Belonging

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  “No, he didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, we did. A big box of new McGuffey’s. We didn’t use to have enough for everybody, but now we do.”

  “How wonderful. Every student should have their own reader.”

  “I like the stories in ‘em, but I think reading’s hard.”

  Colin tensed. His daughter’s struggle with reading was a sore point—perhaps because he was unable to help her as he wished he could—but also because of Miss Lucas’s harsh assessment of Charity’s learning abilities.

  “It can be,” Felicia answered. “But we can find ways to make it easier for you.”

  He released a breath he hadn’t known he held, and the tension eased from his shoulders.

  “I like history best,” Charity continued.

  “Do you? That’s good. It’s very important to know history. It helps us understand the present better if we know and understand the past.”

  “Ask me something, Miss Kristoffersen. See if I know it. Go on, ask me.”

  “Charity,” Colin warned softly.

  He heard his daughter sigh.

  They arrived at the cottage, and he opened the door, then stepped back to allow the schoolteacher and his daughter to enter first. But it wasn’t merely because he was acting the gentleman, doing the polite thing. The truth was, he always needed an extra moment to steel himself before he passed through this doorway. The small house held bittersweet memories for him.

  He’d built the home for Margaret. His wife hadn’t wanted to continue residing in the other half of the mercantile building. So he’d built this cottage for her, exactly as she’d wanted, with the parlor and the larger bedroom facing First Street, giving a view of the mountains to the north, and a porch that wrapped around from the front to one side where another door opened into the kitchen. He’d hoped it would bring her some happiness, hoped it would bring them closer together. Only she’d died before they could move into it.

  “This is where I’m to live?”

  Felicia’s question pulled Colin’s attention to the present.

  “I hadn’t anticipated anything so lovely as this,” she said, looking at him.

  The new schoolteacher was past the age at which most members of the fair sex married. In fact, his late wife had given birth once and miscarried three times before she was as old as Miss Kristoffersen. Colin had buried Margaret on her twenty-sixth birthday, which, according to the information the school board received, was the present age of the new teacher. Some would call Miss Kristoffersen an old maid, but that would be an unjust description of someone with such a smile. A smile that would draw single men to her as surely as bees are drawn to honey.

  The school board would rue the day they hired her. Colin thought it as certain as the rising of the sun on the morrow.

  TWO

  Kathleen’s daughters skipped along the sidewalk ahead of her as the threesome made their way home. Neither of the girls seemed to have been disappointed by their brief introduction to the new schoolteacher. Kathleen should have known it would be that way. Between the heat and the trip in Walter Swanson’s buckboard from Boise City, she wouldn’t have wanted to spend any length of time with strangers either.

  Still, she dreaded going home with so little to report to Mother Summerville. Her mother-in-law would have many questions, and Kathleen would have few answers.

  Suzanne stopped in front of the post office and turned around. “May I get the mail, Mama?”

  Kathleen nodded.

  Suzanne went into the building, Phoebe on her heels. A few seconds later, the door opened again and two men stepped outside. When they saw Kathleen, they both bent their hat brims in greeting.

  She recognized them, of course. They were cowhands who worked for Glen Gilchrist on the Double G, a ranch about fifteen miles east of Frenchman’s Bluff. The younger of the two, Oscar Jacobson, remained on the boardwalk while the other, Nate Evans, walked on across the street to the livery and blacksmith.

  “Afternoon, Miz Summerville,” Oscar said with his familiar crooked grin.

  There was something about Oscar Jacobson that always made her feel happy and lighthearted. He was a tall drink of water—thin as a rail, with cheeks as smooth as a young boy’s and a smile that never seemed far from his lips.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Jacobson.”

  “Another hot day.” He bumped his hat back on his forehead.

  “Yes.”

  “I hear tell the new schoolmarm came in today.”

  “Yes. Just a short while ago.”

  “Miz Carpenter said there’s gonna be a potluck after church this Sunday in order for folks to meet her.”

  Kathleen imagined that all the single men in the area would be eager to make Miss Kristoffersen’s acquaintance as soon as they heard how lovely she was. But perhaps the new schoolteacher wouldn’t welcome their attentions since she was in mourning.

  Her chest tightened, remembering her own loss. It had been more than two years since her husband passed, but the ache in her heart hadn’t gone away the instant custom said it was permissible to stop wearing black. And there were times when Harold’s mother made her feel guilty that she wasn’t still draped in heavy crape with a veil over her face. A confusing circumstance since Mother Summerville also seemed eager for her to marry again.

  “You all right, ma’am?” Oscar asked, his grin slipping a little.

  How long had she been standing there, her thoughts wandering? How much had the young cowboy seen written on her face? Before she could answer him, Suzanne and Phoebe spilled out of the post office. Relieved, she turned her full attention upon her daughters.

  “Mr. Reynolds had four letters for us,” Suzanne said.

  “Four of them.” Phoebe held up her right hand, her fingers splayed.

  “They’re all for Grandmother,” Suzanne added.

  “Then we had better take them home.” Kathleen looked at Oscar again. “Please excuse us, Mr. Jacobson.”

  “Of course, ma’am.” He bent his hat brim a second time. “You take care now.”

  She hurried after her daughters, turning the corner onto Shoshone Street and following the sidewalk the rest of the way home, entering the house through the kitchen door in the back.

  Victoria Hasting, the Summerville cook, glanced up from the vegetables she was chopping on the large table in the indent of the room, gave an abrupt nod, and went straight back to work. After setting down her shopping basket, Kathleen continued through the kitchen, across the hall, and into the private sitting room where her mother-in-law spent most of her time when she wasn’t entertaining guests or out on social calls.

  “We brought the mail,” Kathleen heard Suzanne announce.

  “Ah. At last.” Seated at her writing desk, Helen Summerville looked at Kathleen, who had stopped just inside the doorway. “I wondered what was keeping you.”

  Phoebe said, “We got to meet the new teacher. She’s real pretty.”

  “Is she now?” Mother Summerville motioned for Kathleen to sit on the nearby sofa. Then she looked at her granddaughters. “You two go on up to your room and play. Your mother and I wish to have a talk.” She leaned forward and turned her cheek for the expected kisses. Once the children had gone, she addressed Kathleen once again. “So tell me about her.” Displeasure laced her words.

  Kathleen knew why she sounded that way, of course. Helen Summerville had voted with Colin Murphy, the two negative votes against offering the position to Miss Kristoffersen. Kathleen suspected Helen had voted with Colin because she wanted the town’s leading merchant to be obliged to her in the future; she liked people to be obliged to do her bidding. She especially seemed to enjoy that her daughter-in-law was obliged to her. Without the generosity of the Summervilles, Kathleen wouldn’t be able to provide for her daughters. She had no money of her own, no home of her own. So she obediently followed along, doing as she was told, performing as she was expected.

  Perhaps that was the reason she’d taken perverse pleasure w
hen the other members of the school board didn’t blindly follow Helen’s example and vote against Miss Kristoffersen’s hiring. Her mother-in-law was not used to being on the losing side of anything and had been infuriated from that day to this. She expected to lead the way and have others follow, and most often that was the way it worked. But not this time. Mother Summerville and Colin had been overruled.

  “Kathleen, didn’t you hear me? Tell me about Miss Kristoffersen.”

  “I liked her.”

  Helen’s nostrils flared, and a shiver of dread went down Kathleen’s spine. Mother Summerville had a notorious temper and could slay a lesser being with her icy gaze. Or at least it felt that way.

  Kathleen hurried to add a few details. “She was polite and very warm with the children. Naturally, she was tired from her journey, so Mr. Murphy showed her to the cottage soon after she arrived. We had little time to visit.”

  “And is she pretty?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Did you know she’s in mourning?”

  Mother Summerville held her head a little higher. “Of course I knew. That information was in her letter of introduction.” She shook her head slowly. “I suppose if I want to know anything of value, I shall have to make a point of meeting her myself.”

  Kathleen felt the sting of rebuke in her words, but for a change, she didn’t attempt to redeem herself in her mother-in-law’s eyes. Instead, she pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  After a few moments of silence, Helen flicked her fingers in the general direction of the door, her way of saying their talk was over. Kathleen rose and left the room.

  A moonless sky glittered with stars, and soft, cool air caressed Felicia’s face as she stepped to the edge of the porch and wrapped her right arm around an awning post outside the kitchen of her cottage. Most of the citizens of Frenchman’s Bluff had retired long before now, evidenced by the silence that surrounded her and by the dark homes and buildings that dotted the streets of the small town. But lamplight still shone from a downstairs window in the living quarters of the Murphy home.

  Felicia wasn’t sure what to think of her landlord. Colin Murphy was polite, to be sure, but he also seemed cool and reserved. Felicia felt a rush of sympathy for his daughter. She knew all too well what it was like to live in a home where laughter and love were in short supply, where emotions were expected to be kept to oneself and never expressed to others.

  She drew in a deep breath as she looked upward, her gaze sweeping the heavens until she located the Big Dipper. Seeing the familiar constellation, she recalled, as she always did, the last time she’d been with her older brother and younger sister.

  “As long as you can see those stars,” Hugh had said, pointing toward the night sky, “you’ll know we’re not far apart. Don’t you worry. I’ll find you again, Felicia. I’ll find you both.” She’d believed his promise for a long time.

  She no longer believed it. How could she after so many years? Hugh had been a boy of thirteen. He’d made his promise never knowing how far Felicia would go on that train before someone wanted her.

  Years ago, once before she’d gone to normal school, once after she’d returned to the Kristoffersen farm, she’d written to Dr. Cray’s Asylum for Little Wanderers, hoping to locate her siblings. She hadn’t received an answer either time.

  A lump formed in her throat, and the diamond-studded sky blurred. She blinked back the unwelcome tears. “I should be ashamed,” she whispered. “I was clothed and fed and educated. I never went without anything I truly needed.”

  Except love.

  In her mind, she pictured the couple who’d raised her—Britta and Lars Kristoffersen. In their late sixties and childless, they’d come to the grange hall to see the last of the children from the asylum, the few who hadn’t been taken at the other train stops between Chicago and Laramie. Boys who were strong enough to work on farms had been chosen at the earliest stops. And after those boys, the youngest children had gone next. A girl of ten, like Felicia, had been betwixt and between. But the Kristoffersens had wanted a girl, someone old enough to help Britta with the housework, someone young enough to still be with them as a comfort in their old age. Felicia had been the only girl of the right age remaining. They’d taken her with scarcely a glance.

  She drew in a breath and let it out on a sigh. There was no point dwelling on the past. It was behind her now. The future would be what she made of it. She was young, strong, educated, capable. She would make a new life for herself in Frenchman’s Bluff, Idaho. And if she didn’t like it here, she could go elsewhere. There was no one to tell her she couldn’t. She was free to do as she pleased.

  For the first time in her life.

  THREE

  On the following afternoon, Colin and three other men sat on the benches outside the Benoit Feed Store, keeping to the shade while the sun beat down on the dusty main street of town. Across from the feed store, two of Quincy Daughtry’s black Labradors lay flat on their sides underneath a wagon—looking more dead than alive—while horses in the livery stable’s corral swatted at flies with their tails.

  “Now that Cleveland’s out of office, it’ll happen,” Arnold Hanson said with conviction. “The country’s got too much invested in Cuba. You’ll see. It’s gonna mean war with Spain.”

  Noel Bryant looked at Colin. “What do you think, Murphy?”

  “Sorry. I never can guess what those fellows in Washington will do.”

  Noel shifted his eyes to Gary Peters, who was busy whittling something with a knife. “What about you, Peters?”

  “I agree with Arnold. There’ll be another war.” Gary curled off a thin slice of wood with the sharp blade. “Maybe not this year. Maybe not next year. But there’ll be one.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Noel rose from the bench, stretched, then looked up and down Main Street. “Sure is hot. Hottest August I can remember in these parts.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement from the others.

  After a lengthy silence, Arnold looked at Colin. “I hear tell our new schoolteacher arrived yesterday.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s she like?” Noel asked.

  Colin shrugged. “Like a schoolteacher, I guess. We didn’t talk much. She was tired from her trip.”

  “She as pretty as Miss Lucas was?” Arnold persisted.

  Colin stared out at the street, squinting at the bright light that bounced off the dirt. “Guess so. Maybe.”

  “He guesses.” Arnold chuckled. “Maybe. Murphy, you’re the limit. You’ve got another young single gal livin’ in the house right behind yours, and all you can do is guess if she’s pretty. No wonder you haven’t married again if you can’t even take notice of a gal’s appearance.”

  Colin clenched his jaw. He didn’t much care for Arnold Hanson. The man didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. And now would have been a good time for him to do so.

  “Well,” Noel interjected, “I reckon he’s trying to be polite. I heard the schoolmarm’s kinda dowdy.”

  Colin could have set Noel straight. Wearing mourning clothes didn’t make a woman like Felicia Kristoffersen dowdy. But he didn’t say so out loud. It would just lead to more jesting, and he wasn’t in the mood for that. He stood, setting his hat on his head. “I’d better get back to the store.” He stepped off the boardwalk and strode across the street.

  “Tell my boy to go straight on home when he’s done working,” Noel called after him. “His ma’s got some chores that need doing.”

  Maybe you should go straight on home and help your wife instead of sitting there like a bump on a log. It was an uncharitable thought, given that Colin had been idling away the last half hour, maybe longer, right along with Noel and the other men.

  When he entered the mercantile, he found it empty, save for his daughter and Jimmy Bryant. Charity sat cross-legged on the counter, and she and his young store clerk were playing a game of cards. Jimmy straightened when h
e saw Colin, and a guilty flush reddened his face. As well it should. Colin didn’t pay the boy to amuse his daughter with a deck of cards.

  “Your dad said to get home to help your ma with some chores.”

  “Yessir.” Jimmy removed his apron and took it into the storeroom. “I finished all the things you told me to do, Mr. Murphy.” He appeared in the doorway again. “Hasn’t been any customers since you left.”

  “Not surprised. Too hot to do much more than sit in the shade if you can help it.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Get on with you.”

  “See you tomorrow, sir.”

  Colin turned toward the counter just as Charity’s stockinged feet touched the floor. “What have I told you about that?” he asked, frowning.

  “There wasn’t anybody else in the store. Nobody saw me up there but you and Jimmy.”

  Colin cocked an eyebrow.

  His daughter hung her head, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, Papa. I won’t do it again.”

  “See that you don’t.”

  Margaret’s voice whispered in his memory. “God Almighty, help me to be a good mother.” Colin could recall the scene as clearly now as if he’d heard her praying beside their daughter’s bed the previous night. “Help me to bring her up to be a lady in every respect. I’m so afraid I’ll fail.”

  What sort of God took a wife and mother from the family who needed her? And for all the things that hadn’t been right in their little family, they had needed one another. Given more time, Margaret would have become a good mother, and Colin would have become a better husband. He was sure of it.

  Charity came to stand next to him. “Want me to scramble eggs for supper?”

  “Sure. Eggs would be good.” He resisted the urge to ruffle her hair, not wanting to relent just yet. Charity needed to know she couldn’t talk her way out of trouble as easily as an “I’m sorry.”

  The bell above the entrance jingled, and he turned to see who’d entered the store. Even before he saw her face, Felicia’s black gown gave her identity away.