Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (15 page)

The sudden realization dawned on Charlotte that had Paige Spratt been her teacher when she was in school, they wouldn’t have
gotten along at all.
What happened to make her this way?
If Mrs. Spratt wanted to be as plain and
boring as the blackboard, she’d certainly succeeded, but that wasn’t the path Charlotte had chosen.

“A waste of time?” Charlotte echoed.

“That’s exactly right!” Mrs. Spratt answered enthusiastically, mistaking the parroting for agreement. “Besides, you’ll have
enough other things to worry about around town without being a bad teacher besides.”

“Worry about? Like what?”

“Like being a single lady and all of the problems that causes!”

Now it was Charlotte’s turn to fold her arms over her chest. She didn’t say a word, knowing that Mrs. Spratt couldn’t wait
to continue.

“Everyone knows that a single woman your age, without morals, is usually completely desperate to find a man,” Mrs. Spratt
obliged, speaking in a tone much like she were telling a secret. “Tongues around town are already wagging about what kind
of standards you must have. Imagine, a strange, single woman who chooses to live out on a horse ranch! My word!”

Charlotte barely repressed the sudden desire to slap Mrs. Spratt; it came at the exact instant she understood why all of the
teachers before her had given up their jobs so quickly.

“What you need is to find a stable man, a good Christian man with upstanding credentials in the community.” Mrs. Spratt talked
on, oblivious to Charlotte’s angry expression. “Lord only knows what kind of sordid men can be found out on a horse ranch!
Filthy degenerates, more often than
not! A compassionate man is what you need to find, and until you’ve done so, people will whisper and think far less of you.”
And here her voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial whisper. “They might even get the idea that you’re nothing but a whore…”

It was that one word,
whore
, that broke Charlotte’s control over her temper and loosened her tongue.

“Now you listen, Mrs. Spratt, and you listen to me closely!” she barked, feeling a faint tremor of thrill for maintaining
enough decorum to use the woman’s proper name. “If you think that I’m going to stand here and nod my head while you insult
me, well then, you’ve got rocks in yours and should’ve retired years ago!”

“Why, I’ve never been so insulted in all my life.”

“And another thing,” Charlotte snapped, taking her turn at cutting her fellow teacher off. “Your way of teaching might work
fine for you, it might allow you to bore your poor students to sleep, but my way of teaching will work just fine without any
input from you! If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it! Until then, keep away from my classroom and I’ll stay away from yours!”

And with that, Charlotte stepped back and, since Mrs. Spratt had never even bothered to step over the threshold of her classroom,
shut the door in her face with a satisfying click. For a moment, Charlotte was proud of herself, but then regret began creeping
into her chest.

On my first day of school, before my first student had arrived, I’ve made my first enemy…

*   *   *

The rest of the day had been relatively uneventful. After the initial excitement of her students’ arrival, fifteen boys and
girls who looked at her curiously and expectantly, a few gossipy whispers shared among them, Charlotte had settled into her
first day as a teacher.

Some of it had been strange; hearing herself referred to as “Miss Tucker” was something she doubted she would ever get used
to. Writing on the blackboard, occasionally squeaking the chalk, which resulted in a serenade of giggles, was going to need
practice. But the nerves that had plagued her when she had first arrived slowly dissipated, and her confidence grew with each
passing moment. She was stern when she needed to be, encouraging whenever a child faltered, and capable when asked a question.

Today, I am a teacher…

The one moment that stood out in her day, besides her confrontation with Mrs. Spratt, was when she caught Emily Hagemann absently
staring out the window instead of concentrating on the lesson being taught. When Charlotte had to ask her to pay attention,
Emily had exclaimed, “Oh, fiddle! It’s such a wonderful day, too!” and the whole class had burst into sniggers, and Charlotte
had had to suppress her own laughter.

That would have been me, many years ago…

When the last student had left and the room had been tidied up for the night, Charlotte shut off the lights and left the school,
heading for downtown Sawyer; Hannah
would be waiting for her so that they could drive back to the ranch. Suddenly, just before she could even begin to wonder
if Owen would be behind the wheel of the truck, a voice called out to her.

“Well, I reckon you must be the new teacher in town.”

Charlotte stopped at the sound and looked around, but couldn’t see who had spoken. She was in front of the funeral home beside
the school, but there was nobody in sight. Then she noticed a woman standing beside the evergreens that framed the walk in
front of the funeral home.

The woman was tiny, short enough to be dwarfed by the evergreens to either side of her. Dressed all in black from pillbox
hat to sturdy oxfords, she pulled close the shawl draped across her shoulders, even in the waning heat of the summer day.
Using a cane, she tottered toward Charlotte.

“You are the new teacher, aren’t you?” the woman asked again.

“I am… my name is Charlotte Tucker…”

“My, what a pretty name, a name that fits a young woman in the prime of her life,” she remarked. “So much better than ‘Constance
Lowell,’ don’t you think so? I swear, my father gave me the name of an old lady at birth, some woman with one foot already
in the grave.”

“Well… I… I don’t think…” Charlotte sputtered as the realization dawned on her as to whom she was speaking. This was the woman
Hannah had been warning her about when they had first visited the school.

What was it that Hannah had said… that Constance was a bit of a loon?

“Have you ever wondered what type of music you would like to have played at your funeral?” Constance asked bluntly.

“I… I really can’t say that I ever have.”

“It’s truly such a difficult choice, one that most people don’t ever stop to consider!” the woman explained as if it were
the most important thing in life. “You could choose a hymn, a stirring piece of music that practically launches people out
of the pews; you could have a choir, a simple piano, or even a ragtime band! The choices never seem to end and regardless
of how much thought I’ve given the matter, I can never manage to make up my mind. And don’t get me started on the flowers…”

Which seemed like good-enough advice for Charlotte to hold her tongue, but Constance wasn’t willing to wait.

“There’re roses and irises and big bouquets of this and that and—”

“It does sound complicated,” Charlotte interrupted, glancing at her watch.

“Oh, it is, my dear! It really is!”

Charlotte was about to excuse herself, to say that it was nice to have made Constance’s acquaintance, but she had left the
conversation for a moment too long, an insufferable silence that Miss Lowell couldn’t avoid filling.

“Have you ever wondered why people don’t send invitations to their own funerals?” she asked. “After all,
invitations are sent for weddings and for anniversaries, two moments in life that are quite personal, so why shouldn’t you
be able to invite who you want to your own funeral. I can’t stand the idea of Anne Rider gawking over my casket, but I just
bet you she’d come!”

“I really need to get going, Miss Lowell,” Charlotte explained. “Hannah will be waiting for me.”

“There are so many preparations when giving a loved one a decent send-off!”

“—meet someone and get—”

“I have to hurry so that it’s all in place before the fateful day arrives!”

“I need to catch my ride back to the ranch.”

“You never know when your time will be up, nosiree!”

“We’ll talk again soon, okay?”

Even as Charlotte walked away, Constance kept right on talking.

S
ARAH
B
ECK TOSSED
down her pencil in frustrated anger, bouncing it off the old scarred table and down onto the floor with a clatter. It rolled
until it was underneath the stove, and she sent the wadded-up paper she had been using to work out a math problem following
it to the floor. Tears filled her eyes and her lip quivered, a sob barely held in.

“I ain’t never gonna understand any of this! I ain’t never!”

Charlotte sighed, forcing herself to take a deep breath for both their sakes. They’d been working together for days, doing
the same kinds of problems over repeatedly in the futile hope that Sarah would begin to understand.

“Perhaps it’s my fault,” Charlotte offered in encouragement. “I may not have explained it clearly enough.”

“It ain’t yore fault!” Sarah said stubbornly. “I ain’t never gonna learn it!”

“Getting angry isn’t going to do either of us any good.”

“I’m too stupid!”

“You’re not stupid, Sarah,” Charlotte corrected her. “Don’t say that.”

“I am so! I’m just a dumb old prairie gal. I’ll never amount to anythin’.”

Unfortunately, this was the pattern that had presented itself in the days since Charlotte had agreed to John Grant’s request
to teach Sarah. Every night after school, in the hours before dinner, John drove Charlotte down the long and bumpy road, to
the shack. Regardless of the subject, arithmetic, or reading, or even basic spelling, Charlotte was shocked at how little
schooling the pregnant girl had had. Most nights, she went home deeply frustrated, unsure of what avenue remained to her,
unable to determine what she should try next. But every day she came back; true to her word, she would not quit trying.

What frustrated Charlotte the most wasn’t necessarily that Sarah was a poor pupil, but rather that she lacked the incentive
to get better. Every night seemed to end in protests that she wasn’t smart enough to learn anything. No matter how Charlotte
insisted that wasn’t true, no matter what encouragement she offered, Sarah was convinced she couldn’t learn.

Still, Charlotte didn’t feel that she could push Sarah too hard. Because of her pregnancy, she tired quickly. Besides, Charlotte
knew that she was still doing all of the chores around the ramshackle cabin: washing dirty clothes,
doing the cooking, and tidying up. Most nights, Alan was nowhere to be seen; other evenings, he lounged around with a wad
of tobacco wedged in his cheek. His apathy concerning Sarah’s condition made Charlotte furious.

“Did you try to read the book I left for you?” she asked, hoping to move to a more acceptable subject.

“I tried, but I didn’t get too far… some of them words were harder than I thought they’d be…”

“Well then, let’s go over what you didn’t understand.”

The book had been one of Charlotte’s favorites when she had been a little girl back home in Minnesota: L. Frank Baum’s
Wizard of Oz
. Rich with bright illustrations that she hoped would tell the story without the need to understand every word of text, the
copy she had borrowed from the Sawyer library had definitely seen better days. Worn to near-baldness on the spine, dented
on each and every corner, and even missing its title page, the book still pleased Sarah. When Charlotte had presented it to
her, the girl’s eyes had widened in wonder.

For the next twenty minutes, Charlotte followed along as Sarah read, offering encouragement and assistance in equal doses.
Occasionally there would be a word, like
contrary
or
supposedly
, that Charlotte expected Sarah to struggle with or stumble over, but the girl surprised her by pronouncing perfectly. Other
times, she would crash up against
clatter
or
vision
and be incapable of making her way past them without help.

“You’re doing better tonight.” Charlotte smiled. “You really are.”

“It does seem a bit easier,” Sarah said, uncomfortable with giving herself any credit.

They had just read past the part where the Scarecrow joins with Dorothy and Toto on their long journey to the Emerald City
when Sarah gave out a surprised yelp, dropped the book, and scooted back her chair.

“What is it?” Charlotte asked in confusion. “What’s the matter?”

For an instant, she thought that Sarah must be in pain, so drastic her reaction, so wide her eyes, her hands flying to her
large belly. But then a smile of wonderment blossomed across the girl’s face, spreading from ear to ear, and brightening the
whole room.

“It… it was the baby…” She beamed. “I felt him movin’!”

“Oh, Sarah!” Charlotte exclaimed. “That’s amazing!”

“Give me yer hand!”

Before Charlotte could either agree or decline, Sarah reached out and snatched her by the wrist, lifted her shirt, and brought
her teacher’s unsteady hand to the bare skin of her stomach.

“I don’t know if I should…” Charlotte tried to argue.

“Wait for it,” Sarah hushed her.

Seconds passed with neither of them moving; Charlotte had to remind herself to breathe. The skin on the girl’s belly was taut,
as smooth as marble, and warm to the
touch. Suddenly, there was an insistent push just beneath the skin, punching or kicking that jabbed against Charlotte’s palm
near the thumb, an unmistakable sign of life not yet born, but living all the same.

“Did you feel that?” Charlotte asked, followed by the recognition of how silly such a question was.

Of course she did…

Sarah nodded enthusiastically in honest answer.

“Is it often like this?”

“This ain’t the first time I’ve felt him,” Sarah explained earnestly. “But usually it happens just when I wake from sleepin’,
but it don’t often amount to a whole lot more than a tap here or there, nothin’ like the wallop he just gave me!”

“He?” Charlotte asked. “Are you sure it’s a boy?”