A Time to Love (8 page)

She flipped past the pages that held photographs of family, then paused at the first page that had photographs of Lewis and herself.

She looked at the two of them—at church, at the harbor shore, at church picnics, in Lewis’s buggy, and together in the yard of the Forrest home. There were even photographs at the Forrest home with Janet in the background.

A mixture of pain and anger swirled within her as she thought of all the hopes and dreams she’d built on Lewis.

She quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks when she heard a light tap on the door.

“Honey,” her mother said, “Pastor Stanford and Doris are here to see you. They had dinner with one of the church families and came by because they’re concerned about you.”

“I really appreciate them coming by, but right now I just don’t want to see
anyone.
Please tell them I love them, but I need to be alone.”

The door opened, and Adrienne took a step inside. Her line of sight
swerved from the chair where she had expected to find Linda, to where she sat at the desk. “You need help, honey,” she said. “And the best people to help you are your pastor and his wife.”

“I’m all right, Mom. Please, I just need to be left alone.”

“I’m trying to understand, honey, and so is your daddy.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, I’ll look in on you later.”

When her mother’s footsteps died out down the hall, Linda turned back to the scrapbook. There were little love notes that Lewis had often handed her at the end of a date, or at church. She had loved him for being such a romantic.

She closed the scrapbook, rested her head against it, and wept.

After a while she dried her tears and carried the scrapbook across the room, then laid it on the floor beside her hope chest. She knelt in front of the chest and began pulling out linens and other items that she’d started putting away ever since she and Lewis had admitted they were serious about each other.

Memories rushed through her mind as she looked over her handiwork and recalled every loving stitch she had sewn. With each towel, washcloth, pillowcase, sheet, and crocheted doily there had been a sweet dream of a happy life with the man she loved. She had dreamed of the new home they would establish on their wedding day … of her joy of cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, and all the things a wife does for her husband. And of course there were the dreams of children … happy laughter and the patter of little feet around the house.

Ashes, now. Only ashes.

Once again her tears began to flow. She put the scrapbook at the very bottom of the chest, then placed the linens and other things on top of it and closed the lid.

She must let Mr. Higgins know they wouldn’t be needing the apartment. She would have her father go by and tell him. She gave a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to pick up her clothes and other personal belongings and bring them back from the apartment.

Her clothes.

Linda’s eyes swung to the closet where the door stood partly open. She hadn’t seen the wedding dress in her closet when she dressed that morning.

She went to the closet and fumbled through the dresses. Not there.
Mom must have put it in her own closet, thinking that it would upset me to see it
.

Sweet, caring Mom.

For some unexplainable reason, Linda needed to see the dress.

She went to her door, opened it slightly, and listened. The Stanfords were still in the house. She could hear a murmur of conversation between them and her parents.

She hurried down the hall to her parents’ bedroom. It took only a few seconds to find the wedding dress and take it back to her room. Her whole body trembled as she carried the beautiful white dress to the bed, sat down, and held it before her eyes.

“Why do you torture yourself, Linda?” she said in a whisper. “This was the dress you were wearing last night when you went through the worst nightmare of your life—being left at the church by the treacherous man you loved and trusted.”

She held the dress to her face, staining it with her tears. When another tap came at the door, she forced her voice to remain steady and said, “Yes?”

Adrienne’s eyes widened when she saw the dress in Linda’s hands. “Honey, what are you doing?”

Linda held the delicate dress in clenched fists and said, “I just had to look at it.”

“Why? I put it in my closet so you wouldn’t have to see it.” “I don’t know why, Mom. I just had to.”

Adrienne sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. “An upheaval of our emotions can do strange things to our minds, Linda. I know that. Has it helped you any to look at it?”

Linda held up the wrinkled dress and said, “It’s helped me to feel more hatred for Lewis Carter. He should have been named
Judas!”

Adrienne thought of giving her a good lecture on what hatred would
do inside her if she held it there but decided this wasn’t the time. “Honey, Joline’s here to see you. Frank drove her here. He’s waiting with your father in the parlor. Joline is just down the hall.”

“Are the pastor and Doris still here?”

“No. They left a few minutes before Frank and Joline arrived. Will you let her come in and see you? I told her you weren’t seeing anyone today, but she said for me to ask if you would give a few minutes to your best friend.”

Linda swallowed hard and thought on it a moment. Then looking up, she said, “All right. I would like to see her. Send her in.”

Adrienne stepped into the hall and motioned to Joline.

The young woman rushed through the door and then stopped abruptly when she saw Linda holding the wedding dress. “Oh, Linda!” she gasped, and dashed to her side.

Adrienne watched for a few seconds as Joline folded Linda into her arms with the dress between them and just let Linda sob out her grief.

Adrienne smiled to herself. Joline would indeed be able to help her daughter. She stepped into the hall and closed the door.

Joline held her weeping friend and said, “Thank you for seeing me. I came for one reason. Not to lecture you on how to react to your devastation, nor to preach to you and tell you you’re weak spiritually if you let what’s happened get you down. You’re a human being made out of the same kind of flesh I am. I know you’re hurting. I just came to cry with you.”

Her words caused Linda to sob all the harder. She let go of the dress and wrapped her arms around her best friend, and hung on. The sobs seemed to come from deep within—wordless wails of inexpressible anguish.

As Joline felt Linda’s inward pain, her own tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

When Linda could form words again, she clung to her friend and cried, “Oh, Joline, I wish I could die! I can’t ever face the people who know me! I want to die!”

Joline patted her friend on the back of the head and said, “Sh-h-h! Now, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do! Yes, I do! I want to die!”

“But, honey, there are still many people who love you. Your parents love you. I love you. Pastor and Mrs. Stanford love you. The people at church do, too. Betty and Shirley love you. They’re waiting for me to tell them at church tonight how my visit went. They want to come and see you, too.”

These were Linda’s other bridesmaids—Betty Madison and Shirley Wells.

“No, Joline! No! I can’t face them! I can’t!”

“All right, honey,” Joline said, this time patting her upper back. “I understand. I’ll explain it to Betty and Shirley.” She eased back to look Linda in the eye. “I have to go now. Frank and I need to be heading for church.”

Linda’s eyes were swollen and red, and she spoke jerkily as she said, “Thank you for coming to cry with me.”

“Of course,” Joline said as she dabbed at her wet cheeks with a hanky. “But, honey, before I go …”

“Yes?”

“No more of this talk about wanting to die, okay?”

Linda bit down on her lower lip and gave a tiny nod, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Joline knew the nod was all she was going to get. She hugged Linda again, kissed her cheek, and said, “May I come back soon and see you?”

“Yes.”

Joline walked to the door, pulled it open, then looked back and said, “I love you, Linda.”

“I love you, too. Thank you for being my very best friend.”

Joline smiled and closed the door softly.

When she entered the parlor, Frank said, “How did it go?”

“Pretty well, except—”

“Except what?”

The Forrests had their eyes fixed on Joline.

“Well … she’s saying she wants to die. That worries me. What if she decided to take her life?”

“Linda’s not going to take her life,” Adrienne said. “Its not in her to do a thing like that. She was talking that way last night. Beth was worried about the same thing, but as Nolan told her, that isn’t Linda talking. It’s the hurt inside her talking. With prayer and lots of love, she’ll come out of this state of despondency, and she’ll be our happy, cheerful Linda again.”

Lewis Carter and Janet Forrest left Manhattan’s Grand Central Station early on Sunday morning.

As Lewis carried their overnight bags, Janet held his elbow with one hand and pointed at the surreys that stood in line for passengers all along the street on the depot side. “There’s one of the Hudson Transportation Company surreys, darling. See it? Remember, Max said in his letter to hire one of them because they’re the best in New York.”

“Oh. Sure.”

Lewis focused on the waiting vehicle and the large sign on its side:

As they walked toward the surrey, Janet squeezed Lewis’s arm and said, “Oh, darling, I’m so happy!”

“Me, too,” he breathed.

“It sure was great of Max to work out your transfer down here,” she said, a lilt in her voice.

“Yeah. And it was plenty nice of him to get the apartment rented for us, and ready to move into.”

“I’ll say.”

“Max was a good friend when he was my foreman in Boston, and he’s even a better friend now.”

“He didn’t know anything about you and Linda when he left Boston and came to Brooklyn, did he?”

“No. When he transferred here, Linda and I were just starting to see each other on a steady basis.”

“Good. No questions to answer then.”

“That’s right.”

The driver smiled as he slid off the seat. “’Mornin’, folks,” he said in a friendly tone. “Needin’ a surrey?” He was a short, chubby man with rosy cheeks and a heavy handlebar mustache.

“We sure do,” Lewis said. “We need to go to Brooklyn. My fiancée will be staying at the Kensington Arms Hotel. Know where that is?”

“Sure. On Church Avenue, right by Prospect Park.”

“Okay. And I’ll be staying at a friend’s house on Flatbush Avenue six blocks south of Linden Boulevard. He lives at 3119. It’s a two-story house.”

“Got it. The fee will be four dollars, plus the fifty cents to take the ferry across and back.”

Soon the surrey was heading south toward the ferry dock, where they would cross the East River to Brooklyn. Lewis and Janet sat behind the driver, who told them his name was Bob Long and joked that they’d named Long Island after him.

Long proved to be quite talkative. He pointed out places of interest and told little stories about incidents that had happened on particular streets.

The couple held hands, more interested in each other than in what Long was saying. He went quiet a moment, then said, “So where you folks from?”

“Boston,” Lewis replied.

“Yeah? Boston’s a nice place, but I like New York better. So when you gettin’ married?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh, really? Church weddin’?”

“No. My friend Max Burton—the one whose house you’ll be taking me to—has us lined up to take our vows before a judge in his chambers in the morning.”

“I see. So you’re gonna be livin’ in Brooklyn?”

“Yes.”

“What business you in?”

“Shipping. I work for the Dunbar Shipping Company. We have docks both in Boston and South Brooklyn. We’re at the big pier on Gravesend Bay.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen the sign, now that you mention it. So the company transferred you down here, eh?”

“Yes. Max was my foreman in Boston until they transferred him here a couple years ago. He put in to have me come down and be his number-one assistant.”

As they drew near the ferry dock, Long pointed ahead to a massive bridge under construction, spanning the East River to Brooklyn. “Take a look at that!” he said. “That’s the Brooklyn Bridge! Won’t be completed for another three years or so. When it’s finished, it’ll be the longest bridge in the whole world. Sixteen hundred feet!”

“It’s a big one, all right,” Lewis said, eyeing the massive superstructure with awe.

Janet was bored with Long’s commentary.

“Masterwork of a fella named John Augustus Roebling,” Long said. “It’s the first bridge in the world to use steel for cable wire. The deck is supported by four of those huge cables. There’s a walkway for pedestrians, too. Well, here we are. The ferrys leave on the half hour, so we’re just in time to catch the next one.”

Lewis and Janet were married the next morning. They would not be able to take a honeymoon; Lewis was due to report in for work on Tuesday morning at seven o’clock.

On Monday evening after they had eaten supper at a local café, they
entered their apartment, and Janet threw her arms around Lewis, saying, “I’m so happy! Just think of it—I’m now Mrs. Lewis Carter!” She paused, then laughed. “My baby sister wanted to be Mrs. Lewis Carter, but I outfoxed her. I got her man! Ha! I wish I could have seen her little dollface when she finally realized we weren’t going to show up for the wedding! I wonder how long it took till she and everyone else knew there wasn’t going to be a wedding.”

Lewis had gone quiet.

“Hey, what’s the matter, honey?” Janet said. “Something bothering you?”

“Oh … ah … no.” He hugged her close. “Nothing’s bothering me.”

Janet pushed herself out of his arms, took a step back, and said, “Don’t lie to me, Lewis. Something’s eating at you. Here we are, just married, with everything working out exactly as we planned, and you’re down about something. C’mon. What is it?”