Miracle in a Dry Season
Read Miracle in a Dry Season Online
Authors: Sarah Loudin Thomas
Tags: #FIC042000, #FIC042040, #FIC026000, #Single mothers—Fiction, #Bachelors—Fiction, #Women cooks—Fiction, #Public opinion—Fiction, #West Virginia—Fiction
© 2014 by Sarah Loudin Thomas
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6411-4
Song lyrics quoted: “Shall We Gather at the River,” Robert Lowry, 1864; “Are You Washed in the Blood?”, Elisha Hoffman, 1878; “I’ll Fly Away,” Albert Brumley, 1932, “In the Sweet By and By,” Sanford F. Bennett, 1868.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Kathleen Lynch
Cover photography by ©Debra Lill/Trevillion Images
Author is represented by Books & Such Literary Agency
For Jim,
who sees the best in me and encourages me
to live up to it.
Contents
1
W
ISE
, W
EST
V
IRGINIA
1954
C
ASEWELL
’
S
STOMACH
GRUMBLED
. He hoped no one in the surrounding pews could hear it. He’d thought to eat some warmed-over biscuits this morning, but the barn cat had slipped into the house and found the bread wrapped in a dish-cloth on the back of the stove. Even though most of a biscuit remained, Casewell knew better than to eat after a cat.
His stomach growled a little louder, and he wondered what he could rustle up for dinner. Normally, he’d have Sunday dinner with his parents, but they were visiting his aunt, who had lost her son—his cousin Harold—in the Korean War a good two years ago. She had yet to get her feet back under her, as his mother put it, so they visited when they could. In the meantime, Casewell would fend for himself.
He could scramble an egg and fry a potato, but he’d burned more than one pot of beans, and his attempts at biscuits and corn bread never browned right. He’d always assumed he’d leave his parents’ house for a home with a wife in it, but at the
advanced age of thirty-five, he lived alone in a house he’d built with his own two hands.
Pastor Longbourne invited the congregation to bow their heads for the closing prayer. Casewell sighed and did as asked. The pastor could get windy at the close of service, and Casewell thought to pray for a short prayer but decided it wasn’t proper. He shifted his six-foot-four frame on the hard pew to find a better position and scratched his jaw where his red beard covered a scar that ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The wound had healed decades ago but still itched from time to time. A reminder of . . . Casewell forced his attention to the prayer. He didn’t need any reminders.
The prayer was indeed long, and toward the end, Casewell’s belly growled loud enough for the dearly departed in the cemetery outside to hear. He heard a giggle from the pew behind him. He dared to peek over his shoulder. A child—a little girl of perhaps five or six—covered her mouth as her mother placed a quieting hand on her shoulder. The girl stilled, but she grinned at Casewell so he forgave her giggles. He was grateful his parents weren’t there to hear. His father would not hesitate to offer criticism.
“Amen,” intoned Pastor Longbourne, and the congregation echoed him.
The pastor walked to the door of the church, and his flock began filing out past him, shaking his hand and offering compliments on the sermon. Waiting his turn, Casewell got a better look at the little girl and her mother—at least he assumed this was her mother. They were new to the church. The pair appeared to be accompanying Robert and Delilah Thornton, who lived in the heart of the little community of Wise—such as it was. Robert kept the one small store that served the im
mediate area. Locals had to drive eighteen miles to reach a chain grocery store, and no one there would know the local gossip, so the Thorntons did well enough. Perhaps the woman and child were family come to visit.
The woman stopped to speak to the pastor, offering her hand and ducking her head. A little thing, she had cornsilk hair under a scrap of a hat, rosy cheeks, and pink lips. She was pretty enough, but Casewell knew pretty didn’t guarantee pleasant.
The little girl peeped out at Casewell from behind her mother’s skirt and giggled. He grinned back without even meaning to. And there was little point in considering how pretty her mama was—nice or not—since there was almost certainly a papa in the picture.
Casewell’s turn to clasp Pastor Longbourne’s hand finally came, and then he stepped out into the soft spring air of the churchyard, eager to make his way through the crowd so he could head home and find something to eat. He could always resort to a jelly sandwich, though it would be a far cry from his mother’s Sunday fried chicken.
As he walked through the crowd, Casewell caught snatches of conversation.
“ . . . young when she had the child . . .”
“ . . . what kind of husband would . . .”
“ . . . too pretty for her own good . . .”
Casewell fought the urge to plug his ears. As he neared the gate to the churchyard, Delilah Thornton intercepted him and grasped his arm. “Casewell, allow me to introduce my niece, Perla. She’s staying with us . . . for a time. You might remember her family—they moved from here back in ’45.”
Casewell wondered at the slight hesitation, but then Perla
stood before him, and her clear, blue eyes completed the pretty picture he’d been noticing inside. She smiled, though there was something solemn lingering around her eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, dredging up a vague memory of a girl with blond curls. “And is this your daughter?”
The little girl smiled up at him as she clung to her mother’s leg. “This is Sadie,” Perla said, placing a hand on the child’s strawberry-blond curls. “She has little to say but finds a great deal to laugh at.” Sadie giggled again, as if to prove her mother right.
At that moment Casewell’s belly rumbled so long and loud that there was no question of pretending otherwise. Casewell felt his ears grow warm and scuffed a boot in the dirt.
“I’m afraid I missed my breakfast this morning,” he said. “And I had best be getting home to my dinner.”
He gave the group a nod and started toward the gate when Delilah said, “But your family is off visiting. I’m guessing there’s not much in your cupboard. Please come eat with us.”
“Right, Casewell,” Robert said. “Put your boots under our table. There’s a mighty fine pork roast in the oven at home, and Perla here has a knack for gathering spring greens. I know you won’t get a better meal in all the county.”
Casewell opened his mouth to decline, but after one look into Perla’s china eyes, he heard himself agreeing to go along. He blamed his moment of weakness on the promised pork roast. The group walked toward the Thorntons’ 1949 Chevy sedan. Casewell admired how good it still looked after several years of use—certainly better than his beat-up ’38 truck with the paint peeling off the fenders. Sadie left her mother’s side and slipped a little hand into Casewell’s large, rough one. She looked up at him with huge brown eyes, and he felt his
heart squeeze. Whether or not the mother charmed him, the daughter certainly did.
The pork roast sat succulent under a crisp, roasted layer of fat. Casewell cut his portion carefully so he got a little fat with each bite. He also ate turnips boiled and mashed with butter and cream, fresh-baked light bread, and the promised greens wilted in bacon grease. Casewell was beside himself.
After eating his fill, he sighed and pushed his chair back a little. “That might’ve been the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” he said. “I thank you.”
“Perla did most of this,” Delilah said, smiling at the younger woman. “She claims she needs to work for her keep, but of course she doesn’t.”
Perla ducked her head and scrubbed at Sadie’s chin, as though the speck of grease from the greens couldn’t wait another minute.
“And you’d best take home a mess of these leftovers,” Robert said. “It’s the darnedest thing—anytime Perla cooks we seem to have leftovers for a week.”
Casewell protested but not very long or loud.
“Come see my dolly,” Sadie said, breaking into the adult conversation.
Perla shushed her daughter. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. Casewell is a grown man and men don’t take much interest in dolls.”
“I make it a habit not to contradict pretty ladies,” Casewell said, feeling expansive. “But I’d be pleased to see Miss Sadie’s dolly.”
Sadie jumped up; then she plopped back down. “May I be excused?” she asked.
“Yes, you may, but don’t keep Mr. Casewell long. We’ll have some dessert out on the porch directly.”
These were quite possibly the only words that could add to Casewell’s feeling of satisfaction with his current lot in life. He stood and allowed the little girl to lead him into what Delilah referred to as the parlor. Casewell sat on the Victorian sofa with its high back and lumpy cushions. It sloped in such a way that Casewell felt the need to dig his heels into the carpet to keep from sliding onto the floor.
Sadie made a beeline for the corner, where a doll sat on a block of wood with a small board propped up behind it to form a simple chair.
“This is Amy,” she said, retrieving the doll. “She knows my secrets.”
“It’s important to have someone you can trust with your secrets,” Casewell said. “But then, you probably don’t have too many yet.”
“Only the one about not having a daddy,” Sadie said with a sigh. “Everyone else has a daddy, but Mommy says it’s our lot in life to get along without one.”
Casewell raised his eyebrows. A widow, then. Or she was . . . well, surely she was a widow. He started to ask and then caught himself. What a question to ask a child.
“Well, it’s good you have Amy,” he said. Then his eyes fell on the makeshift chair. “But is this all the furniture she has?”
“Yes,” Sadie said. “Mommy says I mustn’t leave Amy on the big people furniture, so she made me this chair. I wish Amy could have a bed, too, but she sleeps with Mommy and me for now. Mommy says that’s okay, since it’s just us.”
Casewell smiled to himself, thinking that he knew how he could thank Perla for the fine meal she’d prepared that day.
Delilah called them to the porch for dessert—huge slices of angel cake with sliced and sugared strawberries.