Rachel Van Dyken (16 page)

One
year later

“Blaine
,
can you come
down here
for a moment?
” Mara yelled from
the back door
.

The previous night’s wind storm had blown a string of lights off the house, and h
er husband of a year thought it was necessary to
climb up there to fix it on
the coldest day of the year so far
—
he would be an ic
icle before he came back inside.

“You called?” Blaine swept into the room and pulled her into a hard kiss before releasing her and winking.

Trying to be angry
,
she turned abruptly and continued t
o stir the hot cider she was heat
ing on the stove.

“It’s going to be tonight
,
” Blaine said
,
hugging her from behind
.

“And just what makes you think the bab
y’s
going to be on time?”
Her pains had been getting steadily worse all day, but as a nurse she had some experience with this sort of thing. It might be false labor. And even if it wasn’t, it could be hours.

“A gut instinct,” h
e
retorted
.

Unfortunately
,
his gut was usually correct. He had been right about
the airline
letting him relocate and travel less
;
he had also been right when she was sick a
nd he thought she was pregnant.

“Ow!” A sudden pain shot down her
back
and spread
around her stomach.

“Told you—”

“Blaine
,
if you say I told you so, so help me
…
I’m going to—Ow!”

“We should
call the doctor to meet us at the hospital
.
”

Suddenly the pain
intensified until it was
overwhelming
.
N
odding
,
she followed him
. H
e
tossed
her suitcase into the back of the pickup and carefully helped her into the cab.

The pain
grew
increasingly worse as they drove to the hospital.
She could feel every pebble in the road, which Blaine seemed to be aiming for on purpose.

“It will be okay,” Blaine
soothed
.
“I’m sure
P
op
is
thrilled right now.”

A tear escaped Mara’s eye
.
“We’re going to have a
baby
on the anniversary of his death….it’s almost like his gifts never stop coming.” She smiled.

“Have you decided what you want to name him?”

“Him?”

“Well, it has to be a boy, right?”

Mara laughed
through gritted teeth
. “There is another possibility, you know.”

“All right, all right,” Blaine winked. “I suppose a girl would do. What name have you picked out?”

“
Tha
t’s my present to you, and…someone else.”

Blaine squeezed her hand.

“
Emily for a girl. And
David
for a boy.
”

Her husband appeared to
o
choked up to say anything. Warmth engulfed her heart as she closed her eyes in thankfulness.

The perfect gift
–
a
final
parting
gift from their father
.

Rachel Van Dyken
is a Graduate of Northwest Nazarene University, with a degree in Social Sciences with an emphasis
in
industrial psychology and a minor in Spanish. She is also a Post Graduate of California Coast University receiving a MBA with an emphasis in Human Resource Management. She resides in Nampa, Idaho and counsels children. Starbucks is a daily must, spiders make her scream, and she loves chocolate but is allergic, of course. Nate, her husband makes her laugh so hard she cries and they share their home with a very loud snoring boxer named Sir Winston Churchill.

Leah Sanders
is the middle child in a family of seven
children. As a true middle child she went from high school in Alaska to college in Florida, where she earned a Bachelor's degree in secondary education
from Southeastern University. She also holds a
Master's degree in educational technology
from Boise State University.

She makes her home in Idaho with her husband and three children. She has no pets but will sometimes allow her children to keep rocks and name them,
as long as they keep them outside,
so they don't feel like t
hey are missing out on anything
. She finds joy in making the world a better place by helping middle school students locate their
English
assignments on a daily basis, and even sweet romance novels make her blush.

The English Countryside

Miss Sara Ames had no desire whatsoever to extend a greeting to her Aunt Tilda. Greetings were natural assumptions of welcome, and Sara did not want her aunt to get the wrong impression. She was most certainly not welcome.

Soon enough she would be encouraged to extend said welcome to her aunt, but naturally, she was in no mood to rush the first step into the inferno, as she so delicately thought of the situation. No. She would greet her soon, but not too soon. Not until the time was forced upon her—much like the current situation had been thrust upon her.

At least she could spend these last few hours in solitary lamentation, mourning the life she once dreamed for herself. A life filled with nights sitting by the fireside reading novels. After all, she wasn’t pretty enough for a debut, a fact of which she was reminded daily by her sisters and her mother.

Debuts were reserved for comely, dewy-skinned girls; not ugly girls, as her father had often so delicately put it. She hadn’t even been provided with a dowry. And according to her father, the main reason for that being, “No man in his right mind would take you, even if I offered him the blunt of the
ton
.” He’d repeated such sentiments to neighbors on many occasions as well, the first time on Sara’s sixteenth birthday, when during the middle of her party he drunkenly announced to all
her friends she was worthless.

At least novels provided the escape she desperately needed, a diversion into a world where she felt loved, cherished, and desired—the most scandalous of all the emotions, or so she thought.

Men would never desire her; even her own father despised her for how she looked.

For one thing, she was straight where all the other women had curves. Her skin was dark olive, but that was to be expected when one spent hours contemplating books in the fields. Her lips were too large, her eyes too big, and her nose—well, she didn’t know much about noses, but she figured something had to be wrong with it, too. It always seemed too invisible next to her lush mouth, which her father had often called sinful.

How was it that her sisters were both gifted with angelic faces and soft bodies, while she was cursed with a hard-muscled body and a long mop of black hair? She was nearly convinced her mother had taken a lover of some sort, or at least had an affair while her father was away on business. It was the only explanation for her looks; certainly, her own father must have thought as much as well, because she received the most despised spankings as a child, and allotted the most horrid of all chores.

Her parents meant well, her beautifully gifted sisters often told her, but she had her doubts. As of a few days ago, she accepted her lot in life was to be a spinster; to spend the rest of her days longing for something she’d never had to begin with…love.

“Sara!”
Her mother’s impossibly loud voice never ceased to carry for miles on end.

“Coming!” she called, although not at the same decibel. It was nearly impossible to reach the same frequency as her mother on any given occasion.
A gift
is what her mother called it, but her father called it a curse behind her mother’s back.

Sara reluctantly pushed herself off the ground and walked slowly into the lion’s den. Her fate to be decided by the two most unlikeable people in her existence: her mother and her aunt.

Both eyed her speculatively when she approached them in the garden. Heat encompassed her body while observing her aunt’s disapproving gaze trace her from head to toe. She was used to being criticized. Holding her head high when subjected to rejection had once been a trying chore. Now she did it with ease, her only recourse, as if to say she didn’t care what everyone else thought. Though in her heart of hearts, she always did. Didn’t every girl?

She resolved to always maintain eye contact—to communicate to everyone within distance she accepted the way God created her. The local vicar once told her there were worse things in the world, and sometimes you only see what others want you to see.

Sara had her doubts about the local vicar after that day, yet her faith in God was the only solid thing in her life. She had to trust that possibly, when she went to Heaven, she would turn into a beautiful butterfly, whilst her family rotted in….

“Oh, dear,” her aunt sighed, lifting the teacup to her thin rouged lips. “I just don’t see what you expect me to do. I can’t perform miracles.” Her eyes skimmed quickly over Sara; although, she noticed Aunt Tilda seemed to harbor some tender emotion in them, for she ventured a gentle smile her way before facing Sara’s dreadful mother again. Either that or Sara was losing her mind, which was probably more likely, given the circumstances of her upbringing. One could only tolerate so much verbal abuse before she went to the madhouse, or so she thought.

“Only the good Lord can,” Mother responded, making a quick cross over her chest. Sara rolled her eyes but was quick about it, so she would not be caught. “After her sisters ran off and eloped, I thought to myself we would be ruined. Absolutely ruined. Then I realized I still had one daughter left. One daughter left who can at least try to marry above her station. And why not? Why shouldn’t we have more wealth than what we have? I don’t see why the good Lord would bless others and completely turn his nose up to us.”

“Nor do I,” her aunt agreed, clicking her tongue and then heaved a sigh of resignation. “I shall do as you ask… out of the goodness of my heart.” She rose from her chair and approached Sara, making Sara’s mouth go suddenly dry. “My husband is a Viscount. Unlike your mother, I married within my station, and it suits me well. I shall sponsor your first and only season in London. I shall expect nothing but good manners and graciousness from you. Do you understand, young lady?”

What was she supposed to do? Sit there and nod like a puppet? Sara cleared her throat to protest, but her aunt put a gloved finger in front of her lips.

“
Tsk, tsk
. You will not be speaking at all until we arrive in London. I have a head ailment which prevents me from listening to whiny, ugly girls for extended periods of time.”

Sara was tired of being insulted. She should be accustomed to it though; it was a daily occurrence, but now it rattled her nerves.

Aunt Tilda shook her head once more. “I don’t know, I just don’t know. I mean, look at her skin. It’s so, so—” Her hand waved in the air as if she would somehow pull the perfect word out of the sky.

“It’s brown, dear,” came Mother’s annoyed voice. “She has straight white teeth though.”

“Ah! Let me see!”
Aunt Tilda grabbed Saras chin and forced open her mouth making her feel like a horse being inspected by a famer. “Oh, yes. I do see. Oh good, very good. We shall have her smile often.”

“And her bosom!” Mother half-jumped out of her seat in a frenzy. “If you’ll just pull back her dress here.” The dress tightened around Sara’s chest furthering her embarrassment. “You see? She really does have a lot to work with.”

Aunt Tilda walked away for a minute, not facing any of the party in the receiving room. “She’ll have to eat much more than you’ve been feeding her.”

Sara took another deep breath; it was like getting sold to the butcher. She closed her eyes, so she could think about her latest book rather than the embarrassing things being said about her.

“She does eat!” her mother bellowed again, hazardously close to Sara’s left ear. She wouldn’t be surprised if she were close to being deaf in both ears. Years of living with her mother had not been good for her health. She winced as her mother yelled again “I
know!
We’ll just give her more meals and have her eat before bed! If she lies down, it is bound to stay in her belly and make her softer!”

Sara wanted to scream, but she had always been even tempered,
always.
But even those who are even tempered can be pushed beyond the brink of sanity. If only her sisters hadn’t eloped, leaving their family in utter ruin! What respectable girls elope with twin brothers to Gretna Green? They weren’t even titled for crying out loud! It meant her family had nothing, absolutely nothing. Her two sisters were the only hope for riches, and now they were gone, along with their measly dowries. Nobody would want them now, even if they could get the marriages annulled.

Her thoughts had gotten away with her somehow. Before she knew it, her aunt kissed her mother goodbye, and pushed Sara into a black plush carriage waiting outside.

“Oh, and Sara,” her mother ran toward her, “Aunt Tilda will explain what needs to be done to secure a husband; you listen to everything she says. Do not embarrass us! Your father has, well, he has some debts, dear, and you’re our only hope of securing a man rich enough to take care of us. Do you understand?”

Was that a rhetorical question?

Her mother droned on, “And, dear, I know you are…well, you’re wicked-looking, but if you could please swallow your pride and do whatever it takes, we would be grateful. After all, this is your one and only chance for any sort of affection from another person. And we all desire affection. Even ugly children desire acceptance.”

Hearing enough, she bit her lip to keep from talking. Sara nodded her head and closed the door to the carriage. Her body felt numb. She knew all about emotional rejection; it was her cross to bear, but to be reminded by one’s own mother time and time again was the worst pain imaginable. Turning her head toward the window, she pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed. Aunt Tilda reached across and patted her hand much like a stranger would do to comfort a small child.

“No fear, my girl, I have a grand plan. A plan even you can’t ruin.” She smiled cheerfully before putting a covering over her eyes and going silent, most likely to sleep.

It’s an adventure, it’s an adventure
, Sara kept repeating over and over again in her head to keep herself from crying. Being mortified in front of her family because of her looks she could handle, but being humiliated in front of the
ton
was quite another. “Dear God, if you can do miracles, I ask for one right now. Make me pretty; make me loveable. I don’t care if I let my family down, I just don’t want to feel this way ever again.” The stress of the day overwhelming her, she drifted off to sleep.