A Quiet Strength (3 page)

“You haven’t changed,” Jenny snorted contemptuously.

“If you mean I haven’t deserted my faith, no. I don’t intend to ever give that up. I couldn’t live without the Lord.”

“You haven’t even tried, so how do you know?”

Virginia paused to search her friend’s face before answering. “I haven’t tried living without air, either,” she said slowly, “but I know I couldn’t do without it. God is as essential to my being—the spiritual me—as the air I breathe is to the physical me.”

“You are too much concerned about the ‘spiritual you,’ Virginia. You know, science has never been able to prove that we have a … a soul.”

“I don’t need science to prove it.”

“You’re that sure?”

“I’m that sure.”

Jenny puffed out a plume of smoke. “Well, I sure don’t intend to let something that I can’t see, that I don’t even know I have, ruin my life.”

Look at you
, Virginia’s heart cried out in silent anguish.
Nothing but skin and bones, needing that noxious weed every few minutes, on the run from an angry husband who gave you a black-and-blue cheek, a child who looks like a little waif—and you talk about God ruining your life
. Virginia could not say the words. Nor could she control the tears that welled up in her eyes. Oh, if only … if only she could show Jenny that God was not a taker of prisoners but a source of real freedom. Of
life
.

The door opened and little Mindy stepped out on the porch, still blinking the sleep from her eyes. Without a word she crossed to the swing and wriggled her small body onto the seat beside Jenny. Jenny did not even reach out a hand to assist her. Silently the little girl managed to turn herself around and into an upright position. The thumb went back to her mouth as soon as she had settled herself.

Poor little tyke
, Virginia mourned inwardly, and the tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. “I’d better go see if Mama needs a hand with lunch,” she murmured, needing to get away to find some composure.

Jenny lit up another cigarette.

“I’d better move it if I’m going to make that train.”

The words caught Virginia by surprise. Jenny had popped into their lives early that morning and now it seemed that she planned to pop out again in the same way. “I thought you were staying.”

“Did I say that?”

“No,” Virginia admitted. “But you said you … needed a break.”

“And I’ve had my break.”

“It certainly wasn’t a very long one.”

“I didn’t need a long one.”

“But your father—you haven’t even had a chance to see him.”

“I doubt it’ll ruin his day. We aren’t exactly close, Virginia. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

Virginia thought back to the time of Jenny’s accident when her caring father had spent day after day by the hospital bed.
Not close?
Virginia remembered his tears. The pleading. The earnest entreaties to the medical staff to care for his little girl. If they were not close, Virginia wondered just who was at fault.

But she could not say all of these things to Jenny. She would estrange the woman even more. Instead she said, “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ve already been gone too long. I shouldn’t have just up and left like that. Hayden will be worried sick about me.”

“You can call.”

“I don’t need to call. I’m going home, Virginia.”

Virginia bit her lip. She had no right to try to interfere. “Well—I’m glad you came. It was good to see you again. It’s been ages.”

Jenny nodded.

“Mama will be sorry that she missed saying good-bye. She should be home from Clara’s soon and—”

“The train leaves in half an hour. I still need to buy my ticket.”

Virginia nodded in reply. Sometimes there was a lineup at the wicket, but not too often. “I’ll walk you to the train,” she said.

Jenny did not argue.

It was a silent walk to the train station. Virginia thought back to the time when she had accompanied a very talkative, very lively Jenny to the same train, to make the same journey. It now seemed many years ago. Jenny had been leaving for college then and was filled with all sorts of exciting dreams and plans. Her talk had been about her new clothes and the parties she would attend and the fun that she would have. Well, Jenny had had her parties. She had worn her new clothes. She had flunked out of school, but she had married one of her crowd. In the process, she had very nearly lost her life in a terrible accident. Even now her one hand did not quite function properly. Had it been worth it? Apparently Jenny thought so—she was going back to the same life again.

“Will Mindy sleep on the train?” asked Virginia, concerned for the little girl.

“She’d better,” was the gruff reply. “I’m in no mood to be pestered.”

Pestered?
The child had been a silent little ghost all day long. She acted like she didn’t dare let her presence be noticed. Virginia could not imagine her pestering anybody.

“She’s a good little soul,” Virginia dared observe.

Jenny did not respond at first. Then, after a few minutes of silence, she muttered almost too quietly for Virginia to hear, “Tell that to her father.”

The words chilled Virginia. As little as the mother concerned herself with the child, was the father just as bad? Worse? Perhaps even …? The mental image of her father striking little Mindy in anger was too horrible for thought. Virginia shivered even though the afternoon was warm and sunny.

Mindy waited patiently and quietly with Virginia while Jenny got in the short line to purchase her ticket. “Leaving so soon?” Virginia heard Mr. Tuttle, the ticket master, ask. Jenny did not bother to offer a reply. But later, when the two of them stood waiting for the train to sweep around the bend, Jenny did make reference to the query.

“Old Turtle,” she began, using the name that she had coined for Mr. Tuttle when she had been a teenager in the town, “is as nosy as ever.”

“Not nosy. Just interested.”

Jenny just huffed and lit another cigarette.

Thankfully the train was on time. Now that Jenny had thoroughly made up her mind that she would be taking it, Virginia hoped it would not be delayed. There seemed to be nothing left for the two to say to each other. Most of the talking that they had done had always seemed to end up in some kind of confrontation.

“I’m glad you came, Jenny. Please just … just come any time. You’re always welcome.”

Jenny nodded silently, the only indication that she had any feelings whatsoever for her old friend.

The train was chugging its way up beside the platform where they were standing, puffing steam and billowing smoke. Virginia saw small Mindy shut her eyes tightly against the noise and confusion, sucking her thumb more vigorously.
She’s as attached to that thumb as her mother is to her cigarette
, Virginia thought ruefully, turning to Jenny. She carried no luggage, another indication that her flight had been hurried and not pre-planned. She wished to give Jenny a warm hug but wasn’t sure how it would be received. She had no idea what to say. How to say it. She felt a wall had been solidly erected between them. “Take care,” she managed. It sounded so cold, distant.

Jenny tossed down her latest cigarette and squashed it into the wooden platform with her smart leather boot. She nodded. “You, too. And if you decide to marry that guy—Jonathan—let me know. Okay?”

“I don’t have your address.”

Jenny shrugged. “Well, we might be moving before long, so I guess there isn’t much use giving it to you now.”

She began to move toward the waiting train, and the silent little Mindy fell into step just at her heels.

Virginia moved along with her. “Keep in touch,” she called above the noise of the train.

She wasn’t sure if Jenny nodded in assent or not. Perhaps she was just shaking her once-auburn head of hair. A conductor reached down and swung little Mindy up the train steps, and Jenny followed behind. She did not even turn around for one last wave.

CHAPTER  3

I
t seems so strange that she would just drop in like that and leave again so quickly.” At the supper table, Belinda was still puzzling over Jenny’s surprise appearance and then disappearance. “I thought she would be staying with us for a few days.”

“She had no luggage,” observed Virginia.

“Nothing?” put in her father.

“Nothing.”

“You mean she took the train all the way from … wherever she is … and came up here for a day? No luggage? Not even for her little girl?” asked Francine, sounding as mystified by it all as the rest of the family.

“Nothing,” said Virginia again.

“Doesn’t sound like she planned very well,” Francine noted with youthful wisdom.

“I don’t think the trip was planned at all,” Virginia responded, concern edging her voice.

“You mean she just up and took the train?”

“Didn’t she tell you
anything
, Virginia? I had promised Clara to help her with some sewing. But I certainly could have changed those plans if I’d known Jenny would not be with us for at least a few days.”

“I don’t think it would have made much difference. She didn’t feel like talking.”

“Well, that’s a switch,” remarked Drew with a fatherly smile. They all remembered the old Jenny and her nonstop chatter around the family table.

“She didn’t say anything?” Belinda probed.

“Well …” began Virginia reluctantly, “she did say that she and her husband—Hayden, she called him—had a tiff. A ‘tiff,’ she called it. But I …” Virginia paused, wondering how much she should say. “I noticed that she had a … a bruise on her cheek. She had tried to hide it with makeup, but it still showed.”

All eyes were fully on Virginia’s face. “Oh my!” said Belinda, hand to her mouth. “The poor girl.”

“May be only jumping to conclusions,” hastily put in Virginia. “She could have bumped a door. Anything. But she did seem a bit self-conscious about it.”

“Oh my,” said Belinda again. “Poor Jenny. I should have—”

“Mama, there was nothing you could have done. Nothing any of us can do unless she lets us. We’ll have to keep praying for her—and for us, that we’ll know what …” She drifted to a stop.

“Our Jenny has been so hard on herself,” Belinda mourned.

Yes, it was true, reflected Virginia. Jenny had been terribly hard on herself over the years. She was so determined to have her own way, and her own way seemed to bring her nothing but sorrow.

Belinda finally said, “Well, we’ll keep in touch….”

“I don’t have her address. When I asked about it, she said they were about to move. I don’t even know her married name.”

“Oh my,” said Belinda, distress on her face. “How can we possibly help her?”

“I get the feeling she doesn’t want help,” said Francine rather dismissively. Virginia noted that her once softhearted sister was getting a bit too cynical.

“Sometimes people do not realize that they need help until it’s too late,” Belinda answered sadly. “I certainly hope Jenny doesn’t wait too long.”

“It’s little Mindy that breaks my heart,” observed Virginia. “You saw her, Mama. She will soon be three and she looks not more than a year. She’s so pale and drawn … and silent. I have never seen such a quiet child. She didn’t say a word all the time she was here. Not even ‘mama.’ And she kept that poor little thumb in her mouth the entire time.”

“That’s why she didn’t say anything,” spoke up Francine with an impish grin. “She’s been taught not to talk with her mouth full.”

“Not funny.” Virginia gave her sister a disapproving frown, but she heard her father chuckle softly.

“Well, whatever the circumstances, it appears that our Jenny needs help and doesn’t have any friends nearby to whom she feels free to turn.”

Her mother’s remark was frightening to Virginia. Was it already too late for Jenny?

Virginia was beginning to wonder if Jonathan had been a figment of her imagination. Either that or he had gone off home and decided not to come back after all. Perhaps Jenny had been right and Virginia had been “dumped” again. But, no. She had his letters. He certainly wrote like he was coming back, was anxious to get back to her. Virginia clung to that thought even as she much-too-slowly ticked the days from her wall calendar.

She was glad her job at the post office helped to fill her That and church activities and trips over to Clara’s and taking care of those little ones and helping around the yard and house.

Many free hours were spent with Mrs. Withers. Virginia had promised Jonathan that she would watch out for his grandmother, and she took that promise seriously. Besides, she enjoyed the elder woman’s company so it was not a burden. And she loved the flowers. She was so glad that they were being cared for as Mr. Adamson would have wanted. She wondered at times if he was leaning over heaven’s picket fence, nodding his approval as he watched them weed and fertilize and prune and stake. She smiled as she imagined his heavenly halo. Was it as begrimed as his old garden hat that still hung in the tool shed? No, she wasn’t even sure that people wore halos in heaven. And it was doubtful that there was a picket fence, or that Mr. Adamson even concerned himself with his earthbound flowers anymore. Still it was fun to think about him as she carefully bent over his plants.

“Another letter from Jonathan!” Virginia’s whisper could barely contain her excitement as she sorted the post-office mail for each recipient. She wondered how she would ever endure waiting to open it until her noon break. She was so anxious for word that he was coming soon. Would this be the letter that would carry the good tidings?

Virginia lifted her eyes to the wall clock. Only twenty past ten. With a sigh she returned to her work. Such a long time to wait until noon. Suddenly she was glad that the day’s train had brought a lot of mail. The busier she was, the faster the time would go.

She was interrupted many times to wait on customers, so eventually she had to hurry to get the mail sorted into the various boxes before the noon whistle sounded. Just as the wail began to fade, Mr. Manson, the postmaster, stuck his head in the door. “Be right there, Virginia. Just got to finish up this little chore for Mrs. Manson.”

Virginia reached into her pocket to finger her waiting letter. It was all she could do to smile politely at the postman and assure him that he could take his time with the task—whatever it was. Mrs. Pilcher, a new woman in town, chose that moment to enter. She had not yet been assigned a box, so Virginia had to sort through the pile of general delivery to look for her mail. There was nothing there, and Mrs. Pilcher turned away in obvious disappointment. “ Thought there’d be a letter from home,” she mumbled, and Virginia was afraid that tears would spill when she saw the woman’s chin trembling.

“I’m sorry,” answered Virginia, understanding the woman’s distress. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I tell myself that every day,” the woman said, her voice low. “Every day.”

Yes
, thought Virginia,
I tell myself every day, too. I know how you feel
. Her hand reached into her pocket again. The letter was still waiting to be read.

At long last—though in reality the clock indicated it was only ten past twelve—Mr. Manson hurried through the door. “I’m sorry about that, Virginia. Time caught me right in the middle of hanging a new mirror. Mrs. Manson doesn’t like jobs half done. You just take this extra ten minutes on the other side of your noon hour.”

Virginia nodded and hoped she looked pleasant as she gave Mr. Manson a final nod and headed for the door. She couldn’t even wait until she reached her favorite half-hidden park bench but instead stopped under the nearby weeping birch to pull the letter from her pocket. Her eyes scanned it quickly to see if it gave any indication when Jonathan might return. She would read it more carefully later.

Her eyes soon found the paragraph.

“One of these days I will be knocking on your door. Soon, I hope. It has taken much longer than I had thought to get things in order here. It seems I have been gone forever, and I am most anxious to get back. I do hope and pray that you haven’t changed your mind and invited one of the local fellows to call. If so, he’d better have a hard jaw because I fully intend to punch it for him.”

Virginia smiled at the attempted humor. He was missing her. Just as she had been missing him.

But there still was no date for his return. With slow steps Virginia started off for home. She needed to get her lunch so she could get back to work on time.

Belinda was standing at the gate, waving a hand excitedly in the air. “You’re an auntie again!” she called down the street when Virginia was in earshot.

“Really!” Virginia squealed back and quickened her step. “When?”

“The call just came,” cried Belinda. “She was born this morning. Around ten.”

“Wonderful!”

For the moment Virginia forgot her disappointment. Her brother Rodney and his lovely Grace had a baby girl. She was anxious to hear all about her. She arrived at the gate, panting slightly. “ Tell me,” she urged her mother. “ Tell me everything.”

Belinda beckoned her in and shut the gate behind them. “Rodney just called—not ten minutes ago. Baby arrived this morning a few minutes past ten. Grace and the baby are doing fine. She weighed seven pounds, ten ounces and is nineteen inches long. He said she has lots of dark hair and dark eyes. Thinks she is going to look like her mother. He says Grace can hardly bear to have her leave the room to go to the nursery.”

“ That’s wonderful,” Virginia said again. “Does Father know?”

“He’s out of town this morning. I could hardly wait for you to get home so I’d have someone to tell.”

“Mr. Manson was hanging a mirror, so I got a late start. What did they name her?”

“Julia. Julia Grace, after her mama.”

“We must let Clara know.”

“Why don’t you hurry your lunch, and we’ll walk over and tell her on your way back to work.”

It sounded like a good plan to Virginia. In fact, she would have been quite willing to skip her lunch entirely.

“Don’t rush too much,” Belinda cautioned later as Virginia bent over her soup and sandwich. “You’ll end up with indigestion. We have time.”

But Virginia could hardly wait to bear the wonderful news to her older sister—Clara would be so excited. And Francine. She took her lunch with her to school so would not be home until midafternoon. Shouldn’t they try to find her and let her know immediately?

“Maybe I’ll stop by the school on my way home and see if they’ll let me talk to Francine,” went on Belinda as if reading her mind. “She’ll be so excited it’s a girl. I think she’s even been praying that way. Though she wouldn’t admit it. She insists that ‘as long as it’s healthy’ and all that, but she really did want a little niece. Now maybe she will leave poor Clara alone and stop pestering her about ‘no more boys.’ “

The two women shared a laugh, a bit giddy in their excitement. A little girl. A little girl for Rodney. They wished they were closer so that they could help with the spoiling. It was going to be so very hard to not see the new little one for some time.