Hearts Awakening (22 page)
Jackson glanced up at Ellie for a moment, noted the frustrated expression she wore, and sighed. “Miss Ellie is right. You shouldn’t be playing up in the attic. It isn’t safe up there for you two to play alone, and you know very well that I don’t want you playing in the attic, either,” he said firmly.
Daniel’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “But Mama said we could!”
Frustrated that Rebecca’s penchant for letting the boys do whatever they wanted was still causing him trouble, Jackson had to struggle to keep his voice soft and even. “Your mama shouldn’t have gone against my wishes and given you permission to do something she knew I didn’t want you to do. But she’s gone now and Miss Ellie’s here, and you and Ethan must obey her, just as you obey me. Understood?”
Ever so reluctantly, Daniel nodded.
Jackson got back to his feet and patted his son’s head. “Now, go find that brother of yours and get your boots. We’re going for a walk, and maybe, just maybe, if you and your brother can behave, I can talk Miss Ellie into letting you each have a piece of pie for dessert tonight.”
“A great big piece?” he asked, his face brightening.
“A great big one. Now scoot!”
Daniel charged from the porch and gave Ellie a wide grin as he passed her.
Ellie’s expression, oddly enough, was even dourer than it had been just a few moments ago.
Jackson walked toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s right?” she asked, without bothering to step aside to let him into the house.
“What’s right?” He raked his hand through his hair. “I supported you, didn’t I? Isn’t that what you’ve wanted me to do—support your right to tell the boys what they can or can’t do and to discipline them if they disobey you?”
“You supported your authority, not mine,” she argued. “Did it ever occur to you to ask
me
what happened in front of Daniel? Or to include me in your conversation? I was standing right here, but you and Daniel both acted like I was invisible or that whatever I might want to say would be irrelevant. And then you took it upon yourself to suggest the boys might avoid their punishment by being good now, instead of holding them responsible for what they’d done.”
He let out a long breath. “I didn’t think there was much point because—”
“Because you assumed Daniel was giving you the full tale of the boys’ misadventure.”
“I take it he didn’t?” Jackson asked hesitantly.
Ellie pursed her lips for a moment, as if trying to sort through the words she wanted to say. “What Daniel neglected to tell you was that I had told the boys twice this morning that they weren’t to play in the attic, but they took advantage of the fact that I was busy cleaning up after putting a pie into the oven to slip up to the attic anyway. Daniel’s complaint wasn’t really about whether or not I had the same rules as their mama, like he claimed it was. It’s about whether he and Ethan can deliberately disobey me and not be punished.”
He shook his head. “I always made it clear they had to obey you.”
“But just now you made it clear that you can undermine my authority over them by suggesting you’ll help them to avoid their punishment, which is precisely what Daniel hoped you’d do. Or did you intend to teach the boy that no matter how badly he behaves, he can avoid punishment later by being good?”
“No. I mean, you’re right,” Jackson admitted, finding it hard to balance his role as both husband and father. “I’ll speak to Daniel and Ethan and make it clear to both of them—”
“Don’t bother. It’s too late for that now, but I’d appreciate it if you’d include me when Daniel comes to you with a complaint in the future so we can all discuss it together.” She stepped aside to give him room to enter the parlor.
“I think we all need to get out of the house for a spell. Would you like to come for a walk with us, or would you rather have some time alone?” he asked.
“I’ll come, but don’t look for any dessert tonight. You’re not having any pie, either.”
He snorted. “Don’t you think I’m a bit too old to be punished by taking away my dessert?”
She shrugged. “You’re not being punished at all. The pie burned to a crisp while I was searching for the boys.”
Crouching down, Jackson helped Ethan put on his heavy boots. Ellie sat on the other side of the dining table in the great room and struggled to lace up an old pair of his work boots she had insisted on borrowing so she could go along on their outing.
“We’re not going out to play, especially in the mud,” he cautioned as he secured the second of Ethan’s boots. “Once we check the orchards to see if trees are damaged and how many apples fell to the ground during the storm, we may have time to stop to visit the Grants. I don’t want you two all muddied up.”
Daniel stood next to Ethan watching Jackson work and shifted from one booted foot to the other, apparently as anxious to get outside as his father. “If lots of apples felled down and got hurt, then you can’t take them to market, right, Pappy?”
Jackson looked up at his eldest son, hoping all he lost were some apples. “That’s right, Daniel. Where will we take them?”
“To Mr. Haines’s mill so he can mush them up and make them into cider.”
“Very good,” he said and patted Ethan’s boots. “You’re all ready to go.”
“I’m ready, too,” Ellie announced, although the frown she wore made it appear she would rather not go along with them at all.
“Are you sure those boots aren’t too big?” he asked, concerned that she would end up with blisters again, this time on her feet.
She rolled her eyes. “My feet are as big as boats, so the boots are just fine. Is Daniel right? Will all the apples that fell wind up as cider?”
He drew a long breath. “Probably so. People in town certainly can’t store bruised apples, and I can’t ship any of them, either. That leaves the cider mill, which is where I take all the drop apples. They don’t return as much profit, but it’s better than no profit at all. If we’ve lost as many as I think we might have, I’ll need to let Michael know we’re starting earlier than usual tomorrow to get them up off the ground,” he said, without sharing his fear that he may have lost a fair number of branches, too, if not trees.
“Then we’ll just have to hope that most of the apples were able to stay on the trees again this week,” she said cheerfully.
Surprised by her upbeat words, he studied her face. Her frown was gone now, but faint circles under her eyes told him she had found little sleep last night during the storm.
Daniel took Ethan’s hand and led him into the kitchen toward the back door. “This time you get to show us which path to take to get to the orchard, but don’t worry about those yellow jackets. They don’t like rain much, so they flew far, far away.”
Jackson waited for Ellie before following along behind the boys. Once they were outside, they had to walk around broken tree limbs and branches that littered the yard. Once they passed that huge puddle in the side yard, he let the boys run a fair distance ahead of them. Maybe if Ethan thought they were far enough away, he might say something to Daniel— something that Jackson might overhear, even though he still doubted Daniel’s claims that Ethan spoke to him. “Have you heard Ethan talking at all?” he whispered.
“No, not a word. He hasn’t even asked for his ribbons, which I thought he might, but Daniel hasn’t mentioned them for him, either. Have you?”
He let out a sigh. “No. I’ve been awake half the night for the past two nights, hoping to hear him talking to Daniel, but I haven’t heard a word from either one of them. I did hear you pacing about your room last night, though,” he admitted.
She seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You didn’t. I told you, I was awake, listening for the boys. How do your hands feel?” he asked.
She held them out in front of her. “Much better, thank you, although I don’t think the two stitches will be able to come out for a few days yet.”
“I see you still haven’t found your wedding ring.”
She dropped her hands as well as her gaze. “Not yet.”
Jackson stopped, forcing her to stop, as well. He reached into his pocket and took out the narrow gold band that he had bought on his last trip to market. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you. It’s not anything fancy, but it’s solid gold, so you won’t have to take it off when you’re doing housework or anything else,” he said and slid it onto her finger.
As he hoped, it fit her perfectly and she closed her hand into a fist. “Thank you. I won’t lose this one,” she promised. “Well, the wooden ring isn’t lost, exactly. It’s probably in the kitchen somewhere, since I put it on the shelf before doing some housework. I’m sure I’ll find it,” she offered weakly, obviously embarrassed that he would think she was irresponsible.
Jackson looked ahead, but when he realized he had lost sight of the boys, he started forward again at a faster pace. Once he spied them walking right along the path as they had been told to do, he slowed his steps again. “Was it the storm that kept you awake? It’s not the first time I’ve noticed your fear of storms. Have you always been afraid of them?” he asked.
She continued to match his pace but gazed straight ahead instead of looking at him. “No. As a child, I don’t think storms bothered me too terribly, but I don’t think it’s fair to say I’m afraid of storms now. It’s more like I’m petrified,” she whispered and glanced up through the tree canopy, as if searching for any sign of a storm cloud in the sky overhead.
“The storm passed by a good while ago. I wouldn’t bring you or the boys outside if I thought it hadn’t,” he said to reassure her.
She glanced at him and smiled a bit tenuously. “Storms can be very unpredictable. I don’t trust them.”
“You had a bad experience?”
Ellie was silent for so long he thought she had not heard him. When she finally did reply, her voice was barely above a whisper. “You might say that, although I’d argue that my father had a far worse experience. He was caught out in a storm when lightning struck a nearby tree. In turn, the tree fell and struck him. He lived just long enough to draft and sign a will giving my invalid mother full title to the farm and the little bit he owned before he died. There wasn’t enough to support us both for very long, even though I kept the farm going as long as I could.”
Jackson ran a hand through his hair. “I thought you looked a bit shaken when Sam Brooks told Daniel how he’d broken his arm during a storm, but I had no idea. . . . I’m sorry,” he murmured.
She tilted up her chin. “There’s no need to be sorry. You couldn’t have known. It took me a very long time to stop being angry with my father for leaving us and with God for taking him home, so I can understand how angry Daniel and Ethan must be about losing their mama,” she said, her voice getting stronger. “I’m mostly at peace now with what happened, but I still get frightened every time there’s a storm and I hear a clap of thunder or see a bolt of lightning flash across the sky. I’ll have to try harder, though. I wouldn’t want Daniel and Ethan to catch my uncommon fear of storms.”
“Pappy! Pappy, look!”
Daniel’s cries interrupted their conversation, and Jackson looked ahead again, only to see Daniel jumping up and down at the edge of the woods. He was pointing straight ahead to the orchards now in view, but there was no sign of Ethan.
Silently berating himself for not keeping a closer eye on his sons, he rushed forward, Ellie matching him step for step. “What is it? Where’s Ethan?” he shouted and closed the distance between them in a matter or strides.
When he looked in the direction where Daniel was pointing, he saw Ethan sitting on a low branch of an apple tree, grinning with pride.
“See? Ethan climbed up all by himself. I didn’t even have to help him,” Daniel explained.
With his heart pounding, Jackson nodded. “Yes, I do see him,” he said, took Daniel’s hand, and walked over to the tree. Fearful he might startle Ethan enough to make him fall, he kept a smile on his face and his voice low. “You’re up there pretty high, son.”
Ethan nodded.
“You climbed up there all by yourself?”
Another nod.
Daniel climbed up right beside him. “I helped Ethan practice climbing when Miss Ellie was busy cleaning,” he said as he wrapped his arm around his brother’s shoulders.
Frowning a bit, Ellie looked up at the boys. “Did you teach Ethan how to climb back down again, too?”
When Daniel’s face fell, Jackson laughed. “I guess I’d better do that right now, but I don’t want you slipping outside for any reason unless Miss Ellie gives you permission,” Jackson cautioned as he helped Ethan clamber back down. “Now, let’s hurry and check on those fallen apples.”
“I don’t think you have to hurry,” Ellie murmured as she scanned the rest of the orchard.
Jackson looked for himself and shook his head. “I don’t believe it. There isn’t a tree that’s lost a limb and there are hardly any more drops than there were yesterday. It’s as if the storm veered off after hitting the southern tip of the island.”
“Storms are unpredictable,” Ellie repeated.
