So Sara did what came naturally. She went home to see her family.
Her parents owned three hundred and twenty acres in western Canyon County. The farm had been in the family since the late twenties, purchased with money Sara’s great-grandfather, Horace Jennings, had made as a bootlegger during the Prohibition years — a story her dad liked to retell at every Jennings family reunion.
For decades, the rich soil had produced crops of sweet corn and sugar beets to be sold at market. It also nurtured an immense garden of vegetables to help feed the family. A few calves, raised for the beef that would go into the Jenningses’ deep freeze, grazed on pastureland alongside several saddle horses. Huge poplars, oaks, and maples filled the yard, providing shade, and one tree offered a gnarled limb from which hung an old rope-and-board swing. The two-story white house that had sheltered several generations of Jennings kids was large and drafty, like most seventy-year-old farmhouses.
Sara had never minded any of the imperfections in her childhood home. Not the creaky stairs or the groans from the attic on dark windy nights. Not the icy floor on an early winter morning. Not the faded flowered wallpaper in her bedroom. Not even the hairline cracks in the claw-footed bathtub or the leaky faucet in the sink. Nothing would ever make her think there was a better place for children to grow up than in this old house.
She arrived at the farm at suppertime. She hadn’t planned it that way, but she wasn’t sorry either. Although her mom wasn’t a fancy cook, nobody knew better than Kristina Jennings how to fill up a husband and three strapping sons with plain, hearty, just-tastes-good food. Tonight she was serving poor-boy stew, made with hamburger, onions, carrots, potatoes, and tomato sauce. Before Sara scarcely knew what was happening, she’d been seated in her old spot at the table between her dad and her eldest brother, Tim.
“You’re too thin,” Kristina fussed as she set before Sara a large bowl of stew and a chunk of fresh-baked bread with ample butter spread on it. “You’re wasting away to nothing.”
It was what her mother said every time she saw Sara. A woman of short stature, Kristina was round and soft, reminding Sara of the Pillsbury Doughboy in a curly red wig.
“I’m not too thin.” Sara glanced to her left. “Tell her I’m okay, Dad.”
Her father, Jared Jennings, had a face like an old weathered glove, browned by the sun and creased by the heat, cold, wind, and constant worries that came with farming. He also had eyes that twinkled with the mischief of a small boy.
“She’s okay, Kris. Leave her be.” He winked at Sara. “Besides, them college boys like ‘em skinny as beanpoles. Ain’t that right?”
Heat rose in her cheeks as she remembered Dave telling her she was pretty enough to be a movie star. He wasn’t a college boy but —
“Well, I’ll be!” Tim exclaimed. “Look at her blush. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her blush before.”
“The princess has gone and got herself a boyfriend,” Josh said with a laugh. Her middle brother was a ruthless tease, and now that he thought he had something to razz her about, this was sure to be a long evening.
Sara groaned inwardly. She didn’t need this. She’d come home to take her mind off Dave.
“Who is he?” Eli asked. “Do we know him?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend. And if I did, I sure wouldn’t tell any of you buffoons.” She picked up her spoon and stared into her stew. “I’m not that naive.”
“Come on, Sara,” Eli wheedled. The closest to her in age, he’d been the one she confided in most often during her girlhood. “Tell us about him.”
Glancing up, she met her mother’s watchful gaze. Kristina would know if she tried to bluff her way through. Her mother had always known when any of the Jennings kids told a lie. It was a sixth sense with her.
Sara released a sigh, feeling like a punctured tire with the air rushing out. Then she looked around the table. “Okay, I’ve met someone. I think he’s nice and I think he’s cute, but I don’t know much about him yet.” Nothing at all, actually. “We’ve never beenout on a date. I hope we will soon.” Friday night. I’ll see him Friday night. “Now, that’s all I’m going to say about him. Nothing may come of this, you know, so don’t get yourselves all in a lather.”
“Don’t you think you oughta let one of us have a look-see?” Josh leaned forward in anticipation. “I’d be happy to check him out. What’s his name?”
Sara laughed. “Not a chance, Bro. You couldn’t drag his name out of me. Not even if you torture me with bamboo shoots and hot irons. My lips are sealed.”
The three brothers started talking at once, the decibel level rising steadily as they listed all of their sister’s former boyfriends, then detailed the reasons those boys hadn’t been good enough for Sara, along with a few reasons why she couldn’t find the right fellow. The teasing seemed to go on interminably.
But it only took a few softly spoken words from their mother to bring it to an end. “That’s enough, all of you.” Kristina waited for silence, then said, “Your supper’s getting cold. Sara, I want to see you eat all that stew. I don’t care if those boys over in Boise do like their girls thin. You eat.”
“Yes, Mom.”
With their mother’s gaze moving from Sara to each son in turn, she added, “Go ahead, all of you.”
FOUR
The Porter home on Garden Street was a small, older house, not much different from the neighboring houses that lined the street. It wasn’t large or fancy, but Claire loved it. She’d spent years decorating it from pennies pinched from her grocery budget, trying always to make it special, a place where everyone felt comfortable and welcome.
This night, with four couples around the dining room table and laughter punctuating the air, Claire felt aglow with success.
Alana leaned toward her. “That was an incredible meal. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You know I love entertaining. And I wanted to do something special for you and Jack.”
“I’ve never known anyone who thrived on being ‘the little woman’ the way you do.”
Claire knew her friend didn’t mean for her words to be insulting, nor did she take them as such. She did thrive on it. She’d never had any aspirations to have a career. She’d always been content to be a wife and a mom and a homemaker. Nothing more and nothing less. No apologies to the liberated superwomen of her generation.
She looked toward the opposite end of the table, her gaze settling on her husband.
She remembered the first time she’d seen Dave as if it hadbeen yesterday. September. The month of warm days and cool nights. The first day of school, her sophomore year at Borah High, between second-and third-period classes. He was a senior, the star pitcher of the varsity baseball team. He’d come striding down the crowded hallway, a head taller than most of the other boys. Tall and gorgeous with a killer, self-confident smile. She couldn’t help but notice him. All the girls would have died for a chance to go out with him. But he’d picked Claire.
She still sometimes wondered why.
They’d dated all that year, two kids desperately in love. Then, the following September, Dave had left for the University of Idaho in Moscow, and Claire had despaired of losing him to someone else, to someone prettier and older, to someone who wasn’t “stuck in the morals of the past,” as he put it.
When he’d come home the summer between his freshman and sophomore years, Claire had given in to her fear of losing him and to his constant pressure to “let me love you completely.” Shortly afterward, she’d started taking the pill, but it was already too late. Before he left for school in September, she’d had to tell him she was pregnant.
It hadn’t been the ideal way to start a marriage, she thought now. Dave had been forced to leave college in order to support his bride and the baby who arrived seven months after the hastily arranged wedding. But they’d made it work, and in another five months they would celebrate their thirteenth wedding anniversary.
“You know” —Alana’s voice intruded
on Claire’s private thoughts —“you still look at him the way you did when you were fifteen.”
Claire smiled as she watched Dave lean toward Jack’s cousin, Ty Boston, the two men deep in conversation, probably about one sport or another. “I love him just as much as I ever did. More, really.” She turned toward her friend. “I’m terribly happy, you know.”
Alana nodded. “I know.”
“But you didn’t always think I would be, did you?” It was a rhetorical question. Claire’s best friend had made it clear, back in high school, how she felt about Dave.
He’s going to break your heart one of these days, Claire Conway. You just wait and see. He’s too full of himself. He wants to be the star. Especially when it comes to girls.
“I’m glad I was wrong,” Alana whispered.
“Me too.”
“I hope you’re always this happy.”
“We will be.”
The clinking of a dinner knife against a wine goblet drew everyone’s attention toward Jack Moncur. He stood, glass in hand.
“I’d like to thank all of you for coming tonight to help us celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.” He patted his trim abdomen. “Especially Claire for preparing that fantastic meal. And, of course, Dave for opening his home to us.” He turned his eyes on his wife. “Most of all, I want to thank Alana for loving me and putting up with me while I learned how to be a husband. You all know it couldn’t have been easy for her. Honey, you’re the best.” He lifted his glass. “To you, my darling. I love you.”
They all took sips from their glasses.
Claire glanced down the length of the table. Her gaze met Dave’s.
She expected him to smile that special secret smile, a smile that would say I love you too. I think you’re the best. Thanks for loving me and putting up with me. But he didn’t smile. Instead, his gaze shifted abruptly back to Jack.
He couldn’t have meant to make her feel rejected. Dave had simply wanted to see what gift Jack was presenting to Alana at that very moment. That’s all. Claire knew he loved her. He would never hurt her intentionally.
Nonetheless, the evening had lost some of its luster.
Sara loved the smell of spring on the farm. The pungent scent of freshly turned soil warmed by the sun. Flowering trees in bloom. Even the smell of cow manure wasn’t bad when mingled with that of alfalfa hay.
As dusk settled over the earth, Sara stood in the corral with her quarter horse gelding, Rusty. She and Rusty had taken a few barrel-racing championships during her high school years. Last year, they’d come in second at the Snake River Stampede.
“You miss it, fella?” She stroked the white blaze on the sorrel’s face.
As if understanding the question, Rusty snorted and bobbed his head.
Sara chuckled. “I’ll bet. You’re getting fat and lazy, standing around, waiting for me. If you weren’t so ornery, maybe one of the guys would saddle you up.”
“He could use a good run.”
She turned, brought out of her reverie by her mother’s unexpected presence.
Kristina leaned her arms on the fence. “He does miss you, you know.”
“I wish I had time to come out for a ride now and then. I didn’t know being in a play and keeping up with the rest of my studies would be so time consuming.” Sara gave Rusty’s neck a final pat, then strode across the corral to where her mother stood. She stepped up on the bottom rail of the whitewashed board fence, twisted, and sat on the top rail, her gaze returning to her favorite gelding.
For a while there was silence, a comfortable silence between a mother and daughter who’d survived the turbulent teen years and hysterical hormones and were now becoming friends.
“You nervous about the play?” Kristina asked at long last.
“Not really. I’ve got my lines down pat. I think I could say them in my sleep. In fact, I do say them in my sleep. I think I’ll do okay on opening night.”
“You’ll do more than okay.” She patted Sara’s hand. “Dad and I are coming to the Saturday performance. Uncle Peter and Aunt Betsy are joining us. The boys all have other plans, but they said they’d be there on closing night.”
Sara hoped her brothers would behave themselves. She could only imagine what shenanigans they might cook up.
“Would you like us to come early? We could all go out to eat, the five of us.”
“I couldn’t possibly eat before the play, Mom. I’d throw up.”
“Which means you are nervous.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
“What about this young man you mentioned at supper? Will he be at the play?”
Sara glanced down at her mother, not even trying to disguise the truth. “I hope so, Mom. I really hope so.”
Kristina stared back, her gaze thoughtful. “Don’t forget what’s important, Sara Teresa.”
The words were few, the reminder gentle, but Sara understood what her mother was saying. There were certain values the Jennings children had been raised with, certain standards of conduct that were expected of them, whether they were teenagers living at home or adults out on their own.
She thought of Dave again, of the strange way he affected her by his mere presence.
“I won’t forget,” she answered softly, hoping her promise was true.
Dave shoved the drawer closed, cursing angrily. “Jack Moncur’s a jerk.”
“Dave. Really.”
“He didn’t have to give her that diamond necklace at the party. He did it to show off, to make the rest of us guys look bad.”
Claire pulled the brush through her hair. “That wasn’t why. It was their anniversary party. Of course he would give it to her here. We’re her friends.”
“You know what’s wrong with you, Claire? You don’t have a clue about anything.” He stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Her hand stilled in midstroke. She was stunned by his rage. What had she said that was so terrible?
This isn’t about Jack, a small voice warned.
She dropped the brush onto her dressing table and hurried after him. She found him sitting on the front stoop.
“Dave?” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled. Silence. Then, “Everything.”
“Is it work?” She sat beside him.
Instead of looking at her, he turned his eyes toward the sky. Claire followed the direction of his gaze.
Overhead, stars sparkled against an inky black backdrop. Night sounds drifted to her on a breeze, whispering through the green leaves on the trees that surrounded the Porter home. A cricket chirped its evening song. Someone’s radio played near an open window, the music vying with static.
“Claire?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened to us if you hadn’t gotten pregnant?”
Her heart nearly stopped beating. I didn’t do it on purpose, and I didn’t do it alone. After a few painful moments, she answered him, “No. No, I’ve never wondered that.”
“Sometimes I do. I wonder what our lives would have been like if I’d had the chance to finish college. Maybe I’d have more money than Jack by now.”
“Oh, Dave,” she whispered, “we’re rich in all the ways that count.”
He looked at her. “I guess you got everything you wanted, didn’t you, Claire? A husband, a son, a house.” The anger was back, making his words harsh. “Just the way you always wanted it to be.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Her throat hurt. Her chest hurt. “It’s what you wanted too.”
“I think you know better than that.”
She took hold of his upper arm, hanging on like a woman about to drown. “No, Dave, I don’t. Tell me. Explain it to me. I’m your wife. You can tell me anything. I love you. If you’re not happy, then let’s do something about it.”
He turned his eyes skyward again, not saying anything more.
His silence was worse th
an his anger.
FIVE
“How ‘bout a sharing a burger over at the Burger ‘n’ Brew?” Luke Chambers, one of the cast, suggested to Sara on Monday afternoon at the end of rehearsal.
“Can’t,” she answered as she gathered her books. “I’ve got an appointment.”
It was only a little white lie. She didn’t have an appointment exactly, but she was expecting an important phone call. She had to get home. She didn’t want to chance missing it.
“Maybe tomorrow?” Luke persisted.
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I know a brush-off when I hear one.” He grinned, obviously not heartbroken by her refusal. “Well, I hope the guy’s worth it.”
“So do I.” She smiled back at him and took off for her apartment.
The sky had turned cloudy while she was in the rehearsal hall, and there was a sharp bite in the blustery wind that buffeted her back, pushing her along the cracked sidewalk. The weather felt more like February than April. She hugged her arms in front of her chest and quickened her steps. She was certain that rain would fall in the valley before evening, and if it stayed this cold, there could be a fresh dusting of snow on the mountain peaks by morning.
Sara was so intent on reaching the warmth of her second-floor apartment that she didn’t see the tall man leaning against the stair railing until she was almost upon him.
“Oh!” She stopped, looked up, then felt her heart somersault.
“Hi.” His smile hadn’t changed. It was as devastating as she remembered.
“Dave.”
“So you haven’t forgotten my name.”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. But I … I thought you were going to call. I wasn’t expecting to see you until Friday night.”
His smile faded. “Did I come at a bad time?” He moved as if to leave.
“No!” she answered hurriedly. “No, it isn’t a bad time. Come inside. It’s too cold to stand out here.”
She stepped by him. In her haste to unlock the door, she dropped the key. Dave bent to pick it up. When he straightened, Sara found her nose suddenly mere inches from his.
The Forgiving Hour Page 3
