Where My Heart Belongs (29 page)

Some other pieces also sold for far more than Kathy had predicted. The shotguns turned out to be antiques and quite collectible, as did the old cameras. Her mother’s collection of china was also a remarkable find for one woman. She declared it some of the best early twentieth-century Doulton available. One little double-handled cup, called a loving cup, brought nearly three hundred dollars by itself, as two different antique dealers went head-to-head to purchase the piece. The entire eight-place setting fetched several thousand dollars, leaving Kathy speechless. Where had her mother gotten hold of such valuable china?

“You looked as if you’d seen a ghost,” Jason Bridger, one of the men from the auction house, told her while the auctioneer was selling the farm machinery.

“I think I’m in shock. I had no idea that china was so valuable.”

He laughed. “I figured someone had told you it was an exceptional set. I hope it was a pleasant shock.”

“Yes, but . . . well . . . I have no idea how my mother ended up with such expensive dishes.”

“You’d be surprised at the valuables we uncover in rural Kansas. In the old days people thought, ‘Oh, it’s nothing more than an old farm sale. Can’t be worth much.’ Then antique stores started realizing that some of those old farmers were sitting on a lot of antiques passed down from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter, father to son, and so on. We’ve uncovered antiques from the colonial period here, as well as a few pieces that go back even further.”

“I had no idea.” Kathy watched as the auctioneer brought the gavel down and called the final numbers for the sale of the combine. It was a very good price. At this rate there would be more than enough money from the sale of the auction and farm to pay off all the debts and have a nice little inheritance for herself.

Kathy had lost track of Sunny. Her sister had been fairly close to her side through the early hours of the sale, but as the day wore on, Sunny had disappeared. Kathy was pleased with the discussions they’d been having. Last night they had gone to Hays for a steak dinner, and Kathy had really enjoyed her sister’s company. It was a start of a new relationship, she told herself. Something new to build the future on.

“How are you holding up?” Sylvia asked as she came to join Kathy by the large walnut tree in the Halberts’ front yard.

“I’m not doing too bad. It’s hard to see it go,” she said with a sigh. “It’s like losing a piece of Mom and Dad.”

Sylvia gazed out across the yard. “I can understand that. I hope you kept the things that were most important to you.”

“I did. Sunny too.” Kathy shook her head. “Did you see the price Mom’s old china brought?”

“I was stunned, I have to tell you. Makes me want to go through my cupboards and see what’s what. I may have thousands of dollars worth of dishes and not even realize it. I’ll probably cringe every time the kids break something and wonder how much it was worth.”

“I can see it now,” Kathy teased. “Everyone will be eating on paper plates.”

Sylvia laughed. “I was also surprised by the value of the old canning jars.”

“I guess sometimes things that don’t look like much can be the most priceless. Some of Dad’s tools turned out to be old enough to have belonged to his grandfather and great-grandfather. Little bitty things that I had no use for and probably would have tossed brought hundreds of dollars. It seems crazy to me. Sunny thought so too, and she’s been living in California, where expensive pieces are the norm.”

“She’s probably never shopped for antique tools,” Sylvia said with a grin. “But since you mentioned Sunny, how’s it going with her?”

Kathy stopped and turned to face Sylvia. “Really well. I thought a lot about what you said—about whether it was enough to just agree to forgive. I thought about how I would want to be treated, and I thought about how God would treat me if the shoe was on the other foot.”

“And what conclusion did you come to?”

A laugh escaped as Kathy replied. “I concluded that I was very glad God didn’t act like me.”

Sylvia laughed as well. “I’ve thought that about myself on several occasions.”

“Sunny and I have had some great talks. I realize that she’s suffered so much in life. I don’t know why this place was so hard for her to endure, but I really tried to put myself in her place and see things from her perspective.”

“She seems a lot more at peace,” Sylvia said. “You must have done something right.”

“Not me . . . God. I think back on these last few weeks, and I know I have nothing of myself to recommend in this situation. I wasn’t kind or loving. I wasn’t even civil. I’m ashamed of how I reacted—especially when it came to her asking for forgiveness.”

“We all make mistakes. Sunny’s were just so much more visible.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Kathy murmured. “I take great comfort in knowing that many of my mistakes or faults have been hidden from the public eye.”

She fell silent and watched as yet another person she didn’t know bought her parents’ bed. Personally, Kathy had never cared for the piece, but at this moment she felt like some kind of traitor for letting it go.

Desperate to change her thoughts, Kathy turned back to Sylvia. “I received a postcard from Kyle. He’s still in England; as a matter of fact, he has to stay as long as another two weeks. However, he wanted me to know that everything about his life is so much happier since I called. He said that he had felt like he was on a perpetual hold all these years and now could finally move forward again. He said he was looking forward to our future together.” Kathy couldn’t help the girlish giggle that came out. “Our future together.”

“It’s amazing, Kathy. I always knew Kyle loved you, but he’s more than proven the depth of his love. You can never ever doubt it now.”

“I know. I was so wrong, Sylvia. The way I treated him was wrong, and it just caused me to be more miserable than I had to be. You were so right about that. I wish I could have seen it sooner.”

“Bitterness and anger so often blind us, Kathy. It’s a hard-learned lesson, but one I hope neither of us is quick to forget.”

“Me too.”

“Have you heard any more about the sale of the farm— like who bought it?”

“No. I only know that it was a woman and that she’s sending her agent tomorrow to handle the papers and paying cash so we don’t have to worry about waiting for going through a bank. Cuts the time considerably.”

“That’s amazing. I wonder if she’ll move here.”

“I don’t know. I plan to ask the agent she’s sending. I want to let him know that Tony could farm the land if they wanted him to.”

“Well, let us know. He’ll want to prepare the ground for the winter wheat.”

“I promise as soon as I know something, I’ll let you know.”

Sylvia glanced at her watch. “I’d better get. You two are still coming for supper, right?”

Kathy turned back to see what piece the auctioneer was offering. It was a set of some of the more modern tools. The auction people had put various things together for optimum sale, and this was one of those sets. “We’ll be there,” she said, her thoughts focused more on the tools than on the food. In her mind she saw her father working to make or mend something on the farm.

I’m going to miss you, Dad
.

Sylvia checked her watch one more time. “I’m going to get home and get supper started. Come as soon as you like. And don’t forget—if you change your mind and want to sleep at our house until the sale of the house is finalized, you’re more than welcome.”

“It’s just the one night.”

“Well, something could go wrong; it’s been known to happen. My sister thought she was closing on her house at a certain time and ended up delayed by two weeks, remember?”

“We’ll be fine. Sunny and I are going to finish cleaning the place and get our stuff loaded into the cars. We’ll be able to leave in the morning and head to the title company in Hays and that will be that.” She shook her head. “It’s going to seem so strange.”

Sylvia hugged her. “No,” she said, pulling back to meet Kathy’s teary eyes. “It’s going to be so wonderful.”

Sunny wandered the property for the last time. She knew tomorrow she and Kathy would head to Colorado Springs. Aunt Glynnis had suggested Sunny stop there for the night on her way back to California.

While she was glad for the invitation and the decision to head back, Sunny had a gnawing fear that refused to let her go. What awaited her in California?

Sunny entered the barn and gazed around as she drew in the heady aroma of hay. How many girlhood adventures had she had in this place? She and Kathy used to get Dad to help them make tunnels with the hay bales. The girls would crawl around for hours and even made a little area in the hay where they could keep some of their things. They called it their hideout, although Dad and Mom knew exactly where it was.

She passed the stalls where they had milked their two cows, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The cows had been named by their grandfather, who had kept Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus for himself. Many had been the cold morning she’d come out to milk those cows. She hated when it was her turn to do the milking. Her hands always ached from the strain, and inevitably she’d get kicked or stepped on. Numbers had even broken her finger once. She gently rubbed her right-hand ring finger, remembering the event.

“There are good memories here,” she whispered. “It wasn’t all bad.”

Glancing up at the loft door, she remembered times when they would break up bales of straw and jump into the stack from the loft. The straw would always tear them up, scratching their arms and legs, but the fun of flying through the air always negated the pain.

“I wondered where you’d gone,” Kathy said, entering the barn behind her.

The shadows of the darkened room played tricks on Sunny’s eyes. She saw her mother in Kathy, even though most people commented about Sunny’s appearance being more like Mom’s. Mom had a strong influence on them both, Sunny decided.

“I needed a little alone time. It was all starting to get to me.”

Kathy smiled sadly. “A little like watching them tear things apart, piece by piece.”

Sunny nodded. “We probably should have taken the auctioneer’s advice and spent the day in Hays.”

“Maybe. I think we would have regretted that though.”

Sunny sighed. “I suppose so. I was just thinking about some of the fun times we had here.”

“Oh, like mucking out stalls?” Kathy teased.

Sunny appreciated her light-hearted comment. There was no sense in getting too maudlin. “Yeah, that and staying up all night with sick animals.”

“Or how about dealing with the walnuts?”

Every year when the tree would bear nuts, there was the inevitable job of getting the green hulls off and putting the nuts to dry. The hulls stained everything, and if the girls didn’t wear gloves, their hands would bear that same discoloration for weeks.

Sunny hugged her arms to her chest. “I’m so glad I came home when I did. It would have killed me to not have this place to come back to.”

“Why? I thought you hated it here.”

“I did. I don’t think I do so much anymore.” Sunny felt her eyes grow damp. “I have some good memories, but I pushed them so far back that I convinced myself the times were all bad.”

“The bad comes with the good. It’s just a part of life.” Kathy cast a glance at the ceiling and then to the loft. “I had convinced myself the times were all good, but seeing you reminded me of times that were less than perfect.” She frowned and quickly followed it with an explanation. “Oh, Sunny, that sounded awful, and I certainly didn’t mean for it to.”

Sunny understood. She knew what it was to carefully consider each word before it came out of her mouth. She hated word games, but everyone seemed to want to play them at one time or another. Yet this wasn’t one of the times Sunny wanted to see the rules of the game engaged. “I understood exactly what you meant.”

“I’m glad. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I realize how wrong I’ve been. You asked me for forgiveness and I told you you’d have to wait. That was stupid—heartless. I was afraid, but no more. I have to trust that God has a plan in all of this and that His grace is enough for us both. Honestly, I need to ask you for forgiveness of my horrible attitude. Can you forgive me, Sunny?”

This confession completely stunned Sunny. She had not expected her sister to make any such declaration. “You know you have my forgiveness, but I don’t think there’s much to forgive. I think even when you were angry with me, you still loved me. Look, there’s something you need to know. I hope it won’t make you mad.”

Kathy’s brows furrowed. “What is it?”

“My mother-in-law is the one buying the farm.”

“What?!”

Sunny nodded. “I knew you were worried, and I wanted to help. Everything I have is tied up, and until the divorce, I won’t know how much I’ll have access to. Nancy is rich and I knew it wouldn’t even put a dent in her funds. I told her what was going on and how you really needed the place to sell. Oh, Kathy, I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds. I just wanted to help so much. I’ve made you so miserable over the years, I wanted to give you something good. Please don’t hate me.”