Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 4 Read online

  A very different Willow left the sheep ranch outside New Cheltenham, cuddling a puppy and trying out names on her. Chad remembered getting Saige, and while Willow hadn’t been ambivalent toward the dog, she had not shown nearly as much interest in that pup as she did in this one. Fluffy ears and puppy breath kept her mind and hands occupied for the fifty miles home.

  “She’s a black and white dog…”

  “That’s astute of you.”

  Willow shoved him playfully. “Knock it off. I think I’m going to name her Portia. She’s as black and white as Portia’s interpretation of the contract in Merchant of Venice.”

  “Shakespeare. You would.”

  The pup curled into her lap and settled down for a short nap. Every mile that passed seemed etched in the story of their new life together. Somehow, a change had washed over their relationship, and yet everything was also the same. Had they tried to explain it, he suspected that they both would have failed.

  At home, the pup bounced around the barn as Willow pulled out the cultivator and then collapsed in exhaustion on a pile of straw. Chad followed her to the field she planned to “plow” and smiled to himself as she cheered at the softness of the earth. “That rain last night helped me sleep well, and now look what it’s done. We have easy soil to turn over.”

  He’d never seen anything like it. A large wheel propelled prongs that dug up the earth as she pushed it along wheelbarrow style. Chad was sure it was never intended to replace a regular plow, but of course, Willow and her mother had no way to get gasoline for fuel-powered machines. After seeing her fight and struggle across the short side of the field for several minutes, he called her to him.

  Uncertain of how committed she was to her old-fashioned ways of doing things, he jammed his fists into his pockets and stammered ineffectively a few times. “I was thinking—”

  “Chad, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s killing me to watch you work yourself like that. You could plow that whole field in a few hours instead of a week if you had proper tools.”

  “What’s wrong with my cultivator?”

  Frustration nearly overcame him but he kicked a dirt clod with his shoe and continued as calmly as he could manage. “It requires so much of you, Willow. You’d be done with that row by now if you had a motorized one. It’d save so much time and hard work—”

  “But what would I do with all that time I saved?” The question was more of a tease than a serious inquiry.

  “Spend it with me, for one thing. You could just double your production with half the work.” As a concession to her lifestyle, he added, “If not motorized, then we at least need two of those things so we can take turns breaking ground—one ‘plowing’ and the other following behind. I assume it’s going to take more than one pass…”

  “Where can we find one of these motor ones you’re talking about? Maybe we can use the motor for the first pass and then mine for the second.”

  Excited, Chad hugged her and pulled his keys from his pocket. “I’ll find one to rent. We can see if you like it.” He kissed her briefly, jogged toward the barn, and retraced his steps. “I think that was a little weak…”

  By the time Chad arrived with a tiller, Willow had made two full passes across the field. She watched as he started the tiller and slowly, yet much more quickly than she’d managed, made a full row across the field. After about twenty feet, she grabbed her tiller and followed. Chad was right. It was much easier to follow after the machine broke the ground first.

  At lunchtime, Willow, covered in dirt and sweat, scrubbed in the summer kitchen, made two huge sandwiches, and poured the last of the lemonade into glasses. Seated on the back porch, feeding scraps to the pup, she turned to an exhausted Chad and began discussing the tiller. “Ok, so how expensive are those things? Would we need to own one once this is tilled? It should be easier to do next time, right? What about—”

  “Whoa, lass. We don’t have to decide to buy one of these things today.”

  After another bite, Willow continued her vocalized thought processes. “Well, I keep thinking of the gas. It would become expensive to use it for something so easy to do—”

  “Easy? It’s brutal. I almost ached just watching you force that thing through the dirt.”

  “It’s work. Work is hard. I don’t understand why it’s so bad?” The confusion in her voice was familiar—and genuine.

  Chad’s fists found his pockets again. “Willow, we were brought up in entirely different worlds. Where you did whatever was necessary, no matter how physically taxing, my friends and family looked for the path of least resistance to get the same job done. You made your candles; we bought ours. You hand tilled your acres of soil, we rented one of those things for our flower beds.”

  “And worked more hours somewhere else to pay for it?”

  He shrugged to show that he wasn’t angry at her. Her observations were valid and he found that as he considered it, accurate. His father had traded one kind of work for ease in doing another. Both were still work, and his father had chosen the work he enjoyed most which was exactly what Willow did every day.

  “You’re right. I think I understand now.”

  “Well,” she said rinsing her glass in the sink and washing her hands. “I don’t. That’s ok, I’m getting used to it.”

  Pulling Willow to him, Chad wrapped his arms around her. “You’re right. Dad did the work he preferred in order to make work he didn’t enjoy easier. You’re doing the work you prefer. I wasn’t brought up to enjoy it, so I naturally try to find a way to make it easier.”

  It was a huge breakthrough in understanding for both of them. As much as they enjoyed their relationship, some aspects still required both of them to step back and consider that there were other ways to see things. Neither way was necessarily superior, but what was familiar was usually preferred, and their comfort zones were on nearly opposite poles.

  “I think it’s simple,” Willow finally said.

  “Oh you do?” Just as he realized that she might feel patronized by the amusement in his tone, she spoke.

  “Of course. When I’m working alone, I do what is familiar and comfortable for me. When you work with me, you do what you do however you prefer to do it. Why should either of us overhaul anything? Doing both worked for the field. It’ll work for other things too.”

  Chad grabbed his gloves and pulled them on as he led her out of the barn. “Why didn’t someone tell me I was marrying a practical genius?”

  “Simple.”

  He eyed her warily. “Oh?”

  She took off running toward the field. “They didn’t want you to be jealous!”

  Willow heard the bathwater running upstairs and smiled to herself as she fried chicken. It felt almost like “old times” when she’d make dinner while Mother bathed. How Chad could stand laying in water that slowly grew cold, she’d never understand. Her hair, still dripping after her own shower, soaked her shirt as Willow rolled her shoulders, stretching out the kinks that occasionally tried to form in them.

  The kitchen felt warm. They’d have to eat on the porch. Willow had long noticed that Chad felt the temperature extremes differently than she did. What she considered comfortably warm or cool were hot and cold to him. She tossed a salad, sliced bread, and jumped as Chad’s arms wrapped around her waist.

  “That was sneaky!”

  “And after the mud clod fight, you deserved sneaky.”

  “How was I supposed to know you’d never had a mud fight?” The innocence in her tones didn’t change the mischievous look on her face.

  “I can’t believe you and your mother used to do stuff like that. At your age!”

  “Mother said we shouldn’t give up our favorite fun just because the calendar told some people we were too old for it.”

  Chad popped a cherry tomato in his mouth and collapsed in the rocking chair exhausted. “Mother was right.”

  Willow turned, her eyes slowly filling with tears. Deep sobs welled inside her and then w
racked her body. She sank to the floor in front of the kitchen sink lost in grief.

  “Wha—” Chad flew across the room, his alarm barely reaching her consciousness.

  For several minutes, he held her, hushed her, wiped her tears, and then held her some more. Nothing he said or did helped to calm the emotional torment that swallowed her. The chicken burned; Chad tossed the pan in the sink, and still Willow curled into a ball, her back to the sink, and sobbed until her heart was empty.

  “I’m—” she choked back tears. “I’m sorry about the chicken.”

  “What’s wrong, lass?”

  Willow knew he hated seeing her like this. She hadn’t cried like that in months—not around him anyway. “It’s silly. I feel so stupid.” New tears, quiet ones this time, spilled over her cheeks splashing onto his hands.

  “I still don’t understand—”

  “You didn’t say your mother this time. You just called her Mother. It felt like you finally became a part of my family too instead of the other way around.” She blushed at his look of incredulity. “I told you it was silly.”

  “I can’t take credit for anything. I could just as easily have said ‘your’ again. I never meant to sound distant—”

  “You didn’t. This just felt like she was ‘our’ mother now instead of just mine—like Marianne feels like ‘ours.’”

  “I know I would have loved y—Mother, but Willow, I never knew her. I often think of her as just ‘Mother’ but other times…”

  “I’m sorry,” Willow jumped to her feet brushing away her tears. “I know it’s crazy, but I always feel like I’m continually taking and never giving anything.”

  “You gave me you. What more could I ask for?” He stood and brushed her hair away from her face, his heart aching at the sight of her puffy eyes. “We’ll get to know your grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins—you’ll see. I got a new family too. You just don’t know them that much better than I do is all.”

  She gave him a halfhearted smile. “I also gave you a charred meal. Every bride’s nightmare, eh?”

  “How about a trip to town and dinner at the Coventry?”

  “Deal.”

  Chad waited until she stood and then added, “And then when we get home, I’m going to whip your bum in Yahtzee.”

  “Don’t you mean…?”

  Chad snatched the kitchen towel and snapped it after her as she raced toward the stairs. “Get up there and get changed, woman!”

  Chapter 106

  Early Wednesday morning, before the sun forced its way over the eastern horizon, Chad rolled over and his arm curled cozily around—nothing. Subconsciously, he knew something was wrong, but it took him several minutes to fight his way out of sleep and back to the land of consciousness. Willow was gone—her side of the bed, cold.

  He shivered at the cool air that hit his arms and legs as he crawled from the covers and wrapped the robe from their personal shower around him. Chad remembered her hanging it on the wall next to his side of the bed, assuring him he’d need it. He had told her she was crazy but here he was, wrapping it around him, shivering. The open window sent damp breezes into their house.

  Their house. Already he’d begun to feel possessive of her property. Was that good? As he jogged down the steps to the living room, Chad pondered the question but came to no conclusion.

  She wasn’t in the living room, kitchen, or library. He glanced out the back door but saw no lights in the barn. The front porch looked dark as well, so he wearily climbed the stairs again checking the craft and newly decorated “sitting room,” but Willow seemed to have vanished.

  “Willow?” Why he called quietly, Chad couldn’t explain—even to himself. In their room, he stared hard out the window trying to discern if the lump by the oak where her—their mother was buried was the gravestones or if Willow had gone out there again. He couldn’t tell.

  With a sigh, he pulled on his shoes, sans socks, and dragged himself back down the stairs. In this mist, she’d get sick if she fell asleep out there. He then laughed at the thought. If anyone wouldn’t get sick, it was Willow. She never got sick. She’d once told him she only remembered being ill a few times in her life.

  As he stepped out the front door, he stopped. There, sleeping comfortably in the swing with her mother’s journal on her chest, lay Willow. A quilt covered her, but to Chad, she looked cold. Alhough he hated to wake her, the idea of her sleeping on the narrow swing, rolling off, or getting chilled was too much for him.

  He shook her gently. “Willow, lass, wake up.”

  “He’s good to me, Mother,” she murmured in her sleep. “You would like him.”

  The hollow tones in her voice told him the ache of Kari’s loss was still rooted in Willow’s heart. She must fight the pain constantly and, he realized miserably, probably for his sake. “Lass, come on. Let’s get you inside.”

  “I want to stay out here, Mother. I feel closer to Jesus in the night.” She mumbled the words in a whisper, making it nearly impossible for Chad to hear them.

  Not knowing what else to do, Chad went inside, grabbed her wool afghan from the chaise, and draped it over her. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, staring down at her before he picked up the hand-tied “journal” and carried it upstairs. There was something lacking in these copied journals. He needed to see if the Chief thought the originals were safe at home again or not.

  Upstairs, he tossed and turned. How had he grown accustomed to having her close after only four nights? Finally, in desperation, he lit the lamp and read.

  January, 2001

  I’m broken. I knew this day would come. I knew eventually she’d resent me or worse. Today when I planned a trip to Rockland to discuss her majority with Bill, she asked to go. I refused. Why am I so unreasonable—why do I let my fears overcome me? Why can she not see that I wouldn’t do this unless I thought it was best?

  She attacked me. I want to say I have no idea where this venomous side came from, but I know it would be dishonest. She got it from me, and if it can be passed along genetically, I assume from Steve. The things she said—I can’t repeat them. My heart was broken. I take that back. My heart is broken.

  How long will it take her to forgive me? How long will it take me to forgive her? Is this it? Is this the beginning of the end of this idyllic life I tried so hard to create? Can we ever get past this?

  I can’t stand it. She won’t look at me. I can’t speak to her. We work together in silence and avoid that togetherness as much as possible. Did I blow it? Should I have reconsidered the adoption scenario?

  No! It was the right thing to do. Oh great. There’s a car coming up the drive. I need to go run off a salesman, missionary, or some other obnoxious trespasser.

  Well, I didn’t get back to this for a few days, and I’m glad. Willow apologized, as did I. I told her that the next time I go to town, she’s welcome to come, just not this time. I wanted her to make the decision to go because she’d thought it out clearly, not because I made forbidden fruit acceptable. She seems fine with it.

  Willow just came in and apologized again. She seems broken over her ugliness. It was truly horrible. The things she accused me of doing were vile. I think she’s been rehashing the conversation in her mind and realizes how it cut my heart.

  Her repentance is beautiful. I know I’m a mother and that I am probably unreasonably biased toward my child, but when I think of the people I knew when I was her age—when I think of me at her age, I see justification and anger when confronted with my sin. If not confronted, I was ambivalent. I didn’t care. I brushed it aside and ignored the searing it did on my heart.

  Not Willow. My girl doesn’t do that. She sins—she’s human, but she repents, whole-heartedly. There is no justification. There is only acknowledgement, contrition, and confession. It may take her a while to see it, but once she does, it’s over.

  I love her. I try to imagine her in the so-called “real world,” and I cringe. It’ll destroy her. It’ll ruin the woman that God has m
olded out of His clay. She’d be seared—hardened. Her conscience—how could it remain so tender when constantly beaten by the ugliness of this world?

  Men would be drawn to her, and yet they’d mock her. She’d trust them and then be crushed by their insensitive ugliness. Even a kind man like Bill wouldn’t understand her.

  Bill. I wonder about him. Why hasn’t he married? What horrible things do I not know about him? When Willow had that crush on him, I worried. Now I worry about what happens over the next few years. She’s growing into a woman. It won’t be long before he won’t see her as a child. Will he take her away from me? He’s not blind, he’s not stupid; what will I do?

  Oh how ridiculous. I’m borrowing trouble and being fearful. He’s watched her grow up. If anything, he’d see her as a little sister to fix up with some kid at church—which would be even worse. I need to make sure that home is the most wonderful place to be so that she doesn’t develop the desire for anything else.

  If all else fails, I’ll buy her some of her blasted sheep. She can spend a few years perfecting her sheep and spinning skills and maybe by then, I’ll have something else to interest her. I could always insist that she learn woodworking. After all, eventually I’m going to get old and find it hard to do some of these things.

  She just brought me peach tea. She hates the stuff—even the smell of it but she did it for me. Lord, I don’t deserve such a wonderful daughter.

  Chad closed the pages and laid them on his nightstand. He understood Kari much more than Willow ever would. Her concerns about men—she’d even considered the possibility of Bill. How wrong she’d been. Chad remembered the pain in Bill’s face as he shook hands at arrival and their leaving. The waltz—Willow had sought him out and danced not realizing how much it hurt him to do it.

  She’d been right about one thing. Willow was wonderful. The more he thought of it, he realized that everything he thought he’d ever wanted in a wife—Willow had. “She is wonderful Lord, and like Kari, I don’t deserve her.”