When Verity heard the sound of a cow bell clanging, she didn’t know what to think. Then the door burst open and Samuel stepped inside, carrying a wooden crate. Verity stared at him. The children stopped singing.
“Children!” Samuel shouted. “What do you think just happened?”
“What?” Annie asked breathlessly, her hands pressed together in front of her chin.
The same anticipation made Verity hold her breath.
“Santa heard you singing and stopped by.”
Almost all the children began dancing and jumping with excitement. Even Alec looked excited.
Watching the children’s eagerness sped Verity’s own pulse. She peered ahead, trying to see what was in the crate.
“And do you know what he said?” Samuel asked.
“What?” the children replied.
“Santa said he couldn’t stay, but he said you all deserved something special for such good singing. Now you all line up.” Samuel turned toward the door, where Verity noticed Matthew lurking in the shadows. “Mr. Ritter is going to hand out Santa’s gifts to each of you good boys and girls.”
Verity pressed her hands together.
Matthew looked chagrined, but the children lined up, still bouncing on their toes. He took the box Samuel was pushing toward him and sighed loudly.
Verity studied Matthew’s stoic expression. How would he handle this?
“What did Santa bring us, mister?” Thaddeus asked, neck craning to see the contents.
A frown creasing his forehead, Matthew hesitated and then gave in. He stooped and lifted the lid of the crate. “Whoa. Look here. Oranges.” He pulled out one and handed it to the first girl in line. Not surprisingly, it was Sassy.
The children all squealed, “Oranges! We never got oranges before!” Sassy yelled.
Verity stood to the side of the classroom, watching Matthew handing out the fruit to each thrilled child. Happiness radiated within her. Samuel slipped to her side. “I thought Matthew should hand out the fruit. He bought it in Richmond for your schoolchildren.”
“He did?” Verity was surprised and touched. She couldn’t imagine how much these oranges had cost him in Richmond in December. Oh, Matthew, how dear of thee. “How did he find out we were having the play?”
“He didn’t know until he arrived at the house tonight and I told him about it. He’d planned for you and Beth to deliver them to your students tomorrow on Christmas. I decided it would be more exciting if they were handed out here, tonight. From Santa, of course.” Samuel grinned.
This would be a Christmas to remember for these children born into the privations of the war. And Samuel had done right to urge Matthew to hand out the gifts he brought.
The war had left them all trying to catch up on simple pleasures, the delights of everyday life that had been taken for granted before four years of vast suffering and horrible carnage. Before tonight, Matthew probably hadn’t ever had the chance to experience the joy of giving to children. Did anything match the joy of watching children excited over Santa?
“You’re still coming for dinner tomorrow with your parents?” she asked Samuel.
“Wouldn’t miss it—especially since I’m leaving the next day to find Abby.”
Verity touched his arm, worried that he might find only pain and loss. God, be with this good man.
“Wonderful play.” Samuel gripped her hand briefly and then went to stand by his mother and father.
It didn’t take Matthew long to hand out all the fruit. Verity enjoyed watching Matthew’s smile broaden until it lit up his whole face. Children were good at that—good at reminding adults of what really mattered in life.
The winter wind rattled the windows, reminding the parents to gather their children and head home. At the door, each thanked her as they left. Dacian came over and wished her a merry Christmas.
Verity offered him her hand and said, “I don’t know if you’d be able to, but you and Mrs. Ransford would be very welcome to stop over on Christmas Day.”
“And will Samuel be coming, too?” Mrs. Ransford snapped.
“Yes, he will be there with his mother and father,” Verity replied, not the least bit surprised that Lirit brought this up again.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Dacian said. “We may drop by for a cup of cheer.”
“Please do,” Matthew said, moving to stand by Verity. His nearness topped off her happy glow. She had to stop herself from claiming his arm.
Dacian looked up at his cousin. “Merry Christmas, Matt.”
“Same to you.”
Verity heard the emotion that Matthew was trying to hide behind his gruff reply. She inched closer to him. He smelled pleasantly of leather and fresh air, an enticing blend.
Dacian shook Matthew’s hand. With lifted nose, Lirit led her husband out. And soon the school was empty except for Verity, Joseph, Beth and Matthew, who’d stayed to sweep up the stray straw. Verity listened as Joseph talked to Matthew, drawing out all he’d learned in Richmond about starting the Union League.
Beth yawned and Verity realized it was time to get her to bed. Then Verity would get to play Santa. Her own parents had shocked some of the other Friends by including Santa in their celebration of Christ’s birth. But her father had loved the story of the jolly old elf and had scoffed at the naysayers.
Her father would have heartily approved of the gift Samuel and Matthew had given these children this night. Who could disapprove of such innocent joy?
The house was silent as Verity crept down the creaky stairs to slip Beth’s Christmas presents into her stocking on the mantel. When she stepped into the moonlit parlor, with its Christmas tree, she was caught up short. Matthew was there also, putting something into Beth’s stocking.
He turned to her and whispered, “I got her some new red hair ribbons.”
The wonder that Matthew had thought to buy hair ribbons for her little girl caught Verity around the heart and made it impossible for her to speak. Tears came to her eyes and she turned away.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered as he came up behind her. “Shouldn’t I have bought ribbons?”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to hide the fact that she was fighting tears. “She’ll love the ribbons,” Verity whispered.
“You’re crying.” Matthew laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Why?”
Verity shook her head, unable to put into words how his gift had touched her.
Matt tried to think why his putting ribbons in Beth’s stocking should make Verity cry, but came up blank. It was just one of those inexplicable things women did. Then he caught her lavender fragrance and his mind went back to the day they’d cut the two Christmas trees. The memory of her lips went through him like a warm west wind.
Then she did something unexpected. Her hand grazed his cheek and slid into the hair over his right ear. In that exquisite moment he thought he might die of the glory of it. It had been so long since any woman had touched him. He savored the sensation like a starving man letting sugar dissolve on his tongue.
In the moonlight she lifted her fair face to his. For the first time he saw the invitation he hadn’t known he was waiting for until this moment. Slowly, as if they were puppets on strings, their faces drew toward one another. Their lips met and it was a tender meeting. Matt closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss. Warmth flooded him. He had yearned for this moment—without even realizing it.
He let his lips roam over hers. They were sweeter and softer than he’d remembered. His thumbs made circles on the collar of her cotton flannel wrapper. Her underlying softness worked on him, melting his final resistance to this woman.
At last he drew back, his hand cupping the back of her head. He looked down into her caramel-brown eyes glistening in the low light. “We’re colleagues here and now. But we won’t be forever.”
She nodded.
Did that mean she agreed that they might be more than colleagues sometime in the future? He couldn’t go on without revealing more of his tangled, unexamined feelings than he was prepared for at this time. But this woman had brought healing to Fiddlers Grove—and at least some measure to him.
Because of her, he was speaking to his cousin and had even worked with him to deal with Orrin. He’d thought he’d come here because of his mother’s deathbed request. But he had come here to fill in the hole that being forced to leave his home in 1852 had left in his life. He’d come to find his family, his friend Samuel.
And did he indeed love this woman? Was she the right one? She must be. I’ve never felt this way about any woman before.
“Good night,” he whispered, making himself end their sweet interlude. Hesitating, hating to leave her, he traced her soft lips with his index finger once and then turned and left.
Verity stood still for a very long time after he’d closed the back door. Then she went and tucked into Beth’s stocking the new red mittens and scarf she’d secretly knitted, and a peppermint stick. Verity had already received her own Christmas gift—Matthew’s kiss and half-spoken promise.
They had come to an agreement tonight. Both of them were committed to their work here, and that took precedence over their personal feelings. If they went forward as a couple now, she would not be able to focus on her mission as teacher and peacemaker here in Fiddlers Grove. The Freedman’s Bureau did not employ married women as teachers.
But if she’d understood Matthew right, a time was coming when she could put widow’s black behind her. She leaned her head against the smooth wooden mantel and let lush wonder flow through her every nerve. Thank Thee, Father, for this very special Christmas gift.
In the thin wintry sunlight of early January, Verity walked up and down the rows of desks, her skirts swishing over the wooden floor. Friendly voices hummed in the room. Children were quizzing each other, preparing for a spelling test that would start in just a few moments. Then the school door opened and Annie’s grandmother burst inside, ushering cold wind into the warm schoolroom.
Matt stared out the kitchen window toward the school through the windbreak of leafless poplars. He wondered how the latest news from Washington would affect their work here. The Richmond newspaper lay on the table. He’d read the headline countless times in the past few minutes. Every newspaper had brought troubling news from Washington, D.C., but this was the worst. It couldn’t bode well for them.
President Johnson had been fighting the Radical Republicans in Congress over the South’s refusal to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, which would make former male slaves voting citizens. When Matt thought how the latest development in this conflict might affect the tenuous peace here, his stomach churned. He knew Verity, who’d always had higher hopes than he had, would be devastated.
Matt saw Dace galloping up to the back door. He knocked and entered without invitation. Then Dace pulled the same Richmond paper from inside his coat and shook it at Matt. “Have you seen this?”
Startled, Verity looked up at the woman. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“We’ve found Jesse!”
For a moment Verity could not figure out who Jesse was. And then it came back to her. The day she’d visited the Daughters of the Confederacy meeting, Jesse had been the first lost soldier she’d revealed to the ladies. “Thee did!” Verity shouted in joy.
“Yes.” Annie’s grandmother swept up the center aisle. She held out a letter in both gloved hands. “I just received a letter from his wife, Louisa. We had contacted the South Carolina militia adjutant and he fowarded our request to the family of the man he believed to be our Jesse. She begs us to send his effects to her.”
Thinking of Louisa and the comfort that word of her late husband would give her, Verity could not stop her tears. “Oh, I am so happy, and my sisters will be, too. Oh, praise God.” Verity opened her arms and the two women embraced.
Dace halted in front of Matt and looked at the paper on the table. Dace threw his copy on top of Matt’s. “You’ve read it, then?”
“Yes.” Matt glanced down again at the headline: Congress Divides South into Five Military Districts.
“It’s monstrous,” Dace exclaimed. “According to this, Virginia isn’t even a sovereign commonwealth anymore. The Union military will rule us. Are you Yankees trying to get us to secede again?”
You Yankees. He and Dace were enemies again. The past few weeks had just been a lull in the long war. Matt rubbed his taut forehead, his gut tightening.
“When my slaves were freed, I lost most of my wealth. Then after the surrender, the Union government confiscated my harvested tobacco and cotton. I’d stored four years of harvests on my land that I hadn’t been able to sell due to the Union blockade. Then they stole everything but the house, leaving me nearly penniless.
“Now, because before the war I owned too much land to suit the abolitionists in Congress, I was barred from taking the oath of loyalty to the U.S. or holding office. Virginia was in the process of writing a new state constitution. I had hopes of at least regaining the vote. Now this.” Dace looked at the paper with loathing.
Dace felt that his right to vote was more important than Samuel’s? Matt’s ire fired up. “What did you think was going to happen, Dace? The war supposedly settled once and for all the issue of slavery—”
“I can accept the end of slavery,” Dace cut in. “I must.”
“But you don’t accept that Samuel is free now and will vote just like any other man,” Matt said. “And people like Orrin Dyke are still actively fighting the changes that freeing the slaves must bring. In other Southern states there have been race riots and lynchings. The slaves can be free as long as they don’t act free. Isn’t that what you mean, Dace?”
With his clenched fist, Dace hit the table, turned and stalked out.
Annie’s grandmother had left to spread the good news. Now Verity stood in front of the row of first-graders and began dictating their spelling words. The children had their chalks poised over their slates and were listening so hard that it made her smile. “Spell rob.” Squeaky chalk scribbled on the slates.
The joy of locating the first family of a lost soldier still bubbled inside her. Verity couldn’t wait to write her sisters this evening. This was cause for celebration. Wait until Matthew hears. Maybe now he will believe in the power of love to reach hearts and change minds. Then she made herself concentrate on the spelling test. “Spell mob,” she said.
After school on that happy day, Verity strolled home, lighthearted, through the early twilight. She’d stayed late, tidying up the schoolroom and correcting papers written by the older students. As she approached her home, she noted that there was a strange carriage parked in front of her house. Who could be visiting? Verity hurried up her back steps and into the warm kitchen, where Hannah was standing at the stove. Verity bent to pat Barney as he greeted her. The room was fragrant with the scent of ham roasting. Beth was at the table, doing her homework.
Hannah swung around to face Verity. “I’m glad you come home, Miss Verity,” Hannah whispered. “Joseph and Matthew are in the parlor, entertaining two gentlemen. I didn’t like the look of them.”
Verity took off her gloves, cape and bonnet and hung them on a peg by the door, smoothing back her hair. “Who are they?”
“I don’t remember their names, but one is black and one’s skinny and white. Looks like he never had a square meal.”
Verity grinned. “Do we have enough to invite them to eat supper with us?” Hannah nodded. “Then I’d best go in.” Patting Beth on the back, Verity headed to the parlor. She paused at the entrance to the room, a smile of welcome on her face.
Joseph jumped up from his chair, but Matthew made the introductions. “Verity, these two gentlemen, Mr. Alfred Wolford and Mr. Jeremiah Cates, are from the Freedman’s Bureau. Gentlemen, this is Mrs. Verity Hardy.”
She walked forward, holding out her hand.
The two men who’d stood up were staring at her in a funny way. It turned out that Mr. Wolford was the tall, thin white man and Jeremiah Cates was the large, robust-looking black man. After they had shaken hands, she said, “Please be seated again, Friends. I’m so happy to entertain thee in my home.”
“Don’t you mean the Freedman’s Bureau’s home, young woman?” Mr. Wolford glowered at her.
This caught Verity just as she was about to lower herself into one of the chairs. “I beg thy pardon?”
“This home, in fact, belongs to the Freedman’s Bureau, doesn’t it?” Mr. Wolford insisted in a scratchy voice that was higher than expected. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat.
“Thee knows that is true.” Verity sat down. “But why does thee bring it up?”
“We bring it up,” Mr. Cates said in his full deep voice, “because rumor has it that you have overstepped your bounds, ma’am.” He sat down again, while Mr. Wolford remained standing.
“Indeed?” She widened her eyes in surprise. “And thee listens to rumors? I never do.” Of course she shouldn’t have included those final three words. But it’s the truth.
She glanced at Matthew to see if he could offer her any enlightenment as to what was going on here. He merely stared at her in stony silence. Smothering fear pressed on her lungs. What do these men want?
From his stance at the fireplace, Mr. Wolford glared at her. “Young woman, we’ve heard rumors that the Freedman’s school here has openly included white children. And your father-in-law has admitted that this is true.” Mr. Wolford sounded as disgruntled as if he were at table and someone had pulled away his plate of food.
“So, ma’am, you see it’s good we listen to rumors,” Mr. Cates said with a sly, smooth smile.
Her gaze on Matthew, Verity replied, “That is true. We have four white students attending here.” As she thought of this triumph, sparkling happiness filled her as usual. “Why shouldn’t white children attend public school? They would in the North.” Matthew’s face was clenched and rigid.
“Now, ma’am, is it fair for children whose parents owned slaves and fought against the Union to receive a free education at the government’s expense?” Mr. Cates asked in his rolling baritone. “You are forgetting who the enemy is.”
Verity tried to stifle her increasing apprehension, a stiffening at the back of her neck. “Do we still have enemies a year after the war ended? The war is over, Friends. I didn’t come here to prolong it. I came to do what President Lincoln wanted us to do. I wanted to bind up the nation’s wounds, to bring help and healing here. White children should not be punished for the actions of their parents. And I would think that having white children and black children attending the local school together would advance this—”
“Young woman, this isn’t a Christian mission,” Mr. Wolford snapped. “The Freedman’s Bureau is a government body with very specific purposes paid for by taxes.”
She again looked to Matthew, appealing for his backing. He said nothing, but looked back at her with a pained expression. She tried reason again, saying, “I don’t understand why four white children in school is objectionable. I assure thee that the black children don’t complain. Perhaps thee doesn’t understand the situation Mr. Ritter and I faced when we arrived here.”
“Mr. Ritter gave us some indication of this, ma’am. But we would be glad to hear what you have to say.” Mr. Cates motioned to her to speak.
Some indication? An odd sensation came over her, like ants crawling up her spine. What had Matthew told these men about her? “When we came to Fiddlers Grove, the white people here were set against having a Freedman’s school in their town,” Verity began.
“And they didn’t hesitate to make this known.” Joseph spoke for the first time. “They attacked Matt, attacked my daughter-in-law, burned our barn and tried to burn our house down. Or should I say the Freedman’s Bureau’s house down?” Joseph looked flushed and angry. “Why wasn’t the Bureau here then to try to protect its house and my daughter-in-law?”
Seeing the men’s expressions hardening into anger, Verity spoke up, her words stumbling over each other in her haste. “I think that my father-in-law is trying to tell thee that we had a very difficult time at first. But with God’s favor, I won some of the people over by appealing to their better selves.”
“Young woman, where in your instructions did it say anything about including white children in a Freedman’s school?” Mr. Wolford demanded, ignoring what she’d said. “A Freedman’s school is to educate black children and adult Negroes—freed slaves—who must learn how to read and write in order to become informed voting citizens.”
“Aren’t white children supposed to become informed voting citizens, too?” Verity asked in what she hoped was a reasonable tone, fire beginning to burn in her stomach.
“That is not the point in question,” Mr. Cates replied, rising to stare down at her. “Are you aware that the former Southern states have been dissolved and the South is now under military jurisdiction? The South is unregenerate. They will not ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, giving former slaves citizenship.”
Each word hit her like a well-aimed missile.
“The Freedman’s Bureau is a bureau in the War Department,” Mr. Wolford added. “You and Mr. Ritter were given very generous funds in order to carry out a specific program to benefit black children and freed slaves, just as Mr. Cates has said. Not to open a school for all the children of Fiddlers Grove, Virginia.”
Mr. Cates nodded his agreement.
Verity stared at them in dawning disbelief. No, no, please, no. Were they listening to themselves? “White children sitting in the same building as black children costs the U.S. nothing.”
Frowning, Mr. Cates said, “I don’t like repeating myself, but you have overstepped your bounds, ma’am. No doubt from the best of motives. But as usual, a woman doesn’t easily grasp legal distinctions.”
The man’s casual insult of her intelligence just because she was female left Verity openmouthed, gasping, speechless. When someone deems thee inferior because of thy dark skin, does thee like it? She bit her lower lip to stop herself from tossing this question into his condescending face.
Mr. Wolford moved toward the parlor door. “Mr. Cates and I will be staying in the area. We expect that you will dismiss the white children from the school. Otherwise we will have to inform the Bureau that you should be dismissed.”
One last time, Verity tried to catch Matthew’s eye, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. Her face burned from their scorn.
“Mr. Ritter, we’d like to meet the men you mentioned earlier, the ones you think will carry on the Union League after you leave Fiddlers Grove.” Mr. Cates’s rich voice boomed in the strained silence in the room.
Matthew was leaving Fiddlers Grove? Verity felt as if she’d been hit with a second hammer.
“Good evening, ma’am.” Mr. Cates gave a perfunctory bow and left, followed by Mr. Wolford who gave her only a parting glare. Matthew departed without even a backward glance.
When Joseph returned from seeing the men to the door, he and Verity just looked at one another.
“Does that mean they are going to put Alec and Annie and the other white students out of our school?” Beth stood in the doorway into the parlor, Barney whining at her feet.
Seeing Beth’s troubled expression made Verity feel nauseated. She sat back down. “I can’t believe…I just can’t believe it.”
Beth hurried to her, her dark braids bouncing. “You’re not going to let them do that to Alec, are you, Mama?”
Verity rested her head on her hand. She tried to understand why Matthew had remained silent while these two bureaucrats had scolded her for doing what God had sent her here to do. Surely there was something she and Matthew could do to avert this. Sending Alec and Annie and the other white children away was too awful to imagine. There must be a way to stop these men from ruining everything.
Then an awful realization trickled through her like icy water. Why did she think Matthew would help her?
Matthew had sat here in the same room and had said nothing to defend her. He’d remained as remote as a disapproving stranger. But then, Matthew didn’t support what she’d done here. He’d only tolerated it. At this thought, she pressed a hand to her pained heart. How did that mesh with the promise she thought he’d made to her in this very room on Christmas Eve?
Matthew stepped inside the back door and hung up his jacket and muffler. In the warm, shadowy kitchen, he turned and saw Verity, obviously upset. He’d almost gone to his cabin for the night—he hadn’t wanted to face this. But he wasn’t a coward. He’d seen the light in the kitchen window and knew that she was up and worried.
I can’t do anything about Wolford and Cates. I can’t change anything here for her. He felt like a failure. Was this how his father had felt all those years ago when he’d done right but was helpless to change Virginia or to protect his family from injustice?
Verity stared up at him, hurt visible in her warm brown eyes. He folded his arms across his chest to keep from reaching for her.
He searched for something to say, something to keep from discussing what she would want to discuss. What he could do nothing about. What he was helpless to alter. “Hannah’s gone home for the night?”
Verity looked confused. “Of course. Did thee eat?”
Food? Had he eaten? “No.” His stomach growled as if upon command. He looked past Verity, not wanting to meet her gaze. Facing enemy fire had been less taxing than remaining silent while Cates and Wolford had berated her. But how could he disagree with them? Everything they’d said was absolutely, point-by-point true.
“Hannah left thee a plate in the warming oven.” Verity went to the stove and with the quilted potholders drew out a plate covered with a pie tin. “Will thee sit, please?”
He moved to the dry sink first and washed his hands, wiped them over his face, washing away the dust of the day. He felt as if he’d lived a hundred years since morning. First Dace and then Wolford and Cates—what a great day.
When Matt turned, Verity was pouring him a steaming cup of coffee. He sat down at the table and stared at the plate of ham, turnips, biscuits and gravy. Why was she still doing this for him? Didn’t she hate him for his unavoidable silence?
She sat across from him and clasped her hands in her lap, leaning forward. “I have some good news.”
Watching her try to smile for him sliced him to the quick. “Oh?”
“Yes. Annie’s grandmother heard from the family of the first of the lost soldiers. That’s good news, isn’t it?”
Even this didn’t lift his mood. He picked up his fork and began trying to eat, though he had no appetite. He stared at her, mute. I have no good news for you, Verity.
“Where has thee been, Matthew?” She betrayed her nervousness by starting to pleat the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.
He closed his eyes. The weight of powerlessness was nearly crushing the breath from him. After four years of blood and horror, the active war had ended, replaced by a guerrilla war of hard-eyed resistance. That’s what Cates and Wolford were fighting.
He’d tried to hold back the sadness that had begun earlier when he’d spoken with Dace. Despair from their brief, harsh exchange had washed over him in wave after relentless wave. They were set on opposite sides just as they had been since the day the good people of Fiddlers Grove had thrown rocks through the windows of his parents’ house. In his mind, he heard again the shattering glass, flying, crashing.
“Matthew,” Verity said, touching his sleeve, “those two men said I must not let the white children come to school. But I don’t know how to do that. If I send the white children away, it will be a betrayal of everything I believe to be right and just.”
Her words didn’t surprise him. He chewed mechanically. She wasn’t the kind of woman to give up, even if peace were something she could never achieve in Virginia. He looked past her, out the dark window.
She tilted her head so she could keep eye contact with him. “In the letter of the law, Mr. Wolford and Mr. Cates are probably right. I was sent here to educate freed slaves and their children. But what happened here was different and special. All over the South, there are lynchings, riots, terrible things happening.” Her voice became impassioned. “Here in Fiddlers Grove, we have relative calm. And black children and white children are attending the same school, the school thy cousin told me would be burned down. What we have done here is what should be done all over the South. And they want me to end it. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
He swallowed and looked her in the eye. “If you refuse to do what they say, they will fire you. And then they’ll dismiss the white children themselves.” He heard his words, stark and harsh. But it’s the truth. We can’t avoid the truth, Verity.
She twisted his sleeve. “Can’t thee think of anything I can do to stop those two men from doing this?”
His fork stopped in midair. “No. There is nothing you can do. Sometimes problems are too big to do anything about.” You’re a grown woman. Didn’t you see this coming?
“How can you say such a thing, Matthew?” she pleaded.
And then the words that he’d held back for years came pouring out. “When I was twelve, the issue of slave states versus free states spilled over into local politics. A free black man had been captured by roaming slave-catchers. And even though there were witnesses who knew he was free, he’d been forced back into slavery in this county. My father was a lawyer and he gathered the evidence, took the local planter who held this free man as a slave to court and the man was set free.
“Two days later, a mob came at night. They were wearing cloth bags with eyeholes over their heads. They broke all the windows in my parents’ house, set the barn on fire and shouted death threats.” He looked into Verity’s eyes, now shining with tears.
“We packed and left the next day.” He put down his fork. The old outrage pushed him up out of the chair. He snatched up his things and walked out into the cold night. Some things just can’t be fixed, and this place will never be home again.