by Naomi Musch
September 1919
Marilla moved down the garden row and picked another ear of corn, husked it, and dropped it into her bushel basket. She turned and selected another plump cob, repeating the process. A far off sound gave her pause. What on earth? She moved down the row of stalks and yanked off another dry-tipped ear. The strange jangling called to her again. It's the telephone!
She dropped the unhusked ear into her basket and lifted her dress to give her legs room to run. She scurried down the garden row toward the house, ran up the steps, and burst through the new front door. The ring sounded loud and clear now. She hurried down the entry hall, where the kitchen opened up at the back, and reached for the telephone, sitting on a makeshift worktable among the sawdust. She plucked up the receiver and held it to her ear the way she'd seen Jacob do in the store. She lifted the part with the horn in her hand and raised it to her mouth.
"H—Hello?"
A voice crackled over the other end. "Rilla? That you?"
"Hello? Lang?"
"Yeah, it's Lang. Can you hear me okay?"
"Yes! Yes, I can hear you."
"Woo-hoo!"
Marilla laughed. "I can't believe we're talking over a wire."
"It's wonderful."
"Where are you?"
"I'm up the road at the Strom's farm. I wanted to see if it worked. I wanted you to be the first one to answer it."
She bit her lip at a surge of unexpected happiness.
He still talked loudly, clearly worried she wouldn't hear him, but his voice held a gentleness. "I wanted to ask you if you'd take that walk with me tonight."
She nodded. A burn crept into her eyes.
"Rilla? Are you still there?"
"Yes. I'm here."
"What do you say?"
"All right. We can walk."
"And we'll talk."
She nodded again and then remembered. "Yes. We'll talk."
"All right. Goodbye."
"Bye." She hung the receiver on the hook and set the phone down. Her heart bubbled with something between pain and joy. She'd never known Lang like this. Not toward her.
Not since the beginning when it hadn't been real. She remembered their first walk together, the night he had asked to be her beau... The night he'd first kissed her. She touched her fingers to her lips now, just like she did then, wondering if he had felt anything back then the way she did. She had waited so long for him to notice her. Finally, it seemed, he had. That night had meant everything to her back then.
What about now? Had he noticed her at last?
Oh, Lang.
She left the new house and went back to the unfinished row of corn. Plunking another husked cob into the basket, she thought more of that first time. They'd talked then, too. She hadn't told him how she'd dreamed of being with him. Instead, she had talked about the farm, and how one day it would belong to her. Now she wondered if that was the real reason he had pursued her then—for the farm—something important he could one day call his own.
If only she had the courage to ask him how he felt. Still, it would break her heart again if he denied her or if he lied. Somewhere along the way in the past few weeks, she realized she hadn't given up loving him. Not really. Though she had tried by turning to Jacob, her heart was still flesh, and it hadn't let go. Yet she had learned not to let Lang hurt her again, hadn't she?
How do I know if he really loves me? He used to say the words whenever I did. He didn't mean them then. What if that's not changed? God...what if...that's not changed?
~~~~~
Lang lowered the last can of milk into the stone tank to cool and rinsed the equipment. Tomorrow morning, he would heft some of the chilled cream to the house for Mrs. Eckert's churn. It was getting to be too much for her to handle the job all alone. If they expanded the herd, he intended to begin selling almost all their milk to the dairy. Lang thought about the changes and growth he'd make to the farm in the years to come. He had spoken to Rilla's father about his ideas, and Albert had smiled and patted him on the back, saying nothing would make him prouder than to see the things Lang and Rilla would do for the place. Finishing the last of the cleanup, he wiped his hands dry on a towel in the milk house and hurried out the door, closing it up tight. He was anxious to get home to Rilla and take that walk she'd agreed to go on.
The September evening air had turned brisk, but not too chilly for the children if they bundled them up. The sun had almost set, and by the time he turned into their driveway, the first stars dotted the lavender sky. He pulled the baby buggy from the shed that had been both Rilla's and Delia's when they were infants and wheeled it up to the door of the house. Lang slipped inside.
Rilla was drinking tea and rocking Bertie, who fought sleep. Dora was in her pajamas in her crib, tucked in and playing with her dolly. They all looked up at Lang.
"I brought the buggy up for the kids. Are you ready to take our walk?"
Rilla looked at Bertie. "I don't think so. The children are ready for bed."
"That's all right. They'll fall asleep in the buggy."
She shook her head. "I—"
"Come on, Rilla. You said you would."
She sighed and glanced again at the children. "All right." Her tone sounded resigned. All the warmth he'd heard over the phone today had gone out of her. Maybe she had just had a rough afternoon. "I kept your supper on the stove."
"I'll eat later." He lifted Dora out of the crib and wrapped her in a blanket while Rilla did the same with Bertie and tugged a knit hat over his ears. Lang grabbed an extra blanket for the buggy and their flashlight and guided his little family outdoors. Crickets chirped in the dark grass alongside the cabin as they settled the children in.
"Ride?" Dora asked.
"Yes, honey. We're going for a ride in the buggy." Lang tucked the blankets tight. "Here, you carry the flashlight, and I'll push." He handed Rilla the device, but as their eyes adjusted to the brightness of the moonlight, they barely needed it. Lang took charge of the buggy, and they strolled out onto the dark lane. "It's a nice night to walk."
"Mm-hm."
"Been a long time since we did this. Do you remember?"
"I remember."
He paused to pull her arm through his. "Hang on to me so you don't trip in a hole." Her grip was loose, but he hoped she'd let herself enjoy holding onto him as much as he enjoyed her closeness. A swift, silent movement to the left startled them, like a ghost passing in the night.
Her hand tightened on his arm. "What was that?"
"An owl. They're so quiet. Kings of the night, I call them."
"Or queens."
"Could be." His tone was light. He squeezed her arm with his, drawing her closer. Her arm relaxed against him. "Your mother told me the two of you are going to make applesauce next week."
"It's time, I suppose. The apples are starting to fall."
"Mm... I love the smell of applesauce steaming on the stove. You and your mother sure are good at that kind of thing. My mother used to make a few pickles, but she never had the resources to put up the things like we have on the farm. Let me tell you, there's a big difference between homemade and store bought. I'd sure like to bring her here someday."
"Would you?"
He nodded, as the buggy hit a small rock and bounced over it. "Careful. Yes, I sure would. I got a letter from her last week."
"You did? You never said."
"She mentioned something interesting. I wasn't sure what you'd think of it." He looked her way, but she watched the dark road ahead. "She mentioned my brother Roland coming to stay with us. He's finished his schooling, and she'd like him to learn something new. When I went to see them, he expressed a desire to come out to the Midwest."
Rilla didn't answer for a while, so he let it lie. Maybe she felt like having one of his relations come was an invasion into their privacy. They didn't have much room for company, as having Archie stay with them had proved. Now they had even less space with the children growing, but before long Lang would have
them moved into the new house.
"I suppose there'll be room in the house once it's ready for us. Or maybe your brother could stay in the cabin, like you mentioned before–using it as a guest house, I mean," she answered at last.
His heart picked up a couple wild beats. "Then you don't mind?"
She shook her head. "I don't mind."
Lang let out a sigh he hadn't even realized he had kept pent up. "All right. I'll do that." The sand churned beneath his shoes, and the children lay silent in the buggy. They must have both fallen asleep. Lang fell silent as well. He was running out of small talk, and Rilla didn't seem inclined to bring up any on her own.
"Why didn't you write back?" she asked suddenly, her voice soft.
"What?"
"When you were over there. In France. When I wrote to you. Especially after Emmett died. Why didn't you write back?"
He shrugged and held her arm a little tighter, a little fearful she might pull away at any second, and this whole conversation would go sour. "I don't know. I just couldn't, I guess."
"Because of Delia. You don't have to make excuses as far as that goes," she added. "I've come to terms with it. But couldn't you have at least...acknowledged what happened?"
His heart felt like an anvil being stricken again and again. "Rilla, there are things we need to say, but I don't know how to begin. I'll start with this. I was wrong. Wrong for my behavior, like I told you before, but wrong, also, for refusing to deal with what I'd done to our lives. I know I never should have married you when I did."
She harrumphed in a tone both edgy and sharp, full of bitterness.
"I'm not saying I shouldn't have married you at all."
She halted dead in the road. Cars almost never came that way unless they belonged to one of their own relatives or Theo's. She pulled her arm free. "But you did marry me because you wanted two things. You wanted Delia, and you wanted the farm. You couldn't have the first thing so you settled for the second, and that meant taking me into the bargain."
He made out her eyes in the moonlight, like beams of fire. "Rilla—" He reached for her, but she shook away his touch.
She stepped back, her words firing like flares in the darkness. "You say you would have still married me? When? After the war? After you'd gotten tired of waiting for Delia to leave Theo? After she got pregnant and had Theo's child? When?"
"Rilla...no." Lang reached out and grabbed her arms. She curled them against her body, but he held them. She stiffened. "I meant I just wouldn't have done it as hastily as I did. I would have married you when I realized—and I would have realized—that you were the one for me, the one I wanted, the only one I needed, the most perfect woman in the world. My world."
He picked up her chin. She resisted, but raised her eyes to his. Were they glassy because of the moonlight, or was she crying? "Rilla...it's not the farm. The farm is nothing to me without you. There's no one for me but you. I choose you."
Doubtful tears trickled down her face.
Every shred of him ached for her, and he pulled her against his chest. The feel of her in his arms, so long absent, overwhelmed him, made his own eyes burn. She shuddered, releasing a sob. "Shh..."
She shook her head and whispered. "But you don't really love me."
Lang smoothed back her hair, felt the dampness on it from her cheek. He grasped her face between his hands with a caress that couldn't express fully what he felt. "Rilla, I do love you. I love you more than...more than anything."
Tears welled bigger in her eyes. She shook her head, unconvinced, but he held on.
"I'm so sorry, baby. I wish I'd written to you. Only to you. I wish I'd never been so stupid, so arrogant, so...stupid," he repeated. "Please forgive me. I only want you, Rilla. I only love you... Just you."
Her brow crinkled, and she sniffled, so he pulled her to him again. This time she raised her arms around him as she cried. "I—I don't know how to feel. This isn't what I expected."
He nodded. How could she believe? He had dashed her hopes too many times. "I understand. Come on."
They walked a little further, but she didn't speak. He had poured out his heart. What more could he say? Delia and Theo's driveway lay in the distance. "Let's turn around." He swung the baby buggy, and they turned, heading back toward home. He wasn't sure what he had hoped for in their walk tonight. Tenderness? Forgiveness? For her to fall into his arms and tell him she still loved him too? Yeah, that's what I wanted, but I got just what I deserved. Even more than I deserved.
He let out a long, slow breath as they moved down the sandy stretch of lane past the farm, where he watched her gaze down the driveway into the night. He reached for her hand, and she let him hold it.
At least he had been able to tell her. Whether she accepted it or not, she had heard him say in words how much he loved her.
Chapter Forty
Rilla stared at the dark ceiling, unable to sleep. Lang had seemed so sincere. In fact, he had never said those words in that way before, not even right after they were married. Looking back now, she realized every time he had ever said them, they'd always been rote, always a basic response meant only to satisfy her. But tonight...tonight was different. The look on his face, even in the shadows of night, was like nothing she had seen on him before.
He loves me. Dare she believe it? With every fiber of longing in her, she wanted to.
Delia had said it was so, but only now could Rilla accept it as the truth. She turned her head to stare at his slumbering profile in the dim light. Would it have killed her to say it too?
New tears wetted her eyes.
Pride.
Pride, thick and hard as cement, formed a shell around her. She never would have dreamed she might be so filled with it. Her innocence had turned to brittleness.
Take it away, God. Take away my pride, she asked, even while the thought of giving way to vulnerability scared her to death. Hadn't vulnerability caused almost all her heartache in the past, when she had laid herself open to be run over by Lang's charm and perfidy?
He's changed.
She wiped her tears on the blanket and looked at him again.
He's a different man than he was before.
What made him that way? Was it the war? Was it accepting that he would not win Delia?
The way he'd held her tonight out there on the lane—the heat of his body pressing her to him, the callouses on his hands against her skin, the breath of his promises, and the love in his eyes mere inches from hers—all came rushing back into her thoughts. She wanted to move closer to him now. She wanted to wrap her arm over him and hold him too, but Bertie and pride lay between them.
She overslept the next morning, but she awakened to find that Bertie was gone along with Lang. Confusion swam through her head as she swung her legs out of bed and scrambled for her undergarments, dress, and stockings. Their voices came from the other room, Lang's and Dora's, and the smell of fried eggs and ham wafted into the bedroom while she wound up her hair.
She took a breath and stepped out of the room, forgetting her shoes. "I'm sorry I overslept. Your breakfast... Oh! The milking!"
"I've gone and come back. Fancy too."
"You did?" She shifted from one foot to another, unsure what she should be doing. "My shoes." She went back into the bedroom and buttoned on her shoes, pausing long enough to wash her face in the basin. When she returned, she felt a little more ready for whatever lay ahead.
Lang had dished up her plate and set it on the table. "Come and eat with us."
"All right."
"Dora helped me with breakfast, didn't you?"
"Help Daddy." Dora nodded and grasped her cup of milk two-handed. Bertie banged a spoon on his high chair where he sat like a big boy, tied in place with a dishtowel.
"Thank you." She took a bite of egg as Lang set a cup of coffee before her.
"You must have needed the rest. I'm glad you got to sleep, and that the children let you. Last night's walk in the air must have helped them sleep in this mor
ning too." He gave her a soft smile, drawing her heart out of her.
"I suppose it must have."
Lang sat down and sipped his coffee. Then he fiddled with the cup handle while he spoke. "Rilla, I was wondering about something."
"What's that?" She swallowed hard and sliced at a tiny piece of ham.
"I wondered if we could go to see Emmett together. Not today. When you feel up to it, I mean."
Her hand hovered with the fork and knife poised above her plate. "You'd...come with me?"
"I want to."
She nodded, spoke slowly. "I'd like that." A piece of shell fell away from her heart.
Over the next few days, her heart grew further exposed. Lang showered her with attention, and his love grew more open and evident than ever as he helped and complimented her and played with the children. Or maybe it seemed so, because now she was willing to see it. She accepted that he wasn't using her as bait to goad her sister or to steal the family farm. She believed that the plans he made were for both of them, for their family, together.
Still, although her heart felt roots growing again, and though it opened to the spring waters of his love, something remained. Some thing hovered black and ugly on the edge of her thoughts, this time not of Lang's doing but of her own. It deepened like a pinch to her soul whenever he smiled at her or played with the children or offered to help her with some small task.
He came through the front door now, telling her that Jacob said the new cook stove would arrive for the house on next week's train, and the feeling pressed her. While she denied that there was anything she must do, the truth forced itself to the forefront of her thoughts.
"You've seen Jacob?"
Lang shuffled through several pieces of mail, glancing up. "Yes. He's busy making arrangements to move out to his sister's, but he's still finishing with the orders that were placed, our stove being one of them."
She shifted Bertie to her other hip. "How was he?"
Lang set all the letters down but one. His voice changed almost imperceptibly as he opened it along its edge. "Fine, I should think. Busy with the preparations." Try as he might to hide his thoughts, his eyes darkened and shifted to the letter.