[Desert Roses 02] - Across the Years (23 page)

“She looks just like you,” Leticia commented, appearing not to realize her own words.

“Are you my grandma Murphy?” Natalie questioned.

Ashley didn’t wait for her mother to comment. “Yes, Natalie. This is my mother—your grandmother.”

Natalie smiled sweetly. “I’m sure glad you came to visit us, Grandma.”

Leticia eyed her suspiciously, then lifted her chin. “Call me Grandmother.”

Natalie frowned but only momentarily. “All right. Grandmother.”

“I suppose you’ve had your head filled with all manner of evil when it comes to me and the rest of the family.”

Natalie’s expression changed to complete confusion. She looked to Ashley as if for an answer. Ashley’s heart swelled with pride for her child. She went to stand beside Natalie and gently embraced her.

“I’ve always stood by the conviction that if you couldn’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all. I’ve actually told Natalie very little about my family.” Ashley knew she shouldn’t speak thusly in front of Natalie,
but her feelings were still smarting from the earlier exchange of words.

“She’s terribly small,” Leticia said, returning her attention to Natalie. “Is she sickly?”

“Not at all,” Ashley said.

Lavelle laughed at this and agreed. “She has the energy of ten children her age. I’ve never seen anyone so in love with life.”

Natalie beamed a smile in Lavelle’s direction, then turned her attention back to her grandmother. “I have a pony. Her name is Penny. Would you like to meet her?”

Leticia looked rather horrified. “I should say not. I’ve no time for ponies.”

“Your grandmother needs to be with Great-Grandpa,” Ashley said, squeezing her daughter’s shoulders. “Remember, I told you she would probably have very little time for us. Grandpa hasn’t long, and we want her to spend as much time with him as possible.”

Natalie nodded somberly. “I remember.”

“Why don’t you go change your clothes and then take care of Penny? Maybe later at dinner, you and Grandmother can talk some more.”

“Sure, Mama.” Natalie darted off for the stairs without another word.

Ashley waited for her mother’s painful comments. She didn’t have long to wait.

“She doesn’t look old enough to be the child of that Reynolds man.”

“Well, she is,” Ashley stated flatly. “I left Baltimore and went to live with Grandpa in Los Angeles and moved here shortly before Natalie was born. We’ve had a good life here, and the folks who know us love and adore Natalie. I don’t intend to see you hurt her.” Ashley hadn’t meant to let the latter statement slip out, but now that it had, she intended to stand her ground.

“I’m going to check on Father,” Lavelle said, looking as if
she wanted Ashley and her mother to have a moment alone. She hurried down the hall.

“I know you don’t want to be here. Just as I don’t want you here,” Ashley said flatly. Honesty, blatant and brutal, seemed to be the only way to deal with her mother. “I had hoped your attitude would have changed, but I realized even in your telegram that you had your own ideas to come here and take over. That’s not at all how things will be. Grandpa, Natalie, and I have lived very comfortably these last years. I won’t allow you to turn our order into chaos. Do you understand me?”

Leticia seemed taken aback but not enough to keep from commenting. “You are still the same stubborn, headstrong child you’ve always been. You dug your own grave eleven years ago, but you’ll not dig one for my father as well. I will take charge of his estate.”

“No, you won’t.”

Leticia’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t hope to win against me.”

Ashley thought of something Grandpa had once told her. Something about all things being possible with God. Was that true? Could she count on God to help her if she called upon Him?
God, if you’re listening, I guess I need help now.

“I don’t intend to stand by,” her mother continued, “and see you take from me that which is rightfully mine.”

Ashley shook her head. “There is nothing here that belongs to you. The house and its contents are mine. Grandpa settled his affairs some time back. He’s arranged his own funeral here, with his body afterward being shipped for burial beside Grandma in Los Angeles. His lawyer has the details of his will. His pastor has a finalized eulogy. You may discuss this with either of them, but I will not argue it with you any further.”

Ashley turned to go, but her mother seemed determined to have the last word. “You might notice,” her mother began, “that your father is not here. That’s because he’s dead.”

Ashley turned back around and drew her hands together.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” The statement shocked her, but she’d not allow her mother to see her weakened or made vulnerable by this news.

“You should be. You’re the one who killed him. He never got over what you did. He died three years ago, his heart still broken at your disappearance.”

Ashley saw her mother’s face. She seemed delighted—almost expectant. It was almost as if she thrived on the telling of bad news. Shaking her head, Ashley replied, “I won’t accept any blame in his death, Mother. If there is someone to blame, you might consider yourself. Your negative temperament and bitterness would be enough to kill anyone living close to you.”

With that, Ashley went quickly to the kitchen and out the back door. She heard her mother’s gasp of surprise but didn’t care. The news of her father’s death had been a shock, but nothing that she couldn’t bear. Everyone died, she reminded herself. Ethan, Grandpa, and now her father. Everyone died.

****

That evening, after a most uncomfortable dinner, Ashley took up her week’s worth of mending and sat down to relax in the living room. She’d laid logs in the fireplace earlier and now a fire roared in welcome from the hearth. She loved quiet evenings like this, and usually Grandpa was with her. Now there’d never be any more nights with Grandpa telling stories from his boyhood. There’d never be moments of Natalie stretched out before the fire, watching as Grandpa spoke in his animated way, her eyes wide with the wonder of his memories.

Even her mother’s animosity couldn’t ruin the memories of those times for Ashley. She smiled and picked up her needle and thread. With Natalie and Lavelle taking an evening stroll and her mother visiting with Grandpa, Ashley had a few moments alone to contemplate the day’s events.

Her mother hadn’t changed, nor had Ashley expected she would have. Ashley wanted very much to ask about
her brothers and if they’d married or had families, but she couldn’t yet bring herself to even attempt the questions. Somehow, she knew her mother would use it against her. She could detect weakness in Ashley through her curiosity . . . and even her caring.

Ashley loved her brothers and had always wished to have maintained communication with them. She’d been their darling little sister, much as Natalie was a darling to the people of Winslow. They had doted on her and given her much attention. No doubt her mother had corrupted their feelings toward her. They probably blamed her for their father’s death as well.

Sighing, Ashley picked up one of Natalie’s blouses and began to mend a tear in the sleeve. The child was always getting a tear here or there. Humming one of the hymns they’d sung at church on Sunday, Ashley felt a bit of contentment wash over her. What were the words to that song? She remembered at least the first line—it was the same as the Scripture quoted by the pastor. “Let not your weary hearts be troubled.”

Her heart was weary. So weary of the load she’d had to bear alone all these years. It was hard to deal with the way her family had turned away from her . . . to bear Ethan’s death . . . to raise Natalie alone.

But you were never alone,
she chided herself.
Grandpa has been here all along. How very ungrateful I am acting. Yes, I wish Ethan would have been here, but he wasn’t and Grandpa was, and I cannot discredit the love of that old man.

God had made provision.
The thought startled her. Grandpa was always telling her this. Always commenting that God had never left her to bear the past or the future alone. Could God truly buffer her from her mother’s harsh and bitter ways?

Grandpa said the key was in forgiving. Forgiving people even when they didn’t deserve to be forgiven. “It releases you,” he had told her. “It sets you on a journey of freedom,
and whether the other person involved desires that same freedom or not, forgiveness has a way of lifting you above the mire that weighs you down on the road of life. If the other person wants to stay back in the mud—you can’t very well force them to leave it.”

She thought on those words while moving the needle in and out of the blouse. She’d learned so many skills over the last decade. She was nothing like the scared girl she’d been. Was it possible that God truly had been there all along, helping her each step of the way, giving her exactly what she needed—when she needed it? Was this the next thing she needed? Forgiveness?

“You need to forgive your mother and father,” Grandpa had told her. “They were wrong in the way they treated you, but you were wrong too. You went against them and dishonored them by refusing to obey. True, you were an adult, but you were still under your father’s authority, and you should have sought a different way of resolution.”

Ashley knew it was true. She’d married Ethan in such a whirlwind—as much from a wish to defy her parents’ plans as from her own emotions and desires. She had taken great pride in putting her parents in their place and asserting her own authority. That attitude had been wrong. She knew that now.

“He’s asleep,” her mother stated matter-of-factly.

Ashley had been so deep in thought that she’d not even heard the woman come into the room.

“Yes, I would imagine so. It’s been a big day for him,” Ashley said softly. “I’m sure it pleased him greatly to have you come.”
I can do this,
she thought.
I can be kind and gentle tempered. I can forgive her for Grandpa’s sake.

“He said little. He was in a drugged stupor most of the time.”

“The pain is so great,” Ashley said, looking at her mother’s expression to gauge whether she was really listening. “He doesn’t want to take the morphine, but he needs it. It clouds his thinking, however, and leaves him unable to communicate
as he would like. You’ll have a better time of it in the morning.”

Her mother crossed the room and looked out the front window. “It’s really of no matter. It’s obvious the old man is not in his right mind and probably hasn’t been for some time. He mentioned giving you this house. Is that true?”

Ashley straightened uncomfortably. “Yes. It’s true.”

“Well, that won’t do. We’ll sell it once he’s gone. The money will be divided between Lavelle and myself.” She turned to Ashley. “The same goes for the household goods. I know you had no money when you came here. You may have purchased things over the years with your waitressing salary, but you could never have afforded to do so had he not provided room and board. Therefore, everything will be sold.”

“No, Mother, it won’t be,” Ashley said flatly. She looked at her mother, challenging her to contradict her statement.

“My lawyer will see to it. You’ll have no say in the matter.”

Ashley went back to her sewing as if to prove to her mother that she was unconcerned. “I’ll leave it in the hands of Mr. Watson, our lawyer. He warned us you might try something like this and he’s already prepared.”

“Warned you, eh? Probably because he knew of the lack of legal standing.”

“Mother, you live in wealth and plenty. You have nothing to gain by spending any of your money on this matter. This house wouldn’t bring even a pittance of the price it will cost you to battle for it. As for the furnishings . . . again, they are mostly secondhand or inexpensive pieces we’ve acquired over the years.”

“I don’t care. I want what is mine.”

Ashley was quickly losing the ability to control her temper. “You got what was yours and then some many years ago. Grandpa told me all about it.” She looked up to catch her mother’s face contort in anger. “He said emphatically you were to have nothing else.”

“The nerve of you both! You’ve done nothing but cause
me pain and suffering. I received only what I deserved when that old man decided to sell out to religion. He owed me every cent he gave me.”

“You had already married and married well, I might add. Grandpa owed you nothing. He wasn’t in this world to cover the cost of your life-style. How can you be so cold and calculating in this? Your father is dying. His last wish was to have you and Aunt Lavelle come and see him, and all you can think about is whether there is some trinket or bauble you might sell. What a sad thing. What a very sad person you’ve become.”

“I demand you be silent! You have no right to speak to me like this. You’re a hateful woman, just as you were eleven years ago. I’m glad I took matters into my own hands when the truth came out.”

Ashley looked at her mother’s reddened face and the ugly scowl fixed on her expression. “What are you talking about?”

“Your husband.”

Ashley felt her heart skip a beat. For a moment she wasn’t sure she could draw enough breath to reply. “What about him?”

“He’s alive. At least he was in the summer of 1919.” Her mother smiled smugly. “But I told him you were dead. Told him you’d died in the epidemic.”

Ashley gasped for air. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, you should. He showed up all scarred and ugly from war. He was never much to look at before, but now he was less to look at. Apparently he’d had a good portion of his face blown away.”

Her mother shook her head and smiled. “I couldn’t see you wanting him after that. Besides, as far as I was concerned, you were dead to me.”

Ashley felt the truth of it sink in. Her mother wasn’t lying—she was taking far too much satisfaction from this for it to be a lie. “He’s alive?”

“I’m sure I cannot say. I certainly did nothing to keep tabs
on him. I sent him packing, as you should have done in the beginning.”

Ashley carefully gathered up her things and systematically put them into her sewing box. Getting to her feet, she stood trembling. “I was trying hard to do what Grandpa had suggested and forgive you for your cruelty and vicious nature.” She stared at her mother’s self-satisfied expression and wanted nothing more than to banish her from the house, but for Grandpa’s sake she would let her stay. “But I’ll never forgive you for this.”