by Leisha Kelly
Somehow I found my tongue. “It doesn’t make sense to be nervous. Not for me. Frank and I love each other. I know we’ll be happy. And he’s doing so well here—”
I stopped. I really shouldn’t be talking about this. I barely knew this woman.
“But it’s new,” she said. “So of course you’re nervous. Should have seen me when I first got married and moved from my father’s farm to a little house on the other side of town. I cried for three days. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my husband. But I was only fifteen and I didn’t know how to be married. I didn’t know how to do anything, and I was scared as the dickens.”
“But I’m a lot older than fifteen,” I told her. “And I have no reason to be scared.”
She glanced over at me and nodded. “Except that it’s a normal reaction to change. Outside of birth and death, marriage is maybe the biggest change there is.”
I could almost wonder if this woman had been hearing my prayers. Were my feelings really normal? But even if they were, that couldn’t make them right. Faith wasn’t supposed to be bound up by fear. “I promised to trust,” I told her plain out. “But it isn’t always easy.”
She’d rolled her cinnamony dough into a big log and started cutting off generous slices. “Is it trust of the Lord or of Frank you’re having difficulty with?”
I wasn’t sure I liked her asking such a candid question. But it wouldn’t be right not to answer. “Maybe both. But neither, really. I do trust them. I love Frank. And he’s so sure he was led to live here. I can believe him. I can accept that.”
“You’re just not sure about rejoicing in it, yet, huh? That’ll come. Once you’re together. You’ll see. Best thing you can do for a man is believe in him. And he’s a fine man to believe in. He’ll take care of you. I have no doubt.”
“Has the business been good?”
She smiled and spread melted butter over the tops of her rolls. “He keeps busy. Good bit of it’s to be a blessing to people without asking for pay, but you might be surprised to know how he’s gained by that. People know he’s a nice, honest young man. He’s already gained respect, even among other businesses. Did you know he joined the business association?”
“No. I guess he hasn’t gotten around to telling me that yet.” I set out juice glasses, wishing Mom had come along. I liked working beside her and having her there to talk to any time I wished. Never in my life had we been so far apart.
It’ll be like this every day, the fretful thought invaded my mind. Only you won’t have your father here, or a train ticket to go home. This’ll be your life, up here alone.
I won’t either be alone, I argued inside my head. I’ll be with Frank.
Mrs. Haywood put the cinnamon rolls in the oven, and not long afterward I heard Dad and Frank at the front door. She sent me to let them in so she could drain the bacon. I hugged them both as soon as I opened the door. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t hold myself back from it.
“Sleep well?” Dad asked me, probably wondering at me seeming to cling to them.
I nodded.
“Gettin’ along all right with Mrs. Haywood?” Frank asked. Maybe he was wondering too.
“Yes. Fine. She’s a wonderful lady.”
I wasn’t sure of anything else to say, but there was no need. Mrs. Haywood had us all sit down for coffee and juice and served plates full of eggs and bacon. She asked Frank to bless the food, and he did without showing a shred of discomfort. We were scarcely started eating when she brought out the cinnamon rolls, piping hot and fresh from the oven. They were so good I told her I’d like the recipe.
The pie was gooseberry-apple and I knew she’d been talking to Frank enough to get to know him pretty well. Not many people ever made that combination, but he loved it. She insisted that we should take it with us when we left, and enjoy it along with whatever else Frank had planned for our lunch. It was her welcome gift.
After breakfast we went across the street. Stepping inside the house for the first time was a strange experience. Of course the Bellors’ belongings were still everywhere, much already in boxes. But I had no difficulty imagining what the house would be like empty, and then filled again with our things. A rocking chair made by Frank should sit by the fire, with my best woven rag-rug on the floor beside it. If these curtains moved with the Bellors, I would make new ones. Blue, to match the blue highlighted in that favorite rug. We would put Frank’s mother’s clock on the mantel with a candle on each side of it. We would have other chairs, or maybe a love seat, and a bookshelf, and a radio.
This house was a little like Mom and Dad’s, with two bedrooms upstairs and one down. But the sitting room was practically big enough to divide into two rooms, and there was an extra room besides, off in one corner. The house already had indoor plumbing. And a telephone line reaching from a pole out by the street.
Dad noticed things like the sagging basement steps and sticking doors that we would be able to fix once we moved in. Frank told us about patching the roof already. More than one room had bits of peeling wallpaper, but that didn’t bother me. We could make this a lovely home. Eventually, we would.
Frank showed me where he wanted to put in a garden. “It’s not too late to get something planted this year,” he said. “I thought I’d start on that next week.”
It gave me a good feeling to think about having a garden already here ready to come home to after the wedding. That, at least, would make being here seem not quite so strange.
“You want me to plant flowers too?” he asked. “Somethin’ that’ll be bloomin’ in June or July?”
“You might not have time. I hear you’ve been very busy.”
He smiled. “I can get somethin’ in. Just for you.”
He wanted to go for a walk again when we were done looking at the house. Dad stayed at the store. Frank and I hadn’t asked to be alone, but he was giving us the opportunity anyway. He picked up what looked like a scrap piece of pine and asked Frank if he could whittle on it while we were gone.
“Sure. Use anything you want.”
We walked past the train depot and back to the railroad park. Sitting on the rail of the bandstand Frank told me again that he loved me and was proud that I’d be his wife.
“And I’m proud of you,” I told him with a kiss. “All you’ve accomplished here. It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“Unlikely?”
“Oh, Frank.”
But he was grinning at me, teasing, and not upset at all.
“Maybe amazing would be a better word.”
“Blessed,” he told me then. “I think that fits.”
We walked down State Street past many of Camp Point’s shops and businesses. A lot of people knew Frank already and offered friendly waves. He showed me where the People’s Bank was and told me the library was upstairs above it, but he hadn’t been in it yet. We turned on Ohio Street, which Frank said Sam had called “the Avenue.”
“Used to be where the rich folks lived, I guess,” Frank said. “I think people are pretty mixed together anymore, though.”
We walked for several blocks, past some beautiful big homes. Frank pointed out which one the pastor lived in, where we’d be eating Sunday dinner.
“Do you really think he ought to cook for us tomorrow?” I questioned. “He’s got the sermon to think about.”
“I told him the same thing. But he said it’d be fun. He plans to leave something in the oven the whole time we’re at church and pull it out when we get done. He says he’s done it before for folks.”
Hand in hand, we strode as far as that street would take us and then turned west and continued to the entrance of a large park on the edge of town. Frank wanted to go in. So we walked toward the shelter house, enjoying the spring breeze. And then Frank surprised me with a sudden pull on my hand.
“Look at that big rock.”
It was big, all right. Massive.
“Wanna sit on a boulder?” He picked me up, quick as a wink.
“Frank!”
Laughing, I let him do it, and there I was, perched precariously on a boulder. Frank backed up and ran at the rock with his limpy gait, zipping right to the top and plopping down beside me with a grunt.
“Whew. That wasn’t as easy as it looked when I seen a kid do it the other day.”
“Are you all right?” He’d landed pretty hard, and I thought immediately about his weak leg.
“Sure. I didn’t plan this, you know. Just bein’ silly.”
“I like it. Nice place to sit. And a new experience. I can go home and tell people you swept me off my feet and I didn’t get back to earth for . . . I don’t know how long yet.”
With his fetching dark hair rustling in the breeze, he leaned close and kissed me, but then we heard children somewhere close and we quit, lest they come into view and see us at it. Frank’s pretty silvery eyes were shining in the sunlight, and he looked dreamy handsome. I wished we could stay together like this for the rest of the day. I didn’t even care if we stayed right where we were on that rock, but the children we’d heard were suddenly in front of us, running toward the swings in our direction.
“Wanna see the pond?” Frank asked. He slid down the face of the boulder like he’d done this before, landed on his feet, and turned around. “Your turn. Slide down. I’ll catch you.”
The front of the rock was sloped enough that sliding down did seem natural. I didn’t think the rough stone could be very good for the backside of our clothes though, but I slid anyway, far more rapidly than I expected to, into Frank’s arms.
“Oh!” I caught my breath and still held on to him, even when he set me on my feet again. “Did I hurt you?”
He shook his head with a little smile. “You’re not very big, Sarah Jean.”
“Big enough to bowl you over, I was afraid.”
“Not near.”
He took me to see the pond, telling me he’d come out here first when the snow was still on the ground, and he’d found it to be a quiet respite. A good place to walk and pray. It was a pretty place. I liked it too, but on such a beautiful Saturday we couldn’t expect to have it to ourselves. There were three big boys fishing. Frank knew one of them and gave him a wave.
“His family’s started coming to our church,” he explained.
Our church. The words gave me a peculiar sort of feeling inside. Did Frank realize how completely he’d adopted this new town? How long would it take me?
When we got back to the shop, Frank made us what he called “one-pot stew” and served it for lunch along with biscuits from Lawless’s Market.
“I call it ‘one-pot’ ’cause I can only cook one pot a’ something at a time,” Frank explained. “I been makin’ it a lot ’cause it’s easier’n figurin’ how to make something else with only one burner and no skillet.”
I suggested we walk to the dry goods store and buy a skillet this very day. He agreed if I wanted to, and then he told me I should pick my favorite of the stoves in the front of the store. If Mrs. Bellor took hers along to their new house, he’d have the new one installed before he came down for the wedding.
“Maybe you need it in the back room here,” I suggested.
“Nah. I make it fine. And this is temporary. Less than two months to go.”
He was delighted with the thought, I could tell. I sat on a chair he’d made, with my dish on a table he wasn’t finished with yet, and enjoyed that stew immensely. It was some of the best I’d ever had. Between the three of us, we almost cleaned the pot out.
Dad had carved a little pine canoe in the time that we were gone and had started on a tiny wooden man to go with it. I’d always thought my father was good at such things, but he was right that Frank had gotten even better. This store looked like the domain of an artist.
As soon as he finished eating, Frank rose to a work desk and pulled a ledger book from his drawer. “You both bein’ family and so close connected to the business, maybe I should show you my records so far.”
“You don’t have to,” Dad told him.
“At least I wanna show Sarah. An’ I don’t mind you seein’. I got nothing to hide. You know me. There ain’t gonna be no surprises.”
But there was one. He’d made a simple agreement with Mrs. Haywood to help him with the books, and I could see where she’d made a small start. I was used to Frank’s system, and when I considered that he’d been working here alone since February, I expected his books would be badly in need of an organizing touch. But they were clear and current, at least to someone who understood Frank’s homemade shorthand. I was pleased.
But Dad looked more at the content than the system. “Looks like with expenses, you’re coming barely ahead of breaking even.”
“’Bout what I expected startin’ out,” Frank assured us. “I’ve had to buy wood till I can find a place to cut some of my own, and with turning on the town utilities, fixing the roof, and otherwise gettin’ the shop ready, it’s been costing me more to get goin’ than it will to keep on.”
Dad nodded, and I fought away an uneasy feeling. Don’t worry, I told myself. This is just like any business starting out. Frank’s right. It’ll get better.
I started to clean up the stew pot and our dishes, but Frank wouldn’t let me, at least not alone. So we finished the cleanup together, using the lavatory sink because there wasn’t any other one. Frank would surely be glad to get into our house. It’d be taxing on the patience to live this way very long, even though the shop had running water.
I’d brought the book I’d given Frank at Easter. Thoreau’s Walden. When we were finished cleaning up, I read a chapter aloud, and then we went to buy a skillet. It was kind of nifty picking out something together that we’d probably use for years.
Frank took us uptown for supper. I wondered if he ought to spend the money, but he said it was Saturday night and a very special occasion, having us here. He wanted to take us to a restaurant, to celebrate. Camp Point had seemed so quiet earlier today. But come evening it filled up and got lively.
“Saturday night,” Frank said by way of explanation. “Everybody comes to town.”
There were so many vehicles there were scarcely any parking places left along the square. And not just cars and trucks. A few people had come in farm wagons. One with a tractor. And two horses stood side by side, tethered near the front of the opera house.
“Lot of farmers around here,” Frank said. “Just like back home.”
There was a lot of music too. And dancing going on in at least one place we walked past. Frank didn’t suggest going in. Instead we had a nice dinner in a restaurant on the square and then started across the park on our way back to the shop. There were people on the sidewalks and people on the bandstand.
“I don’t come up here most Saturday nights,” Frank told me. “Got work to do.”
Did he come sometimes? I wondered. Did he take to the jumping Saturday-night crowds of his new town as well as he took to everything else?
Just then, a young woman with a striped dress came out of a store with two or three friends and gave Frank a gigantic wave and a smile. He appeared not to notice, but she came straight in our direction, followed by her friends, all of them pretty and dressed like they were on their way to a party.
“Frank Hammond,” the girl called as soon as she knew she was close enough to be heard. “Is this the gal you were telling me about? Can we meet her? Peggy and Janet didn’t believe I’d actually talked to you enough that you’d tell me anything so personal, but I told them you wouldn’t deny it.”
I didn’t like that young lady. She was far too forward for no good reason. Frank was polite enough to comply with her intrusive request, but no more. “This is my fiancée, Sarah Wortham. Sarah Jean, this is Shirley . . . uh, I don’t remember if I learned your last name.”
“Bates,” the girl said with a smile, sticking out her hand. “I’m Shirley Bates. Pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you too,” I said and imm
ediately felt guilty. That had been a lie slipping out before I could think about it. But what else could I say?
“So you’re getting married in June?” she went on glibly when she should’ve been introducing her friends. “Only two months away. Does it worry you to be so far apart?”
“No,” I answered a little too bluntly. “Why should it?”
“No reason.” She turned to one of her friends and actually giggled. They said their names far too quickly to expect me to remember them, and I noticed they were looking at Frank most of the time. They hurried off down the street, but the encounter left me with a lingering discomfort.
“How long have you known them?” I asked Frank.
“Don’t think I ever seen but the one before,” he said. “She come in the shop to look around.”
“Not only at carvings, I’ll bet.”
Dad looked my way.
“They were acting like schoolgirls,” I went on.
“Yeah,” Frank said simply. “Can’t argue with that.”
His manner and his answer didn’t give me the assurance I needed. So I decided to ask a very direct question. “How many times have you been up here on Saturday nights?”
He stopped walking and seemed to be studying me. “Just once besides this.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothin’ special. Mrs. Haywood had a root beer float.”
Dad smiled. I didn’t reply. But I knew exactly what I was feeling. Jealousy. Big and ugly, not just toward those foolish girls, but also toward Mr. Willings, Mrs. Haywood, the church, even this whole town because they had Frank’s attention when I wasn’t around to claim it. And it might not be any different even when I was here.
“You want an ice cream?” Frank suddenly asked.
“Okay.”
We stopped at the drugstore for cones, and when we stepped back out to the sidewalk, I saw the same three girls watching us from across the street. Frank noticed them too. “Maybe they ain’t never seen a woman lookin’ so fine as you,” he suggested.
“They’re not looking at me,” I countered. “They’re noticing my handsome beau and probably wishing I’d disappear.”