by ML Gardner
1930
Book Three
Aryl’s Divide
__________
M. L. Gardner
ISBN 9781301738984
Copyright © 2010 M.L. Gardner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
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Reading the series in order:
1929 Book One-Jonathan’s Cross
Elizabeth’s Heart Book Two
1930 Book-Three Aryl’s Divide
Drifter Book Four
M.L. Gardner Works in Progress include:
Purgatory Cove Book Five
1931 Book Six-Caleb’s Err
Simon’s Watch Book Seven
A 1929 Christmas Special (Release date November 10th, 2013)
Reclaiming Katie
Other books by M.L. Gardner:
Simply, Mine
Short Stories from 1929
For Lisa
Also in the 1929 Series
Elizabeth’s Heart
Short Stories from 1929
Available October 1st 2013
Drifter
Coming Soon
1931 Book Three, Caleb’s Err
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June 29th 1930
“Tell me one more time, Caleb. About the explosions.”
With the memorial service for their best friend behind them Jonathan turned his attention to the accident that killed him. He hadn’t yet said so out loud, but he didn’t believe it was an accident. He couldn’t think of anyone in town however, that would be capable of murder. If someone wanted them out of the way for the sake of easing competition, it would have been easier to sink the boats in the wee hours of the morning, than to rig delicate explosives and methodically cut the sails of the old sloop.
“I’ve told you everything,” Caleb said and sighed. “A dozen times now.” He lay back on the length of a hay bale and stared at the rafters.
“I know. But I need to hear it again. Something’s not right.”
Caleb rolled his head and narrowed his glassy eyes. “Do you think so, Jon? We just buried a box in place of our best friend. I’d say something’s not right today.”
Jonathan sat down. He held out his hand for the dark amber bottle, yet another illegal gift of sympathy from an anonymous friend. Caleb handed it to him reluctantly. He took a gulp and it burned.
“Not bad for bathtub hooch. Sheriff Vincent again?”
“No, he hasn’t caught any runners in the last few days. I think he looks the other way to tell you the truth. No, this was from someone who didn’t want their name known.”
“Caleb, I need every detail you can give me. I just don’t think this was an accident.”
“What?”
“Think about it, Caleb. The other two boats wouldn’t start. You had to take the Ava-Maura. If there were just an explosion, I don’t know, I might be able to pass it off as very bad luck.” He shook his head “You said there was a second explosion, and the sails. Someone cut the sails.”
“Maybe they were cut before.”
“No. Ar—” He stopped and frowned, unable to say his name. “He would have noticed and told us to fix them. He inspected the boats thoroughly when we first got here.”
Caleb sat up and took the bottle back from Jonathan.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything you forgot?”
“No. I told you everything. Some parts were hazy. With the wind and the rain…it all happened so fast.”
They were both quiet for a long time; intermittent noises from the pigs at the other end of the barn and the goat wandering freely filled the empty space between them.
“It should have been me,” Caleb said, breaking the silence.
“Don’t ever say that again, Caleb,” Jonathan ordered. “You have a wife and twin babies to think about, you’ve just inherited this farm, and you have your mom to take care of.”
“So it’s better that it was him? Because he only had a wife and unborn baby? One he’ll never get to see? At least I got to see mine.” He gathered up his bottle and moved deeper into the barn.
Jonathan followed him to the dark corner where he preferred to hide. “No, it’s not better. I just don’t think you should do this to yourself.”
Caleb shrugged, avoiding Jonathan’s eyes.
“Hello?” Jonathan Sr. called into the barn from the side door.
“Back here, Dad.” Jonathan took a step out into the light.
“Oh, there you are. Listen, your mother and I are going home. Everyone is starting to scatter and we want to see Aryl’s family home. Michael and Kathleen are feeling a bit smothered I think, with all the well-intended sympathy.”
“I’ll be along in a few hours.”
Jonathan Sr. took a step and hugged his son tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Jon. I know how close you two were.” Jonathan ended the hug abruptly, feeling a bit smothered himself.
“Thank you. Say goodbye to Michael and Kathleen for me. I would, but ah—” He turned to Caleb, who sat slumped, half-awake on a hay bale. “I need to keep an eye on him.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand. And Jon, if you need to talk.” He looked around Jonathan’s face awkwardly. “I’m here.”
“Thanks.” Jonathan nodded and lumbered back to Caleb, pushing him up from his slumping position.
“Why don’t we get you in the house? It’s getting dark.” He put his hand out to pull him up and Caleb waved it away.
“I want to stay out here awhile longer. Till everyone’s gone,” he mumbled.
Jonathan knew he intended to drink himself to sleep here, as he had for the last three nights.
“Caleb.”
He looked up at Jonathan with a stone face.
“Do you have any idea how relieved Arianna is to see you? She was a wreck waiting to find out…genuinely terrified. If anyone had any question about her love for you, it was put to rest that night. You should be with her and your babies.”
“Why aren’t you with Ava and Jean?” he asked with a slight slur. “Reveling in the comforts of your family.” He stared at Jonathan, almost daring him to answer.
“Because.” He blew out a hard breath. “Because I’m out here with you. And…I'll admit it’s hard to look at Claire. The last thing I want is for her to see me holding my wife and son…an intact family.”
“The doctor sedated her pretty heavily,” Arianna said from the doorway. “She won’t be coming downstairs tonight.”
Jonathan turned and acknowledged with a nod.
“Why don’t you let me talk to him,” she said quietly. He nodded and rose, brushing bits of hay off his black slacks.
“I’ll be inside for a while if you need me,” he whispered as he walked by.
Arianna sat down beside Caleb and reached for the bottle between his knees. He grabbed it away instinctively.
“Calm down. I just want a sip,” she said. “I’ll give it back.” She took a swallow and grimaced.
“Homemade,” she said with a growl. He nodded and looked her over as she handed it back to him.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“You’re drunk.”
“That may be, but you’re still beautiful.”
She looked at him. She wasn’t going to let him distract her with compliments. She wasn’t that person anymore.
“You can’t blame yourself, Caleb.”
His smile dropped as he looked away quickly. “I don’t.”
She put her hand on the neck of the bottle keeping him from lifting it
again and stared at him. His eyes flickered between her hand and her stare and he began to squirm under her piercing blue eyes. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to look anywhere else as her watch relentlessly bore through the denial, the sturdy exterior, and the alcohol. He sighed in frustration as she put the bottle aside and sat on his lap, making it nearly impossible to look away.
“Caleb.” She turned his head to look at her. “No one blames you. No one hates you for being the one that lived. You shouldn’t either.”
“You don’t think Claire does? She doesn’t look at me. She wishes it was me at the bottom of the ocean.”
“She does not,” Arianna snapped at him. “Don’t you say that.”
“It’s true,” he said and reached for the bottle while trying not to spill Arianna off his lap. “And I can’t say I blame her.”
She jerked his face back to look at her. “Just stop it, you hear me? Stop it. I’m not going to let you kill yourself with guilt. It’s not your fault.”
“What is it then? Dumb luck?” He pulled his chin from her hand and placed the bottle in his lap between them.
“Fate,” Arianna said. “It was fate. And you had no control over it.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Oh, really? So you don’t believe it was fate that the one weekend Jean stayed with us was the weekend the kitchen caught fire, and he was there to save Samuel’s life? There was a reason that Jean was there and there is a reason that you were the one to survive.”
He leaned his head back on the barn wall and sighed. “What’s the reason then?” he asked and closed his eyes when he felt them start to sting.
“I don’t know, Caleb,” she said in a softer tone. “I don’t know why you lived and I don’t know why Jean was there to save our son, but…there’s a reason.” She put her hands on the sides of his head, tangling her fingers in thick auburn hair, putting her forehead to his. “I’m just so glad you were the one to get out of that car. I was so scared. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
His mind flashed through a thousand memories behind his closed eyes and, as if reading his mind, she repeated his words back to him. The same words he'd used during their late night conversation, almost a year ago.
Her voice was sincere when she made him a promise. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. I’ll help you through this, Caleb. And I’ll love you no matter what.”
His eyes popped open. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
“What were you thinking?” she asked, sitting back to look at him more clearly.
“Nothing,” he said, still staring at her. “Show me.”
She looked at him, confused.
“Show me how much you love me, despite how awful I feel.”
She smiled, remembering now a time when she had asked the same of him. She removed his loose tie from his neck and moved the bottle from between them, setting it aside. Without taking her eyes from his, she slowly unbuttoned his white dress shirt and he closed his eyes and let her take him far away from the sadness of the day.
∞∞∞
Inside Jonathan found Maura and Ava sitting in the darkened living room talking quietly. Jean lay curled up on the couch with his head in Ava’s lap, her hand on his head.
“How are you, Mr. Jonathan?” Maura asked in a hushed voice.
“I’m very tired,” he said and sat on the arm of the couch. “We’d better get him home.”
Ava nodded and looked anxiously at Maura. “Where will you be staying tonight?”
“Well, the doctor said Miss Claire would be asleep until morning, and Shannon and Patrick are resting in the next room over if she needs something. I thought I might sleep the night at yer house, if we can come back early that is. I need to see to it that she eats.”
Jonathan nodded. “I’m going to need to talk to Patrick and Caleb early. We can come back just after dawn.”
Caleb’s mother walked in, weary from the day, and handed a set of keys to Jonathan. “Since your father already left you can use the truck to get home. We won’t need it tonight.”
“Thank you, Ethel.” He tucked them in his pocket and leaned down to pick up Jean, who stirred and whimpered before settling on Jonathan’s shoulder. He cradled him with one arm and held the other out to Ava. “Let’s go home.”
∞∞∞
Jonathan lay restless on the couch. He had given his bed spot to Maura, knowing that Ava would want to spend every possible moment with her that she could. He smiled as he heard their whispering as the rest of the house fell silent.
“Tell me about Jean.” Maura poked her in the arm. “I’ve not been able to take proper stock through the tears and the sadness, but it seems to me things are a might bit better than yer last letter led me to believe,” she whispered.
“Oh, they were awful.” Ava cast her eyes down in the dark. “I was awful,” she said quietly.
“I don’t think ye have the power to be awful, Miss Ava.”
“Oh, but I was. I was cold to Jean and mean to Jon. It was a horrible time. But things are better now.”
“T’was quite a shock, I’m sure.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” she whispered recalling her first glimpse of Elyse and Jonathan’s illegitimate son. “I was devastated. I had just told him about our baby, just minutes before.”
“But things are better now?”
“They are. He really is a sweet boy. He’s so worried about people liking him. That’s his biggest worry in this world. I see more of Jonathan in him every day and I love to sit and watch them together.”
“Is that what changed your feelings toward Jean? Watching Mr. Jonathan come to love him?”
“No,” Ava answered honestly. “It was Elyse’s letter to me.”
“Her letter? I’d not known the two of ye were pen pals. How awkward.” Maura smirked.
“Oh, no, when she died there was a trunk of Jean’s things delivered. There was a letter to me that Jonathan held back until he thought I might be receptive to reading it.” She paused recalling the ugly fight that ensued after he’d produced the letter.
“What did she say?” Maura lovingly pried.
“She tried to set things right. She…” Ava hesitated, feeling as if at least some of what Elyse had said in her letters should remain between them. She felt gratitude and a bit of compassion for this woman who had the decency to reach from beyond the grave to give comfort and reassurance.
“She told me things about Jean and some about her life before and after Jonathan. She did reassure me that nothing had happened between her and Jonathan on that last trip to Paris. I don’t know how she knew I would be worried, or that I would even know about that. But it helped. And watching what Jean went through after she died, it reminded me a lot of when my parents died.”
Maura pat her arm and Ava knew she didn’t need to go on.
“I’m truly glad that it all worked out.” Maura frowned in the dark. “Under this roof anyhow. I am very worried about Miss Claire. And Mr. Jonathan, for that matter. Such a tragic loss,” she said with a sigh.
∞∞∞
Jonathan tried to tune out the whispers that echoed down the stairs and concentrated on Caleb’s telling and retelling of the afternoon the Ava-Maura went down. He had talked to all the men in the search party that moored their boats near his and they couldn’t recall anything out of the ordinary. They hadn’t seen anything…heard anything. His thoughts turned then to the business that was losing money every day they were unable to work.
They would have to repair the two remaining boats as quickly as possible and train Patrick before more money could be made. They would have to work longer and harder than ever before as Jonathan decided that all profits would be split four ways, with a share going to Claire and her baby for as long as they needed it. He knew the others wouldn’t object. They would want that, if it were their wife.
He thought about Patrick, grateful he had agreed to come and thankful for his vast knowledge
and skills. He would fill a void in a physical sense, a working sense. But he would never be able to fill the empty spot that Aryl left. The one they noticed but didn’t speak of when he and Caleb sat on the bench against the back of the house, passing a whiskey bottle back and forth after each day of their fruitless search. And he hoped Patrick wouldn’t try. He wanted Patrick to be a friend and a coworker. But he could never replace Aryl.
He changed his train of thought as his eyes misted, going back to the safer subject of boat repairs and business plans.
June 30th 1930
Jonathan, Ava, and Maura arrived at the farm just after seven. Jean ran ahead to join Aislin, who was busy throwing handfuls of feed at the chickens. They knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door but it went unheard over the commotion inside.
Samuel screamed in Ethel’s arms as she tried to soothe him and stir a large pot of oatmeal on the stove. Shannon walked the floor with Roan who also wailed, upset at Samuel’s crying. Arianna sat trapped in the rocking chair with a blanket over her shoulder, nursing Savrene with her eyes squeezed shut. She looked like she were about to scream as well.
Jonathan took in the scene and said a silent prayer that Ava wasn’t carrying twins.
“Where’s Caleb?” he asked.
Her eyes popped open and Jonathan took a step back seeing the depth of frustration in them. “When I woke up he was gone. I think he’s in the barn again,” she said curtly. She peeked under the blanket and shifted Savrene.
“Ethel!” she barked. “Bring me the other one.”
Jonathan backed out of the room slowly and slipped out to the barn.
He found Caleb slumped over on a hay bale with the goat lovingly snuggled up to his leg, head in his lap. He sighed and dropped his head in frustration. The goat grunted and stood, bumping Caleb and knocking an empty bottle out of his hand. Jonathan watched it roll off the hay bale and onto the dirt floor. He nudged Caleb’s leg with his toe and called his name, but he didn’t stir. Deciding what to do next, he casually walked over to the door of the barn, seeing the old milk cow Hannah and patting her rump as he passed, he took the wooden bucket from its peg on the wall. He stood patiently at the well, filling it with ice cold water, and walked the full bucket back to where Caleb slept.