by Janette Oke
“Better than an old grouch like I’ve been would ever deserve. I feel like I’ve done nothing but fight for sleep all summer. But the air was cool last night, and I rested well.”
“You’re not a grouch,” Bethan said quietly.
Moira, ignoring the comment, peered through the back window. “I see that my ears have not been deceiving me after all.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Bethan agreed, watching Dylan break into song as he slopped the hogs.
“I do,” Moira said. “Your brother has fallen for Carol Simmons.”
Bethan stared in open surprise. “The lovely little blond girl who sings in our choir?”
“She’s not so little, and far more woman than girl.” The edges of Moira’s lips lifted a trifle. “He came in and told me last night after you went to bed. It appears that our dear Dylan is well and truly smitten.”
Bethan looked from her mother out to where her brother was dousing himself at the pump, and back again. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I most certainly do.” Moira straightened as much as her joints allowed and turned to face her daughter full on. “I have spent many a night praying about what happened when you spoke with Dylan about your friend Jodie. I will not tell you that I did not have my doubts. But pain has a habit of speaking falsehoods to the mind. And last night as I looked into my son’s excited eyes, I heard from the Lord as clearly as if He had come down and spoken in my ear.”
Moira’s eyes positively glowed as she continued, “You did right, Bethan. Hard as the choice was, and I know for certain it was one that tore at your heart, I am positive that you did what was appropriate and right. And I am very, very proud of you.”
“Oh, Momma,” Bethan whispered.
“I am still praying for my ‘other daughter,’ ” Moira said meaningfully as she moved closer to give Bethan a quick, fierce hug. “I also know that if you don’t tend to the bacon it’s going to sizzle up to nothing.”
Bethan turned back to the stove just as the back door opened. “Man, oh man, does that ever smell good!” Dylan stamped his boots on the rug and shut the door. He walked over, a grin stretching his lean face, and gave Bethan a one-armed hug. “How’s my little sister doing this morning?”
“Fine,” she managed and blinked hard to clear her eyes. “Just fine.”
SIXTEEN
TWO MONTHS AFTER her arrival in Raleigh, Jodie returned from class to find Netty in the backyard, bent over a metal washboard and flat-bottomed tin tub set up by the pump. A tall pile of wrung-out sheets dripped on a side table. Netty looked up at Jodie’s approach but did not stop feeding sheets through the wringer. “What’s got your face pulled down at the edges?”
“I don’t believe what just happened to me,” Jodie announced ruefully.
Netty humphed once, and it took a moment before Jodie realized she had just seen the woman laugh. “Must be for real, then.
The realest is always the hardest to believe.”
“They’re trying to block me out of the labs. Nobody is willing to be my partner.”
“I’m hearing,” Netty said. “But I sure ain’t understanding. Is this bad news?”
Jodie explained what lab work was and how important it was to her. Netty’s face remained immobile as she listened, her eyes squinted up against the sun and the starchy steam rising from the sheets. One hand fed a continual stream of sheets through the wringer while the other cranked the handle that turned the pair of rollers. Bluish water splashed onto the ground at her feet. When Jodie was finished, Netty remained silent as she fed through the last sheet, then pressed both hands firmly against her back as she slowly straightened. Bright birdlike eyes squinted at Jodie. “Seems to me you’re missing out on the possibilities here.”
“I guess it’s my turn not to understand,” Jodie answered. “Do you want me to help you hang those sheets out?”
“You stay put, missie. Ain’t no good in your getting starch all over them pretty school clothes.”
“What do you mean, possibilities?”
“Ain’t sure exactly. But if nobody’s gonna hang around to share in the work, it means they ain’t gonna share in the glory neither.”
Jodie placed her books on the ground and settled herself down upon them. “I never thought of that.”
“Them teachers didn’t get where they were by being dumb.
If they see you off doing your best and doing it by yourself, why, they’re gonna take note.”
“I don’t know if I can do it all by myself,” Jodie confessed.
Netty lined up clothespins between her lips, whipped the top sheet out with a wet pop, and draped it over the line. She pinned it into place, then said to Jodie, “Appears like you’ve reached another of them places where it’s important to ask the good Lord for help.”
Jodie looked at the ground by her feet, unable to confess that she and the Lord were not on speaking terms.
“There, see, you’ve taken the biggest step already,” said Netty, misunderstanding the bent head. She popped open another sheet, draped and pinned, then went on, “Bowing a proud head is a hard thing to do. Asking for help is never easy. Neither is receiving it when help is offered.”
Jodie pulled up a handful of grass and tossed it into the fitful breeze. With the dawn had come the first winter frost, but now the late afternoon sun felt almost hot. Not comfortable with the conversation, she asked, “How did you come to be here, running a rooming house all by yourself?”
A pair of sheets were hung on the line before Netty spoke again. “I was the runt of the litter, seventh in line and never much to look at. My daddy married me off to a widow-feller when I wasn’t but fifteen years old. Didn’t hardly know the man before I was walking down the aisle.”
“That’s awful,” Jodie said quietly.
The wizened face appeared from between the rapidly growing line of sheets. “Not really. That’s the way it was done back then. Country folks like us didn’t have no hope in quarreling about a decision. When Daddy said we had to do something, well, that was all there was to it.”
“Did you love him at all? Your husband, I mean.”
“In a way, I suppose—mostly. The Lord tells us to love all our fellow men.” Bright eyes glittered at her. “ ’Course, the hardest folks to love are the ones always under foot.” She popped open another sheet. When the pins were out of her mouth, Netty went on, “We moved up here to the city on account of his business. He was in the lumber trade. Soon after that, he up and died on me. Left me with a heap of bills, a business that he’d barely gotten started, and this big old pile of a house. I was scared, and I was lonely, but I can’t say I was all that sorry. I was free for the first time in my life. Got rid of the business soon as I could. That eased the debt burden some. Decided me and the Lord was gonna either make a go of a life on my own, or go down kicking.”
Jodie turned at the sound of laughter from the parlor’s open window. There were a half-dozen women student boarders at Netty’s. All save Jodie were studying to be teachers, but they appeared to be more interested in finding husbands than finishing their schooling. They treated Jodie with the distant courtesy a well-bred lady would show someone from another country. They simply could not understand what Jodie was after, studying chemistry for one thing, and studying as hard as she did for another.
Netty uncurled the last sheet. “You made yourself some friends over there yet?” she wanted to know.
“Not really.” Again there was the lancing pain at the word friend. Bethan’s absence, and even more the rift between them, remained a wound that twisted Jodie’s insides at the most unexpected moments. She said, “Dr. Dunlevy, I suppose, if you can count a professor as a friend. I like him a lot.” She hesitated a moment, then added for reasons she scarcely understood herself, “And there’s this other student; his name is Lowell Fulton. Half the time he seems to hate me, but every once in a while he looks at me or says something—I don’t know, like he’s trying to make amen
ds for his coldness.”
“He an ambitious fellow? Intelligent, maybe?”
“Dr. Dunlevy says Lowell and I are the two best students,” Jodie replied, embarrassed and proud at once. “As for ambitious, I can’t say. He’s certainly a leader among the other students. They all seem to look up to him.”
“I know the type. Seen enough of them around my husband’s business. You mind what I’m telling you, missie, and stay away from that one.” Netty upended the tub and let the soapy water pour onto the ground. “Fellow like him, he’s got himself just one ambition. Don’t have to see him to know him. All them early risers out there, they’re ambitious. But that fellow, now, he’s only got himself one ambition. He is dead set and determined to rule the roost. He knows you’re competition, too. Makes him nervous.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Jodie rose to her feet, brushed off her skirt, and said quietly, “I am grateful, Netty. For everything.”
Netty bobbed her head in her quick, birdlike motion. She looked long and hard at Jodie. “Never had me a youngster of my own,” she said slowly and Jodie thought that she saw a shadow in the narrowed eyes. “But I’ll say this—if ever I’d been graced with a daughter, I’d have thanked the good Lord if she’d been like you.”
In her lovely mint green gown that set off her hair and delicate coloring, Bethan stepped into the church. She paused to inhale the fragrance of all the flowers and wondered how on earth they had managed to gather so many lilies in January.
It was so sweet of Carol to ask her to be a bridesmaid. They were not really close even though they did have warm respect for each other, but Carol had the rare ability to understand instinctively what her man wanted. Dylan had reacted with astonished joy to the news that Bethan was to be bridesmaid, all the thanks Carol ever could have asked for. Bethan’s own gratitude was another tie in the new family bonds that were being forged by this wedding.
The church was full. Every face turned and smiled as Bethan preceded the bride down the aisle. It seemed as though Carol’s ethereal beauty had rubbed off on all of them today, and even roughhewn country people had a winsomeness they rarely exhibited on their own. Even Moira, not fully recovered from her ailment, looked positively glowing.
Bethan accepted the bride’s flowers, stepped back a pace, and carefully dabbed at the tear in the corner of her eye. Though she had come to love Carol dearly, the wedding meant an end to the hope she had held that Jodie would somehow return to faith and that she and Dylan would resume their courtship. Bethan had longed for Jodie to return to Harmony—to become a part of her family. Now this was not to be. “But, Lord,” Bethan prayed fervently again, “please bring Jodie back to you, back to her faith, even if she doesn’t come back home—”
Bethan’s attention suddenly was caught by the new assistant pastor. Had he smiled? At her? In the three months since Connor Mills had arrived, the whole town had been talking about him. How his fiancee had died not six weeks before their wedding day, just over a year ago. How his heart was firmly given to the Lord. How the children of the church seemed drawn to him like a magnet, and how he had the nicest smile anybody could recollect ever seeing.
Connor stood to one side of the wedding party, the black pastoral robes making his hair look even more blond. Their eyes met, and Bethan sensed as much as saw the sorrow he carried. The shared burden touched her heart, making her eyes well up again. She wiped her eyes once more, glad for the acceptance of tears at wedding ceremonies. No one there would ever guess just why she wept.
She turned her attention to the service.
“Do you, Carol Simmons, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
“I do,” came Carol’s reply, her voice bell-like and as radiant as her face.
Bethan was so happy—for Dylan, for Carol, yes, and even for herself. It felt so good to have a reason to smile.
But even that thought drew her back once again to Jodie. If only Jodie were here to share in the moment, it truly would be a perfect day.
SEVENTEEN
JODIE RETURNED TO COLLEGE the week before the fall term was scheduled to begin. There was little to keep her in Harmony. Her father really didn’t need her help in the store, and he moved silently about the house, occupied with a world only he could see. He seemed somehow disconcerted by her presence, as though he had become accustomed to his solitude. Which made the summer months difficult, because she wanted to stay at home, out of sight. Any excursion through the town meant she ran the risk of seeing Bethan—or, worse, Dylan and his new wife. She did not know how she would ever manage such a contact. The few times she had gone out had been to see Amanda Charles, who was leaving to take up a position in Winston-Salem, where her fiance had a new job. With Amanda gone, there would be one less thread tying her to Harmony, one less reason to come home. So it was with a sigh of relief that she returned to Raleigh after the summer holidays, to the quiet college halls and her beloved research.
Jodie had spent her entire summer reading of other scientists’ findings, delving through the reports of scientific journals. The first day her father had come across her perusing a journal article on immunology, he had glanced at it over her shoulder, then stopped and squinted at the page before looking at her askance. She was growing into someone he neither knew nor understood.
She would have liked to tell him how important she felt this research might someday become. How it had even begun to fill the hollow points of her life, the ones caused by her loneliness and the loss of her mother and the loss of Bethan’s friendship. Maybe the loss of Dylan, too. Though time and distance had made her wonder if that could ever have worked. Particularly now when she realized how exciting and fulfilling her studies and research had become. Some days, when she was able to unravel a particularly knotty problem, she even felt if perhaps she had been able to begin work earlier, she just might have saved her mother’s life. If not, then perhaps someday she could help to save another young girl from having to face the distress she herself had endured.
“Well, would you look at what we have here.”
Jodie almost jumped from the lab stool. She saved her microscope from toppling over with one hand, then snapped, “What do you mean, sneaking up on somebody like that?”
Lowell Fulton approached her lab station, hands open and outstretched toward her. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t realize anybody else was here, is all.”
“Well, I am.” The sharp edge to her voice had been honed now by a full year of isolation. She swept back her hair and again bent over the microscope. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy.”
But Lowell didn’t respond to her dismissal. “Yeah, so am I. Guess we had the same idea, trying to get an early start on the year’s work.”
Jodie made a noncommittal noise, wondering what it would take to make him leave her alone. The first day back, and already the unpleasantness was resuming.
But he didn’t turn away, just stood watching her for a moment, making her hands unsure of themselves in spite of her resolve to not let his presence affect her.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking over the summer,” he said casually.
“That must have been a novel experience,” Jodie muttered.
Lowell acted as though he had not heard. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to be my lab partner this year.”
The surprise was enough to bring her head upright in an instant.
“What?”
“Just a thought.” His tone was easy, his face clear. “I watched the way you handled your work last year. You came up with some great results. Even old Dunlevy said so.”
“And so you thought you could hitch your wagon to mine, is that it?”
A cloud passed over his features, but Lowell shrugged and said, “That’s not it at all. I just thought you might be able to use my help.”
“Your help?” As though his work was better than hers? She could sc
arcely believe her ears. “Thanks, but no thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, as I’ve already said, I’m busy.”
Jodie turned back to her microscope. Lowell hesitated, started to say something, then turned and walked away. But she could not concentrate on the task at hand. Imagine the nerve, she thought, her chest tight with anger. All last year she had fought against his cold shoulder and the snide comments of the other fellows, and suddenly he thought he could just waltz over and pretend everything was fine. Jodie struggled to push the incident away. But her thoughts did not easily let go. Her memory seemed etched with the look on Lowell’s face when she had brushed aside his offer. He deserved nothing better, said one part of her mind. Was he really declaring a truce? another part asked. Why? Was it truly just for his own gain? She did not know him well, had no reason to try, nor any reason to make an attempt. Yet there was something about the whole exchange that did not sit well. Again she fought to concentrate on her lab work. But there remained the unsettling feeling that she had just made her first big mistake of the school year.
Another year had passed with a speed Bethan would not have believed possible. Twenty months after her brother’s wedding, another autumn arrived, and the countryside overflowed with sounds. They filled Bethan’s world and her heart to bursting. She had always remembered seasons and events first by sound, second by smell, and only third by sight. It was a fact she never talked about with anyone, for fear of ridicule. A summer night was an orchestra of wind and whispering pine and tinkling chimes and crickets. Conversations escaped through open windows, giving porch-sitters reassuring company. Dogs shouted excitedly in the hot distance. Summer was a crowded time for sounds. Winter, on the other hand, was the season of silence and muted tones— softness blanketed by snow, dripping icicles on frosted eaves, gentle tinkling of silvery wagon bells. Each season had its own sounds, its own smells. Together they blended to fill Bethan’s senses with Harmony and home. For this reason more than any other, Bethan could never think of living in a city. She would lose too much of her secure circle of sounds.