Past Forward Volume 1

by Chautona Havig

  She opened the windows wide. With a large towel, she dried the front and back doors leaving them opened to allow the fresh air to breeze through the house. If the rain stopped soon, she’d be able to let the chickens out for a few hours before dark.

  Sighing, she sat at the sewing machine and worked the treadle, spinning a new bobbin. She’d be finished soon. The fabric looked perfect. Just before she’d cut into the fabrics, the idea to make the jumpers mirror images of each other occurred to her. She knew little about children, but the idea of easily discernible clothing appealed to her when she remembered how exactly alike the girls were.

  Jill McIntyre’s large truck sloshed through the puddles in her drive and parked next to the house. Willow called for her to enter as she finished a seam. “I’ll be right there. I’m so glad you could use the veggies. I had no idea the storm would last this long, or I wouldn’t have picked them.”

  “Well, I couldn’t use what I normally take, but what you described sounds perfect for the store.” Jill surveyed Willow’s room interestedly. “What are you making?”

  “Chad’s cousin knows these twin little girls. I had some left over fabric from my new dress, so I made them jumpers.”

  “That’s a jumper?” Jill removed the completed jumper from a hanger and examined it. “So she wears a shirt under it?”

  Willow paused, staring at the hanger for a moment. “Oh. That’s a good point. I didn’t think about that. They might not have something to match...”

  “No…well I suppose. I just wanted to make sure we had the same definition of jumper. I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s so cute! I bet you could sell those.”

  Willow snipped the final threads of the second jumper and stood shaking her head. “I doubt it. And even if I could, I can’t afford that many hours making fabric.”

  As they loaded her pick up, Jill quizzed Willow about the design process and the fabric making comment. In short, she insisted on a play-by-play of how Willow had made the jumpers. By the time she left, Willow wasn’t sure if Jill liked, hated, or was simply amused with Willow’s garments.

  After a wave at Jill’s retreating truck, Willow walked to the chicken coop, dodging the biggest puddles. The rain slowed and patches of blue dotted the skies, while shafts of sunlight streamed across the glistening meadows. It was a perfect Saturday summer evening.

  Sunday morning Willow tried to walk to the highway, but the ground was far too muddy. She considered attempting to ride the bicycle but cringed at the thought of sinking the wheels into the mud. “Well Lord, it’s just you and me again…”

  She grabbed her tackle box, the pole, and two buckets and tied a sandwich and water bottle to her belt. The pup tried to follow, but Willow shut her in the barn and as a last minute thought, moved Wilhelmina out into the pen. As she crossed the meadow, she opened the gate to the cow pen and then made her way to the stream by the pool. Fish always congregated there after a good rainstorm.

  The stream overflowed its banks, and Willow found the current much swifter and more unpredictable than usual, but the pool was still reasonably calm, though swollen. She prepared her rod and settled against a tree, trying to use the grass as a barrier from the mud.

  Oh how I love thy law. It is my meditation… Willow closed her eyes and mentally recited all of the psalms that she could remember. When finished, she moved to the Sermon on the Mount, Romans, and her favorite book, Philemon. Occasionally she paused to drop a new fish into the bucket, but aside from random interruptions like that, Willow spent the morning reviewing every scripture she could remember.

  When no new verses came to mind, she ate her sandwich, drank what was left of her water, packed her tackle, and started home with both buckets full of fish. Mud clung to her jeans, her backside, and her shoes. The buckets were heavy and bulky, but the thought of fish in winter kept her going.

  In the barn, she stripped off her muddy clothes and grabbed a towel from the laundry, wrapping it around her. She slipped on her barn boots and sloshed across the yard to the back door. There she removed the boots, rinsed her feet with the hose, and went inside to put on clean clothes.

  As she tromped back to the barn, it occurred to her that walking around her property in nothing but a towel probably wasn’t a good idea anymore. Chad stopped by on a regular basis. Chuck had mentioned coming, and it wasn’t unreasonable to assume Jill might stop in without calling. Mother, sometimes I wonder if I’m making the right choices. I’m losing my freedoms even as others think I’m gaining them. Very strange. Willow’s running mental conversations with her mother worried her at times, but she couldn’t give them up. It was probably normal; then again, she was doing it. One lesson she had learned well; she was definitely not normal.

  In the middle of filleting the trout, her phone rang. Willow washed her hands, dried them, and then slid open the phone to see who had called. Not surprised, she punched the button for Chad’s number and waited. “Did you need something?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “What for?”

  “I realized when I went looking for you after church that you probably couldn’t make it. I should have called and offered you a ride.”

  A slow smile spread over her face. “I’m fine. The Lord and I had a good time together by the stream.”

  “Catch anything?”

  “Two buckets. I’m almost done filleting the first one.”

  Chad sighed and Willow understood before he even spoke. He still hadn’t had a chance to go fishing. “I’ve got to try your stream sometime.”

  “I should get back to the fish, but since you called, I wanted to know if you would be seeing your cousin again soon.”

  He sound amused when he said, “I can go out anytime. Why?”

  “I made those jumpers for the girls, and I thought maybe he could—”

  “Let’s go!” Chad interrupted.

  Willow paused in her work, thoughtful. Would the widow want a stranger around her house and her children? “Really?”

  “Sure. I’ll call Luke and then call you back.”

  Before she could respond, the phone went dead. Willow stared at the pile of cleaned fish and pulled out butcher paper, wrapping quickly. She’d just split open the first fish of the second bucket when her phone rang again.

  Impatiently, she dropped the knife and washed her hands. Somehow, she managed to answer it before the call went to voicemail. “Yes.”

  “You sound ticked. We don’t have to go. I just thought—”

  Willow sighed. “It’s not that. I was just in the middle of another fish. I’m sorry.”

  “Luke said to come on over. They’re working inside today, and he says Aggie won’t rest unless she has to. Having us out for an hour or two will give them a break.” Just as she began to reply, he added. “Aunt Libby is there; you could meet her.”

  “I have to finish the fish first, but—”

  “I’ll be right there. Save me one. It’s been a while.”

  He arrived before half the bucket was empty. Willow wrapped each one as she finished, dating them and slipping them into crevices in the freezer. He watched for a moment and then went to work.

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting your uniform stinky?”

  “Nah.”

  She frowned. “Why wear it to church?”

  “I got off just as church started. No time to change.”

  “Makes sense.” Willow grabbed another fish and her knife.

  They worked side-by-side, conversation a minimum. After fileting each fish, Chad passed it to Willow for inspection and grabbed another. “How did you catch so many?”

  “The pool always fills during a rainstorm. I can usually get half a dozen without a lot of trouble, but after a rain, I can get about all I can carry.”

  “Next time it rains, I’m coming fishing.”

  She rinsed the fillet he passed her, pulling a bone from it as unobtrusively as possible, patted it dry, and wrapped it. Chad’s smile told her he’d seen he
r pull out the bone, but she had no intention of leaving it. Just as she started to apologize, he said, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Not letting me have it over the bone.”

  “It happens. I miss them too sometimes. There’s no reason to make a big deal out of it.”

  “Well,” he added, “It was nice. I’m getting into the groove again. I don’t think I’ll miss any more. Why don’t you go clean up?”

  Willow opened her mouth to protest and then saw her shirt soaked with fish innards and pond water. “Are you sure?” It seemed rude leaving him to do her work.

  “I won’t leave anymore bones.”

  “Oh, that’s not what I meant at all! I just—”

  Chad grabbed a kitchen towel and snapped it at her leg. “I was just teasing. Go. There’s only two left anyway. I’ve got this.”

  She dashed across the yard, dodging puddles and missing most. Dropping her shoes outside the door, she stared at her pant legs, the muddy water dripping onto the porch. Willow glanced over her shoulder, but saw no sign of Chad. She stepped inside the house and shed her jeans, racing for the stairs and up them skipping more than she could count.

  Minutes later, Willow stood in her closet with hair dripping and nothing but a towel around her, staring at the options. A skirt is comfortable and appropriate for any occasion. The memory of Mother’s words tempted her to reach for one of her new skirts. However, if she ended up helping with work… She grabbed jeans and one of her new tops and started to change.

  The sound of the screen door closing downstairs startled her “Be down in a minute,” she called as she closed her bedroom door, feeling as though she’d narrowly escaped utter mortification. “Definitely can’t walk around without clothes on anymore,” she muttered as she pulled on her jeans.

  To her disgust, Chad stood in the living room, admiring her jumpers and without a hint of fish smell about him. His hands were clean, his uniform spotless; only faint traces of mud around his soles, missed by wiping she imagined, indicated that he’d even been outside. So, she was surprised when at the end of the driveway, Chad turned toward Fairbury. “Wha—”

  “I just realized that I should change too.”

  “But you aren’t dirty.”

  He swerved into the other lane to give a cyclist extra room as he said, “I just thought maybe Aggie’s kids might associate uniforms with bad memories—their parents’ accident and all.”

  Once in Fairbury, Willow enjoyed seeing parts of town she’d never visited as Chad turned off Market Street into a residential area. All the houses, packed together—Willow felt sorry for them. How could they breathe? Then again, at least they had yards. Bill, on the other hand…

  Victorian-styled row houses came into view as they turned onto a new street. “Wow! These are so beautiful. They remind me of the ones in our book on San Francisco.”

  Chad pulled up in front of one house and hopped out. He met her at her door as Willow climbed from the truck. “The builder for this neighborhood planned this area after a trip there back in the late twenties.”

  “I wonder if Mother ever saw these. She would have loved them.”

  They stepped inside the house, and Willow glanced around her. Stairs, a hallway, but no furnishings. Where was the living room? Odd…

  Chad unlocked a door to what should have been a bedroom, and she found herself in a tiny apartment. “Oh—a flat! How many are there?”

  “Four.” He gestured to the couch. “Have a seat. I’ll be right out.”

  His apartment was empty. Unlike Bill’s deliberate minimalist design, Chad’s apartment simply held nothing but the barest essentials and a mismatched of hodge-podge things at that. “Did you just move in?” she called as he shut a door behind him. Must be his bedroom.

  “No. It’s just temporary though.”

  Willow winced. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, I know it’s not that exciting, but I don’t plan to live here very long. I just don’t want to spend money on something temporary.”

  “Are you going to buy a house or something?” There were some adorable little bungalows over by Shannon’s apartment. Maybe he—

  “If I can afford one. Rockland’s pretty expensive. I’ll be lucky to afford an apartment in a decent area.”

  Dismay filled Willow but she tried to hide it. He was moving. What would life be like without Chad stopping by now and then? “When are you moving?”

  “Probably not for another four years. Five years with Fairbury will give me age and experience to get on the Rockland force.”

  Four years. The relief unnerved her. A lot could happen in four years. She might make more friends by then. Then again, considering how often she was annoyed by his constant interjection into her life, why did knowing it wasn’t soon comfort her?

  “So you plan to live in limbo for four years?”

  Chad tossed his dirty clothes on a pile in the corner of the living room. “Why not?”

  “Just curious”

  “Oh, no,” he protested. “I can see you have an opinion, and I want to hear it.”

  “Well, what if something happens? What if they aren’t hiring in four years? What if you decide you want to stay here—”

  “I am not staying here; that’s for sure.”

  He urged her back to his truck, talking about his career plans as he drove them out of Fairbury. His eagerness to do “real police work” rather than what he considered little better than civic babysitting amused her. He wanted excitement—adventure. Fairbury gave him kids without helmets and people going thirty-two in a twenty-five zone.

  “Fairbury has the highest turnover of officers in the state. The chief brings ‘em in, trains ‘em right, and then sends ‘em off to Rockland or Marshfield or one of the other towns north. Joe and Judith are the only ones who’ve been here more than three years.”

  “How long has Joe been here?” Willow asked, trying to remember what the officer who had taught her the two-step had said while they were dancing.

  “Almost ten years I think. I’m not quite sure.”

  “Why hasn’t he moved along?”

  Chad turned off the highway onto a frontage road. “He’s committed to the town. He thinks if he works with the kids here, we won’t lose them to Rockland and the crime and gangs there.”

  “Makes sense.”

  He nodded as he turned off onto a street and into a driveway. “It works too. It’s just I want to do something. Change something. Prevention is important—I understand that—but I want to make a difference for the community that is already hurting.”

  Children swarmed from the house as they pulled up to the house and Chad turned off the engine. Within seconds, two jumped into mud puddles. Willow smiled. It was exactly what she would have done as a child. Chad pointed to a young woman on the porch. “That’s Aggie.”

  “That’s Aggie,” Chad murmured.

  “You’re right. She is young. She looks like she’s about my age.”

  “I think you’re just weeks apart.”

  The idea nearly choked her. Twenty-three and responsible for the care of eight children. Willow knew she’d never be able to do it. “Wow.”

  Aggie greeted them, rising from a hammock chair as they stepped onto the porch. Another woman sat nearby, and Luke rounded the corner of the house with wet paint rollers in his hands. He introduced Aggie and Willow. Willow handed her paper-wrapped bundle to Aggie as the young woman offered her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Willow—always nice to meet a friend of Chad’s.”

  Willow heard Luke say something about cookies as he disappeared into the house, but her eyes were on Aggie as the young woman unwrapped the package and unfolded the garments. “I can’t believe you made dresses for little girls you saw once and for such a short time! They’re so cute too. Thank you!” Aggie hugged her, making Willow feel awkward but pleased.

  “You’re welcome. I had fabric left over and wanted to use it up so—”

  “
She hand painted that paisley fabric. Can you believe that?”

  Willow noticed Luke and his mother exchange amused glances. She couldn’t blame them. It felt as if Chad had been trying to “sell” them on her. Aggie, on the other hand, went into new ecstasies over the fabric. “I can’t believe—I mean I see it now that I look, but it’s so perfect…”

  “Except for the spot where Chad made me mess up. It’s under…” Willow showed a streak of paint under one corner of the overskirt and pretended deep offense at his goof.

  They sat and talked for some time, sipping iced mint tea and nibbling on chocolate chip cookies. A young girl of around thirteen brought out a baby, sat him at Aggie’s feet, and disappeared around the corner of the house, calling for a game of Mother May I.

  Willow watched the baby crawl to Libby before he caught her eye. With a toothy grin, the little tyke crawled across the porch, making Willow wince at the thought of splinters in his chubby little knees. At her feet, he tried to pull up on her legs but his own wobbled. She caught him before he fell.

  “May I pick him up?”

  “Sure.”

  As Willow tried to lift him, she fumbled trying to hold his head at the same time. “I can’t seem to support his head—”

  “He’s fine. He can support it without help.”

  The baby played with her buttons, her sleeve, her eyes, chin, and everything else he could touch. She lost all interest in the conversation around her as she tried to follow the movements of the child. “What is his name?”

  “Ian,” Aggie said. She watched for a moment before adding, “He likes you. You seem very good with children.”

  “I’ve never been around children before that Sunday I got the pup.”

  “She was a natural then too, wasn’t she Luke? She handled Cari like—”

  Aggie’s head whipped up and her eyes sought Luke. “What? You didn’t tell me she was a problem.”

  Willow interrupted quickly. “Oh, she wasn’t a problem. She was tempted to do wrong, and I encouraged her to reconsider. It wasn’t anything serious, was it Luke?”