Chapter 41

L

I hate to admit this, m cara, but I’m getting too old for an entire night of wild Welsh abandon with Greek women.”

“Oh, and how many Greek women might there have been before me?” she teased back.

“I lost count after one.”

“That’s pretty much my score with Welshmen.”

He turned onto his back, perplexed with himself. How can you tease a woman when all you want to do is apologize? “Della, I believe I could ask for your forgiveness every day for the rest of our lives, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

God bless the lady. She rested her head on his chest. “Once was enough.” She poked him in the chest, but it turned into a caress and then a shy look when she rose up on her elbow. “I’ve finished apologizing to my father for being a demanding twelve-year-old.” She smiled and he saw the wonder in her face. “My uncle has been sending me stories about his brother’s life. Let me tell you the most amazing one.”

He listened with astonishment as she told him how her father, the blackest of black sheep, if Aunt Caroline was to be believed, had financed the major portion of Uncle Karl’s law school expenses.

Upset with Uncle Karl on a nearly visceral level, he couldn’t speak for a moment when she finished. It was more pleasant to run his hand down her arm from shoulder to wrist and feel her softness. Maybe that was what real strength felt like. He had underestimated this wife of his, this kindest of gifts to a widower and his daughter.

“Della, you’re not angry that he could easily have financed your own college education to pay his brother back? I am, and I don’t mind admitting it to you.”

She laughed. “And that, my love, is the reason the country is called England and not Wales! Why fret and stew and talk about it? I would never have met you if my way had been smooth, and that would be the greater loss.”

She was right. He thought about that while he shaved and heard the homely sound of someone making breakfast in the kitchen. When he finished, he made their ruin of a bed and wondered if she would mind if he brought his carving tools in from the shed in the backyard and worked in the kitchen. He had some free time on his hands, now that he was out of work.

He leaned against the door in the kitchen and watched her efficiently moving from range to table. She had tugged her wild mop of hair back with a piece of heavy-duty string, from the looks of it. He admired her small waist and considered himself amply repaid for having the good sense to persist until he wore her down and she decided to give a Welshman a chance.

“Stare all you want,” she said, and he realized she stood there with two plates in her hand and watched him. “It’s nearly eight o’clock, and we have other things to do besides, you know …”

“You caught me,” he told her with a laugh, taking the plates to the table. He looked at the clock. “Where is my child?”

“If I know Mabli, she’s giving us another moment or two. Sit down. French toast waits for no man.”

He blessed the food and they ate in companionable silence, Della going to the range to turn the sausages and then skewer one and drop it on his plate. He thought of mounds of oatcakes in lean times and realized there hadn’t been any lean times since he married this treasure.

When she finished, she pushed back her plate. “I do need to know why you didn’t write us.”

Elbows on the table, he told her how he had moved Angharad’s smaller bed into the carpenter’s shop and slept there, working himself to the limit, measuring and sawing and hinging. “I suppose I was trying to punish myself for being a fool. I wanted to work myself to death, as if that would have brought one single friend back to life.” Might as well admit the rest. “Dr. Isgreen told me you were making great progress, and I was not.”

“He said he was going to visit you,” she said, after a long pause in which he saw her gather herself together. “I’m glad he did.”

“After Emil left, we fitted our first timbered unit on Level Two. It held tight, but we waited out a rock fall as everything settled. I was on one side of the rocks and my crew on the other. Between you and me, the Banner is the devil’s mine. I have so informed Uncle Jesse in my letter of resignation. We’ll see what he does with that information.”

She reached for his hand, her dark eyes boring into his. He saw all the fear, all twelve years of it. For a small moment, she was a child again. He held his breath, relieved when the glimpse passed. He would have to ask Dr. Isgreen if that little girl from the Colorado Plateau might reappear now and then.

“I sat there in the dark and thought about my friends, from the Farishes to the Hunters to the Evans, of course.”

“Did you pray?”

Did he pray? “Not at first. I knew the Lord was unhappy with me. Why bother an angry man?”

She shook her head slightly, but her eyes were kind. “I figured you would ask the Lord again for his will in the matter. You listened on May 1 and lived.”

This wife of his was going to make him tell her the whole uncomfortable truth. He could see it on her face. He glanced at the clock. He was only going to say this once. Angharad didn’t need to know how stupid her father was. Sufficient unto the day was the knowledge that his wife already had a sneaking suspicion.

“I did, finally.”

“And?”

“I heard absolutely nothing this time, no eternal wisdom. Nothing.” He saw the surprise on her face and took her hand again. “Della, it finally occurred to this genius you married that the Lord Almighty had already given me the tools I needed to make a smart decision. I made myself comfortable against the smoothest boulder and realized I didn’t need another mine in my life. Not one more.”

“Is that when you started to sing?”

God bless the ladies. “You know me pretty well, don’t you?” he asked his particular lady. “I thought about the miners’ song and realized I had it wrong all these years. I was still trying to see the distant scene, when all I needed was the ‘one step enough’ part. Who wouldn’t sing after that?”

His cup of life filled to the brim when he heard Angharad’s footsteps on the porch. He took Della by the hand and they opened the door together. His other treasure stood there, covered in snow.

“Heavens, Angharad, was there a blizzard between our house and Center Street that no one told us about?” Della asked as she stepped outside to unbutton Owen’s daughter’s coat, help her out of it, and then shake it off.

Owen prudently decided not to point out the obvious. The next Ice Age could have happened overnight and a husband and wife who hadn’t seen each other in too long wouldn’t have heard a thing.

“Mam, I made a snow angel on the lawn.” She pointed to it.

Could his cup get any fuller? “Daughter, after breakfast I will put on my coat and make another one with you,” Della said. “Come inside!”

She did, and he held out his hands to her. This lovely child who looked so much like her mother rested her hands in his. “Nadolig Llawen, Da.”

He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Ac i chithau, Angharad m cara. And a happy new year,” he added in English for Della’s benefit.

He picked up Angharad and hugged her until she protested and he set her down. She went to the tree and frowned.

“Da, you already have my present, the singing dragon. I wish I had another gift for you.”

“Why would I need anything else?” He glanced at Della. “If your mam won’t cut up stiff, I plan to bring in some wood from my workshop and carve a suitable frame for it on the kitchen table. It’s warmer in here.”

“May I help?” Angharad asked after a glance at Mam, who nodded.

“I thought you would never ask.”

He sat his ladies down on the sofa. “I have some presents too. Angharad, you won’t mind if I give Mam’s to her first?”

“Only if I am next to give her one.”

“Very well.”

Owen picked up a little box he had left under the tree before time and tide swept him into the bedroom last night. He handed it to Della with a flourish. “It’s long overdue.”

Her eyes full of questions, she opened the little thing. He held his breath, hoping it was right. He saw her eyes widen. She nodded and then held up a heart-shaped gold locket.

Could a man’s heart melt? She put her two hands in his in the Welsh way, this gift of his, better than a present, from the Aegean. “Rwy’n dy garu di,” then, “Did I say that right, daughter? Angharad taught me.”

“You said it right.” He could teach her Ti Yw fy nghariad later, because the Welsh knew the difference between formal love and the more abandoned kind that he preferred. Poor Englishmen—one phrase for everything. Hard to believe they had conquered his country.

Angharad laughed. “My turn. Mam, you won’t believe this!”

She went to the tree and held out her present to Della. It was another small box. Owen felt a great laugh of massive proportion growing inside him.

Della opened the box, took out another heart-shaped locket, and pulled Angharad down onto her lap. “You rascal!”

“You needed one, Mam. I could tell you did, almost as much as Da needed a dragon.”

He watched in delight as Della and Angharad clung to each other. Della pointed to his daughter’s Christmas stocking and a by-now-familiar small box sticking out of the top.

“What could that possibly be for you, dearest?” she asked as she pointed Angharad to the mantelpiece.

“Mam, you shouldn’t have,” Angharad teased after she opened the box and took out yet another locket.

Goodness, what a strange gift-giving this had become. Might as well continue it. “There is my present to you, Angharad,” Owen said. “Better open it and look surprised.”

His daughter picked up another small box and started laughing even before she removed the ribbon. Della leaned against him and laughed.

“Let me guess,” Angharad joked, which set them off in another wave of merriment. When they had subsided into weak giggles, she tore off the ribbon and paper and held up a fourth, and hopefully final, heart-shaped locket.

“Heavens, what a bunch of sillies,” Della said. “I love you both.”

He was about to kiss her when someone knocked on the door. “Do you think we made so much noise that the next door neighbors called the constable?” he asked. “I’ll go peacefully, but I expect bail as soon as the bank opens tomorrow.”

Sure enough, a man in uniform stood at the door, but it was a delivery uniform of some sort. “Merry Christmas, sir. Does Mrs. Della Davis live here?”

Thank God she does, Owen thought. He looked down at the handsome cream-colored envelope the man held out to him. “Aye, you’ve come to the right home.”

“Here you are then, and a Happy New Year too.” He took a nickel tip from Owen and hurried back to his automobile, ready for other last-minute deliveries.

The package read “Della Davis,” the address, and nothing more. He took it inside and plopped it in Della’s lap. “At least we know it isn’t a heart-shaped locket, m cara.”

“Oh, please, my stomach hurts and I can’t laugh anymore,” she told him as she opened the envelope and peered inside.

He looked at her in alarm when her olive skin paled to a sickly white. She stared, covered her eyes, and wept. He picked up the envelope, ready to order Angharad to hunt for smelling salts, if they even had any.

He opened the envelope wider and knew why his wife sat there so stunned. He pulled out four one-hundred-dollar bills and a note. “ ‘Long overdue, niece,’ ” he read out loud. “ ‘I can never make it up, but this is a start. Forgive me, Uncle Karl.’ ”