Promise of Yesterday (14 page)

After Marylu finished cleaning half the floor, Jenny appeared in the doorway. “I needed a break from the close work, and it was lonely in there.”

Marylu dipped her brush and continued scrubbing, at a loss for words. Tired.

“You’re lost in your own thinking and singing to avoid it all, and that spells trouble,” came Jenny’s observation.

She couldn’t look her friend in the eyes. “Not done much else but think.”

“He’s around here somewhere, Marylu. I just know it. He’ll turn up.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “You’re afraid he
is
around?”

Marylu didn’t know how to explain. She sat back on her heels and wiped her wet hands together. “Don’t know what to think. I do know I best be busy, or my head might explode from all this thinking.”

“You’re worried.”

It wasn’t the words but the way Jenny said them that stopped Marylu for the second time and forced her to take a hard look at her friend. “It’s like I said last night. It’s like Walter all over again.” She bit down on the words and swallowed hard.

“It’s not the worrying that I find so strange. It’s your inaction.”

This time Marylu was confused. “Done asked after that man all over town. Don’t rightly know what else there is to do but pray and wait.”

Jenny’s skirts swished over the wet floor.

Marylu shooed her back with her hand. “Gonna drag your hem right through—”

But Jenny knelt right down on the floor beside Marylu and grasped her elbows. “Listen to me, Marylu. You’ve got a chance, don’t you see? He’s out there. Somewhere. You don’t need to be here scrubbing my floors and trying to help me.” Jenny’s eyes burned into hers. “You need to find Chester. Whatever fear is stopping you from knocking on every door in this town to find him needs to be put aside.”

Marylu didn’t know what to say. “I did look. You know that. Couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“Really? I’ve never known you to give up so easily, or is it you’re afraid to find him?” Jenny squeezed her arms. “Walter hurt you. Real bad. But I’ve never known you to back down from a challenge, and that’s exactly what you’re doing now. Walter’s going to steal your future, and you’re going to let him.” Jenny’s hands fell away, but her gaze remained firm and steely. “That’s not the Marylu I know. That’s not the woman who risked her life to set free a wagon full of frightened blacks and helped hundreds get north.” Jenny’s eyes burned into hers. “Whether he knows it or not, Chester needs you. And you need him.”

Chester heaved the ax into the stump. He wiped sweat from his brow and breathed deeply of the warm afternoon air. He’d chopped wood for two hours. Ruth now had a long cord of split logs snugged up against the side of the dilapidated stable that housed the cow and horse in the colder months.

Repairs. So many things needed to be done, and he had spent most of his time splitting logs putting it all into a mental list. Repairing the chicken coop would be next. After that, patching the stable. The log house seemed in good shape. For now. He had no doubt the roof leaked in places, evidenced by the water spots on the floor in the room the children shared, but with summer well in place, a few well-placed pots would buy him some time. He could work for weeks and still not be done. And he needed to look up the man Mr. Shillito knew and secure a paying job.

Chester swallowed over the dryness in his throat, longing for a drink. He wondered how Zedikiah fared under Mr. Shillito’s guidance. He hoped the boy stayed sober and that someone else would take interest in him. It tugged on him that he should let Cooper know where he had gone. His friend might worry. He owed him some sort of explanation. Chester flexed his fingers. He could write a letter and send it with someone headed toward Greencastle. Explain about Ruth’s need, and that his original intention in coming to Greencastle had been to get to Mercersburg and check on the family he hadn’t seen in so many years. Cooper would understand.

It was Marylu who wouldn’t understand.

Marylu
.

Chester stretched upward to relieve the dull ache in his back and pulled a suspender back into place. He closed his eyes.
Marylu
.

“You’ve got a lot done,” Ruth called from the garden, where she worked the plow deep into the ground. Her gaze raked over him then the pile stacked against the shed. “Not too bad for an old man.”

Chester stretched, his legs stiff from last night’s long walk, too little sleep, and too much wood chopping.

Ruth left the plow and headed toward the house. She lifted her head. “Daniel! Esther!” Her voice rang out across the yard that separated her from the structure where the children worked inside.

Esther’s head poked out from an upstairs window. “Daniel’s beating the rug, Mama.”

“When he’s done, I’m wanting him to plow. Your uncle is needing a drink. Get one for him, little gal.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Ruth glanced back at him and pointed to the front step, shaded by a huge oak tree.

Sweat trickled down his back, and he gratefully accepted the prospect of the cool spot. As he settled himself on the step, Esther appeared with a tin of cold water. He gulped it down, uncaring of the droplets running down from the corners of his mouth. When he offered the empty tin to Esther, she smiled, took it, and scurried off.

Ruth sat beside him, her face in profile. He recognized that profile, a twin to his mother’s, and the reminder was a physical ache. “You going to be moving on or staying?”

He gave the question some thought and realized with a heavy heart that the answer had less to do with him than it did with her. If he left, she would be alone again. If he stayed, she would have someone to help. To trust and depend upon.

Writing a letter would be slow work. He could get to Greencastle and back in short order and still have plenty of daylight to finish up work and get started on his search for a job. He could make sure Cooper’s cough was better and that Zedikiah was staying out of trouble. Say good-bye to Marylu. “I need go Greencastle. Horse?”

Ruth’s gaze missed nothing. “Something there you need to take care of?”

He nodded.

Her dark eyes flashed. “You been wandering a long time. Mama feared you were dead.”

Chester leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. He had hidden for good reason, she must understand that. Coming home would have brought trouble to his family, and he couldn’t bear seeing his mother’s face and confessing his deed.

No, he had walked steadily west and north in those days, always on the alert, always afraid. It choked him even now, that icy feeling that at any moment the dogs would be on him and sink their teeth into his flesh, followed by their master. Forcing his mind from the past, he lifted his head to the sky.

“After hearing of the master being slain, she reckoned you were too ashamed to come back.”

Chester didn’t look at her. The truth laid bare his soul. How his mama had known him.

Ruth’s gaze turned soulful. “She wanted me to give you something.” She pushed to her feet, the step letting out a moan at the release of the weight upon it.

She left him alone. And he had all the time he needed to consider what it might be that Mama wanted him to have. Her favored possessions had been few and precious and probably things better left for Ruth to give to her children. Her Bible, for one, would be the thing his mama would hold dearest. The legacy for her children and a silent admonition to look to Him for direction on the paths they chose.

He heard Ruth’s steps drawing nearer and looked up as she came into view. In her hands she held the Bible. A lump solidified in his throat.

She held it out to him.

He shook his head and pushed its cool leather cover away. “Give to babies.”

She grasped his wrist, her rough skin scratching against his, and laid the volume on his palm. “She wanted Daniel to have it, but there is something inside that is for you.”

Chester’s heart hammered, and he saw, for the first time, the way the cover of the Bible humped over a bulky object pressed within. Curiosity ran parallel to the great sadness that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Open it,” Ruth’s voice, both soft and hard in tone, admonished him.

He gulped and blinked to relieve the blurriness in his vision. He pushed his finger into the cavity where the bulky object lay and flipped the pages open. His breath stopped. A storm of emotion billowed and blew through him as his trembling hand lifted out the snowy white kerchief, edges laced with delicate embroidery. In slow motion he lifted it to his face as images flashed through his mind.

His mother’s face the day he left.

The handkerchief clutched in her hand.

His first step toward the road.

That moment when he’d paused to look over his shoulder.

He had gulped and fought his fourteen-year-old doubts. He had never seen his mother cry. She had stood, stalwart and seemingly immovable, eyes resigned to his decision to leave. He knew then that she would not beg him to stay. Would never resort to hysterics or open displays of grief. She would remain detached, yet attached to his heart always. Still, the little boy in him wanted to see evidence of sorrow.

He had forced his eyes forward and kept them on the road a few more steps, before the urge to look back and freeze her image into his brain for the long days ahead gripped him and he turned. She still stood there, her hands lowered now, her features blurred by the distance between them.

Another step. Then another. At the end of the dirt road, right before it turned to wind out of sight, he had given one last glance over his shoulder, and that’s when he had seen her, handkerchief raised to her face. He’d known then how much she loved him and would miss him. He had stopped on the path, torn between running back to the only safe haven he had known and making his own way. Only the need to lessen her burden kept him moving, to make more of himself so he could send money back and help her.

Chester’s breath rattled as the memories crashed in, and he stroked the soft material against his cheek. The handkerchief, a symbol of her love for him, of her grief and sorrow, and a hundred other emotions that she never gave voice to but were there … and all for him.

Chester clenched his fist around the delicate fabric and struggled against another wave of tears as they burned for release. He shoved himself vertical and took quick steps away from the porch, unconsciously heading down the same path he’d taken that day.

And only then did he release his tears, adding to the cloth the salt of his grief that mirrored the salt of grief his mother had released so many years ago.

Ruth pushed a cup of hot coffee across to Chester. Rain pattered against the glass of the kitchen window. He wrapped his hands around the tin. His stomach full of warm food, his heart full of the residue of laughter he had shared with his niece and nephew before Ruth had shooed them off to bed, bowls in their hands.

She had paused at the base of the stairs and called up a reminder. “Daniel, you make sure Esther sets her bowl right under the leak.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Chester felt a grin. Some things never changed. Ruth sounded just like their mama, who had liberally tossed lastminute warnings or reprimands up the staircase after they’d gone up to bed.

He could tell the minute Ruth finally relaxed. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her eyelids became heavier than before. The sight of her exhaustion stirred something within him.

“I take”—he stumbled badly over the hard T—”care of you.”

Ruth’s gaze snapped to him. “No.”

He flinched at the hardness of that single syllable.

“You’ve your own life to live. I’ll not be taking you from that.”

He struggled for an answer.

She never gave him the chance. “Daniel will resent you being here. He’s used to doing hard work.” She held her hand out to him across the table, her expression placating. “You’ve got to understand, Chester. I’m a woman quite capable of making my own way. Daniel and Esther need to know hard work. If you’re around it could get too easy.”

He reluctantly took her hand, her way of offering appreciation for his offer. And in some strange way, he understood her fear. She didn’t want to become dependent on others. Still, he had to try. He lifted his free hand, pointed to her then to himself. “Family help each other.”

“You’ve got a life ahead of you. Live it.”

“Just me, Ruth.”

Her eyes shifted over his face, and he felt that same deep-thinking demeanor he had often witnessed in their mother. As if she could read his mind and thoughts. His heart.

“You haven’t ever loved?”

He opened his mouth to utter a protest, but his throat closed on the word.

“You spent over a month in Greencastle before getting over here. Why? Why wouldn’t a man who’s been gone so long get right over to the place where his family was when he got so close?”

“Got some work.” But the words fell flat when her gaze continued to burn into his. Demanding the truth.

“That’s good. Work’s good for a body.” She released his gaze and stood to open the door. A breeze shifted through the house. It swirled around him and cooled his skin. He lifted the cup to his lips and frowned. The coffee had cooled to lukewarm.