Taking the Reins

by Carolyn McSparren

  Jake was honored that she’d pick him to unload on, but she should have been saying these things to her mother. What could he do? He couldn’t make anything better for himself, much less for Sarah.

  “The wives didn’t want to be around my mother, either. The first week we got so many casseroles we couldn’t fit them in the fridge. Then zip. And the minute school was over, we got kicked off base and had to move down here. If it wasn’t for Granddaddy, we’d be living in the truck and eating out of garbage cans.”

  “I don’t imagine it would have gotten that bad.”

  She rounded on him. He’d expected tears, but her face was set and angry. This was a soldier’s child. She’d already learned to keep her emotions in check, but at fourteen she shouldn’t have to.

  “We’re supposed to get some kind of a pension, but it takes like forever to process the paperwork, and it’s not nearly what Daddy was making, which wasn’t much in the first place.”

  “I know adults are always telling teenagers that things will get better. Like most clichés, it has an element of truth in it.”

  “So are you glad you ran away?”

  Jake leaned back. How should he answer that? “I had to leave. Sarah, after that day, I never saw my family or the friends I grew up with again.”

  “Never? But you talked on the phone and wrote, right?”

  “Nope. No phone, no emails. No photographs, no wedding or birth announcements.”

  “But didn’t you try to make up with them?”

  He nodded. “I tried. It didn’t work. My mother wouldn’t speak to me.”

  “Do they know you were wounded?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Sarah stared at him, aghast. “That’s terrible. Are you sorry you left?”

  “I hurt my family, all the people I loved the most. But I thought I had no choice. You do have a choice. You’re surrounded by people who love you....”

  Sarah snorted. “My mother has to know everything I do. I’m sick of it.”

  “You have a good life. Be a little patient.”

  “My mother’s as big a control freak as Granddad, but she won’t admit it. That day in the common room—I know you like my mom. Maybe you could talk to her, tell her to lighten up.”

  Ah. So that was why she’d come to him. She’d paid attention when she’d walked into the common room and discovered him and Charlie.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks.” She slid off the rein board bench, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. A moment later she was gone. He touched his cheek. He should never have agreed to speak to Charlie. What did he know about parenting? When would he ever learn? If he spoke to Charlie and she did give Sarah more freedom, and things went bad, it would be another disaster that could be laid at his doorstep.

  Sarah was counting on him to help. She shouldn’t.

  His father died younger than he should have because Jake had abandoned him. He’d tried hard to be the kind of son Micah wanted, but his father did not want the person Jake was.

  He’d known he’d cause his family pain, but he figured they’d accept his choice after a while. He’d tried again and again to convince his father to let him go. Micah didn’t believe in rumspringa, the year that Amish teenagers were allowed to leave their farms and live among the English.

  He was certain that once Jake left, he wouldn’t come back. Most Amish kids did return to the Amish community after rumspringa, but they made the choice of their own free will.

  Jake was miserable his senior year. First finding out that he would not be able to accept the partial scholarship to college, then being told he couldn’t participate in graduation ceremonies or the parties afterward. The only person who ever argued with Micah Thompson was Jake’s mother, Gudrun. Because of her, Jake was allowed to remain in school through high school instead of returning to work on the farm full-time after the eighth grade.

  But even she couldn’t buy Jake’s freedom. He’d never considered joining the army until he lost the scholarship. He’d planned to go to college. If he joined the army, the government would pay for college, let him work on credits while he was on duty. He’d make enough money to do some traveling at least in the States. It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it was what remained open to him.

  He saw himself bringing gifts home at Christmas and sending postcards from the places he went.

  Never happened. The first of his decisions that tore hearts out.

  Had his father told the truth about his defection? Surely his sisters had told the men they married.

  Maybe not.

  He had to talk to Charlie. He understood that after losing her husband, she might be holding on to Sarah too hard. But could that be worse than not holding on hard enough? Jake didn’t think so.

  * * *

  LATE THE FOLLOWING afternoon Ian Campbell brought two sets of harness and logging chains and dropped them off in the big equipment shed where the tractors and other farm equipment were stored.

  “Y’all need to learn to ground drive a team before you hitch ’em to a log,” he told the group assembled around him. He turned to look directly at Jake. “Shoot, you already know more about ground driving a team than I do. What Charlie can’t teach ’em, you sure can.”

  Jake ducked his head and avoided Ian’s eyes.

  “Won’t you need this stuff yourselves?” Hank asked as he fingered the heavy logging chains. He had a gleam in his eye that said he was going to enjoy this.

  “This is our old stuff. We got new. Well—newer than this. It’s not real heavy-duty, but Charlie says y’all plan to cut some of the locust trees out by the pond. You can handle that without us supervising. Good practice and good riddance.” Ian shivered. “I hate those things. Thorns long as my hand. Y’all be careful ground driving, ya hear? We’ll be back next week sometime, and we’ll give everybody a lesson on loading.”

  He climbed back into his truck and waved out the window. “I got to get back to the site. Them brothers of mine can’t load a log by themselves for spit.”

  “As I recall,” Sean said with a grin as they watched him drive off, “Ian is the one who fell out of the tree.”

  “Let’s get this harness cleaned, oiled and hung up,” Charlie said.

  They finished an hour later and wandered down to the common room for what had become the afternoon ritual. Pitchers of iced tea and accompanying nibbles before everyone showered and changed their sweaty clothes for dinner.

  Charlie left them to it. As she walked out from under the shadows of the barn and into the start of a glorious sunset, a large maroon rental sedan pulled off the road and into the driveway. It stopped at the front door of the main house, and a thin woman wearing a bright red linen pantsuit and the biggest wraparound sunglasses Charlie had seen in years climbed out.

  Charlie prided herself on her height. This woman stood an intimidating six-two at least. Then Charlie spotted the red leather platform sandals with the six-inch heels. Actually, the woman was probably an inch or two shorter than Charlie, and as thin as Sarah. On a girl as young and coltish as Sarah it looked good. This woman looked anorexic.

  From time to time people drove up to the house seeking directions, or were interested in seeing the horses.

  Charlie pulled off her work gloves and came across from the stable. “May I help you?” she asked.

  The woman’s expression was difficult to read behind the sunglasses, but the arrogant turn of her head said she considered she was speaking to a servant. “I am here to see Master Sergeant Sean O’Riley.”

  “Sean? He’s around somewhere.” Charlie glanced at the woman’s sandals. How did she walk in those things without falling on her nose? “I’ll see if I can find him for you. Whom shall I say is calling?” Charlie didn’t quite fake the British accent, but she came as
close as she dared. She didn’t often dislike people, but she had “taken agin’” this woman instantly.

  “I am Brittany Galloway, and I will wait here.” A moment’s pause. “Thank you.”

  Charlie nodded, turned on her heel and trotted toward the barn. When she was only six feet away from the car, she yelled at the top of her lungs, “Hey Sean, some woman’s here to see you.” She met him at the barn door.

  “Woman? What woman?” He glanced over Charlie’s shoulder. “Oh, great. Just what I need.”

  Charlie had the impression that given the option, he would have run the other way. As it was, the woman had seen him and was mincing gingerly toward them across the lawn.

  “I’ll handle this,” he whispered to Charlie, then took a deep breath and strode forward. “Hello, Brie.” He opened his arms as if to hug her.

  Today he hadn’t bothered with the fancy latex covering for his hand. Sean said it was simpler to control without it, didn’t make him sweat and gave him a more precise feel. The prosthesis did look rather like an articulated skeleton, though.

  Charlie could tell the moment the woman saw his hand and stopped dead. Just as with Mary Anne’s bald head, they’d all gotten so used to Sean’s hand that they didn’t even notice whether he was wearing his covering or not.

  This Brie person sure did, however. She stepped back as though he were coming at her with a pitchfork.

  “How’d you find me?” he asked, dropping his hands. “I asked Lizzie not to tell you.”

  Charlie had no reason to stick around, so she walked back into the barn. And into the first stall.

  “I cannot believe you told Liz where you were and not me,” she overheard Brie Galloway say. “No, she did not tell me, but it’s not difficult to locate a retiree from the military. It was, however, embarrassing to find you’d been in a halfway house.” She waved a hand. “What is this place? What on earth are you doing here?”

  Sean’s voice hardened. “Learning a trade.”

  “I beg your pardon? You do not have to work. You have your pension. Douglas and I have offered you a home.” She narrowed her eyes. “What sort of trade?”

  “You’ve seen that TV show about the loggers? Well, I’m learning to log with draft horses.”

  “Nonsense! It’s bad enough that you retired as a noncom when you could have been an officer, but how can I possibly tell my friends that my father is a lumberjack? Pack your things and tell whoever is in charge that you’re leaving.”

  Charlie froze. His daughter? Couldn’t be the one who was becoming an engineer in St. Louis. She’d assumed the other one—the one who was trouble—was younger and an alcoholic or drug dealer or kleptomaniac or something. This woman was rich, chic and not much younger than Charlie. Or older than Charlie, but with more expensive skin treatments.

  And a juggernaut. Charlie wanted to go support Sean but couldn’t figure a way to do it.

  “Who’s that?” Mary Anne whispered.

  Charlie jumped.

  “His daughter. I hate her already.”

  “Oh, good grief. He’s told me about her. She makes the wicked witch look like an archangel. He’s been hiding from her.”

  “You knew?”

  “Well, sure. I know all about his family.”

  I don’t. “What do we do? We can’t let him leave with her.”

  Mary Anne laughed. “He won’t.”

  “I flew down from Cleveland the minute I found out where you are,” the woman was saying. “As the elder sister, it’s my responsibility to—”

  “No, it’s not your responsibility and neither am I,” Sean said easily. “As long as you’re here,” he said to Brie, “come on into the common room and meet the others.”

  “Uh-oh.” Mary Anne and Charlie sped to the common room, slipped in and sank onto the nearest couch as though they’d been there all along.

  Hank looked over at them. “What’s happening?”

  “Shh, here they are.”

  “Folks,” Sean said, “I’d like you to meet my eldest daughter, Brittany Galloway. Brie, this is Hank, and Charlie, who teaches us and runs the place.”

  Hank stood up and held out his hand. Brie gave it a quick glance to be certain it wasn’t mechanical or filthy and touched his fingers. Charlie didn’t offer her hand.

  “And this is Mary Anne.”

  Mary Anne came into the light. She was in her working garb of sweaty sleeveless muscle shirt and bald head.

  Charlie heard Brie’s intake of breath. A week ago Mary Anne would have fled. Today she grinned at Sean and stuck her burned hand out for Brie to shake.

  Brie looked down at it as though it were a rattlesnake. “Uh...” she said.

  “I guess it’s too dirty,” Mary Anne said, and winked at Sean. “Here’s Mickey.”

  He wheeled into the room from the back hall followed by Jake, who took one look, turned on his heel and left the way he’d come. Charlie heard his limp on the stairs.

  Mickey was his usual charming self. “Hi,” he said with a wide grin and a proffered hand. “Nice to meet Sean’s family.”

  “Father, might I speak to you alone?” Brie asked. She looked at Mickey’s wheelchair as though it were an alien spacecraft and Mickey the resident alien.

  “Oh, we’re all friends here. Let’s see. Mickey’s a computer geek who’s learning to walk, Hank’s a rodeo rider missing half his foot, Mary Anne’s a truck mechanic with burn scars and I’m a one-armed bandit.”

  “Don’t forget Jake,” Mickey said. “He’s got a bum knee and can’t make a decision. Other than that, man, he’s great.”

  “Don’t forget me,” Charlie said. “I’m an army widow with no money and a teenage daughter. We’re quite a crew, aren’t we, Sean?”

  “We sure are. And I’m going to continue to be a part of it.”

  “Now, Father...”

  “Don’t call me Father. I was Dad before you married Dr. Galloway and got rich and uppity. I’m sorry if I embarrass you. I suggest you tell people I died a war hero.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Tell them the truth, then. I didn’t go to OCS because I couldn’t pass the test and didn’t have any college credits at that point. I was a doggone good noncom, and I’m going to be a doggone good logger.”

  “You can’t ignore your family.”

  “Brittany, this is my family.”

  Nobody coached them, but everyone except Mickey stood and moved behind Sean. Mickey wheeled in beside him.

  Charlie felt certain she was going to cry. Either that or she was going to coldcock the woman. On the whole, she preferred the coldcocking alternative.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Sean said.

  “Don’t bother. Wait until I tell Liz about this.”

  “She already knows.”

  Charlie had read about characters in books “storming out,” but she’d never seen anyone actually do it until now.

  Trailed by the others, Sean followed his daughter as she strode across the lawn. At one point she twisted her ankle and nearly went down, but she recovered and limped to the rental car.

  As she roared past them on her way to the road, Mary Anne waved. “Y’all come back, ya hear?”

  “Sorry about that,” Sean said after they watched Brittany roar off down the road. He sounded normal, but he was shaking.

  Mary Anne linked her arm through his and hugged him. “I divorced my jerk. You’re stuck with yours.”

  “She’s always wanted to be rich and social. She hated being a noncom’s kid, so she got herself a job managing a doctor’s office and managed to convince her boss to divorce his wife and marry her.”

  “Grandchildren?” Charlie asked.

  “Not yet and I suspect not ever. I regret that if she has any I�
�ll never get to see them, but I am not about to move to Cleveland and live over their garage.”

  “Good for you,” Hank said. “How about an actual beer to celebrate?”

  “First, we have to find Jake, the stinker,” Mary Anne said.

  Mickey leaped to his defense. “You know Jake. He hates that kind of thing.”

  “I’ll get him,” Sean said.

  They let him go. Easy to see he needed time to calm down and process what had just happened.

  The beer drinkers were only halfway through their second beers when Sean burst into the room. “That sucker!” He grabbed the beer Hank handed him and collapsed on the sofa beside Mary Anne. “The man has got a damned menagerie in his bathroom!”

  At his heels, Jake said, “Sorry, I meant to tell everybody. I forgot. Sean, I figured you could hear them from your room anyway.”

  Charlie shrugged and gave Jake a wry grin. Everyone started talking at once.

  Jake held up his hands. “People, Mama Cat had her kittens in my room.”

  “Kittens!” Mary Anne gushed. “Can we see? How many? What colors? Boys or girls?”

  Charlie shook a finger at her. “If Mama Cat moves the kittens, you’re going to wind up driving Pindar solo.”

  “All but one are yellow tabbies, one is gray. Two boys, three girls.”

  “Can’t see ’em unless you bring ’em downstairs,” Mickey said. “I’m getting tired of being earthbound. How come I don’t get a jet pack instead of a wheelchair?”

  “Government corruption,” Hank said. “Don’t complain. You got robolegs. Cats don’t turn me on. I’ll wait.”

  Mary Anne was still raving about the kittens ten minutes later when Sarah slipped in to snitch extra dessert.

  “Kittens?” she squealed. “What kittens? Where?”

  Charlie bowed her head. Great. She doubted the colonel wanted to adopt five small cats, but she suspected he’d wind up with at least a couple of them.

  “Mother,” Sarah whined, “you knew and didn’t tell me?”

  “With everything else we’ve had to do, I forgot.” She really had, and Sarah was absolutely justified in being angry. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She dropped an arm over Sarah’s shoulders, but Sarah shrugged her off.