25

Clay Weber didn’t have a good start to his Monday. His shoestring broke when he laced up his shoes. The bossy cow kicked over a half full pail of milk and then swished her tail in his face. Twice. When he got corn for the hogs, the mice were having a party in the corncrib. He’d have to find a black snake to put a stop to that nonsense before nothing was left but cobs.

At breakfast, he snapped at Mary when she asked if he’d given the doll dress to Victoria. Big tears welled up in Mary’s eyes. He was sorry at once and hugged the little girl, but that didn’t make it all right. Mary had nothing to do with Victoria telling him to go away.

His mother shooed the girls off to get their schoolbooks. Aaron blew the horn on the old jalopy Clay had helped him buy. He wanted his brothers and sisters to have a way to school. Aaron would graduate this year, the first high school graduate in the family. Clay would have been the first if things had been different, but they weren’t. They were what they were, and he’d never have that rolled-up piece of paper that was the ticket to a better life. Instead he’d keep wrestling a living out of the ground for his mother and the kids.

Maybe that was why Victoria told him to go away. He wasn’t smart enough for her.

He stared down at his eggs and bacon and biscuit smeared with blackberry jam. All products of his or his mother’s hands. Thankful, that’s what he should be. He had a good family. A farm to work. Enough schooling to get by. He tried to push thankful to the front of his thinking, but it didn’t work. Grouchy was what he was. Not a bit thankful.

He moved his eggs around with his fork as he listened to Aaron’s car going down the lane. The boy needed to patch that muffler.

His mother came back in the kitchen and told Willie to stop playing with his food and eat. She looked ready to tell Clay the same, but instead she poured a cup of coffee and sat down across from him. “Something bothering you, son?”

“No, ma’am. Just didn’t sleep so well.”

“I see.” She took a sip of coffee and gave Willie another look that at last got the little boy to spoon some oatmeal into his mouth.

Willie was a dreamer. Being the last and a child who never laid eyes on his father had made them all spoil him too much. Maybe Clay should talk to his mother about giving the boy some regular chores. At five, he could feed the chickens or gather sticks for kindling.

Willie would be easier to talk about than Victoria. Her words telling him to go away had sounded in his head over and over the night before. Then when he did drift off to sleep, he dreamed she was looking at him with longing eyes. That was a dream he might have wanted to keep on dreaming, but something jerked him awake. Reality, he supposed. He lay there in bed and stared up at the dark, trying to replace Victoria’s face in his dream with Paulette’s. Paulette was the one looking at him with longing. Not Victoria. That was what would make sense, and hadn’t everybody always said that Clay had good sense?

He looked at things straight on. Wasn’t much use imagining things were different than they were. The ground on their rocky farm was so hard a man could spill blood on it and still not grow a decent potato. But even more than the farm, he knew the man who stared back at him from the mirror every morning was only a farm boy without much to offer any girl except a lifetime of work like his mother had.

It didn’t much matter that his mother claimed she would never have chosen a different path than marrying his father. That didn’t have anything to do with the choices Victoria was ready to make. He was lucky to have any girl wanting him to come around. So he should be glad Paulette was ready to grab his arm and sit with him at church on Sunday.

He hadn’t wanted to go to church, but he couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse to stay home. Besides, he had nursed this tiny hope Victoria might take back her words. After all, for a while there on the pond bank, she’d almost seemed glad he was there. He’d even had his arms around her for a few seconds when she stumbled toward the water’s edge.

All the way to church, he thought up what he could say to her. Victoria, I know what you said, but we’ve been friends a long time. We don’t want to throw that away. Can’t we just keep talking now and again? Won’t you let me hang on to a shred of hope?

But he didn’t get a chance to say any of that. Paulette captured him as soon as he set foot on the front walk. He did see Victoria come in the church, but he could hardly get up from beside Paulette and go talk to her then. Even if that was what he wanted to do. The very sight of her pulled at him. He’d have gone down on his knees right there in front of the whole church and begged her to change her mind about him if he thought that would make a difference. But he figured a scene like that would make her even more eager for him to disappear from her life.

He did speak to her after the services, but she kept her eyes down, barely looking at him or at Paulette either before she eased away from them. Minutes later, she grabbed Samantha and headed down the road toward her house, even though her parents were still talking in the churchyard. If only he’d had a reason to walk with her. If only Paulette hadn’t been hanging on to his arm, chattering about the movie they’d seen.

“The fishing trip didn’t go well then?” his mother asked now.

“The fish weren’t biting.” Clay finished off his eggs even though they were cold and about as appetizing as Willie’s oatmeal. He hoped she’d see him chewing and let it drop. They both knew she wasn’t talking about catching fish anyway.

“Maybe you should give it another try,” his mother said.

His mother had aged a lot in the last five years. Hard years after Clay’s father died. She and his father had been like two halves of the same person. A softer, gentler side and a harsh, honest side. Mother and father. Now she had to be both sides and it was wearing on her. Deep lines traced around her eyes. She was always working. In fact, it was uncommon for her to sit like this with her coffee. Generally she just took a sip now and again while starting in on her chores.

But today she studied him across the table, her hands wrapped around her cup. Willie scraped the last bite out of his bowl, gave their mother a smile, and headed outside to check on the kittens under the porch.

“Maybe you should give him some chores to do,” Clay said.

His mother’s face softened as the little boy ran past the kitchen window. “Let him play. He’ll have plenty of time for working later.”

“You’re babying him too much.” Even to his ears, he sounded grouchy again.

She reached across the table and laid a work roughened hand over his. “He helps me in the garden.”

“That’s play for him.”

“Working in the dirt isn’t a bad thing to enjoy, son. You liked the planting when you were his age too.” Her eyes on him were concerned. “I’m sorry we couldn’t baby you longer.”

“I never wanted to be babied.”

“No, no you didn’t. Your father used to call you his little man. Do you remember that?”

Clay nodded, not sure he could trust his voice with that memory pushing at him. He’d followed his father out to the fields when he was younger than Willie.

His mother patted his hand and sat back. She took another drink of coffee. “I saw you sitting with Paulette yesterday at church. You two back together?”

“Maybe.”

“She seemed all smiles,” his mother said mildly.

“Yeah. She was at the movies with some friends Saturday night and she asked me to sit with them.”

“I see.” His mother ran her finger around the rim of her cup.

Clay wanted to get up and go on out to hitch the horse to the plow, but his mother wasn’t sitting at the table for no reason. She had something to say and she hadn’t said it yet. While he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it, she was his mother. He owed her a listen, even as he hoped she’d have second thoughts and get up to go about her work and let him go about his.

That wasn’t to be. “I’m guessing Victoria wasn’t one of those friends.”

“No.” Clay drained the last of his coffee from his cup. Anything to keep his eyes away from his mother. She had enough troubles without taking on his heartache. And that was what he had. Words weren’t going to make it better. Time maybe, or so people said. Time hadn’t seemed to make Victoria’s heart stop hurting for Sammy.

Clay pushed back from the table and stood up. Whatever she wanted to say would have to wait for another time. “I’ve got to get that back field plowed before the rain comes.”

She caught his arm as he moved past her. He had to stop, but he kept his eyes on the door.

“You’re young, Clay. Only twenty-two. Don’t settle for less than love.”

Clay shut his eyes and pulled in a breath. The kitchen was so quiet he could hear the clock on the mantel in the front room ticking past the seconds. Finally he opened his eyes and looked at his mother. “I can love Paulette.”

“Can you?” she asked, but she didn’t expect an answer. She dropped her hand away from his arm and began scraping up the breakfast dishes.

He was glad to be out of the house. Glad to have something to do with his hands as he lifted the yoke down off the barn wall. Ace stood still, resigned to another day of pulling the plow. Some of the farmers around them were getting tractors, but Ace and Clay were still a good team that could get the work done without worrying about buying gasoline.

Then again, maybe it would be good to need gasoline. Only one place to buy that in Rosey Corner. He could almost see Victoria coming out to the pumps, the wind blowing back her dark hair. A smile on her face. For him. That part was nothing but fanciful imagination.

With a sigh, he leaned his forehead against Ace’s neck and answered his mother. “Maybe I can’t.” He’d have to tell Paulette. He couldn’t lead her on when he was in love with another woman. It didn’t matter whether that other woman loved him back or not. It wasn’t fair to Paulette to settle for less than love.

The last person Tori wanted to see Monday morning was Graham Lindell, but Graham would be at the store. He came into the store every morning for a banana or a chocolate bar. So unless she played sick and stayed home, she was going to see him. She was too old to play sick, but she did feel Samantha’s forehead. The child didn’t feel the least bit warm. Tori was glad Samantha wasn’t sick, but that didn’t keep her feet from dragging as she took the little girl’s hand and headed toward the store.

Her mother and father always went to the store to open up and be there to sell gasoline to the people on their way to work in Frankfort. Tori stayed at the house to get Samantha up and ready for their day at the store. Once she got there, her father went on to his shoe repair shop. Sometimes Tori wished she could trade with him. Learn to fix shoes and let him wait on the customers.

Kate would have taken Tori’s place at the store after she moved back to Rosey Corner, but Tori hadn’t figured out what else she could do. Maybe be a secretary like Evie. She could type. She’d learned on Kate’s typewriter. She could find a ride to Frankfort where the jobs were, and Mrs. Harper would keep Samantha. But Tori wanted to be the one Samantha ran to when she bumped her head or found a pretty rock. She didn’t want to just hear about it when she came in from work. Then again, she’d never planned to be a widow.

Graham was in one of the loafer’s chairs with Chaucer stretched out at his feet when they got to the store. Chaucer’s tail thumped the floor when Samantha ran to Graham. That was good. It would delay the questions about whether she caught any fish on Saturday. Graham hadn’t been at church on Sunday, so he wouldn’t know how his matchmaking plans had gone awry. He hadn’t seen Paulette hanging on to Clay’s arm like they belonged together.

And why did that make Tori’s stomach hurt? It was what she wanted. What she’d told Clay would make her happy. He’d looked happy enough with Paulette. She shook her head a little to get thoughts of Clay out of her mind, but it didn’t work. The more she tried not to think about him, the more she did. But it was only because she’d been so rude to him. That was all. It wasn’t like she was part of a fairy tale with a happy-ever-after ending. Sammy was her happy ever after. An ending that had happened all too soon.

She had dreamed about Sammy. That wasn’t unusual, but somehow this dream was different. In this dream, he seemed like he was standing right in front of her. When she reached toward him, he held up his hand to keep her from touching him. Then they’d been at the pond. She hooked such a big fish, it bent her pole almost double. Beside her, Sammy laughed and told her to make sure not to let it get away. When she finally reeled in the fish and held it up, Sammy backed away from her out onto the pond. His smile was bright, almost glowing, as he floated over the water and up into the air. She screamed at him to come back, but he only waved and called to her to not let the fish get away.

She must have cried out, because Lorena crawled in the bed beside her and stroked her head as though comforting Samantha. Tori pretended to be asleep. She was too unsettled by the dream to talk about it. It probably hadn’t meant a thing. Just something that stuck in her head after she let the fish she’d caught get away Saturday.

When Lorena went back to her bed, Tori opened her eyes to stare at the dark air and wish for the morning light. Or failing that, Samantha to awaken and need to be held.

Now at the store, Graham raised his eyebrows at Tori overtop of Samantha’s head, but he was too busy entertaining the little girl with some crazy story to ask Tori anything. Good, Tori thought as she went behind the counter to ring up Mrs. Williamson’s groceries. But then the store emptied out.

Tori’s mother picked up a basket of groceries to deliver to Aunt Hattie’s. “I’d let you go, Victoria, but I’m worried about Aunt Hattie. I want to see how she’s doing.”

“Fern said she was poorly.” Graham spoke up. “Said she guessed she’d stay out of the woods and watch after her today.”

“She must be bad if Fern’s staying out of the woods.” Mama frowned as she headed toward the door.

Samantha clambered down from Graham’s lap and caught up with her grandmother. “Wanna go.” Chaucer wagged his tail and followed her, but Graham called him back.

Mama and Samantha both looked at Tori. “It might make Aunt Hattie feel better to see her,” Mama said.

“Be good.” Tori gave in, although that meant she wouldn’t have the little girl as a buffer between her and Graham’s questions.

“Be good,” Samantha echoed and flashed Tori the smile so like Sammy’s. “Go with Mama Nadie.”

The little girl didn’t look back as she went out the door, setting the bell above it to tinkling. Tori watched them through the window. Her mother had Samantha’s hand clasped in hers as they walked up the road.

When they were out of sight, Tori picked up the broom. “I’d better go sweep around the gas pumps.”

“Here. Let me do it.” Graham clambered to his feet and reached for the broom. “Be good for me to get some exercise.”

“No, I can.” Tori didn’t turn loose of the broom.

He kept hold of the broom handle too. “You appear to be a mite upset with me, Victoria.”

She started to deny it, but what good would that do? She let go of the broom and turned to face him squarely. “I don’t need you matchmaking for me.”

Graham didn’t seem the least bothered by her words. “So he came.”

“He came.”

“Catch any fish?” Graham leaned on the broom and Chaucer, seeing that his master didn’t seem in any hurry to move, plopped down and heaved out a contented breath.

“No,” Tori said flatly, but then she was remembering her dream. Maybe she should tell Graham about it. She was irritated at him, but he did know how to listen. She shook away the thought. The dream hadn’t meant anything. Certainly nothing to do with Clay Weber.

“He’s a good boy, Victoria. And neck deep in love with you.”

“Didn’t show that yesterday at church. If he was liking anybody, it was Paulette Browning.”

Graham looked a little surprised, but then he said, “Liking her maybe. Might even settle for her if you don’t give him no encouragement, but that would be a shame. For the both of them.” He narrowed his eyes on Tori. “For you too.”

Tori stared at him. Graham had been part of her life since she could remember. A part of their family even if they claimed no actual kinship. He was somebody she could count on to be on her side. Somebody who would tell her the truth. Was he telling her the truth now? But what did he know about love? He was an old bachelor who’d never shown the slightest interest in changing that in all the years she’d known him.

He smiled, reading her thoughts. “You’re wondering what I know about love?”

She didn’t deny it. “The thought was crossing my mind.”

“Well, Victoria, truth is, not enough. Not nearly enough.” He sounded so sad that Chaucer got up and pushed his head against Graham’s leg. Then without saying more, Graham went out the door.

She watched him sweep around the gas pumps. Tears popped up in her eyes, but she didn’t know if she was crying for him or for herself. She was glad when the bell over the door jangled and a customer came in. She’d have to find a way to give Graham a hug later. Would she need to apologize to everyone before the week was over?

She turned to help Mrs. Riley find what she needed. But she was seeing Clay’s face at the pond after she told him to go away. She wasn’t sure she’d get a chance to make that apology because he’d done what she asked. Gone away.

Couldn’t a girl change her mind? But changing her mind didn’t mean she could unsay her words. Not if those words had sent Clay back to Paulette. The best thing she could do was wipe all thoughts of Clay out of her mind. Concentrate on Samantha. And on figuring out a job she could do that she liked better than waiting on customers who couldn’t decide between brown beans or white beans and poked fingernails in the apples to see if they were ripe.

“Let me sack up some of these apples for you,” Tori said in her sweetest voice to try to save some of the apples from Mrs. Riley’s fingernail probes.