Tomorrow's Dreams

by Heather Cullman

  Miles made a nasty snickering noise. “Some friend. I wonder if your brother would still call him ‘friend’ if he knew that he’d knocked up his baby sister.” His smirk broadened at the sound of her gasp. Folding his arms over his chest, he pondered in a menacing tone, “More interesting yet, I wonder what Mother would do if she knew that your brat’s father was Seth Tyler?”

  Penelope’s stomach roiled with terror at the threat behind his words. Dear God! What would Adele do if she found out that Seth was Tommy’s father? Would she do something drastic out of fear that Penelope might confide in him and finger her for the blackmailing kidnapper she was? The sickening sensation deepened. Tommy was everything to her. If anything happened to him …

  No! Nothing would happen to him! She wouldn’t let it. She’d come up with the money One-eyed Caleb was demanding to track and rescue him, even if she had to steal it. Until then, she had to plant enough doubt in Miles’s mind to keep him from voicing his suspicions to his mother.

  But what if she couldn’t convince him?

  She fought down another swell of panic by reminding herself that Miles was merely speculating about Seth’s paternity to Tommy, and that Adele was far too shrewd to pay his rambling much heed. And even if he did manage to pique her suspicions, she wasn’t bound to do anything hasty. Not when it meant letting a thousand dollars or more a week slip through her grasping claws.

  Feeling somewhat reassured by that rationale, Penelope gave a forced laugh and said, “Seth Tyler, Tommy’s father? I had no idea you had such an imagination, Miles. Perhaps you should try your hand at writing melodrama.”

  Miles’s normally handsome face contorted into a mask of petulant ugliness. “Don’t treat me like an idiot. I’ve seen your brat enough times to know that he looks exactly like Tyler.”

  Penelope cocked her head to one side as if considering his charge. “Do you really think so?

  Miles grunted. “I know so.”

  She smiled with feigned delight. “What a kind thing to say! It’s wonderful to know that someone besides myself thinks that my son is an exceptionally handsome baby.”

  “It was an observation, not a compliment,” he snarled.

  “But how else am I to take such an observation? Mr. Tyler is acknowledged far and wide as being an extremely attractive man … as is Tommy’s father, Byron Garrett.”

  Byron Garrett was a devilishly handsome British opera singer with whom she’d sung on several occasions, the last being in Boston during which time Thomas was conceived. When Adele had demanded to know the identity of the baby’s father, Byron’s name was fresh in her mind, and she’d uttered it for no other reason than that it was too painful to speak of Seth. Besides, she knew that Byron had returned to England the day after they closed in Boston, thus making it impossible for Adele to learn the truth.

  “B-Byron Garrett fathered your b-brat?” Miles stammered, obviously flabbergasted by the news.

  “Your mother didn’t tell you?” Penelope frowned and shook her head. “She’s known since before Tommy’s birth.”

  His astonishment hardened into sullen resentment. “Mother doesn’t tell me anything, especially about you. All I know is that she helped you birth your baby and that she’s holding him until you’ve finished paying her for her trouble.”

  “Paying her for her trouble?” Penelope emitted a derisive snort. “And exactly how much does she figure I owe her?”

  His expression went blank, as it always did when he was asked to contemplate his mother’s villainy. “Uh … plenty, I guess, considering what a saint she’s been to you.”

  “Well, I’ve already paid her plenty,” Penelope snapped. “By my calculations, your saintly mother has robbed me of close to forty thousand dollars in the past year and a half.”

  Miles’s cheeks flushed a hectic red beneath the day-old stubble of his beard. “How dare you imply that Mother is a cheat! Why, if she hadn’t nursed you through your fever, you’d have died three days after your precious brat was born. That’s worth forty thousand dollars easy, I’d say.”

  It was on the tip of Penelope’s tongue to inform him that she probably wouldn’t have caught the fever in the first place if Adele had hired a real doctor instead of a drunken slattern with gin-induced delusions of being a midwife. But before she could voice her dissonant thoughts, Miles continued:

  “Don’t forget that you owe room and board for the five months prior to your lying-in, plus the additional four months it took for you to recover from the fever. Then there’s the cost of keeping your brat, your personal living expenses, and the charges for my escort and the hiring of horses for these trips out to the Skolfields. Add it all up, and it totals a pretty penny.”

  “Well, at least according to your mother’s skewed mathematics,” she muttered bitterly.

  Miles’s face went blank again.

  Sighing her ever-present frustration, Penelope chalked the debate up as a lost cause. Like all her efforts to make Miles see his mother’s extortion for the conscienceless crime it was, this was proving to be a waste of time … precious time that could be better spent celebrating her son’s birthday.

  Checking that her unfashionably wide but functionally protective straw hat was securely tied beneath her chin, she said, “Since I’m being charged for this trip, and plenty I suspect, I want to get on my way.”

  “Suit yourself.” Miles waved toward the horse in a motion exaggerated enough to have been seen from the back row of any theater in America. Spooked by his broadly flourishing arm, the beast nickered and danced away.

  Ignorantly muttering a threat to castrate the already gelded horse, Miles seized the nervous animal’s bridle and roughly forced it to remain still while Penelope mounted. Then he swung up behind her. Once he’d snuggled his groin indecently close to her backside, he pulled a rumpled length of black cloth from his coat pocket and blindfolded her. That formality completed, he kicked the horse to a canter, and they were off.

  This was the part of the journey Penelope dreaded most. Not because she was blindfolded, though not being able to see made her nauseatingly sensitive to the horse’s motion and threw her equilibrium so off balance that she usually rode clinging to the edge of the pommel. No. Far worse than those discomforts was the humiliating molestation she often suffered as she sat in unseeing helplessness between Miles’s thighs.

  With revolting familiarity he would let his free right hand roam intimately over her body, emitting obscene slobbering noises as he ground his arousal rhythmically against her backside.

  Today, however, Miles was not in an amorous mood, and after they had ridden a couple of miles in brooding silence, Penelope began to relax. As she always did on these blessed occasions when he left her in peace, she tried to discern their direction by attuning her senses to her surroundings.

  By the motion of the horse, the way it slowed and weaved at intervals as if skirting jutting rocks or bushes, they seemed to be climbing the slopes toward the forest. The impression deepened when she smelled the resiny freshness of coniferous trees on the breeze, and felt a subtle cooling of the air against her cheeks, both sure signs that they were moving into the mountain-shadowed upper foothills.

  They continued on for a long while, splashing through streams and trotting past rustling groves of trees. After what Penelope estimated to be about two hours, they came to a stop.

  “We’re here,” Miles announced, fumbling with the knotted cloth at the back of her head. After pulling out what felt like half of her hair, the blindfold fell away.

  Penelope’s spine stiffened with outrage as she viewed the ramshackle structure before her. How dare Adele expect Tommy to live in such primitive conditions! Why, the dwelling was little better than a hovel … hardly an appropriate place for a young child, much less one with her son’s fragile health.

  Set in a copse of autumn-blazed aspen trees, the haphazardly built log cabin was a wretched affair with mud-chinked walls and a roof of earth and thatch, which undoubtedly leaked during
even the gentlest of rains. Just imagining wintering in such a place was enough to give Penelope a phantom chill. In truth, she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to learn that the former occupants had frozen to death within its flimsy walls during the first hard freeze. Not a comforting thought in light of the fact that this was her son’s new home.

  But not for long, she vowed, her resolve strengthened a hundredfold by the sight of the tumbledown shack. No matter what it took, she’d have her darling back in San Francisco and safely ensconced in the luxurious nursery at her brother’s house before the first snowflake fell.

  As Miles helped her from the horse, Minerva Skolfield stepped out of the open front door and waved her welcome. After returning the woman’s greeting, Penelope snatched a cloth-wrapped bundle from the saddlebag and started toward the cabin.

  Before she had advanced more than a couple of feet, Miles grabbed her arm and shoved his watch close to her face. “You’ve got two hours. Not a second more.”

  Giving a curt nod, she jerked her arm from his grasp and hurried to where Minerva waited.

  Garbed in a once fine but now much mended tartan poplin day dress with her gray-streaked black hair gathered at the nape of her neck in a smooth chignon, Minerva was the very picture of genteel shabbiness. At Penelope’s approach she smiled and graciously extended her hand.

  Taking the proffered hand in hers, Penelope stared anxiously into the older woman’s careworn face. “How’s Tommy? Adele said he’s ill.” She released Minerva’s hand to reach into the bundle and withdraw the expectorant she’d purchased at the pharmacy. “I brought him some medicine.”

  Minerva took the bottle and peered at the extravagant claims listed on the label. Looking skeptical, she tugged out the cork stopper, saying, “We’ll try this next time Tomkins gets the croup. He’s completely recovered now.” She paused to sniff the contents of the bottle. With her face perfectly expressing her distaste, she jammed the cork back into place and banished the medicine into her pocket.

  Looping her arm through Penelope’s, she escorted her into the cabin, saying, “The poor mite did have a bad time of it for a few days, but you know what a fighter he is.” She winked at Penelope. “Gets his grit from his mama, I fancy. Anyway, as you can see for yourself, he’s right as rain now.” She nodded toward a cot against the opposite wall.

  Penelope almost flew across the room in her eagerness to get to her son. Clad only in a white linen diaper and a pair of crocheted socks, he lay safely cradled in a cozy hollow formed by a pile of buffalo pelts and quilts. Feeling as if her heart would burst with joy at the sight of him, she dropped to her knees next to the makeshift crib and hungrily drank in every detail of his beloved face and body.

  He was such a handsome boy, her Tommy. With his silky golden curls and angelic smile, he was the perfect image of a Raphael cherub. At least in her eyes. To her, he was the most beautiful child in the world.

  Yet, she was painfully aware that hers was a view not likely to be shared by many. Hard experience had stripped away the last vestiges of her naïveté, and she was now all too aware of the cruelty that lay within the hearts of her fellow man.

  Instead of admiring the beauty of Tommy’s face, as she did, she knew that most people would see only his stunted growth and pathetically twisted limbs. Instead of having the wisdom to love him for his special qualities—his gentle soul and sweet disposition—they would ignorantly hate him for his physical and mental limitations. Though the rest of the world might view him as an abomination to be locked away in shame, to her he was a priceless treasure to be shown off with pride. And once they were back in San Francisco, she intended to do just that.

  Imagining her son dressed like a prince and holding court from an elaborate cane baby carriage, she dropped a kiss on his soft cheek, whispering, “Everything will be perfect, darling. Just you wait and see.”

  As if sensitive to his mother’s pensive mood, he cooed and smiled in a way that never failed to lift her spirits.

  “I was just getting ready to change his diaper when I heard you ride up,” Minerva said, setting a basketful of infant supplies on the cot. Leaning over and lightly tickling the baby’s bare midsection, she crooned, “We’re as wet as a flag in a rainstorm aren’t we, Tomkins?”

  He giggled, and for a fleeting instant Penelope saw the ghost of Seth’s heartbreaking smile in that of their son.

  Bobbing her head back and forth in a manner that made the baby’s giggles escalate into squeals of laughter, the older woman continued, “Well, we’ll have you dry in a twinkling, and then you can have a nice visit with your mama. I have a hunch that she’s got a surprise for you in that bundle of hers.”

  Minerva’s genuine tenderness toward Tommy warmed Penelope to the depths of her soul, and not for the first time she selfishly thanked God for allowing the Skolfields to fall victim to Adele’s blackmail. For without Sam and Minerva’s loving care, it was doubtful that the baby would have survived his first precarious months of life. Then, as now, they were a gift from heaven.

  Ashamed but unrepentant of her self-serving prayers, she reached up and gave the older woman’s arm a fond squeeze. “You work so hard all the time, Minerva. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll take care of Tommy.”

  “I don’t know about resting, but I do need to finish fixing supper,” she replied, understanding shining in her brown eyes.

  Penelope smiled her gratitude. As usual, the woman was sensitive to her need for time alone with her son.

  Lingering long enough to pull back the baby’s diaper and point to the patchy red skin on his groin, she said, “I’ve been treating Tomkins’ rash with zinc powder. You’ll find a box of it in the basket along with clean napkins. The rest of his clothes are in the chest under the cot.” After giving the baby’s belly one last tickle, she went to the table at the far end of the cabin and began chopping vegetables.

  Left alone, Penelope undertook the painstaking task of changing Tommy’s diaper. No larger than an infant of seven or eight months, her frail son’s legs were unyieldingly rigid and locked in a closed, almost scissorlike configuration that made the changing process into what most people would view as a trying ordeal. But not for Penelope. She cherished the few precious moments she spent caring for him. So much so, that she promised herself that once they were safely back home, she would forego the services of a nanny and tend to his needs herself.

  Singing snatches of a lullaby remembered from her own childhood, she cleaned and diapered him, then turned her attention to finding something special for him to wear.

  From the chest beneath the cot she pulled out a woolen binder, followed in quick succession by a hand-knitted undervest and two flannel petticoats. After a moment’s deliberation, she drew out an elaborately tucked and embroidered white muslin gown she’d purchased in Chicago. A soft linen day cap, a pale blue knitted outdoor bonnet lavishly trimmed with darker blue satin ribbon, and several warm shawls completed her selections.

  As with changing his napkins, dressing Tommy was a task that required the patience of Job. Like his legs, his upper extremities were stiff and pulled into unnatural positions. His wrists were twisted back at awkward, inflexible angles, terminating in hands that were forever clenched into fists. His arms, reed-thin and as delicate as those of a Dresden doll, were fixed at the elbow in a crooked position reminiscent of a gentleman offering a lady his escort.

  Though Penelope knew that most people would find his deformed limbs repulsive, she accepted them with as much love as she would if they were strong and straight. In truth, she loved him more because of his infirmities, for he needed her as no fit child ever could.

  When she’d finished tying, buttoning, and hooking him into his garments, she stuffed the bundle of birthday gifts beneath her arm and then swung him into her embrace. With him tucked securely in her arms, she marched around the tiny one-room cabin singing a rousing chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow!”

  After several turns, she waltzed him to the ta
ble where Minerva sat and, leaning sideways, let the bundle drop from beneath her arm to the tabletop. Ducking her head forward to cover her son’s smiling face with kisses, she murmured, “Would you like to see your presents now, darling?”

  He gurgled in sunny response.

  Settling in the rickety chair opposite Minerva, with Tommy propped comfortably against her body, she began to unwrap his gifts. As she launched into another round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow!” Minerva put down her knife and joined in. With her monotone alto sounding much the worse in contrast to Penelope’s well-trained soprano, she wiped her hands on a ragged bit of toweling and came around the table to share in the fun.

  The first thing to fall under Penelope’s hand was the plush rabbit. Holding the toy of the scruff of its neck, she pulled it from the burlap bundle just enough so that its head and floppy ears were visible. Wagging its head back and forth, she said in what she hoped was a bunnylike voice, “Happy birthday, Tommy!” Then she made it leap the rest of the way from its wrappings and pretend-hop across the table toward the fascinated baby.

  “Will you look at the pretty bunny, Tomkins!” Minerva crowed as Penelope gently butted the toy’s cross-stitched nose against her son’s button one in a bunny kiss. “Why, it looks just like the furry little darlings we see on our walks.” Meeting the younger woman’s gaze, she explained, “Our Tomkins seems to have a special fondness for rabbits. Every time we see one in the woods, he giggles and follows it with his eyes until it’s out of sight.”

  As if to validate the woman’s words, Tommy laughed and batted at the toy with one tiny fist.

  Tucking the velvety rabbit into his arms, Penelope promised, “Later I’ll tell you a story about a wise bunny who outwitted a greedy fox set on having rabbit stew for supper. But first, I have something else for you. A special gift for my special boy.”