Love Comes Home

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “I think you lost your bait awhile ago. The little fish can nibble the worms off without grabbing the hook.” She picked up the bait bucket and held it out toward him. “You want to keep some of the worms?”

  “No, guess I’ll give it up too.” He pulled in his line and wound it around the pole.

  Tori looked toward the sun sinking in the west. “I suppose it is almost milking time.”

  “I don’t have to milk tonight. My brother’s taking care of the cows. So I could go fishing, you know.”

  “I see.”

  He looked out toward the pond and then back at Tori to push out his next words. “How about, since the fish aren’t biting, that we go to the movies?” His cheeks were red. Maybe from the sun. Maybe from what he’d asked.

  She hesitated. For just a second, she thought about sitting in a dark movie theater beside the man looking at her with hope evident in his eyes. Yes was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit back the word. The fact she was even thinking about saying yes made her want to get up on her toes and run the way she used to when she saw Fern. Not because she was frightened of Clay, but because she was frightened of what she was feeling.

  She lowered her eyes away from his face. She couldn’t look at him. “It’s nice of you to ask.” She did her best to hide the quiver in her voice. “But I’d best go home.”

  He blew out a long breath of air. Then with a hint of challenge, he asked, “Why?”

  His question surprised her. She had to have turned him down a hundred times. Maybe more. Each time his smile had faded and his shoulders slumped, but he’d not asked why.

  She stared at the ground and wondered what to tell him. That she was afraid? That she wasn’t ready for the feeling his touch had awakened inside her. Nothing like how she’d felt with Sammy. Sammy had been like an extension of herself, a part of her for almost as long as she could remember. But when Clay put his arm around her, it had felt strangely different. And not at all bad.

  She hadn’t yet figured out what to say when he stepped closer to her. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” He waited for her to nod. “A friend can tell another friend the truth.”

  “If she knows it.” Tori spoke barely over a whisper.

  “You know it. You’re just afraid of it.”

  She changed his words. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “I would hope not. I would do anything for you, Victoria. Anything to make you happy.” He gingerly put his finger under her chin and lifted her face up to look in her eyes.

  “Anything?” Tori’s heart was pounding.

  “Anything.”

  “Then go away.”

  He looked as if she’d slapped him with her words. He dropped his hand away from her chin. “Is that what you really want?” His voice was rough with feeling.

  “Yes.” Tori made herself keep looking at his face. “It’s not time.”

  “Will it ever be time?” He sounded as lost and lonely as she had felt earlier.

  She wasn’t sure he expected an answer, but she gave him one. “I don’t know.” She hesitated a second, then went on. “Maybe not.”

  He let out another burst of air as if she’d punched him hard in the stomach. He looked away at the pond and blinked a few times before he settled his eyes on her again. “Sammy was my friend. You know that. But he’s not coming back. I wish he was, but he’s not.”

  A spark of anger flamed inside her. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “I guess you do.” He reached toward her again, but stayed his hand without touching her. “If you ever need anything, remember we’re friends.”

  Without waiting for her to say more, he picked up his pole and walked away. She stared at where he disappeared into the trees. He was gone. Just the way she’d asked. She was glad. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  The tears surprised her. She sank down on the ground, leaned her head on her knees, and sobbed like a brokenhearted child. She’d cried buckets for Sammy, but she wasn’t seeing Sammy now. She was seeing the sad goodbye in Clay’s eyes. He wouldn’t be back.

  19

  A tree limb smacked Clay in the face. He was walking blindly paying no attention to anything, just needing to get away from the pain of Victoria’s words. Why had he told her he would do whatever she wanted? He knew she didn’t want the same thing he wanted. He should have stepped back and kept hope for another day. Instead he had the same as bared his chest and invited her to rip out his heart.

  She wasn’t cruel. She hadn’t enjoyed hurting him. She’d looked as unhappy as he was feeling. It was his fault. He messed things up by pushing her too fast.

  He was fooled by how well things started out between them at the pond, in spite of his misgivings when Graham Lindell told him he should go fishing there Saturday afternoon. The man hadn’t mentioned Victoria, but some things didn’t have to be said out loud. Everybody in Rosey Corner knew Victoria was at Graham’s pond whenever she had time off from the store.

  When he told Graham he hadn’t been fishing for years, Graham said it didn’t matter whether a man was practiced at fishing or not. That a determined man kept baiting his hook and throwing out his line. It was plain he wasn’t only talking about catching fish. So even though Clay worried that Sammy’s ghost would be there on the bank of Graham’s pond beside Victoria, he got his old cane pole and found his way through the trees to the pond. A man couldn’t fight a ghost. Not that he wanted to. He didn’t want to take Sammy’s place in Victoria’s heart. He wanted his own place there.

  When she’d laughed and offered him a worm out of her bait bucket, hope took wing in his heart that at last she was ready to give him that chance. It was good to stand on the pond bank with her so close he caught the scent of whatever soap she used to wash her hair. A flowery smell. Her dark hair was beautiful in the sunlight. Her profile lovely. He sneaked look after look at her while she kept her eyes on her cork floating on the surface of the green pond water that was so like the green of her eyes. She knew he was looking at her, but she pretended not to.

  For months she had pretended not to know how he felt about her. Perhaps he’d been doing some pretending too. A blackberry briar grabbed his pants. He shoved it aside, almost glad when the thorn ripped into his thumb and brought blood. He was bleeding inside. He might as well bleed on the outside too.

  He stuck his thumb in his mouth to suck away the blood and stopped walking. No need in crashing through the trees with no idea of direction. It was best to take stock of where he was. He wasn’t worried about being lost. His sense of direction was true, at least when it came to north and south. In matters of the heart, he was lost before he started.

  In front of him, the trees reached toward the sky, their trunks so big it would surely take a man all day to saw through them. Not that a man would want to fell them. At least not this man. He walked under the first tree in front of him, an oak, and stared up at the emerging leaves far above his head. They weren’t all oaks. Some yellow poplars were mixed in among the oaks, and here and there a maple had elbowed out space to grow.

  He’d heard people talk about the old-growth trees in Lindell Woods, but he’d never seen them. The oak’s bark felt familiar to his touch. He didn’t cut oaks for firewood unless a tree was downed in a storm, and even then, it took seasoning to burn it for heat. Locust and ash made better firewood. Clay knelt to dig through the thick layer of leaves to the rich loamy soil under the trees. The dirt was damp and cool in his hand.

  He raised it up to his nose and sniffed it. His father used to do that. He told Clay a man could tell a lot about whether dirt would grow anything by how it smelled and how it felt in his hand.

  Clay made a fist and squeezed the dirt into a ball. It felt right, but good dirt wasn’t enough. Nothing would grow here except maybe mushrooms. The trees would drink in all the moisture and their thick canopy of leaves would keep away the sun. A farmer knew that. Just as he knew poor ground and rocks didn’t yield good crops.

  Even so, a man had
to work with the land the Lord gave him. Rocks could be hauled away, poor ground changed with fertilizer. A man plowed away from the tree line or cut down the trees. But sometimes even after all that work, it wasn’t enough. The crops still failed. Then a man had to change his crop or find a new field. One with better dirt and fewer rocks. One that welcomed the sunshine and rain.

  He stared at the dirt in his hand. He wasn’t a man to give up easy, but a man was a fool to keep plowing a field that wouldn’t yield a crop. He slung the dirt ball against one of the trees and watched it break apart and shower down on the leaves.

  She wasn’t ever going to make room for him in her heart. She wasn’t even willing to let him love her. He leaned his forehead against the tree and shut his eyes, unable to block out the echo of her words. Go away. His heart felt like that clod of dirt slamming against the tree trunk. Breaking into a thousand pieces.

  Above his head, a bird chirped the same note over and over. Tree frogs tuned up for night too, but Clay stayed crouched there, waiting to know what to do next. In the past, each time Victoria had said no, he had a next. A new thing to try. But not this time.

  He sat back on his heels and looked up at the tree towering over him. Majestic. Strong. Not bothered by the passing troubles of life. Clay remembered when the fire had swept through Lindell Woods some years back, and how happy Victoria and Sammy had been that these trees were spared.

  The trees made him feel small. The same kind of small he felt looking up at the stars on a dark winter night. Who was he that God would be mindful of his troubles? And yet the Bible said he was.

  “Dear God, help me,” Clay whispered. “I love her so much.”

  You told her you’d do anything to make her happy and she said go away. Did you mean what you said? The words slid through his head. Not the Lord speaking comfort to him, but his own voice taunting him.

  “I don’t want to give her up.”

  You can’t give up what you’ve never had. She doesn’t want you to love her.

  He wanted to argue with the words in his head, but it did little good to hide from the truth. He bent his head and let out a long breath. She said it wasn’t time. That it might never be time. How plain did he need to hear her say she didn’t want him?

  He was beaten. It was time to accept that truth. He didn’t want it to be true, but he was beaten. Slowly he stood up and looked back in the direction of the pond. The sinking sun would be reflecting the dying embers of day onto the water.

  “Go back.”

  With his heart in his throat, Clay jerked up his head. Listening with every inch of his being, he held his breath and studied the trees. Nothing moved. He couldn’t hear the slightest rustle in the carpet of leaves. The bird must have flown to another tree. The only noises were the frogs and a squirrel far overhead chattering at him. Clay let out his breath. He had surely imagined those words. The desire of his heart must have been so strong that it sounded in his ears. Go back.

  But she would be gone now. Even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t welcome the sight of him coming back to disturb her peace.

  Peace. He could pray for that. Contentment with his lot in life. Acceptance of what he couldn’t change. The Lord would honor those prayers.

  “That wasn’t you telling me to go back, was it, Lord?”

  Clay stared up at the faraway glimpse of blue through the canopy of new leaves. The blue was fading. Night was falling. He’d best find his truck before dark or he might be wandering around among these trees until morning. But just in case it was the Lord speaking to him, he kept his eyes on that little spot of blue and said, “If that was you, Lord, can you maybe say it again? So I can be sure.”

  He waited, hardly daring to breathe. A profound silence pounded against his ears. The squirrel stopped fussing and the frogs paused their evening song as if they too were listening. No sound but the pounding of his heart in his ears.

  At last he let out his breath. How desperate could a man get? Hearing things and then expecting the Lord to speak to him. Not only in his heart, but right out loud. That might happen to men the Lord called to preach, but not to a man whose struggle was getting a woman to look favorably on him.

  Sunday school stories of Abraham’s servant finding a wife for Isaac and Ruth gleaning wheat in Boaz’s field popped into his mind. The Lord had lent a hand to those matches, but that was back in Bible days. It wasn’t about to happen for him, even if people did say good matches were written in the stars. His name wouldn’t be written up there with Victoria’s. That would be Sammy’s. Clay’s name must have been on a falling star.

  He shook away the silly thought, picked up his cane pole, and turned to the south. Without looking back even once at the grand trees, he headed out of the woods, his eyes on the path ahead of him. It was time to look ahead, not back. Time to move on.

  Strangely enough, a song began running through his head. The hymn they’d sung last week in church. “Trust and Obey.” That didn’t mean anything. Sometimes a song just got stuck in a man’s head.

  At the edge of the woods, Clay sat in his truck and wondered again what next. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. His mother would take one look at his face and feel his unhappiness. She had enough troubles of her own. She didn’t need to take on his. He started up the motor and turned the truck toward Edgeville. He’d go on to the movies. He could sit in the dark and not worry once about smiling. By the time he got home, everybody would be in bed, and come morning, he’d find a way to smile again.

  He parked behind the theater and walked to the front to buy his ticket. He felt conspicuous by himself. Everybody else was coupled up or in a group. Who went to a movie by themselves on a Saturday night?

  “Clay.” Paulette peeled away from a group of girls to come over to where he was in line to get his ticket.

  “Hi there, Paulette.” It had been more than a year since they’d gone out. Somebody told him she had a boyfriend in Frankfort now. “You heard whether the movie’s any good?”

  “Wilma says it’s not bad. Good for a few laughs.”

  “Just what I need then. A few laughs.”

  She peered at him, perhaps hearing something in his voice, but he pushed a smile across his face.

  “Been awhile since I’ve seen you. How’s things going with you and Victoria?”

  That was the trouble with a little community like Rosey Corner. Nothing stayed secret long. Clay let his eyes drift to the movie poster. Go back. The words flashed through his mind again. He could have sworn he heard them, but that was crazy. He looked back at Paulette. She was a nice girl. Attractive enough. Not beautiful like Victoria. She didn’t make his heart pound, but they’d had some fun together.

  “I guess they’re not,” he finally answered her. No need to pretend different. People would notice when he stopped hanging around the store. He’d still have to go to the store, but he’d just be in and out. Or maybe he’d give Lillie a list and just wait outside. No sense torturing himself by looking at what he could never have. Better to do as she asked and disappear from her life. That might not be easy in Rosey Corner, but a farmer had a lot to do in the spring. He didn’t have time for many trips to the store or anywhere else.

  “Good.” Paulette hooked her hand through his elbow and leaned against him.

  Her hair brushed his cheek and he caught the scent of her shampoo. A lemony odor so different from Victoria’s. But Victoria would never be clinging to his arm. “I heard you’ve been keeping company with a guy from Frankfort.”

  “From time to time.” She gave an offhand wave.

  “He here with you tonight?” Clay looked around for an unattached man.

  “He’s not much for love stories.” She peeked up at him through her lashes. “How about you? You like love stories?”

  “I guess so. I’m buying a ticket.” Clay shoved the money through the window at the kid working the booth.

  “You are.” She held his arm a little bit tighter.

  “I can buy yours too.” He reac
hed in his pocket for more money.

  “Thanks anyway.” She held up her ticket. “But tell you what. You can get it next time.”

  Next time. He’d been wondering what next. Maybe this was it. Stop being a fool and move on. “I’ll save up. For the next time a love story comes around.”

  “They happen all the time.” When he looked over at her, she added, “In the movies.”

  “Not in real life?” He was sorry for the words the minute he said them.

  “Sure, they do.” She smiled. “But those happily-ever-after storybook endings happen fast in the movies. It sometimes takes a little longer in real life.”

  “Happily ever after sounds good,” he agreed. But could a splintered heart find that?

  “It does. Very good. Come on.” She tugged on his arm. “Sit with me and my girlfriends. You know most of them already. Wilma. Josephine. Betty. It’s no fun going to a movie by yourself.”

  So he sat in the dark theater next to a girl who made no secret of liking him. Paulette kept her hand on his arm or her shoulder against his the whole movie through as they watched the hero get the girl. In the movies, the hero always got the girl. A shame it didn’t happen that way outside the movie theater. Then again, nobody would look at him and think hero. At least not the girl he wanted to think that.

  Go back. The words haunted his thoughts. What would have happened if he’d heeded those words that sounded in his ears from nowhere? Nothing, that’s what. Victoria would have been long gone, and he’d have simply ended up at the pond by himself with a longer walk back to his truck. That would have made him late to the movies, and Paulette and her friends would have already been inside.

  He stared at the screen, hardly noticing what the actors were doing. Go back. Maybe he should have gone back to make sure she was all right. What if she had needed a hero?

  In the movie, the cameras zoomed in on the hero kissing the girl. If only Clay was a hero. Then he might get the girl in the end too. Paulette leaned close to him and grabbed his hand. Maybe he could get the girl. Just not the girl he wanted.