by P. Creeden
Her eyes widened. “When? How?”
Her aunt shook her head slowly, her lips drawing thin. Aunt Ruth was Tabitha’s mother’s younger sister. At only forty-five years old, Ruth had her hair pulled back in a neat bun, the gray and the brown mixing together in even amounts. “It was a doltish fit of tomfoolery. I shouldn’t have been rushing down the stairs in bare feet. My foot slipped and twisted. The doctor in town set it, but I have to stay off it as much as possible. It surely is healing slow. I’ve been staying off it as much as possible for nearly a month.”
“I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me in your letters?” Tabitha rested her carpet bag on the top of her trunk and came closer to her aunt, taking the older woman by the elbow.
“I didn’t want you to make that the reason for your coming. You needed to make up your mind on that yourself. After a woman loses a husband, she has to decide for herself whether it’s best to continue living in the home she’d made with him or move from it. You didn’t need the added pressure of me needing you to come help me to it.” Ruth’s smile became a little more gentle and she tilted her head toward Tabitha. “Any chance I can lean on you as we go to the kitchen?”
“Of course,” Tabitha said and offered her aunt an arm. Together they walked in slow steps toward the small kitchen at the back of the house.
“If you have any trouble getting that trunk up the stairs, I’ll get Ethan over to help,” Ruth offered as she sat lightly in a chair at the kitchen table.
Tabitha shook her head. “No! I’ll be fine. I’ll just unpack it and make several trips. I can move the trunk up easily when it’s empty.”
Although her aunt lifted a brow, she nodded. “All right.”
“Would you like me to put a kettle on for some tea?” Tabitha asked, heading toward the stove.
“Yes, there’s plenty of water in the drawing bucket. Ethan got it for me this morning.”
Tabitha couldn’t help the frown that pulled her lips down. “Why does he come over so often? What is your relationship with him?”
Ruth’s eyebrows went up a bit toward her hairline. “He’s our next door neighbor and my godson. I was friends with his mother before she passed in childbirth. His father spent all his time working, and very little time with the boy. I only helped them get through the hard time by helping Ethan any way he needed. He’d often come by for lunch or supper. He’d help with my yard work, so it never felt like charity to him. I’d make him clothing as presents for birthdays and Christmas so he wouldn’t feel forgotten, and if he had something needing mending, he’d bring it to me. I only wanted to do right by his mother and make sure that he never felt alone in this world.”
That guilt that had been hovering over Tabitha all day like a dark cloud sunk over her shoulders again. She’d been so selfish. She hadn’t thought about what that young man might have been going through or how much he’d have suffered. She’d only been thinking about herself and her own foolish feelings. After letting out a slow breath, she asked, “Where are your tea cups?”
Ruth pointed to the cupboard to the right of the stove.
After she pulled out two porcelain cups, the whistle blew on the kettle. Tabitha found the tea leaves and spooned a bit into each cup before pouring in the piping hot water over top. Then she turned back to her aunt as the tea steeped. So many emotions warred within Tabitha, she decided that she almost liked it better when she’d felt somewhat numb back in Boston. The only emotions she had there were the oppressive melancholy and fear. Now she had hopefulness, guilt, anger, and embarrassment to add to those. She was thankful to her aunt for giving Tabitha the wherewithal to pack up and leave Boston behind and get a fresh start here, but she wasn’t sure what to do with herself here.
“Oh!” Ruth said suddenly. “I may have been bragging a little bit about your talent as a pianist. I mean, you even went to Mount Holyoke to study music. And the sawmill owner, Mr. Yount, expressed an interest in his daughter Jillian coming and taking lessons with you, if you’re willing?”
Tabitha swallowed hard, her hands suddenly forming fists. She hadn’t even thought of playing a piano in months. It used to be her obsession. She used to play it daily—several times a day, even. But since John had died, she’d not had the inclination. Her heart squeezed in her chest, and her stomach twisted. But she did want to make a living of some kind. Music had always been her passion. How lovely would it be if she would ignite that passion in others. She let out a slow breath and nodded. “I’ve never taught before, but I’m more than willing to try.”
A smile spread across Ruth’s lips. “Excellent. There may be a few others interested as well.”
As her eyes were drawn to the upright piano in the parlor, Tabitha wondered if she was making the right decision. Maybe she didn’t need to jump into a new career so soon after arriving in Belle. But then, maybe it was just what she needed in order to get her life back on track. Without John’s continued income, she’d quickly depleted their savings while in Boston and had to ask her aunt Ruth to pay for the train ticket to Belle. If nothing else, she refused to be in that sort of situation again. Perhaps teaching music would be an ideal situation. She sipped a bit of her tea. Too hot. She set it aside and wondered if the piano needed tuning. She asked her aunt, “When was the last time someone played your piano?”
Ethan loved the sound of the hammer ringing against the steel of his anvil with a horse shoe in between. Even though he’d already taken care of his clients for the day before picking up Ruth’s niece, he decided to get ahead for the next day, forming nails and taking the keg, pre-made shoes and forming them to the patterns of the horses feet for the morning. His father had always told Ethan he was a natural at horseshoeing. Since he was fifteen years old, he’d been working as an apprentice under his father at their shop beside the livery. Not everyone remembered the shape of each horse’s feet, so that they could make the shoes before the horse stood in front of them. But Ethan did.
Every horse had a unique pattern to their hooves, and sometimes each of their hooves had a different pattern. After shoeing a horse only once, Ethan remembered the pattern. It made it so that he could do things like he was doing that afternoon. If he shaped the shoes to the general size and form of the hoof before the horse even arrived, it saved him valuable time. The owners appreciated his speed and punctuality. Farriery was an art, and Ethan considered himself to be one of the best artists around.
“I can’t believe it!” His father hollered as he came into the shop. It wasn’t often that his father came in to watch Ethan’s work. Abraham Younger, his father, had customers of his own who he’d been tending to for over twenty-five years, but he wasn’t seeing to any customers that late in the afternoon, either.
Ethan frowned. “What are you going on about?”
He and his father weren’t on the best of terms. Abraham had been too busy working and growing the shop to worry about raising his son until Ethan became big enough to handle a hammer and a horse. Then the boy had finally drawn his father’s interest. Luckily, Ethan had taken to horseshoeing like a duck to water. If he hadn’t, he wondered if his father would have forced it on him, anyway. Abraham narrowed his squinty eyes at his son and swiped a rough hand over his balding head. “Belle is getting a new blacksmith. No... a whole crew of new blacksmiths.”
Ethan’s heart dropped toward his stomach. “What? How is that possible? This town has little over three hundred residents, there’s hardly more than a hundred horses. How can we be getting a crew of blacksmiths?”
His father frowned, his lips drawing tight as he stepped forward and patted Ethan’s shoulder. “That’s what I want to know. I’m going to go talk to the mayor about this right now. I need to put a stop to this whole mess. I haven’t built this business for nearly thirty years only to have everything cut in half by a crew of new blacksmiths. I won’t let my legacy in Belle fall flat.”
A lump formed in Ethan’s throat as his father withdrew his hand and headed for the door. Abraham was never em
otional and had never been the kind to hug, cuddle or even pat Ethan for a job well done. The feeling of his calloused palm on Ethan’s shoulder had felt odd but comforting. Maybe his father had feelings for him after all. The backs of his eyes stung. It wouldn’t hurt if someone in this world besides Ruth cared about whether Ethan lived and breathed. At least he’d had her until this niece showed up. Now, how was he going to just waltz into Ruth’s house like it was his home. Because it had always been a home to him before.
He quenched the hot shoe he’d held in his tongs and set it aside, his arms suddenly feeling weak and tired. His shoulders drooped as he cleaned up the shop. The sun had begun to set on the horizon, and Ethan’s stomach growled again. He’d skipped lunch because he’d been busy trying to get all of his customers in before he needed to pick up the niece. That woman. He frowned as he leaned against the shop’s back door and watched the setting sun to the west. He’d been a fool to think that Ruth’s niece would be anything like Ruth. Ruth was one of a kind. He’d imagined he’d found a woman like her before, but that had turned out to be a fallacy. The girl had pretended to be what Ethan had wanted until she decided that she didn’t want Ethan any longer. Laura had been his first love, but she’d broken his heart by stomping on it and traipsing off with a different man and mocking Ethan for being a brute.
He sighed as he wiped his hands clean with a shop rag and watched the rays of sun spread across the sky in orange hues. And then he found himself humming. Humming? It was a song he’d not thought of for the longest time. Not since he was nine years old and his mother used to play the song on their piano. The piano his father had sold to Ruth when his mother had passed on. Ruth. The song was coming from Ruth’s house. He blinked, confusion intermingling with the irrational excitement in his core. His feet had begun moving in the direction of her house unbidden. They took each step of their own accord, and he had no say in the matter. It didn’t matter. All logic had fled. How could he be hearing this music from Ruth’s house?
His mother’s piano. A song his mother played.
From Ruth’s house.
His heart fluttered with each step as the notes rang clearer and became more true as he drew closer and then finally, through the picture window, he saw her. A woman sitting at the upright piano in Ruth’s parlor.
“Mother?” he whispered, knowing it wasn’t possible but every fiber of his being wishing it were true.
Then the song ended, and the woman turned around.
Tabitha.
And reality couldn’t have punched him in the gut any harder than it did right then. Tears stung his eyes and slipped out before he could turn around. He couldn’t breathe—the wind had been knocked out of him. As he stumbled back to the shop, he stopped to dry heave in front of the door. What had he been thinking? How had his emotions overcome him in such a way. They stormed around him in the fury of a cyclone. What was wrong with him?
He shook his head, slipped into the shop and slid down to the floor, sitting with his back resting against the trunk of wood where his anvil rested. He pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them, and wept.
Chapter 3
What had come over Ethan? When he’d finally come back to himself, he rose to his feet and swiped at his face. He hadn’t cried like that since he was a boy. Since he was nine and he realized his father would never be the man to care for him that he should have been. How could he have had those feelings dragged back up like that? Did music really have that much of an effect on him? He’d never realized it before. Regardless, he pulled himself together and headed to the small space above the shop where he lived. His father still had their house across the street and down the way, but Ethan hadn’t lived there in years. He found the pitcher and basin and washed up a bit, peering at his reflection in the foggy old mirror. Then he changed into a clean shirt before heading back downstairs. The dying light made it barely possible to see the steps he made through the shop as he headed out the front door and closed it up. What he needed was something to eat, and he’d head to the cafe to see what he could get before they closed.
He stepped inside, pulled off his hat, and found only two other tables occupied. The waitress, Charity, greeted him with a smile and waved toward the tables. “Sit anywhere you like, Ethan. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Ethan nodded and found a seat, put his hat in the seat beside him and then slowly took a deep breath. It wasn’t long before a plate of food and drink were placed in front of him. He had no need to order, since he always got whatever special the cook made for the night. No need for anything fancy. He recalled the delicious scent of stew that had been in Ruth’s home earlier. He’d have liked to accept her invitation and stayed. Normally he would have. But now Ruth’s house felt a little less welcoming to him with that stranger in it.
Tabitha.
She played the piano. His mother’s piano. Somehow that irked him. No one had played that piano in over ten years, since before Ruth had even bought it. Now it had to be that stranger’s hand that desecrated his mother’s piano. His stomach twisted, and he frowned. Desecrated was a harsh word. And it wasn’t even true. Tabitha had played the piano beautifully, even if a few of the keys were a bit out of tune.
Suddenly, his food became tasteless. It wouldn’t have made much difference to him if he was chewing sawdust. He didn’t like the woman touching his mother’s piano, even if she did play it well, but what could he do about it? Nothing. He shoved in another mouthful, going through the motions of chewing it and swallowing it down, even though it seemed to make his mouth and throat drier. He drank his cup of water, but it didn’t seem to help. Before long, he pushed his plate aside, paid for his meal and started out the door again.
This wasn’t the right place for him. But what was? Darkness had fallen over the little town of Belle. In the distance, he could still hear hammers working. They were building new shops and homes throughout the town. Everything was changing, and the little town was growing faster than Ethan was comfortable with. Honestly, he didn’t like change of any kind. Not in his town. Not in his neighborhood. Not in Ruth’s house. He wished things could just stay the same as it always was. Nothing new ever turned out well.
A spat curse behind him caught his attention, and he turned around, finding his father marching toward him with a frustrated glare. “It’s true. They are coming—a whole crew from California.”
Ethan stopped and just blinked at his father as the man passed by him on the street.
His father’s hands fisted at his sides as he continued to rant. “I thought I’d done right by this town. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone just to make sure its every needs were taken care of. It’s not big enough for more than two blacksmiths. There aren’t enough horses. How can they justify bringing in a whole crew?”
For a long moment, he just watched his father march away in the dark toward his family home. Did his father want for him to follow? Honestly, Ethan didn’t care enough. He let out a slow breath and turned away. His father might go on ranting for a long while, but it wasn’t something for Ethan to have to deal with. Instead, he turned into his shop and went straight up the stairs, plopping into the pallet of blankets he had there for a make-shift bed. Outside, the trees blew in the wind, their leaves rustling. Crickets chirped. And occasionally, he heard a piano note.
With a frown he stood and walked to the window. Once he got there, he peered toward Ruth’s house. A light shone through the downstairs window. Tabitha sat at the upright piano with the top open. She’d play a key adjust something inside and then play the key again. Was she tuning it? Did she really know how? She pursed her lips while her forehead wrinkled. He blinked at her. It was an interesting turn that she was not only a competent pianist, but she also knew how to tune the instrument. It increased the respect Ethan had for her. Maybe she could do his mother’s piano justice after all. He didn’t need to like her to believe that she would take care of the instrument.
Besides. She was Ruth’s niece. He had to have fait
h that a woman who shared the same bloodline as his godmother would not be completely bad. He backed away from the window and lay back down on his pallet. A breeze blew in from the window, helping lull him to sleep. And though some time later, piano notes played through his slumber, he was uncertain whether they were part of his dream or carried on the wind.
A few days later, Tabitha stuck to the boardwalks or fronts of the stores as she strolled through town. Even though in a small town like Belle, there weren’t as many horses to worry about, the trauma of her husband’s accident still gave her a bit too much fear for the unpredictable and often unruly beasts. She swallowed hard and ducked into the mercantile just as a horse blew its nose and startled her.
“Can I help you, Miss?” a gentleman’s voice called from the counter.
She blinked at him, took a deep breath and composed herself. “I’m sorry. I just came in to peer around a bit if you don’t mind? I’m new to town. You might know my aunt, Miss Ruth Collins?”
The man’s smile widened, and he nodded. “Of course. Most people in town know Ruth. Happy to have you here. I’m Henry Stewart. My wife and I run the shop here.”
As Tabitha relaxed, a smile pulled at her lips. “Oh! I’m Tabitha Harker. Thank you for the welcome.”
“Your aunt’s been having a time with that broken foot of hers. I’m glad you’ll be around to help her. Actually, I have some willow bark that she ordered in. Let me get a bag of that for you,” the gentleman said as he walked down the counter to the area where his apothecary was set up.
“Willow bark?” Tabitha asked. “Isn’t that for pain?”
He nodded and found the jar he was searching for and then placed some of the contents in a smaller jar. “Yes. Pain—and helps bring down swelling.”