Heart of Mercy (Tennessee Dreams) Page 22

  “My ‘condition,’ as you put it, is not all that delicate. I have my days, but those are becoming fewer and farther between. Yesterday was rather out of the ordinary. As for my job, I don’t work on Mondays, anyway, and I told Mr. Appleton not to expect me tomorrow until after your departure.”

  “I was hopin’ to catch a ride with Hank when he heads for work, so I should be off pretty early.”

  “I’m sure that will work perfectly.”

  They both sipped their beverages, and then Sam spoke again. “You have a laugh much like your mother’s.” Her blue eyes took on a darker hue. “I’m sorry. Should I not have mentioned her?”

  She set her cup down, then gathered the crumbs from her toast into a neat little pile on the white tablecloth. “No, of course not. It’s just…I’m disheartened every time I think of her, and the way we parted. It was more my father who chased me off, but Mama had to go along with him. I’ve written her a few times, but her replies have always been brief. I’d like to mend the broken fences, especially once the baby comes, but I think it will take a miracle.”

  Sam hesitated. “Why is that, if I may ask? I know you left home as a young girl. Hank told me the whole story of how you landed on the steps of his father’s church.”

  “Ah, so he told you about that, did he?” Her eyes regained some of their usual twinkle. “I suppose he also told you how he loved me at first sight, while I could barely stand him.”

  He chuckled. “Somethin’ along those lines, yes. He said his family took you in for a time, until you moved in with an older couple.”

  “Yes, the Thompsons, such lovely people. Hank and I visit them as often as we can.” She fixed her gaze on something over his shoulder. “Hank has a wonderful family. I absolutely adore them.” She smiled down at her stomach. “This baby will have the best grandparents.”

  “And what about your parents? Don’t you want them to know their grandchild?”

  Moistness collected in the corners of her eyes. He had some sort of dad-burned power for making females cry. He reached clumsily across the table and touched her arm. “Don’t bother answerin’ that.”

  She sniffed and straightened her shoulders. “It’s fine. Gosh, I should have known I’d get emotional.” She giggled and wiped her eyes. “To answer your question, yes, I’d like our baby to grow up knowing both sets of grandparents. But Mama and I, we’ve never gotten on too well. She had me at forty-three, and it was no secret she considered me a surprise—an unwanted one. I was more of an annoyance to Papa. He’d raised boys and didn’t know what to do with me, I think. He didn’t really want me out in the barn, and I wasn’t much use to him in the house, except to help Mama prepare his meals and to hand him his evening paper.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t say I recall one decent conversation with my father, unless you count the scoldings he doled out on a regular basis. I couldn’t please that man to save my life.”

  A wave of empathy came over Sam. He’d grown up feeling much the same—unwanted and ignored. But this was not about him, and so he kept the observation to himself. He tried to phrase his words with care, not wanting to push for fear she’d stop talking.

  “So, when you reached an appropriate age, you decided t’ take off?”

  She nodded and started fumbling with a cloth napkin, staring at her fingers as she worked the fabric. “There was a pivotal moment when I made that decision. Something happened that just affirmed my need to leave. I know you’re curious…after all, it’s why I asked you to come here in the first place. High time I got on with it, right?”

  27

  Sam held his breath. He couldn’t find his tongue, so he just gazed across the table at Persephone, hands crossed in front of him, willing her to continue.

  “At the dinner table one night, I raised some questions about the feud between our family and the Evanses. I’d been curious for years and needed answers. And for the first time, Papa actually told us how it all got started, with the property dispute in the early 1830s, which sparked decades of fighting—everything from barn burnings to fistfights, such as the one you found yourself tangled up in the other day.”

  Sam touched his jaw and found it still tender and somewhat swollen. “Yeah, I knew all that. Keep goin’.”

  “Well, in the summer of eighty-four, everything came to a head with the fatal argument between Uncle Ernest and Oscar Evans, and I’d always wondered what had caused it. Papa told us that, according to a witness at the trial, Oscar Evans accused your father of deliberately fashioning ill-fitting shoes for his horse, causing the animal to go lame and, ultimately, to die. Other accusations were flung back and forth, and then, allegedly, Oscar made some incendiary remarks about your mother.”

  A sickening sensation churned in Sam’s gut. “My mother?” So far, no other part of Persephone’s account had come as a surprise. He’d sat through most of the court hearings and heard almost every testimony. “That’s news to me, Oscar mentionin’ my mother in the dispute. I wonder what he said, and why it didn’t come out in court.”

  “Papa said it came from a disreputable source—old Solomon Turner, Iris Brockwell’s caretaker.”

  “Why should Solomon Turner be considered disreputable?”

  Her gaze rested steady on him. “Let’s be honest, Samuel—who is going to listen to a former slave? It’s unfortunate but true. Apparently, Judge Corbett ruled his word unreliable, thereby disallowing it in court.”

  Anger welled up in him like hot lava. “That’s outrageous.”

  “Of course it is. Anyway, more than one witness testified that a drunken Oscar Evans took the first swing at your father, and that your father swung back but missed. Then Oscar took another swing and hit your father’s jaw. That’s where the self-defense plea started, even though Oscar was not in possession of a gun. Papa says that Mr. Turner, who’d been standing behind a crate of onions in front of Joe’s Market, reported overhearing Oscar slander Aunt Flora. Papa wouldn’t tell me what was said, only that it was a pack of lies. At any rate, that’s when your father drew his gun, and Oscar rushed at him…and was shot. Witnesses reported that Uncle Ernest blew the smoke from the muzzle of his gun with a gleeful smile when Oscar went down.”

  “I recall that detail from the trial.” It had sickened him then, and it sickened him now.

  “Of course, you know the rest of the story—how the jury handed down a guilty verdict for first-degree murder, given the fact that he could have walked away but didn’t.” She gazed down at her lap, her lips pressed together in a straight line.

  Sam sat in silence, wanting her to proceed.

  She entwined her fidgety fingers, clasping her hands, and briefly fixed her eyes on the ceiling before meeting his gaze once again. “Now comes the part that prompted me to leave home, once and for all.”

  “I’m listenin’.”

  “I told my family about something I’d witnessed at your house when I was ten years old. I’d never told a living soul, but for some reason, after hearing Papa talk about the feud that night, I decided I couldn’t guard the secret another second.”

  Sam’s brow was creased so deeply, it almost pained him.

  “Mama had sent me to deliver a basket of eggs to your house. It was a hot day in June, and I remember arriving in a sweat after the mile-long walk and wanting nothing more than a drink of cold water. I didn’t see anyone around, other than the foreman, working on a wheel of his rig over by the barn. He didn’t see me, as his back was turned in my direction.

  “I walked up the porch steps and knocked on the door, but no one answered. I waited several seconds, then knocked again—still no one. I was just going to leave the eggs on the porch, but then I figured they ought to go in the icebox, and besides, there was the matter of my thirst. I didn’t think Aunt Flora would mind if I put the eggs away and then got myself a drink of water.

  “As soon as I stepped inside, I heard laughter coming from upstairs. I recognized your mother’s voice and thought I would say hello, so I laid the eggs on
a table near the door and walked up the staircase. What I saw next….” She stopped, unclasped her hands, then quickly squeezed them together again, swallowing hard. “It was a shock, to say the least.”

  Sam didn’t realize till that moment that his heart had started racing. He swallowed, too, but a lump in his throat made it painful. “What, exactly, did you see?”

  Persephone kept her eyes lowered. “I stopped outside your parents’ bedroom door and peeked inside, and saw Aunt Flora…kissing a bare-chested man. And it wasn’t Uncle Ernest.”

  “What?” Now, instead of racing, Sam’s heart stopped. “Not my father?”

  She met his gaze, nodding solemnly. “I jumped back from the door, but they didn’t hear me, so engrossed they were in what they were doing. I don’t know why, but something compelled me to sneak another peek. This time, I recognized the man. It was Oscar Evans.”

  In one fluid move, Sam jumped out of his chair, knocking it against the wall with a loud racket. Fingers splayed across the tabletop, he glared at Persephone with such intensity that she looked away again. “What are you sayin’?” The anger in his voice shocked even him, so it was no wonder Persephone lurched back, her eyes widening to boulder-sized spheres.

  She blinked, regaining her composure. “I believe your mother and Oscar Evans were having an affair.”

  “That’s impossible!” he bellowed. “She—she hated him! He was her mortal enemy. I don’t see how it could have possibly been him.”

  “But it was, Samuel.” She kept her voice low and calm. “I had seen him pass by our house when I was outside hanging clothes on the line. I knew his horse…and, Samuel, that same horse was grazing in the barnyard at your house that day. I remember, because his horse was dappled; your parents kept only chestnuts and sorrels.”

  Sam completely lost all ability to speak—even breathe, for that matter. He turned and bent to right his chair, then stood there, gripping the back of it and staring down at his cousin. Then, scratching the back of his head, at last he found his tongue. “So, you told your parents?”

  “No! I couldn’t. It seemed too vile a thing to speak of, one of those things you want to hide deep in your soul and pretend you didn’t witness. And that is exactly what I did, for years—until that night at the dinner table. I was sixteen, and I’d carried the secret so long, it had eaten a huge hole in me. Anytime we had a family gathering, I wanted to confront Aunt Flora. And when I heard family members lashing out with utter distaste for the Evans family, I’d glance at her and watch her nod in agreement, with her face all twisted into a frown that seemed genuine to everyone but me.

  “Don’t ask me why I chose that particular night to reveal the truth to my family. I just couldn’t keep it in another moment.” She blinked somberly. “How I wish I had.”

  He told himself to breathe, and so he sucked in a cavernous breath through his nostrils, still gripping tight to the back of the chair, needing to steady himself as visions of his mother and Oscar Evans galloped through his head. “What happened?”

  Persephone looked down at her lap. “They accused me of making it up—said I was looking for attention. Papa banged his fist on the table, calling me a spineless liar; Mama leaped up and rushed out of the room; and my brothers both shrieked vicious things at me. Frank raised his hand, and I believe he would have hit me, had Papa not commanded him to sit back down. They all defended Aunt Flora, insisting she would never do anything of the sort, that she and Uncle Ernest had a perfect marriage, and on and on.

  “Oh, Samuel, it was dreadful. After that night, no one would speak to me—not even Mama. I became invisible, most likely at Father’s orders. I couldn’t believe they gave no credence whatever to my story, but I suppose I should have expected as much. They didn’t think I had the capacity to keep quiet about something like that for so many years. If you want the truth, I think they hated the idea of letting go of the feud. The very notion of the tables turning on their reasons for its existence fed their fury the more, only now they focused it on me, as well, and they wanted me gone.

  “So, right after my seventeenth birthday, I packed my bags, left a note on the kitchen table, and walked out the door, taking what little money I had to my name, and headed for Nashville, with no specific plan, just a belief that I would find work in a city that size.

  “I did send Mama a few notes, the first to let her know where I was, and then a few other bits of correspondence. In her replies, she never once asked me to return; in fact, she said Papa wouldn’t hear of it.” She paused. “I’ve kept up with Adelaide Lawson. She wrote me about the vandalism done to Mercy’s property shortly after you married.”

  Sam nodded. “It was unusual, for sure. Someone upended the porch furniture and two planters, and shattered a window, to boot.”

  Persephone shook her head. “I hope you weren’t home at the time.”

  “No, thank the good Lord. Happened on a Sunday mornin’, while we were at church.”

  “A Sunday morning, you say?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you report it to the authorities?”

  “Yeah, but the sheriff doesn’t have any leads, far as I know.”

  Persephone chewed her lip pensively. “Do you know if he’s questioned my brothers?”

  “Frank and George? I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

  Persephone sighed. “Because I have a hunch they’re the ones who did the deed. They rarely attend church—at least, they never used to come with us—and in their adolescent years, they spent many a Sunday morning playing pranks on various neighbors. Turning things upside down, from potted plants to doghouses, was their signature.”

  “My own cousins?” Sam seethed like a boiling pot. At present, he did not have a scrap of godly love for his messed-up family. “They should have known it was too late to change my mind about Mercy after I’d said ‘I do.’ What’s wrong with those idiots? Did they actually think vandalizin’ our property would accomplish anything?”

  “I know you’re angry, and rightfully so, but please try not to do anything rash until you pray about this matter.”

  Pray? He couldn’t even think straight, let alone pray with all this rage surging through his veins.

  ***

  Joseph and John Roy couldn’t stop bouncing around as they waited at the train station for Sam’s return on Tuesday. They’d been gingerly hopping over cracks on the platform, trying to avoid touching them, as if doing so would scald the bottoms of their shoes.

  “Will Sam be on this train?” Joseph asked.

  “He surely will,” Mercy answered, her own heart jumping with anticipation for getting that first glimpse of her husband. Yes, she wanted to know what, if anything, he’d learned regarding the feud. More than that, she could hardly wait to receive his kiss of assurance that he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him. It had been fun and even relaxing to spend time with Aunt Gladdie, but it would be good to get back to her cozy home and play at being a family again, even if it was the unconventional sort.

  Overcast skies threatened rain, and when the train came chugging in, the acrid smoke it expelled meshed perfectly with the drab clouds. Brakes screeched as the big locomotive huffed to a stop, and Joseph and John Roy, typical boys, stood in awe at the sight, as if they hadn’t already seen dozens of trains in their short lifetime.

  Joseph gave an enthusiastic squeal when the passengers started disembarking. “What door is he gonna come out of?”

  “I don’t know, darling.” Gracious, one would think they hadn’t seen him in weeks. Yet she could hardly fault their excitement, considering how her own heart pitter-pattered.

  “There he is!” John Roy had spotted him first.

  “Where?” Joseph wanted to know.

  It took a minute for Mercy to locate him, and by the time she did, both boys had set off on a run. They reached him simultaneously, and when Sam bent to scoop them up in his arms, her heart welled up with a mixture of love, relief, excitement, and perhaps a bit of apprehension. H
ow would he react upon seeing her? She approached slowly, wanting to observe the tender hug he bestowed on the boys. But when his eyes met hers over the boys’ heads, and he smiled, suddenly all seemed right with the world.

  The ride back to the house was filled with the boys’ nonstop chatter, each wanting to outdo the other with tales from their stay with Aunt Gladdie. Mercy barely got in one word, and Sam didn’t even try; he just held the reins and kept his eyes on the road, every so often glancing back at the boys to nod and smile, and doing the same with Mercy. He’d embraced her, as well, but she’d immediately sensed something different in him—a certain reserve that put her on edge. To her further disappointment, his kiss had amounted to little more than a peck on the cheek. Had his absence provided him time to evaluate their relationship, perhaps causing him to regret the passionate kisses of the week before?

  Once home, the boys piled out of the wagon first, leaping to the ground like little jackrabbits. As usual, Mercy waited in her seat for Sam’s assistance. After snagging hold of his satchel, he jumped down and met her on her side, reaching up to help her climb down. She had hoped for two hands at her waist, and maybe a little twirl to make her skirts flare, but no. He merely supported her descent, then turned without a word and walked to the porch, the boys trailing right behind him, still squealing and squawking.

  Lunch consisted of sandwiches and soup, and the boys continued their chatter through most of it.

  “I should probably go to the shop,” Sam said after downing his final spoonful of soup. “Uncle Clarence will be happy to see me.”

  I’m happy to see you, she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Yes, I’m sure he will.”

  After Mercy excused the boys, they sailed upstairs for their baseballs and handcrafted bats, gifts from a kindly citizen after the fire. They’d forgotten to take them to Aunt Gladys’s house and were eager to resume playing with them, hopeful that a few other boys from around the neighborhood would want to join them for a game, even though neither had quite mastered the rules.