Katie: Bride of Virginia (American Mail-Order Brides 10) (11 page)

“I'll finish breakfast,” she said moving towards the stove. “No, I'm cooking this morning and then I'd like to take you for a buggy ride around the property. I want to show you what you're a part of,” he said gazing at her, his blue eyes sparkling with warmth.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I'd love to spend some time seeing the vineyard and be with you.”

“But I wanted you to read to me this afternoon. We haven't finished Tom Sawyer. I have to know if they found him.”

Daniel raised his brows and gave his mother a hard look. “Mother.”

Katie smiled at her husband, her heart in her throat. While she didn't want the two of them fighting over her, it felt good when her husband put his mother in her place.

“Fine, but I get her later. She's going to read to me.”

Katie smiled. Suddenly she felt like things were different between all of them. Even his mother seemed to have accepted Katie into their family. “We'll read later this afternoon.”

His mother sighed, but when Daniel turned his back, she frowned at Katie. Well, maybe things weren't perfect, but at least they'd made progress and now if only she could help her husband be accepted by the community.

Later that morning as Daniel tucked a blanket around her legs to keep her warm, she gazed at her husband and smiled. “What a wonderful day to get out of the house for a while. I feel like I've been inside for weeks.”

And she had. She'd spent the days since she'd arrived, cleaning the house, organizing the rooms, and becoming the lady of the house. Even when some people didn't want her to take on that role. Daniel frowned. “You know you can take the buggy into town any time you want to go.”

“No, I didn't know. I would like to get involved with the women from church. I think I'll host a tea for them before the holidays. A sort of come out and get to know me, event,” she said gazing at her husband.

“We just had the Christmas party? Are you sure you want to do this so soon?”

She smiled and patted him on the arm. “This would just be for the ladies of the church. No one else.”

He clicked to the horses and the buggy lurched forward. “All right. I guess I can see how women would enjoy that.”

Katie wanted to belong to the community. Daniel needed her help once again be a part of the society of Charlottesville.

“I also think it would be good for you mother. I think one of the reasons she can be trying is that she's bored. What does she do all day but think about her troubles. We need to give her things to do. Even if it's just small things. What if you asked her to embroider you some handkerchief's or dishtowels.”

Daniel started laughing. “You want her to yell at me?”

“No, I just thought if you asked her, she would feel needed. You're her son. You no longer require her help, but she loves you and wants to be a part of your life,” Katie said softly. “Think of how you'll feel when our children are grown and leave us.”

She could see the years rolling by and she wanted to make certain she was here for it all. Unlike the way hers had been cut short with her family.

Glancing at her, he smiled. “I can't wait to have children with you.”

Katie grinned. “Me, too.”

Urging the horses forward, he said, “Let me show you the vineyard you're a partner in, Mrs. O'Malley.”

The feel of his hand laying on her thigh and the words warmed her enough the blanket covering her legs felt hot, but she didn't remove it for fear the wind would chill her. How could they have children if she never laid with her husband? And why did she suddenly feel the urge to try again with him. Would it be better this time?

#

After touring the vineyard, Katie was ready to come in out of the blustery cold wind and spend the afternoon with Mother O'Malley. Her husband had things he needed to handle and yet before they parted, he kissed her soundly.

It was the kind of kiss a girl dreamed of and a woman relished. It was the kind of kiss that had her longing for the evening when she would spend time alone with her husband. Both of them wanted the same things, a family and a way to support the brood of children they longed for. The business was growing and expanding and now they were working towards the children.

Christmas was only three weeks away and she couldn't help but think how wonderful it would be if she conceived during the holidays. Time would tell.

Pulling off her coat and scarf, she hung them up in the closet and pulled on her apron as she walked into the parlor.

The thump thump thump of the wheelchair let her know her mother-in-law was headed in her direction. Katie sank on the sofa to await her. She picked up a stack of Daniel's shirts she wanted to repair before he came home tonight.

“You're back,” she said rolling into the room a disgruntled expression on her face.

With trepidation Katie realized, the woman was not in the best of spirits.

“Yes, I just came in a few minutes ago. Would you like some hot tea?”

“No, I'm fine. I thought maybe you could read to me this afternoon.”

Certainly. Let me finish this piece of mending,” she said.

The woman became exasperated and yelled. “Hurry up, girl. I've been waiting all day for you.”

Everything centered around this woman and Katie wondered if it had been this way all her life or only since the accident. If she had ever acted this way with the nuns, they would have taken the rod to her and made her go to confession. She knew her mother-in-law was lonely, but still there was no point in acting so selfish.

Katie smiled and continued to work on sewing the rip in a shirt. “I realize you have nothing to keep you occupied. I was thinking maybe you could help me with the mending. Two hands make the job go by faster.”

“I hate sewing.”

That was obvious. It was the one household duty her mother-in-law could have easily done and yet she refused to even consider helping. Instead she preferred other people to take care of her.

“I enjoy taking a piece of material and creating something new and exciting from the cotton. When you finish it gives you such a feeling of accomplishment,” Katie responded trying to remain positive and not let her destroy the warm feelings from the morning.

How wretched to spend the last years of her life unhappy and doing everything she could to make everyone around her miserable.

“Hrumph. I don't need a feeling of accomplishment. I'm an old woman, just waiting to die.”

Setting her sewing down, Katie looked at her mother-in-law. “How can you say that. That's so wrong.”

“But it's true.”

Misery loves company and somehow Katie felt like her mother-in-law wanted everyone around her to be unhappy.

“Only because you make yourself be this mean, nasty woman people don't like. Since the day I walked into this house, you have been disrespectful and hateful to me. I've put up with your disposition thinking it would eventually change, but it hasn't.

“I thought maybe it was because you didn't like to share Daniel, but I don't believe that anymore. I think you like being considered a snide, mean old woman, it keeps people away. They don't have to see the hurt and the pain inside you, just waiting to die.”

Daniel's mother stared at her in shock, her mouth wide open.

Katie rose from the sofa. She'd gone too far. She shouldn't have been so truthful with her mother-in-law and somehow kept her mouth shut. But she'd had enough.

What started out as a great morning, celebrating their party and seeing the vineyard had quickly become frustrating. “Excuse me, but I think there are more pressing matters for me to do this afternoon. I don't feel like being yelled at any more.”

Walking out of the room, wanting only to escape and prepare herself for her evening with Daniel, she heard her mother-in-law crying.

Whirling around, she stared in disbelief as the old woman bent her head and sobbed.

“Oh my God,” Katie realized she’d lost her smile. She let the woman's meanness get to her instead of smiling. She ran to her chair. “I'm so sorry. I was wrong to say that to you.”

The old woman sniffed. “No, you were right. I know I'm mean and nasty, but...it's not the physical pain that troubles me. I've learned to live with that. It's the fact that I lived in that horrible buggy accident and my dear, sweet husband, Bartholomew didn't.”

She started crying again, big heaving sobs that tore at Katie's heart. “Would he want to see you suffering like this? Would he want to hear you being so crass with everyone? Daniel misses his sweet mother. He's told me so.”

“I know, but why didn't I die with Bart or why isn't he here sitting in this chair?”

“I understand why you wanted to die with Bart, but would you want him to suffer like you?”

Katie could see the pain on the woman's face. She could see the guilt of living while her husband had died. Her chest ached with the knowledge of how that must pain the woman.

“Of course not,” she said with a sniffle.

“Do you think he would want you to live your life this way?”

“That's too easy,” she said with a laugh. “I know he wouldn't because he always took me aside, when he thought I was being too critical.”

Katie smiled. “It can't be easy losing your husband in an accident. I can't begin to imagine the pain. I lost my entire family in the yellow fever epidemic of 1880.”

Betty reached out and grasped her hand. “I didn't know.”

“After they died, I was sent to an orphanage where the sisters told me I should feel blessed to be alive. I had lived because God had a purpose for my life.

“Every time I cried to feel pity for myself or them, Sister Katherine would make me work. Not to forget my loved ones, but to keep me busy. The sisters taught me to work through my grief. You, dear Mother, have no work. We need to get your hands and your mind working.”

Looking back, Katie knew she would have died if she hadn't been sent to the orphanage. Not because she was a child, but because she grieved her family so much, she would have been consumed by the sorrow.

“That's a touching story, but Bartholomew was the better person. I should have died and he should have lived.”

“Who are you to doubt why the good Lord took him away? Or maybe you're being given a second chance to be the kind of person Bartholomew was?”

The question of why her brother and little sister died had troubled Katie for years, they were younger, they were so sweet and yet they were in heaven and she was here on earth. But she believed their presence lived on through her. “Christmas is coming. What if we make cookies and mail them to the orphanage, where I grew up. The kids love baked goods and seldom get them. You need to focus on helping other people. You lived for a reason.”

Silence filled the parlor and Katie feared she'd said too much. Her mother-in-law wiped the tears from her face and then gazed at Katie, but she couldn't tell what the woman was thinking.

“Katie O'Malley, I've done everything I could to run you off and you refuse to go. Instead, you've made my son a fine wife and now you're helping me. I'm glad you're my daughter-in-law.”

Relief filled Katie. She knew there would still be times they disagreed, but maybe, just maybe, they would now get along and have peace.

“Thank you. Now, would you like to have me finish Tom Sawyer?”

She dabbed her eyes and smiled. “Yes, and hand me some of that mending. I could sew while you read.”

Katie felt warmth rush into her chest. It had taken longer than she'd expected, but she thought her mother-in-law had finally accepted her. She smiled and picked up the book.

#

After dinner, Mother O'Malley retired to bed, pleading she was tired, leaving Daniel alone with Katie. At the table, his mother had been friendly, even cordial, and he'd wondered what had transpired during the day to make his mother be nice for a change.

His wife glanced out the window and then turned to him, her green eyes wide with excitement. “It's snowing.”

Laughing, he stoked the fire in the fireplace, throwing another log onto the blaze. Katie oozed happiness and giddiness at the same time. She was a breath of fresh air in a stale room. “It's December. It usually snows.”

“We're going to have a white Christmas,” she said excited, a smile on her face, dancing around like a child.

He had to go into town and pick her up something special for Christmas. He didn't know what, but it would be their first holiday together and he wanted her to remember it fondly. He'd never gotten around to giving her a wedding ring, so he'd look to see if there was one he could afford.

Rising from the fireplace, he took her by the hand drew her to the sofa. Sinking down, her skirts billowed around them. “What did you do to my mother today? She's different.”

“What do you mean?” Katie said with that impish grin that drew him to her. He wanted to kiss her dimples, her lips, her eyes. He wanted to carry her up to bed, but he was going to do things the right way this time. Slow and steady with her right beside him every step of the way until they both received satisfaction.

“She smiled during dinner. She talked.”

Katie took his hand and brought it to her lips. “It was amazing. When I came back from being with you, she was her usual mean self and I stood up to her. I had planned on reading to her this afternoon and when she was ugly, I told her I'd had enough of her being nasty to me.” Katie sighed. “Did you realize your mother feels guilty for living while your father died in the accident? Did you know she was just waiting to die?”

Daniel stared at his wife, his chest tightening with gratitude. “I had no idea. But it wasn't her fault. And it's been years ago.”

Thinking back he always believed she'd turned ugly because she was in pain and suffering because of the injuries she sustained when the buggy flipped. He'd thought her pain was physical, not mental. And he knew there was no way to cure the mental anguish except with time and love.

“She's felt remorseful all this time for living, while your father died. She pushes people away so they won't get close to her. I told her about my parents dying and how the nuns made me believe I had been blessed to live through the epidemic that took my family.