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January 1944
JANICE ADAMS LOOKED up at Clyde. She knew what he was planning. She just wished he’d hurry up about it. She wanted that ring out of his pocket, out of its box, and on her finger. But Clyde always was a talker. It was one of the things she liked about him. He would never be boring, that was for sure. He talked smooth as caramel, but he listened, too. She could imagine them sitting side by side thirty or forty years from now, and they’d still have things to talk about. His job, her gardens, their children or grandchildren.
She was so busy thinking about their future together, she almost forgot to listen to him right here, right now.
"It’s a great company," he was saying. "It’s been around for almost seventy years, but the good thing is that they’ve never been in Keagan County."
"Keagan? Where’s that? I never heard of it."
"Neither had I, but I looked it up before I said yes. It’s a small county, probably the smallest one in Georgia, but there’s never been a sales rep there. I’ll have the whole county as my territory. Just think of how many Funk and Wagnalls sets I’ll be able to sell."
"How far away is it? Will you have far to travel?"
"It’s way up in the northeast corner of the state." Clyde cleared his throat. "That sort of brings us to something I wanted to ask you."
"Oh?" Here it was, the big moment! She lifted her left hand, just so it would be ready.
"Do you think you could ... I mean, would you be willing to ... If there a chance you’d mind if we ..."
Why on earth was this smooth-talking man stuttering around like this? She figured the least she could do was put him out of his misery. "Yes, Clyde Beene. I will. I will marry you, I will become Janice Adams Beene, and I won’t mind at all if we have to move to Keagan County."
He’d forgotten all about the ring, until she pointed to the bulge made by the box in his shirt pocket.
~ ~ ~
"GLOVES," CAROL TOLD Maddy, although I was pretty sure Maddy wouldn’t have forgotten. Not with something as precious as the Silas sketches.
"Yes ma’am." Once her hands were enclosed, she pulled out the bottommost sketch, grinned almost maniacally, and headed around the circle with it. "It’s labeled here on the back. JM, MFM, JM, and MM."
"John Martin," I said, and the others joined me in almost a litany. "Mary Frances Martin, Jerrod Martin, and Marella Martin."
"And on the front," Dee read off, "it says July 1776 SM."
"The Declaration of Independence," Carol said. "I wish he’d given us the actual day."
"Do you suppose it could have been on the fourth?"
Sadie answered Pat with what I imagine most of us were thinking. "It could have been anytime, but I don’t think they were too concerned with the revolution right then."
"It took a long time for everybody in the colonies even to hear about the Declaration," Maddy said. "Especially here in the valley, I’d imagine."
"It’s a family portrait," Rebecca Jo said. "Little Marella would have been—what?—four, maybe?"
"Something like that," Carol said. "And if I remember right, Jerrod was a year younger than Marella."
"I wonder what happened to Isaiah?" Maddy asked what I’d been wondering.
Glaze pointed. "See the black armbands? On their sleeves?"
Sure enough, both John and Mary Frances wore a distinct dark fabric band. In fact, Marella had just reached up to touch the one her father wore. It was obvious the child had no idea what was going on. She and Jerrod were probably so young they wouldn’t even remember their little brother after a few months or at most a year.
~ ~ ~
JULY 1776
THE COFFIN WAS far too small. "No parent should ever lose a child," Silas said when he spoke at the graveside. He could not help but study the way Mary Frances leaned her shoulder against her son. John held four-year-old Jerrod in his arms, and young Marella stood just in front of her father, her hand in her grandmother’s grasp. It was a family grouping that Silas ached to draw. He only wished he had done it months ago, before Isaiah sickened and died. There should have been five of them in the picture, not four.
He met his wife’s gaze and drew a sense of calm from it. Louetta stood beside Mary Frances, as if she could offer some strength to her long-time friend. Jane Elizabeth Benton Hastings stood on the other side of John. Her sturdy presence must have been a comfort to him, for had she not been with Mary Frances on that snowy day in 1742 when John was born? Was she not his godmother?
Silas spoke a few words more and then returned to his place, but stood just a fraction closer to his wife than before, so his arm brushed against her sleeve.
Everyone else who spoke, and there were many, all seemed to want to do honor to their town leader in this time of loss. They told of the sweetness of the small boy who had been here on this earth for so few years. Of his gentleness. His guileless smile.
Silas leaned forward just a bit and looked again at the sadly-reduced family. Marella reached up to finger the black mourning band around her father’s arm, and Silas was touched by the innocence of the gesture. As soon as he could, he needed to return home to his drawing materials.
~ ~ ~
SUMMER 1794
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER, Marella Martin Farner held her daughter’s hand as they stood watching the eddies in the river current. Catharina, even at four years of age, was as entranced by the ever-changing waters as Marella had always been.
Marella remembered taking her little brother Isaiah to play in the shallow water along the edge of the creek. He had been not quite as old as Catharina was now, so small for his age that she had carried him most of the way down to the water. Even as simple as Isaiah's mind had been, his tiny body had held a great capacity for joy, and he had laughed with delight when a small fish broke the surface of the slow-moving stream.
That was one of the few memories she had of him, for he had died later that summer. Grandmother Martin still spoke of him fondly, although not usually when Father was nearby, for Father still was saddened by any mention of Isaiah, perhaps because it was on the day of Isaiah’s birth that Marella’s mother had died.
"Is this where you built the dam, Mother?"
"No, dear, that was farther upstream. This place is where your Uncle Isaiah, who died when he was just a child, liked to watch the fish jumping."
Just then a small trout obligingly rose from the water and snatched a fly from mid-air. Catharina laughed, and Marella knew without a doubt that the circle of life would continue to spin. She would never forget her little brother. She could still recall the way she had watched his tiny coffin being lowered into the ground. But more than that, she remembered Isaiah’s contagious laughter. She wondered if the child she now carried within her might be a son. Probably not, she thought, for she carried this babe the same way she had Catharina. And this one kicked just as hard.
~ ~ ~
REEBOK ENDED THE LAST of his calls and sat there at the desk for several minutes, making notes and scratching them out, trying again, and tearing up the paper. If all this fit together the way he thought it did, it was so convoluted, he was afraid he’d never unwind it.
He made a list. Lists always helped.
When he was finished, he took all the torn pieces and stuffed them in his pocket. He’d burn them in the stove tonight after everyone had gone up to bed. No sense leaving dynamite lying around where someone might find it.
~ ~ ~
"WE WERE RIGHT." AMANDA had obviously already read at least part of the next letter. "It’s the four of them. And the funeral was July first."
Friday 18 October 1776
My dearest Myra Sue,
Our sweet Isaiah went home to the angels on the last day of June, and was buried on the first of July. I have felt a singular emptiness in my heart since then. I was sorely tempted not to write to you about it, for I know that, had you been here with me through these trying times, you would have felt as deep a pain as I. And I know, too, that my writing of his death will bring back the pain for me as I write and for you as you read. Yet, I must share this with you now, even knowing as I write that you will never truly read my words. Indeed, you must have been there to welcome little Isaiah to heaven, for you would surely have known how dear he was to me.
Do you see, from heaven, what is happening here in these colonies? There is much strife, and I fear the men of the town—and the women as well—are choosing sides, although no-one here seems ready to take a stand, for fear they might come out on the losing side.
Our newspaper has printed the text of a most moving document, and there is not a person in this town who has not read it, although the danger inherent in such a treasonous declaration is almost more than I can bear to think about.
Amanda looked up from the letter. "My gosh. She’s talking about the Declaration of Independence."
"Possibly," Carol said with her usual caution.
At this moment I must admit I am glad that we reside here in such a hidden valley, for neither the armies of the King nor of the rebellion are like to know we exist.
I simply pray daily for the safety of my family. Thank God that my grandchildren are too young, but Constance’s brood are daily caught in fights as her sons argue with one another over which way to go. I cannot bear to think that my nephews might choose opposing sides and might some day be expected to fight each other.
It is almost too much to endure.
If we are discussing endurance, know that my delight in having had you as my friend has endured all these years and will continue to do so until my death. Do you think God might perhaps find a way to forgive my great sin so that I may join you and my sweet Isaiah in heaven?
"She’s still worried about bigamy, after all this time?" The repugnance in Maddy’s voice mirrored my own thoughts precisely.
"Guilt," Carol said, "was a powerful weapon. Add to that the fear of eternal punishment, and it’s no wonder Mary Frances felt the way she did. She would have had to go against everything her community believed, and very few people are up to that sort of rebellion. As to her feelings about the King, I doubt she or anybody else in this valley had much to suffer from the King’s rules."
"She still should have had more sense," Pat muttered.