Past Forward Volume 1 (54 page)

“Yes it does. If I’m not in Rockland, there
is
no “us.”

Chad stared at her slack-jawed. “I think
you’re underestimating him, Willow.”

“Hey, those are his words, not mine.”

“He actually
said
that if you didn’t
do it his way—”

She shook her head. “No, no. He said that he
couldn’t live out here. He said that for an “us” of any permanent
kind, it’d have to be in the city. He’s afraid out here.”

Chad didn’t know what to say. “I’m
sorry.”

“I’m not,” she countered. “It’s just how it
is. It was flattering but…”

“But what?”

At first, she didn’t know how to explain it.
Everything that came to mind seemed inadequate, but at last, Willow
smiled as she said, “But I can’t change my life or who I am just
because I respect someone. Even if I loved him, I couldn’t change
me to please him, because eventually we’d both regret it. How much
worse would it be to do that for someone I may not grow to care
about?”

The swing creaked as they rocked. The
crickets still chirped; Saige snored in the corner. Minutes
passed—indefinable. Those minutes, hours, seconds melded into one
homogenous passage of time. Thunder cracked overhead. Rain slowly
dripped from the sky in intermittent and gently falling drops.

Willow’s mind was several years in the past
when Chad’s voice dragged it to the present. “Do you think you’ll
ever marry?”

“You know, I always dread this retreat. When
Chad asked if I could stay it was a huge relief.”

Willow passed Lily Allen a bowl of peeled
apples. “What about your children? They were welcome too…”

“They go up with Tom for the first four days
and then Caleb drives them back home. They’ll come here and at
least say hi when they get into town.”

Lily had a million questions she wanted to
ask. Why was Chad spending so much time on the Finley farm? How had
Willow brought him out of his shell? What about that handsome guy
from the city—the one from the funeral—was he part of the picture
or not? She didn’t know how to begin or where—or even if.

“What made you decide to get married?”

The bluntness and abruptness of Willow’s
question threw Lily off guard. “What?”

“Chad asked me the other night—” peeling
apples kept Willow from noticing the stunned look on Lily’s face,
“—if I thought I’d ever get married.

Curiosity and disappointment mingled into an
indistinguishable expression. “Whatever brought that up?”

“Well, I’d just decided not to move to
Rockland, and he knew that meant I wouldn’t be seeing Bill
much—”

“The man from the city? The one who was here
for the funeral?”

“Yes. Anyway, we talked about my life here,
and I guess I made him curious, but really, he made me curious. Why
do people get married anyway?”

That was a question Lily hadn’t expected.
“Well—”

“I mean, I know why
some
do,” Willow
stated matter-of-factly. “After all, as Shakespeare said, ‘the
world must be peopled.’”

Lily wanted to sink into a hole. Her mind
raced frantically to find an answer that would satisfy without
sending it into awkward directions. Chad had been staying with her.
Surely—no. He wasn’t the kind of—and he’d tried to get people to
come help. Life was busy. Even she’d said no at first. Bentley
had—Bentley!

“Well, there are lots of reasons of course.
Friends become closer and don’t want to live apart. People fall in
love and marriage is a natural result of that. But then, there are
people like Bentley and Greg—” Lily paused. Their story wasn’t hers
to tell.

“That’s not really what I meant. I was
wondering how people decided marriage in general was a good idea
for them—personally.”

The question confused her. Marriage was
normative. Those who didn’t marry, in her experience, didn’t
because they never met someone
to
marry. She didn’t know
anyone, who simply decided not to consider marriage. Of course,
she’d heard of missionaries in dangerous places or people who felt
called to singleness, but nothing like Willow’s question. “I guess
scripturally, most people see marriage as a way to—”

Chad burst in through the door. “Lily, let’s
go. The elementary school is flooded. We need all the bodies we can
get to help clean up the mess. I got the call just outside of
Brunswick so I stopped.”

Willow stood but Chad glared. “I don’t think
so. Make your butter or whatever you’re making. I’ll bring her back
later.”

“I’ll take my own car. Go change, Chad.”
Lily’s assertiveness surprised both Chad and Willow.

Chad dashed out of the summer kitchen and
raced for the house. Lily winked at Willow. “He lives for these
times. He loves the action. We’ll lose him to Rockland
someday.”

She rinsed her hands, carried a few more
buckets of apples in from the barn, and then stood in the doorway
looking to see what she might have forgotten. “I guess that’s it.
Are you sure you’re ok without me?”

“I’m fine, but are you sure there’s nothing
I can do?”

“You can stay here, finish your canning, and
pray for the school board to know how to handle this. Insurance
should cover it but…”

Willow stood at the stove slowly stirring
the apple butter and humming the chorus to “Concert Garden.” For a
moment, Chad leaned against the doorjamb and watched as she tasted
the mixture, wiped clinging tendrils from her temple, and adjusted
the heat on the stove. She lifted the pan away from the heating
element to cool it slightly. Against both his professional and
childhood training, Chad stuffed his hands in his pockets and let
her do it. The weight of the huge pot didn’t seem to affect her in
the slightest.

With both a smile on his face and a sigh in
his heart, Chad slipped from the barn unseen.

“Lily will come back tomorrow afternoon
sometime. She went home to shower and get some rest, but she’ll be
back at the school in the morning. It’s bad.”

Chad stood outside on the back porch
unwilling to come indoors. “I’ll stain up everything. If you can
just bring me a change of clothes…”

Several long minutes later, Willow handed
him a towel with his clothes wrapped in it. The time it took was a
testimony to how hard it was for her to move even after all the
physical therapy. He saw weariness in her eyes and started to
suggest she rest, but she pointed across the yard.

“In the barn, there’s a hook over the back
door. Maybe if you hang the hose over it, you can use it as a
shower. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“Thanks.”

Chad found the hook, and as he opened his
towel, found a fresh bar of soap. “She thinks of everything.”

After his “shower,” Chad took his filthy
clothes to the washing machine and stopped short at the sight of
forty-eight half pint jars along the counter, each one beautifully
labeled. “So that’s what she’s been doing with the colored pencils.
How does she get it all done?”

He found a sandwich on the kitchen table. A
bowl of cobbler and a glass of mint tea sat next to it. He grabbed
the dishes, juggling them carefully as he inched through the front
door and stopped in his tracks at the sight of the empty swing.
Where was she?

“Over here! Eat first, you ninny. You must
be starved.”

The rumble in Chad’s stomach couldn’t be
denied. He sat on the step, ate his sandwich, and watched as she
carefully cut long stalks of lavender and placed them in a flower
basket. He’d never actually seen one of those baskets, but it was
such a natural action for her that it took him until half way
through his cobbler to realize that most women don’t spend their
late summer evenings cutting lavender like someone from a hundred
years ago.

“How come those still have buds on
them?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never seen them last so
long, so I thought I’d dry more.” Her eyes roamed around the
property before she pointed to the winding dirt lane that led to
the house. “We’ve always talked about growing lavender along the
driveway... I think I’ll do it next year in honor of Mother.”

Chad jumped to his feet and hurried to help
as Willow tried to stand. “You tell me when you want to do it. I’ll
dig the pipes.”

“Pipes?”

“To water them while they’re getting
established.”

She smiled indulgently at him. “We don’t use
pipes. We use the garden cart and water barrels, but thanks.”

“That’s so much work!”

Her expression clearly asked, “And your
point is?” but she said nothing. She hobbled to the step each step
growing more confident than the last. “My foot feels asleep.”

Concern filled Chad’s face. “Isn’t that one
of the things you’re supposed to watch out for? Maybe you should
call Dr. Weisenberg.”

“Wrong foot. It’s asleep because I was
sitting on it awkwardly so my other leg didn’t hurt. I’m fine.
You’re being silly.”

“Inconceivable!”

He held the door for her and carried the
basket in as she hobbled awkwardly on a sore leg and a numb foot.
At the kitchen table, Willow spread out the flowers, pulling all
fragile stalks from the bunches and setting them aside. He helped
as much as he could, but Chad felt in the way until Willow asked
him to add the leaves to the kitchen table.

The bundling of each fistful of lavender was
a fascinating process. Willow wound a rubber band around each one,
attached a loop of twine, and then pulled a step stool from behind
the open door. Chad intercepted the apparatus before she could
climb.

“I don’t think so. You hand them to me, I’ll
put them up.”

As they worked, Chad noticed the exhaustion
reflected in her eyes. It quickly turned to pain and then something
he couldn’t define. The last few bunches were ruined by the time
she shoved them into his hands. Uncertain how to help and uncertain
if help was even necessary, Chad resorted to sage advice from his
father.

“I’ll be right back.”

When he returned from a quick trip to town,
Chad found the house empty. He called her name, but no answer
followed. No lights anywhere unnerved him. He’d left her with a
lamp lit in the kitchen and one in the living room, but now,
nothing. He called again. No answer came.

He dashed upstairs, swung his body halfway
into her room, swung back out, and then returned as a dark lump
registered in his consciousness. “Willow?”

“Go away.”

“Can’t do that. I come bearing gifts.”

“If you don’t want that gift shoved into
your gut, you’ll leave me alone,” Willow growled.

He stepped inside the door, “Something’s
wrong.”

“Your genius is underwhelming. Go away.”

Her sarcasm surprised him. He took another
step toward her and saw that she was curled in fetal position with
her back to him. Praying that it was the right decision, Chad set a
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup beside her. As he did, he felt a kick to
his gut and flew across the short space to the wall beside the
bed.

“I told you, I don’t want anything,” she
warned. “What is it?”

“Re-” Chad gasped trying to catch his
breath. “Reese’s. Chocolate and peanut butter. Good. Eat.”

“You risked bodily harm for chocolate and
butter?” Are you crazy?”

Chad slid along the floor, out of range of
her foot, and slipped a tentative hand to her back patting it
awkwardly from his odd angle. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m ticked.” She kicked but missed.

“I noticed. What’d I do?”

“Nothing.”

The word hung over the room like a swinging
axe over the cord that held—what? Each second that passed seemed to
increase the tension until Chad couldn’t stand it any longer. He
stood, ready for her foot this time and caught it mid swing. “I’m
not your enemy, Willow.”

“But you’re here—safe.”

Oh why did that school have to flood
today
? he groaned inwardly.
I need
Lily!