“Ahh,” Rigg said with a smile. “I honestly think you could just bring yourself. Marcail would consider you gift enough.”
Bobbie smiled. “I think she’s pretty special too. How is Kaitlin?”
“She’s feeling better physically, but she just heard from her father and he’s decided to stay in Hawaii for at least a year. It was difficult to hear, but in the long run it will be easier than getting news with every letter that he’s going to be delayed.”
“I think you must be right,” Bobbie answered with more knowledge than Rigg realized.
She had written to Cleve and told him how she was feeling about their relationship. He seemed almost panicked because his next letter said he was coming to Santa Rosa right away. Wanting to settle things with Cleve as soon as possible, Bobbie had been relieved, but another letter came right after that to say that he wouldn’t be able to get away until the spring and quite possibly the summer. It was a tremendous letdown, and Bobbie was discovering that the feeling of being in limbo was not pleasant.
“I saw Marcail looking at these last week,” Rigg was saying as he pointed to some hair combs and ribbons. “And I know she likes lacy undergarments because she touches them and holds them to the front of herself every time she comes in.”
Bobbie’s interest was immediately piqued. “Does Kaitlin usually buy her this type of thing?” Bobbie held up a child’s shift that was bordered with bright blue ribbon.
“I don’t think she does. Kate’s pretty drawn to that stuff too, so I think it’s probably something they haven’t had a lot of.”
“Thanks, Rigg, I don’t think you need to show me anything else,” Bobbie said without looking at him, her eyes on the clothing before her. Ordinarily she might have been embarrassed to discuss intimate apparel with Rigg, but right now her mind was too busy figuring out what she could afford and exactly what Marcail might like.
Bobbie’s stomach was beginning to growl from hunger before she made her final selection and started home. She was very pleased with her purchase and hoped her ten-year-old friend would be as well. She had only about 24 hours to wait before she found out because Marcail’s party was right after church the next day.
Bobbie had checked with May about what she could bring for lunch but May told her that she and Kaitlin were preparing everything. The weather over the weekend would have been perfect for a camping trip but Bobbie told herself that she wouldn’t miss Marcail’s party for anything. She also asked the Lord to give them sunshine for the party. It was a selfish request, but Bobbie’s heart was tender toward Marcail and she wanted everything to be just right.
Just right were the perfect words to describe the day of the party. Marcail waited outside the church and then asked Bobbie to sit with her during the service.
Their pew was full, with Sean on the far end and then Rigg, Kaitlin, Jeff, Bobbie, and Marcail on the outside aisle. Bobbie and Jeff only had a chance to exchange smiles before the service began, but on the first song Jeff leaned to whisper in her ear.
“Why aren’t you singing?”
“I’m trying to hear Marcail’s voice.” Bobbie’s eyes were wide with wonder.
“You need to hear her when she sings with Kate and Sean. The word beautiful doesn’t do them justice.”
Bobbie was awestruck. Marcail’s voice was the clearest soprano she had ever heard, and as Bobbie turned to watch her she could see that it was effortless. The whole morning was special and it was with high spirits that Bobbie made her way to the Taylors’.
‘You’re going to have to face facts, Jeffrey,’ he said to himself. ‘You’re finding Bobbie Bradford more and more distracting all the time.’ Jeff sat in the living room of his house and couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with himself.
The room was packed. Jeff’s folks were there, along with all his brothers, plus Kate, Sean, and of course Marcail. Mr. Parker and Joey Parker were also present. They were friends to whom the family had a special outreach, but the only person Jeff had eyes for was a curly-headed blonde who wore glasses on her delightfully upturned nose.
Jeff couldn’t believe how many times he had thought about kissing that nose over the last two weeks. Maybe it was because Sylvia had kissed him, but Jeff knew he was terribly preoccupied with hugging and kissing lately. He found himself envying Rigg, who had a wife to hold whenever he so wanted.
Jeff always assumed that he would marry someday, but lately it was becoming something of an obsession. He even found himself imagining what his and Bobbie’s children would look like. He had never had such thoughts of Sylvia, and Jeff spent a lot of time asking God to show him what it all meant.
What if he was falling in love with Bobbie? She was committed to Cleve. Jeff found the name more distasteful all the time. And on the rare moments when he thought about Bobbie kissing Cleve, he felt something akin to grief. He had almost slipped one day at work and asked her if they had kissed much. He knew the question was none of his business, but it plagued him nonetheless. Maybe he should just ask her, get his face slapped, and have it out of his system.
The room had emptied while Jeff sat in a daze. Marcail had opened all her gifts and the family was gathered in the kitchen for cake. Bobbie noticed that Jeff wasn’t present and went back to find him in a chair in the far corner of the living room.
“Jeff, are you coming to the kitchen?” Bobbie asked the question after she had stopped by his chair.
“Yes, I’ll come right now,” Jeff answered, glad for the diversion.
Marcail shot into the room just then and made straight for her presents. She scooped up the lovely undergarments that Bobbie had picked out for her and rushed over to Jeff.
“Jeff, did you see these? Bobbie gave them to me. Aren’t they pretty?”
“Very nice,” Jeff answered, thinking how grown-up Bobbie had made Marcail feel with such a gift. Marcail was holding up a cotton undershirt and bloomers; both were piped in pink braid.
“Marc!” Kate’s voice called from the kitchen and the three went out together. Marcail skipped out to have her cake, thinking that this day had been almost as good as Christmas.
twenty-seven
“Oh Sean, not again.” The words were uttered in agony and came from the 15-year-old’s sister. Kaitlin had been sitting in the living room for hours waiting for Sean to come home. Rigg had sat with her until close to midnight, but he had to work the next day and Kate told him to go to bed. They were both too tired to give thought to the fact that Kaitlin had to work in the morning as well.
“Sit down, Sean.” Kate moved toward her brother and then almost stepped back when a wave of alcohol fumes assailed her senses.
Sean mumbled something unintelligible as Kate put her arm around him, but she ignored her inebriated brother. Her pregnancy made her ungainly, and when Sean tripped on the edge of the rug, he almost took them both to the floor.
Kate wanted to rail at her brother. This was the second time he had come home drunk and she was just sick as she looked at him. It had all started around Marcail’s birthday, when their Father had written to say he would be away at least a year. A few days after Marcail’s party, Sean had gone out with friends on a Friday night and been gone until dawn. He had come back so drunk that his family barely recognized him. Now it was weeks later and it wasn’t a Friday night, so they wouldn’t have the weekend to recover.
For a long time Sean had been very sorry over what he had done and it looked to everyone like he had learned his lesson, but the boys Sean ran with were a strong lure, and in a matter of weeks he was seeing them again. He managed to keep this a secret for over a month, but now he saw them every afternoon that he wasn’t working.
Rigg and Kate discussed the possibility of Sean working every day, but they knew that would be treating the symptoms and not the cause. Kate didn’t like to think what was going to happen when school let out in two weeks. Unless Sean agreed to work at the mercantile, he would have hours of free time on his hands every day.
&n
bsp; Kate was afraid to try the stairs with Sean, so she led him to the couch and helped him lie down. He fell asleep as she removed his shoes. Rigg came out to check on her just as she was covering him with a blanket.
“I could smell him from across the room.” Rigg’s voice was thick with pain. “How are you holding up?”
“I think I’ll be okay. I came to some conclusions tonight as I was sitting here waiting, and I think I’m going to give Sean a choice; he can straighten up or I’m going to put him on the next ship for Hawaii.”
“Will you be able to go through with it if he chooses to sail?”
“I don’t know, Rigg, I honestly don’t know.” The tears that had threatened for hours finally spilled forth.
Rigg quickly checked Sean, tucking the blanket close around him, and then lifted his sobbing wife in his arms. The pregnancy made her heavier but she was still no problem for Rigg to carry.
He laid her gently in their bed and then crawled in beside her, covering them both with a light blanket. Rigg didn’t try to talk to Kate as she cried against his chest because he half-expected she would cry herself to sleep. But Kate needed to talk, and after her tears were spent she spoke.
“I don’t know what to do next. I love my brother, Rigg, but he’s become so hard against me that I feel I barely know him. I know he’s a different person when he’s with his friends, and I feel that everything he says or does around here is a lie.”
“It probably is. I mean, he’s embracing the world with both arms right now and that means he has to weigh every word he says when he’s here.”
“What are we going to do, Rigg?” Kate said after a moment of silence.
“I don’t know. I haven’t wanted to involve my whole family even though I’m sure they’ve noticed Sean’s behavior.”
“But now you’re thinking of talking to your dad?”
“Yes. He loves Sean, but he’s not as emotionally involved as we are, and maybe he can shed some light on things for us. And just maybe, Kate—and this is something we’ll have to face—Sean will have to make his own choice on this. He has a free will, and God wants Sean to come to Him of that free will.”
They didn’t talk much after that and it wasn’t long before they were both asleep. Morning was a trial with so little rest, but they were up on time anyway. Rigg moved his hung-over brother-in-law to his own bedroom upstairs, and then left him a note telling him not to leave the house before Rigg returned at lunch.
Kate and Rigg sat down with Sean that very night and talked over the options available to him. Kaitlin did not give her brother any ultimatums, but she did ask him if he wanted to sail for Hawaii. He was immediately against the idea and Kate found that she was relieved.
Rigg took over the conversation about halfway through, and most of what he told Sean echoed the advice he had received from his father that morning.
Sean was given until school let out to find a full-time job for the summer, not a job with Rigg or at the shipping office, but one where he walked in, introduced himself, and asked for full-time work for the summer.
“And what if I refuse?” Sean asked, not belligerently, but needing to know his boundaries.
“Then you’ll find yourself out on your ear, because this is what it’s going to cost you to live here this summer.”
Rigg pushed a piece of paper toward the young man. On it were the weekly costs for Sean’s rent and food for the entire summer. Rigg also told him he would have to buy his own clothing. Sean read the list over several times, and then looked into the eyes of Rigg and his sister. They were regretful, but serious.
Sean nodded slowly. He hated to admit it, but he knew he had no one to blame but himself. Maybe a job would help him say no to the friends who got him into the most trouble. Not that he blamed them completely; he knew the choice was his.
The next day being Friday, Sean knew he had just one more day before setting off to find a summer job. He thought he might have seen a sign at the livery. He didn’t know the pay, but it had to be fairly high or else he would have to put in plenty of hours for his rent and expenses.
He also wanted to buy Katie’s baby something special. She was due in about three months and he had put her through a lot. He thought if he could buy a gift for his new niece or nephew with his own money, he could prove to Kate that he did think of other people besides himself.
With this in mind Sean rose from the table to find Marcail. He had shouted at her today because he’d had a headache. Knowing he needed to make amends, he nevertheless wished his family understood him more. In fact, he wished he understood himself more.
twenty-eight
Jeff smiled at the sight of Bobbie on the step stool in the storeroom; she wasn’t supposed to be up there. But then, it was only her boss who told her that, and since Bobbie saw no reason for the rule, she disregarded it when she felt it necessary.
“You’re not to be up there, Bobbie,” Jeff stated as he came to stand below her.
“Oh, it’s all right. You see, Gilbert just had to run a quick errand and I want to get this done before lunch.”
Jeff shook his head as she went back to organizing the unclaimed packages, even as his hands lifted to grasp her around the waist.
Once on the floor Bobbie glared up at Jeff, but he smiled engagingly, which only deepened her scowl. Sidestepping her, Jeff hopped on the ladder himself.
Jeff had been working on the back-room shelves for so many years he was sure he could do it in his sleep. As usual, his mind began to wander and this time it wandered to Bobbie. He had never had a friend like her, and indeed she was a friend.
It had seemed for awhile that working with her was going to be very difficult because of the way his heart was changing toward her, but he had fully surrendered his heart to God where Bobbie was concerned, and his heavenly Father sustained him in a way that Jeff never anticipated.
Bobbie had become his friend. It was really that simple. He could touch her arm or even give her a hug in true friendship. There wasn’t anything they couldn’t talk about. They shouted at each other once in awhile, but there wasn’t a week that passed when they didn’t laugh themselves to tears over something.
They even had a Scripture memorization contest going. It had been Bobbie’s idea, and Jeff, having been raised in the Word of God, thought himself a sure win. But as usual, Bobbie surprised him. They would stand almost nose-to-nose and recite any verse that came to mind. The last person to say a verse won.
Jeff found out in a hurry that Bobbie was as competitive as he was. They were evenly matched at the moment, and both hated to be the last one standing there searching his or her memory for a verse.
“That’s the lot,” Jeff told Bobbie as he came down to stand beside her.
“Thanks, Jeff.” As always, she had to tip her head back to see him. “I guess Gil was delayed.”
“Well, no matter. Nate will be out of school in a week, and Dad always puts him in charge of the stockroom for the summer.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Nate is fun to have around.”
“Speaking of being around, I understand you guys are coming to supper tonight.”
“Yep. Are you going to be there?”
Jeff gave a negative shake of his head. “I have a date.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Penny Larson.”
“Penny Larson? I thought she lived down south.”
“She does. But she’s here to visit her grandmother and we’re going to supper.”
“Tell her I said hi.”
“I’ll do that. How many more days until Cleve comes?”
“He’ll be here Friday.”
“This Friday?” Jeff was surprised.
“Yes. When did you think it was?”
“I don’t know, but I just didn’t realize it was so soon. You don’t seem very excited.”
“I am,” Bobbie said, but her voice held no conviction. She met Jeff’s eyes for just a moment and then turned away.
The
y had talked all about Cleve when Bobbie was still undecided, and Jeff had finally told Bobbie outright that her marrying Cleve was a big mistake.
“You don’t even know him, so how can you say that?” she had retorted in anger.
“I don’t need to know him to see that you’re not in love with him.” Jeff’s voice had been gentle, and Bobbie couldn’t take it. He had watched helplessly as tears puddled in her eyes.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed how hard it is for you to get into the office every day, Jeff, because of all the men lined up outside waiting to see me.”
“So you are marrying Cleve because you think no one else will ask you?”
“You make it sound so cynical, but you don’t understand.” A single tear slid down her face and Jeff felt something squeeze around his heart. “Plain girls have dreams too, you know. We want families and homes as much as beautiful girls like Sylvia.”
“Oh Bob,” Jeff whispered, and reached to hold her, but Bobbie stepped away from his arms.
“Don’t pity me, Jeff. I don’t need your pity.”
But Jeff was not to be put off, and he pursued Bobbie right around her desk and then pulled her into the storeroom so they could talk.
Everything had been cleared up between them before they had gone back to work, but at the time Bobbie’s future was still very unsettled.
Bobbie now knew she wasn’t to marry Cleve, but she couldn’t tell anyone. She felt it a serious matter to tell Cleve first and in person, even though she desperately wanted to discuss it with her best friend—Jeff Taylor.
For the moment Bobbie was spared having to give any more thought to the weekend and Cleve’s arrival because Marcail came in.
“Hi, Bobbie.”
“Well, hello, Marc. What brings you in right after school?”
“Kate’s at the doctor.”
Bobbie looked at her with understanding. She and Marcail had discussed this before, and Bobbie, even though she didn’t share Marcail’s fear of doctors, was very compassionate.