The Long Road Home (8 page)

“Function, not aesthetics,” she murmured.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how this kitchen reflects the code of farm life.”

“Did you live on a farm?”

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. But I’m originally from Wisconsin. My father was a baker and owned part of a dairy farm. I used to love to go out and visit the cows and hunt for barn kittens. We didn’t go that often, though. Mother found it boring and Oma didn’t drive. So…” She sighed, running her hands across a tall cherry armoire. “No, I love these things because they belonged to Oma. This is her legacy. Each item is more precious to me than a jewel.”

The bittersweet memories of her childhood played upon her features. C.W. watched with fascination, remaining silent, listening. She had no idea of the effect she was having on him as she spoke simply about her childhood. There was no subterfuge, no name-dropping, not a hint of the pretension he was accustomed to. Nor, he suspected, did she have any idea of the sexual magnetism he felt. For under his impassive exterior he was struggling to deny it.

She turned her head away and wrapped her arms around her chest. Her wrists were frail and her long fingers with their short, unpolished, oval nails tapped gently upon her shoulders. As she stood, absently looking over her things, she invoked the image of the child she had just described. An innocent, perhaps even a timid girl. The kind of child who kept treasures in a box under her bed, who sang to the trees, and who knew the name of each of her dolls.

As he watched, mesmerized by her tapping fingers, the child became woman. Her innocence grew sensual, erotic, and he found himself imagining those fingers tapping upon his body. He stepped closer, with nonchalance, and smelled the sweet clean scent of soap. His physical response was immediate, forcing C.W. to reel back and create a distance. God, how long had it been since he’d been with a woman?

Looking up, Nora blinked, as one coming back from far
away thoughts. No, he realized. She had no idea at all how she affected him. And he was glad.

Smiling, Nora said, “I had to fight Mike to keep this stuff. He thought it was all worthless junk.”

“You obviously love your grandmother’s legacy—and this place. Why did you stay away so long?”

Her face clouded and she looked away. “I had my reasons.”

Nora ran her palm along the mahogany table. “I knew it was all here waiting for me,” she added, more to herself. “I’d never throw anything out.”

“So, you’re the type that squirrels away old clothes, family photographs, and chipped china.”

She offered a wan smile. “That’s me. I keep it all. Everything holds some memory.”

C.W.’s gaze swept over her old worn jeans and handknit sweater, to her small hand arced over the table. “Then, why did you remove your wedding ring? Isn’t that usually the last vestige of sentiment to go?”

Nora blanched, her hand flying instinctively to her ring finger.

C.W. watched her and cursed himself for his bluntness. It was time to go.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. MacKenzie. That’s none of my business.”

He crossed the room with determined strides and paused only to grab a large crate of empty glass bottles.

“Recycling is going strong in Vermont,” he muttered. “I’ll take these down to the center. I—I left a list of recyclables on the fridge.” He cleared his throat. Work, business, he thought—the great panacea. “Just rinse them out and toss them in here. I’ll take them down to the center for you every Monday.”

“Yes, fine,” she murmured.

She was still rubbing her ring finger and staring out the kitchen window. Seeing this, C.W. gave himself a mental kick. He had hurt her with his careless comment, and he was sorry. All his life his blunt honesty had been praised, feared, even encouraged. It was viewed as a show of power and intelligence. Good for business.

He shook his head and with a firm grip, hoisted the bottles into his arms and left the house.

What a weak excuse for vanity, he berated himself. He knew better now. Sometimes silence and compassion required greater strength.

Nora finished her morning coffee hunched over Mike’s ledger with her heels hooked on the chair’s upper rung. From what little she could gather, the figures involved a bank transaction of some kind, or several transactions, it was hard to tell yet. Mike moved around unbelievable amounts of money. She munched on a piece of toast, careful to brush away the crumbs from the paper. Perhaps if she attacked it differently.

Nora flipped through to the last page. Once again she was struck by the difference in handwriting style as the months passed. In May, she could make out the notations clearly. Yet by September, the writing was erratic, a shorthand of barely legible script. Nora struggled to decipher the ledger for over an hour before she closed it and rubbed her eyes.

She couldn’t glean much, yet she felt certain she could figure out what had driven Mike to suicide from these pages. In all the deals and craziness, however, one name emerged as the villain. She recognized the name; it had been carved into her heart. She had traced the letters in the ledger to be sure she got it right.

Mike may have shot himself, but the man who pulled
the psychological trigger was the man who singlehandedly, and with deliberate purpose, had brought Mike to financial ruin.

That man was Charles Blair.

ESTHER WALKED THE DUSTY distance from the mailbox to her house. Repeatedly, she glanced back again at the tilting metal box with the red flag up and the three numbers half falling down. Inside was her application for a fellowship at New York University—her whole life in an envelope. Her one shot at a dream she’d held since her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Crawford, in the town’s one-room schoolhouse told her she had real talent as a painter. She’d known, even then, that it was true.

She peered over her shoulder several more times, just to make sure that bent, rusty red flag stayed up. Then the road curved and her view of the box was lost in foliage. Esther sighed and picked up her pace. There was nothing more to do now but wait.

She had walked the distance from her house to the mailbox every day for twenty years. Once in a while the mail brought a glossy magazine or a letter from Uncle Squire in Florida. Most days there was nothing much except for ads, mail-order catalogs, and bills. The dirt road lined with maples, pines,
and here and there seasonal wildflowers was repetitive in its sameness, but never boring to Esther. In spring it was black with mud, in summer it was green, in fall it was orange, and in the cold of winter it was as gray as the sky. But the hues and values changed on cloudy or sunny days, or when the raindrops on the leaves glistened or when a bright red newt slithered into an ink black puddle. Esther approached the house as she always did, lost in her world of colorful thoughts.

“Hey, Es. I’ve been waitin’ on you.”

Her hand flew to her heart and she jerked her head toward the far side of the porch where a young man stretched out on the old sofa.

“You scared me, John Henry.” She caught her breath, then asked with irritation, “What are you doing here?”

He was quick to respond, but not before she detected the disappointment on his tanned face. “We’re supposed to go to the movies. Your pa said to wait, you’d be right back. Come on, Red, don’t tell me you forgot?”

She had. Completely. Her face said so.

“We don’t have to go,” John Henry said quickly. “We can just hang around here.”

“No, that’s okay,” she replied in a colorless voice. “I’m sorry. I got all caught up in getting that application in the mail.”

John Henry’s face fell. “So you went and did it.”

“I sure did.” Esther’s face flushed. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable, telling someone that she actually sent out the forms. Win or lose, she didn’t want anyone snickering at her high hopes behind her back.

Esther looked at John Henry. His slightly dazed expression was the same one he’d worn when she beat him in a fight in the first grade. But today John Henry was different. Twenty years of different. And so was she. A lot of time and love had
passed between them in those years. A lot of secrets shared. He’d never hurt her or break his word, she was sure.

“Don’t tell anyone about them forms, now, promise?” She had to say it anyway.

“Of course I promise.” He paused, then waved her over. “Com’ere.”

Esther pushed air out through pursed lips. She just wanted to be alone right now. But she went anyway and plopped on the old sofa beside him. The sofa creaked, complaining at the extra weight on its already bowed out legs.

John Henry lay silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “What’s the matter, Red?”

“I dunno.” Then she said in a hushed voice, “I’m scared. What if I don’t make it?”

“What if you don’t? It doesn’t mean you can’t paint anymore. You can do that anywhere. Here.”

Esther didn’t reply. Instead, she tucked her hands tightly between her knees and looked off. How could she tell him that she had to leave here, soon, or she’d be so choked up she’d never paint again. Nora MacKenzie’s return brought back too many memories, vivid recollections that she could not share with John Henry most of all.

It was desperation that had finally made her do what she’d been putting off for months: fill out the application for a fellowship in art at New York University. Her whole being was focused on that little envelope in the mailbox.

She felt John Henry’s hands rubbing her back. Esther knew his touch so well by now that she read in his fervent strokes a plea that she love him. Any talk of her leaving made him nervous. Esther leaned over and pecked his cheek.

He held out his arms and Esther reluctantly slipped into them. He smelled of sweat and the sofa smelled of mildew. Esther lay in his arms long enough to give him a reassuring
squeeze. She sensed his need like radar. Wriggling her shoulders, she loosened his hold and quickly sat up.

John Henry grabbed her back, holding her squashed close with arms like bands of steel. His kisses were hungry.

“No,” she said against his lips. “Not here.”

John Henry drew back and swung his leg around, hoisting them both off the sofa. His hands remained around her waist in a possessive grip.

“Come on, then.”

“I can’t. I’ve got things to do.”

“Come on,” he drawled close to her ear, propelling her off the porch toward the barn.

Esther allowed herself to be led off to the dark corner of the barn that they often went to when they wanted to be alone. She didn’t want to make love. She wasn’t in the mood, but John Henry’s persistence was not to be ignored.

And she loved John Henry, in her fashion. His need of her was obvious. He wanted so much from her, more than she felt capable of giving. John Henry was one more person who needed her.

Esther relinquished all resistance by the time they reached the dark recess of the ramshackle barn. She’d give in to him, as she always did when he wanted her. He was a good, kind man—her best friend. It was the best way she knew how to show she cared.

His kisses were urgent and his hands grew rough. He pushed her back against the barn wall, hard, and his hands trembled down to her belt and started unfastening it, squeezing her waist as he jerked the leather free.

So, he was going to be dominant today, she realized. He always was when he felt threatened. That application to New York University must have really set him off.

Esther put her hand gently on his, stilling him. John Henry
sighed when he released her belt. Esther quickly finished the task and stepped from her jeans, looking over at John Henry as he fumbled with his buttons.

He was a long sideburn kind of man. With his easy manner and his handsome straight nose, not to mention the dairy farm that would someday be his, most every girl in town had set her sights on John Henry Thompson at one time or another. And he strayed from time to time over the years of their courtship. Yet, Esther always knew that John Henry would find his way back to her, so she never worried or got jealous. Some called her lucky. Others called her a fool.

John Henry looked up, caught her eye, and smiled wide. Even in this dark corner, his bright blue eyes twinkled.

Esther smiled back. She really did care for John Henry. She welcomed him in her arms.

Afterward, when they were putting their clothes back on, an uneasy silence fell upon them. Esther buttoned her shirt back up, watching John Henry thrust one leg into his jeans. His leg was long and covered with fine brown hair the same dark color as the hair that spread across his thin, well-muscled chest and massed upon his head and around his ears. Her hands stilled. How many times had they repeated this scene over the years, she wondered? How many more times till they realized that they could not go on like this forever?

As if he read her mind, John Henry shoved his other leg into his pants and said, “I’m getting pretty tired of pickin’ hay out’a my butt. What do you say we make some decisions? Get ourselves our own bed.”

Esther jerked her head down and her fingers began to fly on her buttons. “Don’t be silly, John Henry. You know I’m waitin’ on this scholarship.”

“You’re always waitin’ on something, Esther. After high school it was junior college. Two years later you wanted to
finish college in Burlington. Then your sister up and left her husband and you had to take care of her kids. Then your brother—”

“What does Tom’s death have to do with us?”

John Henry looked contrite. “Nothing Es, only…” He picked up some hay, sorted it a bit, then threw it on the ground. “Only you always have some excuse for why we can’t get married. Now you push this New York stuff in my face and expect me to sit back and wait some more.”

“I’m not asking you to wait.” She whispered it.

“I’m twenty-six years old!” he continued, not listening or hearing. “Tell me, Es. Tell me to my face. What am I waiting for?”

Esther felt more cornered by his words than the two walls she pressed against. She huddled over and hugged her knees.

“Please, John Henry, don’t push me.”

John Henry stood straight, his hands in fists at his side.

“It’s expected that we marry.”

“I’ve never done the expected,” she snapped.

John Henry looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Esther instantly regretted her temper. “You know I can’t abide gossips. Oh, John Henry.” She rubbed both hands in her hair with frustration, undoing her elastic and sending the curls flying. When she looked up she appeared as disheveled as she felt.

“Maybe you should start seeing someone else. I’ve said so before.”

“Not this again.”

“I don’t want you waiting for me. I can’t promise my life to you. It’s still mine. Please, don’t ask me to.”

He knelt down before her and tugged gently at her hair.

“That’s just what I’m asking you to do. I know there are
other girls, but I don’t want another girl. I want a dreamer who has two feet on the ground. I want someone who speaks her mind, and gives her heart.”

Esther looked at her knees.

“I want you, Esther. Only you.”

Tears filled Esther’s eyes and she reached out for John Henry. Her hand closed around the fabric against his heart.

“I don’t want to make you unhappy,” she got out. “You deserve so much happiness. Please. I can’t marry you.”

His hand quickly covered hers over his heart. He squeezed tight. “I can wait,” he said urgently.

She couldn’t let him do this. He’d waited so long already on the thin hope that she’d come around and marry him after all. Settle down on his dairy farm. He’d told her he liked the bachelor life, had lots of dreams of his own to live out, too. But she knew he was lying. That he’d walk down the aisle in a minute if only she’d walk it with him.

Esther raised her head to his. His eyes were open, pure. If only there was something mean in him, it would make the telling easier. It was hard to be strong for both of them.

“Face-to-face then,” she said. “Don’t wait.”

She saw him pale. “I tell you of my dreams,” she continued steadily, “but you don’t want to see them. I speak my mind but you won’t listen. John Henry, I can’t marry you.”

He dropped her hand and sat back on his haunches. His face was stricken. “Is it someone else? That C.W. fella maybe?”

“No, no, course not. There’s no one else. More like some thing else.”

John Henry rubbed his hands on his thighs and stared at them. So did Esther. He had long, callused hands with short, chipped nails, scrapes and fine crisscrossed cuts. A man’s hands—a farmer’s hands. Esther felt small inside, remembering those hands when they were short, pudgy, and soft.
Remembering how, as children, he’d always let her win at jacks.

“It’s this art thing, right?” he said, tapping those man fingers now. John Henry stood up abruptly. His face had never seemed so hard. He waved his arm like a scythe cutting wheat.

“All right. Have it your way. I’m through with waiting.”

He paced three steps, then angrily jutted his finger her way, his face scowling above it. “But you listen to me, Esther Johnston! While I’m off marrying some other girl, mark my words—you’ll still be waiting. Waiting till they tell you they’ve got more than enough artists in New York already. Waiting for me to come ’round again. Waiting till you realize that all you dreamed of was sitting right here in front of you all the time.”

Esther’s heart was near to breaking when she heard John Henry’s voice crack and watched him draw back, slam his hands on his hips and sharply lower his head. “John Henry…don’t.”

He swung around to grab her arm and hoist her up before him. Holding on to her shoulders, his face reddened and his breathing came fast. Esther wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or hit her.

“Do you love me?” he whispered, tortured.

“Yes.”

“Marry me,” he said, his eyes pleading.

“No.”

That one word almost killed them both.

He pressed his forehead against hers and they both closed their eyes tight against the pain. Then he quickly released her, almost pushing her away. He turned away with a choked gulp and took several wild, rounding steps across the hay-littered floor, his hand rubbing his forehead.

“John Henry, I’m sorry,” she said, despairing.

He stopped short and his head pulled up. “Don’t you be sorry for me, Esther Johnston! You just be sorry for yourself.”

John Henry turned heel and stomped angrily from the barn.

Esther leaned back against the wall, blood drained and bone weary. From the dark corner, she stared out the empty barn entrance, wishing he’d walk through it. The straw grass waved in the light outside. A few tires tilted beside a pile of scrap wood.

John Henry wouldn’t walk back through that door. Not this time. Esther closed her eyes, forcing back the tears. She’d known this day had to come, but she’d never known how much it would hurt. The pain radiated from some core inside and wouldn’t let up. Esther slumped against the barn wall and brought her knees up to her chest. John Henry’s bitter warnings repeated in her mind. She was terrified that she’d made a mistake. Afraid that she was already feeling sorry for herself.

The bleating of lambs echoed in the valley below. Nora strolled along the road under the noonday sun, passing pastures of brown and gold that were littered with milkweed pods. Some hung fat upon their stalks; others were already bursting forth their feathery seeds, reminding Nora of days she had blown upon the seeds and sent them sailing like a fleet of white ships upon a golden ocean.