Eternity

by Jude Deveraux

  “What will make you live again?” the children said in unison, their voices ecstatic with happiness to once again see their father laughing.

  “Kisses,” Josh said quickly, and both children began kissing their father’s freshly shaved cheeks with damp enthusiasm.

  “You too, Carrie,” Dallas said.

  Josh opened his eyes. “I don’t think—”

  He didn’t say any more because Carrie moved her body full on top of him and pressed her lips to his. She had to displace a couple of kids to command all of his body to herself, but she did it without a thought.

  She hadn’t had much experience at kissing, but Josh seemed to have had some. Putting his hand behind her head, he turned her head, then, with a few delicious movements of instruction, showed her how to open her mouth.

  Carrie had never felt anything so divine in her life as kissing Josh, and her enthusiasm made up for her lack of experience. She tried to put her arms around Josh, but she couldn’t lift him so he rolled over until she was beneath him, never once breaking the contact of their lips.

  Putting her arms around his chest, she pulled him to her as tightly as she could, and when the tip of his tongue touched hers, she moaned and tried to pull him closer.

  When Josh pulled away from her, she made a sound of protest, then opened her eyes to look at him. He had turned his head to look at his children.

  His children had placed themselves flat on their stomachs, one on each side of Carrie and Josh, their heads propped on their hands as they unabashedly, interestedly, watched their elders kissing.

  Carrie could feel her face turning red.

  “I think you like Carrie’s kisses best, Papa,” Dallas said solemnly, as though making a scientific discovery.

  Josh didn’t miss a beat. “She had some jam on her mouth. I was trying to get it off.”

  “On her tongue?” Tem asked in disgust.

  At that, Carrie and Josh, still wrapped together, began to laugh.

  “I don’t know how anyone ever has two children,” Josh said as he got off Carrie then reached down a hand to help her stand. “After the first one, a man has no privacy.”

  “The husband and wife sleep together,” Carrie said, batting her eyelashes up at him. “In the same room with the door closed.”

  Josh grinned. “You win. All of you win. Now, did I hear someone say that Carrie is great at fishing? A girl who can fish? Ha!”

  After that, challenges were issued and accepted, with the boys against the girls. Carrie went to get the fishing poles, but Josh declined her fancy English pole and said that he had his own. Tem groaned when his father unearthed two of the rattiest-looking old bamboo poles that had ever been seen.

  “We can’t beat her with those,” Tem wailed.

  “Then we’ll cheat,” Josh whispered.

  Tem perked up at that proclamation.

  The four of them packed a lunch, then went to the stream and put their poles in the water. Carrie and Dallas caught fish almost instantly. An hour later they had four, and the boys hadn’t caught one. Then an hour went by, and no fish were caught by the females.

  It was Dallas who saw what her father was doing. Every time a fish nibbled at Carrie’s or Dallas’s pole, Josh pointed out something in the woods to Carrie, and while she was looking away, Tem threw a stone at the fish.

  Showing unusual cleverness for a child so young, Dallas didn’t yell about what she was seeing. Instead, the next time a fish nibbled at Carrie’s pole, she screamed that a bee had stung her, and while her father was tending to his daughter, Carrie reeled the fish in. It took Dallas three attacks of bees, wasps, and a killer bird before her father realized what she was doing. Tem was complaining nonstop about having girls along on a manly fishing trip, but when Josh realized that he had been beaten at his own game by a five-year-old, he picked his daughter up, twirled her around, and laughed gleefully. Carrie and Tem watched the two of them in consternation. “Crazy,” Tem finally declared, looking back at his pole.

  By the afternoon, the girls were two fishes ahead and declared themselves the winners. Josh and Tem outdid themselves in coming up with excuses as to why they hadn’t caught as many fish as the females, talking about their poles, their bait, about how Tem was tired from his ordeal of the night before, how Josh was tired from working all the time, and how it wasn’t the right time to fish. On and on they went.

  Dallas, imitating Carrie, put her hands on her hips and listened to the excuses.

  When the two males finally began to wind down, Carrie said, “Dallie, honey, aren’t men the worst losers in the world?”

  Dallas gave a very solemn nod, took Carrie’s hand, and walked toward the lunch basket, the males trailing behind, all the while sputtering that they weren’t bad losers, that they just…well, you know.

  Carrie allowed the losers to serve lunch to the winners, and she and Dallas had a lovely time asking the men to hand them things that they couldn’t reach. Of course, sometimes they had to lean backward to keep from reaching the items, but their thank yous dripped with sugar.

  After they’d eaten, Carrie brought out a newly published book that she’d bought in Maine before leaving. It was Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She asked the children if they’d like for her to read to them, and both kids and Josh, stretched out drowsily on the quilt they’d brought, nodded.

  But Carrie hadn’t read more than two pages before the children grew restless. When she asked them if they wanted to do something else, they both declared that more than anything they wanted to hear the story, so Carrie started to read again. This time Dallas and Tem began to give each other looks, rolling their eyes skyward.

  Carrie put the book down. “What is wrong with you two?” she asked. “And I want the truth. No lies.”

  She could see that Tem didn’t want to say, so she looked at Dallas.

  “Papa reads much better,” Dallas said simply.

  Carrie was surprised and maybe a little hurt by the comment, for she had often read books to shut-ins and to children, and quite often she’d been told that she was the best reader they’d ever heard.

  Without a great deal of grace, she held the book out to Josh. “Please,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I do hope you can read as well as you can fish.”

  Giving her a smile that was more smirk than smile, he took the book from her. From the moment he began reading, Carrie knew that there was no contest. Josh could indeed read. No, he didn’t just read, he created the story. He made the listener see and hear Alice. When Josh read, you could see, feel, almost touch the White Rabbit.

  Carrie couldn’t see how he did it. Some people when reading aloud exaggerate every scene, doing the voices of all the characters with such enthusiasm that after a while the listener is tired just from hearing them. But Josh’s rendition of the story was subtle, molding his voice around the words in a way that made them live, never stumbling once, never stammering, never pausing over a story that was too new for him to have possibly read before.

  Lying back on the quilt, her eyes closed, Carrie fell into the story, imagining everything she heard about Alice and all the people she met in her strange adventure.

  When Josh stopped reading, she wanted to beg him to go on. As she opened her eyes, she was surprised that she wasn’t still in the Red Queen’s garden. She was also surprised to discover that it was nearly sundown and Josh had been reading all afternoon, yet his voice wasn’t hoarse nor did his throat seem to be dry.

  “That was wonderful,” Carrie breathed when she managed to bring herself back to the present. Rolling over, she looked at him, her eyes shining. “I’ve never heard a reading like that. Josh, you are…”

  “The best?” Tem asked eagerly, as though her answer was of life and death importance to him. “Is Papa the greatest person on earth?”

  Carrie laughed. It was what he’d asked his father about her last night. “Close,” she said. “He’s certainly the best reader in the world.”
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  “Papa used to—”

  “Dallas!” Josh snapped.

  Carrie grimaced, for the spell was broken. Josh had once again reminded her that she was an outsider.

  Getting up, Carrie began putting things in the basket.

  Josh seemed to understand what was wrong with her as he put his hand on her wrist. “Carrie,” he began, “there are reasons—”

  She cut him off. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Her voice was angry. “I’m not part of your family or your life, remember? I’m going back to my father in two days.” She almost choked on the words. In a mere three days she’d leave her new family and go back to Maine.

  When he started to say something else, she pulled away.

  They walked back to the house together, the children talking about the fishing, but it wasn’t the same as it had been since the adults were now silent.

  At the house, Carrie set the table and served Mrs. Emmerling’s bean soup with freshly baked bread.

  “Can we go fishing again tomorrow?” Tem asked.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,” Josh said in a heavy voice.

  At those few innocent words, Tem looked back at his bowl and Dallas burst into tears.

  This burst of grief made Carrie feel a little like Alice in Wonderland. “What is so dreadful about Sunday? You children couldn’t hate church that much, could you?”

  “We don’t go to church,” Josh said gloomily, pulling Dallas onto his lap and drying her tears.

  Suddenly it was all too much for Carrie. She slammed her fist onto the table. “I’ve had it! I’ve had all the secrets I can take. I demand that someone tell me what is so awful about Sunday.”

  Looking as though he were going to cry too, Tem said, “Uncle Hiram comes to our house for dinner on Sunday and he makes everyone sad.”

  “A dinner guest doesn’t sound like such a tragedy. And I doubt if he can make us sad if we don’t allow him to.”

  “You don’t understand,” Josh said softly. “There are things that you don’t know about. Our…welfare, our being together as a family depends on Hiram’s good nature.” Josh nearly choked on the last words.

  “I see,” Carrie said tightly. “And of course you don’t plan to tell me any more than that, do you?” She waited, but Josh said nothing more. “All right, then I won’t ask. Does your brother like food?”

  Dallas giggled.

  “Does that mean he does like food?”

  At that Tem got up from the table, blew out his cheeks to make them look fat, held his hands out in front of him as though he had an enormous stomach, and began to walk like a very fat man. “What is this, little brother?” Tem said in a deep voice. “Something else you cooked? Maybe some worms from that field of yours? Ha! Ha! Ha! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you do anything right? Look at me. Use me as an example of how a man should be. I know right from wrong. I decided right from wrong.”

  Dallas was laughing and Josh was smiling, but Carrie was staring at Tem in wonder, because she was sure that his parody of a man she’d never met was perfect. From Tem’s impersonation, she could see this man as clearly as though Tem had grown two feet taller and gained a couple of hundred pounds.

  She turned to Josh. “He’s quite good, isn’t he?”

  He set Dallas on the floor and raised one eyebrow as though to say, If you think that’s something, watch this. “Be a duck,” he said.

  Carrie watched, at first in wonder, then in uncontrolled mirth as Dallas imitated a duck. Imitated it perfectly. Dallas put her head back to preen her feathers, pointed her feet outward, even twitched her tail when her duck rose from the water.

  Not to be outdone by his little sister, Tem became a cow. Then Dallas did a chicken. Tem couldn’t bear his sister getting so much attention so he began circling her, and within minutes they had become two dogs at first meeting.

  Abruptly, Tem stood upright, his shoulders back, and gave Dallas a stern look. “I will not laugh, Miss Moneybags,” he said in a deep voice. “We are a serious family.”

  Right away Carrie knew that Tem was mimicking his father—he even had Josh’s posture down, that proud walk of his, that jaw that could be so inflexible.

  Dallas stepped in front of her brother, and when she looked up at him, her lashes fluttered. She had gone from being a little girl to being a sexy, flirtatious woman. “Dishes,” she said, falsetto. “I do declare they are dirty. We shall leave them and when we return the Good Fairy will have cleaned them.”

  Carrie was a little afraid that Dallas was imitating her, but she was sure when she heard Josh laugh out loud. Giving him a look over her shoulder that said, Laugh too hard and you will regret it, she turned back to the children.

  Carrie was amazed at them, truly amazed as she watched them enact a hilarious parody of her and Josh. They argued over the most insignificant things, making Carrie and Josh laugh in a nervous sort of way. But it was when the children started imitating how Carrie and Josh reacted when they touched each other that the adults began to clear their throats.

  “You have touched my arm!” Tem said. “I cannot bear it. I must hold you, kiss you.” Putting the back of his hand to his forehead, all the while pulling Dallas toward him, he looked like a man in great agony. “But no, I mustn’t. I cannot touch you.”

  “Oh, please touch me, my big handsome man. Please,” Dallas said, looking up at Tem with adoring eyes.

  Carrie turned to Josh. “Your children are brats.”

  “I thought they were our children.”

  “Not at this moment, they’re not.”

  With a grin at her, he clapped his hands once. “Bed, you hams. Bed, this minute.”

  They ran up the ladder, but not before taking bows and waiting for the long, loud applause they so very much deserved.

  “What extraordinary children,” Carrie said when she and Josh were alone.

  Rolling up his sleeves, Josh turned toward the sink full of dirty dishes. “I’m going to teach you about dishes.”

  Carrie didn’t shudder, but she came close. “Sorry, but I can’t tonight. I have to run an errand.”

  “You can’t go out now,” Josh protested, then stopped, knowing from experience that it was useless to tell Carrie what she could and could not do. “Where are you going?”

  “I am going into Eternity to arrange the most heavenly meal your brother has ever eaten,” she said. “And don’t you say a word about what I can and cannot do. You can’t give orders to someone who isn’t part of your family, someone you don’t share your secrets with.”

  With that she flung on her short, wool cape and left the house.

  After staring at the door for a moment, Josh smiled. She was a handful, he thought, as he turned back to the dishes. “And I’m the one who’d like to have my hands full of her,” he said aloud. Still smiling, he thought of Tem and Dallas’s performance tonight, knowing he hadn’t seen them that happy, that animated, since their mother—

  He cut himself off and poured water into the dish pan. He was not going to think about their mother.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time Josh’s brother and his wife arrived for Sunday dinner the next day, Carrie was so nervous she was shaking. She’d had only four hours of sleep the night before, because she’d spent hours in Eternity arranging the dinner. Josh had waited up for her and he’d made it clear that he thought asking other people to do the cooking was the easy way out. He seemed to think that a “real” wife spent the day hanging over a hot stove.

  Without bothering to answer him, she went to bed and slept until the next morning when the first woman arrived with a covered dish. To wake her, Josh opened the bedroom door and allowed the children to jump into bed with Carrie.

  After that ruckus, she got up and dressed, then, with the children’s help, began rummaging in her trunks. By noon she had set the dining table with an Irish linen cloth and napkins and porcelain dishes from France, and the centerpiece was Georgian silver. The serving dishes, filled with de
licious food that had been cooked by nearly every woman in Eternity, were either silver or French porcelain.

  “Golly,” Dallas said, for she didn’t remember having seen anything like the table.

  At exactly one o’clock, Hiram and his wife Alice pulled up in what Carrie knew was a very expensive carriage. Hiram was a large man, with a belly that stuck out like a shelf in front of him. Looking down at Tem in conspiracy, she smiled, for Hiram looked just as Tem had portrayed him.

  While Josh and his children stood in the doorway looking glum, Carrie, after a look of disgust tossed their way, went forward to greet Hiram and his wife. As Carrie crossed the yard, she got a closer look at Alice. Alice was a thin little woman, who probably wasn’t as old as she looked, but she looked to be the tiredest person in the world, so tired in fact that Carrie wanted to take her in the house and give her a chair to sit on.

  Smiling at them both, Carrie continued across the yard, her hand extended in welcome. For all that Josh had warned her that his brother was a formidable person, Carrie wasn’t afraid of anyone, for in all of her short life she had never been treated with anything but respect and love. Her family was the richest in her hometown, in fact, there were very few people in the town who didn’t work for her family. On top of that, she was pretty and generous and she was fun to be with. Until she’d met Josh, no man, woman, or child she’d ever met had failed to like her.

  “Good afternoon,” she said cheerfully to Hiram. “May I help you?” She said the last to Hiram’s wife.

  Looking at Carrie with startled eyes, as though she were surprised that anyone saw her, Alice’s tired expression changed to one of pleasure.

  Hiram leaned back and looked at Carrie, looked her up and down in an insolent way. Had Carrie been at home and some visiting sailor had looked at her as this man was doing, one of her brothers or one of her family’s employees would have knocked the man down.

  Ignoring Carrie’s extended hand, Hiram looked away to Josh standing not too far behind her. “So this is the little wife you sent away for,” he said, smirking. “I heard her cooking was as good as your farming. It’s just like you to marry a useless woman.”