“Are you ashamed?” she whispered.
He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know if that is the appropriate word. I’m disappointed in myself every time I bite my tongue and don’t speak up. Like when I read about another injustice in the paper and remain quiet, rather than discussing it with the children so they learn right from wrong.”
He sighed, resting his forehead against hers and looking deeply into her eyes. “I made a promise, my darling. Once you escaped Cameron and were brave enough to share with me all you’d suffered in Boston after our separation, I promised I would do everything in my power so that we were never again separated.” His callused thumb swept over her cheek, soothing her and clearing away tears. “I remind myself of that promise every day when I am tempted to speak out.”
“Oh, Gabriel, what can we do?” she whispered.
He held her close. “I don’t know what more we can do while the majority in the country are terrified of Germany and anyone who might threaten us. I think our resistance must be to raise our children free of hatred and fear.”
Chapter 6
May had turned into a wet and dreary June, and low clouds hung over the mountains, hiding the distant peaks. The lilac bushes had faded, and now they waited for the columbine to bloom. Amelia Carlin took a deep breath as she stood on the porch, checking the address one more time before she raised her hand. She knocked on Clarissa’s front door, her eldest son beside her. When the door burst open, she gave a tentative smile as she met Clarissa’s shocked expression for a moment before being pulled into a full-body hug by Clarissa.
“Amelia! I can’t believe you’re here.” Clarissa released Amelia and turned to Nicholas. “And I can’t believe how big you’ve gotten.” She gave him a quick hug and a kiss on his cheek. “How are you both? What brings you to Missoula?” She stepped back and motioned for them to enter. “You’re very welcome.”
She took their coats, hanging them on pegs by the front door and setting their cases near the stairs. “Please pardon the mess. I seem to live in a perpetual state of chaos, even with Araminta’s help,” Clarissa said with a smile. She tossed toys and a blanket in a box by the side of the settee. She glanced at a small playpen Gabriel had constructed for Little Colin where he piled his toys, one on top of each other, most likely in an attempt to climb out of the confined space.
Clarissa laughed and picked him up, placing him on the carpet in front of the settee. She set paper and pencils on a small table for him to draw on, and he sat in contented silence as he fisted the pencil, working on a masterpiece. “Where are your other children?” Clarissa frowned as she thought of Amelia’s six younger children.
“They are home with Sebastian. Anne is seventeen and old enough to oversee the younger children, for the most part. A neighbor watches out for them during the day when Sebastian is at work.” Amelia fidgeted before sitting next to Nicholas on the settee. Amelia lived with her husband, Sebastian Carlin, in Darby, a town about sixty miles up the Bitterroot Valley where he ran the local sawmill. She and Clarissa had been best friends when Clarissa first came to Missoula, before Amelia married Sebastian and moved away.
“What brings you to Missoula? You haven’t ventured down the valley since Mr. Pickens’s funeral, nearly four years ago.” Clarissa frowned as Amelia wrung her hands and shook her head, as though unable to speak.
“I’ve been drafted, Mrs. McLeod,” Nicholas said in a deep voice. His previously russet-colored hair had darkened to a chestnut brown with red highlights, and his deep-brown eyes sparked with excitement. “They expanded the draft to include those who turned twenty-one after the draft last June. When I registered, it seems they were eager for a strong Montana man like me, and I was drafted right away.”
Clarissa collapsed against the back of her settee as though she had had the air knocked out of her. “Oh my,” she whispered. “How … how patriotic,” she murmured.
“Sebastian is proud Nicholas is to do his part,” Amelia whispered. “I think he wishes he could be drafted.”
“Not with his leg,” Clarissa breathed, sharing a relieved look with her friend. Sebastian had been maimed in a sawmill accident fifteen years ago and would not be considered fit for duty. “Gabriel and the rest are too old. They won’t draft men over age forty.”
“Hard to imagine we’d be thankful for their advancing age,” Amelia managed to joke as she clasped her hands together as though to prevent herself from grabbing Nicholas’s leg or arm to ensure he remained near her.
“Why did you need to come to Missoula?” Clarissa snagged Little Colin as he rose and wandered the living room, approaching the fireplace and the metal poker. She pulled out toys hidden in a small basket by the couch, and he dropped to the floor to play with the trucks, occasionally running over his mother’s feet.
“I leave from here tomorrow on the train.” Nicholas’s gaze was filled with a mixture of eager glee and trepidation.
“So soon? We must have a family gathering to celebrate your momentous departure. Let me speak with Araminta, and we’ll arrange a party.” She met Amelia’s worried gaze. “We don’t have much room here, but Colin has loads of room, as does Savannah. Would that work?” At Amelia’s relieved smile, Clarissa waved at Amelia to remain seated. “Don’t worry about a thing. Rest after your journey.”
* * *
That evening Nicholas sat in the dining room and spoke with Colin, Gabriel, Jeremy and Ronan O’Bara about the War, the reports of the battles and the effect the American Expeditionary Force had on the Western Front. Ronan worked as a cobbler in Gabriel’s and Jeremy’s workshop. He had traveled to Missoula seventeen years ago from Butte with Gabriel, after a mining accident had crippled him. Ronan and Gabriel had been friends since Gabriel’s first days in Butte, where Ronan had worked in the Butte mines with Amelia’s first husband, Liam.
Jeremy shook his head at the eagerness glinting in Nicholas’s eyes. “War will change you, Nicholas. It changed me and not for the better.”
Nicholas frowned as he looked at Jeremy, sitting peacefully in Colin’s dining room. “You seem fine to me.”
“You will face your worst fears as you wait to meet your enemy and wonder if this day, this moment, is your day to die. As you wish it were your day,” Jeremy said. “Now you are filled with the excitement and the romance of war. Soon you will know what war truly is.”
“I don’t understand. What do you know of war?” Nicholas asked as he stared at Jeremy in confusion.
“I was in the Philippines. And I fear what awaits you is worse than anything I can imagine.” His green eyes were tormented as he looked at the young man. “You will do the unthinkable, more times than you knew you could. And then you will have to live with yourself.” He pushed back from the table and rose, slipping out the front door.
“Was it truly that awful?” Nicholas asked as he stared at Gabriel.
“Worse, I fear,” Gabriel said. “Jeremy rarely refers to the time he spent in the Philippines, and I wasn’t in Boston when he returned. I only know of what he suffered from letters sent from my other brother, Richard.” Gabriel sighed. “I understand your desire to meet your fate, Nicholas. Try to understand the sorrow of those you leave behind.” His eyes glinted with anguish as he beheld Nicholas, as though recalling the boy who had charmed him all those years ago in Butte when his father, Liam, still lived. “We will worry about you until you come home to us.”
Nicholas nodded, his gaze troubled as he stared at the closed kitchen door, his mother on the other side with Clarissa. “Yet I must go. I’ve been drafted.”
“No one would want you to avoid what you’ve been called to do, Nickie,” Colin said, calling him by his childhood nickname. Colin’s eyes shone with pride and love as he beheld the boy he had played toy soldiers with those many years ago. “Heed Gabe. He knows what it is to watch someone he loves leave for the uncertainty of war.”
“Remember those of us who have loved you since you were a lad,” Ronan said, his voice roughen
ed as he stared at the man but saw the impish boy who had crawled onto his lap after he was injured. The boy who never saw him as less because of his injury. “None of us will be happy until you are safely returned to us.”
Nicholas looked at the three men, all of whom he considered his uncles, and nodded. “I know. I’ll miss all of you, but I know I have your support.”
“Always,” Gabriel vowed as he clapped Nicholas on his shoulder. “Now, go soothe your mother. She battles her own demons.” He gave Nicholas an encouraging nod as Nicholas took a deep breath and stood.
Nicholas neared the closed kitchen door. He nodded his thanks as Colin slapped him on the back and then joined Gabriel in the dining room, leaving Nicholas to approach his mother alone.
* * *
“Where was Savannah tonight?” Amelia asked. “I enjoyed seeing how much Melinda has grown, but I worry that Savannah was not present.”
“That’s why Melinda went home rather than remaining to help us with the dishes. She too was worried about her mother.” Clarissa sighed. “Savannah went to Butte for a quick overnight trip and returned home today. Jeremy told me that she was too tired to come tonight.” Clarissa shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know what is wrong. Sav is withdrawn and sad but refuses to talk to any of us, including Jeremy.”
Amelia frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Savannah. Or the relationship she has with him.”
Clarissa shrugged. “I know, but she won’t open up.” She bit her lip, and her pent-up question blurted from her. “Why didn’t Sebastian come with you? I know I couldn’t imagine doing what you are doing without Gabriel’s support.”
“Seb needed to work.” She rubbed at her head, slapping the drying towel against the edge of the countertop a few times. “And I was a fool. Told him that I would be fine. That I wanted a little time with just Nicholas. That he was my son and that I needed private time with him.” Her voice broke on the word my.
“You never,” Clarissa breathed. “He’s always treated Nicholas as though he were his own.”
Amelia nodded, a hand over her eyes as she bowed her head. “I know. I could not have said anything more hurtful than that.” She turned and looked at her friend. “It just popped out. The minute I said it, I wished for it back.”
Clarissa heaved out a breath. “It’s all right to be mad at the world for sending your son to war, Amelia. But don’t hurt the man you love.” She blinked as she thought of her estrangement from Gabriel after their son Rory’s death nearly six years ago. “Not when you know you need his support as much as he needs yours.”
Amelia nodded. “I’ve dreaded, for months, the day they extended the draft to include my Nickie.” She bit her lip as tears spilled from her eyes. “It’s like I’m losing Liam all over again.”
Clarissa nodded. “I never knew your Liam. But, from how much Gabriel still misses him, I know he must have been a wonderful man.”
Amelia sniffled and nodded again before scrubbing at her face. “But it’s not fair to Sebastian. He’s a magnificent father to all my children. He’s never cared that Nicholas and Anne aren’t his.”
Clarissa squeezed her shoulders. “You were twice blessed, Amelia, to find two such men in one lifetime.”
“I don’t just feel sorrow,” she whispered. “I’m filled with anger. How can fate be so cruel as to try to rip one of my last reminders of Liam from me?” She raised eyes filled with rage to meet Clarissa’s somber gaze. Amelia’s first husband and Nicholas’s father, Liam, had died in a mining accident in Butte seventeen years ago. “I can’t find it in me to calmly accept that fate.”
“Nor would I want you to,” Clarissa said. She tugged on Amelia’s arm and led her to the backyard where they had a few chairs. “What does Sebastian say?” The rain had stopped, and it was a pleasant, cool evening.
“What can he say? Nicholas was called up, and he must report for duty. If he didn’t, Sebastian’s business would suffer. Nicholas would suffer for the rest of his life.” She swiped at her cheeks. “But I can’t bear to read about what is occurring in France. The battles they attempt to make sound glorious. The men who fight valiantly as they cross No Man’s Land. The foolish decisions by generals who should have known better.” Amelia shook her head. “It was bad enough when it was the neighbor’s son who I dreaded reading about in the paper. I can’t handle thinking about Nicholas.”
Clarissa gripped her friend’s hand and leaned forward. “I can’t reassure you that you won’t ever read such news. I can hope that you will not. I will pray that you’ll never receive a telegram.” She sighed. “But Nicholas needs you to be strong. He needs to see you smile as you wave him on his way tomorrow on the train. He may be proud of what he has been called to do, but he also needs to know you support him.”
Amelia nodded and rubbed at her tear-stained cheeks. “You don’t know what it is like, Rissa.”
“That’s true. And I don’t know how you can be as strong as you are.” She sniffled and glanced to the back door as it squeaked open. “Hello, Nickie.”
He walked toward them in the backyard. “I had forgotten that nickname until it was spoken here tonight,” he said in his deep voice. “I’ve been called Nicholas for so long.” He smiled. “May I speak with my mother a moment?”
Clarissa and Amelia both rose, Clarissa giving Amelia a gentle squeeze on her shoulders.
“Clarissa and I wanted to enjoy a few moments free of the rain,” Amelia said as she swiped at her cheeks again, her back turned.
“Mother,” he rasped, spinning her to face him. “I’m sorry.” He pulled her into his embrace, her head barely reaching his shoulders.
“I’m the foolish one, my Nickie,” she whispered into his shoulder. “Forgive your mother her silliness.”
He pushed away, his gaze meeting her watery eyes. “Do you know how much worse it would be if I left and you didn’t care?” He gripped and ungripped his hands. “I’m scared, Ma,” he whispered. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Oh, my darling boy,” she murmured as she hugged him tight. “You will see places I’ve only dreamed about. New York City. Paris.”
“The Front.” He gripped her close as he firmed his jaw. “If I don’t come back, please talk about me. Remember me.”
She backed up and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “You are smart. You are brave. You are resilient.” She swiped away one of his tears. “I will always be proud of you.” They shared a fierce look, filled with love and anguish at the parting that would come the next day. “Never forget that you are loved and that we will eagerly await your return. You will be a part of our family. Forever.”
He dropped his head onto her shoulder again, holding her close for a few more moments.
* * *
Jeremy paced behind his desk in his office, a glass of whiskey forgotten on his desk. He ran a hand through his black hair with streaks of silver, gripping strands of hair as his fingers shook. With a roar, he grabbed the crystal glass and heaved it at the brick fireplace.
“Father?” A knock sounded on the door, and then Melinda’s head poked in. “I thought I heard a crash.” She frowned as he panted, as though he had just run a few miles. Her frown deepened as he stared at her with glassy eyes. “What is it, Father?”
“Melly,” he said, shaking his head and focusing on her. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
She took a tentative step inside his office, and, when he did not protest her presence, she moved farther into his room. “What is it?” she asked again.
“We all have memories we wish we could banish, my darling.” His smile was filled with regret. “You will too one day, I fear.”
She reached forward with a trembling hand and gripped his hanging at his side. “Why are you angry that Nicholas is going to war? He has to. It is his duty.”
He stared at her with a vast bleakness in his gaze and frowned as she shuddered at the hopelessness held within. “I fear how it will change him. War changes a man, Melly. No
matter what he says or how he acts, he is irrevocably altered.”
Her blond ringlets shook as her head tilted in confusion. “Nothing you could have done would shame me.”
He squeezed her hand before tugging her close and wrapping her tight in his embrace. “Oh, Melly. How I wish that were true.” He let out a stuttering breath as he held her tight for a few moments before releasing her. “Ignore your father. He’s being foolish as he battles back his ghosts.”
At the gentle knock, he looked to the door of his office. “Gabe,” he whispered, his voice suddenly thicker as though fighting tears. “I wondered if you’d come.”
Gabriel stood watching his youngest brother intently. “Melly, I need a few moments with your father.”
Melinda nodded. She dropped her hands from around her father but leaned up on her toes and kissed him on his cheek. “No matter what, I love you,” she whispered before she spun on her heel and bustled from the room. The door clicked shut after her.
Gabriel sniffed and frowned. “I didn’t know you were opening a distillery.”
Jeremy glared at him before he collapsed into his leather chair with a groan. “I threw a glass of whiskey at the fireplace. I’ll have to pick it up before I go to bed.”
“You scared Nicholas with your words earlier.” Gabriel sat across from his brother, his relaxed posture failing to conceal the concern in his gaze.
“I wanted to.” He glared at his brother in an attempt to mask his guilt. “He shouldn’t go off to war believing it will be a lark.”
Gabriel leaned forward. “Do you think he hasn’t read the newspapers? That he didn’t read about the one million men wounded or killed during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 or the devastating Spring Offensive on the Western Front this year by the Germans?” He shook his head in disbelief. “He knows what is going on over there. He knows what awaits him. At least in theory.” Gabriel sighed with frustration as Jeremy remained mute, as though imprisoned by his memories. “I feel guilty too. I made Nicholas feel worse after you left.”
Abiding Love: Banished Saga, Book Eight Page 10