by Delia Parr
Mother Garrett furrowed her brow for a moment and let out a deep breath. “Poor woman. I suppose she knew she had few enough days left before she had no place with you. Naturally, I’ll expect you’ll be coming here for your meals. I won’t hear otherwise,” she told him and leaned closer to Emma. “You really ought to think about getting married soon so that man wouldn’t have to trudge up and down the hill three times a day just to eat. I don’t even want to think about how dirty his house is going to get.”
“We’re discussing the idea,” Emma whispered as she caught the twinkle in Zachary’s eyes.
“Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!”
Clapping his hands, Teddy started a chant the other children quickly mimicked when Anna carried in two trays of cookies and set them on the table.
Benjamin grinned. “It looks like Grams has won over another generation.”
Mother Garrett beamed, got up, and started doling out the cookies to her great-grandchildren. She traded a kiss for each cookie from them while Liesel and Ditty set out warm apple pie for the adults.
While they all quieted down during dessert, Emma stole another opportunity to study the family gathered around her table. Most everyone, including Wryn, seemed to be relaxed and enjoying themselves, except for Warren and his wife. The slight tension Emma had noted in Warren earlier at the landing and later, when she had told him about marrying Zachary, was still there. Anna was notably more distant with her husband than her other two daughters-in-law were with Mark and Benjamin.
Dismissing what she observed as nothing more than fatigue from the rigors of their travel, if not their different temperaments, Emma hoped a good night’s sleep would restore their spirits.
* * *
Later that day, Emma captured another dream.
Beneath a night sky boasting a grand display of stars that surrounded a glorious moon, Emma was sitting on a quilt with all seven of her grandchildren in front of the fire burning in the outdoor fireplace on the patio.
She had them all to herself.
The youngest ones were within arm’s reach. Paul and Jonas snuggled at her thighs on either side of her. Winnie and Grace claimed her lap, albeit a bit reluctantly at first. Sally, Teddy, and Deborah sat at her feet, and they were all listening to stories about their daddies when they had been little boys growing up in Candlewood.
When yawns started passing from one child to another, Emma pressed a kiss to Winnie’s head. “Time for bed, little ones. We’ll have more stories another night.”
“Can I have my dollies to take to bed with me now?” Deborah asked.
“I’m certain your mama unpacked your dolly for you by now,” Emma replied for the third time since they had all sat down on the quilt. She shifted Winnie and Grace from her lap to stand up.
Little Deborah pouted. “But I want all my dollies. Papa said I could have my dollies when we lived with you.”
“Maybe they’ll be on the packet boat tomorrow,” Emma said, repeating the same answers she had given Deborah earlier, although she could not fathom why the five-year-old could not have managed a brief vacation from her collection in the first place.
When Winnie dashed toward the fireplace, Emma swept her up to her hip and blocked the others. “I think Big Grams has some milk and pretzels waiting for you in the kitchen.”
“Me first!” Teddy cried. When he turned and started running back to the house, the rest of the children followed him.
Emma protected the rear, although she did not have to worry. The promise of more treats from Mother Garrett had all of these little innocents headed straight away from the fire.
Fortunately, Anna, Catherine, and Betsy were waiting in the dining room, as they had promised to do, and they quickly ushered the children to the kitchen after Emma got a kiss from each and every one of her precious grandchildren and said good-night to everyone.
Yawning, Emma arched her back and stretched her legs to get out a few kinks. Exhausted, but joyfully so after such an eventful day, she was anxious to slip upstairs to her bed, figuring she just might manage to do so before her grandchildren were tucked into their own.
She left the dining room and went straight to the center staircase where she found Warren standing with one arm resting on the banister post. She could hear his brothers laughing in one of the front parlors.
“The children are all in the kitchen now, so if you’re standing guard to make sure none of them escaped, you can relinquish your duty,” she teased.
He did not crack a smile. “I was waiting for you.”
“Is anything wrong?” she asked, concerned by his troubled look.
He glanced up and down the hallway. “I wonder if we could speak somewhere more private.”
Emma sighed. “We could use my office, but I’m awfully tired. Unless it’s something urgent—”
“It’s urgent,” he said. “Since you apparently invited us all home on the false pretext of celebrating your birthday when you had every intention of announcing you were getting married instead, I believe it’s quite urgent. I need to talk to you before you marry that man.”
22
WITH HER EMOTIONS SHIFTING from deep concern to heartbreaking disappointment, if not every emotion in between, Emma took a seat behind her office desk, deliberately putting a bit of distance between herself and her eldest son.
In turn, Warren eased into a chair facing her desk, but sat on the edge of his seat. His back was rigid and straight, his gaze dark and troubled.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the sampler that hung on the wall. Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother were words she prayed Warren would find as meaningful as she had when she had stitched them so long ago.
When Warren did not initiate the conversation, she took the lead. Worried that she did not have the same support for her plans to remarry from Warren that she had received from her other sons, she hoped to clarify the point that the decision to remarry or not was a decision she alone would make. “Do you find the prospect that I’m planning to marry again objectionable, or is it more specifically that I’ve decided to marry Mr. Breckenwith?” she asked, certain it was the former, since the two men had been strangers until she had introduced them.
Warren hesitated for a moment. “I’ve only met the man today, but it’s clear he’s quite different from Father.”
Her heart trembled. “Yes, he is, but that doesn’t mean I love your father less. I’ll always love your father. Always. And I’m never going to forget him, Warren. How could I, when I have three wonderful sons who are just like him in so many ways?” she offered gently. “It’s been eight years since your father passed to Glory, and I’ve discovered that I have room in my heart and in my life for another. Would you deny me the affection and companionship that a spouse can give me?”
“Perhaps not, but since he’s a lawyer, I suspect he’ll have a good bit more influence with you than my father ever did.”
She set aside her son’s opinion of Zachary, as well as his father, for the moment in an effort to get at the root of her son’s distress. “When Mr. Breckenwith is my husband, we’ll make decisions together that affect both our lives, just as your father and I always did.”
“That was clearly not the case when you were married to my father,” he argued.
“Warren!” She clapped her hand to her heart, shocked that he would dare judge her relationship with Jonas, let alone disparage their relationship to her face.
“Well, it’s true enough. As I remember it, you made all the decisions in the family, and he simply agreed with you. Not that I fault him for it. He had nothing but his own hard labor to bargain with. You held the purse strings tight, just as you do now.”
Her heart slammed against the wall of her chest, and she had to struggle to keep drawing one good breath at a time. “How your father and I . . . No. I am not going to explain matters that are beyond any concern of yours. It’s clear to me now that the only concern you do have is about my fortune, or more precisely, how my marriage to Mr. Brec
kenwith will affect my fortune and, in turn, your inheritance.”
Apparently unfazed by her unusually harsh condemnation, Warren glowered. “I’m the eldest son. I have every right to be concerned, even if Benjamin and Mark don’t have the sense to realize what your marriage will mean to us. I can only hope you’ve taken legal steps to protect your fortune from Mr. Breckenwith the same way you did with my father when he was alive and the same way you continue to withhold any portion of it from your sons.”
Raw anger sliced through her efforts to remain calm, if not reasonable. “When each of you reached your majority, you all received an identical and quite substantial sum to start a business of your own choosing. Beyond that—”
“Beyond that, we’ve received nothing. Mark is barely scratching a living from his bookstore. Benjamin has to toil day after day just to survive in that blasted wilderness he calls home and—”
“Your brothers are happy, contented men who have never, ever come to me to ask for more,” she argued, a bit more evenly now that she had refused to let anger control her thoughts or her words. “Our conversation shouldn’t be about Mark or Benjamin. We should be talking about you. You have a loving wife and two healthy and beautiful little girls. Of all my sons, you’ve been the most successful in business. You have a new home you built only last year. What more could you possibly want that I could give you, except more of what you already have? What drives you to want so much more? Is it status? Or greed? Please tell me, Warren.”
He looked away for a moment. When he met her gaze again, his expression was hard. “I want what is rightfully mine. I want what you would have given me outright if I had been your daughter instead of a son. I want the respect you never gave to my father. I want—”
“This conversation is over,” Emma announced, blinking back tears as she got to her feet. She held on to the edge of her desk for support. “I’m sorry, but I cannot and I will not sit here and have you say one more cruel and hurtful word. I raised you better. Your father raised you better, and until you remember yourself and your place, I don’t think I can continue this conversation,” she whispered and turned to leave.
“I’m bankrupt. I’ve lost my business and I’ve lost my house.”
She swirled about and stared at her son through a haze of disbelief that blurred her vision for a moment.
“Other than the clothes we were wearing when we arrived today, all I can claim to own is packed in the trunks we brought with us. I sold the rest to buy passage here, including my little Deborah’s collection of dolls. Unless you help me now, I’m afraid we’ve nowhere else to go,” he snapped.
With his chest rising and falling rapidly and his cheeks mottled red, he threw up his hands. “There. Apparently all I had to do was humble myself and beg sufficiently to get you to listen to me.”
Stunned, Emma stared closely at her firstborn child to see that it was shame that colored his cheeks and shadowed his gaze. She also understood that fear was the root of his anger and resentment. Compassion for him soothed away his spiteful words to her earlier. Empathy sent her around her desk to sit beside him.
“I’m so sorry. I . . . I didn’t know. Why didn’t you write to tell me you were having financial problems?”
He slumped his shoulders and looked down. “I thought . . . I thought I could pull myself out of the mess I’d made of things, but the lawyers . . . those infernal lawyers . . .” He let out a heavy sigh. “I worked so hard and so long to prove myself. For nothing. So here I sit, a man as incompetent in business as his own father, with as little to my name as he ever had. At least he had a roof over his head, which is more than I can possibly expect for myself or my family now that you’re about to remarry.”
Confused and hurt by her son’s perceptions of the life she had shared with Jonas or the place he had in her life now, she shook her head. “I had no idea you were so bitter or that you thought so little of the life your father shared with me, but I am equally distressed that you think I would not make a place for you here because I was planning to marry again.”
“Mr. Breckenwith may have his own thoughts about having your grown son and his family living with you,” he replied.
Emma set aside that argument, despite the fact that she knew Zachary would have very real objections to the idea. Determined to get to the heart of Warren’s expectations, she pressed him to tell her more. “When you came back to Candlewood, what is it you wanted me to do for you exactly, other than give you and your family a place to live temporarily?”
He looked at her, his expression earnest. “I need a stake to start a new business. I know I’ve made mistakes in business before, but I know better now than to take capital that should have been put back into the business to build a new house. I know how to avoid making those same mistakes. Unfortunately, before and after I declared bankruptcy, that wasn’t an argument that was convincing enough for any of the banks to grant me a loan.”
She cocked a brow. “The money to build your house came directly from your business account?”
“I didn’t want Deborah and Grace growing up over the dry goods store like I did,” he explained. “I wanted more for them. At the time, business was good, so I took a chance and lost. We could have had more. Me and Benjamin and Mark,” he murmured.
Her heart skipped a beat. “I thought we had what truly mattered. We had each other.”
“And patrons arriving, day in and day out, interrupting our meals and putting purchases on accounts they never paid—”
“And yet you chose to start nearly the same kind of business I had here. I don’t understand why. If you were so unhappy growing up living over the General Store, why didn’t you start a completely different business?”
“It was all I knew,” Warren whispered and looked away.
She swallowed hard. “You were the one who insisted you wanted to leave when you could have stayed here in Candlewood. You could have taken over the General Store someday.”
“And be a lackey like my father until the day you decided you would turn the business over to me?” he asked and turned to her again. “I’m sorry. It’s how I felt then.”
“And now,” she murmured, her spirit reeling as she juxtaposed her perceptions of her life with those of her son’s.
“And now . . . now I knew I had little choice but to return to Candlewood, admit that I failed, and ask for your help. I couldn’t see what difference it would make if you gave me money now, since I would only be taking what I’d inherit eventually. But the minute you told me you were going to get married . . .”
“You assumed I would be less inclined to give you the money,” she prompted.
“Or a place to live.”
“In part because Mr. Breckenwith is a lawyer?” she asked.
“In part. I haven’t had a very positive experience with lawyers recently.”
She let out a sigh and tried to keep her tattered heart in one piece. “I won’t pretend that learning about your financial difficulties won’t have an impact on how soon I get married, because it does. I also won’t be able to promise that I won’t discuss the matter with Mr. Breckenwith, because I will. For two reasons. First, he’s going to be my husband, and I know his heart. Second, he’s been my lawyer for five years now, and I know his judgment to be as sound as it is fair. For now, I can only hope to reassure you that I’ll help you in some way. I don’t know how yet, but I will,” she promised. “Did Anna know you were going to speak to me tonight?”
He shook his head. “She wanted me to wait a few days, but I was worried. The closer it gets to your birthday, the busier you’ll be. I was afraid you wouldn’t have the time before then and afterwards, it would be too late.”
“It’s obvious we have much to talk about and to settle between us while you’re here, but let me tell you this right now: Your assumption that I invited you all home on false pretenses is wrong. I only accepted Mr. Breckenwith’s proposal very recently, and while we’re discussing the possibility of getting marri
ed while all my sons are home, that’s all it is. A possibility,” she murmured and got to her feet. “I . . . I think we’ve both said enough for one night.”
Warren stood up, as well, but he said nothing as she walked to the staircase that led up to her room. She was halfway up the steps when she heard the whisper of his voice.
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
She gulped down the lump in her throat. “Me too.”
* * *
Still fully dressed, Emma slipped under the quilt on her bed and curled into a ball. With one hand, she clutched at the delicate embroidery Aunt Frances had stitched on the hem of her sheet that created the outline of the General Store where she had loved her sweet Jonas and raised their boys, as if trying to hold on to the memories Warren had shattered. With the other hand, she held her keepsakes close to her broken heart.
And she cried.
23
MERE HOURS AFTER HER TALK with Warren, the early morning sky was but a haze of gray that mirrored Emma’s spirit.
As the earth quietly strained to escape the darkness of yesterday, Emma sat on the ground in the secluded cemetery behind the church. Leaning her side against her husband’s marker, she struggled to escape a numbing sadness that left her weak and confused.
Driven here after a long and difficult night, she had spent her tears and instead offered her prayers. A heavy cape kept her warm from the chill and dampness in the air, but it was her faith and faith alone that kept her broken heart beating steadily.
She stared at her keepsakes, which were now resting on the earth at the base of the heavy tombstone, and caught her lower lip. She had always treasured the memories attached to each tiny piece of cloth. Some, like the piece cut from the work apron Jonas had worn in the General Store, were more threadbare than the rest. Others were new, like the pieces Catherine had cut from the babies’ blankets.
All the keepsakes, however, were held together as much by memories as by the threads she had stitched. Warren’s bitterness had sliced clear through those memories as cleanly as if he had taken a pair of sewing shears and cut through the cloth itself.
