A Patchwork Family

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Mercy sighed. Why did it sound as if she’d just given him the keys to this little kingdom?

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Therefore I tell you, Don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or drink,” Malloy paraphrased. “Nor about your body, what you’ll wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

  He looked up from the well-thumbed Bible to see if Miss Vanderbilt would protest his simplification of these verses. The King James version made things more complicated than they needed to be—which was why his mother had taught him to look beyond its archaic phrasing for the meat of each message.

  Aunt Agatha’s little grin said she knew what he was doing by choosing this passage. Billy was resting his head on his elbow to listen—which meant the headmistress was more concerned about Mercy getting his point than about correcting the boy’s table manners. Christine sat in the rocking chair from the bedroom, with both little girls nestled against her.

  But Mercy . . . the poor woman looked too preoccupied to even hear his voice. She was staring at her hands, apparently lost in her own scary little world. Mike wanted to stroke the loose hair back from her face, but he’d already made too many moves today. He’d said too many things that made her feel like a cornered cat.

  He found his place again.

  “Behold the birds of the air, they don’t sow or reap; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?” He rephrased the familiar passage from memory, hoping his sincerity would convince her. “And why do you worry about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they don’t toil or spin, but even Solomon in all his glory wasn’t arrayed like one of these.”

  Asa was nodding, smiling at the angelic child who’d reminded him of these verses earlier.

  “So, if God clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is cast into the fire, won’t He clothe you, too—O ye of little faith?” he went on tenderly. “So don’t worry, saying What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or How shall we be clothed? But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you. Don’t worry about tomorrow.”

  Mike sighed. Mercy wouldn’t look at him.

  He closed the Bible, contemplating the magnificent quilt she’d made to celebrate this family and Judd’s love. He and Billy had put up a pole to hang it above the sideboard, where guests could marvel over it. Mercy had sewn him into her patchwork picture, too, yet she still hadn’t taken him into her heart.

  What else could he do to convince her of his love?

  Looking around the room in its evening shadows, where Asa and the two Bristol children sat—and where Lily, their most recent refugee, now watched him from Christine’s lap—Malloy thought of one more thing.

  “It means more than I can say, that you’ve included me in this special day for Solace, and in your daily lives,” he said quietly. “From the first time I walked into this room, where the table was spread to welcome every wayfaring stranger, I knew the Monroes believed in Christ’s commandment, ‘Feed my sheep.’ I had no idea then that I, too, would be gathered into this fold.”

  Mike gazed sadly at Mercy, knowing better than to proclaim himself again. He would have to follow the Bible’s advice himself, and not worry about his tomorrows with her.

  “I’ll be here whenever any of you needs me. Right now, though, I’m going to hit the hay,” he said quietly. “We’ll be leaving early so you ladies can make your train. Good night, now.”

  “Good night, Michael,” Agatha replied with a sweet smile. “Thank you for selecting such an appropriate devotional passage, and for making it more understandable.”

  “Well—it’s time to put these babies to bed so I can pack,” Christine said quietly. She rose from the rocking chair without rousing the baby on either shoulder, and went behind the calico curtain.

  “We should finish the horse chores and get our shut-eye as well, Mister Billy.” Asa stood up slowly. He looked stiff from sitting on the bench, but he didn’t grouse about sleeping out in the barn.

  “It was kind of you gentlemen to give up your room for me,” Aunt Agatha remarked. “I hope you’ll continue to sleep upstairs after we leave, Asa. I like knowing someone’s here with Mercy after dark. This house gets very quiet at night.”

  Mercy could feel it in the way her aunt rose from the table with a restrained grace, to stand before the quilt that hung above the sideboard: Agatha Vanderbilt was about to impart her wisdom, whether it was appreciated or not.

  “This is the most wonderful, original piece I’ve ever seen, Mercedes,” she murmured, touching the people enfolded in Judd’s strong, earth-colored hands. “You’ll be adding a basket with a pink bow, I imagine. There’s more to that story, but we might not know those details for years. I hope you’ll accept Miss Lily for who she is, without worrying over who dropped her here and why.”

  Aunt Agatha shifted sideways, to look more closely at the Wells Fargo wagon approaching from the right-hand corner.

  “And we also have the mystery of Mike Malloy, don’t we, dear? You’ve stitched him into this patchwork of your life, and he’s all but stood on his head naked to prove his devotion to you.” She turned, gazing directly at her niece. “So what’s holding you back? Until today, I thought you intended to marry him.”

  After hours of gritting her teeth, Mercy released the rage she’d been holding in. It sounded a lot like the wind that whipped this little house in the winter, chilling all in its path. “That woman was a—a soiled dove, Aunt Agatha!”

  “Was she?”

  Her tone sounded innocent, but that single raised eyebrow suggested she knew the truth. “Though I don’t condone that business, I believe most women fall into it because their other choices have run out—or their men have. Maybe I’m going soft in my advancing years, but I wonder if we’re so busy scowling at the soil, we don’t see the dove beneath it.”

  Mercy gripped the edge of the table. How could her aunt play word games at a time like this? “Let’s get to the real question, then! What if that boy is Michael’s son?”

  “What if he is?”

  The woman who’d always been such a stickler for decency—living life without need for repentance—sat down beside her again. Her wry smile only exasperated Mercy more.

  “Mercedes, let’s discuss a very important . . . point. If a man’s got lead in his pencil, he’s going to write to somebody. It’s the way males are made,” she said with an utterly straight face. “Again, I’m not condoning those who frequent the brothels. But we should consider some circumstances before we accuse Michael Malloy of hiding a very important detail—or just plain lying about it.

  “Joel looks to be two or three, which means he was probably born before either Michael or Lucinda Greene came to town. Say, around Sixty-six or Sixty-seven.”

  Protesting this woman’s long-winded logic would do no good, so Mercy played along. “All right. Back then, Abilene was only a few huts and log cabins.”

  Aunt Agatha nodded. “Do you know what Michael was doing before he drove stagecoaches? Before you met him?”

  “Well . . . no. I had Judd then, so it really didn’t matter.”

  “Then don’t be fooled by appearances,” she shot back. “Maybe that poor boy calls every man he sees his papa, and we just happened by at the right time. Maybe his father died or ran off before—”

  “But he knew Michael! And so did that—woman!”

  “And so did nearly every person we passed on the street,” her aunt insisted. “Mr. Malloy is not only a skilled driver and carpenter and farmer, he’s a progressive thinker who’s involved in his community, as well.”

  She reached for Mercy’s hand. “So again, until you know the rest of this story, don’t let your imagination run away with you—as mine did when I read Billy’s letter months ago. I assumed the worst, and when I saw how—intimate you were with this new man, it only confirmed my false beliefs.”

  Mercy�
��s mouth clapped shut. Where had this less-critical version of the academy’s formidable headmistress come from? “So why are you defending Michael now? Why are you telling me all this?”

  The white-haired woman, still ramrod straight, glanced away as though composing thoughts she’d never expressed before. “I let a man get away once, Mercedes. Because of my own naive notions about how he—and his love—had to be perfect before I could marry him.”

  Now, here was something she’d never heard! Mercy had always believed that Agatha Vanderbilt was far too independent to consider marriage. “What happened? Was he after the family fortune?”

  “Oh, he got some of that anyway,” she replied with a chuckle. “Because after five years of courting me, and five years of my expecting him to prove himself at every turn, he . . . Robert married your mother instead.”

  Aunt Agatha’s face took on a faraway sadness Mercedes had never seen there. Indeed, she’d never believed that this pillar of decorum and morality ever needed regret.

  “It took me several years to forgive my little sister. I accused her of seeing him behind my back, and other duplicitous activities which happened only in my imagination,” she went on with a sigh. “I was consumed by my envy over Violet’s happiness, and the family she delighted in.

  “But it was my own fault. While he was courting me, Robert turned himself inside out trying to please me, until he realized he would never measure up. He saw that I would never be satisfied, or love him for the fine man he was.”

  Mercy considered this. She refused to believe that the intrepid Agatha Vanderbilt had lived her life in vain—or perceived it that way now. “But think of how many girls you’ve guided over the years. If you’d married instead of establishing the academy—”

  “I might’ve had a fine daughter like you, Mercedes.”

  The words, spoken so eloquently, echoed in the silence. Like the ticking of the mantel clock, they marked the minutes passing away; they warned of a life wasted on false assumptions and unmet desires.

  “If you want the truth about Michael’s situation, you’ll have to ask him,” her aunt said quietly. “You’ll have to watch his face, and listen to his replies, and judge their validity for yourself. No more second-guessing.”

  Aunt Agatha rose from the table, one last matter on her mind. “As you consider your questions about Lucinda Greene and Joel,” she went on, “you might remember that Christ spent His time with harlots and tax collectors, and that He ate with traitors and forgave a thief on the cross beside Him. Imperfect human beings, all of them—in direct conflict with His message. But He accepted them. He forgave.

  “And He loved children most of all,” Aunt Agatha added with a wistful smile. “I was moved nearly to tears today when Michael opened his arms and Joel leapt into them. We witnessed unconditional love, Mercedes—from a man who didn’t care what we might think of him! And who receives enough of that?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Mercy wondered, just before dawn, if Aunt Agatha recalled her remark about how quiet the house was: Solace was howling for her breakfast, and when Lily awoke in a strange place—sharing a cradle with a dark-haired stranger, because there was nowhere else for her to sleep—she wailed as though the devil himself were chasing her.

  And of course all this racket rose through that open grating into the bedrooms upstairs.

  With her daughter at her breast, Mercy slipped her arm beneath Lily, but Sunday’s cherub had become Monday’s screaming demon. The little blonde’s face contorted with rage as she squirmed to avoid Mercy’s touch. Solace, in turn, became agitated by this newcomer’s squalling and began to cry again.

  How on earth had Elizabeth Barstow managed? If her neighbor had borne a child nearly every year since they’d come to Kansas, surely she could handle these two girls. But when she maneuvered her arm beneath Lily and lifted the child onto her lap, the little fiend kicked Solace with both feet.

  “Enough of that, young lady!”

  Mercy clutched the child against her. No stranger’s baby was going to hurt her little girl. She might just squeeze Lily into submission, burying her crimson face in the folds of her nightgown until this insane wailing stopped.

  And what if she quits breathing?

  Mercy released the little girl as though she had bitten her. Her lack of experience with babies, her recent loss of sleep with Solace, and her doubts about Michael were driving her to dangerous depths, after only one day. What would she be like after Christine and Aunt Agatha left? When Billy and Asa were outside working?

  Lily’s frightened whimpers drove her own doubts home. Maybe God had denied her Judd’s children for good reason. Maybe she was unfit to be a mother. Maybe she should beg Christine to stay, after all.

  Yet moments later when Christine came in, beautifully dressed in her traveling suit of periwinkle blue, Mercy couldn’t deny this young woman the chance to graduate and pursue her promising future.

  Lily immediately quieted in Christine’s embrace.

  “How do you do that?” Mercy murmured.

  The young woman smiled, swaying with the baby before she answered. “I’m not sure,” she confessed. “At the orphanage, it helps when I concentrate on one child at a time. Every girl wants to believe she’s a queen—if only for a few moments. Some of us never outgrow that, you know.”

  Christine’s wry expression made Mercy laugh, which had a relaxing effect on Solace. Her baby began feeding again, closing her little eyes so those long, dark lashes brushed the tops of her velvet cheeks.

  It was a sight Mercy never tired of, and it affirmed Christine’s wisdom: one child at a time. One task at a time. One day at a time.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  Glancing up at that fresh, eager face, alight with eyes of shimmering green, Mercy was tempted to give in. It was Aunt Agatha’s purposeful footsteps that made her sit straighter, with firmer resolve.

  “Thank you so much for asking, Christine—and for your help since you’ve been here,” she added as the bedroom curtain was drawn back. “You have your studies—your upcoming apprenticeship—and I have Billy and Asa. The three of us have weathered storms much worse than these little girls can stir up.”

  “Don’t forget how badly Michael wants to help you, too,” her aunt reminded her. She kissed Mercy’s cheek and stroked the down on Solace’s head. “Right now, however, he and Billy are loading our trunks so we can catch our train. We’ll come back this summer, dear—if you’d like us to.”

  “Oh, yes, please do!”

  Why did she feel the weight of this woman’s leaving? Was it because her mother hadn’t been here for Solace’s birth? Or because Aunt Agatha had become more of a mainstay than she’d ever imagined possible? While this white-haired headmistress had seemed unspeakably old and set in her ways when Mercy was Christine’s age, Agatha Vanderbilt had acquired a youthful sense of adventure and confidence over the years.

  Or was she the one who’d changed? Mostly because of the unconditional love this woman had lavished upon her when she’d needed it most.

  Mercy walked outside with them, delighted by the spring sunrise. A warm breeze stirred her hair as she shifted Solace to her shoulder. Her eyes followed Michael Malloy’s lithe body as he hefted the last of the luggage into the carriage boot. He felt her gaze and returned it, pausing to let the moment have its full due—as though he, too, needed her complete attention.

  Mercy’s heart thudded as she said her good-byes. Billy took Lily from his sister’s arms as though it were the natural thing for a boy of thirteen to do, while Asa checked the horses’ hitchings. Michael Malloy closed the carriage door, ready to spring into the driver’s seat—until he looked her way again.

  He swiftly covered the distance between them, to catch her up in a kiss. One arm held her firmly against him while his other hand cradled Solace’s little head, and Mercy felt a surge of sublime happiness.

  He showed his affection so freely—in front of everyone—w
ithout reservation or apology. Surely this man had a clear conscience and a heart set only on her! As his lips lingered on hers, Mercy saw brief visions of how this man had changed her life by bringing the Bristol children here, and burying Judd and Nathaniel, and birthing Solace, and building a home intended for them all.

  Feed my sheep, he’d said. And Michael Malloy was the embodiment of that commandment. Yet when his hazel eyes read her unspoken question, they dimmed with regret.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he murmured. “Your eyes are the windows of your soul, Mercy Monroe, and I see a festering wound I never meant to inflict. Be ready to talk about it when I return. Be ready to say yes or no.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Malloy clucked to the horses. Then he turned to look at the woman who’d confounded him at every turn.

  First she’d been married to a man who made her blissfully happy, even though she worked like a slave to support his dreams. Then, when Judd died, she’d let him patch her life back together and allowed him to help deliver and baptize her child. She had worked him into the patchwork of her daily life—not to mention that magnificent quilt hanging on her wall.

  He’d professed his love. He’d given up his job and his freewheeling ways. He’d built her a new home. He’d bared his soul. He’d even won the support of her unflappable Aunt Agatha.

  Yet Mercy resisted him.

  Everything about her felt like a yes, but her troubled brown eyes were telling him no. There she stood beside Billy and Lily, holding Solace, watching him drive away. Acting like she didn’t need his help, while he wondered how long it’d be before those two babies raised the roof with their wailing again. He’d seen Lily as a stroke of luck at first, a final straw to convince her she needed a man again.

  But just as Easter lilies made a lot of people sneeze, this temperamental little flower turned Mercy watery-eyed for a whole different reason. Driving her away from him by demanding constant attention.