Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
Frankie and Jubal had witnessed their father and his salty and still-bristling companion driving away from Jubal’s bedroom window, Lizbet discovered, when she went upstairs, for they were still standing there, looking small and confused and very, very vulnerable.
“We heard what Father said,” Frankie announced, when Lizbet entered the room. It was airy and spacious, that room, and Hector rested comfortably in the middle of Jubal’s unmade bed. “He left us letters, and we get to stay with you for good, and Marietta is going to be in a real moving picture.”
Lizbet nodded solemnly. It was the strangest sensation, drifting between two very different and very strong emotions—relief that Frankie and Jubal would not be going away and sorrow for these children.
Even though they’d wanted to stay with Lizbet all along, they had to be wounded by their father’s disinterest in them, too.
She didn’t know whether to weep or to laugh with joy. “Does it bother you,” she began gently, “that he didn’t say goodbye to you?”
“I’m glad he didn’t try to say goodbye,” Jubal replied, with defiant emphasis. “If he did, I would have kicked him in the knee!”
With that, Jubal burst into tears, rubbed at his eyes with the backs of both hands as if to push them back. “I hate him!” he cried, just as Lizbet reached him.
Dropping to her knees, she practically crushed the little boy, she hugged him so hard. Then, with her free hand, she reached out to squeeze Frankie’s hand.
Murmuring reassuring sounds, rather than clear words, Lizbet rocked Jubal back and forth in her arms as he sobbed.
It was then that Lizbet heard footsteps on the stairs; they were slow ones, and a little uncertain.
Gabe.
By then, Frankie was crying too, albeit softly, rather than furiously, as her brother did, and Lizbet drew her into the embrace, holding both children close and letting them cry.
Lizbet knew Gabe had paused in the doorway of Jubal’s room, and she wondered what he was thinking.
If she’d been him, she thought distractedly, she would have been wondering why men like William could turn their backs on their own children while men like him, Gabe, lost their much-loved, much-wanted little ones.
Life could be so cruel, so unjust.
“They’ve gone,” Gabe said, when Jubal and Frankie had calmed down somewhat and Lizbet got back on her feet. A long pause followed Gabe’s words, then he went on, “I was wondering—well, maybe now isn’t the time—”
“Gabe,” Lizbet said, hastily drying her cheeks with the hem of the apron—one of many—that had belonged to Bonnie Whitfield. “ What are you trying to say?”
“Well, I guess I was about to say that this might be a good time to go out and get that Christmas tree we talked about. Before the weather takes another bad turn, I mean.”
It had always amazed Lizbet how resilient children really were, and the next moment reinforced her belief.
Jubal let out a startling whoop of joy, passed Lizbet like a circus performer fired from a cannon and leaped into Gabe’s arms.
He caught the child deftly and held on. For a long and touching moment, Gabe’s eyes were closed. Was he remembering his little girl, and how it had been to hold her like he was holding Jubal now, in a strong, protective way?
The thought—and the sight—so moved Lizbet that her eyes filled again, and her throat constricted.
In that moment, she dreamed of having children of her own, plump, sweet babies—fathered by this man.
This man who could never love her.
Gabe opened his eyes, met her gaze and then silently held out a hand to Frankie.
The girl hesitated, then she went to him, too, though not in the same rushed way her brother had. Instead, she stood shyly at Gabe’s side, his arm around her shoulders now, and leaned against his side.
It was all Lizbet could do not to emulate the children by rushing to Gabe herself.
Of course, she refrained.
Gabe was a kind man. He knew Frankie and Jubal had suffered a major emotional blow, and he wanted to help them.
But he wasn’t looking for a new wife and family, Lizbet reminded herself, as she had moments before.
However fatherly Gabe might have seemed just then, he was most likely missing Bonnie, and little Abigail. Acutely.
After all, it should have been Bonnie cooking his meals and cleaning his house—not that she, Lizbet, had done much of that, having only arrived the day before—and it should have been Abigail going out with him to find a Christmas tree.
The child would have been six now, from what John had told her, bright and beautiful as a sunflower in spring.
Lizbet, who had good reason to be happy and thankful, felt a hollow space open up in her heart.
“Can we, Lizbet?” Jubal cried, his little face red and swollen, his eyes bright with contrasting excitement. “Can we please go with Mr. Whitfield to get the Christmas tree?”
“You’re welcome to come along,” Gabe said quietly, watching Lizbet’s face as he set Jubal back on his feet.
She drew a deep breath, wiped her cheeks again, this time with the palms of her hands, and drummed up a smile.
“I’d like that,” she said.
It was a long hike to the place where the tree Gabe had chosen stood, lush-limbed and fragrant, but the fresh air and the effort were good for everyone.
Finn came along, as did Hector, and when the children began to tire, he carried Frankie piggyback, while Jubal rode happily on Gabe’s shoulders.
The tree did seem special, standing there in the snow, rimmed by sunlight and clearly sketched against a blue sky that seemed to go on forever.
“Seems a shame to cut it down,” Finn remarked, only a little out of breath from the climb with Frankie on his back.
“We can’t kill it!” Frankie wailed suddenly, in complete agreement with Finn. “I don’t want a Christmas tree if we have to kill it!”
Gabe met Lizbet’s gaze and winked.
He winked , this man so well acquainted with bone-crushing sorrow .
“Reckon I’d better hike back to the barn for a shovel,” Finn said, with an exuberance he’d clearly had to drag up from the depths of his being.
“Gabe and I will dig this spruce up and haul it home to dry off in the barn. Tomor row, one of us can saw a barrel in half, make a big plant pot and put the tree in that. That way, after Christmas is over, we can take it outside again and plant it somewhere close to the house.”
Lizbet’s heart warmed. She knew Gabe and his brother had their private differences, but in that moment, she decided Finn Whitfield was as decent a man as his brother, down deep.
Frankie and Jubal cheered.
Gabe smiled, though somewhat wistfully. “Good idea,” he conceded, addressing Finn.
With that, they all hiked back down the hill toward the house and barn. It was an easier journey, since gravity was working in their favor now, but by the time they reached the back door, Frankie and Jubal were nearly asleep on their feet.
Silently, Lizbet thanked God—and Gabe Whitfield—for the healthy distraction from their sadness over William’s departure.
She gave them each a cup of stove-warmed apple cider, chosen from among the many glass jars of food items stored in the pantry. Gabe had admitted that he hadn’t put up all those things himself; he’d paid a woman down the road to do it.
Having hung their coats over the backs of their chairs, because they would be leaving the house again soon to climb back up that arduous hill and dig up the spruce tree, which was at least eight feet tall, Finn and Gabe sat at the kitchen table and drank reheated coffee.
The children consumed most of their cider, but they were nodding off in their chairs. Lizbet roused them enough to stand up, took both of them by the hand and led them upstairs to their rooms.
Hector, probably tired himself, followed Lizbet and the children, though a little reluctantly. When Lizbet looked back at him over one shoulder, he was hesitating—heading back toward the stairs, then toward her and Frankie and Jubal again.
Lizbet had never had a dog of her own, even as a child, since her mother had already been in fragile health, and the housekeeper, Evelyn, hadn’t wanted anything to do with “filthy four-legged critters,” as she’d called them. Animals belonged outside, not in.
Now, looking at Hector, she felt a rush of gentle affection, a certain gladness, as if she’d searched and searched for something lost and finally found it.
“You go with Gabe and Finn, if that’s what you want to do,” Lizbet told the dog, in a whisper, expecting Jubal to protest at any moment.
Hector gazed up at Lizbet as though he’d been taken by surprise, confronted by an angel of light, and when she continued along the corridor, he followed, nails clicking along the hard wooden floor.
While the children napped, Lizbet bustled about the kitchen, opening more jars containing stew meat and various vegetables. She scrubbed and peeled carrots and potatoes from the cellar, washed and sliced onions, ransacked the shelves for spices.
Once the stewpot was chortling away atop the cookstove, she mixed flour and other ingredients and made biscuit dough.
It was nearly dark when Finn and Gabe returned from the hill, dragging the tree behind them, its exposed roots dark against the snow.
Lizbet watched them through the window over the kitchen sink, having wiped away the steam first, and she felt a little leap of excitement within her, thinking how excited the children would be.
Hector must have heard his master approaching the house, because he came bounding into the kitchen on a dead run, like a racehorse on the home stretch.
With a smile, Lizbet opened the back door for the dog, so he could shoot out into the twilight, but put a hand out to stop Jubal from following.
He and Frankie had already had supper, as well as separate baths in front of the kitchen stove, and were now in their nightclothes.
Despite the naps they’d taken, Lizbet knew they would sleep soundly that night and most likely awaken at the proverbial crack of dawn, ready to “help” Finn and Gabe bring in the tree and place it in front of the parlor windows.
Lizbet had already cleared the spot.
“But I want to see the tree!” Jubal nearly howled, thwarted.
“You’ll see it in the morning,” Lizbet promised firmly. “It’s almost dark now, and it’s very cold outside. Be a good boy and help me set the table again. The men will be freezing, and very hungry.”
Probably considering himself one of the men, Jubal quieted down and puffed out his chest. “I’ll help them put the tree up in the parlor tomorrow,” he said. “They’ll need me.”
“I’m sure they will,” Lizbet replied, handing Jubal two clean plates.
“Be careful,” she added. The dishes were Blue Willow, and they had been Bonnie’s.
Lizbet would have been mortified if they’d been broken, but, at the same time, the children needed to learn to help out and to treat pretty things gently.
Frankie busied herself fetching silverware and napkins while Lizbet stirred the stew.
She was proud of that stew; it was savory and rich, and it would nourish two tired men, who’d been out in the freezing cold, fetching a Christmas tree down from a hilltop, up to their knees in snow when they were up high, for a good part of the day.
Finn and Gabe didn’t come into the house immediately after their return; Lizbet knew, as did the children, that they would tend to the horses and that dear old cow and feed the chickens before they came inside.
How those birds survived in such weather was a mystery to Lizbet, who had firmly believed, when she was Frankie’s age, that eggs came from the corner market, not the hind end of a feathery, squawking hen.
The back door finally opened, just as Jubal was asking a question that stopped them all in midstep.
“Do you think Mr. Whitfield would ever want a little boy?”