Carla Kelly (57 page)

“Now then. If you decide you'd like more than vegetable soup, I'll share. I'll share anything with you: my food, my bed, my pathetic income, my daughter. My clothes won't fit you. Only one of us will fit in my tin tub at a time. A pity, that.”

He cut into what looked like fork-tender beef, something she had never eaten before at the restaurant. Trust even the cows to be part of some conspiracy to make her miserable. She pointed to a piece of beef on his plate. With only the barest smile, he forked it onto her paltry little plate of saltines.

“Tasty,” she said and pointed to another piece.

His smile broader now, he handed it over, then batted away her fork when she gestured for another. She laughed and could have sworn everyone in the restaurant let out a sigh of relief.

After dinner, he walked her home to Mabli's. She was amazed how many people in Winter Quarters Canyon seemed to be out and about as the sun left the sky. It was no boardwalk in Atlantic City, but close to her suspicious mind.

He glanced at the woodshed as they strolled past and let out his breath in a puff. “I never walk by that without a prayer of thanksgiving, Butterbean.”

“I don't either,” she told him, her voice small. “It's been quite a year.”

“Not over yet. It can be quite a life, Della. Maybe one to go down in the annals of best ideas since Moses parted the Red Sea.”

“You are the world's worst exaggerator.”

He tucked her arm through his and she let him. At Mabli's door, he kissed her good night, and she let him do that too, her arms around him because she found it hard to maintain her balance otherwise.

Sunday was a fair, windy day, one of many in the canyon. She went to church early, hoping to find Bishop Parmley there. He must have known she wanted to see him. When she knocked on his door, he said, “Come in, Sister Anders.”

“You knew it was me,” she accused, which made him hold up his hands. She plopped down in his office chair. “I've been terrible and disagreeable. Bishop, I don't know what to do.”

He smiled at her and held out his hand across the desk. She put her hand in his. “You're the wrong man to talk to, Bishop. The last thing you want Owen to do is quit the mine because you're his employer and he's good. But you're his bishop too, and mine. Give me some advice, please.”

“Fast and pray,” he told her promptly. “If you haven't done that already, that tells me you don't want to listen to the answer you're going to get.”

She sat back, surprised. “I haven't.”

“Then get to it, Sister Anders. Start now.”

She nodded and left his office. She listened with her whole heart that afternoon as Owen and Richard sang, “ ‘How gentle God's commands! How kind his precepts are! Come, cast your burden on the Lord, and trust his constant care.’ ”

As the sacrament came around, she drank from the cup, her eyes on Owen, and then her heart. He seemed to sing the last line of the last verse to her alone, his eyes on her and so kind, “ ‘I'll drop my burden at his feet and bear a song away.’ ”

Drop my burden
, she thought as she shook her head at company on the walk home. “I need to think,” she told the Evanses, who came up on each side of her. “Pray for me,” she said, as an afterthought.

“We already do,” Richard said.

She nodded, thanking him with her eyes, and hurried on, head down. As she passed the school, a motion caught her eye. She looked up to see Miss Clayson gesturing to her. Curious, she went up the steps and opened the door.

“Good! I was afraid I'd missed you,” she said. “Goodness, you Mormons go to church so often.”

“It's our bad habit,” Della told her, amused. “What … ?”

Miss Clayson started down the steps to the basement. “I have something to show you.”

As Della followed, the principal opened the door to her living quarters. More curious now, Della followed her in, thinking of the times Israel Bowman had told her he thought Miss Clayson had a collection of snakes hidden down there.

The only light came from two small windows high on the wall, which allowed little sun in the front room. Della knew she could never live in a place of such low light and wondered what an effect this had on Miss Clayson through the years.
Not for me
, she told herself.

The most prominent object in the room was a photograph on the wall opposite the door. Della stepped closer, interested. It was a handsome man, looking like a banker or a teacher, perhaps. He had a closely trimmed beard and a slight smile. His suit was well-tailored and looked to her like clothing from the last Grant administration.

“This is Edwin Aldridge,” Miss Clayson said, her voice surprisingly tender, as though she introduced them. “We knew each other as children in Boise. He went to the Rialto Mine in Butte, Montana Territory, a hard rock miner like your father.”

Della sat down, her eyes on the photograph.

“He asked me to marry him, and I told him I would never marry a miner. He went back to Butte.”

“Please don't, Lavinia,” Della whispered.

“You're going to hear this, Della,” she said, with steel in her voice. “One morning, there was some trouble with the cable in the hoist. The foremen went down to look at it. The flame from his head lamp caught the cloth insulation on fire and the shaft turned into a blaze. Fifty miners were trapped and could not escape. Edwin was one of them.”

Della bowed her head, unable to look at Edwin, forever a young man.

“Many asphyxiated, but some survived for a day or more. Edwin was one of those. He wrote me a note while waiting to die.” Her voice faltered then, and she made a guttural sound in her throat. “It took me ten years to work up the courage to read it. I came here vowing to do everything I could to make sure no child I taught ever went into a mine again.”

Della sat back, understanding her principal as never before. Or not. She frowned, thinking about that debacle of a holiday dinner at the Anderses’ house. “But you defended me. You defended miners. I don't understand.”

Lavinia sat down beside her. “Della, you've been so absorbed in your own past that it might not occur to you that other people can change too. I have. I probably owe it to you.”

“I still don't understand.”

“Then pay attention! I have regretted every single day of my life since Edwin's death. If I had married my darling Edwin, I would have had six months with him. Six months!”

“But that's so sho—”

“Short? Compared to
nothing
? No memories, no child, nothing to look forward to. Della, think very carefully before you tell that fine man no.”

Miss Clayson seemed to think she had overstepped her bounds. Her expression mellowed. “I don't mean to frighten you. You're probably tired of every well-meaning soul in this canyon telling you what to do.”

“I am, and now you too!” Della said angrily. “You don't live my life!”

“True, we don't. You came here so unsure of yourself. You changed. Now you are resourceful, determined, and so much fun. Last week, your third graders got brave enough to slip a petition under my door, asking that you be moved to the upper primary grade with them this fall.”

“We … did have a lesson on the power of common consent,” Della said.

“Obviously they listened!” Miss Clayson said, with a touch of her usual asperity.

Della tried to gather her scattered thoughts. “You want me to marry him, even if we only have a few years together. You're afraid I'll become the old Della if I say no.”

“Oh, no. The old Della is gone. What I
don't
want is for you to turn into Lavinia Clayson. What a waste.”

houghtful, Della went home and apologized to Mabli for being so hard to live with. For penance, she volunteered to start the breakfast bread dough all by herself. Mabli laughed and told her aye and that she was forgiven.

“This will give you another hour at least in your front room with the shy William Goode,” Della said as she put on her apron.

“He's on the verge,” Mabli said.

“Of what?” Della asked, feeling frisky for the first time in a month. “Saying ‘May I call you Mabli?’ ”

Determined not to think about Owen, she pounded the bread dough until she wore herself out.

Mabli's parlor was empty when Della returned, so she prepared for bed quietly, braiding her hair again in a long braid. In her bedroom, she unfolded Angharad's latest dragon, looked at it a long time, and put it in the carved box Angharad had made “with only a little help from Da.”

She stayed on her knees a long time, hoping for some confirmation, some sign that her petitions to the Almighty had reached at least the waiting room of those celestial realms. Hadn't the bishop told her months ago that the Lord was mindful of her?

Della finally turned off her lamp and tried to sleep. It would have been easier, but a chorus was singing outside the house. They wouldn't go away. As she listened, alert now, the song became distinct. She threw back her covers and hunted for her robe, finding it and knotting the tie around her waist as she opened the front door.

“My goodness, you sillies,” she murmured, looking at the men's section of the Pleasant Valley Ward choir delivering a remarkable rendition of “Daisy Bell,” all the verses. She stood in the doorway as doors opened all over her end of the canyon and others listened too. After the last verse, there was a pause as Owen stepped forward and gestured to her.

“I'm in my nightgown!” she hissed at him.

“And it is a fetching nightgown.”

“Flannel, you nod,” she said, which made the men's chorus laugh.

She stood still when he put his hands on her shoulders, not drawing her closer but looking at her. “I once knew and loved a lady who asked me to sing for her when she was afraid. I'll sing for you now.” He gave a little downbeat, and the chorus hummed while he sang the chorus, “ ‘Della, Della, give me your answer do, I'm half crazy, all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, but you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.’ ”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Just give me something to hope for.”

There was her answer, coming simply and plainly, like most things the Lord engineered. She felt the same peace she had felt on the upper wagon road last fall. It seemed so long ago, but she had changed, just as Miss Clayson said.

“I can tell you this, Owen Davis: things are inclining more in your favor. What girl doesn't like a serenade?”

“Is that what it's called here?” he asked with a little smile. “In Wales, we call it a shameless act of total desperation. Go to bed.”

“Aye, sir. Do me a favor. You pray too.”

“We're still not together on this, are we?”

“No, we're not,” she said, with all the dignity in her heart and soul, hoping he would hear what she could not say. “Good night, Owen. You'll get my answer Tuesday at the dance.”

Monday morning, Della put her class through their paces. “School will be over in three weeks,” she reminded them. “These are little tests before our big tests. Astound me, and after lunch, we'll spend the afternoon making tissue flowers for the Dewey Day dance.”

They astounded her. During lunch, she looked over their tests, pleased.
You've learned so much this year
, she thought.
Almost as much as I have
.