, Isabella,” Zelda suggested, but Isabella shook her head. She made Zelda understand that she’d already walked to the mine office and asked. She’d just gotten back. Nestor hadn’t appeared for work.
“Then he’s probably at the Mounted Police barracks,” Zelda declared with an exasperated sigh. The miserable man had probably gotten himself locked up for one reason or another. And well he deserved it, she thought with righteous indignation.
But whatever her own feelings about Nestor, Isabella was beside herself with worry. Well, Zelda thought, there went all her own plans for the day.
“Let’s hitch up the buggy and go see if he’s at the jail.” She sighed, absolutely dreading another encounter with Corporal Allan, but unable to turn her back on her neighbor. Her reward was the look of gratitude on the other woman’s face.
They rode to the jail, where Zelda learned to her enormous relief that Corporal Allan had gone to Lethbridge for several days, leaving Constable Liard in charge of the detachment. Liard hadn’t seen anything of Nestor.
“I did regular patrols of the town late last night and early this morning,” he told Zelda and Isabella. “If Vandusen had been anywhere around, I’d have probably seen him, I visited all the saloons and gambling halls, and, ahhh –” the young policeman’s face reddened. “Al the other establishments Nestor might be likely to frequent,” he added discreetly. “You ladies go on home, I’ll check around and see what I can find out. I’ll come by later and let you know what’s going on.”
Back home again, Virgil was still not up, which wasn’t like him at all. Zelda set Isabella to making some jam sandwiches for the children’s lunch. She brewed her father a mug of strong tea and took it up to his room.
“Dad?” She knocked softly on his bedroom door, then pushed it open. “Dad, are you all right?”
“Come on in, lass. I’m just bein’ a mite lazy today.” His voice was hoarse. He opened his eyes and smiled at her, but it was immediately obvious to Zelda that he was ill. The bedclothes were tumbled and damp from sweat, and his face was flushed. He made an effort to sit up and immediately began to cough, the deep, rattling, endless cough that had troubled him off and on for the last six months.
Zelda set the tea on the bedside table and put the back of her hand on her father’s forehead. “Heavens, Dad, you’re burning up with fever. I’m going to send for the doctor.” She turned to go, but he caught her hand and held it.
“No doctor, Zelda. It’s just a chill. I’ll be well again in no time.” He coughed again and when he recovered enough to speak, he added, “We’ve no money for the doctor, lass, you know that. And it looks as if I’ll be missing work again today, so that means even less to go on.” The coughing began again, and he sank back on the pillows, unable to get his breath.
Zelda rubbed his back and waited out the seizure, holding the mug for him so he could sip the hot tea when he was able. When he seemed to be resting easier, she straightened the bed and hurried downstairs, worry about her father now uppermost in her mind.
Isabella had settled the children at the table with their lunch, and she was washing the breakfast dishes Zelda hadn’t gotten around to.
“My father’s sick, Isabella. I’m going to go for Doctor Malcolmson.” She pulled on her coat and plopped her straw hat on her head.
“I vill make soup for him,” she declared, and immediately began gathering vegetables. At least her announcement seemed to have taken Isabella’s mind off her own problems. “I vill stay here with him until you come back. I vill take good care.”
Wondering how many more things could go wrong in one day, Zelda hurried across the flats to Dr. Malcolmson’s small hospital.
She was walking back home again with the doctor’s promise that he’d come by as soon as he could later that afternoon when she met Constable Liard.
“Miss Ralston, I’m afraid I have some bad news for your neighbor,” he told her. “Nestor Vandusen was seen climbing into a freight car on the westbound train last night. It seems he’s skipped town.”
“So he has deserted Isabella and the children,” Zelda exclaimed.
“It looks that way. He may very well come back, but it’s not too likely,” Liard said. “You see, we asked questions around town, and it seems Vandusen has been gambling as well as drinking and, uhhhh---womanizing. He owes a tidy sum of money to a certain unsavory character.”
“How much does he owe?” Zelda knew of men who’d lost everything they owned gambling. Their families suffered horribly for their stupidity.
“I�
�m not sure exactly. It seems to be in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars.”
Zelda gasped. It was a small fortune. “Surely this –this person--won’t come after Isabella for the money?”
“I doubt it.” Liard shook his head. “I’m coming now to talk with Mrs. Vandusen. If this man should bother her about the money, I want her to come to me and lodge a complaint immediately. You’re her friend, can you help me make her understand that?”
“She’s at our house right now,” Zelda told him, her heart sinking at this new disaster Isabella would have to face. “I’ll certainly try.”
The wonderful smell of homemade soup floated out to meet them. Eddy and Pearl were playing in the backyard, and Zelda invited the young Constable in for a bowl of soup and coffee, so they could both try and explain everything to her unfortunate neighbor.
Isabella didn’t weep this time. Instead, she turned paper-pale when she finally understood that Nestor was gone, probably for good.
Constable Liard looked miserable at having to explain about the gambling. Isabella kept shaking her head in confusion, and Zelda had to go over and over it.
Even then, Zelda wasn’t at all sure Isabella understood. She seemed dazed.
The doctor arrived while the constable was still there, and Zelda took him up to her father’s room, waiting anxiously in the hallway until he was done examining Virgil.
“I’m afraid your father’s lungs are sadly weakened from working all these years underground,” the old doctor said with a sigh. “He’s caught the grippe, and he’s running a high fever. He’s to stay in bed at least ten days. I’ve left some medication for him, but I want you to send your young brother to my office later this afternoon to pick up another preparation that might help.”
He hesitated, and then added, “You know, your father shouldn’t be working underground at all anymore, Miss Ralston. His lungs are very bad. It’s time he retired from the mines. I told him that quite some time ago.”
Zelda stared at him, shocked almost speechless. “But Dad’s young, only fifty-five. He never told me that,” she whispered.
“Well, he probably didn’t want to worry you, but you should know his lungs are seriously compromised by years of coal dust.” He sighed. “I see it all the time. We call it black lung.”
Black lung. The words struck terror in her heart. With trembling fingers, Zelda paid him for the visit and the medicine with what was left of the food money.
Downstairs the constable was gone, and after showing the doctor out, Zelda sank into a chair at the table, across from Isabella. She felt battered by the doctor’s words, exhausted by the happenings of the day.
“I must find, somehow, a way to make money,” Isabella said in a desperate tone. “Zere is rent, and food, and coal for za fires. Zere is clothing, and –” The list seemed to overwhelm her.
Ironically, it was the same list that was racing through Zelda’s mind. She, too, would have to find a way to earn enough money to feed her family. And to send Eli to university, she added grimly. Also, it was obvious her dream of earning good money as a photographer was just that--- a dream without substance.
Virgil had always encouraged her photography, insisting that it just took time to find a clientele, but the time for such fantasies was over. No matter how good a photographer she was, it didn’t bring in cash without customers.
“There must be something we can do,” she pondered, frowning across at Isabella. “We’re both intelligent, hardworking women.”
There were jobs in the town that women could perform, maids at the hotel, cooks at the restaurant, but Zelda knew only too well that the wages were pitifully low, certainly not enough to support a family. Ironically, she’d led four women on a protest march just before Christmas because their wages were so low they could barely live. That act of bravado had resulted in a reprimand from Corporal Allan, and two of the women had lost their jobs, for which they blamed Zelda.
Besides, cooking or cleaning professionally was the last thing she should attempt. She hated housework.
Isabella certainly seemed proficient in the kitchen, witness the soup Constable Liard had bolted down. But hiring herself out as a cook was nothing more than a joke, Zelda concluded. She was barely able to wrestle up satisfactory meals for herself and her father and Eli.
It had been wonderful the past two days, having Jackson Zalco do most of the cooking…
“That’s it,” she exclaimed, startling Isabella. “Room and board. We’ll offer Tom and Jackson room and board, Isabella, as a business venture.”
It took a moment or two to translate it into terms Isabella understood, but when she did, she began to nod, and a little of the desperation faded from her expression.
“They’re sleeping in the barn because I haven’t space for both of them in the house, but if I clean out the attic and move up there myself, then my room would do for Tom, and you can board Jackson. It won’t pay all the bills, goodness knows, but it’s a beginning.”
Zelda had to slow down and repeat herself, but Isabella soon grasped what she was saying.
“You’ll have to be careful who you take in besides Jackson, though. We’ll see to that when the time comes. For now, at least we know Mr. Zalco is a gentleman.”
And the reason for sending Jackson next door was simply because she didn’t want him filling Eli’s head with any more of his nonsense, Zelda assured herself. It would be wiser for him to move next door with Isabella, and for Tom to stay there.
That arrangement had nothing whatsoever to do with how Zelda felt about Tom, she was certain of that. Well, she was almost certain.
“They haven’t steady jobs yet, but they’re very ambitious. I know they put their names down at the mine. They’ll get on soon,” she reflected, more to herself than to Isabella. With Nestor gone, the waiting list at the mine was already one less than it had been that morning.
Two less, she forced herself to acknowledge. Dr. Malcolmson’s warning echoed in her brain. “Your father shouldn’t be working underground. It’s time he retired.”
For a moment, utter panic overcame her. How would they live with Virgil not working? They had no savings, apart from the sum set aside for Eli’s education. If only she had some training. If she was a nurse, or a teacher, or a secretary. But her formal schooling had been cut short when her mother died and Zelda had taken on the full care of her baby brother. And she’d never regretted that or considered it a loss. Eli had become the child of her heart, the son she most probably would never have.
She’d fight tooth and nail to make certain he had the opportunities he deserved.
“Come and give me a hand, Isabella. We’ll have to shift furniture around and move all my clothing.”
The attic was drafty, unfinished, and undoubtedly full of spiders.
Moving up there was an easy sacrifice if it helped pay the bills and keep Eli in school.
A Distant Echo: Chapter Twelve
It wasn’t as if he and Jackson had much choice in the matter, Tom reflected later that night.
It was plain as the nose on your face that the two women were desperate, and even if he and Jackson had the means, it would be unthinkable to move somewhere else after the Ralstons had been so generous to both of them.
So Jackson had gone off with Isabella, holding Eddy’s hand and chatting away to the little boy. But Tom had seen the flash of absolute panic in his partner’s eyes. Like Tom, Jackson had no experience with family life, with living in close quarters with women and children, and Tom knew that about the last thing his friend wanted was to be marooned with Isabella and her two kids.
Not that Jackson minded kids anymore than Tom did. It was just that neither of them knew the first damn thing about them, and even less about how an ordinary household operated on a day-to-day basis. Sleeping in the Ralstons’ barn for a couple of nights, helping out with the cooking, that was one thing.
Moving into a household on any sort of a permanent basis was quite another. Tom was as a
pprehensive about it as his partner.
Theirs had always been a bachelor’s existence, his and Jackson’s, first in the army, and in later years, by choice as well as by the nature of their work.
They’d eaten and slept when and where they chose, relying on laundromats and restaurants and motels and dry cleaners. No one questioned or cared or knew when they came or went, or with whom, and they’d liked it that way.
But, Tom reflected, punching the pillow on the narrow bed in the small upstairs room, that was in his former life. He seemed to have been born again, reincarnated, and now the rules were different.
He’d watched programs on reincarnation, listened to people like Shirley Maclaine go on about it. He’d always reserved judgment, not caring one way or the other. Who gave a damn what happened after you were dead? It was living that counted.
Now, he figured those gurus were at least partially right about people having other lives. The only area they were way off base about was the dying part. Tom could have told them with absolute certainty that a person didn’t have to die to be reincarnated.
He rolled over onto his stomach, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. The entire bedroom smelled faintly of Zelda’s perfume, and now his nostrils filled with the lemony scent of her hair, clinging to the pillow underneath the embroidered cotton cover.
He fantasized about what she looked like naked, underneath all those clothes. Like a colt, he decided, or a fawn, long, slender legs, narrow hips, concave belly, with a nest of soft red curls shielding unexplored secrets. His groin swelled and hardened, and he groaned and turned over on his back.
Idiot. For all you know, she could have hips as wide as the skirts that hide them, and legs and ankles like tree stumps, he chided himself.
What brought his eyes wide open in the darkness and kept him from sleeping for another long, worrisome time was the revolutionary realization that even if all of that was true, it still wouldn’t for a moment stop him from desiring Zelda Ralston.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 73
