Four Seasons of Romance (5 page)

Catherine made excuses. Didn’t her mother need help with
Catherine’s three younger siblings? Didn’t her father want her nearby to learn
how the judicial system worked in New Hampshire? But, in reality, it was about
being with Leo, so, he took a part-time job at the Woodsville Drugstore’s soda
fountain and grill and continued to see Leo in secret. But she knew their
meetings couldn’t remain secret forever.

In the late summer of 1943, a few months after she’d refused
Waldo, Catherine came home late. She told her parents she’d worked the evening
shift at the soda shop, when in truth, she and Leo had gone to see a movie in a
neighboring town. What Catherine didn’t know was that Judge Woods had stopped
by the drugstore to get a root beer float and to see his daughter a few hours
ago when the manager told Josiah that, regrettably, his daughter wasn’t working
that night.

When Catherine crept up the porch stairs, Josiah was waiting
in a rocking chair. Elaine sat wordlessly beside him knitting a scarf.

“You were with that boy, weren’t you?” Coming from Josiah,
it was not a question, but a verdict.

On any other night, she probably would have lied, but
Catherine was tired of pretending. She could still feel Leo’s arms around her
back, and she missed him terribly. Besides, she was so sick of her romantic
life being a perpetual façade.

“Yes,” she said, “I was with ‘that boy.’ And that boy has a
name. His name is Leo Taylor, and I’m in love with him.”

Josiah rose from the rocking chair and pulled himself to his
full height. Elaine put down her knitting. “Josiah…”

“Silence,” he said, peering down at his daughter’s face.
“Listen to me closely when I say this: you are not in love with that boy.”

Catherine laughed aloud. “Actually, Father, I am.”

He stood towering over her as she looked up into his face
with a fierceness he didn’t recognize. Elaine watched them tensely from her
chair, coiled tighter than a mattress spring.

“I forbade you to have anything to do with that boy,” Josiah
said. “You have flagrantly disobeyed me.”

“Not flagrantly,” Catherine said. “I’ve done it all in
secret. But you know what? I don’t think I should have to hide my feelings
anymore. I’m eighteen, and I can associate with whomever I please.”

With terrifying slowness, Josiah laid a heavy hand on each
of her shoulders as she continued to look him directly in the eye. “Catherine
Delaney Woods,” he
said,
his voice like a raw gravel
burn. “If you carry on with that boy, you will rue the day you ever met him.”

“No, Father,” Catherine planted her feet firmly and shook
his hands off her shoulders. “
You
will rue the day you lost your
daughter.”

She was right; when it came to Catherine’s relationship with
her father, that night was the harbinger of things to come.

*

Summer slipped slowly into fall. The leaves on Woodsville’s
trees turned gold and crimson, rust and burnt orange as the air acquired a
certain nip to it. At the Woodsville Drugstore, Catherine sold fewer and fewer
root beer floats and Coca-Colas. Instead, most of her customers asked for hot
chocolate with a dollop of fresh cream.

She saw Leo every night as they carried on their forbidden
affair right under her parents’ upturned noses. Things were tense in the Woods
household; Catherine and her father hardly spoke to each other, him noting her
late arrivals and early departures with a cold, disapproving eye, but she
hardly noticed.

Catherine and Leo took long walks through the colorful
woods, bundled in coats and scarves, eventually found a blueberry grove still
bearing fruit, far past season, and feasted on blueberries until they were
sick. To avoid any run-ins with Josiah, they ventured out more frequently to
surrounding towns to grab dinner and a movie. Afterward, they spent deliciously
long, passionate hours in Leo’s Coupe, the warmth of their bodies pitted
against the cool autumn night air made the car windows so thick with steam you
could paint your picture in them.

“Run away with me,” Leo said one afternoon, as he held her
in his arms. He hadn’t asked since that night in the woods—he had a feeling
what the answer would be, but the thought of being without her was too
horrible. Why couldn’t she defy what was expected of her just this once?

Catherine sighed. “You know I can’t,” she said. “What would
my parents say?”

Leo shrugged. “I’d take care of you. They’d see that,
eventually. They’d understand that we were good for each other… that I love
their daughter just as much as they do.”

She snuggled deeper into his embrace. What she
didn’t
say was that it wasn’t just her parents’ approval she worried about. She feared
what would ultimately become of them. What if they ended up hating each other
the way her parents did? What if all the magic and passion of their forbidden
romance fizzled once there was no longer a need for secrecy? What if Leo, her
darling Leo, couldn’t be the stable partner so many adult women wanted?

That night, she made it home for dinner with her family, an
event becoming increasingly rare. Her mother had made sirloin steak tips with
green peas and mashed potatoes.

“How’s work going at the drugstore?” Elaine asked,
attempting to be cordial.

“
It’s
fine,” Catherine replied. The
tension was so thick, she wasn’t sure even her steak knife could slice it.

“If she even works there anymore,” Josiah added. “I wouldn’t
be surprised if it’s all a cover.”

Catherine looked away from the table. The three younger
children spooned peas into their mouths without making a sound.

 “It’s not respectable work, anyway,” Josiah continued.
“No daughter of mine should be working at a drugstore.”

“Sorry to embarrass you,” Catherine said, her temperature
rising. Then, she played her trump card. “Maybe you’d rather I leave town with
Leo Taylor. He suggested we elope today.”

Her attempt to anger her father worked as the judge exploded
in rage, spewing peas everywhere.

“
Ludicrous!
” he
spat. “What a ludicrous proposal. I hope you know that although you might enjoy
disobeying me here in Woodsville, ‘having your kicks,’ as they say, if you
pursue a life path with that boy, ultimately, only you will suffer. You will
never have security. Without security, you will never have happiness.
Never.
Do you understand me?” He picked up a steak
knife and ferociously sawed into his meat. “The next time I see that gutter
rat, you can expect a confrontation, I’ll promise you that.”

Catherine stared into her mashed potatoes. Later that night,
she couldn’t sleep. On a whim, she fastened a red flag to her bedroom window,
hoping Leo might come by on a late-night stroll.

He did. As soon as he saw her signal, he went to the old
tree and waited. But as she slipped out the door onto the front porch, she
caught her father’s silhouette in the rocking chair a moment too late.

“Stop,” he hissed. “Don’t go another inch.”

She lingered, debating whether she should run.

“If you run,” he said, “there will be hell to pay.”

The judge motioned to an empty rocking chair beside him.
“Sit,” he commanded. “If this boy loves you so much, he’ll come to you.”

So, Catherine waited in agonizing silence beside her father
in the dark waiting; she didn’t have to wait for long.
Leo,
worried that the red flag meant Catherine was hurt or in serious trouble,
bounded up to the front, caution be damned.

He saw the lamplight glinting off her hair as he approached.
“Catherine?” he called in to the semidarkness. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t answer him,” Josiah interrupted, standing up from the
rocking chair and looking down at Leo. “I understand you’ve been filling my
daughter’s head with nonsense about elopement.”

Leo stood his ground. “It’s not nonsense,” he said. “I love
your daughter,
and
 
want
to marry her. If you won’t allow it, well… we’ll go
elsewhere.”

Catherine could tell from the free manner of his speech and
the slight slouch in his gait that he’d been drinking. “Leo,” she said gently.
“Maybe
it’s
best if you…”

“Do you realize you’re robbing my daughter of her future?”
Josiah roared, ignoring her interjection. “She’ll be the town disgrace. A girl
with a bright future gets sucked into a life of poverty and shame.”

Leo glanced at Josiah. “Where I come from, life with someone
who loves you and would do anything for you isn’t shameful. It’s called love.”

“Don’t tell me about things you know nothing about!”

Leo stepped onto the porch so he and the judge were on a
level plane. Even in the murky light, Catherine could see that both their faces
were red.

“Get off my property!” Josiah yelled.

“Not unless she comes with me!” Leo yelled back. “She has a
right to choose.”

“Please…,” Catherine said. But it was too late. A light went
on upstairs; they had awakened the other Woods children.

“You don’t know anything about your daughter!” Leo yelled,
inches from the judge’s face. “If you did, you’d respect her wishes. But I
don’t think you even care about her, all you care about is your pathetic social
agenda!”

That was the final straw. Josiah pulled his fist back and
punched Leo square in the nose. Leo staggered back in surprise, reached up,
felt his nose, and saw bright blood on his hand.

“Father,
no
!” Catherine said, rushing to Leo’s side,
but her admonishments were like pennies in the ocean—they sank without a sound.

Leo rushed toward the judge and slammed his fist into his
jaw; the judge staggered back, dazed, as Leo headed toward him. Leo’s years of
labor had made him strong, and he had no trouble knocking the judge down on his
front porch.

“Stop it!” Catherine screamed. “Please, Leo, stop!” By now,
her mother stood behind the screen door, crying.

“Stop it, or I’ll never speak to you again!”
Catherine screamed.

Finally, her words penetrated the thick haze of alcohol and
rage controlling Leo’s movements; he pulled back as Josiah struggled to right
himself. Elaine rushed outside and held a dishtowel to his bleeding face as he
pulled himself to a seated position. Through one swollen eye, he gave Leo a
look of hatred.

“I could have you locked up for punching a judge,” he said.
He spat on the porch, his saliva stained red with blood.

“You stand the most to lose,” Leo fired back. “You threw the
first punch.”

Josiah was silent; Leo had a point. Catherine looked at both
of them, shaking her head. “I think it’s time you go home now, Leo,” she said.

His eyes flashed with anger, but he nodded; that was enough
damage for one night.

As Leo retreated down the hill, Catherine brought her mother
a clean, warm towel and watched as Elaine pressed it against Josiah’s cut lip.
She tried to speak to her father, but he would have none of it.

“Just go to bed,” Elaine said woefully. “It’ll all be better
in the morning.”

As Catherine climbed the stairs, she wasn’t so sure. The one
person Josiah Woods disliked most in the world had shown him up. And as the
moonlight shone off the fresh blood on the porch, he vowed to get revenge.

*

The fall of 1943 edged into the winter of 1944 and the news
that came from across the Atlantic was getting darker. The world war that had
seemed so far away suddenly drew close, the headlines saturated with grisly
body counts and dire predictions.

Catherine read the paper each day at the Woodsville
Drugstore. Often, she ripped an article before finishing it: she had a
premonition of losing Leo and the war having something to do with it.

Catherine turned out to be right. World War II would change
their relationship and their lives forever.

It started when Leo’s father lost his job. Acer Lumber was
cutting its staff now that the money was in rubber, tanks, and gunmetal. Ellis
heard jobs were available at a munitions factory in Ohio where one of his
cousins worked. He felt it was his best option—perhaps his only option. So, he
packed a bag and left, nearly overnight.

There were no tender farewells between father and son. Leo’s
decision to stay in Woodsville with Catherine was easy. He wished his father
well and wondered whether he’d ever see him again. Though both his parents were
alive, Leo felt like an orphan.

He rented a room from two guys he’d met at the mill,
dreaming about getting his own place, a little apartment just off the main
stretch where he and Catherine could spend hours together. He hated the
gossipy, small-town nature of Woodsville; once word got out about his fight
with the judge, he found it best to lay low.

But it wasn’t Josiah Woods, but the draft board that ruined
Leo’s plans: Leo Taylor was strong, able-bodied, and courageous. He was also
eighteen and a half—the age of conscription. He was drafted into the military
in weeks of renting his room. He received his letter on the first day of spring
in 1944.

Leo had plans to meet Catherine at the Bath-Haverhill Bridge
later that afternoon. Leo didn’t know how to break the news to her. Because it
suited him just fine to play it by ear, he tucked the letter into his back
pocket, then, he followed the Connecticut River to where the twain met.

Catherine could always read Leo like papers at the
Woodsville Drugstore, his eyes telling her everything before he’d even opened
his mouth.

“No,” she said, not wanting to believe it. “They want you in
uniform. No. No.”

“You need to consider a career as a psychic,” he said,
trying to diffuse the mood. Then, seeing that she wasn’t amused, he pulled out
the letter.

Devastated, Catherine opened her mouth to speak, but no
words came out. In her heart of hearts, she was certain he would be killed; the
letter brought the news she’d been dreading, yet the news she knew would surely
come.