by Tifani Clark
*****
For Christmas, Elsa and Sophia stayed at home. Her mother wasn’t a particularly festive person nor was she one to celebrate God, but Sophia loved the excitement and joy that flooded out of everyone else during the holiday season. Her parents had never joined in the tradition of decorating a Christmas tree—that would just be absurd—but Sophia strung popped corn onto string and draped it around the house with little red bows fastened in the corners. She started sewing and mending for the ladies in town and it felt nice to have some money of her own that had been earned honestly. Her parents weren’t exactly destitute, but they didn’t spend much of their money on her. Sophia usually inherited Elsa’s clothes when she became bored with them and she did her best to liven them up by adding bows and ribbons and other homemade accessories.
That is why Sophia was so surprised to find a package with her name on it, wrapped in brown paper, sitting on the kitchen table on Christmas morning. Inside, Sophia found a beautiful new burgundy dress with delicate white lace at the throat and wrists. She was speechless for some time and couldn’t stop running her hands over the silky material.
“Oh, Mother. It’s beautiful. Thank you.” Sophia gushed when Elsa walked into the room.
Elsa’s usually hard face softened. “I didn’t have much money growin’ up. And I never got nothin’ new until I met your pa. I guess we haven’t been good at gettin’ nice things for you. I saw this in a store window and thought you might like it.”
Sophia gave Elsa a hug. She couldn’t remember the last time they had done that. It felt awkward and a little forced, but it needed to be done.
Elsa, unable to handle the physical contact pulled away first. “Come now. No need to get carried away. Our grandkids will be better off if their mother looks nice.”
Sophia looked at Elsa in surprise. “Grandkids? I’ve never heard you say that word before.” Sophia paused, continuing to finger the silky material of the dress. “Mother, why did you and Pa only have one child? Why don’t I have any siblings?”
Elsa cleared her throat and busied herself in the kitchen, ignoring the questions. “You’ll have a much better chance of marrying someone with money if you look nice. Your pa and I want to be taken care of in our old age, and that ain’t gonna happen if you marry some poor farmhand.”
So there it was—the motive. Just like Jeremiah, Elsa could do nothing unless she thought it would somehow benefit her. Sophia knew she should be more upset than she was, but she just couldn’t be. It was Christmas and for the first time in a very long time she had a new dress. She couldn’t wait for Nick to see her in it when he returned.
December made its way into January and then February and the cold windy weather continued, along with a lot of rain and snow. Living on the coast, the snow never stayed on the ground for very long, but that year it lingered. Everything was so wet and muddy that Sophia dreaded doing the chores every day. She considered it a good day if she only slipped and fell in the mud once while retrieving water from the well or feeding the horses in the barn.
One day in mid-February she was having a particularly difficult time carrying the water back to the house. It had rained most of the night and the trail she had worn from countless trips back and forth had completely washed away. She had already fallen twice and was so filthy that she knew she would have to change as soon as she got back to the house. Frustrated, she wiped at tears that threatened to spill out and left mud smears across her face wherever her hand touched.
Much to her horror, she wasn’t the only one on the trail that morning.
“Well hello, miss. Would you like some help with that load you’re trying to carry?” the newcomer said with a hint of laughter in his voice.
Sophia’s head jerked up and her heart leaped as she saw that the boy she had been waiting for all winter had returned.
“Nick,” she cried.
It was all she could do to keep from tossing the buckets to the ground and throwing her arms around him. She didn’t want to appear desperate, after all. She lowered the yoke to the ground and he bent to pick it up. On his shoulders, the water seemed nothing more than a few drops. He easily carried it without slipping in the mud even once. Sophia was shocked at the difference a few months had made. Nick’s arms were muscled and his shirt fit snugly across firm shoulders. She was convinced he’d grown taller, too.
“It looks like you’ve been swimming in the mud out here, Miss Sophia.”
She quickly tried to brush the streaks of mud and dirt from her face, but her efforts only made matters worse. Nick threw his head back and laughed.
Trying to change the subject, Sophia said, “Did you just get back?”
“Yes, ma’am. We left the Mist Seeker docked in the shipyard north of here with Gus and Paul to watch her. Your father and I hired a wagon to bring us down here this morning and we just got in. You weren’t in the kitchen with your mother and I reckon I knew exactly where you would be.”
“The last telegram Father sent said that he didn’t know when you would be back for sure, but that it might be spring before you were here. It’s really good to see you.” She was so happy she wanted to twirl around like a little girl.
“We ended up not being able to take the cargo we had hoped to run down into the Gulf of Mexico, but I’m fine with that.” He smiled down at her.
She smiled back and they continued in happy silence until they reached the back door to her parent’s home. As they entered the kitchen, they could hear Sophia’s parents talking in hushed tones. The pair had papers spread across the kitchen table and upon seeing Sophia and Nick, they quickly swept them up and her father tucked them into a pouch at his side.
“Sophia, my dear, how I’ve missed you.” He gave her an awkward hug.
Sophia wondered why he felt the need to continue putting on a show for Nick. In all of her memory she could not remember him ever having hugged her before, but for some reason he felt the need to prove to Nick that they were a normal, happy family.
“Father, it’s nice to see you. I hope your journey was a good one.”
“It was just as a journey should be. In the time we were gone we were able to run three loads of lumber down the coast and we have a contract for another load of cargo that we will take two weeks from now.”
Sophia’s heart fell. She’d known that Nick would have to leave again, but two weeks was such a short time for them to stay.
“How long will you be gone this time, Father?”
“I’m not sure, but this could be the beginning of a regular run for us. Maybe I’ll have to start bringing your mother along with me so she doesn’t get lonely.” He winked at his wife.
“What kind of cargo will you be ferrying, Father?”
Jeremiah looked at Elsa who quickly pretended she wasn’t listening to the conversation. “We will be taking goods down to Florida. They’re building rail lines so fast in that state they can hardly keep in supplies.”
The next week and a half flew by and Sophia found herself stuck in a horrible mood. She wanted to be happy during the little time Nick was around, but the thought of him leaving again made her sick. She didn’t know how women, like her mother, could bear to be married to seamen who were regularly leaving. The pain of constant goodbyes must be devastating. Besides that, since they’d been back, something seemed to be bothering Nick and he didn’t talk as much as he used to.
A few mornings before the Mist Seeker was due to sail again, Sophia found herself alone in the barn with Nick who was visiting his horse, Mabel.
“Did you think about me at all when you were gone?” she boldly asked.
Nick sighed. “Only every day. You were right, I didn’t get seasick and I did enjoy being on the water, but I couldn’t stand not seeing you every morning and evening like I did all last summer.”
Sophia smiled.
“Sophia, do you think you would ever consider . . . down the road . . . maybe . . . perhaps . . . marrying me?”
Sophia’s hea
rt stopped. When it finally started beating again she managed to whisper, “Yes. I can’t imagine anything that would make me happier.”
“I am saving every penny that I’m getting from your father, but I’m afraid it will still be a long time before I have enough to get us a place of our own. Are you willing to wait for me, even if it is something we do far in the future?”
“I can wait as long as it takes.” But I don’t want to wait another day.
Nick reached down and took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. He slowly lowered his head as if to kiss her again, and she felt herself leaning toward him on trembling legs, her heart beating faster with every inch of space that disappeared between them.
“What is going on in here?” Jeremiah boomed as he entered the barn behind the young couple.
Nick quickly dropped Sophia’s hand and continued running a comb through Mabel’s shiny black mane. Jeremiah’s face quickly registered surprise, realization, and then anger.
“Father, I—” Sophia tried to talk, but she was cut off when Jeremiah grabbed her and shoved her angrily towards the barn door.
“I should have known this would happen. Get in the house, Sophia.” He turned to Nick with raging eyes. “Don’t ever let me catch you near my daughter again. Do you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It will never happen again.”
“You’re not good enough for her, boy, so keep your filthy hands off her.”
Sophia didn’t hear anything else as she ran for the house where she threw herself across her bed and sobbed.
Elsa came into the room and sat on the bed next to her, resting a hand on her back. “What happened?”
Sophia was too upset to respond, but she found she didn’t need to. Jeremiah burst through the door at that moment, yelling about his tramp of a daughter who flirted with the hired help.
“Father. He’s a good man. He treats me right and he’s a hard worker. What more could you want from a son-in-law?” Sophia cried.
“Son-in-law? Are you out of your mind? The most important thing you should consider when choosing a husband is how much money he has and whether or not he will be able to support you. That boy out there in the barn is never going to be able to support himself—or anyone else for that matter.”
She clutched at her stomach, willing away the need to vomit. It made her sick to think of the future her father wanted for her. He wanted her to marry into money so that he could try to get his hands on it.
For the next few days, Sophia did nothing but mope around the house. She barely ate and her usually creamy skin took on a ghostly pallor. Jeremiah and Elsa ignored her and she barely spoke a word. She desperately wanted to talk to Nick alone, but her father assured that their paths never crossed. Either she was outside doing a chore or he was, but never at the same time. Jeremiah made sure Nick was kept busy riding his horse, going for walks, or running errands in town until long after Sophia had gone to bed each night and then he would be allowed into the house for a cold dinner. Sophia never got a chance to talk to him about what happened in the barn. He never got to see her in the new burgundy dress with the delicate lace trim.
The day for Nick and Jeremiah to return to the ship came faster than Sophia could have possibly imagined. The last couple of days had been tense around the house. No one spoke, except Jeremiah and Elsa, who always did so in secretive whispers. The morning of their departure Sophia woke and dressed early, hoping that Nick would somehow find a way to talk to her. Perhaps he would meet her at the well again. She hurried out the door with her buckets that morning, looking around for the one person who could make her heart beat happily, but she never heard from him or saw him. When she got back to her house, her father bade her farewell, mentioning that Nick had gone ahead the night before. And that was it, she was alone again.