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Tommy came out with the first trunk. He deposited it in the wagon box and went back for the second one. After delivering them, he returned to his post, but he stopped in front of the porch and peered up at them.
“Hey, Luke,” he began. “What do you want to do about....?” He stopped.
Luke nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you would go over to the church and tell the minister that we’ll be back into town tomorrow morning to bury them.”
“Oh, sure. Not a problem. I’ll get my mama and my sisters and Aunt Margie to help prepare them....and everything.” Tommy skipped off toward the church.
“Thanks, Tom,” Luke called after him.
“Now, then.” Luke took a deep breath. “Now to get myself into the wagon.” He pushed himself back from the railing and staggered down the steps.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kathy sagged under his weight.
“I sure don’t want to hang around here,” he shot back. “Do you?”
“I guess not.” Kathy gasped with the effort of supporting him, but only a few steps remained before he caught hold of the wagon wheel and held himself up on it. “Will you be able to drive?”
“As long as I don’t pass out,” he replied. “Maybe you better ride next to me up front, just in case. Can you drive?”
“I can manage all right,” she told him. “But I think maybe you better let me drive the whole way. You can lie down in the back with Adelaide. We don’t want to risk you falling out of the wagon.”
“Not on your life!” Luke exclaimed. “I’m not having my newly wedded wife drive me home from our own wedding—not if I can do it myself. That would be the ultimate indignity. As long as I’m upright, I’ll drive. If I pass out and fall over, you can toss me in the back and drive me home.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Kathy retorted. “You’re not the one who has to hoist your senseless carcass up out of the dirt and load you into the wagon. Adelaide and I will have to do that. We might not even be able to lift you.”
Luke chuckled, but his chuckle turned to a wracking cough that bent him over in pain. “If that happens, just leave me there on the side of the road.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Kathy snapped. “You know perfectly well we wouldn’t leave you. Now come on. Get in the back and let me drive.”
Luke fixed her with a mock scowl. “No. I’m driving. Now get in the seat so I don’t have to come up with a really good reason.”
Adelaide stared at this playful simulation of a domestic argument, but the next moment, Luke and Kathy climbed into the wagon seat, leaving her no choice to get into the box. Luke held his head in his hand for a moment when he settled himself into the seat. Then he took the reins from their peg and clucked to the horses.
The journey out of town to the Ferguson farm passed in silence. For all their joking, Kathy still carried the weight of the tragedy. Breaking the silence meant reminding Luke and Adelaide of their unspeakable loss.
The farm sat on the left side of the road up a long driveway. Luke steered the wagon between fields of shimmering grain and pastures with cows and sheep grazing. Stands of enormous poplar trees lined the fields, and a large stone house stood out on the side of a slope.
“It really is lovely,” Kathy remarked.
“That’s my house,” Adelaide told her from the back of the wagon.
“It’s very nice,” Kathy replied.
“Papa built it,” Adelaide informed her.
“I helped,” Luke muttered to Kathy over his shoulder.
“It’s as pretty as a picture in a book,” Kathy replied.
“And that’s Maizy.” Adelaide pointed to a black and white Jersey cow in the field. “And that’s Daisy. And that’s Jake.” A retriever bounded down the driveway toward them.
Adelaide laughed at him and jumped out of the wagon. She and the dog leapt around each other, and before Kathy or Luke could say a word, she ran off somewhere with the dog at her heels.
Kathy opened her mouth to call her back, but Luke stopped her. “Let her go. Let her forget about it for a little while longer. She’ll be sad about it soon enough. Give her just a few more hours or days to be a child before she has to grow up.”
Adelaide disappeared, but her laughter still rang out over the farm. Like Adelaide, the farm itself seemed unaware of the catastrophe. The beauty and tranquility of the scene denied anything out of the ordinary had happened. The animals and the crops all went on with their lives, blissfully unaware that Max and Annabel weren’t coming back.
“Will she realize what’s happened when she comes to spend the night at your house?” Kathy asked.
“I hope not.” Luke replied. “She’s stayed with me before when her parents went to St. Louis to visit Annabel’s parents, and she sometimes stays at my house for no reason at all. She just likes a change of scenery, I guess. Maybe she can think of it like that for the time being.”
“Do you want her to live at your house indefinitely?” How did they wind up discussing this situation after all? Why couldn’t they leave all these words unsaid and the terrible reality of Adelaide’s future in the limbo of uncertainty?
But the conversation soothed Luke. “She can stay at my place tonight. We’ve got to go back into town in the morning to bury Max and Annabel. After that, we’ll talk about what we’re going to do with the big house. Either the three of us will move in there, or Adelaide will come to live with us for good at the cottage.”
“I hope talking about it doesn’t do her more harm than good,” Kathy remarked.
“Whether she wants to talk about it or not,” Luke maintained. “She has to bury her parents, and I have to bury my brother and his wife. That will end all this fantasy, if anything will. After that, Adelaide can talk about what she wants to do.”
“Do you have any idea what she’ll want to do?” Kathy asked.
As they spoke, Adelaide ran across their field of vision, holding a stick out for her dog to chase.
“I don’t have a clue,” Luke admitted. “She may want us to move into the big house to take her parents place. She may want to carry on as though nothing has happened, with me and you in place of her parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did choose that way, and we ought to be prepared for that.”
Kathy gazed off at the beautiful farm stretching out around her. “I don’t know if I can take Annabel’s place. Those are some pretty big boots to fill. And Adelaide had such a close bond with her mother.”
Luke stopped the wagon in front of a barn built out of logs. The notched ends of the timbers fitted together at the corners in a neat stack. Luke transferred his reins to one hand and he took Kathy’s hand from her lap with the other. His fingers felt cold and damp in her hand. “You don’t have to take Annabel’s place. No one ever could. You’re coming here to fill your own place in my life. Nothing more.”
Kathy smiled at him. “Thank you. I needed that.”
He set the reins down. “Come on. I’ll need your help to put the wagon away, and then we’ll head down to the cottage and have some supper. It’s getting late.”
