by Sally Laity
Ken waited for her to elaborate on how the inside wasn’t all that much better, but surprisingly, she kept silent as they went in the back door and on through the kitchen, as always.
Hannah had set the table before they’d left for the service, and it looked nicer than it had in a long time, with Ma’s only good dishes, the “company” ones. And nary a chip marred the place setting where the honored guest would sit. Fresh wildflowers sat atop the lace tablecloth, and though the napkins didn’t match each other, they were crisply ironed and rested beneath shining dinner forks, with knives and spoons positioned properly to the right of the plates.
“Something sure smells good,” David commented. “Looks pretty, too.”
“And we’ll have everything ready in a few minutes,” Hannah told him. “Have a seat in the parlor, won’t you? We’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”
Tim led the way to the front room, and the three of them sat in silence for several minutes, Ken tapping an index finger on one knee and David smiling politely whenever their gazes happened to collide.
Ken finally thought of something to say. “Has your family lived in Wilkes-Barre long?”
“Yes, actually. All my life. My grandfather built the house we live in now. It passed to us when he died.”
“That’s sure a swell automobile,” Tim remarked.
“Thanks. It’s been handy to have around.”
“Do you mind if I ask a personal question?” Ken ventured.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to it,” David replied good-naturedly.
His attitude brought a grin, and Ken relaxed a fraction. “I was just wondering why you’re paying attention to my sister. I mean, you must have your pick of girls with. . .means.”
“Perhaps.” He met Ken’s gaze straight on. “One or two of them might be almost as beautiful, another might be nearly as kind and sensitive, and now and then I find one who loves the Lord and lives selflessly. But only Hannah is all of those things and more. I think the world of her.”
“And your parents. Do they approve?”
He shrugged. “They like her a great deal. As far as approving my choice, if you call Hannah that, I need only remind them of our own background and what it took our forebears to provide us with the life we enjoy today. They will respect whatever decision I make.”
“I just don’t want my sister to be hurt.”
“Then, let me lay your concerns to rest, my friend. I have no intention of doing anything to hurt Hannah. I think far too much of her to do that.”
Ken gave a nod. “That’s all I ask.”
Before he probed further, Hannah’s smiling face peeked around the doorjamb, the roses in her cheeks the same fragile pink as her dress. “Dinner is on.” She reached out a hand to David as he got up, then took him to the dining room, indicating which chair would be his. “Next to me,” she added.
He smiled and seated her first, then took his place while the rest of the family did the same.
“We hope you don’t mind plain home cooking,” Ma said, her nerves getting the better of her again.
“Are you kidding?” David said, a teasing lilt in his voice. “There’s nothing finer. If Mother knew her way around a kitchen, we’d have never had to hire someone to do it for us. And your lovely daughter promised chicken and dumplings, my very favorite.”
She seemed more secure after that, and as soon as the blessing had been offered, everyone dove in to the tasty fare.
Ken had to admit that David MacNamara acted genuinely fond of Hannah, and he was swiftly wrapping Ma around his little finger, too. The possibility of losing his sister to someone as decent as he suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all.
If it ever did come to that.
And when Rosalind came to share a meal with them, would Ma go to the trouble of making everything special and pretty for her, as she had for David?
Ten
The mine buzzed along in full swing on Monday, as if nothing of any importance had occurred the previous week. But the funerals and wakes for the ten unfortunate miners had left a pall hanging over the town. Here and there, black crepe draped a doorway, or a black wreath framed the brass knocker on the front door, and housewives clustered together in hushed conversation, mopping leftover tears with their handkerchiefs.
Still, life would remain constant. New men would be hired to fill the vacant jobs. The sorrowing families would move away and be forgotten.
As Ken walked home after his shift, the smell of the lye soap the women used to do their week’s laundry hung heavy in the air. The bluing from discarded wash water mingled with the gray of stove ashes as it trickled along either side of the dirt street. He wondered if life at the Lebanese encampment was so regulated. Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday. . . Seems he remembered Hannah in her girlhood jumping rope to a rhyme with those words.
Hopefully, Rosa’s ankle had improved by now under the tender ministrations of her grandmother. Despite the extra prayers he’d uttered on her behalf, Ken needed to see for himself that Rosalind was okay. Saturday seemed ages away.
❧
Rosa reclined on her bed amid a pile of stockings to be mended, a chore she detested—just one of several mundane tasks pressed upon her to do while sitting with her foot propped up. Compresses Grandmother had applied to the injury had helped somewhat, but the ankle remained tender to walk on. Her guardians had scarcely spoken a dozen words to her since Saturday, and even if she could have gotten out of the house, she was forbidden to do so. Embittered over that, she clenched her teeth together while she sewed.
At least they had not restricted visitors. This evening Philip came over to chat and keep her company after supper, and their conversation stayed on a general course until Rosa’s grandparents went for their nightly stroll on the grounds.
Once the older couple was out of earshot, he lowered his slim frame to sit on the bottom corner of her bed. “So, how are you?” he asked. “I mean truly.”
“Miserable. They do not talk to me, they do not even look at me. It is as if I have some disease, and they do not want to become unclean by coming too close. Sometimes I even see them whispering to each other. Secret things they do not want me to hear.”
He raised a shoulder. “I hate to say I told you so, Cousin. But you should have expected them to react as they have.”
“But they will not let me tell them anything,” she said, the pitch of her voice unnaturally high from frustration. “Ken and I did nothing wrong. He was just being my friend.”
“The fact that he is an outsider made it wrong, Rosa. You are a young woman now. And very beautiful. One to be desired. It is dangerous for you to stray from our people and be influenced by someone who does not know our ways.”
Rosalind closed her eyes with an exasperated huff, then opened them again. “Our ways. Always our ways. Do you know how tired I am of hearing those words? They make my head hurt.”
He shrugged, his brown eyes soft with empathy. “How would you like me to go and talk to your grandparents? They still listen to me.”
“What good would that do? They are as stubborn as mules when it comes to me.”
“Maybe it would help, maybe not. But would you have things continue as they are forever?”
Expelling a tired breath, she shook her head.
“Someone needs to remind them that you love them deeply and have always been loyal to them. That you would never purposely do something to cause them hurt. . .and that they are choosing to take the word of a man who would deceive them to suit his own purposes over the word of their own flesh and blood.”
“Do you truly think they will listen?”
He smiled then, his most irresistible of smiles. “How could they not? Why would they not believe their granddaughter’s most charming relative? I have not done anything to cause disgrace to my parents.”
“Ouch,” Rosalind said, narrowing her gaze.
“But neither have you,” he went on without missing a beat. “I will make t
hem see that. Somehow.”
Rosa continued to look at him while she considered his words. Maybe her cousin really could help. After all, she only needed for her grandparents to give her a chance to explain. She would tell them part of the truth. They weren’t ready to know all of it yet. She refused to believe they never would be. “Fine,” she said at last. “Do what you can. I trust you, Philip.”
He got up and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “For you, Cousin, I would go to the moon and back. I will try to catch your grandparents now, before they finish their walk.”
Rosalind hesitated to get her hopes too high, but after Philip left, she put on a more cheerful face and resumed her mending. At least her guardians would see that the quality of her work had not suffered from her foolishness.
While she waited, her thoughts drifted to Ken, as happened so often in moments of solitude. Rosalind knew he must be worried sick about her, wondering how in the world she managed to get home on her own. There’d been no way to get word to him. All she could do was think over some of the things he’d said before she’d gotten hurt.
I have no fear of death. I know I will be with the Lord.
What would it be like, not to fear dying? Having lost both her parents before the end of her childhood, Rosa had always viewed death as a cruel enemy, something to dread. She purposely avoided all thoughts of it. But oh, to have the kind of peace Ken displayed.
Setting aside the darning egg with the partially finished stocking, she reached for the New Testament he had given her. Normally she kept it under her pillow, out of her grandparents’ sight, so as not to have to explain where she’d gotten it. But Rosalind had already read it through twice, and sometimes as she immersed herself in its passages, she sensed that the peace she yearned for was almost near enough to grasp. She opened to the Gospel of John and read again the fourteenth chapter, meditating on the verses that caught at her heart:
“Lord. . .how can we know the way?”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
Rosa then turned back pages to the third chapter and the story of the Jewish ruler who learned that he needed to be born again. She focused on verse 16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Everlasting life, she mused. There would be no need to fear death. I would like to have such peace. And it says “whosoever.” That must include me. As the light of truth dawned at last in her heart, Rosalind bowed her head and thanked God for sending His Son to die for her sins. And she asked Him to take her to heaven when it was her time to die.
A peace beyond any she had ever experienced flooded her being, and Rosa knew beyond all doubt that she had been born again.
Surprisingly, she no longer wanted to deceive her guardians with half-truths. If they gave her the opportunity to explain her actions, she would tell them what they should know. She would tell them. . .everything.
She did not have long to wait.
The familiar sounds of Grandmother and Grandfather Azar’s return drifted to Rosalind as she continued working on the task they’d given her. She heard them exchange quiet words, none of which she could make out.
After a peculiar silence, they came into her room.
Rosa could tell nothing from their demeanors.
Grandfather cleared his throat. “We have not been. . .fair to you, my Rosa. Such anger filled our hearts, such. . .fear that you would betray us, betray our ways, we could not think. Philip is right. You should speak to us, tell us what you wish.”
She switched her gaze to her grandmother and received a nod of assent.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you both. I, too, have been angry and afraid. Afraid that you no longer loved me or wanted me. And I love you so much. You are the only family I have known. I would never wish to hurt you.”
Her grandfather gave a grudging nod. “Then you will tell truth to us. What you have been doing up in forest, where no one sees.”
Rosa put down the stocking she’d been working on and took a cleansing breath to fortify herself. Where to begin? “It has always been my place to go looking for the herbs and plants you need, Grandmother, for your healing shelves. And that has been my purpose each time I have gone there. Have I not returned with whatever you requested and other things besides?”
“This is true,” she agreed.
“And I was happy to please you. But one day my path crossed that of a man I did not know, a man from the mines.” Noting how her guardians immediately tensed, she forged on, her tone even. “I wanted to run at once, but he told me not to be afraid, he would not harm me. He had only come to the quiet place to read.”
“You should have run anyway,” Grandfather cut in.
“Perhaps,” she consented, “but I did not. He told me his name. Ken Roberts. And I told him mine. And he said he hoped that one day we might meet again.”
“That is all?” her grandmother asked, a wave of relief easing the lines in her weathered face.
Rosalind shook her head. “That was the first time. It was by chance.”
“So there is more,” Grandfather probed, unease adding gruffness to his voice.
She nodded. “I saw him again another day, in a different place from before. And again he had come to read. He had some food with him, and he offered some to me. . .and I was hungry, so I accepted it. And for a short time we talked. Talked of nothing. And this meeting, too, was by chance.”
“Then, this is all,” her grandmother said, obviously ready to welcome the end of the story.
“Not quite,” Rosa confessed. “After that, even if we did meet by chance, we ate together, we talked, and we laughed. We have become friends. He is not like other outsiders. He does not look down on our people. He talks to me about God.” Sensing from the pair’s granite expressions that they already had enough information to digest, she decided not to elaborate further just yet regarding the progression of the sweet friendship she and Ken now shared.
“And last Saturday,” Grandfather said, “when Nicholas saw the two of you together, he saw nothing wrong?”
“No. Nothing. I had fallen and could not walk. Ken wanted to carry me home to you. I was the one who told him no one should see us together. Nicholas must have heard that, and he drew his own conclusions.”
“And this is truth,” her grandfather reiterated, his stance revealing nothing.
“It is the truth,” Rosalind assured him. “Ken is my friend, and I am his.”
His gaze never wavered from hers. “I am glad you told this, my Rosa. And I am glad you have done no wrong. But—” His tone turned chilly, and he jabbed his finger into the air to punctuate each phrase. “You will not again go into forest alone. This man did no harm, and I am glad. But he is still outsider, not of us. You will make friends among our people.”
“But—”
“That is all, Rosa. Your grandmother and I have talked. We think maybe time has come for you to marry.”
Rosalind’s heart thudded to a stop as her guardians exited her room without another word.
They cannot mean it. They just need time to think.
But inside, she knew that instead of making things better by being open and honest with her grandparents, she had just cooked her own goose.
❧
Ken read another whole section in the engineering textbook as he waited for Rosalind to arrive at the thicket. Noon had come and gone, and there’d been no sign or sound of her or Maloof. He’d finally given into the urging of his stomach for food, saving the second sandwich for her. But it wasn’t like her not to show up at all—unless her ankle had been hurt more seriously than either of them realized. He’d expected her injury to heal quickly and not give her further problems.
The sun was well on its downward path now. He glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer to hang around.
Heaving a sigh, Ken closed the
study book and switched to his Bible. He hadn’t read his daily Scripture yet or had his usual prayer time. He’d take care of those while giving Rosalind a little more time to get here.
But even after reading and meditating on the chapters for the day and praying for Rosa’s ankle and everything else that came to mind, he accepted the fact that she would not be along at all.
There were any number of reasons for that, he decided, preferring not to be a pessimist. And no sense letting perfectly good food go to waste. Standing to his feet, he picked up his books and left the thicket, munching Rosalind’s sandwich as he walked home.
But he could not ignore the niggling suspicion that something was terribly wrong.
Eleven
Rosalind’s fledgling faith offered little comfort during the restless days and nights after her grandparents made their intentions known. She could not accept knowing they planned to marry her off. And soon. A gnawing dread deep inside told her that with but one available bachelor in the settlement, it would not take them long to make their choice.
When Philip had gone out to extol her virtues and make peace with them, why had he not also informed them of the things they did not know about Nick? The man’s hot temper was known all over camp, but only she and Philip had ever glimpsed the cruel streak he kept so well hidden and the way he delighted in torturing small animals. Even Maloof knew enough to give him a wide berth.
If her guardians cared at all about her happiness, surely they would not subject her to a life with such a man. How long could it be before she began to endure his abuse? She grimaced. The torment would begin immediately, because there was no way on earth she would allow him to claim his husbandly privileges. She would die first.
Her grandparents at last retired to their bedroom and put out their lamp, and soon their faint snores were the only sound in the house other than Rosalind’s breathing.
In the dim light of her own bedside lamp, Rosa wanted desperately to pray for help, for guidance, for deliverance, but no words would come. She picked up her New Testament and pressed it to her breast with both hands, hoping that the God who knew all things would make sense out of the rantings of her mind. She belonged to Him now, and He looked after those who loved Him. Perhaps He would protect her, just as He had protected Ken during the explosion at the mine.
