A Promise to Love (19 page)

 18 

“I believe you managed to somehow accidentally marry the ‘virtuous woman,' son,” his mother said as she sat in the upstairs room with a lapful of mending.

A drawer was sticking in the bureau they had designated for her, and he was repairing it. It was the first time since his mother had arrived that they were alone together. She was obviously planning to use the rare moment of privacy for a heart-to-heart talk. He didn't mind. He was grateful that she had recovered so well. There was no evidence of the haunted, disoriented woman Zeb had dropped on their doorstep.

“What do you mean, ‘the virtuous woman'?”

“You know, the last proverb when it describes a woman who makes clothing for her children and keeps everyone well fed, and who makes everyone in her house feel safe and secure. The proverb says her price is far above rubies.”

“Ingrid is that,” he mused, “and more.”

“But you don't love her.” His mother picked up one of his socks that had developed a hole, inserted a wooden darning egg, and began to weave her needle back and forth.

“I'm grateful to her, and I have endless respect for her—but I'll never be able to love her as a husband should. I'm afraid that kind of love died with Diantha.”

“Diantha was never the woman you thought her to be,” his mother said. “You do realize that, don't you?”

“I know she struggled—I watched her struggle—but sometimes I think I loved her all the more because of it. She needed me.”

“The heart is a strange animal. It will love whomever it wants to love—regardless of what the brain tells it to do. But sometimes”—she stopped darning and looked up at him—“if you treat someone with love—and you do that every day—the feelings will eventually follow.”

“Do you know this firsthand, Mother? Did you have to learn to love my father?”

“No.” She began to ply her needle once again. “But I watched my mother turn a marriage around by applying that principle. My parents had an arranged marriage; they barely knew each other when they immigrated to America. I was their firstborn, and I watched my mother being so kind to my father, and I watched him being good to her in return. It took several years, but I actually watched my mother and father falling in love.”

“I will be grateful to Ingrid until the day I die, but I can't imagine that ever happening. She's just too . . . different.”

“You mean she's too different from Diantha.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps things will change. We'll wait and see. I'm praying about it.”

“Pray all you want to, Mother, but it would take a miracle for me to ever be physically attracted to that tall, rawboned woman down there in the kitchen—no matter how grateful I am to her.”

“Supper is ready,” Ingrid said from midway up the stairs.

He glanced down and saw, by the high color in her cheeks, that she had heard every word. Dear Lord, he wished he hadn't said what he did. He should be shot for those words, and he knew it.

She looked so pitiful standing there in her old work dress, still wearing George's cast-off boots because she had decided to save the new ones Hazel had purchased for Sundays. His heart broke for her. He wished he could take every syllable back.

“Ingrid, I—”

“Supper is ready.” She turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen.

“You don't deserve her, son,” Mary said. “I'm sorry, but you just don't.”

“You're right,” he said. “But I'm what she's stuck with.”

“Then for goodness sake, son, at least buy the poor girl some decent shoes!”

Joshua's words stung worse than Millicent's whip. Ingrid had no idea what “rawboned” meant—but the contempt in his voice told her it wasn't good. And he said it would take a miracle for him to ever be attracted to her.

What was wrong with her?

It wasn't fair. Diantha had curled up like a cat and watched life go on about her, completely disengaged emotionally from her children and from him—and he had adored her. Ingrid had worked like a mule, loved his children so much that she would die for any one of them, and he felt nothing for her but gratitude? She had hoped, after those hours of easy companionship in the barn last night, that things were changing between them, but she had been wrong.

For two cents, she would hand Diantha's diary and the pills over to him and let him know everything—let him know that his wife had been nothing more than an insane, crafty little thing who had cared nothing for him.

After everyone came to the table, Joshua blessed the food, but Ingrid sat in silence, still digesting those terrible words he had said. Her food tasted like sawdust.

Mary made a stab at dinner conversation, but it didn't take. Neither Joshua nor Ingrid followed up on any of her comments. The children looked from one adult to the next, trying to figure out what was wrong, gave up, and simply ate their supper.

This was not the happy family Ingrid had tried to create. She was sorry, but this evening, she had had enough. If they weren't already legally married, she would walk away from him right now. The problem was—she would want to take the children with her. There was no way she was going to leave her children behind.

“I am not hungry.” She pushed away from the table. “Trudy and Ellie, you help Grandmother with the dishes. Agnes, you take care of Bertie.”

Everyone looked up at once.

“Aren't you feeling good?” Agnes asked. “Do you need to lay down? Mama always needed to lay down when she wasn't feeling good.”

“No,” Ingrid replied. “I'm going to take a long walk.”

“Can I come?” Ellie asked.

“No,” Ingrid said. “Not now.”

She went into the bedroom to get her shawl and hesitated beside the bed. Was now a good time to show Joshua the diary and the pills? Was this a good time to show him how dark his precious Diantha's mind had been? Frankly, she was grateful that Diantha had died. Had she continued in the spiral she was in, it was likely that her unborn babe might not have been the only life she would have destroyed.

She pulled the diary and the pills out of the mattress and looked at them. Once it was done, it was done. There would be no taking it back.

Deep down she knew that, even though she was hurt and angry, if she handed him these two items, she would regret it the rest of her life.

She shoved them into her skirt pocket, grabbed her shawl, and headed out the front door.

“Where are you going?” Joshua asked.

She looked him straight in the eyes. “I do not know.”

“Be careful,” he mumbled just before she slammed the door.

There was still some daylight left, but not a lot. She decided not to go into the woods with darkness so close. Unlike Diantha, she did not enjoy the company of nighttime predators. Instead, she chose to climb the small rise that lay behind Virgie and Richard's house. Joshua had pointed it out to her as the family graveyard, but she had never felt the desire to see it.

She decided it was high time that she gave Diantha a piece of her mind.

If Joshua had thought that looking Ingrid in the face after what he said would be hard, he had not taken into account the impact of five pairs of angry female eyes.

“What did you do wrong this time, Pa?” Agnes asked.

He did not want to talk about this with his children. “What makes you think I did something wrong?”

“Because Ingrid's mad and none of us have misbehaved today.” Agnes frowned. “In fact, it was a really good day. Ingrid even taught us a song in Swedish while she worked. She was happy all day—until she called you to supper. What did you do?”

“I said something stupid.”

“What did you say?” Agnes said. “Maybe you can fix it.”

“This is not your business.”

Agnes turned to his mother. “What did he say to make Ingrid mad? It must have been something bad, 'cause Ingrid hardly ever gets mad at us.”

“Ingrid overheard him saying something that made her feel”—Mary shot a glance at her son—“ugly.”

“What would possess you to say something like that, Pa? Ingrid is
beautiful
!”

“I agree,” Mary said. “And she gets more beautiful in my eyes every day I live here with her.”

Joshua threw his napkin on the table. “I don't intend to discuss this.”

He grabbed his hat and escaped outside, wondering why God had seen fit to bless him with a houseful of women. He felt bad enough about what he had said. He didn't need the children and his mother rubbing it in his face.

He started to go out to the barn, his sanctuary of choice when things crowded in on him, but then his eye caught a figure far away at the cemetery.

He supposed now was as good a time as ever to go apologize. At least he wouldn't have a house full of females listening through the keyhole.

As he got closer, he saw Ingrid drop to her knees. For a moment he thought she was praying, and then he saw that she was digging. Why would she be digging, with her hands, in the cemetery?

The closer he got, the more concerned he became. She appeared to be digging into the mound above where Diantha was buried!

Had she been so angry with him that she had decided to desecrate his wife's grave? He began to run.

“What do you think you're doing!” he shouted when he reached her.

Ingrid did not act the least bit guilty over what she was doing. Instead, she simply looked tired and resigned. “I try to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” He snatched out of her hand the stick that she had been digging with and threw it away, utterly disgusted with her. “My wife's grave? Are you that jealous of her? What kind of a woman
are
you?”

Her eyes did not register fear; instead, strangely enough, he saw pity. Then he saw something else—lying beside her was what appeared to be a small leather diary. It looked vaguely familiar. Hadn't Virgie given that to Diantha for her birthday? There was also a small round box.

“What are these?” He bent over and snatched both items away from her. “Where did you get them? Why did you bring them here?”