Wings of a Dream (42 page)

I packed by the light of the moon. An owl hooted far away. A whippoorwill answered. Kneeling beside the narrow windowsill, I laid my cheek against the cool pane of glass. If I’d known what would happen—that a stranger’s children would weave their way into my heart and change everything—would I have come? Being a farmer’s wife and a mother hadn’t been the dream of my heart. How could I have known it would become what I wanted? What I needed?

That October night before I left home seemed years ago. I’d been a different girl then. But if I truly believed God cared for every detail of my life—and I did—I had to believe He preferred this me to the old one.

After one last pleading look into the heavens, I slipped into bed, closed my eyes, and let dreams come as they would. I didn’t have the heart to conjure them up anymore.

L
ong before the sun showed itself above the horizon, I threw a few short planks into the range’s firebox and made myself a cup of tea instead of coffee. I’m going home, I told myself, trying to believe it was a good thing. Everyone in Downington would make a fuss over me, like they did over anyone returning from a long visit.

The hot, honey-laced tea coated my throat and kept back the tears that hovered so near. I’d make a big breakfast, and would leave dinner cooking, too. The last time I’d make dinner for them all.

I squeezed my eyes shut and banished all thoughts of
last times
. I’d caress those memories on the train, with the world whizzing past. Strangers would watch my tears and wonder, but not ask. By the time I reached Downington, I’d put on my happy mask. Forever.

“Is it morning already?” Ollie slumped at the table, rubbing her eyes.

“Yes, but very early morning,” I said. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t. James kicked me. I don’t think I can sleep with those boys anymore. I’m too big, and they’re too rowdy!”

I slid a pan of biscuits into the oven before giving the gravy a stir and moving it to a place away from the heat. “Don’t worry, honey. You won’t have to put up with them much longer.”

I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth, but I held still, hoping she wouldn’t take any meaning from my words.

But she did. Her mouth dropped open. “You mean I can move into your room, with you?”

I turned to the stove and whipped the gravy round and round with a fork. I needed to tell her the truth, but I wasn’t yet ready. The fork slowed. I gathered my thoughts, measured my words. “Yes, honey, you can move into my room soon.”

She squealed. I shushed her. She threw her arms around my waist and laid her cheek against my back.

“What’s got you so excited, Ollie girl?” Frank’s cheerful words punched me in the stomach.

Ollie let go, her feet tearing across the floor. “Oh, Daddy. Rebekah says I can move into her room. I don’t have to sleep in that big bed with the boys anymore.”

“Did she now?”

I could tell Frank wanted me to look at him, wanted to ask questions with his eyes. But I dared not turn. He’d read what I intended to do, and I wasn’t quite ready for that.

My fork whirled faster. Maybe my agitation would mean lumpless gravy.

“What’s goin’ on?” Dan, with James close at his heels.

And quick as butter melting on a hot stove, life moved forward.

I cooked and served and ate, soaking in each voice, each laugh, each turn of the head, saving them up for when I’d need them most. But I didn’t speak. I didn’t look Frank in the face, either.

Dishwashing brought relief. I could gaze out the window instead of at the family, but my hands fumbled with the familiar task. A tin plate clattered to the floor before I could plunge it beneath the dishwater. I stooped to pick it up.

Ollie glanced at me as she clinked another clean cup on the shelf.

“I sure am clumsy this morning.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more as a nervous twitter. I had to tell Frank before Ollie left for school. It wouldn’t do to say no good-bye at all. I just couldn’t bear a long one. “Go on now. Get your books together.”

She jumped off the small stool and hurried away. I dried my hands and took a deep breath. Nothing to be nervous about, I told myself.

“Oh, Lord Jesus.” It was as close to a prayer as I could manage without falling to pieces. The Lord knew what I needed. Strength. Courage. Faith that He had some future for me that would assuage the current pain in my heart.

I walked the familiar path to the barn, stopped in the doorway, squinted into the darker center of the building. Ol’ Bob mooed. I took it as her good-bye.

“May I speak with you for a minute, Frank?”

He stopped working. “James, Dan. Keep Janie out of trouble.”

“Yes, sir.” Both boys gave a salute.

Frank’s long legs consumed the expanse, and he met me in the bright sunlight. We rounded the corner of the barn and moved away from its wall, closer to the pigpen.

“Is there a problem?” He bent slightly, resting his arms on the top of the rail fence surrounding the sty, one foot propped up on the lower slat.

I picked at the jagged edge of a fingernail and cleared my throat. “I’m going home.”

“I know.” He looked almost . . . stricken. But it passed. Worried about not having made arrangement yet for the children, I imagined. He cleared his throat, kicked at a clod of dirt. “At the end of the month.”

“This morning, actually. I have my train ticket.”

Only his jaw moved, the muscle tightening and loosening and tightening again.

I paced behind him, reached the other side of the small enclosure, chewed my lip, waited for him to say something. Anything. But the silence closed in around me. I had to get free of it.

“I’ve been here long enough. I know that now. You need to be with your family, Frank. You need to sleep in your own bed, be among your own things. The children are comfortable with you again. Besides”—I grabbed the top rail of the pen to hold me steady—“I have my own life to live.”

I stared off into the distance, hoping he thought I gazed happily into the life I desired.

The quiet boiled between us until his words spat out like a flash of lightning. “Just like that, you’d abandon us?”

I whirled to face him. “Just a few days earlier than you promised to send me home, remember?”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his overalls and looked me over as if I were a possum in the bedroom. “They’ve lost their mother. And Adabelle. Now they’ll lose you, too. You don’t think they’ll feel that?”

I shook my head, my heart breaking into tiny shards. “They’re young. They’ll take to whoever you bring in as quickly as they took to me.”

His face reddened. He stalked toward the barn, then turned and came back, pointing his finger in my face. “Let’s get this straight. I’ve not asked you to leave. You’ve taken this on yourself.”

“It’s for the best, Frank. It really is. But . . .” I hesitated. The intensity of his anger made me unsure of my final request. My voice shrank to nearly a whisper. “Will you tell them for me?”

His eyebrows arched. He threw back his head and belched a derisive laugh. “You want to leave? Fine. I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to be the one to tell them. You are.”

He stomped to the barn. I fumed back to the house. “Coward,” I muttered under my breath.

I wasn’t sure if I meant him or me.

I knew I had to tell Ollie before she left for school. It would be a quick pain, like pulling the dressing from a wound. I had to say it now, before I lost my nerve.

“Ollie!” I called up the stairs.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Are you ready to leave?”

Instead of answering, she skipped down the stairs, jumping over the last two steps into my unsuspecting arms. I caught her, but barely.

“Oh my. You’re too big for me to catch you like that.”

She grinned up at me. “I know, but sometimes I wish I was little again.”

I hugged her to me for a long moment, then held her away. I retied the ribbons on the bottoms of her braids. “You look adorable, Ollie Elizabeth.”

I took her hand and led her out the front door. “You be good at school today.” My courage waned, but the words had to be said. I took a deep breath. “I won’t be here this afternoon, Ollie. I’m going home to Oklahoma, to my mama and daddy.”

She cocked her head, a quizzical expression on her face. “When are you coming back?”

“I’m not. I mean, I’m not coming back to live here. I’ll come to visit, maybe. And you can come and visit me.”

Her hand separated from mine. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. “But we need you, Rebekah.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Your daddy will take care of you, I promise.”

“You can’t go.” Tears dripped down her pale cheeks, her voice escalating into hysteria. “You can’t leave us!”

Then I noticed the back door standing open, James and Dan gaping at their sister, confusion screwing up their faces. Frank stood behind them, Janie in his arms. I wanted to crawl in a hole. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. My lips trembled, looking for words to comfort them. To comfort me.

James bolted through the hallway and wrapped his arms around Ollie, buried his head in her chest. I squatted down in front of them, determined to hold back my emotions but sensing them rising out of my control. The children weren’t supposed to care as much as I did.

I laid my hand on the back of James’s head as if giving him a blessing. “Good-bye, little man. I’ll miss you.”

“Me, too?” Dan bowled into me now, Janie toddling behind.

“You, too, Dan.” I wrapped my arm around him, my nose near the scruffy skin of his neck. I breathed in the peculiar little-boy scent, like a wet dog in a closed room. Then I lifted Janie and kissed her nose before setting her back on the floor.

I retrieved my suitcase from where I’d stashed it in the dining room and raised a hand to Frank. He didn’t return my farewell. I wasn’t sure he even saw it. He just stared at me with a look of terror.

I dashed out the door, down the walk, and out the gate.

A collective howl rose up behind me. I wanted to run but turned back, in spite of myself. The four children stood near the road now, bawling and squalling, faces mottled red, words pleading. A torrent of tears rushed toward release as I forced my leaden feet toward town.

Then Janie’s baby voice rose above the din. “Ma-ma!”

My steps halted. So did my heart. The plaintive cry filled every crevice of my being.

“Ma-ma!”

The caterwauling ceased. I turned. Ollie’s horror-stricken face told me I’d heard right. Gripping the handle of my suitcase and clenching my teeth, I tried to hold in my own keening.

Janie dropped to her pudgy knees in the middle of the road. “Ma-ma!” She fell on her face in the dirt and sobbed.

My gaze rose past her to Frank, who stood at the top of the steps. His horror seemed to mirror my own. I’d thought by leaving I’d alleviate his suffering, but it seemed I’d only deepened it.

He made his way across the yard, his eyes fixed on mine. He passed his frozen children as if they were merely trees in a human forest and stopped in front of me, so close I could smell Ol’ Bob on his shirt. I tilted my head back, looked into his face.

My heart bumped against my chest, though I’d felt sure it had stopped beating altogether. His arms reached for me, then fell back to his side. “Please, Rebekah. Please stay. They need you. I told you that.”

“I can’t.” My vision blurred as I shook my head.

His thumb caught a tear on my cheek, wiped it dry. I glanced at Janie, still lying heartbroken in the dirt. I ached to go to her, but I didn’t want to make things worse. Ollie seemed to read my thoughts. She picked up her sister, but her attention remained on me.

I looked back at Frank. “Can’t you see? I’m giving you your life back. Your whole life. Your house. Your family.” I tasted the salt of my tears.

He grabbed my shoulders. “But don’t you understand, Rebekah? I can’t have my whole life back. When I left for the war, I knew nothing would ever be the same. And it isn’t. Clara is gone. I have to make a new life now.” He sucked in a deep breath. “And I want to make it with you.”

“Me? Are you saying . . . ” I held my breath, holding the words inside me, afraid they’d meet the air and burst like a soap bubble.