Beauty for Ashes Page 0,69
What would people say if they knew Griff Rutledge was supporting her family? Mariah and Eugenie would never let her live it down. To them it would be practically as bad as living in sin. “It was kind of him. But I intend to pay him back every cent.”
“By selling bread, one loaf at a time?” Jasper’s expression softened. “Listen, Miz Daly. I know you’ve got your pride, and it’s an admirable thing. But everybody in Hickory Ridge is barely hanging on these days. You baked bread for the church charity when you were stayin’ at the Verandah. Ain’t that right?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you helped make quilts for them orphans back when Miss Lillian was alive.”
“I was happy to do it.”
“Sometimes it takes as much grace to accept help as it does to give it.” He returned the half-eaten loaf to the basket. “Why don’t you take this on home to Mary’s boys and stop worrying about that gamblin’ man.”
Leaving the mercantile, Carrie glanced up the street toward Nate’s bookshop. How was he getting on? She missed Nate’s keen intelligence, quiet wit, and warm smile . . . and their lively discussions about books and politics. Why couldn’t they have gone on being friends, without the question of marriage intruding? Why hadn’t he been enough for her?
Sabrina Gilman emerged from the post office in the company of a young man Carrie didn’t recognize. Dressed in a pink-and-white striped frock and a straw boater trimmed in pink ribbons, Sabrina looked impossibly young and happier than Carrie had seen her in a while.
The young man took her arm as they crossed the street to the bakery. Sabrina leaned into him, whispering, and Carrie’s heart seized at the memory of Frank and their early days together. Even after the passing of so many years, she remembered his shy smile, the joyous procession from his family’s house to hers on their wedding day, his tentative tenderness on their first nights as husband and wife. The plans they’d made for the future, whispering together in the dark.
So many dreams, snuffed out in an instant at Bloody Pond.
She loaded her supplies onto the wagon and drove home through the waning afternoon. An unfamiliar rig was parked in the yard. Joe and Caleb were nowhere to be seen. Carrie frowned. Those two were never around when she needed them.
She unloaded her supplies and headed inside. Deborah Patterson met her on the porch. “Hello, Carrie. I was afraid I’d have to leave before I could greet you.” She held out her good arm. “Let me help you with those.”
Carrie handed her friend a tin of tea. “Thanks.”
They carried everything into the kitchen. Carrie noticed a tea tray and two cups on the table.
“I made tea for Mary,” Deborah said. “She’s sleeping now, poor thing.”
Carrie nodded. “I wish I knew what was wrong with her.”
“Perhaps she’s heartsick.” Standing on tiptoe, Deborah put away a sack of sugar. “Sometimes a sickness of the spirit is worse than a bodily affliction. There’s more tea if you’d like some.”
“That sounds good.” Carrie looked around. “Where are the boys?”
“Mary gave them permission to go fishing. It isn’t natural for them to spend so much time indoors.” She poured two cups, and they sat at the table. Deborah stirred sugar into her tea and smiled. “My mother, rest her soul, always said I should have been born a boy. She tried to teach me sewing and fine needlework, but when I was Joe’s age, I spent more time swimming and chasing fireflies and climbing trees than with needle and thread.”
Before she could stifle the impulse, Carrie glanced at her friend’s useless arm. How could Deborah have managed such rigorous activities with only one arm and a damaged leg?
Deborah sipped her tea. “I wasn’t always this way. I had a normal childhood until my mother died. I was only nine.”
Carrie nodded. “I was five when my parents died of yellow fever.”
“It’s horrible, isn’t it, being deprived of a mother so young. My father couldn’t take it either. He took to the bottle after that, and drink made him mean. My older brother ran off at fourteen and left me alone to deal with Daddy.”
Deborah shook her head. “I did everything I could not to rile him, but the least little thing would set him off. If I served his breakfast on a chipped plate, if I burned the biscuits or forgot to bring in the laundry, he beat me until he passed out.”
Carrie thought of her