“Yes,” Dusty answered. “Seems she’ll be staying awhile.”
“Things just might be lookin’ up, fellas.” Hal’s laugh was suggestive.
Dusty shook his head in a silent warning. The rules were strict at the Golden T. The boys were required to use polite language at all times. Especially when it came to women.
But there was no denying that Karen Butler was a looker, just as Ted had said. Whether or not her presence at the ranch meant things were looking up was still in question.
He hoped so, for Sophia’s sake. The elderly woman deserved good things to happen to her in her sunset years.
“You holler if you need anything,” Sophia said as she backed out of the bedroom, closing the door after her.
Alone at last, Karen sank onto the bed. “I understand now. No wonder Mother got out of here as fast as she could.”
The bedroom was small, barely enough space for the double bed and an ancient four-drawer bureau. The wooden floor was hidden beneath an old rag rug, and the wallpaper looked to be as old as the house, judging by the faded design and curling edges.
It was impossible for Karen to picture Margaret Butler living in this place. Impossible? No. It was laughable.
She lay down, draped an arm over her eyes, and wished for sleep so she could escape the reality of her situation.
Mac isn’t around to save you now. Killing yourself would be a lot easier. You could go park that piece of junk you’re driving in the middle of the desert and nobody would find you for weeks, maybe years.
“Like father, like daughter.”
That was what had kept her from another suicide attempt. Not wanting to be like Randolph Butler was what had helped her fight her way back from the pit of depression. It was probably the only thing that could have done it. That and Mac’s unflagging support.
Mac had paid her hospital bills out of his own pocket. He and his wife had taken Karen into their home for several months. And finally, he’d provided the means for her to come to Idaho.
She moaned softly. Based upon the things her mother had said years before, she hadn’t expected this to be a picnic, but she’d had no idea how bad it would be. They were miles and miles from a town of any size. She’d rarely seen so much emptiness, apart from the desert around Las Vegas—and who noticed the desert when one went to Vegas? This entire house was smaller than the living room of the Butlers’ L.A. residence.
Correction. Former L.A. residence.
It would kill Mother to see me here. Maybe knowing that would remove some of the sting.
Margaret Butler had hated this ranch as much as she’d despised her mother. She’d never tried to hide either fact from Karen.
“Your grandmother is a hateful, despicable woman,” Margaret had said once. “I was lucky to escape her and that dreadful ranch. Never ask me about her again. As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead.”
But that despicable woman had welcomed Karen into her home without question. Her eyes had been kind, her words tender. Was it all an act? Or was it because she was old? Sometimes the elderly changed when they faced eternity—or so she’d been told. Was her grandmother ill, perhaps facing death?
She winced at the thought.
Before leaving Los Angeles, she’d figured the one bright spot about going to Idaho was that her grandmother was over eighty years old. If she played her cards right, Karen had thought she might inherit the ranch once the old woman kicked off. Then she could sell it and return to Los Angeles with the necessary funds to resume the lifeindent to which she was both accustomed and suited.
But inherit this place? What a joke! The Golden T couldn’t be worth much more than the thirty-year-old car Mac had given to her.
And why should she be surprised? Nothing else in her life had gone right lately. Why should this be any different?
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1933
Dear Diary,
I write this by candlelight. The house is silent. Everyone else is asleep. Except for me. I am still too excited, for I love this day beyond any other of the year. It isn’t the presents. We have never had many of those. It isn’t the dinner, for Mama’s food is always delicious. I suppose it must be the love we all have for one another.
Of course, there were some presents. Mama made Sophia and me each a new dress. Mine is buttercup yellow. Sophia’s is sky blue. And both are pretty with lace collars. Mama must have worked many hours in secret. We wore our new dresses to church this morning.
I saved my money from thinning apples last summer. I bought Papa a new watch chain because he lost the one Grandpa gave him. He was very pleased. I bought Mama a new straw hat. She says it’s the loveliest she has ever owned. It isn’t, but I liked her saying it was so.
I bought something very special for Sophia. She’s been admiring a comb for her hair for many months now. When it disappeared from the shop window, she was disappointed. She had no idea I bought it for her. She was so surprised, and she says she will wear it because I am both her best friend and her beloved sister.
I thought it the best Christmas ever.
Esther
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1934
Dear Diary,
I am fifteen today, and this is my first entry in my fourth journal. I know now that Mama will give me a new book for my thoughts every year for my birthday. Although I cannot say my writing will ever be of much interest to anyone. Not even to me.
What will this next year bring? I wonder. Fifteen is nearly grown, after all. Some girls marry at sixteen, although I cannot imagine wanting to do so.
Sophia tells me I will change my mind when the right boy comes along. She says love will make me forget my tomboyish ways. I wonder if that is true. Perhaps. Sophia knows much more than I. She’s been kissed, while I never have.
Sophia’s the pretty one. Am I jealous?
Esther
TWO
Karen fell asleep in her clothes. It was the smell of frying bacon that brought her around in the morning.
When she sat up, she found that someone had brought in her suitcases from the car and had placed them at the foot of the bed. Her cosmetic case was on top of the bureau. She went to it immediately, desperate for her toothbrush and toothpaste, a brush for her hair, and her roll-on deodorant.
Half an hour later, she emerged from the bathroom, feeling more human, and went to the kitchen.
Dirty dishes were stacked on the counter next to the sink, and two of the boys she’d seen yesterday were washing and drying them. Sophia sat at the table in the middle of the room, sipping a hot beverage from a delicate china cup.
Her grandmother’s eyes brightened when she saw Karen. “My dear, you must be famished.” She rose from her chair. “You slept right through supper last night.”
The boys stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. Karen glared back at them.
Sophia didn’t seem to notice the exchange. “Sit down and I’ll scramble you some eggs. And we have bacon and grapefruit, too.”
“I’d be happy with a cup of coffee and some dry toast,” Karen answered, feeling uncomfortable. She was used to being waited on. But by servants, not old women. “Just show me where things are, and I’ll get them myself.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re my guest.” Sophia motioned toward the chair opposite her. “Sit down. Please.”
Karen didn’t know what else to do but oblige.
“I’ve asked Dusty to show you around the ranch this evening after it cools off. If you’re up to it. Do you ride?”
“Yes.” Lessons at boarding school had seen to that, she could have added.
“Good.” Sophia dropped two pieces of white bread into a four-slot toaster, then pushed down on the knob. “I think you’ll enjoy getting out once you’re rested.”
Getting out is exactly what I’d like to do. Out of here.
Her grandmother poured coffee into a china cup similar to the one on the table. “As soon as Ted and Noah finish their chores, you and I can sit in the parlor and get better
acquainted.” To the boys, she said, “Hurry up, you two. Quit your dawdling.”
“Sure thing, Miss Sophie.”
“We ain’t dawdling.”
“Says who?” She swatted the shorter of the two boys on the backside with a dishtowel, smiling at him with affection. “And say hello to my granddaughter, Karen Butler.”
“Hi, Miss Butler. I’m Noah.”
She nodded. “Hello, Noah.”
“And I’m Ted Haney. Nice to have you here. Where you from?” “California. Los Angeles. And you?”
“From around here,” Ted answered with a shrug. Then he turned toward the sink and continued washing and rinsing while Noah dried and stacked.
What were these boys to Sophia? Karen wondered again. Relatives of some kind? Sophia’s great-grandchildren? Did Margaret Butler have a brother or sister she hadn’t bothered to tell Karen about?
Nothing would surprise her. It seemed there were a great many things her mother hadn’t bothered to tell her. “Karen?”
She glanced up to find Sophia standing directly across the table from her.
“Don’t be too hard on your mother.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe not yet. But you will in time.”
“So how’s it going?” Grant Ludwig asked as he and Dusty followed the four boys up the draw.
The six of them were headed toward the foothills that formed the southern border of the ranch. It would be a long day, but it was the sort Dusty liked best. He enjoyed being on horseback. Gave a man time to think, to talk to God, to work things out. Surrounded by nature and little else, it was a good object lesson on a person’s dependence upon the Creator of the universe.
“Okay,” Dusty said in reply to Grant’s question. “They’ve settled in.”
Grant Ludwig worked part-time for the Golden T Youth Camp, his small stipend paid by the four area churches that helped support the camp. He’d volunteered his services nearly five years ago, right after Sophia gave Dusty the use of her ranch for his work.
“The four of them seem to be getting along with each other,” Grant commented.
Dusty shrugged. Both men knew that appearances could be deceiving. Boys were sent to the Golden T when options were running out. Usually by their parents, occasionally by a judge who believed in the work Dusty was doing. This was the place boys came, in the hopes they could be turned around before they got into serious trouble with the law.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
The times that it didn’t were the ones that kept Dusty awake at night, wondering what he might have done differently.
“Miss Sophie have company? Or did you get another car?”
“No. It’s her granddaughter’s.”
“Do tell?” Grant’s eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t know she had any family left.”
“I don’t think Miss Butler’s here ‘cause she wants to be.”
“What do you mean?”
Dusty frowned. “I don’t know. Just a gut feeling. You’ll see for yourself when you meet her.” He gave his head a slight shake. “I’m afraid it’ll break Sophia’s heart when she leaves. You should’ve seen the way she looked last night. I swear, it took ten years off her, having Karen sleeping in Margaret’s old room.”
“Well, it isn’t like Sophia couldn’t use some help around the place. That’ll be nice for her.”
Dusty didn’t comment. From the looks of Karen Butler, he’d guess she hadn’t lifted a finger to do anything for herself from the moment she was born with that silver spoon in her mouth. From the tips of her manicured nails to the toes of her designer shoes, she had big money written all over her. The suitcases he’d brought in last night would have supported everybody on the ranch for a couple of months, minimum. Probably longer. The only thing that didn’t fit was the rattletrap car she was driving.
He bet that was killing her.
Are you judging her, My son?
With a nod, he acknowledged the gentle question spoken to his heart.
But he still believed Karen’s presence at the ranch could only mean disappointment for Sophia.
Karen looked at the framed photographs covering the top of the upright piano in the parlor. Photos of her mother when she was a girl. Photos of her mother’s father, Bradley Taylor. Photos of the three of them as a family.
“Do you play?” her grandmother asked from behind Karen.
She turned around. “Pardon?”
“Do you play the piano?”
“Yes.” More exclusive boarding-school lessons, she could have added.
“I taught your mother on that piano.”
“Really?” Another surprise. “I didn’t even know she could play.”
Sophia’s expression turned sorrowful as she sat down in the nearby chair. “Because of me, I suppose. She learned to hate anything I loved. Except for Bradley. We both loved her father.”
“Tell me about Mother when she was young.” Karen glanced over her shoulder again. “I never saw any photos of her as a child. I assumed you hadn’t taken any.”
“Oh, we took lots of photographs. She was beautiful, our Maggie. She was very much like her father.”
Karen leaned closer to the piano, squinting at one snapshot of father and daughter together. “Do you think so? It looks to me like my grandfather had dark hair and eyes. Nothing at all like Mother.”
Sophia remained silent.
“No,” Karen continued as she perused more of the photos, “it doesn’t seem like Mother resembled either one of you.”
“She was devoted to Bradley. If he’d lived, perhaps the rift would have healed between her and me, given enough time. He was the peacemaker in our family.”
Karen faced the older woman a second time. “What happened between you and Mother?” She settled onto the piano bench. “I’d like to understand.”
“It was never just one thing.” Sophia looked beyond Karen, beyond the piano, beyond the present, and into the past. “She and I were like oil and water, almost from the very beginning.”
“Why didn’t you love her?” She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but that was the way the words came out.
“That’s what she thought—that I didn’t love her. But it wasn’t true. I loved Maggie more than I could express. So much more.” Her eyes refocused on Karen. “Our relationship was complicated, your mother’s and mine. I caused her great hurt. It was because of my inability to overcome feelings from my past, things she’d had no part in. But I did love Maggie. From the first moment I laid eyes on her, I thought the sun rose and set with her.”
“Then I guess it runs in the family.”
“What does?”
“The inability to show love even when one feels it.” Karen was immediately sorry that she’d spoken. Her words revealed too much, far more than she wanted her grandmother to know.
“I’m sorry.” Sophia’s eyes fluttered closed and her voice dropped to a whisper. “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the next generation and the next. Forgive me, Lord. I’m so sorry I couldn’t learn that lesson in time.”
Karen felt like an eavesdropper. Was the woman actually praying?
Sophia opened her eyes. “Whatever else might be said, Maggie did raise a beautiful daughter.”
“Mother didn’t raise me.” Karen stood up, suddenly restless.
“That was left to paid employees and the staff at fancy boarding schools.” She headed for the door. “I need some air. I’m going for a walk.”
As the door swung closed behind Karen, Sophia closed her eyes a second time.
O Father, now I know what is still undone. Use me as You will, but heal this girl’s heart. Don’t let her go through life, as Maggie did, believing herself unloved.
She released a sigh as her thoughts began to drift, back to the day Margaret Rose had arrived. It had been in the spring of 1946. The war in Europe had been over nearly a year by the time the four-year-old girl stepped off the train in Nampa, Id
aho, clutching the rag doll Esther had made. Sophia would never forget the way her heart had twisted in her chest, torn in two directions from the first moment she laid eyes on her sister’s orphaned child.
Her sister’s child …
And Mikkel’s child.
So many regrets, Lord. So many regrets.
I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten. You shall praise the name of the Lord your god, who has dealt wondrously with you.
The words brought immediate comfort, for she knew the Scriptures were true. Sophia couldn’t change the past, but God, in His mercy, could make up for the years her anger, resentment, and jealousy—her personal swarming locust—had eaten.
“Well then,” she said aloud. “How do we begin, Jesus?”
And the answer came: Give her Esther’s diaries.
Give them away? But, Lord, they brought me to You. They’re all I have left of—
Esther’s diaries.
It took a few moments, but then she understood. The diaries would tell Karen the truth. The truth about Esther, Karen’s real grandmother. The truth about Karen’s heritage of faith. The truth about love.
And it would be better if she learned all of this from Esther. In her own words.
Sophia sighed. “I’m a stubborn old woman, Father. Stubborn as the day is long.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “But I’m trying to overcome it, because I want more than anything to do Your will.”
Then she walked toward her bedroom at the rear of the house.
Sunday, July 19, 1936
Dear Diary,
The most incredible thing has happened. Our little church has a new minister. Pastor Mikkel Christiansen is his name. Christiansen. What a perfect name for a pastor. Don’t you think so?
He is not at all what I expected. Nor what the congregation expected either. He is much younger than our previous pastor. Papa thinks no more than 25 or 26. (I suppose I would seem a mere child to him, being only 17.) He is ever so handsome. Tall as an oak with hair the color of straw and eyes a piercing blue. God forgive me, I did not hear a word of his sermon, for all I was looking at was him.
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