Stay a Little Longer (4 page)

“You can play jacks when you get home.”

“It’ll be dark when we get home!”

“No it won’t, Charlotte, I—”

“I don’t care what you say.” Charlotte, lagging behind, stuck her tongue out at her aunt.

“We’re going to visit your mother,” Rachel replied calmly. “We—”

“I don’t have a mother!”

Rachel cringed at the harshness of the words. Deep down, she knew that this was part of the reason Eliza refused to join them
on their annual visit to view Alice’s grave marker. To hear the spiteful words of her daughter’s child was a harsh reminder
of all that they had lost. Hiding in her room was easier than facing the truth.

Rachel knew that she didn’t have such a luxury; she accepted her responsibility to keep Alice’s memory alive in Charlotte’s
heart. Although Eliza had doted upon and loved Alice so unconditionally, jealousy had never entered Rachel’s heart. Quite
the contrary, she had idolized Alice. Four years younger, Rachel had dreamed that she would grow to be just like her sister;
that she would be the one to receive broad smiles as soon as she entered any room; that she would have a beautiful wedding
attended by every man and woman in Carlson; that she would meet a man as handsome and charming as Mason Tucker…

Frowning at the thought of her sister’s husband, Rachel sighed deeply; it still seemed far too soon to reconcile her feelings
for Mason. While she’d hoped that the passage of time would erase her memories of the man, it instead seemed to strengthen
them, regardless of the anger she still felt toward him.

“Hurry up so we can go home,” Charlotte demanded, breaking into her aunt’s unwanted thoughts.

“Be patient, we’ll go in a few minutes.”

“All right!” she squealed with delight, so satisfied that her burden would soon be lifted that she began to run ahead, with
Jasper playfully bounding along at her side.

“Charlotte!” Rachel called, but her niece wasn’t listening.

Not for the first time since that fateful day eight years earlier, Rachel wondered if she had somehow failed her sister. Heartbroken
by Alice’s death, she had taken the burden of raising the newborn infant willingly, feeling that it was what her sister would
have wanted; but even with her mother and Uncle Otis’s help, she’d felt overwhelmed from the start. Raising a child had proven
far harder than she could imagine. Certainly, she’d done her best, but she wondered if that was enough. She couldn’t help
but believe that Alice would have done far better.

If only she’d had the will to live…

Carlson’s cemetery lay just to the south of town, atop a low hill dotted with a pair of majestic trees that stood silent watch
over the somber gray tombstones. A black wrought-iron fence encircled the sacred grounds, its gate hanging open on squeaking
hinges. Flowers were scattered across the graves, the remainders of previous visits from other mourners. From inside the fence,
one could see most of town, along with a spectacular view of the far side of Lake Carlson and the pine trees beyond. But Rachel
rarely took the time to marvel at the vista; the thought of her sister lying asleep forever in the black earth was too overwhelming.

“Oh, Alice, I’m doing the best I can with your daughter.” She sighed before pushing open the gate.

On the day Mason Tucker left Carlson to head off to war, Rachel had stood next to her sister on the train depot platform.
The weather had been beautiful, unseasonably warm with only a scattering of clouds to mar the sky. The red, white, and blue
of the American flag had been draped everywhere.

Although tears streamed down both her and her sister’s cheeks, pride had filled their hearts at the sight of the town’s men
marching off to fight for their country. In the middle of the first row of marchers, Mason had stood out; his new uniform
was crisply pressed and impressive as it spread across his broad shoulders, and the brilliant brass buttons shone in the spring
sun. It was as if he had stepped right out of one of the many recruiting posters plastered around town. With his military
cap perched atop his head, he had turned back to them and smiled so warmly at Alice that Rachel knew no one could doubt their
love for each other.

“Don’t worry,” she’d consoled Alice. “He’ll come home safe and sound.”

Alice had tried to put on a brave face to her ever-growing loneliness and worry. To be separated from her new husband so quickly
was a difficult burden to bear. Every day she wrote Mason, telling him all about her daily life but not including anything
she thought might worry him; then, little more than a month after the train carried Mason from her, she found out that she
was pregnant.

“We are a newly married couple,” she’d said, beaming, the day she told Rachel. “It’s to be expected!”

Just a few days later, it seemed as if every person in Carlson knew the good news. But even as she accepted all of the warm
congratulations, Alice remained uncertain as to whether she should write and tell Mason.

“Why in heaven’s name would you keep it from him?” Rachel had asked.

“Because he doesn’t need anything else to worry about,” Alice replied with as much conviction as she could muster. “If anything
were to happen to him because he was distracted, I don’t know if I would be able to live with myself!”

“Don’t you think that if he knew there was about to be another Tucker in the world he’d be even more careful?”

“Well… but…” Alice had stammered.

In the end, Rachel’s argument had won out. On the day that Alice finally decided to tell Mason about their unborn child, she
sat in the parlor, hands shaking, and wrote a long letter. When she finished, she let no one, not even her sister, read it.
Her eyes were filled with tears when she had handed it to the postman.

And then she had waited… and waited… and waited…

Weeks passed without a letter in return. She was just about to write another identical letter, to assume that the first communication
had somehow been lost within the war’s confusion, when Mason’s father, Sherman, had appeared at her door in the company of
a military man she didn’t recognize. Both of the men wore somber expressions.

“What’s the matter?” Alice blurted. “What has happened?”

Sherman Tucker had done all of the talking; the military man had done little more than stare silently at his feet. Private
Mason Tucker was officially missing, presumed dead. He had last been seen by another soldier entering a small ravine along
the front in a French valley she had never heard of. Seconds later, a shell had detonated beside him, sending the very earth
skyward. When the smoke cleared, all that was found was the shattered wreckage of his rifle and a few blood-soaked tatters
of his uniform.

“But… but… his body… his…” Alice managed to choke out.

“My dear, sweetest Alice,” Sherman answered, pulling her to him as she dissolved into tears. Rachel, while not in the room,
had heard every heartbreaking word through a partially open door.

During the difficult days that followed, all the citizens of Carlson came to pay their respects to Alice. On the morning of
the funeral, a miserable March drizzle fell. With the entire town swathed in black, an empty casket was buried in the cemetery.

Alice’s despondency grew by the day. As the weeks slowly passed into months, what little hope she held that Mason’s reported
death had been a mistake finally faded. Without that slim chance to buoy her, the greatness of her loss began to overwhelm
her.

Though Rachel spent most of her days at Alice’s side, it became obvious that her sister was retreating from her own life.
She rarely spoke, ate barely enough to nourish a mouse, and even began to refuse to go outside. Even as her unborn child grew
in her belly, the loss of her husband, her one true love, proved greater than the hope of the life yet to come.

“What are we going to do when the baby comes?” Eliza had fretted.

“Don’t she know what she’s doin’ to that little one?” Otis added.

Rachel had no answers.

Then, just short of nine months to the very day that Mason left Carlson to do his duty for his country, Alice went into labor.
Having helped deliver countless dozens of children, Eliza felt confident that she could bring her own daughter through the
birth safely. All of the necessary preparations had been made, all of the pots of water and sheets and rags gathered, even
the cradle that had once held Mason as a child was brought to the room; but nothing could have adequately prepared them for
what was about to happen.

From the very beginning, the birth proved difficult. Shortly after Alice’s water had broken, she began to bleed excessively.
To make matters much worse, Eliza soon discovered this would be a breech birth, that the baby was coming out backward; instead
of the crown of the baby’s head, one tiny foot appeared. The last time the midwife had seen such a thing, the child had been
stillborn, strangled by the umbilical cord. With all of her experience and hope she could muster, Eliza set about rescuing
her unborn grandchild.

“No one’s dying here,” she promised.

Through it all, Alice hardly uttered a sound. Once in a while, air hissed through her clenched teeth. Occasionally she grunted.
She never shouted. Her skin was clammy to the touch, deathly cold. Even as Rachel urged her to continue pushing, to follow
her mother’s advice, it seemed as if her sister were somewhere else.

When Eliza finally managed to bring Alice’s newborn child into the world, the baby was silent and blue. As her mother rushed
to save the infant, Alice continued to pour out her life’s blood onto the bedsheet. Rachel stayed at her sister’s side, tears
streaming down her cheeks as she watched Alice willingly slide into the darkness, never fighting what was to come. Alice had
stopped living the moment Mason’s father and the military man had given her the news of her husband’s death. This was the
end she desired.

Even as the baby wailed its first cry, a weak, plaintive noise that sounded like a kitten’s mewl, it was too late. Alice never
even looked upon her daughter before she died. They named the child Charlotte, a name Alice had, in better days, once remarked
that she liked.

On that day, Rachel lost her sister and became a mother to her sister’s baby.

Rachel stared solemnly at the gray stone of her sister’s grave marker as a whistling wind raced between the rows of headstones.
Uncomfortably cold, she rubbed her arms for warmth; she was unsure if her chill was because of the temperature of the wind
or where she stood. At the edge of the cemetery, Charlotte ran after Jasper, chasing the happily panting dog around the base
of a tall spire tombstone.

The words carved into the stone were a cold reminder of what she had lost:

ALICE TUCKER

1895–1918

BELOVED MOTHER, WIFE, SISTER, AND DAUGHTER

SHE LIVES WITH THE ANGELS

Even when Charlotte was an infant, she had cried incessantly when she was brought to the cemetery. On the most beautiful of
days, no amount of rocking or cooing ever managed to quiet her. Now she had become both uncaring and defiant. Rachel could
hardly imagine what difficulties lay ahead in the years to come.

“Charlotte,” she called to the little girl. “Come over here.”

Though Rachel was certain that she had been heard, the child gave no indication. She continued to chase Jasper around the
cemetery.

Rachel sighed. “Charlotte,” she said, louder this time. “Come here!”

This time, Charlotte actually came to a stop, turning her head and fixing a hard stare upon her aunt. “But I’m playing!” she
complained, her lip puckered and insolent.

“We came up here so that you could have a few moments with your mother,” Rachel replied with as much patience as she could
manage, “and that is exactly what we are going to do. Now please just come here.”

Reluctantly, Charlotte tramped over to where her mother eternally slept. Her arms folded across her small chest, she pouted
unpleasantly. She stamped her foot angrily, and, her frustrations overflowing, kicked a couple of loose stones, sending them
ricocheting off her mother’s tombstone.

“Stop that!” Rachel ordered.

“She don’t care if I kick her old stone,” Charlotte cried. “She’s already dead!”

“You’re being naughty, Charlotte,” Rachel said, hearing Eliza’s many warnings echoing in her head. “All I’m asking for is
five minutes of your time. I think you owe your mother that much.”

Charlotte stood in silence, occasionally wiping her nose with the sleeve of her blouse.

“Isn’t there anything you want to tell her?” Rachel prodded.

“No.”

“Don’t you want to tell her about school or your friends? What about Jasper and all of the things you do with him? That would
be just fine! Your mother always loved dogs.”

“I don’t want to talk to her about anything!” Charlotte cried, her fists balled tightly at her sides, an angry red flush spreading
across her face. “Why do I have to spend my birthday here talking to a dead person? I hate it here! I hate it!”

“Charlotte, I—” Rachel began, but her niece had already dashed away from her and was making her way toward the cemetery entrance.
Without pausing, she pushed open the squeaky gate and kept on running, never looking back, Jasper, as always, right behind
her.

Rachel sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Alice… I tried…”

Slowly, her attention turned from her sister’s grave marker to the one lying beside it—Mason’s. Cut from the same stone, the
carving was simple:

MASON TUCKER

1893–1918

HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY

Unlike her sister’s grave, Rachel knew that Mason’s was empty, a symbol lacking in substance. Looking at his name sent a spasm
of agitation racing down her spine.

In the eight years that had passed since Mason left Carlson on the train, Rachel had discovered hatred for him in her heart.
She knew that it was not rational, that it was not fair, but she couldn’t help but be mad at him. If he hadn’t left for the
war, if he’d only managed to keep his word to Alice and stayed safe, none of the horrible things would have happened: her
sister wouldn’t have given up on her life, Mason would have returned to the future that awaited him in his father’s business,
and Charlotte would have grown up in a loving home with two parents who would have treasured her.