Toward the Sunrise (9 page)

The work was dirty, demanding, and never-ending, but he couldn’t recall a time in his life when he’d had such fun. Goats had no respect for working hours and were happy to go into labor at any time during the day or night. Julia had been sleeping on a cot in the kidding barn, but Ashton stayed with the majority of the goats in the pole barn. Twice he’d been roused in the middle of the night when a goat needed transfer into the kidding barn.

He estimated they were delivering between ten and twenty baby goats per day. As busy as it was, there were still long stretches when there was nothing to do. He and Julia sat on the floor of the kidding barn, leaning against the wall and talking about everything from Julia’s ambitions to see Mongolia to his love of baseball.

“It is the perfect spectator sport,” he told her. “My father and I would find a spot in the bleachers, and the games are so long and boring we had time to talk about everything under the sun. And then would come the moment when the bases are loaded, a good batter steps to the plate, and that amazing, unmistakable sound when the crack of a bat echoes over the stadium. The whole world explodes in a roar, and we’d stand and scream until our throats were raw while the men rounded the bases. Then we’d take our seats again, and Dad and I would go back to the conversation where we left off.”

“What about your mother? Did she ever go?” Julia asked.

He sighed. His mother’s health had always been tricky. Sometimes she had to spend weeks in bed. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he’d always been so close to his father. “She was never well enough to leave the house that long,” Ashton said, but he was careful not to paint his family in a negative light, for he couldn’t imagine two better, more loving, more generous parents. “My mother couldn’t go with us to the games, but she always wanted a blow-by-blow account when we returned. I think my father enjoyed that part almost as much as the games.”

He picked up a piece of straw, shredding it while reaching back toward the golden memories that would always be a touchstone for him. They’d had a good life. Not perfect. They’d had more than their fair share of medical bills and illness, but it never dampened the sheer joy of a loving family. “She died when I was fifteen. After that, it was just Dad and me, but we still go to the park whenever the Dodgers are playing at home.”

They still lived together, too. After Ashton earned enough money to get their house back from the bank, he climbed up to the shabby eighth-story apartment where his father had lived after losing the house. Ashton laid the title of their old Brooklyn townhouse on the table, alongside their rent payment book for the apartment.

“You can burn the rent stubs if you want,” he said quietly. “We don’t need them anymore.”

His father had no idea how diligently Ashton had been saving to get their house back. When he picked up the house title and realized what he held in his hand, his father’s eyes pooled with tears. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he swallowed several times before speaking. “Okay, son,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

There was no need for thanks. His father was the great, generous foundation of his world. They would not have lost their house in the first place if his father hadn’t mortgaged it to pay Ashton’s college tuition. They never spoke of it again, but they both moved back into the modest townhouse where they’d been so happy. They still went to baseball games together. They went to church on Sunday, and afterwards to Chinatown to feast on gingered duck and fried dumplings. No man had a better father.

When he first went to college, Ashton dreamed of joining the foreign service to see the world. To be able to walk the Silk Road, to sail the seas of the Orient, to be an envoy to the ancient monasteries in Lhasa.

Those romantic boyhood dreams came to an end when he realized there were more important things than walking the Silk Road. There was the love between a father and a son. There was the obligation to repay a debt, to build a foundation of financial security and ensure they need never fear for next month’s rent. There was the satisfaction that came from a job well done.

It had been a good choice, one he never regretted. And if he sometimes felt a twinge of envy when he read Julia’s letters from college? It was a minor thing. He looked forward to her letters that babbled of her soaring Oriental dreams and always wished her well.

Strange, but the only thing he and Julia never spoke about during their endless tasks of caring for the goats was her return to college. Each time he tried to broach the subject she diverted his attention to a kid who needed help learning to nurse, or a water trough that needed refilling, or countless other things. He finally gave up, figuring Julia would be ready to return to Philadelphia as soon as the last goat was safely delivered.

At least they were never hungry. In addition to the meals provided by Mr. Hofstad, once a day Sophie van Riijn came from Dierenpark with a huge basket of food. How could he have been visiting Dierenpark for years and never noticed this stunning woman before? The first time Sophie arrived, standing on the other side of the white picket fence with her basket, he had to blink his eyes to be sure he wasn’t imagining the angelic vision that had just arrived on the farm.

“That’s Sophie,” Julia said as she set down a bucket. “You might want to close your mouth to be sure you don’t attract flies.”

“But who
is
she?” Ashton asked.

“Her mother used to be the cook at Dierenpark. Sophie isn’t on the payroll, so that’s why you’ve never met her before. Anyway, she likes it up here and can’t stay away. Actually, I think she is hiding up here. She’s still mourning her fiancé, so you might want to wait a half hour before you attempt to snatch her away like Paris absconding with Helen of Troy.”

He’d have to be deaf not to hear the jealousy in Julia’s tone. Which was ridiculous. Sophie was lovely, but that sort of willowy beauty had never appealed to him. Strangely, he’d go for the girl with straw in her hair and daring enough to deliver goats while still smiling.

At first Julia didn’t believe Ashton would actually stay for the duration of the birthing season, but he settled in without complaint and worked from dawn until dusk. Plenty of times he worked in the middle of the night when a doe went into labor.

When he knelt beside her by the warm glow of the lantern, his sleeves turned back to reveal strong wrists and capable hands, she thought he might be the most attractive man she’d ever seen. Wasn’t that odd? She had never taken much notice of him when he was the prim attorney sitting across the desk at Dierenpark, but ever since he’d rolled up his sleeves and got elbow deep in goat birthing, she found him impossible to ignore.

They got along brilliantly together, laughing during the chores and chatting amiably during times of rest. And she loved looking at him. With his starched collar gone and shirt unbuttoned to reveal the strong column of his neck, he looked relaxed and happy. He was smart and fun and supportive.

The only dark cloud on the horizon was when he nagged her about getting back into college. It was annoying, and she wished he would stop. Didn’t they have enough to contend with without worrying about Philadelphia?

Besides, the topic worried her. She hadn’t exactly told Ashton everything about her expulsion. She’d pretty effectively burned her bridges on the way out the door when she gave vent to her temper before the Board of Trustees. The prospect of showing up on bended knee, appealing for their mercy . . .

It was too much. There was no way she could reenroll before January anyway, and she didn’t want to talk about it right now.

But Ashton did. The issue came to a head one afternoon while he was helping her repair a wooden feed trough that tipped over when one of its legs rotted through. Neither one of them knew what they were doing, but Julia figured they had everything they needed in Mr. Hofstad’s rusted old toolbox, and how hard could it be? She found a block of clean wood that could be cut to size, and Ashton sawed it to the appropriate dimension. They flipped the trough over to remove the rotted wood.

“This is a bit like surgery,” Julia said as she pried out the old nails to remove the rotted piece of wood. She gave a crisp nod when she saw how perfectly the new leg fit in place. Maybe she didn’t need to go back to medical school, after all. She didn’t
need
to be a doctor in order to find satisfaction in life. She could work with animals. Or maybe become a nurse.

“Have you thought about how to approach Dean Kreutzer at the school?” Ashton asked as he pounded a nail in place. “You know her best, and any insight you can give me will help prepare our case.”

“It’s very impressive the way you wield that hammer,” she replied. “I’d suspect you’ve done this before, were it not for that canary-yellow vest you wore the other day. No man who feels comfortable wearing that shade of yellow ought to be familiar with the wielding of farm implements.”

“The dean?” he pressed. “What were her precise objections to the incident with the dog?”

“I’m thinking maybe Nickolaas Vandermark won’t mind if I don’t return to medical school.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Ashton had stopped nailing, sitting back on his haunches to look her directly in the eyes. “He wants you back in college, and I intend to make that happen even if I have to pound on the door of every medical college on the eastern seaboard.”

“I think Mr. Vandermark wants me to be happy and doesn’t care if I become a doctor or not.”

“You really don’t know Nickolaas Vandermark,” he said in a warning tone.

“I know that he is a decent, caring man. Almost every month that I’ve been in school he’s sent me packages and little gifts. And I know he reads the letters I send because one semester when I mentioned we were about to start studying dentistry, he sent a leather-bound case of dentistry tools. When I mentioned that I grew up reading the
tales of Marco Polo and hoped to someday see Mongolia, he sent me a watercolor of the palace at Xanadu. It was charming—and proves that he isn’t as heartless as you think.”

“I sent the gifts.”

He spoke so quietly she wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly, but the odd way he looked at her confirmed it. She stilled, trying to absorb this new information as Ashton looked at her through cautious blue eyes. He looked part defensive, part vulnerable, and suddenly everything made sense. His knowledge of China and Tibet. His passion for Asian food. Even his vests that were usually embroidered with Chinese symbols.

“Why would you do such a thing?” she finally asked.

“Because I admired you,” he said simply. His face flushed and he turned away, grabbing the hammer and pounding another nail into the leg of the overturned trough.

She blinked in confusion. “But you never said anything. All those years when you’d visit Dierenpark, you never breathed a word.”

He didn’t look at her as he put the tools back in the box. “It is common for Mr. Vandermark to send gifts and holiday remembrances to his business associates and the charities he supports. I usually handled such transactions, and of course he approved of sending you something now and again. But when I read the thank-you letters you sent, I wanted to do more. I still used the rubber autograph stamp because it would seem strange if you knew most of them came from me. But you shared my love of the Far East, and I wanted to send you something nice.”

“I never knew . . .” Her heart squeezed. No one had ever looked after her or cared about her well-being like that, and it made her want to weep. He’d been doing these kind, thoughtful things for the past three years and never once asked for a thank-you. Part of her wanted to rush into his arms and plaster kisses all over his face, but she stayed rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by the surge of emotions welling inside.

Now that Ashton had started talking, it was as if the floodgates had opened. “My mother was always sick when I was growing up, and it terrified me,” he said. “She and my father were my whole world. She had seizures, and when she suffered fits, it was horrible. I wanted to help, but my father always sent me to another room.
There was nothing I could do for her, and I think it bothered them for me to witness her seizures.”

He turned to look at her. “When I went to my room, I found comfort opening the pages into the world of Marco Polo. There I found no terminally ill mothers. No father struggling to hold back tears as he watched his wife slip away year by year. I found adventure and discovery. I found ancient monasteries and the perfumed courts of Kublai Khan and mountain peaks so high they seemed to pierce the heavens.”

The wistfulness faded from his face as he turned to look at her. “My mother died when I was fifteen, and my dad still mourns her. I am all he has left, and I can’t leave him, not after everything we’ve been through together. I’ll never sail to China or anywhere else in Asia . . . but when I first read your letters, I caught a glimpse of those long-ago memories that once sustained me. Julia, I want you to live your dreams. I want you to sail the seas of the Orient and drink yak milk and listen to the sounds of the bamboo flute as you drift to sleep at night. I will do anything to see that you get there.”