To Be a Mother

by Cheryl St. John; Ruth Axtell Morren

  He touched her head, glad she’d been too busy to notice Rianna’s departure. “Hello, Mellie.”

  When she paused for breath, looking up at him with such love and trust, he was at a loss how to proceed. Did she know? “I missed you, too.” Would she take Rianna’s departure hard? They’d grown close in the short time Rianna had been back home.

  Home. Was Wood’s Harbor still home to Rianna? Could it ever be again?

  Melanie took his hand in hers and swung it as they turned to walk to the house. At the porch steps, he stopped and sat down, tugging her down to sit beside him.

  “Let’s sit a minute before we go inside.”

  “All right, Papa.” She sighed in contentment. “I hope Tad and Robbie don’t see you yet. I like sitting with just you.”

  “I do, too, sweetie.” They sat quietly for a few minutes as Noah collected his thoughts. Fishing had been hard today, and not only because of his lack of sleep the night before. He’d had trouble keeping his mind on track. But he was mindful the boys might run out any minute, so finally he took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you. Actually, a message to give you.”

  She sat with her chin in her hands and turned a look full of curiosity at him. “A message for me?”

  He cleared his throat, looking away from her innocent wonder. “It’s from Mrs. Bruce. She…she had to go back.”

  Melanie scrunched up her eyebrows. “Back? You mean to nurse the old man?”

  He looked down at the paving stones between his boots and picked up a loose pebble. “Yep. Back to her nursing job. The old man’s real sick, I guess.”

  “That’s too bad.” Melanie looked ahead of her again. “I’m going to miss her. She was lots of fun.”

  He glanced sidelong at his daughter, wondering what she was thinking. “She told me specially to tell you goodbye and to say how sorry she was not to be able to tell you in person.” He remembered what else she’d said, about writing to Melanie, though he didn’t put much stock in it and decided not to mention it. “I’m sure she’ll miss you, too.” The words sounded weak. He wished he could give her something more, but he wasn’t willing to give Melanie false hope. That only deepened his anger toward Rianna the more, for putting him in this position and for playing with his daughter’s feelings.

  Melanie said nothing for a few moments. “Do you think she’ll come back soon?”

  The question he’d dreaded. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on her patient. He…he really needs her right now.”

  Melanie firmed up her mouth, and he recognized the gesture in himself, before nodding.

  “Well, I’d best go to the pump and wash up.” The worst was over. Melanie seemed all right with the news. A child’s memory was a lot shorter than an adult’s. She’d probably have forgotten Rianna by the end of the week.

  As for himself… He got up, feeling like an old man. He didn’t want to think that far ahead.

  Noah glared at his clock face. Three o’clock. Again his gaze fell on the Bible. He turned on his other side, burying his head under the bedclothes.

  Sheer exhaustion had made it easier to fall asleep at night after a few grueling days on the water, but each morning it was the same, as if someone were waking him up an hour earlier for the sheer pleasure of torturing him with too little sleep. He became grumpier and grumpier, not addressing anyone unless absolutely necessary. He could see the fear in Joe’s eyes every time he had to ask Noah something.

  The only one he strained to treat normally—even delicately as if she were a fragile seashell that might crush with the least pressure—was Melanie. She seemed her usual self. He looked for any signs that Rianna’s absence had affected her, but he was away all day, so it was hard to tell.

  He didn’t bring up Rianna’s name deliberately, but Melanie seemed to have no problem mentioning her. Whenever she thought of something the two had done together or of something Rianna had said, Melanie talked about it.

  “See, Papa, it’s almost finished,” she said one evening, holding up a doll’s dress. “Mrs. Bruce helped me cut it out and showed me how to sew it.”

  He stared more closely at the familiar shade of lavender. “Let me see it, sweetie.” He fingered the soft material, remembering Rianna at the seashore, playing with the children, unmindful of the salt water drenching her hem. “It’s very pretty. You’ve done a fine job sewing it.”

  “Mrs. Bruce sewed the hardest parts.”

  “I see.” He handed the garment back to his daughter, feeling almost as if he was letting go of Rianna—or a little part of her—once again.

  After a week of interrupted sleep, Noah, spying the Bible in his line of vision for the seventh morning in a row, flung back the bedcovers. He stalked over to it, fully intending to remove it to some location where it would be impossible to see.

  He picked it up. It had fallen open at one of the markers Rianna had placed in it. His gaze fell on the psalm that was underscored with ink. Oh Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.

  Riveted by the words, he couldn’t stop reading. When he finished the psalm, his fingers riffled through the thin pages, seeking more. Rianna’s other marker was lodged securely at the beginning of the Gospel of St.John.

  Noah kept reading, only coming to with a start when he looked at the clock and saw it was four o’clock. He dressed and was on the point of going downstairs when he saw the Bible on his night table. As an afterthought, he grabbed it up, deciding he could read while waiting for the coffee to boil.

  He read as he ate his porridge, propping the book against the kerosene lamp.

  And thus began a new routine. Each morning his body awakened a full hour early, and he spent that time in bed reading Rianna’s Bible. And no longer did he feel fatigued, but rather invigorated, as he set off toward the harbor.

  When he returned from the boat one afternoon more than a week after Rianna’s departure, Melanie came running down the front walk to him, waving something white in her hand.

  “Slow down there before you fall.”

  “Papa! Papa! She wrote to me. I received a real letter from Mrs. Bruce!”

  Noah could hardly believe what he was hearing. He felt unable to move and waited for his daughter to reach him.

  Melanie skidded to a stop and showed him the envelope. “See, Papa?” She held it out to him.

  As if it might crumble and disappear as soon as he touched it, he put his hand out slowly. But the thick paper held. He studied the handwriting on the front, noting that he didn’t know her handwriting. It was addressed in a neat script to Miss Melanie Samuels. In the upper corner was a return address in Massachusetts. Somehow, that made it more real, dispelling the notion he sometimes had that Rianna had disappeared off the face of the earth, the way he’d felt the first time she’d left.

  “Do you want to read it, Papa? She sent you a special hello.”

  “Did she?” His voice sounded odd, unsure.

  “Yes, Papa. May we sit on the steps and read it together?”

  “That’d be fine.” He let her lead him along the path, feeling like a sleepwalker.

  Once again, the two sat side by side on the front porch steps. “Mrs. Avery helped me read it the first time ’cause there were some words I didn’t know.” Melanie spread the letter flat on her knees and began to read in a clear voice.

  “‘Dear Melanie, Greetings from Massachusetts. First of all, I want to say how sorry I am that I was not able to see you to say goodbye before I left Wood’s Harbor. Everything happened so quickly I hardly had time to pack and catch the evening steamer. I’m sure your father, though, gave you my message.’”

  The letter went on to recount her voyage in simple enough language for an eight-year-old to read, but the descriptions were vivid enough that Noah could picture it all. He couldn’t help smiling at some of the funny incidents along the way. He could almost hear Rianna’s voice and laughter underlying her account.
Then her tone became more serious and she told about Mr. Whitestone and how ill he was. Lastly, she asked about Melanie and her activities. Then she ended with, “‘I hope you will answer my letter. I want to hear all about your life in Wood’s Harbor. Please give Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Johnson, Tad and Robert my best. I hope they are all well.

  “‘And please give your father a special hello. I hope he is well and happy. I know you are the best daughter anyone could have and are his little helper.’”

  Well and happy. Rianna’s wishes for him fell dully against his ears.

  “Here, Papa, would you like to read it yourself?”

  He took it without replying and read it through again, each word tasting as sweet as fresh water did from the rain barrel on his boat when he was surrounded by the salty sea.

  Every few days Melanie received a new letter from Rianna and promptly replied with Noah’s help. Noah didn’t know why he didn’t pick up a pen himself and reply to her greetings for him, but something held him back. She had left, and he didn’t want her to know how hard he’d taken her departure. He was also afraid that somehow he’d express a desire to know if she’d ever return and was terrified of hearing words to the negative.

  Instead, he felt as if he was writing to her secondhand through his daughter’s pen, and that in some sense she was replying to him in the same way.

  One afternoon as summer was waning, Noah walked back to his grandparents’ old house. He regretted his angry outburst and wanted to see how much damage his loss of temper had caused. In silence, he walked through the downstairs rooms, surveying the evidence of his hurt and disappointment over Rianna’s desertion.

  He was glad to see the damage was mostly superficial, not beyond picking up and cleaning up and effecting a few repairs. The longer he lingered in the old house, the more he examined. He knocked on some beams, looked at the ceilings for evidence of dampness, went down into the cellar to check the floorboards from below. He found no major structural weakness from the years of neglect.

  He stood again in the main sitting room, watching the afternoon sun stream through the picture windows overlooking the bay. The golden light shone onto the wide floorboards, re-creating a pattern of squares from the windowpanes. Despite the bits of plaster strewn about, the upturned furniture and motes of dust, the room exuded a warm welcome.

  The unformed thoughts that had brought him to the house and caused him to look it over, began to gel in his mind. Maybe it was finally time for him and Melanie to have a home of their own. But his doubts came immediately to the fore. Why should he fix the place now? To what purpose? To make a home for Melanie without a mother to look after her… He was gone too much for that to be possible. And there was only one woman with whom he’d care to share a home and a life.

  “Arise and build, son.”

  The words were so distinct, Noah turned to see if someone was in back of him, but there was no one else in the room. He rubbed his ear, doubting what he’d heard. Had the verse from Scripture just been in his head because he’d recently read it?

  But he couldn’t forget the words.

  In the following days, he returned to the house to measure and make notes. On impulse, one afternoon he took Melanie with him. “What do you think if we fixed this place up and lived here ourselves?”

  Melanie’s eyes began to shine as she looked around her. Then she clapped her hands together. “Oh, Papa, a house of our own?”

  He nodded, not realizing how much his daughter had missed having her own home.

  Melanie frowned, gazing up at him. “But who will take care of me when you’re fishing?”

  He rubbed his beard, not having an answer to that. “I don’t know, Mellie. We’ll have to see about that.”

  She gazed out the window overlooking the bay. “I wish…”

  He walked slowly up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. “What do you wish, sweetheart?”

  She didn’t look at him. Finally, when he thought she wouldn’t answer, she said, “I wish Mrs. Bruce would come back.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Her voice sounded so forlorn. All he could do was squeeze her shoulder and say silently, I wish she would, too. For the rest of the afternoon he tried to distract her with talk of the practical side of repairing the house.

  Despite trying to temper his optimism, his excitement grew as he began repairs. He cleaned out the woodstoves and chimneys and built up the fires one morning to get the dampness out. He pried out the nails that had kept the windows shut, and flung them all open on a warm October morning. As he carted more and more building materials to the place, he knew people were talking. It didn’t take much imagination to know what they were saying.

  Poor Noah, who’s he fixing up that house for? Rianna’s gone and turned him down again, and the poor man still hasn’t learned.

  As he lifted rotted boards and hammered new nails into fresh lumber, he often felt like the patriarch he was named after. They’d thought he was a fool, too, building that giant ark in the middle of dry land.

  He divided his days between fishing and rebuilding, his thoughts often of Rianna. He was no longer angry at her. He thought of the sunshine she’d brought into his life, without his even realizing it. He remembered her easy laughter, her capacity to enjoy the simplest things. He remembered the nostalgia in her voice every time she spoke of being home, an unvoiced desire to return to her native town for good. He’d distrusted it before, as part of her enthusiasm of the moment. If she wanted a way to come home, he would offer her one.

  Chapter Eleven

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Noah got down from the cab, and faced the mansion before him in the lamplight. He turned to the cabdriver again. “Are you sure this is the right address?”

  “Sure is.”

  Noah stood under the massive portico fronted with elegant columns and hesitated at the heavy black door. Two lamps burned at each side of it. Although several windows along the wide front of the house were lit, he could make out no signs of life through the gauzy curtains framed by heavy drapes.

  He’d see it through only because he’d come so far, but any lingering hope he’d had evaporated the moment he saw the size of the place where Rianna lived and worked.

  He couldn’t help comparing the modest house he’d been working on with so much enthusiasm and love to the imposing mansion dwarfing him, where Rianna had servants at her beck and call.

  A butler opened the door to his knock. “Yes?” came the frosty greeting.

  “I’m looking for a Mrs. Rianna Bruce.”

  “She’s no longer in our employ.”

  Had he missed her? Not sure whether to feel relief or fear, he asked, “Could you please give me her current whereabouts?”

  The man showed him to a side parlor. After a few minutes he came back with a piece of paper. “She just left us the day before yesterday. I believe she is now at this address.”

  Noah felt a surge of relief that she was still to be found in the city. He climbed back aboard the cab and gave the driver the new address. This time, he stood outside a brick town house of more modest proportions. No lights through the windows softened its square dimensions. When he rang the bell, it was answered by a stern-looking woman.

  When he asked for Rianna, the woman eyed him suspiciously. “It’s a bit late in the evening to be entertaining gentlemen callers.”

  Noah hid a smile, remembering Rianna’s description of dragon-lady landladies. “That’s all right.” Unable to think of a better excuse, he said, “I’ve been sent by her family.”

  The woman looked him up and down and finally stepped aside. With a jut of her chin, she directed him up a dark flight of stairs. “Third story, second door on your right.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  At the top, he stood outside, his heart hammering, his hand poised above the dark wood door.

  Rianna went to the door, wondering what Mrs. Thompson could want of her. When she opened it, her hand flew to her mouth. “Noah!”
she breathed. His tall frame filled the dark hallway. So many nights she’d dreamed of just such a scenario, for a moment she thought she must be asleep.

  A sudden fear filled her. “It’s not Mother, is it? She’s not—”

  Noah shifted on his feet. He was dressed in a heavy overcoat and hat. That’s when she realized he was clean shaven. He looked about ten years younger—almost as young as the man who’d first asked her to dance.

  He cleared his throat. “No, she’s fine. She sends her love.”

  “And Melanie, is she all right? I just had a letter—”

  “She’s fine. Also—ahem—sends you her love.”

  He sounded nervous. Did he think she wouldn’t welcome his visit? She almost burst into laughter at the mere thought. “Oh, my goodness, come in!” she urged a second later, opening the door wider.

  Once inside, Noah removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Then who—what—” She stood against the door, her hands closed about the handle. He looked so tall and handsome standing there, overwhelming her little sitting room.

  “I brought you your Bible.” As he spoke, he fumbled in the pocket of his greatcoat then extended it toward her.

  “My Bible?” She looked at it in wonder, reaching for it. “You came all the way here to bring me my Bible?” She looked at him in disbelief and suddenly could hold the laughter in no longer. She felt such overwhelming joy, she couldn’t contain it.

  But instead of joining in her laughter, he seemed more ill at ease than ever.

  On impulse, she stepped forward and reached up a hand and cupped his cold cheek. “You shaved.”

  He colored, his eyes never leaving hers, and cleared his throat. “Always do in the winter.”

  “That’s right,” she answered softly, still not removing her hand. It felt so good to be touching him. It made him seem real and not some dream she’d conjured up in her loneliness. “You told me that. It makes you look the way you used to.” With regret, she let her hand fall back to her side.