Dandelions on the Wind (3 page)

Woolly knew the farm. He belonged here with his family. Maren understood Mrs. Brantenberg’s reserved reaction to his sudden homecoming, but still, she’d watched the man and his daughter find their way back to one another. Once his arm was healed he’d be of much greater help with the harvests than she would. And, with Gabi’s father at her side, the little one would no longer require Maren’s attention.

The fact remained that in his grief, he’d abandoned his mother-in-law … left her to mourn one loss atop another. Would Mrs. Brantenberg find it in her heart to forgive him and let him stay, or would she send him away?

Maren hoped he’d stay. For their sake, and for hers.

Woolly could very well be the answer to her prayers. His presence here would make leaving the farm easier, could free her to find a paying job in town. Allow her to dream anew of going home … to Denmark.

When Mrs. Brantenberg bowed her head, they all did the same. Thankfully, her blessing was brief. Maren set a hunk of hard bread on her plate, then handed the basket across to Mrs. Brantenberg.

“Butter for your bread, Miss Jensen?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Maren reached for the edge of the bowl. Instead, her hand plopped into the middle of the soft, warm butter. She should have taken the time to focus her vision before reaching for the dish. But she had placed too much trust in her peripheral vision in candlelight. Embarrassment seared her ears.

Gabi giggled.

Mrs. Brantenberg clicked her tongue, silencing her granddaughter.

Maren wiped her hand on her napkin.

“PaPa, did you know that Miss Maren’s eyes don’t work right? She uses her hands to see.”

She hadn’t used her hands on purpose.

“I didn’t know.”

The man must think her an idiot. She didn’t wish to know if he was staring at her, so she turned the other way.

When he brushed her forearm with the bowl, she focused her vision and scooped butter onto her plate and passed the bowl to Mrs. Brantenberg.

“Now I understand.”

Her stomach soured. What exactly did the man think he understood? Losing his sight, not being able to see a sunset? Pressing her tongue behind her front teeth, Maren smeared butter on her roll, then willed her eyes to focus on his whiskered face.

“I’m sorry.”

Now he was offering her condolences … pity? That was what drove Orvie away, wasn’t it? Pity. She smeared butter on the bread’s crusty surface. “It’s not your fault I cannot see.”

“No.” He raised his coffee cup to his mouth. “I meant to say I’m sorry I thought you were … uh, a bit
touched
.”

She straightened in the chair. “You thought
me
crazy?”

Woolly spooned potatoes onto his plate. “You could’ve told me.”

“You were the intruder, sir. I was alone in a barn with a stranger, and you would have me say I am going blind?” She set the butter knife on her plate too loudly and took the potato pan from him. “You didn’t tell me you belonged here.”

“You and PaPa are like the barn cats.” Gabi giggled.

“Liebling.” Mrs. Brantenberg reached for her coffee cup. “Eat your dinner.”

“The cats sound like they are fighting when they play.”

The man’s chuckle stung Maren’s ears. She had only just met him, and in little more than an hour the situation had gone from bad to good, then to worse. She stood and set her wadded napkin on the chair. “Pardon me. This evening belongs to family.” And she had left what remained of hers in Denmark.

***

Woolly stood. He couldn’t scold his daughter for her embarrassing statement. It wasn’t his place to reprimand her anyway. Not when he’d left her in his mother-in-law’s care. Furthermore, Gabi had drawn her conclusion in innocence.

Mrs. Brantenberg tapped her mug with her fork. “I cannot abide wasted food.”

The pink rounds on Miss Jensen’s cheeks had spread and deepened into a strawberry red. She slid into her chair.

Woolly sat just as quickly. No need to vex his mother-in-law any further.

When Mother Brantenberg scooped a spoonful of cut-up schnitzel onto the bread in the center of Gabi’s plate, his daughter picked up her fork and looked at him, a smile firmly planted on her sweet face. At least someone in the house was glad to see him.

Woolly bit through the crisp surface of the bread into the soft, aromatic center. He may not deserve Mother Brantenberg’s home-cooked meal, but he intended to enjoy every bite nonetheless. Scooping potatoes onto his fork, he glanced sideways at Miss Jensen. The young woman sipping her water seemed thousands of miles away. He’d recognized the Danish accent. She was obviously unmarried and living here. He’d seen evidence of that in Gabi’s bedchamber—a dressing gown in a size too generous for his daughter draped over a bedpost. Her understanding of English made it obvious her immigration hadn’t been recent. Good chance she was one of the countless war widows. Probably answered to
Miss
because of her familiarity with Gabi and Mother Brantenberg. His guess was that her thoughts were of Denmark.

Woolly savored another bite of Mother Brantenberg’s pork cutlet schnitzel, his mind whirling like windmill blades in a stiff breeze. The meal was as familiar as yesterday … as foreign as the unknown future.

Miss Jensen set her glass on the table, her brow creased. “Wherever will he sleep?”

Woolly straightened in the chair. He’d sleep anywhere but the cabin. He looked up at Mother Brantenberg. She was staring—not really at him, more like through him.

“I’d like to stay in the barn, if I may.” He hadn’t considered his mother-in-law would have someone here. Miss Jensen obviously lived in the house as part of their family. He was a man who’d come home to three females living in the house, and one of them was a single woman not related to him. A woman who assumed Mrs. Brantenberg would let him stay. He wasn’t so sure.

“As you wish.” Her voice devoid of sentiment, his mother-in-law spoke over the rim of her coffee mug. “As you wish.”

“It stinks in the barn.” Gabi pinched her rounded nose, then smiled at him. “But Snowflake is all woolly and warm, and she lets you snuggle.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. Somehow his daughter had managed to maintain a measure of innocence in the madness of the past four years.

“Thank you.” He’d happily spend the night in the barn. He’d seen the buckets and a wooden tub in there. He knew where to find the water pump, and he was well overdue for a bath.

“The Ransoms are gone.” Mother Brantenberg stared at him, her gray eyes laced with sadness.

He nodded and set his fork down. “I stopped at the empty cabin when I first reached the property.” His throat suddenly dry, he gripped his coffee cup.

“The bushwhackers came last year.” Mother Brantenberg rolled her lips. “You weren’t here. They drove the Ransoms away in the dark.” Her voice quivered.

His stomach knotted. He had taken part in night raids. The memories of families being rousted heaped more self-loathing on him.

“I couldn’t stop them.” Her shoulders sagged.

His arms on the table, Woolly made himself look her in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

So sorry, for more than he could ever say. For not listening to Gretchen. For his wife’s death. For selfish grief. For war. And acts of war. For thinking he could escape the worst of the pain by leaving. And now he regretted his return. Understandably, his mother-in-law hadn’t welcomed him home with open arms and even seemed sorry to see him. All he’d done was bring her anguish back to the surface.

***

Less than thirty minutes later, Woolly carried a pillow and a woolen blanket tucked under his sling. A lantern dangled from the other hand, flickering in the moonless night, casting dim light on the whitewashed barn. A swirl of memories sped his steps. Stealing kisses from Gretchen out behind the barn. Her PaPa catching them and making him muck out the corral right then, under the heat of a lecture. A June wedding under a canopy of oak leaves. Then came the vise he felt in his gut the night his wife died. The fear he felt when he was sent to Arizona Territory to quash the Indian uprisings. The image of the Apache girl about Gabi’s age. Her black hair framed a face scarred by the horror of the raid on her village. On her family.

Woolly stepped into the muggy warmth of the barn and closed the door. The animals had bedded down for the night. The lantern illuminated the shovel Miss Jensen had wielded like a club when he’d startled her. The young woman had pluck. Had to have a hardy bit of it to cross the seas to America and work the farm, all the while losing her eyesight.

As he climbed the steps to the loft, new images filled his mind. A little girl with a big smile had hugged his neck, an aging woman who’d been like a mother to him served him a hot meal, and a woman who was going blind seemed able to see into his daughter’s heart.

But was he home?

He would try to accept responsibility for his family, if Mother Brantenberg would give him the chance. He’d sat at the familiar dining table with the mother-in-law who once loved him and the daughter who never knew him. All of that was far more than he deserved.

***

Maren lowered herself onto the edge of Gabi’s bed, her mind filling with memories. The child’s sobs, her PaPa rushing into the room and kneeling at her bedside. His declaration that his daughter had been a gift; that he and his wife sang to their unborn child.

Her thoughts turned to Orvie as she pressed her hand to her empty midsection. She scolded herself for dwelling on the past and expectations that would never be fulfilled. She’d not heard a word from Orvie in four years. Didn’t even know if he still lived.

“Miss Maren?” Gabi pulled the quilt to her chin.

Maren brushed soft brown curls from Gabi’s forehead, then willed her eyes to focus on the child’s little round face. The lantern she had lit on the side table cast a golden light around bright blue eyes. “Yes, little one?”

Gabi worried her bottom lip. “Oma’s nose was red, like when she’s angry. Does she not like PaPa?”

Maren swallowed hard. To say the man hadn’t received a warm welcome from Mrs. Brantenberg would be an understatement. An indication that she didn’t like him. Not a suitable response to share with a four-year-old girl whose most fervent prayer had been answered. “Your Oma was surprised to see him. A lot of time has passed.”

“Four years.” Gabi pressed four fingertips to Maren’s arm.

“Yes.” She shifted, pressing her knee into the side of the horsehair mattress. “Your grandmother needs time to know how she feels.” She tucked the cotton-edged quilt at Gabi’s shoulders, hoping the action would tuck in the child’s thoughts for the night as well.

“Will she let PaPa stay?”

Maren met Gabi’s persistent gaze. “I don’t know, little one,” she said, “but tomorrow is a new day.” She didn’t know if Woolly intended to stay.

A yawn bunched Gabi’s cheeks. “Good night, Miss Maren.”

Maren brushed her lips against Gabi’s forehead and stood. “Sweet dreams.”

Surely the child’s dreams would be sweet, having been reunited with the father she had never met.

Maren whispered a prayer over Gabi and lifted the lantern off the table. A long list of questions circled her mind as she descended the staircase toward the kitchen. Dare she ask them?

Inside the kitchen, she hung the lantern on a hook and pulled a clean dishtowel from a shelf. She joined Mrs. Brantenberg at the cupboard. “She will sleep soon, if not already.”
“Danke.”
Mrs. Brantenberg handed her a wet bowl.

Crickets chirped outside the open window. The plow horse nickered at the corral fence. All of them much quieter than the question tugging at Gabi’s heart and echoing in Maren’s head. She dragged the towel through the inside of the bowl.

A plate slipped from Mrs. Brantenberg’s hand and splashed into the dishpan. Instead of retrieving it, she looked at Maren, her lips pressed. “I should be thankful he is alive.” The woman’s words came out flat. “I should be happy Gabi has her PaPa.”

But she wasn’t?

“I am.” Mrs. Brantenberg sighed and turned toward the night outside the window. “I want to be.”

“God has given you the chance to be a family again.” Even as she said it, Maren knew it wasn’t the family any of them had imagined in the beginning. Mrs. Brantenberg didn’t have her daughter back. Gabi didn’t have the mother who had borne her. And Woolly was without the wife who had given him a beloved child.

“I loved him like my own son.” Mrs. Brantenberg brushed wisps of gray hair from her face with wet hands. “I lost my dear husband Christoph, Gretchen, and Rutherford—all three. Gabi was all I had left.”

Maren longed to say something to ease her employer’s anguish. But if the right words existed, she surely wasn’t acquainted with them. She had considered the newborn daughter without her father, but not the grandmother suddenly living without her daughter
and
without her son-in-law. With a baby to raise. Then her beloved friends and helpers had been run off under the cover of darkness. Mrs. Brantenberg had loved and lost so many. No wonder the man’s abrupt return was causing the dear woman such tumult.

Swallowing regret for all of them, Maren added the bowl to the stack. “And now that he has returned?”

“I do not know what to think, or feel. Or if I even can.” The widow handed Maren a wet coffee mug. “How could he have walked away? Tell me that.”

Maren lifted her shoulders and let them fall. She didn’t know what she would do in Mrs. Brantenberg’s stead. If Orvie returned after four years with a change of heart, could she forgive him and utter their postponed vows?

“If he wants to stay, will you let him?”

The widow’s chin quivered. “I should.”

As Maren wrapped her towel around the cup, another question wrapped itself around her heart. If Mrs. Brantenberg didn’t let Woolly stay, would he want to take his daughter with him?

Four

B
lack feet bleeding and heart pounding, he ran as fast as he could through a dark forest. Dogs barked as shots rang out behind him. Children wailed. Tree limbs slapped his body, raising welts. Until … the crow of a rooster stopped him. Woke him.