Tomorrow's Sun (31 page)

The crayon snapped in Lexi’s hand. She stared at the bumpy red edges of the break, picked up a purple one and broke it, this time on purpose.

Emily was crying. And Jake was hugging her. Holding her like a child, his head resting on her hair—her short, wedged hair he was supposed to hate.

Who cared? Pansy would be home tomorrow. That was all that really mattered. That was all the family she needed anyway.

But she couldn’t keep from looking at Jake hugging Emily. She’d never seen him with his arms around anyone other than her mom or grandma. Sure, he gave Tina a goofy kiss on the cheek when he saw her, but everybody knew that didn’t mean anything. He’d brought the lady with the pretty hair to a family picnic once. She had a name from a book. Heidi. She was nice in a too-nice way, and pretty, but she whispered to Jake the whole time and hardly talked to anyone else. Adam told Jake he was glad when he dumped her. Adam said it, so Lexi didn’t have to.

It probably wasn’t going to happen that way with Emily. Jake looked happy and that should be important to her. But if things had worked out the way she’d planned, they’d all be happy. And Emily would be in California.

She hated the selfish person she was turning into. But it was really just her survivor instincts that made her like this. If nobody else was worried about her future, she had to be. Maybe Adam could just drift along like it didn’t matter where they lived, but she couldn’t. Of course they wouldn’t end up on the street, but what kind of a life would they have living with Grandma forever? By the time they graduated from high school Grandma Blaze would be an old lady. Who wants to bring friends over if the person you live with keeps her teeth in ajar in the bathroom?

Maybe it was time she told Jake about her plan. He’d like it because it would be way better for him than living in an ugly black room in his mother’s basement. He loved his niece and nephew as much as a lot of fathers loved their own kids, and he spent more time with them than any real dad she knew. And she and Adam wouldn’t be any trouble. Adam would mow the lawn and shovel snow and she’d cook and do dishes. She’d even babysit to buy her own clothes.

It didn’t have to be a really huge house. She could give up her dream room with its big arched windows and the bed that looked like a tree house. She wouldn’t mind sacrificing if the three of them could be a family.

She snapped a green crayon.

She had to get Emily out of the picture.

October 15, 1852

“Venison stew.” Hannah handed the bowl to the emaciated man as Papa covered his shoulders with a blanket. “It’ll warm you.”

“Thank you. God bless your kindness.”

Papa sat on the bench across from the man who called himself George. “How long have you been on the road?”

“Since las’ snow.” He kept his eyes on the soup bowl. “Stayed on awhile near Springfield. Buried my little girl there.”

Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. “I’m so sorry. How old was she?”

“Only saw ten summers. Los’ my wife las’ summer tryin’ to give birth once again.”

Papa put his hand on the man’s back. “I lost my wife to the fever last year, but I can’t imagine the heartache of losing a child.”

George’s head swayed from side to side. “Shoulda stayed. My sister told me to stay. I left her ‘n’ my mother. I couldn’t stand the thought of one more plantin’, but maybe my Mariah’d still be here if I’d stayed. They’d’a brought the doctor so’s not to lose her.”

“Was it the fever?” Papa’s eyes pooled with tears.

“Infection took my girl. They can take the strap to me. Won’t stand for it with my own. Still, they wouldn’ta let her die … like I did.”

Hannah took a step forward. “The infection came from a whipping?”

“Yes’m.”

Fingernails biting the flesh of her hands, Hannah kneeled at the man’s feet. “You must not blame yourself. Not for one minute. You took your daughter away to save her from further beatings. You did the right thing. It was their fault.” The figure in her mind, face distorted like an angry, hateful mask, arm raised to crack a whip, resembled Liam’s father. “The man who lashed her is the guilty one.”

Papa raised his hand to still her. “Are you a God-fearing man, George?”

“Wouldn’ta lived long ‘nuf to see my baby born if’n I weren’t. Lawd’s been good in spite of the bad.”

“Then I think we ought to pray.”

George folded large, work-worn hands. Papa closed his eyes. “Heavenly Father, we come before Thee with heavy hearts. Great evil has been done to this man and his family. We ask for Your peace to flood his heart and, Lord, hard as it is, we ask for forgiveness to flow like the breath we…”

Hannah clenched her hands together, but couldn’t form words into a prayer.

“Amen.” George wiped his face with both hands. “Miss Hannah, may I give you something?”

“You don’t need—”

“I want you to have this.” Scarred fingers reached into a pocket in his frayed coat. “I was workin’ on a set of animals for my little girl. Noah’s animals. Two by two.” His gaze wandered far from the small room. He pulled out a tiny, intricately carved frog. “I’ll keep the other one for ‘memberance, but I want you to have this one.”

As she held out her hand, it shook with the sobs she could no longer control. “I will pray for you when I look upon it. I will pray you will soon be reunited with your mother and sister. As a free man.”

Chances
Est. 1843
An Establishment of Fine Food and Spirits

E
mily sat in a captain’s chair at a table in the corner and read the history of the building on the front of the menu while she waited for Dorothy.

The original claim to the land on what was then known as the Pishtaka River was laid by Levi Godfrey, who built a log cabin on the site in 1836. Levi added a second story to the house and turned it into a tavern. People traveling from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River would often share meals with his family and spend the night on his dirt floor. After the log house burned down, the property was bought by Peter Campbell. In 1843, Campbell built the present brick building, then called the Union House.

Emily laid the menu on the green place mat. She glanced at the entryway to the dining room and imagined Hannah Shaw walking in. She could see her in a floor-length blue dress like the woman in the picture on the wall, her hair braided and coiled at the back of her neck, a blue velvet bag swinging from her wrist.

Hannah would glance up at the pressed-tin ceiling as she laughed at some witty comment. Her eyes would follow the rough-hewn beam that separated the dining room from the bar, which may have been the tavern back then. Would she and her beau have ordered from a menu? Maybe they’d have only a few choices—roast lamb from a local farm, or fresh venison with seasonal, locally grown vegetables.

Would she and Hannah have been friends? How different her life would have been had she been born in Hannah’s era, when women didn’t have careers, live in their own apartments, or go on unchaperoned dates. They didn’t ski, and recreational drugs were unheard of. Hannah’s letters lamented the few choices open to women of her day. If only she could have seen the other extreme.
Hannah, you were so safe
.

Emily thought of the women memorialized in the English Settlement Cemetery. Many had lost children. Most probably experienced more loss than she would ever know.

But not at their own hands.

Across the room, a black-and-white picture of four men sitting on what appeared to be a dam, dangling fishing lines into the river, spoke of a time when life was never easy, but so much simpler. If she’d lived here in 1852, she’d probably be married with several children. Living a hard, simple, and probably happy life.

Dorothy’s tiny frame appeared in the doorway. She waved then stopped to talk at three tables before sitting in the chair across from Emily. Her face rippled with concentric laugh lines. “Were you waiting long?”

“You’re right on time. I came early to soak up the ambience.”

“This part of the building was built a few years before your house. So Elizabeth Shaw and her daughter could have sat right in this very spot sipping tea.”

“I was actually just thinking about that.”

“We’re all connected. I always picture history like holding a mirror up to a mirror. We’re reflections of the people who came before us and the generations that follow, don’t you think?”

What happens to the people whose reflections stop here?
Emily glanced up at the fishermen and made herself present in the moment. “That’s a beautiful way of putting it.”

“Makes history not so dry. I was a teacher for thirty-seven years. Always tried to help my students see the things that happened before us as still alive, just in a different time continuum.” She tapped a crooked finger on the vinyl tablecloth next to her place mat. “Like your Shaw ghosts. Still alive, just not fully.” A myriad of fine lines fanned away from twinkling gray eyes.

“Do you really believe there are spirits living there?”

“Well, I believe places hold memories, and if we know how to look and listen, we can learn magical things.” Faded eyes narrowed. “So tell me what you’ve learned.”

Emily’s fingers tightened around her water glass. She took a long, slow drink. She cleared her throat, wiped her mouth, and was saved by their waitress.

The woman refilled Emily’s cup and poured decaf for Dorothy without asking. “Ready to order, or should I come back in a few minutes?”

Emily looked at Dorothy. “You haven’t had a chance to look at—”

“Oh, I know this menu about as well as I know my own name. I’ll have the ahi tuna salad, Helen.”

“Vinegar and oil?”

“Of course.”

“Ma’am?” The server looked at Emily and for a split second she was conscious of being an outsider. There was no place in this world, not even back home, where she could walk in and order “the usual.” She turned the menu over and pointed halfway down the page. “I’d like the chef salad with French and bleu cheese on the side, please.”

The waitress headed to the kitchen, and Emily studied the scalloped edge of her place mat. In spite of all she might learn from sharing her finds with Dorothy, this wasn’t the time. She’d already planned out the “reveal.” She’d invite Blaze, Tina and Colt, and Dorothy for a preview of the cellar and the letters. She’d let Dorothy break the news to the state Historical Society and even invite reporters if she wanted. It would all play out on the day she listed the house and left.

She tried to match a bit of Dorothy’s excitement. “The booklet about the English Settlement Church says they did extensive remodeling in 1967. Do you know if any of the original pews still exist?”

“Some of the members took pews. I imagine some of them are still around. Why do you ask?”

“There’s a church pew in my attic with a carving of a cluster of grapes on the back.”

“Really?” Dorothy licked her bottom lip. “I’d love to see it. It looks old?”

“Very.”

“I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows anything. Anything else?”

“On the back of the cellar door there’s a very faint image of a basket of apples. It was hand painted and the carving on Elizabeth’s headstone is so similar.”

Dorothy leaned forward. “Doesn’t seem like it could be a coincidence. There were fruit trees all around the house when I was young. It’s very possible the Shaws planted the originals.”

A faint chill shimmied down Emily’s spine. “Jake took two layers of flooring off in the kitchen this week, down to the original wood. There are several paths worn in the wood—between the back door and the cellar and the cellar to a corner cupboard that appears as old as the house. I haven’t seen ghosts, but it’s so easy to imagine the family sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch or the women shelling peas in the kitchen.”

“Mirrors.”

Emily nodded.

“My son thinks I live in the past too much.” Dorothy traced a bead of water down the side of her glass.