Sister's Choice (23 page)

1941

At three, Charlie had his mother’s dark hair and rosy cheeks, but his eyes were the deep blue-green of Ben’s. Like his father’s, they were set off by thick, dark lashes. Now they looked like a storm-tossed sea—or at least Grace’s best guess as to what one might look like.

“Where is my daddy?” Charlie demanded.

The morning was only half gone, but Grace was already tired. She had awakened just after dawn, all too aware that somehow she had stolen her mother’s life—as if it were a prize worth having—and made it her own. She possessed everything that Mina had left behind when she’d followed her husband to Delaware two months ago. Backbreaking work. A lack of recognition. A lack of gratitude. Loneliness. Fatigue. And days that began too soon and lasted too long.

She’d not even had time to ponder that thought, not with breakfast to prepare and children to care for. She had gotten up and, once downstairs, had added kindling to the carefully banked fire in the wood stove, then, when that was hot enough, made coffee, following it with beaten biscuits and fried tomatoes from the last of the season’s crop, which she had stored in brown paper in the fruit cellar. Minutes later, she had nodded a greeting to Ben, who arrived in time to split several biscuits, put the tomatoes inside them, then tuck them in a napkin before he disappeared out the door with a cup of coffee in his other hand.

That done, she had gone upstairs for the boys, dressed them, then gone downstairs again, set little Adam in the high chair and fed him applesauce and cooked cereal. Charlie had sat beside her, picking at a breakfast that was a mixture of the adults’ and Adam’s, as if he wasn’t quite certain yet which category he fit into in this strange little family.

The day had progressed in that vein. Now it was ten, and she was finished with the basic chores. Adam was taking his morning nap, and until a moment before, Charlie had been playing quietly in the corner with blocks and three toy soldiers his grandfather had carved for him. But now he was standing at her knee, gazing up at her with the stubborn expression she had seen too often on his father’s face.

“Where is my daddy?”

Grace sighed and lifted the little boy to her lap. “He’s working, Charlie. Outside. Probably in the barn. Or the apple shed.”

“I am tired of his working.”

For a moment Grace was tempted to tell Charlie to be grateful, that things were even worse when his father was home. The strained silences punctuated by occasional angry outbursts were harder to take than Ben’s absence. But she knew that even if that was true for her, it was not true for Ben’s son.

“He’ll probably be home for dinner.” She glanced up at the clock. “In just two or three hours.”

“But then he will leave and work more,” Charlie said glumly.

She couldn’t argue with the little boy’s logic. Ben was rarely home for long. When the weather had been better and the busiest part of harvest season still months away, he had sometimes taken his son along to do chores. There had been rides on the tractor or Buddy, the old gelding who had once pulled the orchard plow and was now living out his days in the pasture. But as fall ended, and the last of the apples were harvested and stored, Charlie had been left at home more frequently. Now he rarely saw his father, and then only when Ben was so tired he had no patience or energy to spare.

Grace opened her mouth to defend him, but no words formed. How did you tell a little boy that his father didn’t want to be in the same house with his new wife? That she, too, was happy with that arrangement, even if it meant she had no help with his children? That they were not a real family, as Charlie believed they were, but in fact were no better than strangers occupying different parts of the same life?

December was a fickle month. Yesterday had been lovely and clear, though the ground had crunched under her boots. Today the sky was as dark as her mood. The clouds above the orchard were dense and impenetrable, and the afternoon threatened to be worse. Other men might use the weather as an excuse to listen to a football game on the radio, or play checkers with a small child. Sunday was a day of rest. Sunday was a day for families. But Ben took time for neither.

She wondered if that had been true when he and Anna were married. Had Anna encouraged him to work seven days a week? In her months as Ben’s wife, Grace certainly had. She had spent every waking hour caring for the boys and transforming the old farmhouse. Not because she wanted to make a home here, but because she wanted to stay so busy that she wouldn’t have to think about what her promise to Anna had done to a life once filled with hope.

“Mommy, I want Daddy!”

Grace wrapped her arms tighter around the little boy and rested her cheek against his sleek dark hair. A month ago, Charlie had begun to call her Mommy. Usually it only happened in the evening, after she told him a story or kissed him good-night. But recently he had begun to use the endearment more frequently, although never in front of his father. She wondered if, in Charlie’s childish mind, she and Anna had merged, and now the woman who had claimed that title until a year ago was fading in his memory. At first she had reminded Charlie that she was his aunt, but, stubbornly, he refused to acknowledge that. In his heart he had decided differently. Now she simply let it pass.

What was life going to be like for Charlie and Adam in the coming years? The tension in the house was palpable. How long could any of them go on this way? This was not a life; this was a marking of days. In a world as uncertain and tumultuous as this one, didn’t they deserve whatever measure of happiness they could salvage?

Adam took that moment to wake, bleating like a baby lamb from the downstairs bedroom where he liked to nap in an old crib Sylvie had passed on to her, pushed close to the window so he could see what was happening outdoors. He seemed particularly perceptive to Grace—a baby who was fascinated by everything—and contented enough, if he had sights and sounds to occupy his thoughts as he fell asleep.

Charlie’s little face puckered, as if he knew that with his brother awake, the discussion had come to a close. Grace made a decision.

“I tell you what, Charlie boy, we’ll get Adam, then we’ll all bundle up and go look for your daddy. Let’s go see what he’s doing today.”

Charlie’s face smoothed, and he grinned. She was sorry that it had taken so little to make him happy, and that she hadn’t thought of it before now.

Half an hour passed before they were all ready, but even bundled against the cold, the wind was an icy blast when they opened the door. Luckily the boys didn’t seem to mind, and she knew there was no harm in it. She perched Adam on one hip, and Charlie ran ahead, picking up sticks and tossing them to one of the dogs, who came to escort them.

She wondered what Ben might do on a day like this one. He could finish the morning farm chores in an hour. Judging by the droves of men, wagons and trucks that had come and gone during the harvest, she knew the apples were all stored or sold now, although she and Ben rarely discussed his work in the orchard. Weeks had gone by when the first thing she’d heard each morning was the rumble of the tractor moving up and down rows, and the shouts of men as more and more apples found homes in crates inside the trailer.

She had cooked a substantial dinner for their hired help each day and added that to her many other responsibilities. But that was as close as she had come to taking part.

Now she debated where best to find Ben and headed for the packing shed.

The shed was a distance to the west of the barn, bordering the beginning of the orchard. Whatever could be said about the morning’s weather, at least the ice that had formed under brighter skies had melted, so walking wasn’t treacherous. The walk was slow, though, with Adam choosing to toddle some of the distance and Charlie circling them excitedly. They arrived in about triple the time it would have taken her to make the walk alone, and by the time they did, the chill was seeping into her bones.

She opened the office door and poked her head inside. She knew this was where the orchard records were kept and thought she might find Ben here. But the battered wooden desk was empty, the filing cabinets locked tight. With the boys trailing behind, she opened the door into the shed proper and saw her husband at the far end.

She had been here, of course, but only once, when the place was teeming with local men and women who’d been hired to pick, sort, wash and pack the yearly crop. It was so different now, a long, narrow corridor, divided in a couple of places by partitions that only extended part way to the opposite wall.

At the end where she stood, a stone trough for washing the apples ran along the side, carrying spring water that flowed into a drain and out to a cornfield for irrigation. And beneath it all was the storage cellar, where the apples were held until sold.

At the far end she saw Ben, where some of the equipment and supplies were stored. Wooden apple crates were piled to the ceiling, and at least some of the ladders used during harvest hung from pegs on the wall. Canisters of spray, bags of fertilizer, she noted them all as she and the children drew closer. Ben appeared to be taking notes, and he continued, even after he saw them approaching. She lifted Adam into her arms to cross the room faster.

“Charlie was missing you,” she said, after she drew close enough to explain herself. “I told him we’d visit to see what you’re doing.”

She waited for a surly response, an unfair criticism of her decision to bring his sons out into the cold, where they might catch one of the fatal childhood illnesses that took so many little lives. She waited for a protest that he was too busy for his children, that the boys were her job now, whether she liked it or not.

Instead he set the accounts book on a shelf and held out his arms. Charlie ran to him, and Ben lifted him high.

“Charlie boy, did you miss your daddy?”

“You work and work!”

Ben grinned, and Grace couldn’t fail to notice how fetching that sight was. The big man and the little boy who looked so much like him, a different Ben, cares forgotten and pleasure radiating from every pore.

This man loved his children. She had never seen it more clearly.

This man was lonely. She had never seen that at all.

“Da…” Adam struggled to leap out of her arms. She set him down, and he toddled to Ben, who squatted and gathered him close, as well.

“We had a lovely walk over,” Grace said. “But it’s not going to be lovely at all this afternoon. I think it’s going to snow, or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Sleet, ice. It just feels that way. Wet and nasty.”

He was still smiling, transparently happy to have his sons in his arms. Perhaps that was what motivated her next sentences, or perhaps she had known for some time that their little family just couldn’t go on this way. Ben needed to be part of their circle. He was the children’s father. He was, for whatever it was worth, her husband.

“Ben, take the afternoon off. I’ll make a real Sunday dinner, and you can listen to a football game, maybe teach Charlie to play checkers. We have that old set of my father’s. He would love that.” She paused. “And you could use a little time away from hard work. So could I. What do you say?”

The smile died slowly, and her heart sank. She had pushed too hard, too fast. He was thinking of Anna, feeling regret his real wife was gone and instead Sunday dinner would be eaten with her sister sitting at the other end of the table. He was feeling guilty that, for a moment, his children’s visit had brought him pleasure when he should still be mourning. She couldn’t guess what else he was feeling, but she suspected none of it was happiness at her suggestion.

“You’re sure?” he said at last.

She was so surprised that for a moment, she couldn’t answer.

“You’re not,” he said, looking down at his sons. “You don’t have to be kind to me, Grace. That wasn’t in the bargain we made.”

“No, Ben…” She reached out and touched his arm, surprising them both. “You…I…Oh, dang, you just surprised me, that’s all. You looked like you were going to say no. Of course I want you to spend the afternoon with the boys.” She smiled. “Happy children are easier to take care of, right?”

“I’m not sure I would know.”

She thought that was an odd thing to say. “Well, come and see. You’ll certainly make them happy, then we can judge.”

“There’s not a lot I’ll be able to do outside.”

“All the more reason. But for the record, I think we ought to make Sunday afternoons a tradition.” She glanced at Charlie to make her point. “Certain people need to have more time with you.”

He set Charlie on the ground and handed Adam back to her. “We’ll see.”

That was plenty good enough for her, since it gave her a way out, as well. “We’ll see you for dinner, then. About one.”

Grace was a good cook, because cooking was an art. So many traditional chores were wretchedly boring. She would never keep house as well as her sister, although the house she was keeping was brighter and definitely cheerier since she had taken over the job.

The kitchen was a good example. When she’d moved in, dingy wallpaper had covered the walls and nothing brightened the counters. A scarred linoleum rug had covered the central portion of the floor, and a much-laundered gray tablecloth, the table. She had set about remedying the situation immediately. If she was going to spend a portion of every day cooking and serving meals in this room, she was going to make it a place where she could be happy.

Now the walls and cabinets were a clean, bright white, the cornices and trim a deep lipstick red, the windows outlined by fresh new curtains in a cheerful cherry print. She had traded one of the many serviceable quilts in her sister’s linen cupboard for a neighbor’s handwoven rag rug in red, white and green, and made a tablecloth of the same color plaid for the table. Until the freeze had robbed her of fresh flowers, she had made sure there were bouquets at the table’s center every day, even if they were only wildflowers. She hoped for better next year. Before she had even tackled the kitchen, she had carefully weeded all Ben’s mother’s old beds, hoping to clear the way for any flowers that had survived or their seedlings.