Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (32 page)

By early afternoon the snow—four feet deep in places—had settled under the bright but cold sun, and a rig or two had passed by on the road, breaking a trail and making it possible for Sam to take Ellie home.

With Hans and Gretchen bundled into the back of the sleigh, excited over the snow and the first sleigh ride of the year, Ellie sat on the spring seat beside Sam, covered with a blanket. The magnificence of the snow-wrapped world was breathtaking.

“And to think,” Sam said vibrantly, “our sins, scarlet though they may have been, are made as white as snow. Now, that’s some miracle.”

Why, Ellie thought, did her heart rejoice to hear this small testimony? Surely it made a bond—each of them knew Christ as Savior.

At any rate, it led to a sharing of faith, a witness of the grace of God during the recent bereavements each had suffered, a voicing of faith concerning the future and the good things in store from the Father’s hand.

Sam’s faith had overcome the dread of raising his children without a mother; Ellie’s faith reached out to embrace the help and grace she would need from the Father as she carried on alone, attempting to run a farm that was too much for her in all ways.

Did she secretly wonder if she might, in some way, be a help to Sam? Did he privately consider whether he might take on some of her workload? The vast silence of the land, if it knew or suspected, echoed only with possibilities, not prophecies.

Upon reaching the Bonney homestead, Sam insisted on staying long enough to get the fires lit in the range and heater, while
Hans and Gretchen filled the wood box, stacking extra on the porch. Sam chopped the ice from the trough, refilling it and bringing the animals to drink, one by one, and returning them to the barn. Hans and Gretchen fed and watered the chickens.

Finally, with the kettle boiling, Ellie was able to make a cup of tea. Removing their coats, the four sat around the heater, holding warm cups in their cold hands—the children’s tea liberally laced with milk—and carefully nibbling frozen cookies.

With an expansive sigh, Sam set his cup aside and turned toward the hooks at the side of the door. “Sorry, but all good things must come to an end,” he said, shrugging into his coat. Then, with a smile, he added, “It’s an ill wind, they say, that blows no one some good. That one yesterday—it blew good to the Dickson family, I’d say.”

“And a lot of trouble it caused you!” Ellie replied, feeling wonderfully happy at his comment.

“A good breakfast, a pleasant drive,” he said.

“And now the drive home, with all your chores to do.”

Putting his cap on his head and rescuing his gloves from the range’s warming oven where they had been drying, the children fastening their overshoes and playing a final moment with Wrinkles, Sam said, “I hope our acquaintance won’t just fade away, Miss Bonney... Ellie. Having begun so amazingly, so surprisingly, perhaps it’s intended that we... that we... that is, that we get to know each other better. Would you mind terribly if the children and I drop in once in a while?”

“Please do,” Ellie responded, so earnestly that it brought a light to the questioning eyes of Sam Dickson and the hint of a smile to the square-jawed face.

“And,” he offered, “if I should be the one to help with your crop next season, well—we’ll talk about that, all right? As for your buggy, it’ll remain right where it is for now.”

Ellie, a peculiar lightness in her heart, stood on the porch and watched Sam and his children as the sleigh headed down the lane, to the road, and out of sight.

Only then, as she turned to the house, shutting the door against the winter and its threat, leaning against it momentarily, did the thought—as cold as the north wind—strike a chill to her heart:

The nightmare
! There was still the nightmare.... There was still the guilt.

W
inter had dragged by for Birdie, day after similar day. Only the variation in the weather distinguished one day from another. For the most part it was snow on snow. But interspersed were days of brilliant sunshine and sparkling beauty, enough to enrapture any heart but the sourest.

If it had not been for the occasional contact from her unknown correspondent, Birdie would have found the days bleak indeed. Walk to school, walk home a few hours later; wind the Drop Octagonal every Friday, signifying another week had slipped away.

Her revelation to Big Tiny, made that day in the heart of the snowstorm, had in some subtle way made a difference in their relationship. True to his word, he remained her friend, picking her up often in his cutter and giving her a ride home from school; his smile was just as ready, his words as warm. But his eyes—something in his eyes had changed. Something she had not known existed but missed. Something had taken its place; something that Birdie sorrowfully identified as pain.

The revealing of her marital status—that day of the first snow—had undoubtedly been a severe shock to the big-bodied, bighearted man. After a silence, a silence compounded by the heavy snowfall that seemed to wrap them in a small and private isolation, Big Tiny had asked, rather heavily, staring straight ahead, jaw clenched in spite of his gentle tone: “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Not really. She hadn’t wanted to mention it at all, ever, to anyone. She had wanted life to go on, barren in some ways as it was, with this great man as her friend and her Silent Speaker as a soul mate—for that’s how she was beginning to think of the unknown sharer of words and thoughts.

Still, Big Tiny deserved an explanation, even an explanation of sorts.

“It was seven... eight years ago,” she said haltingly. “Far from here. And it didn’t work out. I had to get away, escape, I suppose you’d call it. And I’ve just sort of hidden myself ever since.”

“I see,” Big Tiny said quietly, clenching and unclenching his jaw.

But apparently he didn’t see at all. How could he? There was no way she could tell—in a few sentences on a lonely strip of road whipped by snow and storm—of the bitter realization that happiness had, after all, eluded her, and dreams of love had been imagination and far from reality. Maurice—that was his name, Maurice Gann—had quickly changed from a mild, rather colorless man to a vicious monster. It was the drink, the liquor that she hadn’t known about, that changed him so that at times he came home small and slender physically but ten feet tall potentially, and powerfully mean. In stumbling words Birdie shared this much.

It had been the boy.... Here—in her short explanation—Birdie’s grief surfaced and her throat thickened, and the name Davey never passed her lips.

“Anyway,” she finished, her thin tones barely reaching the ears of the man who listened, silent for the most part, his usually merry face strangely still, “I stood it until the school year was over, then packed up and slipped away, bruises and all, going as far as I could as quickly as I could, and started over. Eventually I came... to... to... Bliss.”

The name had a hollow sound. Saying it, her voice faltered. A hamlet, a district, though called Bliss, made no promises, offered no assurances. Still, saying it now, it seemed strangely empty of anything at all.

Perhaps it was the sad disclosure made to Big Tiny and bringing into focus the hopelessness of her future, perhaps it was her own heart-need, but from then on Birdie’s grip on her unknown correspondent tightened, perhaps a bit feverishly; she almost lived, it seemed, for the sweet, the meaningful, the beautiful, the satisfying phrases that flowed from his pen. Here was someone who thought the things, wrote the things, perhaps lived the things that she believed in. Oh, that she might converse with him! Might talk, hungrily and needfully, face-to-face! Though she felt she knew him intimately, he remained faceless, detached, a dream man if ever there was one.

While the relationship with Big Tiny changed in some subtle manner, Birdie was almost passionately grateful that her soul mate remained faithful, unchanged. From time to time, treasured portions of beautiful literature continued to reach her. Occasionally, at the Reading Society gatherings, she came across a book, perhaps by Shakespeare, that was in circulation among the group and around the district and wondered who had held it, had memorized, had copied, had shared with her its expressive words.

But occasionally a suggestion, uncomfortable and quickly stifled, presented itself to her: Had she fastened on to the unknown correspondent because it was safe to do so? Not free to relate to a flesh-and-blood man, had she substituted an insubstantial creature, one who made no demands on her, who called for no response? Not able to deal with fact, had she settled for flummery? And would it satisfy for long?

Birdie hugged to herself the small scraps of happiness that came her way and dared not wonder where they could possibly lead.

Transportation, though often difficult, was seldom impossible. And winter, with the ground covered, fields frozen, and seeds dormant, allowed time for fellowship, for socializing.

For Ellie, the time was spent far more happily than she ever could have imagined. Though missing her father and at times recognizing the barren place that once Tom had occupied, still, something stirred into hope, some tendril of new life put forth a shoot in her heart and struggled toward spring and resurrection. And those days that Sam and the children came over were times of deep and deepening pleasure.

There had been the usual Christmas festivities centered in the school and church. Miss Birdie Wharton had worked hard and long for the evening of the so-called “School Concert.” Mainly a time of recitations and songs and a short play, it was the highlight of the year, and well attended. After the performance, gifts were distributed to each child—some small item ordered through the catalog and paid for by the school board and perhaps the only Christmas present some children received.

A Sunday morning had been given over to a similar performance by the Sunday school children, with a short sermon by Parker Jones following and bags of treats handed out to each child.

Ellie invited Sam Dickson and his children to attend the Christmas Concert; they, in turn, invited her to attend the Fairway school’s program. Those times, and the occasions when the Dickson sleigh jingled its way to the Bonney place, usually on a Saturday or Sunday when the children were free, were high points.

More than once, Sam and the children stayed for dinner, the noon meal, leaving for home in time for the evening chores. Hans and Gretchen loved playing with Ellie’s childhood toys; Sam was not content unless he made himself useful by mending and fixing, checking stock and equipment, and before he left, splitting a large pile of wood.

Ellie never asked them to attend the Bliss church with her, knowing for one thing that they had services in the Fairway schoolhouse on an intermittent basis, and also reluctant to stir
up the curiosity their presence in Bliss would be certain to arouse.

Even to Marfa, her dear friend and confidant, Ellie had not mentioned the name of Sam Dickson nor the astonishing account of how Old Ned had taken her, straight as an arrow, to his door. Rather, she hugged the experience to her, a treasure not to be shared. At least not yet. Perhaps not ever.

Eventually, as the weather shifted and there was an occasional soft wind to hint of winter’s demise and spring’s birth, there came a day when Ellie and Sam touched on, just touched on, a subject that was warming each heart, calling for attention but until now only wondered at, dreamed of, prayed about.

Sitting comfortably beside the fire with a cup of tea, with Hans and Gretchen absorbed at the table in a game of checkers, Sam and Ellie, albeit hesitantly, guardedly, talked about the affairs of life that had brought them to this hour: he having lost his wife, she having broken off what was intended to result in a partnership for life, and the strange twist of fate that had caused them to meet so surprisingly, so summarily, almost abruptly.

Sam stretched out his long legs, leaned back, his cup raised and his eyes staring into it, and said the very thing Ellie had been daring to entertain: “Doesn’t it seem almost unbelievable? I mean, how many times have you been lost in a storm? Doesn’t it seem, Ellie, as if a hand greater than our own arranged our meeting?”