Bitter Eden (66 page)

He came back to Stephens side. "She gave me love . . . but she loves you. She's not the same without you. She needs you, {Stephen. She always has. Promise you won't leave her alone. You wont let that happen to her."

Stephen looked at Peter through a haze of tears, unable to speak or promise anything.

He went home having forgotten to hire someone to tend to Natalie. The house was as dark and unnaturally quiet as it had been before. Again he felt the air of uneasy fear. He looked in the study. Callie was no longer there. He walked through the house and up to her room. She wasn't there either. He went to Peter's bedroom and all the others without finding her. Finally he pushed aside the broken door to Natalie's room. She lay prepared, candles lit around her. She looked as natural as if she had been sleeping. But Callie wasn't there. Fear mounting, he went to Jamie's nursery. Last, he opened the door to his own bedroom.

Still dressed, she lay across his bed, asleep.

Without waking her he lay down on the bed beside

her, knowing as he did that only unknown and in sleep would he be able to come near her. What he had seen, and Peter had not, was the despairing emptiness the day had cast on her. He could not keep his silent promise to Peter because the brightness of Callie's faith in God and man had gone out that afternoon.

He lay beside her, touching her hair, placing his fingers gently to her parted lips. As dawn crept into the sky and Callie's sleep lightened, Stephen left.

Peter was tried and sentenced to hang the following week.

Callie's' visits to him were brief and unsatisfactory. She could no more face him than she had been able to face what had happened.

Peter thought through the years, going back before he had ever met Rosalind. There were no fears left in the memories. All his fears went toward the future as he saw Callie coming daily, struggling to be cheerful and reassuring when she couldn't accept what would be.

The morning before he was to hang, Peter waited for Callie to come. She wasn't there at the time he had learned to expect her. He paced the cell, anxiously returning to the grilled window that let him see the street outside.

When she came in he took the two steps across the room to her before the gaoler had closed the door. "I thought you weren't coming," he said, laughing in relief as he held her.

"You have no faith," she said, painfully cheerful.

"Come sit beside me."

"All right." She sat down on the cot beside him. "I brought you a pie," she said. 'They have it in the outer room." She burst into tears.

Peter held her. "Don't cry for me, Callie."

"Oh, Peter, I don't know what to do. I pray there has to be something, and there is nothing."

"There's the world, Callie. You and Stephen and Jamie."

She shook her head, unable to speak.

He kissed her tears. "You told me to tell you when I began to believe again," he said softly. "I do, Callie. Look at me. I remember the May house. It's real, Callie, and I know it." I can t.

"After all these years, will you turn away from me now? I need you now more than ever before. Don't turn from me, Callie."

She looked up at him. "I haven't turned from you, Peter. I just don't know what to do."

"Love Jamie for me. Dream for him as you did for me. Believe . . ."

"Oh, Peter, please . . ."

"No. Listen to me. I'll never be able to say it to you again. Jamie's just beginning his life now. I want him to know who I am, Callie, not what I've done or where I've been. Keep Jamie safe for me. Teach him to believe. Oh God, Callie, I don't want him to be as I was for all those years. If I hadn't known you were there somewhere . . ." He turned from her.

Callie felt as though she were being crushed beneath her helplessness. She'd had nothing of value to give years ago, and she had less now. But she said what he wanted to hear. "Peter, I will. Jamie will know you. And I'll dream and . . ." she said brokenly until she couldn't say any more.

'Time to leave, Miss Dawson," the gaoler said, clinking his keys against the bars.

"Peter," she cried.

He took her in his arms, kissing her long and tenderly. "Keep him safe for me."

She backed to the door and stood staring at him. She blinked through her tears, trying to smile.

Jamie was still at the Tolberts', Mrs. Tolbert wisely keeping him until it was over. Callie was alone in the house. All this week she had taken a desolate satisfaction in the emptiness. Tonight, after she left Peter, she noticed the lifelessness for the first time. "There is the world . . . you and Stephen and Jamie," he had said. And there was Peter, all the things he might have been, and all the things he now would never be.

She walked up to Jamie's room, looking down at his empty bed, going from one cupboard to another, touching the toys Stephen and Peter had made for him. She sat down near the window, looking out onto the cold bleakness of a frozen earth, the soil deathly gray in frost, the trees barren, reaching denuded black arms into a lightless sky.

As she watched, letting the dry dormancy seep inside her, the snow that was to fall all night long in heavy, soft, moist flakes began, soaking into the hardened earth. "There is the world . . * you and Stephen and Jamie."

As the warming blanket of white covered, shielded, and nurtured sleeping roots and seeds to begin life anew, Callie's thoughts turned to the brown-eyed, blond-haired little boy who would be so like his fattier were Peter not destroyed by emptiness.

The snow fell and Callie prayed, groping her way back through the haze of hates and fears and judgments that had been brought down on Peter by others, blighting his life without reason or justice. She had had neither the power nor the wisdom to be able to help him, but she had enough for Jamie, if Stephen

were by her side. With Stephen to keep her strong, and the world filled with the loving promise his father had given him, Jamie would grow up to be what Peter might have been.

The gaoler brought Peter out into the bright morning sun. He squinted against the glare it made off the fresh snow. Beside him stood the black-garbed minister who had been with him all night.

In many ways it reminded him of the long horrible time on Van Diemen's Land, where chains and preachers had the same meaning of endless captivity, and yet it was different.

The minister walked at his side, reading from the black leather-bound Testament he balanced perfectly on his palm. 'They came to a small estate called Geth-semane, and Jesus said to his apostles, 'Stay here while I pray/ Then he took Peter and James and John with him. And a sudden fear came over him, and great distress. And he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and keep awake/ And going on a little further he threw himself to the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour might pass him by."

Peter raised his eyes and saw Callie standing off and alone. He knew she'd be there without looking, but he wanted that brief final glance that would tell him of Jamie's future. He felt the tension in his body relax as he read it in her face. There were no tears in her eyes, only the loving smile he had learned no amount of cruelty or debasement could change.

The minister's voice went on slowly and reverently in Peter's ears as they walked through the snow to the gallows, which looked clean and newly built.

"'Abbai' He said. 'Everything is possible for you.

Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it/ "

Perhaps that was all the difference there was between this time and the time spent in Van Diemen's Land. She was there. And she was stronger than anyone he had ever known, because she believed in God. "He came back and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep? Had you not the strength to keep awake one hour? You should be awake and praying not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak/ "

Stephen was there as well. Not near Callie as he should be, Peter thought. But he was there. Too much could not be asked at one time. Stephen would never trespass in Peter's life. It was best that he die now. His life was over, and Stephen's couldn't begin until he was gone.

"Again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. Once more he came back and found them sleeping, their eyes so heavy; and they could find no answer for him/'

Peter wondered if he, sinner that he was, repentant that he was not, could leave his blessings on the three people he loved. He thought it better he did not. Perhaps the blessings of a damned man would damn them as well. And then he thought of Callie's unquenchable trust in good, and he blessed them, waiting with a pounding heart to see if God heard.

Peter stood at the top of the gallows looking at Stephen, pleading with his eyes for Stephen to go to Callie, praying to God to be given this sign of absolution. Stephen's eyes met Peter's. He walked toward Callie. Peter watched as Stephen hesitated, unsure, waiting for some sign from Callie. She moved toward him, and Stephen's arms closed around her. Peter knew the

tears that hadn't been in her eyes before were there now, healing and soft

"He came a third time and said to them, Tou can sleep on now and take your rest It is all over. The hour has come/ "

Then Peter prayed. Silently, lips firmly closed, but unafraid, at long last within himself at peace.

The wormwood cup was emptied.