Lizzie (War Brides Book 1)

by Linda Ford

  Lizzie had kept her face turned downward, watching the swirling darkness of her tea. Mother Hughes didn’t come right out and say it, but she gave Lizzie the impression Caleb was getting what he deserved for ignoring some of their wishes. How could her mother-in-law be so wrong in her judgment of Caleb? And so unfeeling? Caleb tried his best to please them, going against their wishes only when he felt he had to. “He has to answer to his own conscience.” It was on the tip of her tongue to add that he had to face his own turmoil as well, but her mother-in-law sighed, a sound filled with sad resignation.

  “Unfortunately we can’t make our own rules. We have to live by the ones God has set.”

  “Of course.” Lizzie said no more, knowing their views were so widely separated they couldn’t even agree on Caleb’s motivation.

  Lizzie crawled into the cold, lonely bed and stared into the darkness. Tomorrow she would write home again. She’d been postponing it for fear she would give away her distress and cause worry for those at home; but if she didn’t write soon, they would worry anyway.

  And maybe she’d talk to Pearl. She’d been to visit several times, always cheered by the homey, loving atmosphere; but she was reluctant to add her concerns to the load Pearl already carried, even though she knew Pearl wouldn’t see it that way. Suddenly she ached to share the load and be assured everything would be fine.

  Toward morning, Caleb stomped into the house and fell on the bed, fully clothed. Lizzie waited until he snored softly before she pulled a blanket over him. In sleep, his face was young and untroubled, a marked contrast to the deep shadowed worry it carried during the day.

  “Caleb, my love.” She stroked his cheek, a gesture he would have pulled away from if he were awake. “What horrors fill your poor mind?” She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him sleep, finally admitting her fears. What if he was lost forever to her? A moan ripped through her. She stifled it for fear of waking Caleb.

  After awhile, she lay down beside him. Although she knew she wouldn’t sleep again, she coveted this time of peacefulness at his side.

  When he came from the bedroom a few hours later, she stood at the stove stirring porridge.

  “Good morning.” She smiled at the sleep lines on his cheek. “How are you?”

  He stretched. “Ready for another day.” He squinted at her. “How about you? Seems like days since I’ve talked to you.”

  A warm glow ignited somewhere behind her heart at his acknowledgment. “You’ve been busy.”

  He nodded. “Seems no end of things to fix.”

  “Are you all finished then?” Perhaps she’d misjudged the situation, and it was only the press of work that had driven him these last few days. “Breakfast is ready.”

  He perched on the edge of his chair, pausing to mutter a grace before he gulped down his food. “I’ve got to fix the fence.” His brow furrowed as he pushed from the table, grabbed his pail containing nails, pliers, hammer, and an assortment of screws, fencing staples and other items, and rushed from the house.

  Lizzie fell back, admitting this compulsion was not eagerness for work.

  Immediately after she’d cleaned up the breakfast things, she kneaded bread dough, according to instructions from Pearl, and set it to rise. Unable to put her mind to any other task, she pulled out her writing materials. But words would not come. At least not words to send back home. Instead she took a plain piece of paper and sketched a picture of Robbie as she remembered him sitting on the rock watching her play the flute. The picture made her smile. Robbie, despite the worries he carried about his father, always wore an impish grin she hadn’t noticed until she sketched his likeness. If Robbie could face life with humor and goodwill, could she do any less despite her worries over Caleb?

  Smiling now, she drew another picture showing her standing under the tree playing her flute for Robbie. She filled the bare branches with budding leaves, then stared at what she had drawn. She dashed to the window to study the trees. Spring had indeed arrived while she fretted about other things. Spring, a time of renewal and refreshment. She hummed as she began a letter to her family.

  A knock interrupted her.

  “Come in,” she called. Mother Hughes entered, carrying her offering of eggs.

  Lizzie glanced at the clock. Mother Hughes didn’t normally come until after lunch, but it was barely eleven o’clock. “You’re early today.” Lizzie slid the kettle to the hottest part of the stove.

  “I won’t stop for tea today,” the older woman said. “I have a busy day planned.” Her gaze rested on the pages on the table.

  Lizzie refrained the urge to scoop them out of her sight.

  “I’m going to wash windows.” Mother Hughes’s tone and glance around the house suggested Lizzie should occupy herself with something more productive than drawing pictures.

  Lizzie smiled. Her windows sparkled. Her house was tidy and clean. The bread dough punched up round as a fat tummy under the tea towel.

  Mother Hughes smiled. “I guess you don’t have as much to do as I. Spring work is upon us. There’ll be gardening. And Father is struggling trying to do it all himself.”

  Lizzie felt the sting of criticism directed at Caleb. With no notion of what spring work entailed, she didn’t know what Mother Hughes expected from her son.

  The older woman retreated outdoors. “I’ll leave you to your amusements.”

  Lizzie stared at the closed door. Somehow Mother Hughes had a way of making even the most innocent of remarks sound like censor. Shrugging, she finished her letter before she turned her attention to making the noon meal.

  “Your mother brought the eggs early today,” she said later as she served the meal.

  Caleb’s fork halted halfway to his mouth, and he lifted startled eyes to her. “Oh,” he muttered.

  “Yes, she said there was a lot of work to do. Time for spring work, she said.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What does she mean by spring work?” She guessed it didn’t mean simply washing the windows.

  “Ploughing, planting. Stuff like that.”

  He seemed detached about it.

  “I see,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, I assume.”

  He gulped the last of his food and pushed back from the table. “I’ve got to finish the fence.” He rushed outside.

  The house seemed to close in on her after he left. She grabbed her flute case and her letter and headed for the Duncan home.

  Violet sat on the step playing with a rag doll as Lizzie turned in at the gate. “Where’s your mother?” Lizzie asked.

  The child turned her steady gaze upon Lizzie. “In’na garden.” She eyed the flute case. “You gonna play for us?”

  Lizzie sat beside the girl. “Would you like that?” Over the past days the younger children had lost their shyness with her.

  Violet nodded, a smile creasing her face. “You want to see my daddy?”

  Lizzie hugged her. “I think I’ll go see your mother first. May I leave my flute here beside you?”

  Violet nodded.

  Lizzie went around the house where Pearl and Robbie worked with shovels, turning over the garden soil.

  Pearl pressed her hand into the small of her back and stretched when she saw Lizzie. “I am right glad to see you. Gives me an excuse for a break.”

  “Don’t let me keep you from your work,” Lizzie protested.

  “You’re doing me a favor.” Pearl handed her shovel to Robbie. “Put these away for now.”

  After Robbie left, Pearl turned to study Lizzie’s face with an intensity that made Lizzie blink.

  “Now don’t you go minding my nosiness,” Pearl said. “But I’m wanting to know you’re not holding onto troubles that would be best shared with a friend.” When Lizzie didn’t answer, unsure what to say, Pearl continued. “I see that man of yours every day, and I see darkness behind his eyes. There’s something deep and hard troubling that man.”

  Lizzie nodded. “It frightens me.”

  Pearl
grabbed her hand. “You telling me you’re afraid of Caleb?”

  Lizzie hadn’t thought of it that way. “I don’t think so, though sometimes he gets very angry. No. I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for him. Maybe—” The words were too terrible to say.

  Pearl nodded. “You think maybe he’s gone too far into his nightmares to come back?”

  Lizzie hung her head. “It isn’t as if he’s gone out of his head or anything. Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “You know what you see even if you pretend to yourself you don’t.” She squeezed Lizzie’s hands, and Lizzie clung to her with a desperation that made her cheeks grow warm. But she couldn’t help herself. Pearl had put Lizzie’s fears right out in the open where she could no longer pretend they didn’t exist. “Girl, I know what it’s like. I faced my own fears and fought my battle with self-pity and resentment. And you know what I found?” Lizzie shook her head. “It’s all a grand waste of time. Best to take what life hands you and make the best of it.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied Lizzie. “Unless you got a mind to walk away from it all.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “I love Caleb. For better or worse.”

  “Good. My sentiments exactly. Besides, I’m that grateful to have my Frankie for however long the good Lord sees fit to leave him. I want the children to get to know him again. I want them to have good memories of him.”

  “Does Frankie—?” She broke off, embarrassed at what she’d been about to ask.

  “Does he what?” Pearl’s voice was gentle, inviting her to ask what she wanted.

  “Does he have nightmares?”

  “My, yes. He says he has only to close his eyes to see it all again. Like it was branded to the inside of his head. He cries out. Sudden loud noises set his nerves twitching.”

  Lizzie nodded. “The nightmares are the worst.” She studied Pearl, wondering if she dared ask the rest.

  “Something else is troubling you, Child. What is it?”

  “Does Frankie let you touch him? Seems Caleb doesn’t even know me sometimes.”

  Pearl’s face crinkled into kindly lines. “Poor Caleb. Poor Lizzie. I’m thinking Caleb suffers more than Frankie.”

  “How can that be? Frankie—his feet, his lungs.” She shook her head.

  “Don’t you see? Poor Caleb came back whole and well. The only one. Can you imagine the load of guilt that poor man carries?”

  Lizzie pressed her lips together, her insides quaking with pain for Caleb’s suffering. “But what can I do?” she whispered.

  “Girl, I wish I had the answers. Not only for you but for myself. All I can tell you, Lizzie, Girl, is love your man and pray to God for a miracle.”

  Lizzie nodded.

  “Now come along. Frankie will have heard your voice. He’ll accuse me of keeping you for myself.” Pearl laughed. “He does like your music.”

  “Has Caleb been today?”

  “Not yet, but he’s not one to often miss a day.”

  She followed Pearl indoors, Violet at her side, carrying the flute proudly. Junior sprawled on the floor beside his father’s bed, coloring a picture. He grinned at Lizzie as she entered.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to decide to visit me,” Frankie said. “I thought Pearl was going to hog you to herself.”

  Pearl rolled her eyes. “What did I tell you?”

  Lizzie laughed. “Exactly that.”

  Frankie gave his wife an adoring look. “She reads me like a page, doesn’t she?” He grabbed Pearl’s hand and pulled her to him. “And I love it.” He lifted his face and kissed her.

  Pearl’s cheeks turned pink. “Go away with you. What will Lizzie think?”

  “Probably that you’re a very lucky woman to have the likes of me begging for a kiss.” For a moment his expression turned bleak; then he brightened. “I see you brought your flute.”

  “Would I dare come without it?” She grinned at them all.

  “I hope not,” Frankie said.

  “What will it be first? Talk or music?”

  “Sit and talk,” Frankie said. “Tell me what that man of yours is up to. Seems he’s always in a rush to finish some job or other. Barely sits down long enough to visit.”

  Lizzie and Pearl exchanged looks.

  Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “What are you two not saying?”

  Pearl nodded at Lizzie. “You tell him while Violet and Junior help me make tea. Come along, you two.”

  Junior scrambled after his mother, but Violet hesitated.

  “We’ll come back for the music.” Pearl shepherded them out of the room.

  Frankie watched her with sharp interest. “Is something wrong with Caleb?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking.” She shrugged. “It’s hard to put into words but he—well, he seems driven by something inside him.”

  “I guessed that.”

  “He can hardly sleep. He wanders around half the night and falls into bed just before dawn. And he won’t stop fixing things.”

  Frankie chuckled. “I don’t mean to laugh, but somehow I can picture Caleb with a hammer and screwdriver ferreting out every loose nail and screw on the farm.”

  “It’s worse than that. Now he’s taken to nailing slats on the barbwire fence around the farm.”

  Frankie shrugged. “Maybe pounding nails will drive the torment from him.” He stared at the ceiling. “We saw a lot of horrible things.” He closed his eyes. “Things too horrible even to talk about.”

  She nodded. That much she understood; but now that it was over, why couldn’t he put it behind him? Why wasn’t she enough to make him forget? Why wasn’t her love enough?

  Frankie continued. “Nighttime is the worst. You can’t get away from your thoughts.” He turned wide, desperate eyes on her. “Give him time. Let him work it out. He’ll get better. I know he will.”

  She blinked back tears, pressing her lips together. The agony in Frankie’s voice did nothing to encourage her.

  The next day, Lizzie found a shovel, dug a border around the house, and planted flower seeds she’d brought from the garden at home. On her hands and knees pressing seeds into place, she didn’t hear Mother Hughes’s approach.

  “So you’ve decided to plant a garden.”

  Lizzie sat back on her heels. “I brought seeds from the flowers at home.”

  “Flowers? You’d be better to spend your time growing something useful.”

  Lizzie refused to let her mother-in-law’s words ruffle her. “I plan on having a vegetable garden, too, but flowers will make the place look nice.” She brushed off her skirt as she stood. “Don’t you like flowers?”

  Mother Hughes sniffed. “I’ve never had time for such nonsense.”

  Lizzie took the basket of eggs the older woman held toward her. “Why, isn’t that a shame?”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Only that God has filled the earth with beauty and goodness. We should allow ourselves time to enjoy it.”

  “Humph.” Mother Hughes turned away. “Some of us can ill afford the luxury. God has given us work to occupy ourselves with.”

  Lizzie held her tongue as her mother-in-law marched away.

  She pressed the last of the seeds into place, then walked to the side of the house to the spot she had chosen for the vegetable garden. She stuck the shovel into the ground and lifted the sod. It was far harder than she’d imagined. How would she plant a garden here? Perhaps Caleb had a better idea. She went in search of him. He wasn’t hard to find. She simply followed the sound of pounding until she found him down the road nailing slats to the barbwire fence. The slatted fence marched along the boundary past the barn and turned the corner. If he kept it up, the farm would be surrounded like a fortress.

  She called out to him.

  He straightened, his hammer poised to drive in another nail. He had unbuttoned his shirt and slipped his arms out so the garment hung from his belt like a flag.

  “I’d like to put in a vegetable garden, but ther
e’s only sod by the house. Is there someplace else?” She stood close enough to see the sheen of sweat on his skin and to observe how rail thin he was. She could smell the salty scent of his sweat. How she longed to hold him and comfort him as one comforts a child. If only he would let her. Surely it would heal his nightmares. She reached out a hand and pressed it to his chest.

  He quivered but did not draw back.

  “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

  “I’m right here.” His voice thickened.

  “That’s the trouble,” she murmured. “You’re here.” She nodded toward the fence. “I want you here.” She pressed her other hand to her chest.

  He dropped the hammer and stepped closer, trapping her hands between them. “Like this?”

  She lifted her face and met his eyes steadily. “This is a good start.”

  He searched her eyes as if looking for something illusive. She held his gaze, letting him see deep into her heart, praying he would find his answer and satisfy his need.

  He grasped her chin and slowly lowered his head.

  She stretched to meet his kiss.

  He crushed her to his chest, his kiss deepening until she floated in a swell of emotion. He broke away, pressed her head to his shoulder, and moaned. “I don’t deserve you.”

  She laughed, although she felt him pulling back into himself. “You’re stuck with me whether or not you deserve it.”

  “Come on.” He took her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She followed willingly. He took her to the house. “Wait here. I have to get something.” He ducked inside, returning with a large, bulky package. “Something for Frankie,” he said.

  Hand in hand, they walked toward the Duncan home.

  7

  In Frankie’s bedroom, Caleb handed over the parcel.

  “What is it?” Frankie asked.

  “Open it and see. It’s something you’ve wanted a long time.”

  Frankie studied him a moment longer.