Left by herself, her ridiculous costume dangling limply from her hands, Charlotte felt miserable about what her teacher had said; the truth was that everyone in her family hadn’t come to watch her in the play—only Rachel was there.
Even though he and Rachel had tried to explain it to her, that it wasn’t the right time for her father to be seen out in public, she was still resentful. All she wanted was for him to come watch her, to be proud of her, so that she could finally tell all of the other children that she too had a parent.
Why is that too much to ask?
Near the front of the stage, Catherine Nichols was getting ready to be the star of the show, dressed in a bright blouse and skirt for her role as the farmer’s wife. Even Charlotte had to admit that she looked better than anyone else. With her long blonde hair and cheery smile, it wasn’t hard for her to be the center of attention. Charlotte cringed when Catherine saw her looking her way, giving her a knowing, confident smirk.
Charlotte groaned and looked down at her costume. She supposed that her teacher was right about something: Rachel would probably be disappointed if she’d come to the gymnasium for nothing. Reluctantly, she slipped on her leaf outfit just as Mrs. Schumacher returned, as frantic as ever, and began rounding up all of her charges and getting them in their places.
“Now remember,” she encouraged. “Big smiles, everyone!”
Charlotte stood offstage as the tall curtains were opened and the piano began to play robustly. As the lights were dimmed over the audience, a polite clapping echoed through the gymnasium.
While watching the first children run out in front of the audience dressed as squash and ears of corn, Charlotte wished that she could have been traipsing around the woods with Jasper instead of sweating heavily inside her ridiculous costume.
The play proceeded just as it had been practiced; after the first crops had made their appearance, Catherine and the boy playing the farmer sauntered onstage and recited their lines about the hard work being no burden in the face of such a plentiful harvest. Then other children went out and reaped the now abundant crops, just as the weather began to take a turn for the worse. Finally, it was Charlotte’s turn to perform.
There were four other children playing leaves; a couple of them orange, one brown, and one a deep purple. The script called for them to run out onto the stage and act as if they were being blown haphazardly by the autumn wind, lingering at the front of the stage before making their way to the other side. Charlotte went out with the rest of the leaves and dashed about as she had been instructed, but just as she was about to make her exit, she took a moment to look out into the audience in the hopes that Rachel might be visible and instead saw something that stopped her in her tracks.
There, at the far back of the gymnasium, leaning against the wall and visible only in the light that poured through the door to his right, stood her father.
He had come to the play after all!
Rachel was furiously fanning herself with her program when the lights to the gymnasium went down and the makeshift curtain on the stage parted. The man at the piano began to play and the first of the children rushed out onto the stage, went to their positions, and began to recite their lines.
Watching the expressions of the parents seated around her, pleasant smiles broadening across their sweat-covered faces, Rachel felt her own sense of pride growing at Charlotte’s accomplishments. Though she had been thrust into the role of mother by forces beyond her own control, it was a role she had assumed willingly. She had been there for every one of Charlotte’s successes and failures, watching the girl grow into the image of Alice, and she didn’t want anything to change.
But it already has changed…
Mason’s return to Carlson meant, for better or worse, that nothing in Charlotte’s life would ever be the same. For now, the girl was elated, thrilled to finally have what she had been denied her whole life. But what would the next day hold, or the day after that? When Rachel and Mason had spoken the night before, he had expressed a desire for things to remain as they were. “There’s no reason for that to change,” he’d said.
Rachel’s attention was drawn to the stage. After the first group of children had performed an unintentionally funny song-and-dance routine that was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience, the scenery was changed and a new batch of performers came onstage. This group portrayed a family of farmers anxiously awaiting the harvest in the face of the rapidly approaching winter; Rachel was struck by how accurately this depicted what the good people of Carlson went through each fall.
Then there was a calamitous banging on the piano, clearly meant to announce the arrival of something dreadful—in this case the sudden rising of the fall winds. It was then that Charlotte and four other children, all of them dressed as differently colored leaves, ran out onto the stage and began darting first one direction and then another, blowing about as if the announced wind really was pushing them.
Just as those parents around her had beamed with obvious pride at the appearance of their own children on the stage, Rachel felt her own heart swell at the first sight of Charlotte. Though she knew that the girl’s part was small, only a quick sighting until the last song, which would be performed by everyone in the production, she reveled in every second. As Charlotte crazily rushed around in her costume, her blonde braids bouncing about, Rachel’s eyes never left her, pleasantly regarding every step the girl took.
That’s my daughter!
When Charlotte reached the front of the stage, she clearly began to look around in the audience, her eyes searching across the rows of chairs. Rachel thought to raise her hand, to make it easier for the girl to spot her if only for a quick moment, but just as she was about to do so, Charlotte came to a sudden and complete stop, her acting role forgotten, her eyes fixed upon something in the rear of the gymnasium.
Even as the other children continued to do as they had been instructed, never forgetting their role as leaves, blowing here and there but always moving to the opposite side of the stage, finally passing behind the curtain, Charlotte stood planted in place as surely as if she were the tree she was supposed to have fallen from. At first her arms hung limply at her sides, but as a spectacularly broad smile spread across her face, she lifted a hand and waved.
“Charlotte!” a voice whispered from backstage. “Charlotte! You’re supposed to be off the stage!” Rachel caught a glimpse of a frantic woman, her eyes wide and pleading, waving one arm about in the hope of gaining the girl’s wandering attention.
Instead, Charlotte continued to stare.
Intensely curious, Rachel turned in her seat and followed Charlotte’s gaze. At first, she could see nothing but the faces of those seated around her, many regarding what was going on with bemused interest, but then she let her eyes travel farther, finally noticing what had caused all of the commotion.
Mason!
He leaned against the back wall of the gymnasium, standing mostly unseen in the deep shadows; if it hadn’t been for the sparse light seeping in through the door at his side, Rachel was quite certain she would never have seen him. With a hat pulled down low over his brow and his arms folded across his broad chest, Mason would have been impossible to identify without closer scrutiny. She thought she could see him smile in answer to his daughter’s broad grin and wave.
Though Mason had told Charlotte that he wouldn’t be able to attend her performance, something had happened to make him think better of his decision. Whether it had been the copious amount of tears his daughter had shed that had swayed him or if it had been his intention to come all along, Rachel couldn’t know, but her heart soared at the surprising sight of him. She knew it was impossible for him to sit beside her in the crowd, to allow his former friends and neighbors to look upon him and his scars, but that hadn’t been enough to keep him from watching his daughter on her important day.
But what Rachel felt most was more than her happiness for Charlotte; seeing Mason raised feelings of her own. She turne
d away from him quickly, suddenly aware that questioning eyes were falling upon her. Her heart beat thunderously and she was thankful for the relative dimness of the makeshift auditorium, if for nothing more than it masked her blushing cheeks.
As Charlotte’s teacher went out onto the stage to retrieve her wayward pupil, a sudden truth revealed itself to Rachel; she was beginning to have feelings for Mason Tucker, the man who had been married to her sister.
Just as soon as Charlotte was reluctantly pulled off the stage and behind the curtain by her teacher, Mason quietly turned and slipped out the door that led from the gymnasium. Even with his hat pulled down low, the glare of the lights felt blinding. Thankfully, the short hallway that led from the auditorium to the street was empty. Within seconds, he was stepping out into the chilly November night.
It might have been risky, but it was worth it!
Seeing Charlotte on the stage had warmed Mason’s heart in a way that hadn’t happened once in the eight years since he had set off for France. Though she was only a little girl, from a distance she so reminded him of Alice, particularly the color of her hair. From the moment she stepped onstage, he found himself holding his breath, his heart pounding full of pride, full of feelings he’d never imagined existed.
Mason’s intention had been to stay away; he’d meant what he’d said to Charlotte and Rachel when he’d explained why he couldn’t attend the performance. But somehow, watching out the window of his room in the boardinghouse as they set off for the school, he had known that if he didn’t see his daughter at such an important moment of her life, even for an instant, he would regret it for the rest of his days.
“I’m through missing out on the events of her life,” he’d muttered to himself.
Grabbing up his long coat and hat, Mason had practically leapt down the staircase and out the door, but he had still been cautious, finally deciding to approach the gymnasium only after he’d felt certain that everyone who was planning to attend was already inside. Entering the building carefully and standing beside the main door, he’d been ready to make a quick exit if it was called for. In the deep shadows, he believed it was impossible for Charlotte to see him, but when she had, he’d felt his heart nearly burst with pride.
Mason felt bad that Rachel had had to sit by herself, but he had no doubt that she would have realized who Charlotte was waving at; what finally necessitated his leaving was that nearly half the audience turned to see what the leaf found so fascinating. He hoped that Rachel understood what he was trying to do for his daughter.
Thinking about Rachel made him recall what he had said to her the other night on the back porch. His words had surprised even himself, falling out of his mouth as easily as rain from the sky. Declaring that he didn’t want anything to change in Rachel’s relationship with Charlotte undoubtedly was heartfelt, but complicated nonetheless. The simple truth was that he enjoyed her company in ways he had never anticipated; the thought of her leaving his life, as well as Charlotte’s, unsettled him.
Still, so much else in his life was similarly unsettled.
Sooner or later, Mason knew that he was going to have to face the people of Carlson without standing in the shadows. The list of those to whom he owed amends was long, but it began with his father. Sherman Tucker had always remained the largest figure in his life. From what Rachel had told him, Mason himself was the one responsible for the hard times that had befallen the man.
Mason was lost in these difficult thoughts, wondering how he might be able to speak with his father privately, when he rounded the corner of Main Street to see a man hurriedly approaching. Even lost in concentration, his head down, the man was instantly recognizable.
It was his brother, Zachary.
Fearful that he might have another collision, one from which he would be unable to escape unrecognized, Mason stepped back into the inky shadows between two buildings and watched as Zachary came closer. Well-dressed and groomed, considerably overweight, his brother was oblivious to whatever was going on around him. As he watched, Mason became aware of an insistent tugging at the back of his thoughts, one that told him that encountering his brother was a sign and that to ignore it would be every bit as regrettable as having missed Charlotte’s performance.
With resolve, Mason turned and walked into the night.
Chapter Twenty-six
ZACHARY TUCKER WALKED quickly down the main thoroughfare of Carlson, his shoulders slumped as low as his mood. A brisk, chilly wind raced down from the north, and he turned up the collar of his wool coat for what warmth it provided. No one else was foolish enough to have ventured out on such a night; he had the streets all to himself.
Only minutes earlier, Zachary had finally left the bank for the night. He’d spent the entire day pouring over the piles of paperwork he had done in requisitioning property for the Gaitskill Lumber Company: promissory notes, ledgers full of figures, and even the telegrams that had been sent by both parties. Everything was in order.
Except…
Never in his wildest imagination would Zachary have believed that the success of his ingenious plan could hinge upon the whims of his brother’s former family. He felt naïve for having believed that he could go to Rachel and receive a fair turn. She had proven every bit as stubborn as her mother. Even the attack on her uncle hadn’t proved enough to sway them to his cause.
But what could I possibly have expected?
Still, Zachary knew that no amount of anger or frustration, no matter how justified, was going to change a single thing. After all, what could he even conceivably do; have Travis Jefferson burn the boardinghouse to the ground? At such a late date, the options remaining to him were few: maybe he could attempt to sway the company’s board of directors to believe that there was another spur of railroad they could use; maybe he could persuade them to give him a bit more time; or maybe he could convince them to speak to that bitch Eliza Watkins and negotiate a better deal…
What in the hell am I going to do?
Loath as Zachary was to admit it, his grandiose schemes seemed to be blowing away like so much smoke. Months and months of planning, meticulous manipulation of funds and people, all would be ruined by the stubbornness of one woman, one family. He would still be wealthy, would still hold his position of authority in town, but it wouldn’t be as much as he had wanted. There would be no choice but to settle.
Turning the corner that led to the home he shared with his bedridden father, Zachary came to a sudden halt. For an instant, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he had seen something dart between the houses on the other side of the street. Was it a deer or some other wild game? Hell, it was probably some drunken slob like Otis Simmons looking for a place to relieve his booze-laden bladder. The poor bastard would probably be lucky not to fall asleep outdoors and freeze to death because of his own stupidity.
Shaking his head and chiding himself for his nerves, Zachary plodded on, the weight of the moon and stars above pressing down on him.
Mason hurried along in the darkness, carefully picking his way behind the buildings that lined Main Street. He was careful not to trip over anything lying in the way as he wove past crates and grease-stained barrels, yet he was still able to keep Zachary in sight. Thankfully, his brother’s pace was easy to maintain; one good thing about Zachary’s new girth was that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere in a hurry.
The moon looked down from above, just short of half full, surrounded by thousands of stars; the light that shone from the heavens was faint, hardly illuminating the ground at Mason’s feet. Hastening along, he worried that he might encounter a barking dog that would alert Zachary, but he couldn’t hear anything except for his own breathing.
So far, so good…
Even as he moved forward, Mason wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing; he knew that he should be staying as far away from Zachary as possible. With all that Rachel had told him, combined with his own bad experiences with his younger brother, it was clear that Zachary had grown into an
outright scoundrel.
Still, seeing Zachary on the same night that he’d felt such a strong urge to see his father was too much of a coincidence for Mason to ignore. While it would undoubtedly have been wiser to wait a day or two longer, until he was certain that Zachary was busy at the bank and his father was alone, he felt drawn to look upon Sherman Tucker with an insistence he was unable to ignore.
Moving ahead of his brother’s pace, Mason slipped behind Carlson’s Lutheran church, its tall white steeple standing out in stark contrast to the black sky above. Paralleling a row of well-groomed hedges, he hurried around the church in order to keep Zachary in his sight. Though the temperature continued to drop, driven downward by the breeze, Mason felt no cold, his chest burning with the desire to complete the task he had set for himself.
On and on they went, Mason shadowing Zachary, who remained unaware of being followed. Suddenly, crouching in the shadows between two houses, Mason was startled to see his brother come to an abrupt halt, looking in his direction. Faster than a spooked rabbit, Mason darted behind a nearby evergreen, certain that he had been seen, his heart hammering. Seconds dragged on. A cold sweat beaded his forehead, but finally he forced himself to move. Between the next gap of houses, Zachary came back into view showing no sign of having noticed him. Mason kept on cautiously.
Finally they came to the home that Sherman Tucker had built in the years before his sons were born. On the far northern edge of Carlson, standing splendidly against a backdrop of grand evergreens and elms, Lake Carlson no more than a stone’s throw away, the two-story home was one of the nicest in town. With an elegant wraparound porch, beveled glass windows, and gabled roof, it represented the success that its builder had accrued for himself and his family. As Mason warily approached, a careful eye kept upon the single light that shone through the downstairs windows, memories of all the years he had spent growing up inside the home’s grand walls flooded his thoughts. Somewhere inside was his father.
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