Not a Sparrow Falls (28 page)

Cameron squirmed to get down. A buzzer sounded.

“That’s my pie,” Bridie said. “Excuse me.” She turned and left. Alasdair set Cameron down and followed her into the kitchen.

She was leaning down to check on her pie, hair cascading over her shoulder in a shiny waterfall. She flicked him a glance and flushed. Or perhaps it was only the heat from the oven. She closed the oven door, stood up, and turned toward him. The small artery on her neck beat out a pulse. Just behind it he thought he glimpsed a pearly white rope of scar. He forced himself to look away, down at his shoes.

“The children seem very happy. And the house looks wonderful.” He looked up and as he watched, the artery took on a hummingbird’s pulse. “I can’t begin to thank you.”

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” she said, and there was that look again, the sad cloaking of the eyes, a haunt of sadness breathing cold breath upon what should have been a happy scene. What was it about him that had that effect on people? He shook his head, took a deep breath.

Bridie, apparently deciding some fullness of time had been accomplished, opened the oven door again and took out the pie. It was a work of art. The golden filling bubbled through the slits, an eruption of cinnamon and sugar and apples, and
the smell was heavenly. It dragged him away from his dismal ruminations.

She pointed toward the table. “Your supper is ready. There’s salad in the fridge, chicken and vegetables there.” She pointed toward covered pots on the stove.

Your supper, she had said. “Aren’t you eating with me?” The words were out before he thought.

She flushed again. “I was going to give you your privacy. I can eat at home.”

“Nonsense.”

She gave him a sharp glance, and he berated himself. Why did he always speak like his father? He tried again. “What I mean is, I’d be delighted if you would stay and eat the dinner you prepared. Won’t you, please?”

Her flush deepened. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he’d violated some employer-employee etiquette. Perhaps she wanted to maintain firm boundaries between work and personal life. “It’s all right, though, if you’d rather not,” he said quickly.

“No.” She shook her head. “That’ll be fine.”

“Good.” He smiled. “I’ll go wash.”

She nodded and turned her pink face to the cupboard as she took down another plate.

****

Alasdair had demolished his chicken and salad, mashed potatoes and green beans, and now he was making inroads on his pie. The ice cream was real vanilla and pooling in delicious puddles around the tender apples. It tasted better than any he’d had before.

They sat over coffee. For just a moment Alasdair savored it—a moment of normalcy that he hadn’t had in years, a quiet conversation at the end of the day over dessert and coffee. He relaxed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “This is quite good,” he said, taking the last bite, enjoying the last crumbling, melting mouthful.

“It has a secret ingredient,” Bridie said with a smile. She had a beautiful smile. White, even teeth and deep, merry dimples. The cornflower blue eyes completed the picture of innocence and light. Just looking at someone so obviously untouched by the disappointments of life gave him a moment of pleasure.

He smiled back. “It’s delicious, whatever it is.”

“Where I’m from it’s apple country,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s a way to cook an apple that I haven’t tried. Fried, baked, cobblers, pies, cakes, turnovers, popovers, doughnuts, candied, frozen, canned, dried—you name it.”

“Is that right?” he asked, more to keep her talking than for any other reason. He loved the animated look she took on when she talked about her home. Bright and cheerful.

“Yes, sir. Every hill, valley, and mountainside has an orchard tucked away. Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Stayman, Winesap, Rome, York, Empire, Granny Smith. We grow them all. I wish I had a penny for every apple I’ve picked. I’d be a rich woman.”

“The land is especially suited to apples?” he continued, picking a leading question at random.

She nodded. “Full of lime. Good for fruit trees.”

“How interesting.”

Bridie quirked her head, acknowledging the fact. “My grandmother said she thinks the Lord put her house down right in the middle of the Garden of Eden.” Bridie smiled. “Sometimes I think she’s right.” Her eyes softened and focused on some point far away. “It’s beautiful there. The morning fog will lift, and all of a sudden there’s the river spilling over big old boulders that look like somebody put them there, just right. Then it tumbles through the valley, rippling and singing over those flat slabs in the riverbed. There’s an old dead tree that fell across the shallows, and I used to sit there for hours when I was a kid. I especially loved it in the wintertime when all the balsam firs and spruces were covered with snow.”

“It sounds beautiful,” he prodded. “Are there many lakes?” he asked, thinking of Scotland.

She shook her head. “Not too many lakes, but lots of rivers and creeks. And trees, more trees than you can shake a stick at. Beech, hickory, oak, hemlock, white pine. My great-uncle used to cut down a hickory and make mountain dulcimers. He sold them to big music stores, and people would pay hundreds of dollars for one of his instruments. He’s famous around those parts. Was. He’s passed on now.” Her face sobered, then lit again as she remembered something else. “My great-grandma used to be the granny. The midwife. She knew every herb and what it would do for you and to you. She planted bloodroot and hepaticas under her dogwoods, and she’d go out into the woods and pick things to make her remedies. She said nothing would beat a bloodroot for getting rid of warts, and she swore that the roots of the hepatica would bring down a fever quicker than aspirin. Of course, aspirin comes from white willow bark,” Bridie said with a blinding smile. “Isn’t that right?”

“I suppose so,” he murmured. She was fascinating, and for the first time he could hear the full range of her accent. Talking about her home had brought it out.

“Even the dirt is pretty where I’m from,” she said with a smile. “You’ll be walking along and there will be little shiny bits of isinglass, glittering in the sun. Shiny little mirrors under your feet.”

Alasdair had a vision of heaven, where precious gems would be building materials. He smiled. “It sounds absolutely beautiful.”

Her smile faded. “Parts of it are. I guess it’s like everything else. There’s bad with the good.”

“I suppose.”

She seemed to grow restive, fidgeting with her coffee cup, swirling the dregs around. “What about you?”

****

“Hmm? Oh. I grew up right here.” He smiled and his eyes
seemed more topaz now than blue. She leaned forward to get a closer look. They were hazel. Sort of. Dark, vivid blue with flecks of golden brown. No. Aqua now. Ah, gray. He tipped his head, and they changed again. They were a different color every time the light shifted.

“Except for when you lived in Scotland,” she contributed to get her mind off his coloring.

“Right.” He made a little face. “My sisters filled you in on that, I’m sure.”

Bridie felt a surge of embarrassment. She knew things she shouldn’t know. Things he didn’t know she knew. She’d better watch her step. “It’s where you spent your formative years,” she quoted Winifred, and Alasdair’s smile grew wider.

“Exactly.” He chuckled. “I was nine or ten when we moved to Scotland. We lived there for four years—close to five. When we returned here Father came right back to this church. They hadn’t even replaced him—used an interim pastor for four years. Can you imagine?” he asked.

Bridie gave her head a polite little shake. She hadn’t ever really thought about it, but if that was unusual, she could only imagine how hard it must be on Alasdair that the same folks were angling to oust him now. His thoughts must have followed hers. He was staring off, his face a picture of gloom.

“Then what?” she asked, prodding him out of it. He glanced at her and smiled briefly.

“Then I finished high school here in Alexandria, went to college and seminary in Boston. I did a year in Scotland midway.”

He was staring at the wall, seeing the past playing on it like a movie, and Bridie could see it, too. She saw Anna with her bright eyes and beautiful mane of hair. Anna, serene on the surface, churning and frothing underneath.

“My wife was from Scotland,” he said, telling her what she already knew. “I met her then. Her father was not happy when I took her away.” Then he went again. Off to that lonely, private place where he spent so much time. She followed him
there, tried to fill in the blanks, and felt a stirring guilt that soon she would know things about his wife that even he might not know unless he, too, had read her journals.

“We returned to Boston, where I finished my last year of seminary. My father retired the year after I finished. This church called me to the pastorate, and I’ve been here ever since.”

She met his eyes, making sure her smooth face was on, but underneath it her thoughts were in a tumble.

The front door opened and closed.

“Hello!” Lorna’s voice rang down the hall. Relief and regret surged up together. The awkwardness was over, but so was the conversation.

“I’ve enjoyed the visit,” the reverend said, resting his hand on the table, inches from hers. It was a nice hand, wide and strong looking for someone who spent his time reading and writing. Blue ink stained the writing callus of his middle finger. She remembered holding that hand during the long, long night of his illness. He had held on to her like a drowning man clings to wrecked pieces of the ship. Anything to keep his head above water.

“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she said.

Alasdair gave her a slight nod, another hesitant smile. “Perhaps you’d like to stay and eat with us every night.”

Bridie’s eyes widened, and she didn’t answer for a moment.

He noticed her hesitation and shook his head. “I’m imposing. I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I could stay.”

He smiled, and she noticed again how it changed his whole face, softened the hard lines and gave it warmth. “Fine,” he said, then rose to greet Lorna.

Bridie began putting the plates into the dishwasher, glad to have a place to hide her flushing face. Lorna came in and spared her from any more thinking. After they chatted a minute Bridie excused herself, put on her coat, said good night to Samantha, and went home to Carmen’s. All the
way there she scolded herself. Their home is not your home. They are not your family. He is not your—whatever. Don’t get attached to him, she scolded herself, but all the time a part of her was wondering if it was too late.

Twenty-Three

The talks with Alasdair continued, no matter how many lectures Bridie gave herself. In fact, their time together became a nightly ritual. Between the twins’ bedtime and the hour or so she and Samantha spent poring over Anna’s books, Alasdair would come down to the kitchen. She felt crazy. She felt deceitful. She felt torn. She thought about stopping one or the other—the snooping into his life, or the sharing of it over dessert. She couldn’t bring herself to do either one. So she continued to sit across from him each night, sipping coffee or tea, taking sweet bites of whatever she had made, and talking.

And, oh, the things they talked about. She knew his favorite things: butterscotch and caramel, a good bread pudding, mountains, and small towns. His favorite holiday: Christmas. His favorite color: blue. His favorite book:
Mere Christianity,
by C. S. Lewis. His favorite vacation: the year his family had rented a cottage in the mountains of Pennsylvania. There he swam in the lake before breakfast every morning and slept outside on the screened porch.

They spoke of what he was like as a boy. His dreams, his thoughts, his interests. He had never intended to be a pastor. He’d intended to teach. He had been crazy about knights and castles, read every book written about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He had collected insects, probably just to bother his sisters. He had loved to read. Anything. He had loved running and throwing the discus. Why had he stopped doing it?

“It took too much time away from what the Lord wanted me to be doing.”

“Are you sure He didn’t want you doing that?” she’d pursued. “It seems like the whole thing was His idea. After all, He’s the one who made you good at it.”

He had paused, eyes taking on that faraway look, imagining what lay down that road not taken. “You might be right,” he’d said quietly.

“What about you?” he had asked, and she had told him about that girl she had been. She had liked swimming, too, and fishing, and walking through the woods. She had swept out a little clearing by her grandma’s and made a playhouse. A tree stump for a table, logs dragged from the woodpile were chairs. She’d prepared dinners of acorns on oak-leaf plates. She would sit there and play by herself, think and read, and talk to Jesus as if He were stretched out beside her on the bed of pine needles, hands pillowing His head, listening.

She told him about her grandmother, the way she prayed. And told him other things about herself and her life. Silly little things that no one else would care about, like how Grandma never opened any presents, that you could look in her drawer and find unopened packages—jewelry and underwear, hand towels and slips—all being saved for some special occasion that never came. She told him a little about her mother, a little less about her father, brother, and sisters. Nothing at all about the life she’d lived before coming here. But she wanted to. More and more she was having to shout down the voice inside that urged her to tell him everything.

Perhaps if she told him he would understand, she thought again, checking her cookies to see if they were done. Perhaps he would gaze at her, eyes warm and steady, would reach his hand across the table and clasp her hand, close his warmly over hers. “Those are things you’ve done,” he might say. “Not who you are.”

Or perhaps he would not.

Don’t fall into that trap,
she warned herself.
He’s just a man. He can’t forgive sins. Only God can do that.

She sighed. The timer pinged. She took out the sheet of cookies, and the teakettle began to whistle just as she did. She listened for his feet in the hallway, knowing that when she heard them, in spite of everything, her heart would lift.