The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich (13 page)

Rowdy exhaled another heavy sigh of fatigue.
He reached over with one hand and laid it on top of the large rock in the middle of Dodger’s grave. “I wouldn’t have made it that day, Dodger. If it hadn’t been for you, I woulda died out there for sure.” He paused awhile. Then an instant before Rowdy Gates began to drift off to sleep under the old willow tree, stretched out next to the best friend he’d ever had in all the world, he mumbled, “I sure do miss you.”

As sleep ove
rtook him, he imagined he could hear Dodger’s happy bark calling to him from off somewhere in the distance. “I sure do,” he breathed.

*

“Are you sure you’re feelin’ all right, honey?” Kizzy asked as she handed Calliope a glass of warmed milk.

“Yes,” she assured her worried stepmother
and friend. “I’m just worn out. It’s not every day I fly thirty feet off the millpond’s high bank to go for a dive in the water,” she said, smiling at Shay.

Shay had hardly left Calliope’s side since the moment she and her father had arrived home with the harrowing tale of what had happened out at the millpond.

“Well, I’ve finished the pattern for the flower girls’ dresses,” Evangeline announced as she spread pieces of muslin out on the parlor floor.

“Maybe we should make sure we can convince Mr. Longfellow to let Mamie and Effie actually
be
the flower girls before we go making up their dresses, don’t you think?” Calliope teased.

But Evangeline was undaunted.
“Oh, he’ll agree to it,” she said, waving her hand as if dismissing a triviality. “But I think their dresses should be lavender…and the bridesmaids’ and maid of honor’s yellow. What do you think? Or should we just go yellow all the way around? Hmmm?”

Calliope’s brow furrowed as she considered Evangeline’s question.
“I don’t know, Evie. If we do all the dresses in yellow, then the lilacs and greenery will contrast so beautifully. But we could do lavender flower girl dresses and have yellow roses as their flowers. That would contrast nicely as well.”

Evangeline frowned too.
Then shaking her head, she said, “No. No, I agree. Let’s do all yellow dresses. I think that will look much more soft and sweet. And then with the lilacs and greenery—”

“Here comes Daddy!” Shay exclaimed then.

Kizzy giggled as she gazed out the parlor window into the street as well. “Oh, doesn’t he look handsome?” she mumbled. “I just love it when he’s all dressed down like this.”

“You mean instead of in his
judge’s robes and all?” Calliope teased.

Kizzy blushed.
“Yes. Your father is such a handsome man, and those drab old judge’s robes do nothin’ to let everyone see his muscles.”

“Mama!” Shay giggled, feigning astonishment.

Evangeline and Calliope smiled and exchanged glances of contentment. They were always pleased when Kizzy’s adoration of their father was more obvious than usual. In town or at social gatherings, Kizzy played the calm, proper little wife of the judge. At home, especially when they were in private (or thought they were in private), Kizzy and Lawson Ipswich were as affectionate and passionate as any two lovers ever were.

“I’m so glad you love Daddy, Kizzy,” Calliope said, suddenly feeling more grateful than ever that her father had Kizzy to love—and to love him in return.
“You’re so beautiful and vibrant, and you love him passionately—just the way I want to love one day.”

Kizzy’s eyes filled with moisture born of unexpected and intense emotion.
“Well…well, thank you, Calliope,” Kizzy breathed. “I never have felt worthy of capturin’ his affections, you know.”

“I do know,” Calliope said, smiling at her.
“But you are far more than worthy of him.” She reached out, embracing Kizzy a moment. “Thank you for that…and for Shay.”

“Look, Mama!” Shay exclaimed then.
“Daddy’s lightin’ our lamp right this minute!”

Evangeline got up from her place on the floor, abandoning the muslin pattern pieces and gazing out the window with her sisters and stepmother.

“Hello, Daddy!” Shay called, gently knocking on the window. She squealed with delight as Lawson looked to the window, smiled, and waved. “He sees us! He sees us!”

As the Ipswich wom
en watched Lawson continue on his way to light the remaining street lamps of Meadowlark Lake, Evangeline giggled.

“What’s so amusing?” Calliope asked her sister.

“I was just thinking…isn’t it funny that we all are so much more excited about Daddy being the lamplighter for the evening than we ever were for one minute about him being a judge?” she explained.

Calliope smiled. “That’s because a lamplighter is
a mysterious, romantic type of character, and a judge is just…well, severe in appearance, I suppose.” Calliope’s smile faded almost instantly, however. “I wonder how Mr. Gates is faring tonight,” she mumbled.

“I’m sure he’s just fine, Calliope,” Kizzy encouraged.
“He’s a very strong man. I’m sure that after a night’s rest, he’ll be back to work at the mill in the mornin’ as usual.”

“Calliope
, why don’t you and me make a pie for Mr. Gates tomorrow?” Shay suggested with youthful exuberance. “Then we can take it over to him after the mill closes down for the day, and you can thank him proper for savin’ you!”

“W-
well, I…I don’t know if we should,” Calliope stammered.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Shay!” Kizzy agreed
, however.

“You do?” Calliope asked—rather surprised by Kizzy’s collaborative opinion.

“I most certainly do,” Kizzy answered. “Why, I bet Rowdy Gates hardly ever gets a pie brought to him.”

“I think it’s a good idea, as well,” Evangeline chimed in.

“Then it’s decided,” Shay said.
“Tomorrow you and me will make Mr. Gates a pie and take it to him so he can have it for his supper.”

Calliope frowned.
“He’ll probably look at me and wish I’d never been born.”

“Oh
, don’t be so dramatic, Calliope,” Evangeline lovingly scolded. “He will not.”

“But you didn’t see his injuries, Evangeline!” Calliope argued as tears filled her eyes.
“You didn’t see the blood everywhere! It was all over him, draining from his head down over his face to those broad, broad shoulders of his.”

Calliope stopped her dramatics almost at once, however. “Oh my!” she whispered to herself as a vision of Rowdy Gates, shirtless and wet and hovering over her with concern on his face
, leapt to her mind.

In all the chaos of her slipping—of their fall and plunge into the water—with all the bedlam of the other men from the mill coming down to help them—of Rowdy’s profuse bleeding—it was only then, in that calm moment at home, that the vision of Rowdy so wonderfully disrobed and muscular lingered in her mind.

“Oh my, what?” Evangeline prodded.

“Oh my
, I…I…” Calliope stammered. But her mouth could not form words, for as her memory leapt from Rowdy hovering over her on the bank of the millpond to the way he’d appeared when Doctor Gregory had finished shaving him, she was rendered speechless. Suddenly all she could think of—all she could see in her mind’s eye—was the dazzling deep green of his eyes, his square jaw and cleft chin, his perfect nose.

“What’s the matter, Calliope?” Shay asked with concern.
“Are you all right?”

“Y-
yes,” Calliope managed, forcing another smile. “I’m just a bit tired, I suppose.”

“Well then
, you best get to bed,” Kizzy said, taking the glass of milk from Calliope. “Sleep in a bit in the mornin’, darlin’. You had quite a day.”

“Yes
, I did,” Calliope agreed.

Once she’d kissed each member of her family good night—including he
r father, for she waited for his return before retiring—and lay comfortably tucked into bed, Calliope stared out the window of her bedroom, gazing up into the clear night sky. As she lay there, she wondered at Rowdy Gates’s well-being. Had he eaten supper? Was he comfortable? Was he warm? Had the bleeding of his wounds finally stopped completely? Was he in pain?

Desperate to find sleep and thereby a reprieve from worry, Calliope began to count the stars twinkling like tiny flakes of frost in the dark night sky.
And the activity did cause her eyelids to grow heavy and her mind to empty. Yet even as slumber overtook her, it wasn’t images of stars twinkling in the sky that prevailed in her mind but the image of the masterful work of art that was Rowdy Gates’s shaven face.

“His eyes
…his green eyes,” Calliope whispered to herself as unconsciousness overtook her. “They take my breath from me.”

“Good morning, Calliope,” Lawson greeted as Calliope stepped into the kitchen the next morning
. The rest of the Ipswich family was already sitting down to breakfast.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Calliope said in return. She pressed a loving kiss to his cheek,
and then to Shay’s, Evangeline’s, and Kizzy’s cheeks as well. “Forgive me for dawdling this morning.”

“There’s nothin’ to forgive,” Kizzy assured her as she placed another plate on the table. “The biscuits are even still warm,” she said.

“Oh good!” Calliope said, smiling.

“And we saw Mr. Gates
puttin’ out the lamps this mornin’ already, Calliope,” Shay offered. “Daddy says he looks awfully robust for a man who nearly cracked his head open yesterday.”

Looking anxiously to her father, Calliope asked, “Does he really, Daddy?”

Lawson nodded at her, smiled, and winked with reassurance. “Yes, he does. I ventured out to speak with him a moment, and other than the bandage around his head—which is well hidden by his hat—he looks none the worse for wear.” Lawson shook his head with obvious admiration. “I’d have to say Rowdy Gates is one of the strongest men I’ve ever known. I can’t say for certain that I’d be back to work the day after such an incident.”

Although she was very relieved to hear Rowdy seemed well enough, the guilt that
had plagued Calliope all night welled up in her again.

“I can’t believe…I can’t believe I hurt him like that,” she said. She
felt tears brimming in her eyes and struggled to keep them from spilling over her cheeks.

“You didn’t hurt him, Calliope,” Evangeline corrected firmly. “You know that.
And I for one am just profoundly grateful that he was nearby when you began to fall.”

“Me
too,” Kizzy interjected.

“All of us are,” Lawson said. He reached out, cupping Calliope’s chin in his strong hand, forcing her to look directly at him. “And don’t diminish the incredible service Rowdy did f
or you by letting guilt envelop you, all right, darling?”

Calliope nodded
, and her father released her chin and straightened in his chair. “Shay tells me the two of you are going to bake a pie today and take it over to Rowdy this evening as an offering of gratitude,” Lawson began. “I think it’s a wonderful notion. I’m sure Rowdy doesn’t get many fresh-baked pies. Or many expressions of gratitude. It will be a well-deserved gift of thanks.”

Calliope looked to her little sister. Shay sat smiling with triumph. Shay knew that Calliope would never bow out of baking a pie for Ro
wdy now—not when their father already knew about it and thought it was a good thing.

“I told him,” Shay confessed,
“before you woke up this mornin’…about the pie, I mean.”

“So I gather,” Calliope said
, smiling. Shay was an angel with an angelic heart.

Smi
ling with joy in a new, sunshiny day, Calliope retrieved a biscuit from the plate in the middle of the table and slathered it with warm butter. “Mmmmm!” she sighed as she took a bite of it. “Kizzy, you make the best biscuits in all the world! I always feel so happy in a morning that begins with your biscuits.”

Kizzy smiled and said, “Why
, thank you, Calliope. I’m glad I can help start your mornin’ off with some happiness.”

“They really are the best biscuits I’ve ever had,” Evangeline added. She sighed and quirked one pretty eyebrow. “No matter how hard I try
, mine never come out as fluffy and light as yours.”

“That’s because Mama puts some g
ypsy magic into her biscuits, Evie,” Shay explained.

Evangeline giggled and said, “Oh
, that’s right! I always forget about that part.” She winked at Calliope. Although Shay constantly wanted to be reassured that she was as much an Ipswich as Evangeline, Amoretta, and Calliope, she was always reminding herself and everyone else that she and her mother had gypsy blood running through them.

“Well, do
you think you’d be willing to put some of your own gypsy magic into the pie we bake for Mr. Gates, Shay?” Calliope asked.

Shay’s smile of delight and gladness stretched nearly from ear to ear. “Of course, Calliope!” the little girl exclaimed. “Then he’ll be sure to like it!”

Everyone at the table exchanged amused glances a moment before returning their attention to breakfast.