Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 4

by Chautona Havig

Luke tried again, that slow, quiet tenacity of his reminding Chad a little of Willow. “Did she sin?”

  It killed him to answer truthfully. “No.”

  “Did you?”

  “No—I don’t think.” Chad sighed. “Look, she got mad at me, so I tried to comfort her, and she got all ticked off.”

  “Comfort her?” Luke chuckled. “You mean you tried to solve her frustration in bed.”

  “Well—” How did Luke always know what he didn’t say? “I wasn’t trying to solve anything, really. I just thought she’d—”

  “Respond to irritation and angst like a man.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look, Chad. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that women—at least in my limited experience—get angrier when we try to make them feel better by bringing sex into it. Aggie says it made her feel cheap and used.”

  A cold wave of dread washed over his heart. “No way.”

  Luke sighed. “Looks like Willow and Aggie were cut from the same opposite cloth from the Tesdall-Sullivans. Call your dad. He’ll know what to say or do. At times like this, Uncle Christopher is the best thing you could hope for.”

  “You call Dad for advice?”

  “Or Uncle Zeke, sure. Who else would I call?”

  Chad laughed. “Man, you just rocked my world. I can’t imagine you needing to call anyone for advice on anything.”

  “Where do you think I get the nuggets I pass on to you?”

  Minutes later, Chad stared at the phone, his father’s number the most recent on the recently called list. He grinned at the apology still ringing in his ears. “—sorry, son. I didn’t give you the same talk I gave Luke before his wedding. I figured you wouldn’t be needing it and it might make what you were going to be missing cut even more. When you called the next day and made it plain that your wedding night wasn’t cuddling up with ice packs after all, I meant to take you out fishing and share a few things I’ve learned the hard way. I just forgot.”

  He had to talk to her, but pride still niggled. She could at least have tried to see it from my point of view. I just wanted to make it up to her—make her feel better and she—the thought died at those words, pride popping and zipping away like a balloon. If he wanted to make her feel better—if making her feel better is what really mattered to him—then he wouldn’t be offended when she didn’t appreciate the manner in which he did. “Or at least I wouldn’t be as offended,” he muttered to himself.

  Outside, Portia and Willow had vanished. Summer kitchen—empty. Front porch, back yard, chickens, goats, sheep, cow, and greenhouse—not there. He glanced across the fields to the lone oak by the highway, but unless she had deliberately hid behind it, she wasn’t out there. Left without any other ideas, he strode across the pastures toward the pool. She couldn’t be fishing, but maybe she had gone there to think—pray—come to her senses.

  She wasn’t there, but she had been. He followed the stream, around the bend, and found her examining plants—poison oak. “Lass?”

  “Go away, Chad. I’m still mad.”

  “I talked to Luke and my dad.”

  “You dragged two other men into our bedroom?” Her eyes flashed. “Are you really that stupid or just that cruel?”

  He couldn’t help chuckling. A weak attempt at humor flopped before he even spoke. “Willow, we didn’t go into the bedroom…” Her indignant glare amused him. “I learned something from them.”

  “What? That you’re a jerk? I told you that.”

  “I learned that men and women are different.”

  Her fury fizzled. “I could have told you that.”

  He stood, hands stuffed in his pockets, staring at their shoes. “Lass, I did what would make me feel better. I tried. I didn’t know how it would make you feel. I still don’t understand it, but I’m sorry.”

  “You dismissed my opinion as uneducated and immature and then tried to placate me with sex. Really, Chad? You didn’t think that would make me angry?”

  “I—”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  Tentatively, he reached out and brushed her cheek with his hand. “I know. I don’t understand you either. So, let’s agree to disagree and then agree on something else.”

  “Agree on what?” She glared at him again, suspicious.

  “I won’t ever try to apologize like that again if you promise to remember that if I’m ticked off at you, and you want to try to bridge a gap I’ve refused to cross…”

  “Putting a bow on your pillow might be a good starting place?”

  He grinned. “It’d be a really good starting place. It won’t fix it. We still have to talk, but it will take the edge off my angst.”

  Chad ached to hug her, but he wasn’t sure anymore. Would she misunderstand that too? He shoved his fist back in his pocket and tried to hold her gaze. Willow stepped closer. “You want to hold me.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “You’re afraid to try.”

  “Afraid might be a bit strong, but I’m wary.”

  “Note to Chad: His wife will never refuse a hug as long as she doesn’t feel like he’s only doing it to get something more.”

  “Gotcha.”

  They strolled back to the house, hand in hand, Chad amazed again at how similar and different his wife was from nearly every woman he’d ever known. At the back door, Willow glanced at him. “Do you really think I’m that ignorant?”

  “Not in general, no. I just think you need to see the full picture of why 9/11 made people willing to lose freedoms in exchange for safety. In that area, I think you are working from a theoretical knowledge that ignores a reality that couldn’t have existed at the time the ideology was invented.”

  “I almost don’t know what you just said.”

  He frowned. “I just mean—”

  “You can repeat yourself all you want, but I’m not going to be able to hear it.” A smile, one she only gave him at the most intimate moments, slowly formed on her lips. “Someone gave me other ideas, and I really can’t think clearly anymore.”

  She winked, turned, and dashed into the house. Chad grinned and rolled his eyes heavenward. “I guess that’s why I thought marrying her was a good idea, eh?”

  Chapter 12 5

  November,

  We’re killing the poison ivy and oak. It took us a while to find Mother’s references to how she did it, but now that we have, we’re succeeding. So far, we’ve kept ourselves free from contamination, but it isn’t an easy job. Come spring, we’ll have to walk the entire length of land every other week to eradicate any new growth, but if we’re vigilant, we shouldn’t have to worry about it. Chad did find a new growth of ivy on our land where the trees start to thin close to Adric’s old property. Apparently, over time, seeds blew or something, but it’s gone—at least for now.

  Chad keeps an unhealthy watch on my cycles. Honestly, we’ve only been married for six months, but sometimes he acts like it’s been six years. I kind of feel pressured to produce, but it isn’t like there’s much I can do about it. Mother conceived under the least promising of circumstances. From what I read, the stress of a situation like that can make it difficult to produce a child. I, on the other hand, have the best of circumstances, and yet I wait. Mom Tesdall tells me that the colder it gets, the more she expects to hear news, but I can’t imagine why. I didn’t know temperature had anything to do with it. I should ask Chad.

  Jill has suggested that I consider raising mushrooms. I always wanted to eat the mushrooms and toadstools that grow wild in our woods, but Mother didn’t know and didn’t care to learn which were safe and which were poisonous. In a controlled environment, it’d be easy to do, I guess. Maybe I should order a book and see what it says. Mushrooms in our own cooking would be delightful! I loved the various kinds we had while we were in California, and the ones Chad brings home are so ridiculously expensive.

  I am growing spoiled in this marriage. Where I once dreaded the idea of snores across the hallway keeping me up at night, I
now find it lonesome when Chad is away from home. My workload is even lighter than it was when Mother was here, even though the amount of work we have has doubled. I wonder sometimes, what did Mother do? During the busiest times, I know she was there helping to package butchered chickens or can the garden produce. I know she did almost all of the alfalfa cutting and storage, but Chad did that this year in very little time with that machine of his.

  I just can’t remember what she did all day. Am I forgetting her? I can still hear her voice singing over the dishes. Mother was incredibly inefficient with time when she washed dishes. Why did I never notice that? I hear her reading me parts of commentaries. Her voice hasn’t left me, but if it weren’t for the thousands of pictures that I have of our life, I am afraid that I would have forgotten her face already. Even now, unless I glance at the framed picture on my dresser, I don’t remember her. Is it wrong that I am growing content in her absence? Is it cold and heartless that I am thankful God sent someone else to be there for me? I’d love to see her again. I miss her almost daily, but the longer time goes on, the more I realize how much happier she is where she is. I do think that had I died as an infant, Mother wouldn’t have kept going She would have given up—or worse. I see now that her only happiness in the last twenty or so years of her life was in me and in the knowledge that someday she’d be with Jesus and away from this earth.

  Thanksgiving is this week. We’re going to have Cheri and Chuck, Mom and Dad Tesdall, and Chris says he’s bringing someone. Mom is beside herself with excitement. I had planned to cook several chickens, but apparently, one must have a turkey for Thanksgiving. So, I went hunting again. Mom is baking pecan pie and pumpkin pie. I’m supposed to make berry cobbler. Cheri is bringing a “green bean casserole.” Whatever that is. Chad says I’ll love it or hate it. What is it about holiday foods that inspire such extreme reactions?

  Mom wants me to teach her how to knit. She’s bringing “everything she needs,” but I have a feeling she’ll have more things than anyone would need to get started. Still, I can’t wait to have them here. I’ll give her some of the wool I dyed with the Kool-Aid packages she sent me. Every week or two, she sends something because she ‘thought of’ me. Sometimes I get packets of pretty paper for our journals, fabric, or a book. Once it was a bunch of the flavored drink packs, after she saw the yarn I dyed with the ones Chad brought me, and an article on how to combine colors for different looks.

  Lily stopped by last week and asked how Chad and I are doing as a couple. She told me that we need to focus on us as a couple, but I have no idea what that means. Isn’t that what we do every night when we read to each other, work on our projects, or take a walk? Isn’t that what our more intimate times are all about? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she meant, but I need to remember to ask Chad. Maybe I’m failing him someway as a wife, and I don’t want to do that, but maybe we’re just not supposed to look like every other marriage. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that some marriages will be different than others? I think it is. Somehow, I think all the introspection into how we’re “doing” could be just as damaging as never thinking about it at all. What do I know? I should ask Chad. Why do I get the feeling that he’ll just laugh at me and roll his eyes at Lily?

  Chad’s laughter brought Willow jogging upstairs. He held up the journal and asked, “Did Lily really ask how we’re doing as a couple?”

  “Yep. After I wrote that, I wondered if maybe since I am not pregnant yet, she assumed you still lived in the other bedroom or something.”

  “Possible. You know, I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured about pregnancy.”

  She pushed him out of the way and pulled open her sock drawer. “My feet are frozen.” As she passed him on her way downstairs, she quipped. “There could be worse things.” At the top of the stairs, he heard her mutter in stage tones for his benefit, “Perhaps that is exactly what we need.”

  Chapter 12 6

  The spinning wheel whirled as Willow slowly fed tufts of wool into it, demonstrating the technique she’d mastered in the past few months. Marianne sat on the couch next to her, casting on stitches slowly and painfully as she struggled to hold the needles comfortably. Occasionally, Cheri would look up from her pile of skeins that Marianne had brought, and as she wound them into balls, complain about her aching hands.

  The men, on the other hand, not having the television to shout at, played “keep away” football in the front pasture, until Cheri and Chris’ girlfriend went crazy from wool overload and escaped to join them. Shouts and complaints occasionally seeped in through window cracks until Willow and Marianne glanced at each other and raced for their coats.

  They played guys against girls, married against single, and mixed teams until the cold and exhaustion drove them inside. Willow watched, concerned, and Christopher watched her, as Chad stood next to the kitchen stove flexing his right hand and allowing the heat to help work out the painful muscle spasms. From the other side of the room, Christopher sipped his coffee and prayed silently for his son. “Chad, can you fill me a fresh cup of coffee?”

  The request was ludicrous considering Christopher’s cup was over half full but he swallowed a large gulp and forced himself not to wince as the hot liquid burned his throat on the way down. However, it worked. Chad immediately poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and wrapped his cold aching hand around it.

  “So what now?” Chuck was like an adolescent with ADD.

  “Pictionary?” Marianne’s voice didn’t sound very enthused.

  “Apples to Apples?” Cheri sounded only a little more interested in her suggestion than her mother’s.

  “Poker?” A shrug and an evil glint in his eye was Chris’ only response to Emily’s playful slug at his suggestion.

  “Mother and I often read the Courtship of Miles Standish on Thanksgiving,” Willow suggested helpfully.

  Amused glances flitted around the room while Willow waited to see if she should retrieve their volume of Longfellow’s poetry. Chad, knowing his wife was clueless at the internal laughter at her expense, decided to play a joke on Willow and his family at the same time. “I know, let’s play ‘stump Willow with Shakespeare.’”

  “Okaaaayyy.” Though the entire room glared at Chuck’s lack of tact, he echoed the minds of everyone but Chad and Willow.

  Chad, on the other hand, was excited. This would be good. He passed out the three-volume set of Shakespeare from the library and told them to pick a quote, any quote and the game was family vs. Willow. “First to ten points wins.”

  Willow won, with only one error, in five minutes flat. Immediately, she took the books from the table, flipping through one carefully for a couple of minutes and then stared at her husband. “I was not wrong! That was Much Ado about Nothing!”

  At the guilty expression on his face, Willow raced after Chad. He grabbed his coat and burst through the front door, down the steps, and jumped the fence into the pasture with Willow hot on his heels. The family stood around the large picture window and watched as she finally dove for his ankles toppling him. To their surprise, she pounded him. Her fists flew and his head jerked with each blow until Marianne demanded that Chris go put a stop to it. A minute later, Chris and Willow both pummeled Chad until everyone was sure he’d be unconscious.

  After a couple of minutes, Chad jumped to his feet and took a bow, clearly untouched by his “beating.” Chris and Willow, doubled over in laughter and panting exhaustedly, waved with one hand while resting the other on their other knees. Christopher gave Marianne a strange look and sighed. “I think our family has corrupted her—or vice versa.”

  “How can you stand it when he leaves at all hours?” Emily sat curled on Willow’s couch, the rest of the family sleeping in various rooms.

  “Probably because it’s all I’ve ever known. I guess maybe it should bother me, but it doesn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t he be able to help you more if he had normal hours?”

  “Actually,” Willow mused thoughtfully. “Jus
t the opposite. Because he’s awake and home during light hours sometimes, Chad can help with more than if he worked from seven to six every night.”

  “But weekends…”

  “Maybe. We don’t do much work on Sunday, though.” Willow shrugged. “Not usually anyway.”

  “Does it take all day? I mean, I saw you out there splitting logs, and Chad was milking cows—”

  “Goat. Milking the goat—just one.”

  Emily’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “How can you stand all that work just to get a glass of milk? He had to boil stuff and pour it through the cloth and then mark the jar… it was just an awful lot of work. Why not just buy a gallon at the store?”

  “Because I don’t want to have to spend the money; I don’t want to walk five miles to get it and then have to walk five miles home every few days. I don’t want the pasteurization and homogenization to take away some of the nutrients from the milk. I want it as close as to how God designed it as possible. Milk is such an amazing food.”

  “How long have you lived like this?”

  “All my life. I don’t know any different. Before last year, I’d never spoken to anyone except my mother, our financial advisor, and a couple of delivery people and even then, rarely.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  She shook her head smiling. “Outside Bill our advisor, I could count on both hands the number of conversations I can remember having with anyone but Mother before she died.”

  “I don’t know how you do it. I just don’t know how you can stand it!”

  Rather than defend her lifestyle against the unjust prejudice, Willow shrugged. “I understand that. I remember how flabbergasted I was when I saw how others live. The money they spend on things that they will replace next year because it is ‘obsolete,’ the dependency on what others provide as to the choices available…” She gave Emily an embarrassed look. “I was so revolted by the lack of space around homes, and the artificial things like treadmills to simulate a walk. I was fascinated by it. I spent a long time on my friend’s treadmill because it was a novel thing to me, but when I thought about what it represented, I was appalled. People manufacturing a simple task like walking didn’t make sense.”