These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He stepped back from the door. He twisted his hat in his hands and pushed a smile out on his face. Mr. Locke. Nurse Howard. Why couldn’t they be Ben and Francine?

  “That’s good.” Francine’s smile came back when Sarge pushed past her to nuzzle Ben’s hand. “Looks like Sarge remembers who rescued him, even if it’s been a while since he’s seen you.” She gave him a questioning look.

  Ben was grateful for the distraction of the dog. “I’ve been busy.” He stroked the dog’s head and down his back.

  Sarge’s tail thumped against Francine’s legs. She stepped out on the porch. “It’s a busy time of the year.”

  “Yes.” Ben straightened up from rubbing the dog and looked directly at Francine. “If you aren’t too busy right now, how about taking a walk down to the creek? There’s still a little daylight before the edge of dark.”

  She hesitated and looked over her shoulder. He was ready to pull back the invitation when she grabbed her jacket from a hook inside the door and called back to Nurse Dawson. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Go ahead and eat if you want. I have to see to the horses and chickens.”

  “You want to do that first?” Ben asked as she shut the door behind her.

  “No. The horses would be surprised to see me until almost dark.” She smiled up at him. “The edge of dark. I love the way you say things here.”

  “It’s just talk to the folks up here.”

  “I suppose so, but to my ear it sounds poetic.” She led the way down off the porch and across the yard to the path that led down the hill to Beech Fork.

  He followed after her without saying anything. The air was cool as the sun dipped behind the hill and cast shadows across them. When the path broadened next to the creek, she paused to let him step up beside her.

  “Are the winters here as bad as Nurse Dawson keeps warning me they are?” She started walking again.

  “They can be, but I would take them anytime over the ones overseas. Leastways I knew what to expect from winters here. Over there it could be cold rain or snow. The rain was the worst. Everything wet and no way to dry out for what seemed like weeks. The old-timers tell me we had it good compared to when they were in the trenches during the First World War.”

  “My father was in the First World War, but he never talked about it much.”

  “I guess that’s the best way. Just leave it all behind.” He couldn’t believe he’d talked about the war with her. He hadn’t talked to anybody about how it was over there. Then, here she asked a simple question about winter and he was dredging up memories she probably didn’t even want to know.

  “Could be. If you can.” She glanced up at him and then away. She stopped and stared out at the water sliding past them. “I became a nurse with the intention of going overseas to serve, but after my father died, my mother couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.”

  “But isn’t your mother alone now? With you here?”

  “Things changed. She remarried. I needed a new start.”

  He wanted to ask why she needed a new start, but he bit back the question. He didn’t know her well enough to pry. “I guess this is pretty different from what you knew back in Ohio.”

  “Very different.” She bent down and picked up a rock to throw in the stream. Sarge perked up his ears and she put her hand on his ruff to keep him from chasing after the rock. “I don’t know that I’ve thanked you properly for Sarge. He is the best dog.” She turned toward Ben.

  “No thanks needed. As my sergeant used to say, I saw his potential and wanted him to have a chance to exercise it.”

  She was so close that he imagined he could feel her breath. He could put his hand on her shoulder and pull her an inch or two closer. Then he could tip up her chin and drop his lips down on hers. He could, but instead he turned away to look out at the creek. Maybe he should just wade out in it. The water would be cold and he definitely needed to cool down. Best to get to why he had come calling.

  “Becca says you’re going to the city.”

  “I am. I have to take an exam to be fully qualified in midwifery.”

  “You be gone long?”

  “Until next Monday. I’m going to visit my mother, since it isn’t that much farther to Cincinnati from Lexington by train.”

  “I reckon your mother is anxious to see you. You haven’t been home in a while.” He was sorry he said “home.” He wanted her to be home here.

  “Not since I came here in May. In some ways that doesn’t seem long, but in other ways forever. So much has happened with all the people I’ve met and the babies I’ve helped deliver.” She started walking again and he fell in beside her.

  “Your mother must be proud of you.”

  Francine laughed. “Not really. She was totally against me coming to the mountains.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t know what to say to that.

  She put her hand on his arm. “My mother is nothing like your mother. She wants people to take care of her instead of being the one to take care of others. But she is my mother and it will be good to see her.”

  “But you’ll be back.”

  “God willing and the creek don’t rise.”

  “The creeks always rise, but not too much in the fall of the year. Especially this year, since it’s been dry. The tides come mostly in the spring or late winter.”

  “Tides? That’s floods, isn’t it?”

  “I guess that does sound strange. Tides are in oceans. I’ve seen some of those now. Not much like flash floods.”

  She stopped and looked at the peaceful creek again. “Betty says this creek can turn into a torrent, but that Mrs. B made sure the center was on high enough ground that the waters don’t reach it. She says sometimes you need a boat to get across. That’s hard to imagine, since right now we could wade to the other side. Even Sarge wouldn’t have to swim.”

  “When the rains come, you need to stay clear of rushing water. Folks can get swept away and drown.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Not often, but sometimes folks are caught unaware.”

  “It can be a hard place here.” Francine sighed a little. “Beautiful but hard.”

  She was what was beautiful, with nothing hard about her. Again, he reminded himself to stick to his excuse for being there as she turned back toward the center.

  “Anyhow, when Becca said you were going, I thought maybe you needed me to take Sarge up to the house. I told you we could see to him if you needed us to.”

  “That’s right. You did.” She smiled at him. “But I think Sarge is winning Nurse Dawson over. And he has definitely already made Jeralene a lifelong friend. She’s staying at the center to help out while I’m gone. She promises to watch out for Sarge.”

  “Then I guess you don’t need us to take care of him.” It was silly to feel rejected, but he did.

  “Not this time, but I appreciate the offer.” She laughed again. “Besides, I’m not sure Sarge would enjoy sharing space with Woody’s Bruiser several days in a row. When we’re up there, he growls whenever the pup gets close.”

  “Rufus has the same opinion. He hides out in the barn or under the porch most of the time these days. But Woody and Sadie love their pups.”

  “Sadie’s been much better since you got back. I’m so glad about that. And Woody is doing fine too. Nearly healed. That could have been so much worse.”

  “Yes.” Ben didn’t want to talk about Woody. He still hadn’t come to terms with the sheriff’s accidental shooting determination.

  They were almost back to the center where Captain patiently waited in the shade of the tree out front. Ben hadn’t seen the need in driving the truck.

  She put her hand on his arm again to stop him. “What about you? Are you all right?”

  His muscles tensed under her touch. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

  “I don’t know.” She didn’t shrink from his angry tone. “No reason or maybe a dozen reasons. You seem a little
on edge.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her. “You mean because somebody shot my little brother and nobody seems concerned about that. Not even my little brother. Or because my sister’s husband left her at our mother’s house and hasn’t even bothered to write. And she doesn’t seem bothered that he hasn’t. Or because I sent in to go to school in January but can’t see any way it can happen with two women, a boy, a girl, and a baby to get through the winter.” He didn’t add, because I’m in love with a woman who would never consider loving me. He’d already said too much. Again.

  She didn’t look away from him. “Some good reasons. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have any call to be sorry. I’m the one sorry that I unloaded all that on you.”

  “No, no. I’m a nurse. People are supposed to tell me things.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Maybe not everything, but then I doubt you did tell me everything.”

  “So do you have a cure in your medicine bag?” Ben tried to lighten the moment.

  “No. But I do have something my grandmother told me once. When things are the most confused in our lives, that’s when the Lord can work best.”

  “I don’t like confusion. I like things laid out in straight rows with everybody knowing which rows belong to them.”

  “But life is rarely that way. We make squiggles and turns and sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. But either way the Lord has a plan and a purpose.”

  “If that’s true, he hasn’t let me in on what it is. That plan and purpose.”

  She smiled. “He will. When it’s time. That’s another thing she said. His time is not our time.”

  “You sound like a preacher.”

  “Oh heavens, I don’t mean to. Mrs. B has rules against sounding like a preacher. No religion talk.” She put her fingers over her lips.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell on you.”

  “Or listen to me?” Her smile was back.

  “To you? Or your grandmother?” He let his lips curl up to match hers. “She sounds like she might have been somebody worth listening to. Like my pa. He used to tell me to think about today and not to be reaching way ahead to borrow trouble. He claimed it had a way of coming soon enough. That’s something you can count on.”

  “But good things happen too. Sometimes they go hand in hand.”

  “Trouble and joy.” He stopped beside Captain and watched her walk on toward the center. He wasn’t sure which she was. Trouble or joy. He just knew he didn’t want her to disappear from his life until he found out. “Hope you do well on your exam.”

  She turned and waved. “Thank you.”

  Then she headed toward the barn. There was nothing for him to do but mount Captain and start for home. The same as her, he would have some nightly chores if his mother hadn’t already done them.

  33

  October 28, 1945

  Fran was glad to be done with the exam and also glad to have her visit to her mother almost over. She would catch the train to start the long journey back to the mountains early on Monday. Only Sunday to get through.

  Nothing was the same. Her mother and her new husband had moved into a different house, and so the home Fran knew was gone. At this house, she slept in the spare bedroom that was all white and pink ruffles. A room for a little girl princess that she never was or wanted to be. Nothing from her old bedroom was there.

  “Don’t worry,” her mother said when Fran asked about her clothes and books. “I packed up what was good and stored it in the attic. I wrote you we were moving. You should have come home and cleaned out your room yourself. I had no idea you had that many books.”

  “Are they in the attic too?”

  “Oh no. We couldn’t carry those up there. We gave them away.”

  “Even my copy of Little Women that Grandma Howard gave me?” Fran treasured that book. She and her grandmother had read it aloud to one another the summer she was twelve.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t have time to look through all those dusty old books.”

  Fran pulled in a breath to calm herself, but the loss of that book was a stab to the heart. She had no reason to be surprised. Her mother had never paid much attention to what Fran liked. Her father might have known, but he was gone. His place was taken over by Harold Stephens, who was polite enough to Fran, but it was evident she had no permanent place at his house.

  Early Sunday morning, Fran climbed into the attic to find a dress to wear to church. She dug through the clothes in the trunk. The red dress she had once worn to a dance with Seth was, of course, gone. Her mother would have never kept it. But there was a forest green dress with buttons down the front that would do. She gathered up stockings and underthings to take back to the mountains with her.

  She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. The stuffy attic disappeared and she could almost feel the mountain air against her face. She wished she could be getting ready to go to Wendover for chapel if no baby was ready to make an entrance. There they could show up in their nurse outfits. The service wasn’t for wearing hats and gloves. It was for inspiring and empowering them to keep doing their best.

  But it would be good to go to church here too and see old friends. The one person she hadn’t thought about seeing was Seth, but her mother obviously had other ideas.

  When they started out for church and turned on a different street, not the one for the church they had always attended, Fran asked, “Aren’t we going to Maple Avenue Church?”

  “Not today, dear. I thought we’d go to the First Christian Church over on Midland today.”

  “Mother, what are you up to?”

  “Why do you think I’m up to something? I’m just trying to make your visit home good. More of your friends from school go to church there.”

  Fran sank back in the seat. She knew which friend her mother wanted her to see, but it was useless to argue with her. Surely the Lord would forgive Fran’s prayer that Seth would skip church today, but even if he didn’t, she could smile and say hello. To him and his intended.

  None of that mattered to her now. She had moved on. Tomorrow she would be on the way back to the mountains. There she was a different person, a nurse-midwife no longer consumed by the desire to marry and have a family. The Lord had given her a different purpose when he made a way for her to learn to catch babies. She smiled at that and remembered telling Ben Locke how much she liked mountain speak.

  What was it she had told him her grandmother used to say? That when things got confused, that was when the Lord worked best. She’d depend on that to get her through the rest of this day. Her mother was obviously confused if she thought orchestrating a meeting between Seth and Fran would change anything. Especially since she didn’t even have that red dress to wear any longer.

  Fran smiled at the thought. She didn’t need a red dress. She only needed her horse and dog and that important saddlebag. A better sense of direction might be nice though, Lord, she offered up silently. That could be her prayer today. That and somehow making it through the rest of the day without choking her mother.

  The prayer that Seth might skip church wasn’t answered. Her mother poked her and pointed when Seth’s family came in. Thank goodness, none of them noticed, as Seth and his family continued on down the aisle toward the front of the church.

  Seth looked different, but that was to be expected. Neither of them were schoolkids now. His hair was still short in a military style, and he moved with the easy confidence of a man, instead of the self-consciousness of a teen. The petite woman with him was as pretty as her picture. Her blonde hair curled around her face, and her bright red lipstick matched the red flower in her dress.

  For just a moment, Fran thought how very plain she must look in comparison, with her hair twisted in a tight roll on the back of her head and her dark green dress without the first adornment. But then she didn’t care. She didn’t want to compete with Cecelia. Fran might harbor some regret for their lost future, but Seth had mad
e his choice. What Fran had hoped for them was lost months ago when Seth threw away her love. She had no intention of chasing after it.

  Unfortunately, her mother wasn’t ready to give up so easily. After the preacher said the final amen, Fran’s mother delayed retrieving her purse. Then she dropped a glove in order to exit their pew directly behind Seth and his family. At least she had the good manners to wait until they were out of the church before she grabbed Fran’s elbow and rushed after Seth.

  “Seth,” her mother called as they went down the steps. “Look who’s home.”

  Fran wished for a way to escape what would surely be an awkward meeting. Not that Fran couldn’t handle it. She had just ushered an unexpected twin into the world. She had stitched up a man’s leg after his knife slipped while he was cleaning fish. She had wormed children and treated consumption. She had kept a boy from bleeding to death in the back of a truck. If she could do all that and more, she could look Seth Miller in the face without shrinking back.

  “Hello, Seth. So good to see you home.” She had no trouble looking him in the eye and saying that. She was glad Seth had made it home from the war.

  “Francine. I heard you were visiting your mother.” Seth gave Fran the once-over. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes, it has.” Fran shifted her eyes to the woman clinging to Seth’s arm and held out a hand toward her. “And you must be Cecelia. Seth’s sister showed me your picture before I went to the mountains, but it’s good to meet you in person.”

  “Yes.” The woman barely brushed her fingertips across Fran’s hand. Perhaps English women thought it wasn’t ladylike to shake hands. Perhaps it wasn’t. She had a lovely English accent. “I’ve heard so much about you. Everyone considers you very brave to go off to become a frontier nurse.”

  “Not brave at all.” Fran pulled her hand back. “Actually some of the nurse-midwives are from your home country. England.”

  “Oh really. How interesting.” She didn’t sound interested at all.

  “Well, nice seeing you, Seth, and good to meet you, Cecelia.” Her mother was still chatting with Seth’s parents, but Fran eased past them with a wave to follow Harold, who had walked on toward the parking area. She didn’t look back.