“Two days later.”
She sank onto his lap, dropping he face in his shoulder and weeping. “He hurt her badly didn’t he? You wouldn’t have given that kind of money if she wasn’t visibly—”
“Battered, Lynne. Battered. You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
“How did he get to be so evil?” The tears he expected finally materialized.
Steve held his wife and wept with her. All the hopes, dreams, and plans he’d made for his son had vanished in the thrust of a knife over designer drugs. “We did our best. He just needed something we couldn’t give.”
“Makes you understand why people become religious. Maybe all that faith stuff really does make people behave better.”
Bile rose in his throat just at the thought. “I’m not sure about that. Those religious nuts don’t allow wine even though Jesus made it, sex, even though Jesus invented it, or dancing even though the ‘man after God’s own heart’ danced. I think they’re a bunch of hypocrites blaming the devil for their own devilish behavior. At least we’re honest about ourselves.”
“I want to meet her.”
He had to tread extremely carefully or Lynne would never agree to his plan. “She doesn’t want to meet us. You can’t blame her, really. Her mother was treated terribly by our son, and I obviously insulted her trying to make up for twenty years of neglect.”
“That’s true. Maybe if I wrote her a letter. Maybe coming from a woman—”
“I doubt she’d read it, but I do have an idea. You’d have to be a little deceptive but—”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I think if she could meet you—without knowing she was going to, it might make a difference. You could drive out that way, park at her gate, undo several wires under your hood, and walk to her door to use her phone.”
“Why not use my cell phone?”
He sighed. She was so literal sometimes. “You’ll let the battery run down before you leave.”
“But I have the charger—”
“Leave it home then!” he protested. “Look Lynne, she’s a simple girl in a lot of ways.” He saw that it wasn’t going to work. He needed another approach and he had the perfect one, using the simple but effective method of telling partial truth to perpetuate a lie. “She’s intelligent, but from the sound of that article and my research, they don’t even have electricity! You go out there, mess with the wires, tell her what happened—you heard a noise and tried to stop it and now you don’t know what goes where again, and can she call for help?”
“So when she finds out who I am—”
“I’d be honest with her. I’d go right up to her door and say, ‘I didn’t mean to do this— I just wanted to see where you lived, but then my car started making noises so I tried to fix it— and now I think I messed something up. I’m really sorry.”
“You think it’ll work?”
Steven kissed his wife’s temple. “Of course it’ll work. Who could resist a woman like you? She has no family. Everyone needs family.”
David watched his wife behind his issue of Time. She’d been agitated all evening. Either the meeting went extremely well and she was nervous about admitting it in the face of his previous antagonism, or it had gone terribly wrong. Perhaps his granddaughter wasn’t a likeable person. He had to know but didn’t care to ask.
“Dave—”
“Carol—”
She smiled at her husband and reached into the closet pulling out a large gift bag. As Carol handed it to him, Dave teased, “But Christmas is still two weeks away.”
“It’s from Willow.”
Reluctantly, David pulled the snowy white afghan from the bag and shook it out around him. “It reminds me of that one you wanted years ago. I’ve looked for one now and then but never found it.”
“Kari remembered it and made it.”
“Kari made this,” he exclaimed surprised. “She hated crafty things.”
“Apparently she became excellent at all things crafty. Look in the bag.”
David withdrew the spiraled journal and his eyes widened at the cover. As he glanced through the pages, he realized that it was a facsimile copy and that Kari had indeed become very artistic. A few words caught his attention. “… Labor was horrible.” He read aloud. “I will never have another child. I won’t marry, and I won’t ever allow myself to be vulnerable to a man again. Childbirth is truly the curse that God promised.”
Choked, he dropped the journal and pulled his wife into his arms. Tears flowed as all the years of loss and heartache flooded back into their hearts, reopening every wound caused by Kari’s disappearance. “Do you feel it?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“That’s what my meeting was like.”
“Oh, Carol. I should have gone.”
She shook her head violently. “No. You would have reacted against her, and it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do this to us.”
His jaw clenched as David tried to decide if he should voice the concerns that strangled his heart. “Is it wise to bring her into our lives?” At the look on his wife’s face, he tried another tactic. “What if we hurt her in the process?”
Carol moved to her favorite chair, sat across from David, and took a deep breath. “I told her I’d talk to you about going to visit her farm after the first of the year.”
“And you think that is a good idea?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I want to say yes. I want to swallow my pain and pride and throw myself into Willow’s life until it no longer hurts, but I don’t know if I can. She seems pleasant enough—she bought lunch.”
“Oh you shouldn’t have let her. We don’t know how she’s set financially.”
“She’s sitting pretty from what I gathered. Solari obviously paid off Kari and well.”
“I’d love to give that man a piece of my mind.”
He saw the hesitation in her eyes and it cut him. They’d never kept secrets from one another, but he could see it, hovering beneath the surface. She didn’t want to tell him something. “Kari thought that Solari threatened her and subsequently the child. She left and didn’t tell us because she thought if Solari knew about Willow, their lives, and probably ours I would imagine, would be in danger.”
“Oh, Carol…”
“I know.”
Chapter Sixty-One
February 2002-
Well, the Lord had the last laugh. I kept my end of the bargain. I reared my daughter in the nurture and instruction of the Lord. She’s strong mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I truly believe she’ll stand firm in the face of any adversity.
And, the Lord honored my exact request. Willow is not short. At five foot five and a half, no one would call her tall, but she’s definitely not short. She’s not squatty. She is long, lean, and, well, willowy. However, whether as a reminder of His sovereignty or because He has a wicked (I can’t say that about the Lord!) DIVINE sense of humor, He blessed her with a bra size I cannot comprehend. It must be in double or triple D’s… or maybe G’s. On a taller or larger boned woman, it wouldn’t look quite as disproportionate, but on Willow, there is no doubt that she has what Kyle used to call, “a rack.”
We spent all week designing and constructing a bra that’ll be comfortable and support the weight. It took a lot of work, but it worked, and now she has comfortable garments that help support the girls. I tried naming them Babs and Frieda, but somehow Willow didn’t see the humor. She’s working on a new bra out of diaper flannel now. If it works, I want one for me. It’s the softest thing I’ve ever felt.
On the positive side, living out here means she doesn’t live with constant ogling and comments. I’m very glad I made a point to learn to sew. That first dress I made her—oh, that thing was ugly. Why did I think that I needed to dress her like a street urchin from the turn of the twentieth century? The Amish influence was hard to overcome. One of these days, I need to dig it out and show her. She’ll get a kick out of my huge stitc
hes that tore every time she wore it. I mended that dress more than all of her other clothes combined. Times ten.
Willow read the entry, grinning at the memory. Those days of standing before the mirror, trying a hundred ways to create a bra that was both comfortable, fit her shape, and provided adequate support, were some of the most hilarious of her life.
Her mother had found great delight in teasing her daughter about the size of her chest. “Should have given some to Ashley,” she muttered to herself.
The memory of her mother trying on her bras, filling them with stuffing, was one she’d never forget. With a T-shirt pulled tight over the results, Kari had given a killer Dolly Parton imitation—at least that’s what she had assured Willow. She hummed “Coat of Many Colors,” remembering Mother singing it until she had memorized the words that week. She set the journals aside and muttered, “If I share mother’s journals, that entry is coming out. I have some pride.”
A glance at the clock told her it was time to put away her mess. Aggie would be there soon to discuss dresses for the wedding. A noise outside startled her and she jumped. Somehow, the large van had arrived without a bark from Saige. “Must be a quiet vehicle,” she muttered.
Children tumbled from the van, running helter-skelter. Willow grabbed her coat and hurried to meet them. As she approached, Aggie lined her “troops” up in front of the porch and turned to Willow. “Can you give them the boundaries? Cans and can’ts and all that?”
Nodding, Willow led the children to the barn. “You can come in and visit the animals, but you cannot go in the loft if you can’t touch the—” her eyes slid up the ladder, “—eighth rung.” A glint in one of the twins’ eyes—she suspected Cari—prompted her to add, “Without standing on something.”
Tavish immediately reached and stretched just barely to the eighth. “Ok, so me and up can go but anyone shorter than me is out.”
“Right,” Willow agreed. “Now, out here,” she began as she led the children to the yard. “Don’t go in the chicken yard. Period. I don’t care if a chicken hawk eats every chicken in sight, do not open the gate.” How very like mother you sound, she thought to herself.
Aggie looked sharply at the twins. “Did you hear that? What did she say?”
“No chickies. Not at all,” Lorna echoed wisely.
A glimmer in Cari’s eye seemed to prompt Aggie to say, “And if I see you even touch the fence, you’ll come inside and sit on the floor with your hands in your lap. Do you understand me?”
“Yeth, Aunt Aggie,” Cari whined.
Willow, anxious to avoid what looked like an impending tantrum, continued speaking. “Other than that, if you can’t see the house, you’ve gone too far. Turn around. If you see water, come back.”
Dismissed, the children dashed in several different directions, and Willow noted that Tavish pulled a book from beneath his coat as he took off for the barn. She would like that kid. Willow led Aggie inside and made her a cup of hot tea, serving her a cherry-almond bar on the side. “So, what did you have in mind?”
Aggie excused herself and hurried to the, van returning with two large plastic shopping bags. From within, she pulled the palest pastel chiffon and peach skin in several colors. “I bought both the white chiffon to go over the pastel and the pastel chiffon. I didn’t know which looked best.”
“And a style?”
“I was thinking something like the Shipoopie outfits at the end of The Music Man.”
Willow’s blank expression sent Aggie into a frenzy of explanation, but she still didn’t understand. “It’s a movie right?”
“Yeah—”
“I’ll get Chad to bring it to me and we can watch it. Meanwhile, why don’t you bring the oldest inside and keep the boys out until we get her bodice constructed. I’ll make the dress to fit the bodices once I know what it should look like.” Skepticism hovered in Aggie’s expression, but Willow smiled. “Trust me. You’ll see.”
As they worked, Willow and Aggie forged a somewhat tentative friendship. Willow told amusing stories of her childhood on the farm, and Aggie told even funnier ones of her children and their escapades. By the time she finished with the dress mock-ups, Willow felt comfortable asking a few more personal questions.
“How long have you known Luke?”
“Since the end of May or first of June—somewhere in there.”
“Wow, that’s fast. Do you mind me asking why you decided to marry?”
Aggie sat in Willow’s kitchen rocking chair, held her tea warming her hands, and observed as Willow added wood to the stove, put a chicken in the oven, all as she talked. “It was fast I guess but it didn’t feel fast. When you see someone almost all day every day for months, it makes you feel like you’ve known them all your life somehow.”
“I know what you mean, and I haven’t seen Chad nearly that much. I thought it was because we’d worked together so much. It’s like I woke up one day, found Mother dead, but she gave me a brother that I never knew and have always known at the same time.”
Smiling, Aggie handed Willow her empty cup. “Maybe it’s just the Sullivan men.”
“Sullivan…Tesdall—not sure who, but there are similarities to them aren’t there?”
“So did you mean you wanted to know why I want to get married or why I want to marry Luke?”
Her relief relaxed her, erasing the concerns that she might offend Aggie with her question. “Well, I think why you’d want to marry Luke is obvious. He’s a good man, and if you want to marry, a good man is a wise choice. I just see someone my age—almost to the day—and I wonder why you want to marry. What about marriage appeals to you?”
“I’ve never thought of it that way. Most girls want to marry. My friends dreamed about husbands and weddings from the time they were little. I didn’t as much as some, but even I knew what kind of wedding I wanted someday.”
“Are men like that too? Do they dream of marriage and wives and their wedding days?” Willow nearly whispered the question.
“Why do you ask?” When Willow didn’t answer, Aggie continued. “I don’t know, I’ve never been a guy, but I’m pretty sure most don’t dream of their wedding day—wedding night maybe but not their wedding.” The attempt at a joke, as much as Willow appreciated it as an attempt, failed. “I think most guys probably grow up expecting it, but I don’t know that they spend as much time dreaming of it that women do.”
“I just don’t understand. At first, I thought Mother’s experience warped her perceptions about things like men and marriage, but she had nineteen years or so with her parents. She loved her father. You’d think—”
“I’ve never been through what your mother went through, and maybe I’m being a bit naïve, but I think there was more to her rejection of men than marriage. She was violated in the worst way and Luke mentioned something about her giving birth here all alone.”
“She was. It was raining and she was afraid to walk to town for help, so she stayed alone.” Almost as an afterthought, Willow added, “She was so scared.”
“I’m not sure that your mother was anti-marriage as much as she’d been so deeply scarred by a man. Physically she endured the attack and labor after it. She had no support—no one to tell her she wasn’t crazy when she wanted to kill or maim, and no one to encourage her. Labor alone is so intense—my sister used to say she couldn’t make it through labor without her husband.”
“I like watching Chad’s parents. They remind me of this couple I saw in a restaurant right after Mother died. They didn’t talk much, but their actions—so harmonious. The Tesdalls are like that.”
Aggie smiled. “I know the whole family hopes you guys will get married.”
A visible shudder washed over Willow. “I hope they keep those opinions to themselves. Chad and I have a wonderful friendship, and I don’t want to lose it because all the pressure makes him think he’s giving people the wrong idea.” She pulled out her sketchpad and began doodling. “He’s paranoid enough about that.”
&nb
sp; The phone rang. Instead of the normal ring tone, it played “Carol of the Bells,” making Willow grin. “Chad! What did you do to my phone?”
“I thought you needed some holiday cheer. I’ve got more too.”
“What?” With less than two weeks until Christmas, Willow was frantically trying to slow down time to enjoy every moment.
“Tonight instead of prayer meeting, a bunch of us are going caroling. I get off in…” Chad checked his watch. “Forty minutes. I could come out, get that loom for Luke to help me with, you could feed me, we could go caroling and have hot chocolate with everyone…”
“I have venison stew on the stove,” she warned.
“I like venison.”
Her laughter filled the kitchen. “That’s not what your mother says.”
“That’s because I never wanted her to know that it’s her venison that I don’t like. Aunt Libby’s though…”
“See you soon. Someone’s walking up the lane. How strange.”
The festive look of the old farmhouse surprised Lynne. The peeling paint, half-missing roof, and cardboard over windows that she had imagined never materialized. Evergreen boughs swaged along a porch raining, wreaths hung inside dormer windows on the top floor, and candles flickered in the front picture window—a window that looked as if it had been cleaned only minutes earlier. The article had produced a mental image of a run down, dirty place. Goats, chickens, cows, sheep, gardens—it all sounded terribly rustic to her city sensibilities. She expected dirt and horrible smells, but at least the house and barn looked nice enough.
The front door opened as she neared the house. A young woman stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her and stuffing her hands in her pockets. Willow Finley—it had to be. There was a slight resemblance even. Maybe Steve was right. If she played the part well, she could make this work.
Before she could rehearse her script, the woman called out to her. “Can I help you?”
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 2 Page 23
