clothing that covered the long table against the wall. The sight of the fruit of her mother’s dawn-to-dusk labor over hot laundry tubs and a hot iron kindled the old resentment. How could her father have simply walked away knowing his wife and child would no longer be allowed to live in the cabin the company provided for its loggers? He’d known they had no other place to go. If the company owner hadn’t accepted her mother’s offer to do laundry for the unmarried loggers in exchange for staying in the cabin…
Willa set her jaw, rinsed the dishpan at the pump, then walked back into the kitchen. She had struggled to find an answer for her father’s behavior since she was seven years old, and now she had—thanks to Thomas. Perhaps one day she would be grateful to him for teaching her that men were selfish and faithless and their words of love were not to be believed. But it had been only three months since he’d tossed her aside to go west and her hurt and anger left little room for gratitude.
She plunked the dishpan down onto the wide boards of the sink cupboard, yanked off her apron and jammed it on its hook. Thomas’s desertion didn’t bear thinking on, but she couldn’t seem to stop. At least the gossip had died—thanks to the new pastor’s arrival. She took a breath to calm herself and stepped into the living room.
“Why did you do the ironing, Mama? I told you I would do it tonight. You work too hard.”
Her mother glanced up from the shirt she was mending and gave her a tired smile. “You’ve got your job, and I’ve got mine, Willa. I’ll do the ironing. But it would be good if you’re of a mind to help me with the mending. It’s hard for me to keep up with it. Especially the socks.”
She nodded, crossed the rag rug and seated herself opposite her mother at the small table beneath the window. “I have two new students—Joshua and Sally Calvert. The new pastor brought them to school today.”
“I heard he had young children. But I haven’t heard about his wife.” Her mother adjusted the sides of the tear in the shirt and took another neat stitch. “Is she the friendly sort or city standoffish?”
“Mrs. Calvert wasn’t with them.” Willa pulled the basket of darning supplies close and lifted a sock off the pile. “The pastor is friendly. Of course, given his profession, he would be. But the children are very quiet.” She eyed the sock’s heel and sighed. It was a large hole. “Mr. Dibble was outside the livery hitching horses to a wagon when I passed on my way home. He always asks after you, Mama.” She threaded a needle, then slipped the darning egg inside the sock. “He asked to be remembered to you.”
“I don’t care to be talking about David Dibble or any other man, Willa.”
She nodded, frowned at the bitterness in her mother’s voice. Not that she blamed her after the way her father had betrayed them by walking off to make a new life for himself. “I know how you feel, Mama. Every word Thomas spoke to me of love and marriage was a lie. But I will not let his deserting me three days before we were to be wed make me bitter.”
She leaned closer to the evening light coming in the window, wove the needle through the sock fabric and stretched the darning floss across the hole, then repeated the maneuver in the other direction. “I learned my lesson well, Mama. I will never trust another man. Thomas’s perfidy robbed me of any desire to fall in love or marry. But I refuse to let him rob me of anything more.” Her voice broke. She blinked away the tears welling into her eyes and glared down at the sock in her hand. “I shall have a good, useful life teaching children. And I will be happy.”
Silence followed her proclamation.
She glanced across the table from beneath her lowered lashes. Her mother was looking at her, a mixture of sadness and anger in her eyes, her hands idle in her lap. “You didn’t deserve that sort of treatment, Willa. Thomas Hunter is a selfish man, and you’re well rid of him.”
She raised her head. “Like you were well rid of Papa?”
“That was different. We were married and had a child.” Her mother cleared her throat, reached across the table and covered her hand. “I tried my best to make your father stay, Willa. I didn’t want you hurt.”
There was a mountain of love behind the quiet, strained words. She stared down at her mother’s dry, work-roughened hand. How many times had its touch comforted her, taken away her childish hurts? But Thomas’s treachery had pierced too deep. The wound he’d given her would remain. She took a breath and forced a smile. “Papa left thirteen years ago, Mama. The hurt is gone. All that’s left is an empty spot in my heart. But it’s only been three months since Thomas cast me aside. That part of my heart still hurts.” She drew another deep breath and made another turn with the darning floss. “You were right about Thomas not being trustworthy, Mama. I should have listened to you.”
“And I should have remembered ears do not hear when a heart is full.” There was a fierceness in her mother’s voice she’d never before heard. “Now, let’s put this behind us and not speak of Thomas again. Time will heal the wound.” Her mother drew her hand back, tied off her sewing thread, snipped it, set aside the finished shirt and picked up another off the mending pile. She laid it in her lap and looked off into the distance. “I’m so thankful you hadn’t married Thomas and aren’t doomed to spend your life alone, not knowing if you’re married or a widow. One day you will find a man who truly loves you and you will be free to love him.”
Willa jerked her head up and stared at her mother, stunned by her words, suddenly understanding her bitterness, her secluded lifestyle. She’d always thought of her father’s leaving as a single event, as the moment he had said goodbye and walked out the door, and her wound from his leaving had scarred over with the passing years. But her mother lived with the consequences of her father’s selfish act every day. Her father had stolen her mother’s life.
She caught her breath, looked down and wove the needle over and under the threads she’d stretched across the hole in the sock, thankfulness rising to weave through the hurt of Thomas’s desertion. At least her life was still her own. And it would remain so. She would let no man steal it from her. No man! Not ever.
* * *
Matthew gathered his courage and peeked in the bedroom door. If Sally spotted him, the crying and begging to sleep in Joshua’s room would start again. He considered himself as brave and stalwart as the next man, but Sally’s tears undid him.
Moonlight streamed in the windows, slanted across the bed. He huffed out a breath of relief. She was asleep, one small hand tucked beneath her chin, her long, blond curls splayed across her pillow. He stared at the spot of white fabric visible where the edge of the covers met her hand and a pang struck his heart. He didn’t have to go closer to see what it was. He knew. She was clutching her mother’s glove.
Lord, I don’t know what to do. Will allowing Sally to have Judith’s glove lessen her grief? Or does it prolong it? Should I take the glove away? I need wisdom, Lord. I need help!
He walked to the stairs and started down. He loved Joshua and Sally and willingly accepted their guardianship, but being thrust into the role of parent to two young, grieving children was daunting. He was faced with tasks and decisions he was ill-prepared to handle. That one child was a little girl made it even more difficult. And he had his own grief to contend with.
He shot a glance toward the ceiling of the small entrance hall. “I miss you, Robert. And I’m doing the best I can. But it would be a lot easier if you’d had two sons.” The thought of Sally’s little arms around his neck, of her small hand thrust so trustingly into his made his heart ache. “Not that I would want it different, big brother. I’ll figure it out. But it would certainly help with the girl things if I had a wife.”
He frowned and walked into his study to arrange his possessions that had come by freight wagon that afternoon. Why couldn’t he find a woman to love and marry? He was tired of this emptiness, this yearning for someone to share his life with that he’d been carrying around the last few years. He wanted a wife and children. Having Joshua and Sally these last few weeks had only increased that desire.
He lifted a box of books to his desk, pulled