Jim’s mother. She didn’t know what to do about Beatrice Donner. She faked an illness last Sunday in order to avoid another lunch at Caroline’s because it meant she’d have to endure Beatrice again. Every Sunday that woman snatched Luke right out of her arms as soon as she arrived at church and wouldn’t give him back until it was time to leave Caroline’s house. As if that wasn’t bad enough, ever since her outburst at the funeral, the people she grew up with whispered and shot curious glances in her direction. She actually approached one of the women about it, but the busybody denied having pointed at her and snickering with her friend. Of course, she denied it. There was no reason to admit it.
No one knew where she was staying, and this offered her a safe haven. At least here, she had peace. And Neil was turning out to be a good friend. Someone she couldn’t remember had told her that he changed for the better after Emily was born, despite his lapse in judgment one night five years ago. She didn’t know the details. She only heard that he went to the saloon, drank some alcohol, gambled, and visited a soiled dove’s room. That knowledge alone used to frighten and disgust her. But then she got to know him and saw how he loved Emily.
She didn’t know a man more devoted to his child. And he helped her with Luke. There was something tender in the way he cared for both children. She’d have to be made of stone not to find it touching. Surely, a man who lived a scandal-free life for five years and opened his home to a widow and her baby couldn’t be as wicked as Preacher Amos claimed. Maybe he had been wicked at one time, but didn’t everyone deserve another chance? What good was redemption if only a select few got to experience it?
She switched Luke to her other breast. Darting a glance at her wardrobe, she spied the colorful fabrics Neil bought her. Green, yellow, and purple. They were pretty, but if she wore attractive colors, wouldn’t she be inviting the wrong kind of attention from men? If the preacher was correct, nothing good came from such attention.
Neil called me pretty. She didn’t do anything different than when she lived with Jim. She wore the same bland colors and pulled her hair back when Jim was alive, and he never once called her pretty. But Neil called her pretty, even when she tried to hide it. Why the memory made her heart beat faster and her face flush, she didn’t understand. Well, she did understand it in part. It pleased her. Vanity. It was all vanity, and vanity was wrong.
What if it’s not wrong to be beautiful? Her first impulse was to reject the question. But then she asked herself, why would she reject it? Because her parents, Jim, and the preacher simply told her that being beautiful was wrong? What if they were wrong? What if being beautiful was actually permissible? They had been wrong about Neil. What if they were wrong about beauty?
She took a deep breath, unsettled by the way her thoughts were going. She hadn’t taken the time to question her beliefs before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to now.
The kitchen door opening from downstairs caught her attention. Neil and Emily were home. Noting that her son had fallen asleep, she carefully pulled him away from her breast and wrapped him in his blanket. Once she set him in the bassinet, she buttoned her clothing and left the room.
The scene that greeted her as she eased down the steps caused a smile to form on her lips. Emily tugged on Neil’s coat as he tried to get it off. Sarah noticed the amusement in his expression.
“Do you mean it, Pa? Are we going tomorrow?”
“Right after breakfast,” he replied, finally succeeding in hanging his coat up. He crossed his arms and gave Emily a pointed look. “Someone needs to pick her coat off the floor. Sarah’s not your maid, you know.”
“Oh!” As if she just discovered her folly, Emily hastened to hang her coat on the lower hook. “There. She’ll never know.”
“That’s what you think,” Sarah spoke, her tone playful.
Neil and Emily looked in her direction.
“Fortunately for you, I have a soft spot for little girls.” Sarah went to the working table and placed food on everyone’s plates. “How was school today?”
“It was fine. But what I’m really looking forward to is hunting with Pa tomorrow.”
Sarah blinked. Watching the girl sit next to her father at the table, she realized that Emily was telling her the truth. She set the plates down and sat across from them. “Hunting?”
“Yes. Pa says that I’ll even get a chance to shoot a deer if we see one.”
Sarah turned her attention to Neil who was eating his meal as if this was the most natural conversation in the world. “You’re going to let her shoot a gun?”
He nodded. “I can’t exactly let her shoot with her finger.”
Emily giggled. “You’re silly, Pa.”
He grinned and winked at her. “I do what I can to make my favorite daughter laugh.”
Though Sarah enjoyed the exchange taking place in front of her, she was anxious to settle the matter at hand. “I don’t think it’s right for a girl to shoot a gun.”
“You’ve never shot a gun?” Emily dropped her fork so it clattered on her plate. “Pa, can you imagine that?”
Sarah bristled and shifted in the chair. “I don’t want to shoot a gun. That activity is for men, not women.”
“Says who?” Neil lifted his eyes to Sarah.
Flushing, she shrugged. “It’s not proper. The man is supposed to be the protector of the home.”
“What happens if the man isn’t there to do the protecting? What do you think the settlers did when they journeyed west for land? The men taught women how to shoot guns. I should teach you how to do it.”
Her jaw dropped. She watched, dumbfounded, as he took a big bite of stew. He couldn’t be serious!
Emily squealed with delight. “Can I teach her too?”
He nodded and swallowed the food in his mouth. “You sure can, honey.”
“Well...I mean...” Sarah put hands on the napkin resting on her lap and looked at Neil. “The next thing I know, you’ll be saying that women should wear pants!”
“I have a pair of pants,” Emily spoke up, seeming to be unaware of Sarah’s shock.
“You put pants on your daughter?” Sarah asked him.
He frowned. “Of course, I do. I can’t have her riding a horse and helping with the farm work in a dress. And hunting isn’t comfortable in a dress. Honestly, Sarah. I don’t see what the problem is. Women in this part of the country shoot guns and wear pants. It’s not like it is back east. Life is harder here.”
“Not in a town the size of Omaha. The more it expands, the more women can act like women.”
He sighed and tore his biscuit in half. “But some of us are farmers. And that means there are farmers’ wives who’d rather do the hard work in a pair of pants. Some women even hunt for food. That’s what Em and I are doing tomorrow. We plan to get a deer for you to cook. Would you really have her out there in a dress?”
“But what about those pants that look like skirts? At least those are feminine.”
He brought the biscuit halfway to his mouth and stopped. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Encouraged, she offered, “I can make one for her. Then she’ll look...pretty when she acts like a boy.”
“She’s not acting like a boy. She’s acting like a girl who’s been raised on a farm.”
She had a hard time accepting it, though it was logical. Still, Preacher Amos would never approve. But he wasn’t here, so what did his opinion matter? She stabbed her potato with her fork and stuck it in her mouth, noting the buttery flavor. For some reason, the food tasted better than it used to when Jim was alive. She sipped on the milk. Even the drinks had more flavor in them. Of course, she knew it was the people she ate with that marked the difference.
So what if Neil had a tendency to treat Emily like a son? Did a man know any better? This was why she stayed here, to remind both of them that Emily was a girl. Content, she finished her potato and listened as they discussed where to hunt the next day.
***
Neil stepped into the ho
use, assured that the animals were taken care of for the night. After he put his hat and coat aside, he made his way up the stairs and paused at the last step when he saw Sarah pulling the pink blanket up to Emily’s chin. Sarah sat on Emily’s bed, smiling and talking to her. Emily said something and Sarah laughed. The soft laughter reminded him of tinkling bells. The scene brought back the many times when he pleaded with Cassie to pay attention to Emily. He closed his eyes, still wishing that Cassie had cared about her daughter.
Footsteps caught his attention. Opening his eyes, he watched as Sarah closed the bedroom door. When her gaze fell upon him, she stopped. He took that as his cue to speak. “It’s nice to watch you with Emily.”
The kerosene lamp on the small table in the hallway was lit enough so he could make out her smile. “I have to get Luke but I could make hot cocoa when I get downstairs. Would you like some?”
“Yes, I would.”
“I’ll get Luke and be down shortly.”
He nodded as she went to her bedroom. In the light of the kerosene lamp, he saw her pick Luke up from the bassinet. She hummed while she set him on the bed to change his diaper. He recalled the night she gave birth to him and how he watched them, feeling more alone than he had in his entire life. But now, he didn’t feel that aching loneliness. Instead, he felt connected to the scene playing out in front of him.
He crept across the floor, opened Emily’s door and saw that she was fast asleep. His heart warmed when he saw how well Sarah had tucked his little girl into bed. Sarah was a good mother. He shut the door and went to the kitchen, deciding that he would be the one to make hot cocoa that night. It was the least he could do. Emily had stopped talking as if Cassie would return. When he ventured to ask her about it, she remained silent. Most of the time, she hid her pain under laughter, but there were times when he caught her crying, when she thought she was alone. He prayed that Sarah’s presence would be the balm to soothe Emily’s wounds.
He made the hot cocoa and had it ready by the time Sarah came down the steps.
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” she said, though he thought he detected a hint of pleasure in her voice.
Shrugging, he motioned for her to sit. He rested a cup in front of her and sat on the other side of the table. “Once in awhile, I don’t mind doing a woman’s task.” He kept his voice light so she understood he jokingly referred to their supper conversation of treating Emily like a boy.
She eased into her seat, setting Luke on her lap so he sat up. His back and head rested against her bosom. Luke bobbed his head for a moment but settled into a comfortable position. Neil noticed the boy seemed unusually interested in staring at him, and he wondered what it was that the boy found so fascinating about him. Sarah brought the cup to her lips and took a drink. Even then, Luke didn’t break eye contact with Neil.
Finally, Neil reached across the table and tapped the baby on the nose. He was rewarded with a grunt.
Sarah quickly set the cup down, giggling. “You can’t be funny when I’m drinking something. It’s not fair. Someday I’m going to spit my drink out.”
He chuckled. “That won’t do.”
She wrapped the yellow blanket tighter around Luke. “I notice you let Emily do things that I thought only boys should do. You also do things that I grew up believing only a woman should do.”
“I don’t believe there is a distinction.”
“So, you really do consider me to be your equal?”
Locking his eyes with hers, he nodded. “I do. I know I haven’t done a good job of respecting women in the past, but I do now.”
“And you treat Emily the way you do because of that?”
“I want to make sure she understands that just because she’s a girl, it doesn’t mean her opinion is less important than a boy’s.”
She paused for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully. “And when you take her hunting, let her wear pants, and have her ride a horse, she’s learning that she can do anything a boy can do.”
He grinned. “I might be biased because I’m her father, but I think she’s better than most of the boys in this area.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a father favoring his child.” She sighed and pushed loose strands back into her bun. “Jim didn’t care much for Luke. Maybe he would have if he would have known he had a son on the way. I like to think that anyway, especially since the people we associated with thought boys were more important. They carry on the family name.” Clearing her throat, she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. He’s not coming back.”
Her bland tone surprised him. He expected a heartfelt declaration in such a statement. “You don’t sound upset by that.”
“That makes me a bad wife, doesn’t it?”
He studied her in the dim light of the kerosene lamp. Her face, filled with a mixture of guilt and sorrow, told him more than words ever could, and his immediate sense of relief told him more than he wanted to admit. “Then your marriage wasn’t what others thought it was.”
She shook her head. “I used to convince myself it was. But it was a show to make him look good. Everything he did was to make himself look good.”
“I assumed you were happy with him.” He drank half the cocoa in his cup before he continued. “It’s easy to give others the impression that everything is fine when it isn’t. For years, I acted as if Cassie and I had a good marriage.” He saw her nod and realized it was a nod indicating understanding, for she had done the same thing. The burden he’d been carrying for almost nine years suddenly seemed overwhelming. He needed to tell someone, someone who had gone through their own travesty of a marriage. “I don’t want Emily to find out. She adores her mother, and it would devastate her if she knew why we got the divorce.”
Her eyes widened. Surely, she hadn’t expected this. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“I wouldn’t mind someone who’d listen and keep it to herself.” He studied her, wondering if she would agree to his terms. When she nodded, he continued. “When Cassie and I divorced, I told everyone it was so she could return to Pennsylvania to care for her sick aunt. But that was a lie to protect Emily. The truth is that Cassie wanted to marry another man, and I let her.”
Her jaw dropped.
Shifting his gaze to the brown liquid in his cup, he hastened to explain, “Cassie and I didn’t have a good marriage. I thought we did at first. She was nice and beautiful. I fell in love with her right away. I thought she loved me too. About five months into our marriage, the doctor told me that she was too far along to be carrying my child. I asked her about it and she confessed that she married me because the father of the child left her. Well, I wasn’t one to judge. I had my share of running around. I was disappointed because I really wanted to be the father, but I was determined to work through it. I figured there was no reason why anyone should know the truth.
“A month later she received a letter from the father of the child. She told me that she wanted to go back to him because she still loved him. I refused. I said that she made her vows to me. We were bound to be married for the rest of our lives. She spent the next week acting as if she agreed with me. Then she made an attempt to leave me. She snuck out in the middle of the night. When I woke up and she wasn’t in bed next to me, I went looking for her. I found her talking to another man outside the barn. It didn’t take long to figure out that he was the one who sent the letter. She wanted to go with him, but he said he changed his mind. She said that it was his child, but he said he didn’t want to be tied down to a child and left. I was tempted to go back to the house and act as if I didn’t hear what happened, but I demanded an explanation. Needless to say, things went downhill from there. Finally, years later, she found someone else she wanted to marry, so I let her go. The only reason I stayed with her was because of Emily.”
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears which she quickly blinked away. After a long moment, she spoke in a quiet voice. “Emily doesn’t know you’re not her father?”
; He shook his head. “No. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Of course.” She looked down at her son and held him close. “Did Cassie want to take Emily with her?”
“No, and I was glad. Emily’s the one good thing Cassie gave me.”
She nodded and took another drink from her cup. Sighing, she placed the cup on the table. “It must be hard then, knowing she wants her mother to return but knowing she won’t.”
“I hate to see Emily disappointed. Maybe I should have told her the truth.” And that was the part of the burden that hurt the most. In his desire to idolize Cassie for Emily, he’d ultimately prolonged the girl’s pain.
“You’re doing the best you can. Someday, when I have to tell Luke about his father, I don’t think I can tell him that Jim didn’t even care that I was expecting. I want him to feel that he was loved. You want the same for Emily. We all want to be loved.”
And that was something neither Sarah nor Neil experienced in their marriages. She didn’t have to say it. He understood, and that understanding seemed to solidify a bond between them, giving him hope. Hope in a beautiful woman.
Chapter Eleven
That Sunday, Neil knocked on Sarah’s bedroom door. “Are you ready for church?” he asked, noting that she sat in her rocking chair, holding Luke and staring out the window at the falling snowflakes.
“It’s snowing,” she replied, glancing at him.
He entered the room and checked the bucket of chopped wood by the box stove. She would need more wood before the day was up. For the time being, her room was comfortable and warm. Turning his attention to the window, he said, “I don’t think we’ll get much snow. The weather is warm enough so the snow won’t stick around for long. The road will be clear enough to get to town and back.”
His Redeeming Bride Page 10
