The woman was tiny, short enough to be dwarfed by the evergreens to either side of her. Dressed all in black from pillbox hat to sturdy oxfords, she pulled close the shawl draped across her shoulders, even in the waning heat of the summer day. Using a cane, she tottered toward Charlotte.
“You are the new teacher, aren’t you?” the woman asked again.
“I am… my name is Charlotte Tucker…”
“My, what a pretty name, a name that fits a young woman in the prime of her life,” she remarked. “So much better than ‘Constance Lowell,’ don’t you think so? I swear, my father gave me the name of an old lady at birth, some woman with one foot already in the grave.”
“Well… I… I don’t think…” Charlotte sputtered as the realization dawned on her as to whom she was speaking. This was the woman Hannah had been warning her about when they had first visited the school.
What was it that Hannah had said… that Constance was a bit of a loon?
“Have you ever wondered what type of music you would like to have played at your funeral?” Constance asked bluntly.
“I… I really can’t say that I ever have.”
“It’s truly such a difficult choice, one that most people don’t ever stop to consider!” the woman explained as if it were the most important thing in life. “You could choose a hymn, a stirring piece of music that practically launches people out of the pews; you could have a choir, a simple piano, or even a ragtime band! The choices never seem to end and regardless of how much thought I’ve given the matter, I can never manage to make up my mind. And don’t get me started on the flowers…”
Which seemed like good-enough advice for Charlotte to hold her tongue, but Constance wasn’t willing to wait.
“There’re roses and irises and big bouquets of this and that and—”
“It does sound complicated,” Charlotte interrupted, glancing at her watch.
“Oh, it is, my dear! It really is!”
Charlotte was about to excuse herself, to say that it was nice to have made Constance’s acquaintance, but she had left the conversation for a moment too long, an insufferable silence that Miss Lowell couldn’t avoid filling.
“Have you ever wondered why people don’t send invitations to their own funerals?” she asked. “After all, invitations are sent for weddings and for anniversaries, two moments in life that are quite personal, so why shouldn’t you be able to invite who you want to your own funeral. I can’t stand the idea of Anne Rider gawking over my casket, but I just bet you she’d come!”
“I really need to get going, Miss Lowell,” Charlotte explained. “Hannah will be waiting for me.”
“There are so many preparations when giving a loved one a decent send-off!”
“—meet someone and get—”
“I have to hurry so that it’s all in place before the fateful day arrives!”
“I need to catch my ride back to the ranch.”
“You never know when your time will be up, nosiree!”
“We’ll talk again soon, okay?”
Even as Charlotte walked away, Constance kept right on talking.
Chapter Thirteen
SARAH BECK TOSSED down her pencil in frustrated anger, bouncing it off the old scarred table and down onto the floor with a clatter. It rolled until it was underneath the stove, and she sent the wadded-up paper she had been using to work out a math problem following it to the floor. Tears filled her eyes and her lip quivered, a sob barely held in.
“I ain’t never gonna understand any of this! I ain’t never!”
Charlotte sighed, forcing herself to take a deep breath for both their sakes. They’d been working together for days, doing the same kinds of problems over repeatedly in the futile hope that Sarah would begin to understand.
“Perhaps it’s my fault,” Charlotte offered in encouragement. “I may not have explained it clearly enough.”
“It ain’t yore fault!” Sarah said stubbornly. “I ain’t never gonna learn it!”
“Getting angry isn’t going to do either of us any good.”
“I’m too stupid!”
“You’re not stupid, Sarah,” Charlotte corrected her. “Don’t say that.”
“I am so! I’m just a dumb old prairie gal. I’ll never amount to anythin’.”
Unfortunately, this was the pattern that had presented itself in the days since Charlotte had agreed to John Grant’s request to teach Sarah. Every night after school, in the hours before dinner, John drove Charlotte down the long and bumpy road, to the shack. Regardless of the subject, arithmetic, or reading, or even basic spelling, Charlotte was shocked at how little schooling the pregnant girl had had. Most nights, she went home deeply frustrated, unsure of what avenue remained to her, unable to determine what she should try next. But every day she came back; true to her word, she would not quit trying.
What frustrated Charlotte the most wasn’t necessarily that Sarah was a poor pupil, but rather that she lacked the incentive to get better. Every night seemed to end in protests that she wasn’t smart enough to learn anything. No matter how Charlotte insisted that wasn’t true, no matter what encouragement she offered, Sarah was convinced she couldn’t learn.
Still, Charlotte didn’t feel that she could push Sarah too hard. Because of her pregnancy, she tired quickly. Besides, Charlotte knew that she was still doing all of the chores around the ramshackle cabin: washing dirty clothes, doing the cooking, and tidying up. Most nights, Alan was nowhere to be seen; other evenings, he lounged around with a wad of tobacco wedged in his cheek. His apathy concerning Sarah’s condition made Charlotte furious.
“Did you try to read the book I left for you?” she asked, hoping to move to a more acceptable subject.
“I tried, but I didn’t get too far… some of them words were harder than I thought they’d be…”
“Well then, let’s go over what you didn’t understand.”
The book had been one of Charlotte’s favorites when she had been a little girl back home in Minnesota: L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz. Rich with bright illustrations that she hoped would tell the story without the need to understand every word of text, the copy she had borrowed from the Sawyer library had definitely seen better days. Worn to near-baldness on the spine, dented on each and every corner, and even missing its title page, the book still pleased Sarah. When Charlotte had presented it to her, the girl’s eyes had widened in wonder.
For the next twenty minutes, Charlotte followed along as Sarah read, offering encouragement and assistance in equal doses. Occasionally there would be a word, like contrary or supposedly, that Charlotte expected Sarah to struggle with or stumble over, but the girl surprised her by pronouncing perfectly. Other times, she would crash up against clatter or vision and be incapable of making her way past them without help.
“You’re doing better tonight.” Charlotte smiled. “You really are.”
“It does seem a bit easier,” Sarah said, uncomfortable with giving herself any credit.
They had just read past the part where the Scarecrow joins with Dorothy and Toto on their long journey to the Emerald City when Sarah gave out a surprised yelp, dropped the book, and scooted back her chair.
“What is it?” Charlotte asked in confusion. “What’s the matter?”
For an instant, she thought that Sarah must be in pain, so drastic her reaction, so wide her eyes, her hands flying to her large belly. But then a smile of wonderment blossomed across the girl’s face, spreading from ear to ear, and brightening the whole room.
“It… it was the baby…” She beamed. “I felt him movin’!”
“Oh, Sarah!” Charlotte exclaimed. “That’s amazing!”
“Give me yer hand!”
Before Charlotte could either agree or decline, Sarah reached out and snatched her by the wrist, lifted her shirt, and brought her teacher’s unsteady hand to the bare skin of her stomach.
“I don’t know if I should…” Charlotte tried to argue.
“Wait for
it,” Sarah hushed her.
Seconds passed with neither of them moving; Charlotte had to remind herself to breathe. The skin on the girl’s belly was taut, as smooth as marble, and warm to the touch. Suddenly, there was an insistent push just beneath the skin, punching or kicking that jabbed against Charlotte’s palm near the thumb, an unmistakable sign of life not yet born, but living all the same.
“Did you feel that?” Charlotte asked, followed by the recognition of how silly such a question was.
Of course she did…
Sarah nodded enthusiastically in honest answer.
“Is it often like this?”
“This ain’t the first time I’ve felt him,” Sarah explained earnestly. “But usually it happens just when I wake from sleepin’, but it don’t often amount to a whole lot more than a tap here or there, nothin’ like the wallop he just gave me!”
“He?” Charlotte asked. “Are you sure it’s a boy?”
“There ain’t no way that it’s a girl givin’ me that much grief, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. When I was a little girl I was a hellion and a half. I can only imagine how much of a tussle I had inside my mother.”
With those words, Charlotte couldn’t help but imagine what this moment must have been like for Alice Tucker; she had said good-bye to her handsome new husband, sending him off to war, without even knowing that she was carrying his child. By the time she knew, by the time Charlotte would have been kicking her the way Sarah was being kicked, Alice would have thought Mason to be dead, leaving her a widow. So what had her reaction been the first moment that her child had made her presence known? Had Alice been as happy as Sarah was, humbled at the miracle of life? Or had she been repulsed, just one more reminder of her lost husband and that she would have to raise a child alone? The fact that she had died while giving birth gave credence to the later. It nearly broke Charlotte’s heart at the thought of imagining her mother crying not tears of joy, but of heartbreak. But just as she felt her own tears begin to well, it was Sarah who pulled her away from such morbid thoughts.
“I wish his, I mean, the baby’s father… was here to feel this,” she said, whispering so softly that her voice could barely be heard.
Sarah’s words were like a blow to Charlotte’s chest. From the moment she had met the Becks, the question of who was the father of Sarah’s child had reverberated around her thoughts, but she had not ventured to ask. Now the matter sat like a firecracker, its fuse lit, filling the room with expectation, an explosion that seemed destined to occur.
But some firecrackers’ fuses fizzle…
Not this one…
Charlotte knew that she could no longer hold her curiosity at bay, particularly after what Sarah had said. Though Charlotte knew that it really wasn’t any of her business, she pushed forward, prying a bit in search of the truth.
“Where is he, Sarah?” she asked. “Where is your child’s father?”
Sarah eyed her closely, clearly weighing whether she was willing to divulge anything further; Charlotte didn’t know what she would do if Sarah chose to remain quiet, but thankfully she didn’t have to.
“Can you keep a little secret?” Sarah asked.
“Of course I can.”
“His name was Andrew… Andrew Watkins…” she said as tears drifted steadily down her flushed cheeks, “and he was the… only man I ever loved… and he ain’t alive no more…”
Watching the painful emotions wash over Sarah nearly broke Charlotte’s heart in two. When she was younger, she’d loved to read about a love unrequited or lovers who weren’t allowed to be together, but to witness such sadness firsthand was heartbreaking. It was hard enough for her to even understand love, since she couldn’t honestly say she had ever found it, but that didn’t mean she failed to appreciate its value. Charlotte wondered if she would ever meet a man whose absence would make her cry… and she suddenly found herself thinking about Owen; bringing her to tears was something he seemed good at.
“Do you want to talk about him?” Charlotte asked.
“You wanna listen?”
When Charlotte nodded, Sarah brightened for an instant. “The first time I ever seen him was outside the mercantile back in Colton; that’s our home in Arkansas,” she explained. “’Bout made my heart bounce just lookin’ at his blue eyes, feelin’s I ain’t never had ’fore. When he come up to talk to me, I didn’t have no idea what to say, so I just nodded my head a bit till he started laughin’, and whatever was in that laugh broke the hold on my tongue. ’Fore long, we was meetin’ up whenever we could.”
“And you fell in love with Andrew?”
“It was the strangest sensation, fallin’ in love. ’Bout the only thing I compare it to would be jumpin’ off a big cliff. Once you’re past the edge, there ain’t no particular reason to be graspin’ for a line a safety. You just keep on fallin’ anyhow, so you might as well enjoy it the whole way down.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but laugh; it was a better way of explaining love than any she’d read in a book.
But then Sarah’s face darkened, and Charlotte knew that she had come to what had taken Andrew away from her.
“My pa said Andrew come from better than us,” she said softly. “See, Watkins was a name back home, ’portant people, folks with money, so that must of meant Andrew was just amusin’ himself with us poor people and ’bout the time he got what he wanted outta me he’d be up and gone faster than a runaway train. But Andrew weren’t like that; he really weren’t! What with the sort of words he talked to me, the way he looked at me or held me in his arms, there weren’t no doubt that he woulda stood by me if he coulda, if he’d gotten the chance, no doubt at all!”
To hear the heartache in Sarah’s voice was nearly enough to make Charlotte wish she hadn’t asked about the baby’s father, but now it was too late for any regrets. Patiently, she waited, unable to ask further.
“He died not ever knowin’ he was gonna have a son.” A hesitation, then a correction: “A baby. He was struck by some drunk drivin’ a milk truck, right in the middle of the afternoon.” By now, the tears were falling as steadily as the rain beginning to tap against the cabin’s windows, as if it too shared in Sarah’s sorrows. “I found out the next day I was pregnant, just ’bout the same time I learned he was gone. Love is just like fallin’ off that cliff,” Sarah said, “’cept sometimes you hit the ground.”
Charlotte stood under the leaky edge of the Becks’ roof, trying in vain to stay dry in the face of the growing rainstorm. It had come on suddenly, a squall with mean intentions, peals of thunder still distant but coming. Wind swirled her skirt against her feet, the dry earth slowly turning to mud. Though it should still have been light, dark clouds had rolled in, blotting out what had remained of the day and hastening night’s arrival.
After talking about the death of her unborn child’s father, Sarah had become exhausted and Charlotte had put her to bed. There’d been no protest and she’d drifted off to sleep the instant her head had touched her pillow. Not wanting to do anything that might disturb the girl’s much-needed sleep, Charlotte had stepped outside, content to wait in the rain for John to come and pick her up.
Perfect weather to match my mood…
Sarah’s story still affected her deeply, a keening in her heart. She’d imagined something different, something simpler, easier to understand, not such a heartbreaking story of loss. But there was something else, not a jealousy, but similar, for Sarah had at least known love, even if she had lost it, while for Charlotte, she had never loved at all, a void that now seemed much greater. Involuntarily, she laughed at her stupidity.
“I don’t think what you’re doin’ is the least bit funny.”
Charlotte was so surprised by the voice that spoke beside her that she practically jumped out into the rain.
Alan Beck leaned out of the deep shadows that draped over the house, unsteady on his feet, the unmistakable smell of alcohol on his breath. He was unshaven and unkempt, and
the snarl on his lips parted long enough for him to spit a disgusting stream of tobacco out into the storm. His mouth hung slack, his breath ragged, a huge wad of chaw visible through his brown teeth.
“Excuse me?” she answered. “What do you mean? Funny?”
“Teachin’ that girl book learnin’ ain’t gonna do her no good,” he groused, punctuating his words with a jab of one gnarled finger. “Fillin’ a woman’s head up with such shit ain’t in the least bit funny, if’n you ask me.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Beck, but I have to disagree with you,” Charlotte fired back, her dander rising.
“You just mark my words!” he barked, taking an aggressive step toward her. “Ain’t nothin’ good is ever gonna come outta a gal disobeyin’ her papa! I told her that snobby prick she got tangled up with wouldn’t do nothin’ but screw her and leave her and that’s exactly what he did! I reckon she done told you all ’bout it! Leavin’ her without a husband or father for that kid, how in the hell’s she ever gonna amount to anythin’?”
“Yes, she will! By getting an education, that’s how! You should be supporting her however she needs it instead of tearing her down and drinking!”
Charlotte’s words struck Alan as clearly as if he had been struck by lightning. “I’ll show you for back talkin’ me like that, girlie!” With a lurch, he reached awkwardly for her, one arm raised to slap her.
Balling her fists, Charlotte waited for the violence to arrive, intent upon defending herself as best she could. But as suddenly as it had begun, it came to such a quick halt that it frightened her, as Alan dissolved into a fit of coughing and hacking up phlegm that incapacitated him.
At the same moment, the headlights of the truck suddenly swung up over the low hill before them, cutting the gloomy rain like a knife. Without hesitation, Charlotte ran toward it, pulling at the door before John could even bring the truck to a halt. As she climbed in and sat down, she pondered the question: what was the reason John Grant took such an interest in the Becks? He had been so secretive that, for a moment, she had the crazy notion that he might be the father of Sarah’s child, but no sooner than she had had the thought before she dismissed it. A blue-eyed boy had taught Sarah to love and now he was gone, never to know the child who had been born of it.
Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] Page 12