Читать книгу A Marriage in Middlebury - Anita Higman - Страница 14

Chapter 7

7

With some hesitancy Sam approached his father’s body. He stood over him, feeling all the usual mysteries of life and death, but he experienced none of the sentiments that came from deep down when someone says good-bye to a person who was beloved. But out of respect for his father, Sam went around the room and one by one he stopped all the clocks. When he approached the grandfather clock, he paused and stared at the inner parts, remembering it was his father’s favorite. He opened the glass door, reached inside the cabinet, and brought the swinging pendulum to a halt. It was a simple act, but strangely painful, as if he’d stopped his own heart.

“I wish we could have talked more,” Sam said, releasing the thought into the air. Why couldn’t they have made a meaningful connection? It seemed the older his father got, the more broken and impossible their relationship became. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why, except that his father had held to some pretty strange notions. But more than anything, he wished his father had come to know the Lord. Mr. Wilder’s choice had always been to embrace any religious idea that suited his needs rather than following the one true God. That was the biggest tragedy in the moment now. Not just for his lifetime but for all eternity.

Sam stared at his father’s ashen face. His eyes were closed and his breath was gone, but even in death, lines of worry creased his forehead. Or perhaps he’d spent so much of his life grimacing that his flesh refused to slacken its hold on anger.

He reached out and wrapped his hand over his father’s. He’d forgotten what it was like to touch him, even in the smallest way. His father never approved of hugs—too frivolous he’d always said.

“Mr. Wilder?” a voice came from the hallway, startling him.

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Nelly Washington, his father’s cook, stood in the doorway looking at him, her eyes wide. “I’ll come back later.”

“No, that’s all right. Come in. And Nelly, when are you going to start calling me Sam? ”

Nelly let a tremulous grin cross her face.

“I know my father insisted on these formalities, but as you can see, he’s no longer with us. You’re welcome to call me Sam.”

“All right. I wanted to tell you that the housekeeper went on home earlier today, but I’ll be here if you need me.”

“I’m glad. Please come in.”

“I’m sorry about your daddy.”

“Thanks.”

Nelly took a few steps inside the room as if she were walking on shards of glass.

“Are you afraid?”

“No, sir . . . Sam. I just know Mr. Wilder wouldn’t want me in here. This was the housekeeper’s domain. Not the cook’s.”

“That no longer matters. Will you wait with me until Edward and Jerald come from the funeral home?”

“Okay. I’ll stay.” Nelly walked toward him and then went to stand on the other side of the bed. She crossed her arms over her ample middle as if it were armor for protection. After a few moments her dark skin glistened with perspiration. They stood in silence for a moment, and then Sam said, “My father didn’t treat you well, did he?”

Nelly pursed her lips and said, “My momma always told me it wasn’t right to talk ill of the dead, and I happen to agree with her.”

“I understand.” Sam looked at his father one more time, memorized the moment, even though it wasn’t something he wished to remember, and picked up the corner of the bed sheet. “Do you mind lifting the other side?”

“Of course.”

Together they raised the sheet and covered the body of his father, the man known to everyone as Mr. Percy Robert Wilder, and a man he’d never really known.

Nelly took a tissue from the belt of her uniform and daubed at her face. “Kind of warm in here.”

“Yes.” Sam stepped toward the foot of the bed and Nelly followed. “I hope you’ll consider staying on here as our cook. I’d give you a very generous raise. I’m sure whatever my father was paying you wasn’t nearly enough. I intend to make amends for him.”

Nelly worked her finger back and forth on her lips. “Well, are you and Miss Audrey going to live here in this house?”

“You don’t like this place either, do you?”

“Not since the day I first set foot in it.”

“And that was a long time ago. I know Mary, the housekeeper, is new, but you’ve been here since . . . ”

“Ever since y’all moved to the Middlebury area. Can’t recall what made y’all move out here.”

“My father said he wanted to get away from the city. Too many people and too much noise. I didn’t like the idea at first, but then later I found plenty of reasons to love the area and the town.” Sam tightened his grip on the bedpost. “There are a lot of memories.”

“I got one for you,” Nelly said. “Maybe you don’t remember, but one time you saved my life. I’d taken a spill in the old root cellar out back and busted myself up pretty badly. If you hadn’t come looking for me, I mighta died down there in that awful place. I’m sure you nearly broke your back trying to haul me up them steps.” She chortled. “And you stayed with me in the hospital. Wouldn’t leave my side. Not even when your daddy called you and told you to come on back home. Do you remember?”

“I do.”

“You were a little bit of a hero to me that day, and I knew then you’d grow up to be a fine man.”

“Not like my father, I guess you mean,” Sam said.

“Now I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to say it, Nelly.”

“I will add this . . . you was always respectful to your father like it commands in the Good Book, but you weren’t afraid to stand up to him when it really counted. When it meant watching out for somebody else.”

“I’m afraid these years have put too much of a glow on your memory of me,” Sam said. “I’m no saint.”

“You’re right about that. Nobody is . . . ’cept for maybe my momma.” Nelly grinned.

“Do you mind if I ask why you stayed so long when I know it must have been very difficult working for my father?”

“Well, it was good honest work, and sometimes in bad times that’s hard to come by. I put it in my mind to stay.”

“That shows a sign of good character.”

“Or a lack of good sense.” Nelly raised an eyebrow.

“You won’t convince me of it.”

She daubed at her forehead again. “I had some friends over the years who kept quitting their jobs over problems with their employers or coworkers and such, and then they’d get into a new job and it’d happen all over again. Lots of reasons to leave. Never enough reasons to stay. My momma always said you could come and go your life away, so I decided that wasn’t how I wanted to live. I thought I’d stay with Mr. Wilder even if it meant I could only find one good reason to be here.”

Sam grinned. “And do you mind if I ask what that reason was?”

“God hasn’t revealed it to me yet, but as soon as he does you’ll be the first to know.”

“I’d be honored.” Sam motioned to the couch against the wall. “Shall we?”

Once they’d settled on the couch, Sam said, “I don’t think I’d want to live here. Too much history in this house . . . too many secrets. Not enough attention to faith or family. Audrey and I haven’t talked about it yet, but I’d like to buy a different house out here in the country. Maybe a little closer to Middlebury than this one. And I doubt I’ll take any of my father’s furnishings or artifacts with me.”

Sam surveyed the room. Even though his father hadn’t cluttered the bedroom with furniture, he did have one of his treasures displayed on the wall. But it certainly wasn’t his treasure. An idea solidified in Sam’s mind. He rose from the couch and lifted an elegantly framed Confederate flag off the wall. He would put the emblem in Nelly’s charge now, since for years, she’d had to deal with the not-so-hidden implications of it. Sam offered it to her. “Please take this and do whatever you want with it. I’ve always loathed the sight of it, since I know the hateful reason my father displayed it.”

Her dark eyes assessed him. “Mr . . . I mean, Sam . . . this is just grief talking. You’ll regret giving this away someday. It’s an expensive heirloom. It’s a piece of your daddy.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a piece I ever want to remember.”

Nelly stayed quiet for a while as if working out a debate in her head. Then she smoothed the folds in her black dress. All right.” She reached out and accepted the glassed-in flag. “I think I’ll hang it over my bed.”

Sam grinned. “That’s not what I expected you to say. Why would you want it over your bed?”

“As long as this flag was flying in the South, we had little control over our lives. What one man thinks is freedom can be another’s man prison. But now, to have this over my bed, well, it’ll be a fitting reminder that my new boss stands for a true spirit of liberty. I’d be most pleased to come work for you . . . Sam. No matter where you choose to live.”

“That’s good news, Nelly, on such a terrible day. And by the way, I wanted to tell you that you’ll be receiving a piece of my father’s inheritance. I’ll make sure of it. As a thank-you. You see, the fact that you stayed all these years, taking care of him the way you did, well, you’re a bit of a hero to me too.”

Mist swam in Nelly’s eyes. “Thanks, Sam. Those words mean more to me than the money.” She tipped her head. “But the money is mighty nice too.” She chuckled. “Well, I think I hear the doorbell. I best get it and not make the funeral parlor folks wait.” Nelly rose from the couch. “I’ll have some coffee ready in the kitchen in case they’d like some before they go.”

“Thanks.”

Nelly scurried toward the bedroom door as if grateful to be leaving the room, but under her arm, she still clutched the framed Confederate flag. Once in the doorway she turned back to face him. “I’m glad you came home to stay, Sam.”

“I really appreciate that, Nelly.”

On that note, she vanished around the corner.

Nelly had made him feel welcome. The locals who remembered him seemed pleased to see him too, and he was glad to be away from the city, back in Middlebury. But he’d never imagined how hard it would be to watch his father die and how difficult it would be to see his first love again—Charlotte Rose Hill.

God help me. Was he having second thoughts about marrying Audrey? He still cared for Charlotte. There could be no denying it, and yet he cared for Audrey too. He didn’t think it sounded right or biblical or fair to anyone. Life, though, had never been just. Sometimes it felt like a jailhouse with only one key—death.

On the other hand, all those many years ago, Charlotte had refused him, plain and simple. She had let him go with no explanation or turning back. But that look in Charlotte’s eyes when he saw her in the tearoom just before he announced his engagement—that was not the look of mere friendship.

He rested his head in his hands. His father had died, and the men were coming to take his body away. Even with that disheartening thought he knew the real reason for his grief. “Charlotte.”