Past Forward Volume 1 (26 page)

“Someone has messed with Mother’s grave! Let
me go!”

“I did that,” Chad began miserably.

All struggle ceased and Willow’s face lifted
to look at his. The moonlight silhouetted them near the tree—his
hand holding hers, their faces seeming to draw slowly closer. A car
passed along the highway and Chad could only imagine what the
people inside thought. They were dea—there he went with the wrong
word again. They were wrong.

“What is it Chad? Why did you mess with
Mother’s grave?” Tears hovered around her eyes as she pulled her
hand from his, stepping closer to where the small mound lay.

A lump formed in his throat, but he
swallowed hard, pushing it back down for a moment. Chad struggled
with how to tell her—what he could say that wouldn’t be so blunt.
One step closer, he took her hand again. “I thought you and your
mother would like Othello to rest there with her.”

“Oth—” her eyes sought the grave again and
saw what she’d missed the first time. It wasn’t one disturbed mound
but two. “No…”

She sank onto the freshly dug grave, her
hand holding tight to Chad’s, and pulling him down with her. She
stared, seemingly unmoved, for some time at the dirt beneath her
fingers. “I was going to name the puppy Desdemona,” she commented
flatly.

“Demonwhat?”

“Desdemona. She was Othello’s wife in the
play. I even imagined her having Othello’s puppies. Wouldn’t they
have been adorable?”

Chad didn’t know what to think. They sat for
some time on the little pile of dirt that covered a long-loved pet
of hers, but Willow seemed almost unaffected. He felt a raindrop
and glanced up at a cloudless sky. Stars twinkled above; the moon
shone. Another drop splashed. With the third, he tilted Willow’s
face and saw her fighting back tears.

“Don’t Willow. Let—”

“I know it’s silly. He was a dog, a pet. He
wasn’t—but I got him as a puppy for Christmas one year. The feed
store brought him with our order and left him with a big red bow on
top of a bag of chicken feed.”

“You loved him.”

She wiped at her eyes impatiently shaking
her head. “He was just a pet. It’s not like losing Mother.”

“It’s ok to love a pet, Willow.”

“But—”

With a tenderness Chad didn’t know he
possessed, he caught her other hand. Holding both hands in one of
his, he used the back of his knuckles to brush away a few missed
tears and pulled her firmly to his chest. “Shh. No more excuses.
Cry it out. You lost not only a dear friend, but you also lost him
on the heels of losing your mother. I imagine the grief is
intertwined.”

“Bill knew about this didn’t he?”

“He knew.”

Willow sobbed. She wailed. She tore her
hands from Chad’s and pounded fists against the dirt until Chad
pulled her back to him and then she pounded his chest. “Just leave
me alone.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Willow. Not until
you’ve let it all out.”

Time crawled for Chad as he sat holding her,
trying to comfort her through what he suspected was more than the
loss of a dog—one she wouldn’t allow herself to mourn without
permission. Kari’s influence he suspected. He should have known
that recent wounds would reopen with this newest one. He remembered
how Luke had encouraged him to consider a pastorate and praised the
Lord, as he wiped yet more tears from Willow’s face, that he’d been
steadfast in his determination to be a police officer.

“Thank you.” Willow’s voice was so quiet he
almost didn’t hear her.

“For what?”

“Burying Othello. I couldn’t have done it.
Not right away and then—”

Chad stood and pulled her to her feet next
to him. “No one would have left you to do that alone.”

“You did. You did it alone. Why is it ok for
you and not for me?”

As they walked to the house, Chad listened
as Willow questioned life, death, and the inconsistencies of both.
He stopped at his truck and opened the door. “Willow, part of what
you’re experiencing is culture shock. You and your mother had your
own culture. Her death plunged you into another culture. They’re
closely related, but whereas you and your mother valued grit and
independence, we like to serve others—especially when they are
hurting.”

Chad drove away feeling like a hypocrite. If
he valued service as he claimed to, he wouldn’t be fighting his
service for her.
Lord, thank you for Bill Franklin. If things
keep going the way they are, I may be off the hook before
long.

Darkness still hovered over the countryside
when she awoke that July 4
^th
. Willow crawled from
beneath her covers, leaving it unmade, and grabbed her clothes.
Fishing poles stood waiting by the back door. She grabbed them and
stepped out onto the back porch. The faintest trace of green
hovered near the horizon, the blue-black of night mixing with
dawn’s gold. Perfect fishing weather.

Before dawn broke, sending golden rays of
sunshine through the trees, she had settled herself under her
favorite tree, fishing pole in hand, and prayers of thanksgiving
for a free country on her lips. Sorrow crept around her heart, as
yet another reminder of her loss broke through her defenses. Mother
would not take turns reading aloud today. She would not hum
patriotic songs while churning ice cream or making raspberry-mint
lemonade.

The lazy sway of her fishing line in the
water mocked her. Not a tug in sight. Fish for breakfast, an
Independence Day tradition, if she could just—the first fish flew
through the air as she jerked it from the water. Fish for
breakfast. Period.

It was too early to go back, so she flung
the line back into the pond and waited, her mind grateful for
another distraction. Four fish. Two for this morning, two for the
weekend—a semblance of normalcy even without her mother eating half
the catch. “More fish for me,” she choked in a whisper.

Four fish signaled her time to leave.
Reluctantly, she removed the fly from her line, packed up her gear,
and strolled home. The pup yapped in the barn as she set the ice
chest in the summer kitchen. With a pan of water heating on the
stove, she slid open the barn door and let Frieda—that name
wouldn’t work either—out. “Mornin’, girl.”

She fed the animals, milked Willie, and
returned to the kitchen, eager to begin fileting her fish. Bones
eradicated, she dredged the fish in cornmeal and fried them. The
pup yapped at the door, whining and scratching for a taste, but
Willow refused. “Sorry Dizzy Daisy, I’m not risking it. I’ve lost
one puppy to fish bones—not doing it again. I’ve already found one
that I missed.”

As she rinsed her plate in the sink, a
sudden craving for pie attacked her. “We need cherry pie.” Drying
her hands, she grabbed a bowl and carried it outside, smiling at
the dog tumbling over its feet. “Want to come with me to pick some
cherries, Thoreau?” She winced. “Sorry, girl. That one is out too.
We’ll find you a name eventually. It’s time now that Othello—”
Willow swallowed hard. “It’s time.”

“Come on, girl—Tenacity. Hmm not bad. We’ll
read to Mother and eat cherries in her honor.” She glanced at the
pup and sighed. That name wouldn’t work either. “Emma? You look
like you could be an Emma.” The pup yapped as though affronted.

Blanket under her arm, she carried a basket
in one hand and a tote bag full of books in the other. Around the
barn and across the field, she led the pup to what she now thought
of as “Mother’s oak.” She spread the old quilt out over the wild
grass that grew around the tree and settled herself against the
trunk. Books tumbled out of the bag as she dug for her
favorites.

“
Ok, no Emma. Well, you’re
no Beauty, but you’re nice enough.” She pulled out a thin, worn
paperback, a compilation of the Declaration of Independence, Bill
of Rights, and Constitution of the United States, and flipped open
to the Declaration of Independence. She read aloud; they always
did. The pup’s head cocked from side to side as if it tried to
understand what Willow said, but she didn’t pause.

Chad’s cruiser pulled into the drive and he
jumped out. He hopped the fence, striding across the grass to where
she sat, but though she waved, Willow continued reading aloud
without a moment’s hesitation to interrupt the cadence of the words
she spoke. “‘…
for the support of
this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.’”

“That line
gets me every time.”

Willow looked
up at Chad grinning. “It was Mother’s favorite. She said that this
is how we live, ‘with a reliance on the protection of divine
Providence.’ Want a cherry?” She held the bowl up for
him.

Popping one in
his mouth, Chad sank to the blanket, flipping through the stack of
books lying there. “
The Federalist Papers
,
the
Anti-Federalist papers
—what are those?”

“Mother and I
would have been Anti-Federalists. Technically we still are, but the
country went federalist.”

“I didn’t know
there was such a thing as anti-federalists.”

She pushed the
book across the blanket at him. “Take it. You’ll love
it.”

From his
expression, Willow suspected that he
didn’t have the heart to tell her it was probably the
last book he’d ever choose to read. He swallowed hard and choked
out, “Thanks.” He picked up another. “
George Washington’s Rules of
Civility
. He had
rules?”

“
Good ones,” she insisted, nodding.

As he picked
up a book of historical verse, he shook his head. “You read poetry
too?”

“Doesn’t
everyone?” The amused look on Chad’s face was answer enough. She
pulled the book from his hand, flipped to Francis Miles Finch’s
poem about Nathan Hale, and read.

“‘
To drum-beat and
heart-beat,

A soldier marches by:

There is color in his cheek

There is courage in his eye,

Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat

In a moment he must die…’”

The words hung
in the air as the last line sizzled on her tongue.
She made them sound like the beat of
drums as she half-read, half-quoted the poem. Chad seemed nearly
speechless. “Wow.”

“Francis Miles
Finch. He made Nathan Hale come alive for me as a child,” she said
simply.

“Are you going
to read all of these?” As he spoke, Chad started to spit his cherry
stone across the field and stopped himself.

“Not the
Federalist and Anti-federalists. I was just planning on reading my
favorite spots.” She snatched a cherry from the bowl. “Bet I can
spit a stone farther than you.”

“
Not hardly.”

She crossed
her arms across her chest. “
Prove it.”

Three stones
and three losses later, Chad got a call. “I have to go. Another
drunk and disorderly to go to Brunswick. Have a good day. Thanks
for the book.”

Twenty yards
away he turned, “Hey, what are you doing Saturday
night?”

“Recuperating
from cherry canning, what else?”

“Can you
recuperate in a truck bed?”

Willow shook
her head fervently. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need a special
bed.”

He jogged back
laughing. “For a moment, I thought you were serious.”

“
I
can’t get away with it forever, but…” She grinned. “So why your
truck bed?”

“Saturday
night they’re shooting off fireworks over the lake. I might take my
truck down to the docks and thought maybe you’d like to come.” Even
as he said it, he knew it sounded like a date, but Chad didn’t know
how to avoid it. Willow would love it. Lots of people went to the
lake, and the more people she became acquainted with, the better
for him.

“
What time would I have to be there?”

That question
gave Chad hope. She didn’t expect him to come get her, so maybe she
didn’t assume any other marked attention to her. “I’ll pick you up
at six-thirty. You’re not walking that night. Too many
drunks.”