Promise of Tomorrow (4 page)

Six

Clumps of oatmeal stuck in Alaina's throat with every bite. She finally gave up, shoved her bowl back, and pressed her palms together on the scarred wooden kitchen table, determined not to allow her mother's silence to continue. “Will you need my help today?”

Her mother appeared startled at her words. “No. I'm all caught up. I was expecting another order from Mrs. Stephens, so I worked ahead.”

A new silence grew between them. Alaina worked her spoon around the small bowl.

“It's good to have you home again,” Charlotte offered.

Alaina smiled at her mother's words, knowing that something unpleasant was coming. Her mother never offered loving words without tacking on a controversial issue.

“Your aunt wants to know when to expect you in Pittsburgh. I wrote back that the end of May is likely. It's a good time to look the college over.”

Alaina forced herself not to release the pent-up sigh. Charlotte would take it as a show of anger. “I want to marry Jack, Mama.”

Her mother's eyes moved over her face, examining.

Alaina placed her hands flat on the surface of the table. She braced herself for the flood of arguments her mother would rain down upon her. Jack was too young.
She
was too young. Jack was flighty and inconsistent. Jack's job wasn't good enough. They would struggle financially. And the one that all the others inevitably led up to—
she
needed to have a sound education before she married, so that if Jack, in his flighty inconsistency, left her alone, she would not live in poverty.

History repeated.

“I know how you feel.” She paused, her eyes sweeping over her mother's graying hair. She softened her voice. “We want your blessing.”

Charlotte Morrison's dark eyes glinted. “If you marry
him
, you won't have it.”

Alaina's stomach clenched. In her mental list, she had forgotten that particular argument. The Robert-is-a-better-choice one. “I can't love a man I don't respect.”

“Then why are you engaged to Jack?”

The gasp escaped before Alaina could steel herself. “How did you know?”

“So he did propose. Mary's mama said as much, but I didn't want to believe that you wouldn't tell me first. I knew something was up, though. I haven't seen Robert as much lately. Poor boy must be working hard to get that promotion.”

She wanted to point out that Robert came to the apartment to see her, and being that she was in South Fork, it made sense that her mother wouldn't see him here. But stating such a fact would be foolish and mistook as irreverence. “You think Robert is so perfect, but you don't
know
him like I do, Mama.”

Charlotte stood. Frown lines fanned out from her lips and creased her forehead. “You're right, I don't. But if Jack is as wonderful as you think he is, he won't mind waiting for you to get your education first. And you, being the wonderfully obedient daughter you should be, will listen to your mother.”

Stung at the verbal assault, Alaina lowered her face and squeezed her eyes shut. “He's not like Daddy, Mother. Why do you have to compare my situation to yours? I know you work hard. I know we struggle. I've tried to help out as much as I can.”

Her mother snatched up the bowls and set them on the edge of the dry sink. She squeezed behind Alaina to reach for her sewing apron and tied it on. “I don't have time for this right now. Mrs. Fortney will be in this morning, and I have three dresses that need some finishing touches.” Without even so much as a good-bye, her mother slammed the door. Her steps clumped down the outside staircase that led to the back of the general store they lived above and where her mother worked.

Alaina surveyed the small apartment. Besides the dirty dishes, table, and dry sink, the room held only a tattered rag rug and an array of the colorful aprons her mother used to cover her clothes as she sewed. She noted the neat rows of pins stuck all along the skirt of the aprons. Every single one had scads of small, snipped threads clinging to the coarse material.

Two other rooms completed the apartment. Her mother's room was only as big as the grocer's pantry downstairs, and Alaina's room even smaller. But she loved the sunshine that streaked through her window on summer days. She often felt her room the better choice of the two because it had such a luxury. She smiled. And it had a tree. An old oak tree whose branches reached out to scrape the window on windy nights. Or held the weight of a young man who came calling in the night, though Jack hadn't made use of its thick limbs for many weeks.

Alaina crossed to the window and lifted the sash. A gusty breeze swept the room clean of the musty air always present in the wooden building during the rainy season. She inhaled deeply, braced her hands on the windowsill, and listened to the church's clock striking the hour. A layer of dark gray clouds promised more rain to come. Undaunted by the threat of a downpour, Alaina left the window open as she began to make beds and gather laundry.

With every passing year, it seemed Charlotte's expression became more dour, her attitude more bitter. Long ago, when the letters from her father still trickled in on rare occasion, Alaina learned not to ask questions of his whereabouts. And Charlotte had never made it a habit to mention him, her opinion boldly stated when she tossed the unread letter into the cookstove. But despite the veil of uncaring her mother hid behind, the letter stating her father had died had shattered something deep inside Charlotte.

Lord, what can I do?
She heaved a sigh. It seemed the prayer had become a litany of late.

Alaina stopped at the open window and rested her hands on top of the broomstick. She rested her chin and closed her eyes.
Why am I so confused one moment and so sure of myself every time I look at Jack's smile or hear his laughter?
She pondered the half prayer and stilled herself to hear God's response.

The jangle of a harness outside the window snapped her to attention. Within seconds, the first drops of rain plinked against the window. Alaina slid the window shut, breathed on the glass, and wrote,
I love you, Jack.

He had promised to come by after work so they could announce their engagement to her mother together, but the glow of the surprise was dimmed by Mary's tongue souring the secret and by Charlotte's staunch rejection of Jack. For whatever foolish reason, Alaina had thought maybe her mother's opinion of Jack would soften if the engagement became a reality.

Alaina lifted her mother's spare dress from a peg and folded it over her arm. She would try and talk to Charlotte one more time, during supper, before Jack arrived.

❧

Her mother got home later than usual. Splotches of rain dampened her hair and dotted her apron, but Alaina didn't miss her brief look of relief when she smelled supper cooking.

“Supper will be ready soon,” Alaina offered unnecessarily.

Charlotte removed her apron and sagged into a kitchen chair. She flexed her fingers back and forth. “Rain always makes them worse.”

“Maybe you should soak them tonight. I could run downstairs and buy some salts—”

“No need. I'll live.”

And with that comment, Alaina knew her mother's petulance over their morning conversation had been remembered. She busied herself spooning up the beans and biscuits, wishing she had taken the extra time to purchase a chicken for frying. She set the plate in front of her mother and took her seat opposite.

Her mother picked up her fork, stopped, met her gaze, and nodded. “Go ahead.”

Alaina said a brief blessing that she suspected her mother forgot altogether when alone. She lifted her fork and tried to drum up a way to approach the subject of Jack without a wall going up between them. That was the trick. But Alaina could see no way to make that happen.

Best to be direct. It was easier. “I wondered if we could talk about Jack.” Before her mother could finish chewing and give a caustic remark, she hurried on. “He's coming over tonight to ask permission to marry me, and I'd like for you to grant it.” She bit the inside of her lip when she could think of nothing else to say.

Her mother set her fork down and stared at her. Alaina held her breath, waiting for the storm of her mother's emotions to break in with an angry flow of words. Instead, her mother blinked and averted her face. Charlotte's shoulders stooped, and her hands covered her face. Not until Alaina saw her shoulders heave and heard the first faint sniff did she realize what was happening.

Anger she could handle. Her mother's outbursts had become commonplace, but never before had she witnessed her mother's tears. She rounded the table and knelt beside Charlotte's chair. Glints of silver in her mother's hair reminded Alaina that she was the age her mother had been when she'd given birth to her. If only her father hadn't left them.

Her mother jerked to her feet. “I don't wish to be disturbed this evening. Jack Kelly is no longer welcome in this home, Alaina. Not tonight or ever again.”

Alaina rocked back on her heels as her mother swept past, and the sound of the bedroom door lock clicking into place echoed deep in her spirit.

❧

Jack braced his feet apart and tilted his head way back to mark his target. His fingers jingled the pebbles in his trouser pocket. Alaina's window above the general store proved a challenge. He contemplated the nearby tree, but the lower branch he used to swing up had broken. He would have to think of something else.

He plucked a single pebble from his pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger to draw a bead on the window. A flick of his wrist and the pebble sailed through the air and tapped against the wood planks. Jack mentally adjusted his arc and launched another stone that hit the window with a gentle
tap
. Another followed. Then another. He waited in silence for any sign Alaina might have heard.

As he surrendered to the notion he would have to send a few more through the air, a dim light flickered and then flared to life. The window slid open, and Alaina gazed up at the sky, into the tree, then down at the ground. She gasped at the sight of him. “Jack!” She clamped a hand over her mouth, and her face disappeared from the window.

Jack grinned. He had surprised her.

She reappeared.

“Come down,” he said in a loud whisper. The sight of her stole his breath. Her long hair tousled around her head. He could almost smell the warm scent of her skin.

Alaina didn't reply but again disappeared. The window whispered shut.

He waited at the base of the large maple, its branches studded with sprigs of small, spring leaves. He slicked a hand over his hair, still damp from his bath, and pursed his lips to whistle a tune before realizing the danger. Midnight was not the time to sing a cheery tune in the middle of the street. He satisfied himself with pacing in front of Heiser's store.

“What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” Alaina's whisper cut across his thoughts, and he turned. She seemed to float toward him in the moonlight. Tendrils of hair brushed her cheeks and neck, a dark contrast against her creamy skin.

He took a step closer. Words stuck in his throat at the weight of her beauty. He caught her hands and lifted them to his chest. “I knew you would think I'd forgotten, so I wanted to surprise you.”

“I knew you must be working on your plans again.”

“It came to me tonight at the end of shift. I had to get it down on paper before I forgot. I think this time it's really going to work. You understand, don't you?”

Alaina blinked and stared at the ground.

Her hesitation made him nervous. “Mr. Fulton also asked me to look at the South Fork Dam. He's afraid it'll collapse under all this rain.”

She tilted her head back, the slender column of her neck exposed in the pale moonlight. “More rain on the way, I'm afraid.” Her voice sounded tremulous.

He grasped her hand and kissed the palm. “I wanted to be here to tell your mother the news, but Mr. Fulton gave me three days to report so I'll need to go tomorrow after shift. I'll come tomorrow evening as soon as I can and we'll tell her then.”

Her expression went solemn, and when she opened her mouth to speak, he pressed a finger across her lips. “Wait, I have a surprise.” Jack released her hand and plucked something from the ground at the base of the maple.

“A rose,” she breathed.

“Mrs. Sanford's first. She'll skin me for cutting it, but I'll tell her it was for you and she'll get that dreamy look and I'll be off the hook.”

In awe, he watched her bury her nose into the rose's blush petals. As she breathed in the sweet fragrance, an incredible vulnerability swept over him as he was reminded of his commitment to care for this woman. Slowly, he raised his hand to spiral a tendril of her hair around his finger. He released the coil. It stroked her cheek, and he mirrored the touch with his hand. Dark and luminous, her eyes caught at his heart.

He took a step closer and satisfied himself with brushing his lips against the cool skin of her brow. “When will you marry me?” His voice came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat.

Her gaze seemed fastened on his shirt. In the length of time it took her to answer, his mind tripped over what her hesitation might mean.

He drew away and held her by the shoulders. “Alaina?” Her head sunk lower. He felt the first indication of the depth of her distress in the vibration under his hands. The soft love in his heart bled away under the heat of his rising terror. “Lainie?”

“My mother knows we're engaged. She made a terrible scene this morning and then hardly talked to me after supper. She said—”

Her words choked off, and Jack's heart froze. He gave her a soft shake. “I'm here, Alaina. Tell me.”