Catch a Shooting Star jd edit 03 12 2012 html (10 page)

“Can she handle a heavy pail of water?” he asked almost accusingly.

“She can and does,” Abigail snapped, and then softening her voice, she continued, “She has to.  I need someone to help me around here.”

Feeling sorry for the feeble old woman, Travis scooted the chair from the table and stood over her as he declared, “Well, I’m here now.  It’s time you take it easy.  I’ll get supper for you.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it,” the woman said, shaking her head in the negative.  “I’ve done it for forty-seven years.  I can do it until my last breath.”

“I can understand that you want to feel needed, but you said yourself that the doctor said you should relax.”

“Well,” she started with a sigh.  “I’ll start tomorrow.  You’ve been traveling for a long time.  Besides, you need to get to know that little one.”

As if being summoned from the yard, the child in question backed her tiny body into the screened door and sloshed the heavy pail into the kitchen, her miniscule face a mask of determination.  She set the wooden bucket on the floor at Abigail’s feet then wiped her small chubby hands on her miniature apron.  Glancing at the strange man as she hurried to the stove and threw open the heavy door to check the fire.  Dropping to her knees, she reached for a piece of wood and thrust it into the fire, tapped down the coals and then shoved the wood into the rolling flames.

“That’s a good girl,” Abigail praised, never looking up from her work.  “Now, come over here and meet someone.”

The girl swiped her palms together to remove the soot and then rubbed them on her apron when black marks still remained.  Her black ringlets dangled around her face as she looked at one hand and then the other and satisfied that they were fairly clean, she raised her green eyes to the man who sat in front of her.  Her dazzling smile revealed tiny straight teeth and twin dimples in her cheeks at the corners of her full lips.  The freckles that speckled her nose as she scrunched it in apprehension at the stranger were a testament to the hard work that this tiny creature must have had to endure.

“Hannah Claire, this is your father,” Abigail blurted out as she waved a hand in his direction.

The little girl’s expression changed from distrust to disbelief as her tiny mouth opened into an excited ‘O’ before she sucked in a breath and thrust her hand out toward him and exclaimed, “Finally, my father!”

Travis couldn’t help but chuckle at her statement as he took the small callused hand into his own.  A tug of sadness for her made him want to take her into his arms and promise that he would never make her work so hard again.  But, knowing that she had been the only help that Abigail had, he squeezed her hand gently and nodded, saying, “I am very pleased to meet you.”

“Thank you, sir,” the little girl said as she pulled her hand from his and took her skirt into her fingers and curtseyed.

“My, how polite you are,” Travis marveled as he settled back in his chair and smiled.

“I am pleased to meet you, Father,” she said as she let her skirt fall back around her ankles and touched a forefinger to her chin.  “Should I call you Father?”

Travis thought for a moment and contemplated what his daughter should address him as, then in a sudden burst, he said, “When I was young, I called my father Poppy.  You may call me that if you wish.”

“Poppy,” she rolled the word over her tongue before nodding in agreement and threw her arms toward him and squealed, “Poppy!”

Without a second to think or to ward off the girl she was in his arms, wrapping her chubby arms around his neck and squeezing with all her might.  Taken by surprise, Travis’ first instinct was to repel her familiar show of affection, but his heart made him wrap his arms around her and squeeze her right back.

The smell of her hair against his cheeks brought back so many thoughts of his Melody and he was suddenly assailed by the anger that had taken up residence in his hateful heart for so many years.  Wrenching her intertwined fingers from behind his neck, he pulled her onto his knee and, with the warmth that he knew that the little girl expected but not what he felt, he scooted her from his knee to the floor and said, “Poppy needs a towel to wash up for dinner.  Can you go and find one for me?”

With a bright smile, she nodded and with her mission established, she skipped down the hallway and disappeared into a room.

As she rounded the corner, Travis took in a deep breath and declared with a heavy heart, “I can’t do this.”

“You have to,” Abigail said matter-of-factly, never looking up from her work.  “As I told you, I am not healthy and there is no one else.”

Travis thought for a moment.  Remembering that Melody’s parents were probably too old to care for a child, if they had not died already, he knew that this little girl had no one else to care for her but him.

“What about your daughter?” he asked pleadingly.

“She moved up north with her family.  And, now that you are back, I’ll be moving up there with her so she can take care of me in my old age.”

“But, I can’t,” he said, his voice cracking in his excitement.  Without the courage to say his wife’s name, he groaned, “She’s too much like
her
.”

“I see that every day,” Abigail agreed with a nod.  Then, she shook her finger at him and scolded, “She is your responsibility.”

With a heavy sigh, he agreed, “I know.  I just need some time to adjust to this, to her.”

“I’ll telephone my daughter in the morning and it should take them a few days to arrange for me to get there.  That should be enough time, I think.”

Without a word, he nodded and stood up.  He made his way to the porch where he let his body fall into the rocking chair and then he put his head into his palms in defeat. 

Tears, which he had forced away for so many years, now came rolling down his arms to his elbows and dripped onto his pants.  His shoulders racked with sobs while he finally released the anguish of losing the only woman that he had ever loved.  His chest very nearly burst with the throbbing of his grief-swollen heart as he rocked the chair to and fro in his overwhelming misery.  Finally, his breath came in exasperated gasps as he expended the last of his energy and all that remained was an exhausted heap of the man that he once had been.

He sucked in a long, hard breath and wiped his sleeves against his cheeks as he gained control of his emotions once again.  Knowing that it would take every ounce of courage for him not to jump onto his horse and ride away from this devastatingly distressing situation, he rubbed his palms on is pants legs and rose to re-enter the house.  A sniff of resolution gave him the fortitude to realize that he was all that little girl had and she was all that he had as he swung open the door and stepped into the life that he had avoided all of these hate-filled years.

            “Why are you crying, Poppy?” a shrill voice greeted him in the darkness of the kitchen.    

            “Dust in my eyes,” was all that he could think of to say as he swept her into his arms and blinked away any further sorrow.  “Now, let’s get some supper on the table!”

            Hannah’s face lit up with excitement and she clapped her chubby palms together as she squirmed from his arms and jumped to the floor, her feet skipping into action as she hurried to do her father’s bidding.

            Following her animated lead, Travis strode toward the stove and dropped a heavy pan onto the top, asking of Abigail, “What is on the menu for tonight?”

            Taken by surprise, the older woman chuckled under her breath and then announced, “Bacon and eggs, fried potatoes and biscuits.   That’s about all that we have left.”

            “Well,” Travis said as he washed his hands in the basin and dried them with the towel supplied by his daughter.  “I’ll just have to take care of that, won’t I?”

            He touched a forefinger to the freckled little nose and asked, “What are your favorite things to eat?”

            Without a thought as to her answer, she blurted out, “Chicken and dumplin’s!”

            “That sounds wonderful,” he said as he clapped his hands together.  But, as he remembered that there had not been any chickens in the yard, he asked, “Where are the chickens?”

            “We ate ‘em,” Hannah said, shrugging her shoulders as if he should have known the answer. “The eggs were a gift from our neighbors, the Greens.”

            “Well, I’ll get us some chickens and a pig…” he started.

            “And a cow.  That child hasn’t had milk since she was a baby,” Abigail interjected.

            “And a cow,” Travis agreed.  Then, he thought for a moment before he added, “And we’ll all go into town and get some flour and sugar and other supplies.”

            “Sugar!” Hannah repeated, rubbing her palms together in anticipation.

            With the room aglow with excitement at the prospect of replenishing the pantry, Abigail’s mood rose to a new cheerfulness as she set about making the evening meal.  No matter that she was using the last of the flour and the final three eggs for supper, she regaled in her mind.  Tomorrow, along with more staples in the house, there would be someone else to take over the responsibilities.  As if renewed in her strength and vitality, she sashayed to the stove and urged Travis to leave her to her duties.

            “You take the little one into the parlor and get to know each other while I finish up here,” she offered with a smile on her youthful looking face.

            In the parlor, Hannah guided her Poppy to the worn settee and then scooted herself up beside him.  She reached for a box on the table beside them and placed it into her lap as if it held her most valuable treasures.  With a smile of excitement and a gleam in her apple-green eyes, she whispered, “I’ve been saving these for so long.  Now, I can finally show you.”

            In awe at her words, Travis nodded and drew her closer to his side with his arm and waited for her to slowly open the lid of the unadorned wooden box.  As the contents were revealed, he drew in a breath and then let out a sigh of affectionate amazement at the items that the little girl had kept for so long and now felt the necessity to include him in the unveiling of her most secret possessions. 

            He watched as her pudgy fingers picked out each piece of her prize and she announced its significance.  With the blue ribbon, which she laid across his leg as if it were made of the grandest silk, she declared, “This was Mama’s favorite color.”

            Choking back the lump in his throat, Travis nodded, which was received with great appreciation by the little girl who continued with her explanation, “She told me in a dream once that she is beyond the blue sky and I should always remember that if I am sad or lonely, I should look up and she will make me feel better.”

            “And do you do that when you are sad or lonely?” Travis found the voice to ask as he stroked her coal black hair.

            “Only in the day.  At night, there is no blue sky so I hold this to my heart and I look at the stars.”

            She pulled out Melody’s engagement ring and held it to her chest to emphasize her words.  Then, she raised her long lashes to look up at him with her full lips turned down in a frown as she added, “Miss Abigail said that I should give this to you.”

            With a heavy heart at his daughter’s sadness at losing what must have meant so much to her, he shook his head and closed her tiny fingers around the ring and told her with a soft and loving voice, “I’m sure Mama would want you to keep it.”

            Hannah’s eyes lit up and a wide smile brightened her face.  With more animation, she slid the ring onto her thumb and continued her explanation of the contents of her treasure box.

            “This,” she said with a sideways glance at him. “This is my Poppy’s favorite thing.”

            Travis let her place the golden object into his palm and he marveled at the way it still gleamed in the sunlight.  The watch that his father had given him as a boy still ticked its merry yet monotonous tune after all these years.

            “I kept it winded for you,” she explained in her little girl voice. 

            “You did such a good job, Hannah,” Travis said in amazement as he flipped the lid and tripped the latch to start the melody that he had not heard since he was fifteen.

            “It’s my favorite song,” she said as she tipped her curly head back and forth in time with the music.  “I play it every night before I go to sleep.  It helps me to remember that you will come back some day and now, you’re here.”  

With as much maturity as she knew how to show, she imitated him by closing his fingers around the watch and said, “So I don’t need it anymore.”

Travis’ eyes welled up with her words but he blinked away the tears and smiled warmly as he said, “I am here.”

As he tucked the watch into his shirt pocket, he watched her pick through the remaining items and then she removed a lock of silken black hair, which was tied with a ribbon that matched the first one that she had taken out of the box.  As if he should already know, and he certainly did know, she announced, “It’s a lock of Mama’s hair.”

She placed it gingerly in his hand and then reached up to catch a tear that slipped onto his cheek as she pleaded, “Don’t cry Poppy.  Remember when she gave it to you when you left to go to work?”