Return to Harmony (15 page)

“You have a gift of a daughter. A prize. A miracle.” Moira Keane’s peppery spirit spilled forth in the words. “She is destined for great things. All the teachers are talking of her.” A hesitation. “Do you even hear what I am saying to you?”

“I hear you.” Jodie’s father’s voice was gruff. “All the world is hearing you.”

“Then hear this as well, Parker Harland.” Moira’s lilting accent became more pronounced with her emotion. “Your daughter is growing into a beautiful and intelligent young lady, and you are missing out on it all. It is time you let the past go and see what wondrous miracles God is making in your life and hers right here, right now. Let Him restore you, and grow beyond your pain.”

When her father did not reply, Jodie peeked around the corner far enough to watch. Parker remained frozen in stillness for a very long while, seemingly captured by Moira’s gaze and the power of her words. Then he shrugged, one tired and defeated gesture. He dropped his head and turned and walked into the back room.

Moira sighed as well, mirroring the man’s defeat, and began sliding her wrapped packages into her carry bag. Swiftly Jodie backed up and left the apothecary. She understood her father and his reaction all too well. It hurt too much to bring up what they both in their own way kept bottled inside.

The apothecary door opened and shut behind Jodie. “Oh, there you are.” Moira stepped up to her, tucking wayward strands back beneath her scarf. “You mustn’t remain out here in this wind, dear. Especially with the flu still creeping about. You’ll catch your death.”

“I was just going in, Mrs. Keane.”

Moira took her arm and led her back inside. She glanced to where Parker had disappeared into the back room, then turned back to Jodie and lowered her voice. “Your dad has left you to founder, hasn’t he?”

Jodie pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?”

Moira’s gesture paid her words no mind. “If ever you need an older woman to speak with, dear, you just remember me.”

For some reason Jodie suddenly found her chest burning something fierce. She swallowed the lump in her throat and managed, “Thank you, Mrs. Keane.”

“You’re quite the young woman now.” She gave Jodie a sad smile. “Hard knocks have a way of making a body grow up fast, don’t they?”

Jodie nodded solemnly. “Faster than I’d ever wish on anybody.”

Moira reached around and hugged Jodie with her free arm. “Ah, child, child. You are one in a million, you are. I thank my lucky stars for whatever blessing brought you into my darling Bethan’s life, and that is the truth as clear as I know how to say it.” She loosened her grasp and looked at Jodie with genuine fondness. “I know it’s hard for you to accept my words just now, but I believe with all my heart you’re going to turn out fine.”

Jodie searched the older woman’s face, then said quietly, “I’d like to believe you.”

“Trust me you most certainly can,” Moira agreed confidently. “I don’t know that you have chosen an easy road through life. But I do know in my heart of hearts that you have what is required to make good at what you seek to do. Long as you remember to turn all that is and all that happens over to the Lord’s care, and count on Him in your loneliest hour.”

Jodie felt the coldness creep into her soul. “I’d rather not talk about that, please.”

“Bethan had mentioned this to me. It sorrowed me so I did not wish to believe her, even though my daughter couldn’t lie her way out of a dark corner.” Moira fastened Jodie with a knowing gaze. “Listen to me, my strong-headed young lass. My own beginnings were hard. I won’t say harder than yours, though I might. A heart that knows sorrow loses the ability to compare. I will just tell you that I have walked a road marked and rutted as your own. I too had every reason to grow bitter. I could have turned my back on the Lord above. But I chose to trust Him. I cannot say that I understand His ways, but this trust has served me well. It has comforted me through the hard times, and blessed me with joy when there was goodness about—and with peace when there wasn’t.” She peered deep into the young girl’s eyes, nodded once. “You just remember that.”

Jodie made do with a nod.

“Well, enough of that, then.” Moira’s tone turned brisk. “I suppose Bethan has told you that Dylan is arriving home on this very afternoon’s train.”

Jodie had to smile. “Only about ten times an hour for the past two weeks.”

“We’ll be having a little celebration this evening to welcome him home. You’re as much a family member as the rest of us, and besides, you look as though you could use a festive night yourself. Bethan was too busy preparing Dylan’s favorite dishes to come, so she asked me to stop by while I was out doing errands. She wanted to make this dinner with her own two hands, though I’m not certain what kind of welcome that’s going to make for the wayward lad.” She stepped toward the door. “Seven o’clock sharpish, if you please.”

Jodie was very grateful to be included in the Keanes’ evening, and not just because Dylan was returning home. Her father was becoming more and more morose, stumbling about the home in a gray fog all his own, seldom speaking at all. Jodie fed him a light supper, standing over him to make sure he ate. The entire time he did not say a word, not even when she said she was going out for the evening.

Jodie slipped out of the house wrapped in her heavy coat and shawl, and still felt the wind’s frigid fingers working their way through and under and around. It was always like this the first few days of winter. Harmony was so warm so much of the time, even in the heart of winter, that it was surprising just how cold certain days could become.

Bunting and banners still were everywhere in Harmony, though after a full five weeks of bands and speeches and welcoming parades, folks were gradually growing quieter, and life was returning to normal. It was no longer necessary to stop on every corner and say how wonderful it was that the Armistice had finally been signed, and the boys were coming home.

Jodie ran lightly up the front stairs to the Keane home and pulled the bell cord. When no one answered, she pushed open the door and let herself in.

Bethan came rushing up and grabbed her in a great hug, dancing her across the hall floor. “He’s home! He’s home! And wait ’til you see; he looks like a movie star in his uniform.”

“You’d have thought we’d have all seen enough of war by now,” Moira called from the kitchen. “But no, now that he’s finally free of the service, Bethan insists he wear the uniform and remind us of how he was so long from kith and kin.”

But tonight Bethan would not let her mother browbeat her into silence. She pulled Jodie into the parlor and called back to Moira, “You think he’s as handsome as I do, now admit it.”

“Handsome is as handsome does,” Moira retorted from her post in the kitchen, but there was no sharpness to her voice. Not tonight. “I will admit that we have raised ourselves a dashing lad.”

Heavy steps sounded on the stairs, and Gavin entered the parlor. He inspected the girls and said, “I’d have never imagined three ladies could make that much racket. I expect Dylan’s going to think he’s still back on the firing range.”

Jodie smiled at Bethan’s father. He had the kindest eyes she had ever seen in a man. “I haven’t said a word, Mr. Keane.”

“Of course you haven’t. I said three only so you wouldn’t feel left out. Bethan, for goodness’ sake, let go of her long enough to take her scarf and coat.”

“Well, well, would you just get a look at this.”

Jodie spun about and was immediately shocked to stillness by the man who stood before her. Dylan was not the same youngster they had seen off only eleven months before. The face was more angular, the eyes keener, the back straighter, the body leaner. The result was the boyish Dylan now honed to a man’s hardness.

Except the smile. He flashed that wonderful smile of his, the one which threatened to split his face and which lit up his eyes with the joy of it all. “This can’t be little Jodie.”

“Of course it is, silly.” Bethan grasped her friend’s inert hand and began swinging her arm in great excited sweeps. “Who on earth did you think it was?”

“I don’t know for certain,” Dylan replied as he approached and looked down at her from a height which Jodie did not recall ever noticing in Bethan’s brother. “But this is a beautiful young lady, not the giggling youngster I left behind.”

“I never giggled,” Jodie replied, finding her voice at last. It sounded strange to her ears, low and breathless.

“Maybe it was my sister making all that noise by herself,”

Dylan conceded and held out his hands, becoming serious and gentlemanly. “May I take your coat, young lady?”

“Thank you.” Jodie turned her back to him, and as she did, she realized that all the eyes in the house were upon them. Even Moira had emerged from the kitchen to watch the exchange. Strange that she would not be smiling, especially since she had invited Jodie in the first place.

Jodie felt the coat lifted from her, then the shawl, each motion sending little shivers through her. He was close enough for her to capture a hint of his fresh smell, soap and something else, a spicy fragrance he must have used on his hair. She turned back to him, looked up, and wondered how Bethan’s brother could have been transformed into such a handsome stranger.

Dylan’s voice was both richer and hoarser as he said, “Yessir, you have grown up, Jodie. It makes me realize how long I’ve been gone. How old are you?”

“Almost eighteen.”

Gavin laughed and said, “In about a year and six months, if I’m not mistaken. Or have you found some secret and pulled away from Bethan in age as well as school?”

Jodie blushed and dropped her gaze. The moment was suddenly swept away as Moira clapped her hands and said, “To the table everyone. This dinner won’t be kept waiting a moment longer.”

“Now that I’ve seen the army close up, I’m glad I missed the war. Real glad,” Dylan said to his father. He paused long enough to shovel in the last of his butterbeans, then pushed his plate over to one side. He looked at Moira and declared, “That was one of the finest meals I’ve ever had in all my born days, Momma.”

“You’re thanking the wrong cook,” Moira said, nodding in Bethan’s direction.

Dylan’s eyes showed surprise, then pleasure as he grinned at his sister. “Then Jodie here is not the only one who’s been doing some growing. Thank you, Bethan.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. As Bethan turned a bright crimson, Dylan turned back to his father and went on, “You ought to have seen the faces of the instructors, the ones who had done their time in the trenches. They looked like they’d glimpsed through the gates of hell itself.”

“I wouldn’t be talking like that around the town,” Moira warned. “People might mistake you for a coward.”

“Well now,” Gavin said easily and waited while his wife subsided. “Coming from someone else, maybe. But from Dylan, why, I imagine they’ll laugh and call it the voice of good sense.”

Jodie nodded agreement. Most everyone around Harmony liked Dylan. His good nature was balanced with great strength and a rare willingness to pitch in whenever work needed doing. She glanced over at Bethan. She was listening to Dylan with rapt attention, hanging on to every word, her eyes scarcely leaving his face, her plate almost untouched.

Bethan now leaned forward and asked, “Well, if they weren’t going to send you off to war, why did they have to keep you for so long?”

Dylan laughed, a great and easy sound. “The army kept me because it was easier than letting me go. I discovered the first week I was in that the army has a way of doing things that don’t always make a lot of sense.”

“But what did you
do
?”

“Most of the time I worked at one depot or another, repairing everything on wheels and some that weren’t.” A flash of something more than easygoing humor appeared in his eyes. “Tanks, trucks, cars. Learned a lot about engines and the like.”

“You must’ve enjoyed that,” Gavin offered. “Never did know a boy who got as much pleasure out of taking things apart and putting them back together as you did.”

“Sometimes not the right way,” Bethan said with a laugh. “Momma, you remember the time he took apart your mantel clock, and when he put it back together he had a spring and a wheel left over?”