Coldwater Revival: A Novel (5 page)

Nine

I arrived home from the creek in time to help Mama prepare supper. The boys seemed not to notice my stagnant listlessness, but Mama’s keenness detected it at once.

“Do you feel all right?” she asked. “Are you tired, Emma Grace? Is something worrying you, sweetie?”

I mumbled answers, most insufficient, I’m sure, as they failed to soothe the worrisome look from Mama’s face.

I helped her clean the kitchen, and then I hurried to the bathroom. After filling the tub with hot water, I washed myself from head to toe, cleansing away everything but the cowardice in my soul. Trying to put the afternoon behind me, I thought about the dress I would slip on in a few minutes. Holly’s wedding dress. Mama would hem the skirt to proper length and alter the dress to fit my shape; just one more item to check off the final list of wedding preparations.

But later, as I stood on Papa’s footstool, turning a slow circle while Mama tucked and pinned the white cotton skirt, I knew I had pushed the cart before the horse. Again. Seemed the bad habit had been showing up a lot lately. Shouldn’t I have ventured into the past and dealt with my guilt before completing my wedding plans?

As Gavin and I strolled hand in hand down familiar pathways near my home, I lifted my gaze and studied his face. His was a striking face; finely chiseled features cutting a strong, masculine silhouette against the moonlit sky. Darkness lent its own measure of mystery to the man I would call husband. A bit of panic sashayed across my heart when he swept me into his arms, his embrace more fervent than tender. I knew a moment of dread, as though a stranger had purchased my affection, leaving me no choice in the matter. The thought knotted my heart. As quivers shot up my spine—the kind not born of romantic notions, but of fear—I blamed my irrational reaction on jumbled nerves, and on my afternoon of emotional upheaval. Still, I wondered if my fear centered on today’s failure at the creek. Or was my heart speaking to me of other matters, entirely?

“What’s wrong, sweetling? You’re trembling.”

I stretched on tiptoes and met Gavin’s gaze, steadying my voice to prove him wrong about the trembling. “I was just wondering why your dancing feet stopped when they did. Traveling all the way from Ireland, but choosing to halt right here at me.”

“Why, Emma Grace Falin. ’Tis fishing fer a compliment. That’s what ye’re up to.”

Gavin’s quick grin drew a breath from my chest. His smile had always affected me so.

“No, not really. Just considering the facts. You know that half the girls in Coldwater are in love with you. When you walk by, their eyes go all mopey and their tongues hang out like a passel of starving puppies. I’ve seen the way you look back at them, Gavin. Don’t deny it.”

Gavin laughed his rascal laugh; the laugh that could entice Finnian’s rainbow to drop its pot of gold at his feet.

“’Tis a man I am, lovey. Ye’d not be wanting me blind now, would ye? Of course I notice the pretty lasses, but ’tis you who owns me heart. No one else, darlin’ girl.”

I detested the feeling of unrest in my heart. The feeling that something wasn’t right between Gavin and me. I decided that my unease had more to do with unfinished creek business than a problem with our relationship. Most likely.

“I tried on the wedding dress tonight.”

“You mean …
your
wedding dress?”

The look on Gavin’s face gave me pause. I felt my cheeks burn beneath his keen glare. I stammered out an explanation. “Well, of course it’s mine. I just meant that Mama hemmed Holly’s dress to fit me. It was perfect for Molly and Polly, but I’m a lot shorter, and—”

“And ’tis nicely packaged ye are, little one.” His lips met mine in another firm joining, his body sheathing me like an overgrown vine. “Emma Grace … Emma Grace. Do ye feel how me heart’s near to bursting from wanting ye? I’m needing yer love, sweet girl. The love a woman has for her man. ’Tis all I can think about. Are ye feeling it too?”

Though my head bobbed “yes” against Gavin’s broad chest, my heart shook its head “no.” A cloud of foreboding rolled over my soul. I had almost convinced myself that failure to face my past was the reason for my apprehension. Now, as I swayed in Gavin’s embrace, I wondered if it were true. I loved him as I had never hoped to love a man. But was I deeply in love with Gavin, or with the thought of being married? When he and my cousin Robert Falin first arrived from Ireland, I believed God had sent Gavin to be my husband. Now I wasn’t sure. A wave of heartsickness pressed my ribs, lolling my uncertainty first one way, then the other.

“Jesus, bless this food we’re about to eat. Amen.”

The brevity of Papa’s prayer spoke more of the lateness of the hour than his relationship to the Almighty.

Sunday lunches at our house were habitually tardy, due to Pastor Emery’s long-windedness and the extra care Mama took in preparing the Sabbath feast. Today the plank-board table groaned beneath the plates of twelve hungry adults who packed its borders. At a smaller table, situated behind Mama’s chair, were Holly’s three-year-old son, Kade, his sister, eighteen-month-old Karen, and Josey, Molly’s two-year-old daughter. They squirmed, giggled, and banged the midget-size table with pewter spoons that had been pocked and dented by past generations of Falins. With all Mama had to do, she still insisted on having her grandbabies within arm’s reach. Her selfless attention to the children provided Holly and Polly the rare blessing of an uninterrupted meal.

My motive was not so selfless. As I sat at the table, dwarfed by Elo on my left and Gavin on my right, I luxuriated in maternal fulfillment. Baby Abigail, Molly’s seven-week-old daughter, lay stomach-down across my knees. Her diminutive body and light brown curls quickened my pulse, for they called to memory a picture I held dear: Micah and Caleb when they were tiny babes.

Elo seemed unusually quiet today, but the same could not be said for our cousin Robert or my fiancé, Gavin O’Donnell. I only half-listened to Robert’s tale concerning Gavin’s decision to cross the sea.

“… And the young ladies, though ye’d never guess they were twins, followed this poor fellow aroun’ like himself was the Pied Piper. Everywhere Gavin turned, one or the other would be tossin’ her pretty head, or lifting her skirt a wee bit so’s he could take a peek.”

The conversation had a familiar ring. Strange. Hadn’t I been speaking to Gavin about his beguiling charm, just three days prior? The magnetism with which he had snagged the female population of Coldwater and held it spellbound? My hand stilled on Abby’s back as I glanced up at Gavin’s face.
Is the whole world crammed full of lasses just pining to be in your arms?
Gavin’s face held no answer to my silent question; just the Devil’s own roguish smile. No doubt, the same smile that had enticed the girls from Ireland in the first place. I made one of Elo’s snorting sounds, which drew a puckered squint to Gavin’s face. Then his grin broadened. Evidently, it pleasured him to be the center of attention, for he turned a slow gaze on his audience of eleven, one eye twitching into a mischievous wink as it paused on Mama and The Ollys. What a flirt!

“Well, anyways, he must’ve feared the law’d be after himself, or something, ’cause he ups and orders me to purchase our tickets to America two months ahead of schedule. Sure enough, here he comes, running to me house in the wee hours o’ a morning, telling me to pack me things and meet him at the wharf in Limerick in two days’ time.”

As I waited for Robert’s garrulous tale to wind down, I prayed I’d hear at least one redeeming factor to prove Gavin’s virtue true.

Robert lifted his chin and laughed at the ceiling. I studied the faces of my family, perceiving looks of astonishment on the women’s countenances, a variety of expressions splattering the men’s: concern, disbelief, disgust, anticipation. Caleb’s mouth turned up in a naughty grin. At eleven years of age, he rode the edge of adulthood, while basking in the shade of childhood. Anything implying impishness or disobedience snagged his attention like a widemouthed bass clamping down on a night crawler.

“What’d you do? Get some girl in trouble, then run away like the yellow-bellied polecat you are?”

I almost dropped Baby Abby to the floor when Elo’s growl shot past my ear, scorching the air with the stench of hostility.

Time slowed, actions occurring simultaneously as I looked on in bewilderment. Papa ripped the napkin from his shirt collar and slammed his fist to the table. Elo and Gavin rose in parallel motion, teeth and fists clenched as their chairs pummeled the floor behind them. I heard a pitiful squeal fly out of Mama’s mouth, right before she pressed fingertips to stop its advance. My body instinctively curled around Abby, trying to protect her from blows I thought were coming.

“Say what ye mean, boy-o, lest ye want me to sever that fat head from yer shoulders.” The voice of a sinister stranger rang across the room; Gavin’s laughing eyes now deadlier than a viper’s. Pulses of fire flamed his face, while the maze of blood vessels in his neck burgeoned like thick purple ropes.

I surmised that Elo chose not to fight in front of Mama and Papa, because he did two things I had not witnessed before: He turned from his enemy, and he left a half-full plate of food on the table. Neither action spoke of Elo, the fearless brother I had adored and parroted since childhood. I knew it wasn’t cowardice that compelled him from the room.

Without thought for Molly, I lifted Abby to my shoulder and covered her with the blanket on my lap. She and I followed the path to the barn Elo had taken. I knew he would be waiting there, should Gavin choose to end the duel. I suspected Molly would march her body out the door any minute, demanding I return her baby to its rightful place next to her heart. But Molly didn’t appear, and neither did Gavin.

Elo stood where he invariably stood, outside the stall that housed his most prized possession: Samson, a sleek, piebald stallion. Elo stroked Samson between the eyes, tracing the snowy blaze inscribed on his face.

I stared at the two of them, the horse that had cost Elo two hard summers of picking cotton, and the man who loved him. Elo squirreled away his affection like King Midas hoarded gold, but he lavished it abundantly upon the horse in the stable; the white horse whose hide appeared to have been splashed with a bucket of black paint.

I loved Samson too.

Elo turned his back on me. I knew he needed time. Enough time to shut off the valve that was about to blow a gasket under his collar.

“Elo? Why’d you say those hurtful things to Gavin? Don’t you like him? I thought you liked …” Tears sprang to my eyes. I swiped them away with the corner of Abby’s baby blanket. Elo didn’t abide tears well.

He turned to me, lids narrowed to slits. As he spoke, his mouth jerked as though palsied with a tic. “What do you know about this so-called
man
you’re about to marry? Huh? Oh, I know he collects females like they hadn’t the worth of a copper penny, but what else do you know about him?”

“Elo …” I whispered his name for lack of a better reply.

“I’ll be answering fer meself, Emma Grace.”

I swung around and faced Gavin. He leaned nonchalantly against a barn post, his stance belying the vials of wrath mottling his face to angry red. As he spoke, his piercing eyes stayed fixed on Elo.

I stepped back, removing Abby and myself from a path the two snorting bulls would take, should either one charge.

“What’s this all about, Elo?” I despised the way my body cringed, as though I wanted to know; yet feared hearing my brother’s answer.

“He don’t know what the word
respect
means when it comes to a lady, that’s what!” Elo roared.

Gavin straightened from his slouch and set a slow stalk toward Elo. A lion on the attack. During the past weeks, I’d witnessed Gavin packing his cotton sack twice over while other men ran out of steam before filling a single bag. His strength had come with him from Ireland, where he’d done a man’s work since his days in primary school. Workman muscles knotted his arms now, an unruly power barely contained beneath the faded seams of his chambray shirt. A hurricane whipped up in his eyes, tainting their blueness to stormy gray. As he prowled closer to Elo, I squelched his advance with a hysterical screech that would have put a witch to shame.