Chapter 5

© Copyright 2008 by Elizabeth Delayne



Rachel wanted to go back to South Carolina, back to the familiar people and the traditions she knew. She wanted her sister, her mother, her father, her old bedroom where the sun would shine in the morning through the lace curtains her grandmother had sewn for her mother. She wanted to sit at her place at the dinner table beside her mother, where she could look down and see her father’s familiar stern features that hid a very joyful heart.

At the beginning of November, the town through a large harvest festival, party to celebrate the end of hzrvest, but mostly as a get together before winter really set in. The trees were bleak arms reaching upwards, having already lost their cover. The fall coloring that remained on the ground had turned to a dismal brown. People were already talking about the snow that would keep them home.

Still, nearly everyone from the area came, so she didn’t lack for company, conversation or hugs. She even arrived early to help set up the potluck meal that was served on a long planked table that stretched from one end of the church to the other. People spread out blankets on the hardwood floor and enjoyed an indoor picnic social, away from the chilly weather outside.

She put on a smile and went through the day.

As November moved into December, and Christmas approached, she felt worse. She wouldn’t be able to go home. Even if the Reverend and the town were willing to provide chaperone’s for her, the tickets for them all would be a high price, and the break too short to make it worth the cost and the trouble to get everyone to Cartersivlle, then home.

And besides, she was afraid if she went home, she wouldn’t return.

The children were restless, probably more so because she was. It had grown cold. Snow had fallen and lay like a blanket across the land, but it was hard to appreciate the beauty. All she could see was the long, cold, wet walk from her little home to the school house, the empty stove she would have to stoke and prepare, and the bitter cold of night where she snuggled up in the empty one room house under a half dozen quilts.

To think, she had looked forward to the snowfall until recently.

She let all the children go home the day they let out for Christmas break at noon. Matt, who was still coming to the school, stood on the porch with his slate under his arm, looking uncertain.

“How come I can’t come back tomorrow?”

“There is no school tomorrow,” Rachel knelt down so that she was eyelevel with him, and ran her hand down the sleeve of his coat. “It will be like a bunch of Saturdays all together.”

“I don’t like two weeks of Saturdays.”

“But Christmas is coming. You like Christmas.”

He simply frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t remember Christmas.”

Rachel stared at him, at his sad, sad eyes and simpl reached out to run a comforting had down his arm.

Gregory cleared his throat. Rachel looked to where he sat a top his horse, and saw the raw emotion in his eyes.

“Matthew,” he said, “why don’t you and me take Miss. Lynne to eat at the hotel today?” he swung down from his horse and held out a hand for Rachel. “You want to go tell Ma James to set us up a table?”

Sparked a little by the attention he was used to getting from Ma James at the hotel, and Rachel supposed, knowing that Rachel was included in on the conversation, Matthew ran ahead of them. Still, he hadn’t smiled, she thought.

When had he stopped smiling?

“Sorry to impose on you Miss. Lynne,” Mr. Forester said after she closed up the school and pulled on her mittens. “Thought it would give me time to explain...”

“You don’t have to explain anything, Mr. Forester.”

“I do,” he motioned forward and began walking, leading his horse by the reins. “I feel I do. I owe it to his mother to explain. Anna hadn’t been gone too long last year when Christmas arrived. She was the one who made it such a big deal, so special. She had a real heart for ... celebration, for ... believing. Neither James nor I had the heart ... and we let our poor boy down. Christmas is the best time of the year. A celebration of Christ. Anna always treated it with such reverence. She would have been disappointed in us.”

“I guess you’ll have to make it up to him this year.”

“I suppose we’ll have to try,” he said. “And you? Are you going to be able to handle Christmas without your family? The Thanksgiving feast was hard on you.”

Rachel frowned as she looked away, at the buildings that lined the street across from them. “I thought I hid it pretty well.”

“I lost three sons during the war, Miss. Lynne. Lived through the war myself. Saw the bloodshed and horror with my own two eyes. Sadness is something I’m used to seeing.”

“I miss my family,” the words just slid out of her. “And I guess maybe I’ve been wallowing in it.”

“Nothing wrong with wallowing for a time. But sooner or later ... it’ll cover you up. Take the breath from you.”

Rachel drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then tried very hard to muster a genuine smile. “I’m working on it, Mr. Forester.”

“I’ll be prayin’ that God fills those hollow lonely places for you.”

“It isn’t going to be with your son, Mr. Forester.”

“I wouldn’t think so. It isn’t always a person that fills the lonely places. That’s something my James needs to understand himself.”

* * *

Rachel decided to begin a quilt to represent her time first year in Lenox. And it would be her first year, she decided. On the way home from the lunch with Matthew and Gregory Forester, Rachel had stopped and looked at the land. A thin coating of fresh snow, though melting away, had created a beautiful landscape that stretched across the prairie, like shimmering piece of satin. With a blue sky stretching out above, it was something like a baby’s blanket.

And then their were the snow topped mountains in the distance.

She’d spent weeks ignoring it.

But not anymore. Now was the time to embrace her life. And Gregory Forester was right.

It was okay to wallow in self-pity for a time, but eventually you had to move on. She was lucky. Maybe Rebekkah was married. But Rebekkah was in Charleston. She’d never experienced a good snowfall. She hadn’t seen a winter’s day on the plains, or the glorious Rocky Mountains in the distances.

And while it got cold in Charleston in the winter, it was different here. Rachel drew in a deep fresh breath and let it out, to watch the frosty white air float away in the wind.

There was just something different here.

The ache was still there. It was still strong. But she wasn’t going to let it rule her days. She had an old dress she’d brought from Charleston, remnants of the gingham cloth she’d used to make curtains, and other pieces she’d used to sew her two winter dresses. She would use those in her quilt.

She acquired one of Lauren’s old child-sized bonnets from Mrs. Peterson, plus a remnant of fabric used to make the curtains in that room.

And now she wanted to see if she couldn’t get something from Millie. Not something new, but some little something she could sew in representing their friendship. And she wondered ... maybe if she asked the elder Mr. Forester, maybe she could get something to sew of that represented Matthew.

No telling what significance James Forester would place on a request for a tiny bit of cloth.

Saturday was busy day at the Barton’s store, but Rachel welcomed the diversion. The people milled around her. There was laughter and chatter. People stopped to say hello and Merry Christmas.

There was plenty to see and for the first time in more than a month Rachel didn’t feel exasperated with having people around her. They were people she knew, some she was getting to know very well.

When she spotted Millie, Rachel waved her hand in greeting—then she saw the look on her friend’s face.

“Millie!” she cried out, just as Millie dropped, passed out.

People in the store turned to look. Seconds—within seconds—Jasper was there. Over the counter and down by his wife’s side with one fluid motion.

Rachel rushed forward with everyone else—then she saw Matthew at the corner of her eye. His eyes were wide. He stood, stock still, as people moved around him.

Torn between the two people, Rachel went instead to the little boy.

“Matthew?” she said, and knelt at his side when he continued to stare forward, his mouth opened in a small ‘o’.

“Matthew,” she said again, and reached out to turn him. “Matthew, sweetheart, look at Miss. Lynne. Look at Rachel now.”

Finally—finally—he looked at her, his blue eyes void of emotion as if something inside of him had disappeared.

She took his hand. “Why don’t we go outside? Why don’t we go for a walk? Would you like that?”

He gave her a nod, the smallest perception of one. She smiled for him and stood, still holding onto his small hand. She looked around, saw James Forester. His eyes, wide with worry, as he stood opposite her from Millie. She used her head to motion from Matthew to the door and mouthed outside.

For once he just nodded.

She took Matthew outside and they walked down the planked sidewalk. She didn’t talk. She couldn’t. Here heart was too full of worry.

Millie, she thought, she’d already two children.

God she prayed. Be the healer. The sustainer.

“Miss. Lynne.”

Rachel turned, with Matthew still holding her hand, and faced James Forester.

“I’m going to ride to Cartersville for the Doc. You’ll ... would you mind watching Matthew?”

His face was white with worry, she thought. He was thinking of Anna.

She nodded.

“Matt,” he dropped down before his son and waited until Matt;s eyes lifted to his. “I’m going to get the doctor for Mrs. Barton. You be good for Mrs. Lynne.”

“You’ll get there fast,” Matthew said, speaking at last.

James smiled weakly and ran a gloved hand over his son’s shaggy cap of hair. “That’s right. We have the fastest horses in the territory. I can get there faster than anyone.”

He touched Matthew’s cheek for a moment, then stood in one fluid motion and walked away.

There, standing on the planked sidewalk, with the crowd dispersing from Barton’s store in the distance, Rachel watched James Forester unhitch his horse from his wagon. She watched with Matt until he rode away, and disappeared on the horizon long after he left town.

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