The Snowflake (13 page)

Most of the men are a decent sort. They want someone to talk to, someone to listen and care. A few are frightening to me. When I am asked to dance with a man who has that lustful stare, looking me up and down in a way that makes my spine crawl, then I question my decisions. But I’ve found something, some key. I didn’t realize the lesson of it when Jonah was alive, but in living with him, I learned a talent. I learned how to look beyond a face and see into a hurting, lonely soul. I have begun to pray again, for others at least. I pray for you every day. If anyone deserves God’s grace, it is you.

I miss your face. I miss your crystal eyes that glow like blue ice. I miss your strong voice and shoulder and the curve of your neck. I miss your kisses. I miss you.

You promised to come back for Christmas. I cross off each day and wonder, will you come? Even if you have not healed your heart by confronting your past, will you come? Even though you promised me, and promises broken are all I’ve known, will you come?

Regardless. You will live forever in my heart.

Ellen

I stared at the letter, my hands trembling, and tried to keep the dripping tears from staining the yet-dry ink. Should I really post it? My heart galloped at the thought of him reading my deepest, innermost thoughts.

My body answered my question before my mind and will had thought it out and made a conscious decision. I rose from the bed, sealed the letter, and wrote out the address. I walked from the room with strong, determined steps, into the parlor, dim and empty, and laid the letter on the table by the door where all letters to be posted were laid.

I placed my letter, my heart, on top of the small pile and backed away. Then I covered my face and cried.

Chapter Eleven

Twelve days until Christmas.

Stella and I squeezed in with the hundreds of people attending Father Judge’s Sunday service. The crowd grew quiet and respectful as he entered from a side door. Surprise filled me at his appearance. The man’s clothes hung in tatters around his elbows and ankles, looking more like rags than anything else.

His face spoke of wrinkled exhaustion, but then he turned and scanned the crowd, his gaze locking with mine for a few seconds. I inhaled—a sharp, sudden breath. His eyes held a light that beamed with an almost supernatural intensity of pure love. And when he began to speak, his thin voice quivered with adoration for God.

We all sat or stood, elbow to elbow, motionless to catch every word.

The words he read from Psalm 139 caught in my heart, and I repeated them over and over in my mind to memorize them:

“For thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. . . . When I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect. . . . How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.”

The picture the words painted of God making me and knowing me that intimately . . . Did He really have so many thoughts toward me? Did that kind of love really exist? That it might robbed me of breath and then filled me with warmth. I wanted to believe it, but the facts of my life made it look untrue. My muscles strained with the questions.

Oh, Buck, I wish you were here so I could talk to you.

After the service Stella leaned toward my ear. “He’s called the saint of Dawson, you know. He started a hospital when Dawson was just a tent city, and it’s nursed many a soul back to health.”

I nodded, knowing the priest’s reputation as a selfless servant to the community. Maybe, if I could get close to him, Father Judge would talk to me. “I heard they are asking for volunteers since the nuns didn’t arrive to nurse the patients. Do you think they would let me volunteer?”

“Of course he would. I just can’t believe you aren’t as tuckered out as the rest of us by Sunday.” Stella clutched my arm as we jostled our way through the departing crowd and out onto the street.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “As if you nap all day. Will you be going to visit Tom this afternoon?”

She giggled, looking pleased with herself. “He is my beau, you know. Why, with him being a bartender at the Tivoli and me dancing all night, I hardly ever get to see him.”

I’d heard about the infamous Tom Baker. He was rumored to be one of the miners’ favorite bartenders—telling hilarious stories, giving advice, and weighing the gold dust in the miners’ favor more often than not. Stella had filled in his physical description saying he was dark haired with a long mustache and goatee, golden green eyes, and a smile that melted her heart.

“Well, have a nice afternoon, Stella.”

“Oh, I will. You have a good time with all those sick people.” She wrinkled her nose and waved good-bye. I couldn’t help but smile at the wink she gave me before she turned and sauntered down the busy street with a cheerful gait.

As I made my way through the throngs of townsfolk, a nervous rumbling turned in my stomach. What if Father Judge rejected me? What if dance-hall girls were considered little better than the prostitutes on Paradise Alley and not allowed entrance to the town’s better establishments? Names like Nellie the Pig, Oregon Mare, and Goldtooth Gert, who really did have a gold tooth, sprang to mind. What if they only knew me as Jewel? It wasn’t as if I had any great nursing skills with which to boast.

I tried my best to squash such thoughts as I entered the large two-story log building that was Saint Mary’s Hospital. It was quiet in the small reception area. I took off my bonnet and let it dangle by the silk ribbons from my hand as I wandered farther inside.

I walked up to a faded painting of Mary holding the baby Jesus and stared at it. The artist had captured the love shining out of a mother’s eyes for her child. What would it be like to have a child of my own? The realization that I’d never considered it before jolted me. Had the weight of Jonah’s care robbed me of a young woman’s desire to have a family? I wasn’t sure I had the courage to be a mother. What if I turned out like my father and abandoned my child?

“May I be of service?” a gentle voice asked.

I jerked at the sound, so deep were my thoughts, and turned. Father Judge seemed even smaller in person, frail as a much older man would be, with small, sunken eyes behind round glasses, a gaunt face, and dark, receding hair. “I—I would like to volunteer my services, that is, help with the sick on Sunday afternoons, if you could use the help.”

The man took in my fancy dress, and for a moment shame filled me. I wasn’t good enough for this place. “I have a little nursing experience,” I rushed out.

A smile and the glow I had seen earlier lit his face. “We would welcome your help, Miss . . . ?”

“Oh.” I breathed a sigh and walked forward to shake his hand. “Ellen Pierce.”

“So good of you to come, child. Here, let me show you around.”

The two front rooms were a receiving room and the priest’s office. Two examination rooms were in the middle of the first floor along with a kitchen and small bedroom with only a cot and washstand against the back wall. Upstairs was a long, open room, running the entire length of the building, filled with rows of cots. Several men lay on them, and they cheered up, talking and waving at us as Father Judge walked into the room.

The priest stopped by every bed, fluffed a pillow or two, tousled the hair of men hardly younger than he as if they were boys, and joked with the patients. The look of joy and love on their faces took my breath. It was clear they adored him.

After checking on each patient, with me trailing after him, Father Judge stopped and introduced me to the room at large. The men let out a cheer, heating my cheeks.

“Isn’t that Jewel? From the Monte Carlo?” someone from behind me asked.

My gaze shot to the priest’s and froze. “He speaks the truth. I guess I should have told you that.” I hesitated, looking around at the men. “Do you still want me to help?”

“Of course we do. Not one of us is greater than another in God’s eyes.”

I inhaled suddenly as the thought registered. “What can I do?”

“I think for today you should learn our schedule. The men have already had their noon meal, but I have a feeling you have not?”

“Oh, but I’m not hungry. You can put me right to work.”

The older man stared long into my eyes, and peace flowed from him. I had to push back tears.
Get a hold of yourself, Ellen.

“Very well, then. Could you write some letters for the patients? Many of them haven’t the strength to hold a pen.”

I thought of all the letters I had been writing to Buck. Yes, letters I could do.

Within ten minutes the priest set me up with the necessary writing implements and a wooden stool to scoot from bed to bed. The hours passed like fleeting clouds scudding across the sky. And like clouds I saw pictures of each man’s life as he wrote to his loved ones back home. I smiled at the end of the day. My heart was now well and truly turned toward these patients, and my desire to help them in any way had become a burning hope as I heard their stories of home.

Father Judge could not have given me a better first task, and I was almost certain he knew it.

It was late and the hospital quiet as I pulled on my coat. I peeked in the tiny office looking for Father Judge to say good night. He was reading a worn-looking book I assumed was a Bible, but he looked up and gave me a gentle smile, then motioned toward the chair. “Ellen, please come in a moment. I want to thank you.”

I took a step inside. “There is no need to thank me. It was a pleasure to help.”

“Oh, but I must. As you can see, few people are willing to give up their Sunday for others. It is a rare quality you have.”

I shrugged, not knowing what to say to such praise.

“Have you always served others?”

“I suppose so. My family needed me. I took care of my brother for the last several years, but he . . . he died and now I don’t know what to do.”

“I see.”

The way he said it made me think he saw something I didn’t. “What do you see?”

“I see a lovely young woman trying to find her purpose in life.”

I sat on the chair and sighed. “Yes, with my old purpose gone, I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you know what you want?”

Buck’s face flashed through my mind. I blushed and looked down.

Father Judge laughed. “You have an idea?”

“I want a family—my own family,” I whispered.

“God places desires in our hearts, child. There is nothing to be ashamed about.”

“I’m afraid.”

“What do you fear?”

“He won’t love me back. He’ll never be able to.”

“Ah.” Father Judge closed his eyes and bowed his head. I remained quiet while he silently prayed. When he looked back up, he smiled at me, and a rush of peace flowed from his eyes to my heart. “I will pray for you every day that God will grant you the desires of your heart. Be at peace, Ellen.”

I stood with tears clouding my vision. No one had ever prayed for me that I knew of, and certainly not daily. First Kate and now Father Judge. Why was it that Dawson, a city so far away from anywhere, had people in it who cared for me? “Thank you, Father.”

He stood, came around the worn desk, and gave my hand a squeeze. “Go in peace, child.”

“I’ll see you next Sunday.”

“Even if you don’t come back, even if you stop serving others, God still loves you, and I will still pray for you. You don’t have to earn it, you know.”

It was another new thought. Why did I feel like I didn’t deserve love?

I left the hospital full of questions, but the feeling of God’s peace remained all through the night.

Chapter Twelve

So, how many marriage proposals did you get tonight, Ellen?”

It was four o’clock in the morning, and Kate sat across from me at a table in the emptying dance hall. I laughed. “Only two tonight. One of them claimed to have dug out two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold from his claim.”

Kate’s mouth kicked up in a sideways smile. “Well, goodness gracious, girl. Why didn’t you take him up on his offer? That sounds like a real catch to me.”