by Paula Mabbel
Cassie reached high on the highest shelf. She had to get on her tiptoes to reach it, and her fingers brushed something. She reached a bit higher and pulled it down from the shelf.
There, in her hands, Cassie held a carved heart. It was clearly handmade with skill, and in the center of the heart she found engraved:
To Cassie, my beautiful, wonderful wife. Happy birthday.
Her birthday was the next month. He had only asked her once when it was, when they were filling out the marriage license. Cassie was shocked that he remembered, and that he was making this for her in spite of everything they clashed about.
It’s not like I was the perfect wife, either. I was entirely different from what he wanted in a bride, yet he has still been good to me. He has given me so much.
Cassie felt so differently now as she did the chores. She couldn’t help but think that there was a kind man back in the house. She had taken so much for granted with him. And now life was going to be a lot harder for the both of them because of it.
I have to be a better wife to him. I can do it. He deserves it. From now on, I am going to be the very wife that he has always deserved, and I hope I can make him as happy as he should be.
The weeks turned into months, and Hugh was given a wheelchair. It was hard for him to get around the place, but with Cassie’s help, they managed.
Cassie didn’t know what happened to her. That one moment that she had in the barn had changed her at the core, and she was like an entirely new person. She could see Hugh in an entirely new way now, and she was ashamed for how she had acted.
As the weeks passed, she fell more and more in love with him, and she could see that he felt the same for her. All of the things that they had fought about before now seemed so silly, and they both laughed that it had ever been an issue.
The two of them spent so much time together; it was as though they were newlyweds once again. Cassie learned how to do the chores quickly, and she learned how to hitch up the horses to the buggy. Hugh was strong enough to pull himself up onto the seat, and he was able to drive them to and from town, but he couldn’t ride in a saddle without feeling in his legs.
Neither one of them spoke of that day. They shut the gate to the back field and spent all of their time down in the front. Cassie didn’t want to see that tree anymore, and there was no reason for Hugh to be up there. Although neither one of them said anything, she always assumed that he was upset about the loss of his horse.
The seasons changed, and in the following spring, they had grown so used to their way of life that it seemed like it had always been that way. In the beginning, there had been a lot of confusion about what they could still do and what they needed to learn how to do, but on this spring day, Cassie felt completely natural sitting next to her husband on the wagon.
They had come to town to purchase the lumber to change the porch. Cassie didn’t mind helping Hugh up and down the two porch steps in his wheelchair, but he insisted that they needed to put in a ramp so he could manage it on his own.
They had finally scraped together enough funds to do it, and here they were. Cassie was eager to get into the store and back out to her place. Now that school was back in session, there were kids everywhere in town and it was hard to keep the horses steady around them.
Suddenly, a young girl came running out into the street. She was being chased by a young boy, and they were both laughing and dodging back and forth. Cassie rolled her eyes and yelled at them to get out of the way of the wagon.
As they gathered the supplies they needed and paid the store owner, Cassie mused, “Kids. You think you can get done what you need to do, and they always manage to be in the way, making it that much more difficult.” She expected Hugh to agree, but there was a funny look in his eye.
She suddenly remembered that he had always wanted kids. It was something that they had talked about when she had first arrived, but it was something that they hadn’t spoken of since the accident.
A wave of guilt rushed over her as she thought about it, and realized that children were something that they would never be able to have. She reached out and touched him on the hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Hugh seemed to snap back into reality, and he smiled at her.
“For what, my love? Everything is as it should be. Now let’s get home!” He clicked to the horses, and slapped the reins on their rumps.
They turned to head back home, but Cassie couldn’t shake the feeling that had fallen over her. If there was any way they could have children, she wanted to make it happen.
*****
Groundbreaking Doctors Heal Paralyzed Man
Cassie snatched the newspaper off of the counter in the general store. She didn’t normally pay attention to the headlines, but that one caught her attention. She skimmed the article, and her heart pounded in her chest.
She read of a man who had been paralyzed due to an injury he had suffered when he was a child. These doctors in New York were able to reopen his spine and repair the damage that had been done. Then, with therapy, they were able to help him learn to walk once again.
“Excuse me, but is this true?” she asked the clerk.
“Yes, Miss, they have it all over the papers. Some news, huh?” The clerk seemed to be as surprised as she was, but that was all Cassie needed to hear.
With a flash she was out on the streets, running to the post office as quickly as she could. If there were doctors out there who could make her husband walk again, she was going to get a hold of them. She didn’t care how much it cost, how much she had to work, or how far they had to go.
She wanted to see her husband get out of that bed and stand, and she wanted to see him walk. Run, even.
Cassie didn’t know what she was going to say when she got there, but she knew that she needed to get a post in the mail as soon as she could. Surely news like this was going to change the world, and she didn’t want to be out of luck because they had waited too long.
As soon as she reached the post office, she grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and wrote a letter to those doctors.
Two months went by with no answer, and Cassie was about to give up. She hadn’t said anything to Hugh about it, but he knew of the doctors from friends of his.
“I would be willing to give it a try, but you know there is no guarantee that it is going to work, Cass. I hurt my back, and I have accepted it, even if there was a chance to be cured, I wouldn’t be too disappointed if it didn’t work.”
Cassie had let the conversation go, but when she got the reply from the doctors, she was eager to bring it up again. They had room for him the following month, as long as they had the money to pay. Before she went home, she sent a letter to her father.
It was true that he was angry with her for leaving like she did, but she knew that she would be able to count on him to pull through for her in this. He solved all of the problems in his life by writing a check, and she knew that the any tension over their impending reunion would be solved if he was able to write a check for this, too.
And she was right.
The day finally came when they were to head back to New York. Cassie was a bit nervous over the trip. Seeing her father was going to be hard, but she was also eager to see Hugh healed. She didn’t care if there was a chance it wasn’t going to work. All she cared about was doing whatever she could to fix this problem.
They boarded the train and Cassie took a seat in the aisle next to her husband; she didn’t care whether people stared. If he had to be out in the aisle, she was going to be out there with him.
“Are you ready?” she asked him, giving him a squeeze on his shoulders.
“As ready as I ever will be, I suppose. Trains make me nervous.” Hugh looked out the window, then looked down at his hands in his lap.
Cassie smiled and settled in. For the first time in a long time, she felt like it was all going to be OK.
*****
Cassie sat in the waiting room of the hosp
ital. Her father had decided to join her in her wait, much to her surprise. The meeting between the two of them had been tense, but it had gone a lot better than she thought that it would.
He like Hugh, and told her that Caleb had married Sally who worked at the same bank that he did. Cassie wanted to act like she didn’t care at all, but she was actually happy for him, and wished him well.
Now, as they sat together in the waiting room, her father put his hand on her knee.
“It is going to be OK, sweetheart. I know these things are hard, but it is going to work out in the end.” Her father’s mustache twitched as he spoke, and Cassie smiled. He always did that when he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
“I just want things to go back to how they were. I didn’t realize it then, but Hugh and I had fun together, Father. I mean, we fought a lot, but I guess I didn’t realize all of the things that he did for me. He really loved me through it all, even when I acted horrid.” Cassie choked up a bit at her own words, so she stopped.
“You have always been headstrong. Ever since you were a little girl you had to have things your way, and I am glad you have found a man who is willing to put up with your…independence.” He kissed her on the forehead as he spoke, and Cassie smiled.
She never thought that she would want her father to be there for her, but now that he was, it felt so right. For the first time in her life, she felt like he was really a father to her, and it was something that she hoped would never fade.
Hugh would be a great father. He would be there for our children, no matter what. Oh, I hope that this surgery works. It has to. It just has to!
After six long hours in the waiting room, a nurse finally came to the door.
“Mrs. Clement?” she asked.
Cassie leapt out of her chair.
“Yes? Is he OK? Did it work?” Cassie was talking so fast that the nurse didn’t have time to respond, but she put her hands in Cassie’s.
“Yes, the surgery was a success. He is sleeping right now, but everything went as it should. You are going to have to talk to the doctor about the details, but he is going to pull through, and he is going to walk again.”
Cassie burst into tears at the news, and her father held her in his arms. This was just what she needed to hear, and she felt so relieved. It was as though the weight of the entire world had been lifted from her shoulders, and she was free.
Five Years Later
“Ma! Hugh took the ball from me, and he won’t give it back!”
Cassie walked into the living room from the kitchen, a wet dish in one hand, and a towel in the other.
“James, you know you have to let your brother play with you. He just wants to have fun.”
“But he takes the ball and he doesn’t give it back.” Little James looked at his brother, irritated that he got to have the toy just because he was younger.
“Your father is coming in from the pasture. Why don’t you go out there and see if you can help him with the chores?” Cassie picked up her youngest son and sent four-year-old James out the door.
Hugh came riding in on his horse and scooped up James as he ran out to meet his father.
“There’s my boy! Where’s baby Hugh and your beautiful ma?” He clapped his hat on his son’s head and James laughed.
“They’re inside, and Hugh took my ball, and…”
“There they are!” Hugh interrupted his son’s complaining, and pulled him down off the horse with him. “Why don’t you go toss some corn to the chickens, and I am going to go say ‘hi’ to your ma.” He tousled James’ hair and sent him to the barn, then he went to the door to see Cassie.
Little Hugh held out his arms to his father and Cassie handed him off to her husband as she also leaned in for a hug.
“What’s for dinner? I’m starving,” he said as he kissed her and lifted baby Hugh high into the air.
“Chicken and dumplings, your favorite,” Cassie said with a smile. James came running in with his arms full of eggs, shouting about the hens and the chicks.
Cassie stood back and smiled. She loved her family, each and every one of them. She watched her husband put the baby in the high chair by the table, and roll up James’ sleeves before he sat down, and she thought about the accident.
It seemed like a whole lifetime ago that all of those things had happened, and she could hardly believe where they were now. Her husband could walk again, and moved as though it had never even happened.
The accident and the surgery had helped her reopen ties with her father, and he came down to Wyoming regularly to visit them. Cassie even got to help out at the doctor’s office a few times a week, making a bit of money and feeling happy with herself for having a job.
Everything that she ever wanted, she had, and it was better than she ever thought it would be. It was as though she had bottled up her wish and had it given back to her, word for word, exactly as she wanted.
Cassie loved her life, and she wouldn’t change even one little detail ever again.
*****
THE END
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The Texas Billionaire’s Bride
Swish, swish, swish! The broom was very loud as it scraped against the wood floor. Josephine sighed as she got some horse hair stuck in the bristles, and she thumped the broom on the floor to get rid of them.
A cloud of dust rose into the air, but the tuft of horse hair stayed stuck among the bristles in the broom.
“Yer gonna have to take that one outside, Miss.” Mrs. Baker said without turning around. She was at the sink with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, scrubbing the potatoes as hard as she could.
“I declare, I don’t know how horse hair even makes its way into this kitchen, we sweep up ever chance we get.” Josephine tried not to let her voice sound whiney as she spoke, but she felt that the complaining came through a little stronger than she thought that it would.
“It’s all them men out there. They go out and they come in on those hoss’s, and we is left to do the cleanin’ and the groomin’ behind them. Say, why don’t you take a break from that there broom and give me a hand with this stew? You know the sheriff and his deputies are going to be in here in an hour, and they are going to want it fresh.”
“Yes Ma’am.” Josephine sighed under her breath, deliberately low so Mrs. Baker didn’t hear her, and she rushed to wash her hands before she took up a paring knife.
She liked working for Mrs. Baker, but there were times when the clockwork of the kitchen felt more like the rigid schedule of a prison than it did a job. She wondered if it was really worth what she was paid to do it.
Her cheeks burned with shame whenever she thought that way. She could almost hear the voice of her mother in her ears, telling her that she was being an ungrateful girl, which she knew that she was.
Jobs were scarce these days, and it was especially hard for a young woman to hold one. With the discovery of gold in the area, there were so many people here that jobs were filled as soon as they were open.
Everyone had said that the gold was going to make everyone rich, but it seemed as though the people that struck gold were the ones that were rich, and the rest of the world was left in poverty to serve those that struck it rich.
“I’m sure the sheriff is going to be thrilled with your stew as always, Mrs. Baker.” Josephine said in reply. She was trying to keep her complaining in check, but she was worried. She hadn’t felt herself lately, and she didn’t know what was wrong.
She had tried to talk to Mrs. Baker about it, after all, the woman was the closest thing that Josephine had to a mother these days, but she couldn’t even describe what she meant about not feeling
well.
It wasn’t that she was downright sick, she just felt off.
For the most part Josephine ignored it and went about her day in spite of being tired and having headaches, but then there were days when it just seemed unbearable.
“I’m sure you are just tired from working so hard, child.” Mrs. Baker had said, and Josephine decided that she must be right. They were working the restaurant practically themselves, and it was a lot of work for very little pay.
Mrs. Baker had high hopes that it was going to get better, but Josephine wasn’t so sure. With the increase value of the land in these parts, taxes were going up for those that had any property, and that meant that Mrs. Baker had to make even more than she had the previous year in order to make ends meet.
She had let go of most of her kitchen staff, in the process heaping on more work for herself and Josephine. In the end, the rest of the employees had quit, either because they were moving or because they simply needed to make more money.
Josephine had been managing to scrape by with what she had, mostly out of necessity. She had wanted to go out and find a better job, but it was near impossible, better yet, she would have liked to get married. There again, it seemed impossible.
Sure, there were a lot of men in town, but none of these miners were the kind of man that she wanted to marry. They were rough and tough. They cared about one thing and one thing only, and that was their gold.
The sheriff had to take on five more deputies in the past six months just to keep these men in line, and even with the extra help they had their hands full. There was a shooting every night it seemed, and there was little promise that it was going to let up.