By Way of the Rose (36 page)

“See what?”

“Just come on! It's a surprise.”

“All right, all right!”

John drove quickly out to the limits of town where the Simpson's house was. “There it is.” John pointed towards the white-washed farm house with a picket fence surrounding it.

“What?”

“Our new house! Should you come to your senses and marry me as you know you want to.”

“John, you didn't!” She felt repulsed.

“I did... I bought it today!” He smiled proudly.

“John, you didn't listen to a word I said!” she huffed bitterly. “You never should have made an important decision about our lives together without including me. I told you I haven't decided, and that I wanted away from here! If you had listened to anything I said you would have known better than this!”

“I thought you'd love it.”

Suddenly Sarah felt a wave of sickness come over her. Her face grew pale.

“Are you ill?”

“I'm not feeling well. I think I'm going to be sick.” She clasped her hand over her mouth.

“Just take it easy.’ he wrapped her in his arms and helped her back to the wagon. “It was very foolish of me to buy a house without asking you about it first,” he agreed in disappointment.

The shaky ride toward home and the swaying motion of the wagon made Sarah feel even sicker. Her head swirled and her cheeks began to tingle. She knew she was going to be sick. “Stop!” She groaned. “I need to get out!” John pulled back on the reigns and Sarah leapt out even before the wagon had stopped. She ran to the bushes to throw up.

John rushed to her side. “Do you need a Doctor?”

“No, I think I just ate something that didn't agree with me. I feel fine now.”

“You look pale. I'm sorry if I upset you about the house. It was so thoughtless of me, but I thought it'd make you happy.”

“I'm fine.” Sarah rubbed her face in her hands. “Just please consult me before making big decisions about our life. I think we should be together on such things.”

“I understand what you mean. You're right.”

The next morning, Sarah couldn't even get out of bed. Her face was pale and she was purplish around the mouth.

“There's something wrong with her,” John insisted. “I'm going for the Doctor.”

“There's no use in wasting money on a Doctor for this. She just has a little upset stomach!” Marion threw her eyes toward the ceiling.

“Momma, I'm getting the Doctor. I know something is bad wrong with her.”

Sarah turned over in bed and the room began to spin. Everything got blurry and came back into focus. She felt the odd stirring in her stomach again. Her cheeks tingled and her mouth began to water. She swallowed hard but she knew it was futile. She crawled out of bed, pulled out the chamber pot and leaned over it. “Oh.” She groaned as she vomited. Her eyes watered. She smoothed the wet rag over her face that Marion had given her. She shoved the porcelain pot back under the bed to be cleaned later, then lay back down and closed her eyes.

Before she knew it, John was waking her. “Sarah,” He lightly shook her “wake up, the Doctor's here.” Then he turned and left the room as the doctor sat his bag on the bed.

John anxiously waited for the Doctor to come back and tell him what was wrong with Sarah while Marion went about doing the chores.

Suddenly, John heard Sarah cry out. “No, oh God no!” The blood curdling scream made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He felt the same odd feeling he'd felt that day when he'd come back home. Something eerie and dark was in her screams and it frightened him. He ran into her room. “What is it?”

“Are you going to tell him, or should I?” The doctor glared at Sarah.

“You tell him... I can't.”

“John, get your mother in here. This isn't something I want to say twice.”

John rushed into the yard calling for Marion. “Momma!” he yelled franticly. His mind raced. Something must be terribly wrong. Was the doctor going to tell them that Sarah was dying? All he knew was that it was something horrible.

“What is it?” Marion rushed to him.

“Something's wrong with her. The doc needs to see us both.” Marion walked quickly with John in the lead. When they were back in her room, he asked, “What's wrong with her Doc?”

“Sarah has sinned greatly.” The doctor shook his head in seeming disgust.

“What?” John's nostrils flared.

“She has committed the sin of fornication... and from that lustful act a bastard child has been conceived. Sarah is with child.”

“What, what are you saying?” John stepped toward the good doctor as if he were going to sock him dead in the face. “You can't be saying what I think you're saying!”

“Yes, I'm saying it plain out, Sarah is with child.”

John looked at Sarah. “I— Is this true?”

She saw the pain in his face; she couldn't take it. What did all this mean? Why was this happening to her? Being raped wasn't enough? She had to have Nathan's baby too, this evil
thing
growing inside of her? To see the pain in John's face made her want to die.

“Is this true?” John pounded the wall with his fists.

She looked away and shook her head as a tear fell.

“Who... who have you been with? Whose is it?”

“Stop it, John... please, Just stop.”

“Stop? Stop? You want
me
to stop? Did you ever think of asking
him
to stop? Who fathered your bastard?”

Sarah wanted so badly to tell him the truth, but she knew he'd kill Nathan and then he'd probably be hanged for doing it besides tearing the family apart. “Do you even know whose it is?”

“Yes, I know.”

“I bet I know too!” John quickly turned and rushed out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Marion called after him.

“To get Shane Thompson.”

“No John!” Sarah yelled, but he was gone. She tried to get up but another dizzy spell hit her and she fell back in bed. “Momma, stop him!”

“What has to be done has to be done.” Marion's words poured out over her cold, tight lips. “You belong with Shane Thompson. I'm not stopping a thing. Whatever happens is your own fault. You've been nothing but trouble to this family since the day we took you in! If I had known then what I know now it never would have happened.” She turned her head in disgust. “I wish I'd never laid eyes on you!”

“At least now I know where I stand,” Sarah retorted. “Thank you for finally coming out with it. All those years of confusion as I kept trying to believe I really did have a mother. It's good to finally have it clarified for me. You were never my mother and I was never your daughter. You made that plain enough, yet I kept hoping beyond hope that I was wrong and that you truly cared for me.” Sarah laughed bitterly. “I'm so very stupid!” She glared through tear rimmed eyes.

Marion said nothing more as she and the doctor slowly left the room.

John stomped towards Shane with a look on his face that was hardly friendly. “Well I suppose you pleased yourself!” John snarled.

“What are you talking about?”

“You enjoyed yourself, did you?”

“I don't know what you mean!”

“Well, here... let me help you out. Sarah's pregnant with your little bastard!”

Shane looked at John in shock. “Pregnant? T— that can't be!”

“It can be and it is!”

“You don't think I did it!”

“Who else was there?” John huffed.

“I don't know! But it certainly wasn't me!”

“Don't lie!” John grabbed him by his collar as rage boiled up in him at the thought of Shane leaving Sarah to bear his bastard child. “I'm picking you up in the morning, and you are going to marry Sarah, even if it's by the barrel of my Poppa's gun.”

“I'll gladly marry her! But it's not my baby.”

“We'll be here at eight in the morning. Be ready. And if you even think about running out on her, I'm warning you, I'll hunt you down and you won't live to see that bastard you've fathered!” John stomped away.

When John got home he went to Sarah's room. “Dizzy or not, you're getting married in the morning.”

“Really? To whom?”

“You know who... .Shane.”

“Is that what you want?”

“What I want? What I want was the woman I thought you were! Now that's gone!”

“John, please, you don't understand.”

“I learned a long time ago where babies come from, Sarah. I don't need nor do I want your explanation.”

“You don't care what happened?”

“No, I don't. You think I'm a fool, don't you?”

“No, John, just listen to me, I... ”

“What exactly
did
you think? Jesus, woman, I can't stand the sight of you!”

“Then leave me be; please, just get out!” Sarah turned over in her bed. She felt like crying, but the tears wouldn't come. A deep and fearsome anger had taken her over. If John had shown her any sign that he cared about what really happened, she would have told him. She wanted to so badly. She wanted him to know that she had not dishonored herself willingly. But he didn't care. Sarah felt that to him, it didn't matter how it happened... just that it happened. She was ruined, no good. A nothing! Her idol, her protector was nothing more than a dream conjured up from the mind of an abused little girl! And she, in his eyes, was a “little Princess” who had fallen from grace.

That night Sarah sat in the parlor alone absentmindedly thumbing through a catalog. She heard a light tap on the window and looked up to see Shane's face looking back at her.

“Come out here!” he demanded.

She walked outside. She reached out to him, but Shane pushed her away. “Is it true? Are you really pregnant?”

“Shane, don't push me away, please not you too. Don't shun me!”

“Answer me! Are you pregnant?”

“Yes.” Sarah dropped her head.

“Who's is it? I know it ain't mine! It can't be John's. Who's the third man here, Sarah?”

“What does it matter? You don't have to marry me. I'll just leave.”

“It matters a lot to me! I'm the one who loves you and I'm the one who's getting blamed for it!” Shane stepped toward her and his look softened. “I don't care whose it is. I love you. I just want to know what happened. I know It ain't mine. Something happened and I want to know what!”

“I can't tell you, Shane. I just can't. Let's just get married and forget how this happened.”

“You don't have to tell me. I'll never make you do anything you don't want to. I'll love you and I'll love your baby forever! It will be mine.”

Sarah walked through the door and was startled to see John sitting there.

“John, wh— what are you doing up?”

“Just wondering how many times a night you sneak out to meet your lover. Is that how it happened? You sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to meet him?”

“What? I'm a grown woman, John. I wouldn't have to ‘sneak out.’ If I wanted to go somewhere, I'd go. And that's far from how it happened.”

“Oh... well you two looked really sweet out there hugging under the moonlit night. So romantic it could even cause you to forget yourself and the one you claim to love.”

“Is there anything to prevent you from thinking I'm a loose woman? How else can a woman get pregnant? Think about it for a moment.”

“Sarah, go to bed... you've got a big day ahead of you. Tomorrow is your wedding day.”

“No matter, at least I'm marrying the man who truly loves me.” Sarah stomped out.

When she opened the door to her room Jennie was there. “I heard about what happened. I know you, Sarah. I know something isn't right. Did someone force themselves on you?”

“Yes, Jennie, someone did.” Sarah turned her face from her sister as she said, “I was raped!”

“Who did it? When Sarah? When? Why didn't you tell someone?”

“It was the day Shane found me down by the stream. I am so afraid to tell anyone! But I have to say something before I die! No one can know. There'd be trouble!”

“Tell me who it was!”

“I— it was Nathan, he raped me!” The words gushed from Sarah as she poured out all the sordid details for the first time.

“Oh, that vile monster! Shane needs to... ”

“No Jennie, I mean it. Don't ever tell him! If anything were to happen to Shane because of this, I'd never forgive myself nor the person who told him!”

Sarah didn't know it but Jennie wouldn't keep her word. If Shane didn't take a gun to Nathan, she would! After Sarah had gone to sleep Jennie flew to Shane's cabin. Out of breath she gasped. “Sarah was raped and I know who did it!”

“Who?” He grasped Jennie by her arms. “Tell me who it was!”

“It was Nathan! Sarah told me, she told me it was that day you found her, down by the stream.”

Shane's face fell. “I remember that day... she was lying crumpled at the water's edge... I thought she was crying over John again. She told me she loved me... oh, I thought heaven had opened up to rain down all its blessing on me. But all the time, my dear, sweet Sarah had just been violated in the worst way a woman can be violated by that spawn of pure evil! That bastard!” Shane felt sick and began to tremble. His square jaw clenched and his blue eyes flashed with fire as he declared. “I'll make sure he never hurts her again! Everything is going to end tonight!”

“I knew you would! Go get him Shane! Get him for me too!”

Shane cut through the woods leading to Nathan's place. His shotgun was loaded. He was ready. Arriving at Nathan's shack, he pounded on the door.

“Can I help you with something?” Nathan stuck his head out.

“Get out here, you low-down piece of scum!”

“Why should I get out there?”

“I want to talk to you about your sister.”

“Since when do people
talk
with shotguns in hand?”

“Do you want me to discuss what you did to Sarah in front of your wife and young'uns, or, are we going to go someplace private?”

Nathan stepped out of the house and strutted past Shane and into the yard. His cotton shirt was unbuttoned and flaring open in the evening breeze. His suspenders hung lose from his dirty, woolen pants. He was barefoot and chomping on a wad of tobacco. At the end of the drive, Nathan looked back. “Now, what's all this about?”