Promise of Tomorrow (6 page)

Nine

May 19, 1889

Alaina started upon seeing her mother, dressed and ready for Sunday morning services. She tried to recall the last service her mother had attended and settled on Easter, two years ago, when her aunt had come over from Pittsburgh for a short visit.

“You're dressed,” she stated the obvious, then laughed.

The comment pulled a smile from her mother as she smoothed a strand of hair back from her face. “It's time, don't you think?” Her mother gathered the material of her best dress in one hand and frowned at the brown plaid. “I need to start on new dresses for both of us. This material is so thin at the elbows.”

Her mother continued to fuss over the dress while Alaina tried to make sense of her question. What did she mean by, “It's time?” Time for what? Time to go? But no, it couldn't be. Jack wouldn't arrive to fetch her for another twenty minutes.

“Alaina?” her mother asked. “Would you fetch my Bible?”

She did as bid, expecting the Book to be collecting dust on the small table her mother used to hold a lamp. To her surprise and satisfaction, she saw that the Bible lay open on the table and rejoiced at the implication. It had been such a long time since Father had left. Perhaps her mother would return to the faith she had once held so dear.

She searched for a way to bring up the topic of her mother's sudden Bible reading and churchgoing when Jack arrived. Upon seeing him, her mother's frown deepened. Alaina feared she might say something harsh, but Charlotte nodded in response to Jack's greeting and allowed him to help her into the hackney with a small smile bestowed on him as his reward.

After Jack found his seat, he caught and held Alaina's gaze for a long, blissful moment. “The great thaw,” he quipped in a whisper.

She rolled her eyes and pressed her finger to her lips to shush him from further comment.

Jack engaged her in conversation about the weather, though she noticed he did avoid the usual question of what they would do after service. Charlotte seemed content to make the trip in silence, and Alaina left her to it after her first few attempts to bring her into the conversation failed.

She enjoyed sharing chatter on various subjects with Jack. After the previous night's storm of emotion, he seemed attentive, though circles showed under his eyes. They were engaged in a fiery back-and-forth regarding the chances of the dam breaking when they arrived at the small church.

Frank's children, Missy and Sam, ran up to them.

Jack swung Missy up into his arms and allowed her to perch on his shoulder. “What are you up to this morning, Miss Missy?”

The child giggled at Jack's greeting and beamed at Alaina. “He's silly.”

Frank broke through the small crowd, his suspenders worn and his Sunday trousers in sad need of patching. It was on the tip of Alaina's tongue to offer to do the mending when her mother spoke up.

“Frank Willit, what a surprise.”

Frank's face lit, and he dipped his head in a shallow bow. “A pleasure to see you, Mrs. Morrison.”

“You must bring your mending to me. Missy's dress needs a patch, and I'm sure there is enough material left over from some dresses to make her a new frock.”

“And me?” Sam piped up.

Jack scrunched up his face. “You want a dress, Sam?”

Sam cocked his head. “No, why would I want that?”

Jack and Frank guffawed at the boy's confusion.

Charlotte sent them a withering look. “And a pair of pants for you, Sam.”

Alaina could only stare at her mother, struck completely dumb, not only by her generous offer but by the interest she showed in the children and Frank. She glanced at Frank and wondered if the big man had captured her mother's fancy. But no, it couldn't be. Charlotte had only met Frank twice before.

Jack let Missy slip to the ground and sidled up next to Alaina as Frank and Charlotte continued their conversation. “Is this the sun coming out?” was Jack's question.

“I—I don't know. I'm as surprised as you are. More so.”

Jack chuckled. “Frank's not a bad-looking bloke.”

But it didn't explain the sudden change in Charlotte. What had prompted her mother to go from shy and resigned, even bitter, to considerate? Was it simply God's working in her mother's heart? She didn't know, and she wouldn't ask.

When the pastor appeared at the front doors, the group began a mass migration inside.

Jack winked down at Alaina. “I'm going to test the waters. If Frank can be charming, then I can be downright saintly.” With that, he strode up to Charlotte.

She glanced his way in time to see his proffered arm. Charlotte hesitated only a moment before accepting, leaving a chagrined Frank standing by himself.

He recovered quickly, though, when his gaze met Alaina's. He copied Jack's gesture and offered his arm, a good-natured grin coloring his cheeks.

She lay her hand lightly on his arm as he tilted his head and whispered, “You watch. Jack's going to win her over.”

❧

If Jack's restless night hadn't been unsettling enough, then listening to the sermon on Judas's betrayal and Christ's forgiveness stirred the cauldron of his emotions into full boil. Every word the pastor uttered seemed to stir the same question.
How to forgive betrayal?

His fidgeting caught Alaina's attention, and only a severe frown from her stilled his quaking limbs. He tried to focus on his plans and ignore the nagging of his spirit, but the pastor continued, now extolling Christ's ability to forgive the unforgivable.

Jack rubbed his hands down his trousers. So many years had passed since his father's failure and death. Did he truly have to forgive a dead man? Wasn't moving on enough? Putting the past behind him and striking out on his own hadn't been easy, but he'd done it. And now he was engaged to Alaina, a beautiful, gentle woman. What would she tell him to do?

What would his mother say? Had she forgiven his father before her death? He tried to remember any conversations he'd had with her in regard to his father and couldn't think of one time when she'd spoken a cross word.

His fingers dug into his palm. Hard. He wanted to believe that she had talked, maybe to others, and blamed Don Kelly for her trouble. It would make Jack's anger toward him easier to deal with.

As the notes of the final hymn lingered in the air, Jack squelched the desire to jump over the pews and burst outside. Instead, he did his duty and waited with everyone else for the pastor to greet his parishioners, one by one.

Alaina kept sending him confused looks, as if trying to diagnose his sudden illness, but the symptoms remained a mystery too hard for her to unravel.

The pastor shook Jack's hand but held on to prevent him from moving along. “You're working hard, Jack. Your face shows your weariness. Unless there is something else troubling you?”

Apparently his fidgeting hadn't gone unnoticed. He could feel Alaina's stare. Shame washed over him. “Your message was quite stirring.”

A knowing twinkle flashed in the pastor's eyes. No doubt the man understood evasion when he heard it, but he allowed Jack to pass and turned his attention to Alaina.

Jack waited for her, chagrined when she picked up where the pastor had left off.

She placed her hand on his arm and leaned toward him ever so slightly. Jack could see the strain of her concern. For him. “This is not about a sleepless night, is it, Jack? It's about last night.”

The arrow of her words hit its target. “Let's put it aside and enjoy our afternoon.”

Her eyes flashed. “I won't be put off forever.”

“I'm not putting you off.” He shifted his weight and tried to keep his voice even. “I just don't have anything to tell you.”

“You're troubled. You fidgeted more than a wayward boy of five during Pastor's sermon. I think I have a right to know what's troubling you.”

“We can talk tomorrow night when I come to visit.”

Her dark eyes snapped. “I'm supposed to share in your troubles.”

Irritation pricked. “I'm fine.”

Alaina's nostrils flared. “Then I'll leave you alone.” She jerked around, head held high, and disappeared into the crowd.

Jack rubbed his hand over his brow. Alaina never pushed back, but she'd pushed back this time, and the experience left him shaken.

“Never seen her quite so fired up.”

Jack looked over his shoulder to see Frank. “Me neither.”

“You going after her?”

“I don't think she wants me to.”

Frank's gaze lifted to something over Jack's shoulder. “Well, if you are, you'd better hurry. She and her mother got themselves a ride.”

He didn't run after her. There was no use. How had things gone wrong so quickly? The prospect of returning to his dreary place or poring over his plans for a new angle from which to work all seemed hollow now.

Ten

May 20, 1889

“Our hero,” Clarence Fulton boomed when Jack opened the door of his boss's office.

Jack squinted in the midmorning light coming through the window, clutching his report in one hand. “I came by to drop off my findings on the South Fork Dam.”

Mr. Fulton resumed his seat and fixed Jack with a stare that made him cautious. “The clouds are breaking up now.” Fulton scooted his chair forward. “Without the rain pouring down, the dam doesn't seem like such a great threat. I'll read over your report. However, I'm more interested right now in that process you're working on.”

An edge of irritation made Jack clench his teeth. All that work and now the report meant almost nothing. He made himself concentrate on Fulton's enthusiasm on the other project. “I'm on to something with that. I know it. I'll be working on it today.”

“Good. Good. You show great promise, young man. Great promise.”

The meeting came to a swift end, and for once, Jack felt relieved to step from his boss's office. As he got closer to the huge room of Open Hearth Furnaces, the temperature spiked, and every footfall became a struggle against his exhaustion. In silence, he watched the men on first shift and empathized with the tedious, dangerous routine of the hot work. As the men bent and shoveled, Jack's muscles echoed the tension and misery so familiar to the job. He strained when they strained, and their shouts quickened his pulse.

He pushed through the doors and out into the light and cool air. In a corner of the yards that surrounded Cambria, with clear view of Cambria's own railroad depot, Jack rolled up his long sleeves and settled into deep thought about the entire process of converting iron ore into steel. He ran his hand over the miniature egg-shaped Bessemer converter he had shaped from scrap metal and studied his new theory, paying particular attention to the tuyeres through which air was blown to remove impurities from the molten iron. If blasting too much air removed too much carbon, then the resulting product was negatively affected. His new theory worked to solve this problem. With a surge of excitement, he bent his head over his plans.

The work was an elixir. He fell into the rhythm of trial and error, always reviewing the process and tweaking the amount of air blown into the molten iron. Only when he took a break did he allow himself to once again scrape up the discomfort over Alaina's question about his parents—her demand to share what troubled him about his past.

His father.

Jack stared at his hands and realized, ironically, that as much as he detested what his father became as he got older, he had, to a great degree, followed in his father's footsteps. Even as a five-year-old, he recalled being intrigued by his father's passion for creating solutions to problems around their small farm.

But as Jack had gotten older, things had gone wrong. His father kept inventing new and better ways of doing things, but drinking became his new obsession. It took Jack several years to realize that his father's regular drinking companion seldom drank at all. Instead, the man listened to Jack's father's ideas and cashed in on them. Only when the same man stopped giving Jack's father generous stipends did the situation at home become critical and the nightly rages against him and his mother worsened. In the end, he lost both his father and mother within six months of each other.

His mother's agony, the poverty his father had plunged them into by his poor choices, stirred Jack's agony anew as a veil of tears blinded him to the papers in front of him. The pair of pliers he had been using fell from his hand and clinked against a piece of scrap metal. He clenched his fists and swiped at the wetness on his cheeks, struggling against the familiar and bitter hatred his father's memory always stirred.

Pastor's sermon pounded in his head. A bitter Christ would have been useless in God's plan, yet He could have chosen that route. But Jack realized that Christ's decision to hate Judas would have destroyed His life, and the lives of everyone with life and breath.

For him to choose to cling to his bitterness would destroy him just as certainly. He knew it as sure as he knew he was close to a major discovery in his plans.

But how to forgive? He didn't know.

The sound of the whistle signaling the end of the shift and the beginning of another helped shake Jack back to the project at hand. His hand trembled as he pulled another sheet of paper from the pocket of his trousers and spread it out next to the others. He forced himself to focus on comparing his old notes with his new. After reviewing everything, he decided to tinker with the idea of heating the molten iron longer, lowering the impurities. Then. . .

His blood pumped hard through his veins as a chill shock snapped through him. If he could lower the impurities by heating longer and reintroduce. . .

Jack swallowed hard and made furious notes as the idea unfolded in his mind. Throughout his shift he reviewed the process over and over. By the time he arrived home that night, his excitement had faded into a bone-weary tiredness that made his muscles ache. He bypassed eating and did only as much as necessary to prepare for the next morning, when he would arrive earlier than necessary so he could work on this new angle.

Satisfied, he stretched out on his cot and pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. As he lay there, his mind caught between sleep and wakefulness, Jack remembered Alaina. Her smile, her concern, her anger. . .his promise to see her.

For a minute he hung in a semiconscious state, disgusted at how he could forget so easily. Again. But his weary mind and body pulled him down into a black oblivion he had no strength to fight.

Alaina will understand.