A Quiet Life

by Charlotte Thorpe

  Laundry. Caroline quickly swept her room with her mind and there were a few things she would need to gather if it looked as though Sam and Ruth would leave her. She enjoyed some light banter while the breakfast was finished.

  “I have to get back to my special project,” Sam said as he rose from his seat. “You remember you’re not supposed to come out to the barn, right?”

  “I remember,” Ruth said. She glanced at Caroline. “Can I send a spy?”

  Sam shook his head as though she hadn’t been joking and then he went to the back to put on his coat and hat.

  “I suppose I should continue to make myself useful,” Jack said. He winked at Caroline. She began to relax because he moved towards his own coat, which meant he was going outside. She and Ruth worked to clear the table. Caroline plunged her hands into soapy water just as she heard the clatter of spoons hitting the floor. She didn’t turn around because Ruth would have them picked up before she could dry off to help. Instead, she looked out the window to catch a glimpse of Jack walking to the barn.

  He wasn’t there yet. He was quite suddenly behind her. She felt his coat against her back and the brim of his hat brushed her hair and his mouth almost touched her ear as he whispered, “I need to talk to you,” before he was gone again.

  She still felt the warmth of him on her back but mostly she felt the pleading tone of his statement. He was practically begging her to find him alone. Had he figured out that she was hiding from that very scenario? How long could she keep it up?

  “Planning a suitor for Anna?”

  Caroline nearly jumped at Ruth’s voice next to her. “Uh… give me a minute,” she said. Her friend was right about what typically caused her to be staring absent-mindedly. Caroline worked to think up their imaginary heroine. She needed the fantasy but knew she couldn’t put off the reality of Jack much longer.

  ~~ ~~

  Jack had ridden to the general store and bought Caroline a dress-length of a fabric he knew would look pretty on her. It was a selfish gift but he’d run out of time to think of anything else. She and Ruth had made a fine supper. Together. He’d slipped into the house earlier than usual, hoping to catch Caroline before they all sat down together. But she and Ruth were a flurry of activity and he could do nothing other than stay out of the way.

  He figured that if Caroline wanted to find him alone, she would have done so by now. But he kept catching her eye when others were around and she would smile and make him want to keep trying. The evening was too calm. Caroline turned her chair to sit with her back to the others, trying to hide her project. Given that it was Christmas Eve, no one objected to her secrecy. Ruth read aloud from a novel and Jack wasn’t listening. He felt like a caged animal.

  About the third or fourth time he stood to poke the perfectly acceptable fire, Ruth noticed. “Were you this restless waiting for Santa when you were a boy?” She had closed the book in her lap.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” he said, trying to make his voice apologetic.

  “I’m not sure I was paying attention either,” Ruth said. “I’m nervous about hosting my first Christmas here.”

  Sam reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be a lot like Sundays and you manage those fine.”

  “I suppose.” Ruth dropped her book under her chair for later. “Caroline has promised to perform the Christmas story in the evening.”

  “Perform?” Jack faced Caroline’s direction, careful not to get close enough to appear to be looking over her shoulder.

  She threw her voice towards them. “I said I’d tell it.”

  “We all know you don’t simply tell a story, Caroline.”

  Caroline turned in her chair enough to smile at the group. “Well… the first Christmas was a fairly dramatic event.”

  “That’s why I’m looking forward to your – Jack, will you sit down?” Ruth was gentle with her admonishment. There was more concern in her voice than frustration.

  He hadn’t even realized he was pacing again. “Sorry,” he said. “I think I’m moving to keep myself awake. I’ll head up instead.”

  The others acknowledged his departure as he climbed the stairs to his room. He closed the door and took off his boots. He was only worn out from fretting over Caroline so he didn’t try to sleep. He simply sat on the end of his bed, thinking.

  Sam said Christmas would be like Sunday. Sundays they piled most of the hands into the wagon for the hour-long drive to church where they would meet up with a whole town of people. They’d come home to wait for the women to put out a big meal that they would all eat together. There weren’t enough chairs so the hands grabbed patches of floor all over the kitchen and the sitting room. It was a crowd for sure. And Ruth wanted Little John to play some carols on his fiddle.

  None of that sounded bad. But none of it sounded like what he really wanted… only a quiet moment to wish Caroline a merry Christmas.

  Jack was still sitting on the bed staring at the floor when he heard the others coming up the stairs. It had gotten late. He was too restless to sleep. He considered whether a quick walk to the kitchen and back would help him settle. Maybe no one would notice if he snagged one of the treats for tomorrow a bit early.

  As soon as he opened his door, he noticed there was still a light on downstairs. Who was still awake? His mind ran over the voices he’d heard on the stairs and his hope was a possibility.

  Caroline was alone in the sitting room. She appeared to be rolling up some unused thread. Her head jerked towards the stairs at the sound of his footsteps.

  “I thought someone might have left the lamp lit by mistake,” he said, though he knew no one would have been that careless.

  Caroline shook her head. “And I thought you might be Ruth trying to peek at her gift.”

  “It’s for Ruth?”

  She nodded. “I just finished. Want to see?”

  “I would,” he said, not caring so much about the gift but about the fact that Caroline was inviting him to come closer.

  She put the lid on her sewing box and stood to hold up a pillow cover. She had stitched yellow flowers along the edge. Her fingers ran over the new thread and they were trembling. Jack tried to still her hand with his own.

  Caroline moved to fold up the cloth and he couldn’t tell if she was pulling away from his touch or only getting the cloth out of the way. He hoped for the latter.

  “Caroline, have you been avoiding me?”

  “That’s a strange notion,” she said. “You see me every day.”

  “I think you know I’ve been wanting a private conversation though.”

  “Here I am.” She tried to smile but was clearly nervous. Maybe that was it. Maybe she didn’t know she was avoiding him. Maybe she was only nervous and hadn’t realized what she was doing.

  Jack reached for her hand and she let him hold it, though her fingers still shook. “Caroline, I… I think you can see how I feel about you.”

  She nodded slightly. Her eyes seemed to be fixed somewhere around the middle of his shirt.

  “Is it… unpleasant for you to know that I love you?”

  His fingers began to stroke the skin on her hand and hers responded with a similar motion before she whispered, “No.”

  He waited for her eyes to lift, to give him some sign that looked like permission for a kiss. She seemed to be waiting, too, though he didn’t know for what. His other hand came up to feel her cheek, his fingers delighting in this sensation of her skin. She leaned into his touch, definitely not avoiding it, and that was enough encouragement.

  Her lips were softer than he’d anticipated, as was her whole mouth. The space between them disappeared and he didn’t know if Caroline had moved or if he had. It only mattered that she wasn’t pushing him away. In fact, she sighed against him as though she’d been searching for the moment as long as he had. He let one hand find the soft hair at the back of her neck and his other hand moved up her arm as a thought made it into his head. He needed to not let himself get carried away. Not y
et.

  With effort, he stopped the kiss and took a small step backward. “Will you… Caroline, will you marry me?”

  She bit the side of her lip and slowly her head began to move side to side. “I…” She let go of his hand and stepped farther away. “I can’t.”

  The honorable thing would have been to accept her refusal and leave her alone. But she looked as disappointed by it as he was. That’s what made him ask, “Why not?”

  Caroline’s eyes were shining brightly with tears she seemed unwilling to let fall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Jack, I’m sorry. I love you but I can’t marry you.”

  He simply looked at her, confused. She wasn’t saying she didn’t want to marry him and he knew of no reason she couldn’t.

  “After… I told myself… I hadn’t planned on another husband.”

  “Plans can change,” he said, with the full conviction of someone who had planned on being a husband and then didn’t and now couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.

  “I just can’t.” She was crying now. “If we married, I’d hope… I’d hope for children.”

  “Why is that a—?”

  “I’m not strong enough.” She slipped past him and ran up the stairs.

  ~~ ~~

  Caroline tried to pay attention to the man of the cloth in front of her. All of her thoughts were in the seat next to her though. With Jack. With the things they had said and done the previous night and how far that scene had been from the one she’d intended.

  She realized that avoiding him was childish. She had planned to simply tell him straight out that she was not a marriage prospect and that he should immediately stop turning her to mush with his eyes and invading her daydreams. Those weren’t the exact words she had prepared but it didn’t matter. Her brain had gone numb the moment he walked up to her.

  Now he was sitting next to her at the Christmas service pretending nothing had happened. How many others in the church were pretending not to notice the stiffness between them, the way he couldn’t look at her? Ruth had noticed something was wrong right away. Caroline hadn’t slept at all and was able to use that as an excuse without giving the reason for her lack of sleep.

  The drive home was a little better. The hands were in high spirits and were a steady source of distraction. Then she had to focus on not burning the food. Little John played his fiddle a while after they ate. He hadn’t exactly mastered the instrument but the carols were recognizable enough to be entertaining.

  Jack helped her clear some of the dishes once the men returned to the bunkhouse. He complimented the meal, the apple fritters in particular. The relationship did not feel strained in that moment and she began to hope it could recover. Maybe they could go back to the way things were before he had any serious intentions. But then he pierced her with sad eyes as he left the room and she tried not to think of the future at all.

  She spent most of the late afternoon letting her mind wander to when she’d first met Jack. In her first few weeks on the ranch, he’d acted like a skittish horse around her. Once he’d actually jumped when she brushed his fingers passing a dish. Was that the same man who had…?

  No. She was not allowed to think about that. Not yet. When it wasn’t so fresh, when Jack was ready for a simple friendship, then she could dwell on a few happy moments.

  The four of them exchanged gifts after dinner. The most attention went to the cradle that Sam had made for his wife and coming child. And the fact that he had nailed a short piece of rope to one end of it.

  “Uh, what’s the rope for?” Ruth had her hand on it.

  “He’ll need to get used to the feel of a rope right from the start.”

  “He?” Ruth said.

  “I know it’s a boy,” Sam said. “I can feel it.”

  “I can feel it.” Ruth patted her belly. “And I can’t tell if it’s a boy. You might be surprised.”

  Caroline had closed her eyes to pray for the baby, which she did nearly every time she thought of him. This wasn’t the first time Sam insisted it was a boy and Caroline realized she was using masculine pronouns in her prayer. Perhaps they would all be surprised. She startled at the sound of her name.

  “I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “I’m finished. Did you ask me something?”

  Ruth held up a bible. “I asked if you would need this to tell us the Christmas story.”

  Caroline shook her head. “I’m not sure I can…” It was probably the first time in Caroline’s life that she didn’t have the energy for storytelling.

  Ruth looked thoroughly crestfallen. “Oh, please, Caroline. This is the first year I won’t hear my pa read it. Help me not to miss that.”

  It was Christmas, Caroline told herself. And she had promised. She chanced a glance at Jack and he was watching her expectantly, though with some concern. She nodded and began to wonder how much embellishment he would let her get away with. Stories were more fun when Jack criticized them. Maybe she could make him forget the trouble between them.

  “Let me think.” Caroline looked around the room. “First, we need to imagine some important characters. We’ll imagine that Mary might have looked something like Ruth, which makes Sam Joseph and…” She turned to Jack and he was shaking his head at her. “What?”

  He just kept shaking his head.

  “What?”

  “Don’t say it,” he warned.

  Caroline tried to make her face innocent. “I was not going to suggest you look like the donkey.”

  Ruth and Sam laughed, while Jack wore a skeptical expression. She was going to suggest it, but she would have been kidding. “The story starts earlier than that,” she said. “I was going to say that Gabriel might have looked something like you.”

  Jack still looked doubtful and the others were still laughing. He said, “You have permission to imagine me as an angel.”

  “Thank you.” Caroline stood as she felt a bit of storytelling energy returning. “Now Gabriel was a very important angel and he had a very important message to deliver to a very important woman.” She gestured to Ruth. “Mary. On the day that Gabriel came to Earth, Mary was in need of his message and… his help. This is what I’m thinking. She was by a river, maybe for some washing and maybe to fill a bucket, but a recent storm had made it faster and fuller than normal. Mary was captivated by the beauty and the strength of the water. We know she was a faithful woman and she could see God in the whitecaps and the force of the flowing water and she couldn’t look away. Then she slipped – the ground was wet near the edge – and fell into the raging river. She was tossed about like a leaf.”

  Caroline flailed her arms as though she was the one in the water. Jack sat quietly. Why wasn’t he questioning this? She continued, “Mary was not afraid because she knew God was with her. She simply reached out for help. Gabriel caught hold of her hand.” She held her hand out to Jack, who actually looked amused for a second. “And the gallant angel lifted her to safety. He set her on dry ground and wrapped his mighty wings about her shoulders to warm her. Then Gabriel told Mary that she was to be the mother of God’s son. She agreed because… Well, when an angel tells you you’re going to have a baby there’s no other answer than yes.”

  “Meanwhile,” Caroline continued, “a noble carpenter had recognized that Mary was a rare treasure and he wanted to marry her.”

  “I don’t know how you can look at me and say noble,” Sam interrupted.

  “You’re Joseph,” she said. “We’re only imagining he looked like you. But noble is not a stretch.” Her brother was too hard on himself. He still regretted leaving his sisters when he ran away from home. But she and Lucy only rarely felt physical pain. Their father had fewer qualms about beating a male child who needed to “feel a man’s strength in order to aim for it.”

  Sam shrugged for her to continue. Jack had finally heard enough though. “That’s what makes you stop her?” he said. “Is no one going to question Mary needing to be pulled from the river
?”

  “It might have happened that way,” Caroline said. “The gospels don’t say she never fell in a river.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “We’re past that part anyway.” Caroline waved him off, hoping to irritate him into finding something else to argue about. “Gabriel next visited Joseph in a dream – because he didn’t need to be rescued – and told him that taking Mary as a wife was a wise idea. Then they had to make a—”

  “Are you sure Joseph wasn’t in danger of stampeding camels or something?” Jack asked.

  “It was a dream,” she said plainly. “So then Mary and Joseph had to make a journey together, all the way to Bethlehem. This, I think, was the most romantic time. It was only Mary and Joseph alone and they must have talked to fill the time and it was not an easy journey so their love was tested and grew until the moment Jesus was born.” Caroline folded her arms around an invisible baby. “They must have taken turns holding the baby and falling in love with their new family.

  “And they weren’t the only ones. News spread quickly about the new love that had come to us. The heavens opened and the angels were singing – I bet Gabriel had a lovely voice – and a star filled the sky above the place where Jesus was born and shepherds came and kings came and others as well. Everyone wanted to offer gifts to the baby who was the best gift of all.”

  Ruth clapped. Caroline returned to her seat.

  “You know,” Jack said, “if you continue to the part with Herod there would be plenty of danger and drama without having to invent anything.”

  “I don’t like that part. It ruins the story.”

  “How? Joseph is warned – likely by the same heroic angel – and the holy family escapes to safety.”

  “But you can’t tell that part without thinking of the families who were not as lucky. I need a happy ending.”