to everyone. “But what are you going to do?” she asked. “You’ve lost everything.”
“No, no, my dear!” Mandy said, patting Amelia’s hand. “We ain’t lost everything. The house is still here, and so’s the barn. I see my flock of chickens scratchin’ around the farm. The cows and sheep are safe. We’ll come around all right.”
Josh laid a caressing hand on Mandy’s shoulder. “And we have each other,” he said tenderly.
“How long have you been married?” Chase asked.
“More’n sixty-five years. Mandy was only fifteen when I married her. I was two years older.”
Waving his hand to encompass the Newberrys’ home, Chase said, “You couldn’t have had an easy life, yet you seem happy. Do you have any regrets?”
“Only a few,” Josh said. “I worked on the railroad most of my life and retired with a good pension. I was away a lot of the time, but Mandy took care of our home and raised the kids. I missed a lot of time with my kids when they were growing up. Thanks to their mama, they’re good young’uns, too. Soon as they can, they’ll be here to help us rebuild. By the time I retired, the kids had all left home, so Mandy and me had time to ourselves. Been just like a second honeymoon.” He winked at Mandy.
“How could it be a second honeymoon when we didn’t even have the first one?” she said pertly.
Their evident affection baffled Amelia. In this isolated hollow, she was witnessing marriage at its best.
Chase must have been as perplexed as Amelia, for he said, “Haven’t you ever had a fight?”
Josh’s hearty laugh echoed around the hollow. “Oh, sure! Now and ag’in we’ve fought.”
With a sly grin, Mandy said, “But it’s always so much fun to make up.”
“Either of you been married?” Josh asked.
A soft gasp escaped Amelia’s lips, and Chase glanced her way. Her head was bowed, and her face colored in embarrassment.
“Yes,” Chase answered easily. “Both of us have been married, but we’re divorced.”
“Aw, that’s too bad,” Mandy said. “A good marriage is one of the best blessings God can give.” She shook her head sadly. “Too bad.”
Perhaps sensing Amelia’s discomfort, Josh said, “Let’s get back to our work, Mandy. There’s a lot to be done before nightfall.”
“Surely you’re going back to the shelter with us,” Chase said.
“No, we’ll do fine here,” Mandy said.
“You don’t have a bed, and the floor is cold and damp,” Amelia protested.
Mandy smiled tenderly at Amelia. “Thanks for worrying about us, Amelia, but we’ll manage. We’ve got some clean, dry bales of hay in the barn. We can cover them with the blankets we brought from town. With the fire, we’ll be warm enough. We’ve been separated for several nights—women in one part of the gym, men in the other. I’d rather stay here—I just don’t rest well if Josh ain’t by my side.”
“You go on now and help others who need more’n we do,” Josh said. “If you’ll carry some wood and put it on the front porch, we’ll be all right. We’ve got enough food and water to do for a few days. By then, our kids will be here to help us.”
In spite of Josh’s urging, Amelia and Chase didn’t leave until after they’d piled several days’ supply of wood on the porch and had scrubbed the table and chairs, the kitchen sink and cabinets.
“We’ll be back in a few days,” Chase promised as they got in the truck.
Waving to the Newberrys, who watched their departure from the littered yard, Amelia said, “They look very lonely. I’m sorry to leave them.”
Chase laughed, and with an impish gleam in his eyes, he glanced at Amelia. “Frankly, I think they’re glad to get rid of us.”
“What?”
“I mean it. They’re used to being alone. Probably days go by and they see no one else. For almost a week, they’ve been penned up with lots of people, day and night. They don’t need anyone except each other.”
“Probably you’re right. I spend a lot of time alone, too, and I feel crowded sleeping in the same room with Vicky.”
They traveled in silence until they’d cleared the hollow and were on the paved highway headed for Williamson.
“The Newberrys prove that marriages can be successful,” Chase said. “We should have asked for advice on how to make a marriage work.”
Tension tightened the muscles in Amelia’s stomach. She didn’t know where Chase was going with that comment, so she didn’t answer. Instead, she examined her hands. The nails were broken, and a blister had formed on her right palm when she was scrubbing the kitchen table. While she was carrying wood, she’d gotten a splinter in her left hand. Chase had tenderly removed the splinter and applied ointment to the injury, but an angry-looking wound remained. Amelia hadn’t gotten weekly manicures since she’d started supporting herself, but she always gave daily attention to her nails. If her hands looked like this after two days, what condition would they be in at the end of three weeks?
Apparently reading her thoughts, Chase said, “We should have worn rubber gloves—for safety, if nothing else. Maybe you should see a doctor about that wound—you don’t want to get an infection.”
“I’ll watch it, and put some antibiotic ointment on when we get back.”
When they approached a pizza restaurant, Chase said, “Shall we stop here and eat?”
“I’m so tired, all I want to do is go to bed, but some hot food might refresh me.”
Chase parked the truck, but before he turned off the ignition, he said, “Amelia, we can’t go on acting like strangers. We were married and lived together for five years—we can’t erase those memories.”
“I have,” she said bitterly, knowing in her heart that she wasn’t being completely truthful. “And since you’re planning to continue working here, I’m going to tell Rick to separate us. He can think whatever he wants. The emotional turmoil between us is upsetting. I can’t give myself wholeheartedly to disaster relief when your presence keeps reminding me of things I thought I’d forgotten.”
“I can’t believe you have nothing left except bad memories. We had some good times together.”
She turned on him and unleashed the hurt that she’d bottled up for years. “Yes, but the humiliation and degradation I endured while you openly had an affair with Rosemary wiped out any happy memories I had. How do you think I felt to have you destroy our wedding vows in front of the whole town?”
“But you didn’t even act like you cared. You wouldn’t talk about it.”
“What did you expect me to do, grovel at your feet, beg you to be a faithful husband? After I learned about your infidelity, I didn’t have much pride left, but I still had some. I loved you and thought you loved me—at least, you made a good pretense of it.”
“I did love you. But when I asked your forgiveness, you turned frigid and wouldn’t let me touch you.”
She cast a scornful glance at him, her breath came in gulps and her hands shook. “It’s obvious we can’t continue working together. If two days with you has upset me this much, I can’t bear three weeks of it. Let’s go. I don’t feel like eating.”
Amelia was appalled at the viciousness pouring from her mouth. She couldn’t stop. The words had accumulated for years and had suddenly burst forth like an artesian well. Even in the final weeks of their marriage, when they’d lived apart under the same roof, they’d never quarreled.
“You made