Hope Springs (45 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Marianne Johnson was buried on a clear Sunday morning. The frozen earth seemed as unable to accept the child’s death as the townspeople were. Every able-bodied man, Irish and Red Road alike, took it in turns to pound into the icy ground. Hands bled with the effort. Hearts broke. Tears were shed in abundance. In that moment of such acute sadness, an odd sort of healing began.

The fire had not cared about nationality. Everyone in town felt the tragedy.

Finbarr sat by the graveside throughout the service, his eyes heavily bandaged. Tavish didn’t know what would become of his brother. The lad had always spoken of working his own land someday. Could a blind man live on his own in such an unforgiving land? And what of the boy’s heart? Finbarr had spoken very little since awakening after the fire, even less after he’d finally been told of Marianne’s fate. What he did say lacked the joy and lightness that was so much a part of him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t wish to talk to anyone.

The only person who seemed able to get through to Finbarr was Emma Archer. She sat next to him at her dearest friend’s graveside service, holding his hand as if he were the only one of the two of them needing comfort, though her fragile heart must have also been breaking.

Tavish’s eyes turned toward the road. He could just make out the distant shape of Joseph Archer’s home. Katie was still there, just as she’d been the past two days, lying in the dark in Joseph’s bedroom. The last he’d seen her, she was resting more peacefully than she had before the operation. Her breathing was less strained.

She pricked at his heart. She likely always would.

He was letting her go. He would still do all he could to help with her recovery, but he was stepping back, giving Joseph the room he needed to fill the role that was rightly his.

Jeremiah Johnson stood beside his daughter’s grave, the very picture of a broken and grieving father. “I asked Reverend Ford if I might say a word or two.” He took a moment, clearly attempting to get himself under control. “I need to thank Finbarr O’Connor for—for risking his own life for my daughter.”

Tavish watched his youngest brother sit in stoic silence. With the top half of his face bandaged, his emotions weren’t readable. But his mouth was pulled tight, as still as stone.

“There is some small comfort in knowing Marianne was not alone when she died.” Mr. Johnson blinked a few times, his Adam’s apple making several trips up and down as he swallowed his emotions. “And I need to say that I have been moved by the outpouring of support and kindness we’ve received, from both the Red Road and the Irish Road. I’ve not always treated my Irish neighbors with fairness or kindness, and I am . . . humbled to be receiving their comfort now.” Mr. Johnson’s voice broke. “I wish I could say, had the situation been reversed, had it been an Irish barn burning with Irish inside, that the Reds in this town would have rushed in as quickly and selflessly as this Irish man and woman did.”

Such a speech would have been unimaginable only a few short weeks ago, even a few days ago. If only Katie were there to hear it.

“Miss Macauley was always kind to Marianne in the time she spent working in my shop, even though I was often cruel. Marianne, herself, scolded me for my uncharitable heart.” His pained whispers brought fresh tears to every eye. He wiped at his eyes with a white handkerchief. “I’ve paid a terrible price for my pride and my hatred. Though I can’t promise to be perfect, I mean to be better.” His shoulders squared. His eyes met Da’s. “I’d like the chance to start again and make things right.”

Da gave Mr. Johnson a nod of acceptance.

Mrs. Johnson wept openly. Tavish’s heart broke to see it. No mother should have to bury a child.

Reverend Ford read the remainder of the graveside rite, declaring ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Each person tossed a handful of dirt into the painfully small hole.

Tavish waited until everyone had left except the Johnsons and Reverend Ford and Finbarr. Emma had only abandoned her post at her father’s insistence.

The Johnsons’ oldest son, Joshua, a young man not many years older than Finbarr, approached. The sight of his red-rimmed eyes cut Tavish deeply. He was grieving a sister, something Tavish could comprehend, if not fully understand. He had sisters. The loss of any one of them would hurt terribly. He’d lost two brothers and a fiancée and that pain had never fully left him.

“My pa says to tell you that he’ll see to it Finbarr reaches the Archer place so you don’t need to wait for him.”

Tavish looked uncertainly at his brother. Would Finbarr resent being left to these people who, only a few days earlier, were considered enemies?

“He’s in a difficult place just now,” Tavish said. “He blames himself, hates himself for what happened. I don’t know that I can leave him.”

“Pa understands that,” Joshua said. “He blames himself as well, and his heart is torn to pieces. What your brother did for my sister—” He took a quick breath, blinking fiercely. “He is safe with our family, I promise you that.”

The sincerity of his declaration couldn’t be doubted. “Thank you,” Tavish said.

The walk back to the Archers’ house, where the rest of his family would be waiting, was a contemplative one. Finbarr was facing a future nearly as uncertain as the one their family had faced during The Famine, and Tavish could do little to help. He’d lost Katie—not to death, thank the heavens, but to a man he might one day be willing to admit was better suited to her. He knew letting her go was right, but it didn’t stop the loneliness.

Finbarr will need me, whether he likes the idea or not. Helping him get through the coming days and months, maybe years, will help me do the same.
He’d have a purpose, a distraction.

Katie would be happy; that was critically important.

He would learn to be happy, too.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Katie?”

A small voice was whispering her name.

“Katie?”

There was no urgency to it, no fear or worry. ’Twas as if someone simply wanted to get her attention.

She tried to open her eyes, but they fought her. A general ache filled her as though she’d worked herself too hard the day before and her body was protesting the effort.

“Katie?” Little hands touched her face; she could make out the feel of each tiny finger. In a flash of understanding she knew who was speaking to her: Ivy.

She worked to move her arm enough to feel about for the girl. Her fingers brushed what felt like a leg next to her.

“Are you awake, Katie?”

Not particularly.

“Ivy, come down from there. Katie needs to rest. And it is your bedtime as well.”
Joseph.

A sudden, almost desperate, need grabbed her. She wanted to see him. She wanted him to come sit by her. Though she couldn’t explain the near panic she felt, she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving her there.

Her voice refused to cooperate. She pried one eye open, struggling with the other. Ivy’s sweet, angel face hovered just above her.

“She’s looking at me, Pompah!”

“Truly?”

Immediate relief filled Katie’s mind. She could hear Joseph’s footsteps approaching. He wasn’t leaving her. She had both eyes open and nearly focused by the time he came within sight.

“How are you, Katie?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

With effort, she shook her head. All she needed was him, and he was there.

“I’ve been practicing my loop and loops,” Ivy said eagerly.
Loop and loops.
That was the phrase Ivy used to mean the crocheting Granny had taught her. “Do you want to see?”

Katie smiled and nodded. Ivy all but jumped off the bed and ran from the room. Joseph took Katie’s hand, pulling her gaze back to him. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. Weary lines weighed down his face.

“You look tired.” Her voice was scratchy, her throat sore.

Joseph only smiled. “It is so good to hear your voice again.” He spoke little louder than a whisper.

She was awakening more by the minute, her surroundings growing clearer. Why was she in Joseph’s room? She hurt too much for it to be anything but a lingering illness or rather extensive injuries.

“I am very confused.”

Joseph ran his hand along her cheek. He looked at her as though she were some great treasure. Katie couldn’t recall anyone looking at her in just that way. She wanted to enjoy it, but flashes of something—memories or lingering nightmares, she couldn’t say which—kept pulling her from the moment. Smoke. Fire. Hay.

“There was smoke,” she muttered.

“Don’t think on it now. There’ll be time—”

Her mind filled with the roaring sound of fire consuming everything in its path. She could see the flames. Taste the smoke in her mouth once more. The girls were there. Afraid. In danger.

“Fire.” She heard the fear in her voice.

“No, Katie. The fire’s out. You’re safe.”

She shook her head, but it wouldn’t clear. She didn’t feel safe. “The girls.” Ivy had been there a moment before, safe. But not Emma. “Joseph!” Panic swept over her. “Where’s Emma?” She tried to sit up, but the effort sent scorching pain up her left arm. Even as she dropped back down in agony, her heart raced with fear. “Emma?”

“Emma is fine,” Joseph said. “She’s with Finbarr.”

“Was she hurt? Is she—?” Her voice quivered. She didn’t finish the thought.

Joseph seemed to grasp what she couldn’t quite say. “Emma and Ivy are both whole and unharmed. You saved them both, Katie. They are fine.”

Katie could remember the fire, but not where it had been or when or how it had started. She had clearly not escaped injury, but that was unimportant. The girls were safe. The thought brought immediate relief.

Finbarr had been in the fire too. She remembered him there, but no details beyond that. “Finbarr is well? He wasn’t hurt?”

Joseph hesitated. A knot formed in Katie’s stomach.

“He was injured,” Joseph said after a moment. “But he is recovering.”

There was more he wasn’t saying, she could sense it. She felt at a disadvantage, lying there like an invalid. The same terrible pain shot through her arm when she tried to sit up again.

“My arm hurts.” She groaned out the words.

He nodded. “Let me help you.”

Slowly and carefully, they managed to get her sitting more upright, pillows stacked behind her. The searing pain in her arm continued. She glanced down, but her arm was wrapped so thickly in bandages she could make out nothing but a lump of fabric in the basic shape and length of her arm. The anguish of her injuries was so great she couldn’t tell where the pain ended and where it began.

Joseph gently turned her face toward him with the lightest touch of his fingers. “Can I get you anything? A drink of water? Something to eat? We have medicinal powders to help with the pain.”

“I hope you didn’t pay the Irish price for the powders, Joseph. It’s too dear.”

He smiled a tiny bit. “You have missed quite a lot while you’ve been sleeping. Jeremiah Johnson has renounced the practice of charging an Irish price.”

She was too shocked to even speak, almost unable to think.

“Furthermore, he brought the medicine here free of charge with instructions that his store is entirely at your disposal should you need anything else.”

“I don’t understand.”

Joseph sat on the bed, facing her. “Your efforts at teaching them to be better have paid off.”

If tensions in town were improving, something Joseph had wanted since long before she’d met him, why wasn’t he happy? Her left arm hurt too much to move, so she raised her right hand, brushing her thumb along the dark smudge beneath his eye. “You look so tired.”

He took her hand in both of his and kissed her fingers. She didn’t know what had inspired this affectionate side of him but found she liked it very much.

“This has been a terrible week,” he said. “I don’t think there is a person in all of Hope Springs who isn’t exhausted.”

Again she saw something in his face that told her more had happened than he’d let on, that the past week had held greater difficulties than her injuries and Finbarr’s.

“Look, Katie! Look!” Ivy rushed back inside, a knotted mess of yarn held high in her fist.

She climbed up onto the bed, pushing against her father as she did. Joseph moved to make room for her. He sat with his back against the headboard, directly beside Katie. He only released her hand for a fraction of a moment. Even in her pain and confusion, Katie smiled.

“Mrs. Claire says I’m getting better and better,” Ivy declared, holding up her crocheting for Katie to inspect. “We stayed at her house while you were sleeping. She told me to do my loop and loops so I would stop bothering Emma while she was crying.”

“Emma was crying?”

Ivy paused only long enough for a quick nod. “And I saw Finbarr crying, and Pompah, and Marianne’s mama and papa. Everyone. Mrs. Claire and I did loop and loops, and—”

Ivy rambled on, but Katie didn’t really hear her. Marianne’s name sparked a memory, one as clear as a cloudless morning. She could hear Marianne’s voice.
Don’t leave me here.
She could hear each word and with it the sound of crackling fire.
Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me.