Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (44 page)

Olivia watched in the rearview mirror and felt a stirring in her heart.

The arrival of Ethan Allen had changed her life. He had awakened in her a love greater than any she’d ever known, but with that love had come responsibilities, worry, and, at times, even fear. Everything had a price. The price of not loving was an empty and cold existence. It meant a lifetime of wordless evenings and nights where the chill of loneliness rattled through your bones. The price of loving was beyond measure. Olivia thought back on the night she lost Charlie, a night so horrible she could not even find a comparison. She wanted to tell herself that going forward no heartache could ever be as great as that one, but she knew better.

Ethan Allen was young, Jubilee even younger. If disaster befell one of them it, Olivia knew it would shatter her heart. Worrying over, caring for, and protecting one child was difficult enough; could she possibly do it for three? Stretched out in front of her, it seemed a Herculean task, a job too big for even the mightiest, and yet it was slowly settling into her mind.

She’d given thought to letting the boy go his own way. He seemed big, strong, and capable of taking care of himself. But that was outside. Inside he was simply a boy, a sixteen-year-old teenager. Too young to know the hardships life could thrust upon his shoulders. Perhaps if he had been surly or outspoken she may have found justification for not caring.

But he was none of those things. He was soft-spoken, gentle, and genuinely likeable. Jubilee obviously adored him, and Ethan Allen was giving him the type of admiration usually reserved for baseball players.

While Olivia would have welcomed the alternative, the truth was that watching them together was like seeing the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle slide into place. It completed the picture. She knew that whatever hardships lay in front of her, she could never separate the children.

When they arrived back at the Wyattsville Arms, Paul lifted his sister and carried her to the apartment. After Olivia turned back the covers, he gently laid her in the bed. She rustled around a bit but never woke.

Even though the hour was late, Olivia sat the boys at the kitchen table and served up tall glasses of milk and a plate piled high with the cookies she’d baked earlier. After Paul had eaten his fifth cookie, he lowered his eyes and said, “Hope you don’t mind me eatin’ up all these cookies—”

Before he finished, Olivia said, “Not at all, Paul, go right ahead. There’s plenty more where those came from.”

“I know it ain’t none too polite to make a pig of myself but, Missus Doyle, these is the best cookies I ever tasted.”

“Well, then,” Olivia said with a smile, “I’ll have to get busy and make another tray of them.” She poured each of the boys a second glass of milk, then turned to the sink and began washing the cookie tray she’d left earlier. Although her back was to the boys, she listened to their conversation.

“How come you call Grandma ‘Missus Doyle’?” Ethan Allen asked.

Paul awkwardly stumbled over his answer. “I been taught using a body’s proper name shows respect.”

“Yeah, but Grandma’s family. You ain’t supposed to call family same as other folks.”

After more than a year of correcting Ethan’s grammar, Olivia did it without thinking. “You’re
not
supposed to call family.”

Thinking the words were meant for him, Paul answered, “I’m not.” 

Olivia laughed. “I didn’t mean you, Paul. Actually, I’d be real pleased if you’d call me Grandma, just as Ethan Allen and Jubilee do.”

“Really?” Paul answered.

“Yes, really.”

It was nearing midnight when they finally started off to bed. Olivia offered Paul her room, but he refused it. “I’ll be just fine here,” he said and stretched out on a sofa that was a foot shorter than his lanky body, his head propped up on the arm at one end and his feet dangling over the other end.

“That doesn’t look any too comfortable,” Olivia said, but by then Paul’s eyes were already closing. Seconds later he was sound asleep.

As she was pulling a blanket over Paul, Olivia noticed the peaceful look on his face. It suddenly seemed so obvious. He was a boy with no shame attached to him, a boy with a squeaky-clean conscience. Chances were that in all his years he had never even uttered an obscenity.  How, she wondered, could they have suspected such a boy would commit a crime?

Olivia snapped off the light, went into her own room, and closed the door. It had been a long day, and she welcomed the thought of sleep. Tomorrow would dawn with a whole new set of problems, but tonight she would sleep. She slid a cotton nightgown over her head and climbed into bed.

After plumping the pillow as she always did, Olivia lowered her head onto it expecting to drift off in seconds. But for some odd reason the nightgown itched in places where it had never itched before. After fifteen minutes of moving one way and then the other, she decided it was the sewn-in label rubbing against her back. That was easy enough to fix. She got out of bed, pulled out the sewing basket, removed the label stitch by stitch, and then climbed back into bed.

Although the nightgown was now without a label, sleep was still impossible to come by. Olivia’s pillow had somehow developed a lump that poked her in the neck no matter which way she turned. She sat up and flipped the pillow on the opposite side. No better. She exchanged it for the one that was originally Charlie’s. Still no good; that one was way too firm.

“Hard as a rock,” she grumbled and switched them back again. After seven plumps and two more flips, the lump disappeared and Olivia curled into the pillow.

She wanted to sleep. She wanted to not think about moving, not think about leaving her friends, not think about the responsibility of three children, but such a thing was impossible. When she closed her eyes she saw the three of them standing at the top of a faraway mountain.

“Grandma,” they called with their arms stretched out. Olivia looked up and saw a black sky with an angry wind ripping pieces of the mountain loose.

“Come down from there!” she screamed. “Come down right now, before you get hurt.”

Instead of running from the danger, the children remained where they were, again calling her name. She heard the reedy sound of Jubilee’s voice, the husky sound of a boy not yet a man, and underneath those was the familiar cry of Ethan Allen. A bolt of lightning shot across the sky and slammed into the side of the mountain. The ground shook, and several large chunks of stone tumbled down.

The children huddled together as edges of the mountaintop began to crumble. Olivia started toward them running as fast as she could, but the faster she ran the steeper the mountain became. Her legs grew weak, and her lungs gasped for air.

“You’ll never make it,” a voice thundered, and a roar of laughter rolled across her ears. 

Olivia turned and looked around. It was an old man, dressed head to toe in dark grey. “You’ll never make it,” he repeated and sounded another uproarious roll of laughter.

“I have to!” Olivia cried and started to run again.

“Run, run, run!” the voice cackled and pointed a bony finger at the face of the mountain.

Olivia looked up and saw what she hadn’t seen earlier. Carved into the mountain were the names and faces of suitors she’d walked away from. In the center of the mountain was an empty black hole. It was the lonely years, the years when she’d been afraid to trust, the years when she’d been afraid to love. “Noooooooooo!” Olivia screamed and bolted upright.

It took several seconds for her to realize she was sitting in her own bed. For several minutes her heart continued to race. She looked at her own fears and recognized them for what they were. Stones that had littered her pathway. Obstacles that had held her back from loving.

“Never again,” she vowed. “Never again.”

It was several hours before Olivia could again find sleep, and when she finally did silver threads of daylight had begun to crease the night sky. By then she had reached a decision. It was the only decision her heart would allow her to make.

Olivia

I
’d like to tell you I’m not frightened, but the truth is I’m scared to death. It’s been almost two years, and I can still remember the ache of loneliness I felt after Charlie died. I came back here expecting to pick up the life I had before we got married. But such a thing is not possible. It never is. Life has only one direction and that’s forward. If you don’t move with it, you might as well go ahead and jump into the grave.

It’s hard to imagine that Olivia Westerly Doyle, a woman who avoided marriage because she couldn’t bear the thought of children, should one day end up responsible for three of them. I guess God looks past what you claim to want and gives you what you need.

Having Ethan Allen has brought me a great deal of joy, more than I ever dreamed possible. But having Ethan didn’t mean I had to move away from my friends. If you don’t think friends are important, just try doing without them. If it wasn’t for Clara and the others, I’d still be walking around this apartment like a dead person.