[Desert Roses 02] - Across the Years Read online

  Russ leaned forward on his cane and sighed again. This time it wasn’t from relief. There was a dull ache deep in his heart for Ashley and what she would bear in the days to come. No doubt his care would be extensive.

  It’s not fair for her to have to care for me. She’s had enough to see to. The thought bothered him more than he could say.

  She’s walled herself up, Lord. She thinks she’s safe that way. Safe from the hurt and the people who would rob her of her joy. But we know that’s not true. Lord, I worry about her, and the facts are, I don’t hardly see how I can come home to you when she’s so lost.

  A Baldwin 4–6-2 pulling a long line of freight cars signaled down the track. Russell felt the ground quiver under the massive monster’s approach. Such power and energy—and all from a man-made machine.

  I’ve seen a lot in my time, Lord. I’ve seen powerful machines like this. I’ve watched contraptions take to the skies. I’ve lived through the War Between the States, the Spanish-American conflict, and the Great War. I’ve been blessed to not have to take up arms against any man, and for that I am grateful.

  The train stopped—not at the depot, but down the line nearer the shops. The ground stilled, but not so Russell’s heart.

  I’ve seen a lot, Lord, but I’ve made a mess of a lot as well. You know the troubles I’ve caused and been a part of. You know I’ve not spoken to my own dear daughters in eleven-some years. Not of my choosing, but still it’s something I’ve endured because of my actions.

  And there’s poor Ashley. Her sorrow has made her heart hard. She’s lonely, yet she won’t even turn to you for strength. What do I do, Lord? How can I leave now—just when it appears she needs me most?

  ****

  Ashley climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She longed for a cool bath but knew there wasn’t really time. She still needed to work on sewing Natalie’s new dress; then there were the new curtains for Mrs. Simpson. Ashley thought of all the bits and pieces of sewing she’d taken on. It gave them a little extra money and that was always nice. They weren’t paupers by any means, but they lived cautiously and conservatively. It suited them both after years of wealth and extravagance.

  Sponging the heat from her body, Ashley finished by completely dampening her hair. With the short, bobbed cut, she wouldn’t have much to worry with. She’d comb it out and maybe later put in a few well-placed bobby pins to add curl. This accomplished, she put her apron to soak and added her uniform to the growing pile of laundry.

  “Well, there’s going to be more time for the house chores at least,” she murmured as she pulled a lightweight cotton dress over her head. “More time to spend with Natalie too.” This bonus did nothing to mend her frayed spirit. A weariness and hopelessness—like she’d known the day the news came of Ethan’s death—washed over her. Ashley sunk to the floor beside her cedar chest. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. She leaned against the chest for support and buried her face in her hands. Tears came again, but this time they seemed to stretch across the years to that day when hope had died.

  She could remember exactly what she’d been doing—what she’d been wearing when word came of Ethan’s sacrifice and bravery. That morning she had donned her two-piece salmon-colored dress—the one she’d worn when they’d married. The skirt fell just about eight inches off the floor, allowing her to show off the sweet little button-up boots Ethan had bought her just before he’d gone off to war. She liked to wear this outfit because it made her feel close to Ethan, and she always dreamed of wearing it when he arrived back home.

  But, of course, he hadn’t come home.

  That August in Baltimore had been very warm, but a cold chill had permeated the house after word of Ethan’s death. Only the news that she carried Ethan’s unborn child had kept Ashley from throwing herself into the harbor. For days she had refused to see anyone, barely dragging herself from bed each morning.

  Her mother, a socialite who valued her position and status more than her daughter, had cut off all communication with Ashley when news had arrived of her marriage to Ethan Reynolds. The man was of no account as far as her mother was concerned. As a student of architectural studies, he could hardly hope to go far; besides, his parents were common factory workers.

  After Ethan had joined the army, Leticia Murphy had fought to get her daughter to annul the marriage but without any luck. When this failed, she made one final threat. The words still rang in Ashley’s ears.

  “Annul this farce of a marriage or you’ll never again have anything to do with our family. The choice is yours. It’s either him or us.”

  Ashley hadn’t concerned herself overmuch with her mother’s threat. After all, her mother was always creating tirades, storming around for days in order to get her own way. Ashley had thought of simply going to stay with Ethan’s parents. They lived just outside of Baltimore, and she knew they’d be delighted to take her in until their son returned.

  Then the influenza epidemics began sweeping the larger East Coast cities. People were advised to stay inside, to wear a mask if they went outside—though the very smell of death necessitated one anyway. This made Ashley all the more determined to leave town and stay in the country with her in-laws, but then word came that both of Ethan’s parents had succumbed to the flu themselves. Ashley was devastated. She would have to write Ethan with the news, and she knew his heart would break.

  But before she could send him word, she was notified of Ethan’s death. Shocked beyond words, Ashley had sat around in a stupor for days afterward. Her entire world had changed.

  Somewhere, someone had told Leticia of Ethan’s death. No doubt she knew full well Ashley couldn’t afford the expenses that would come. Despite her grief, Ashley had already taken a mental tally of her assets and knew they were sorely lacking. No doubt her mother knew this too.

  Leticia Murphy came to the little house Ethan and Ashley had rented and demanded entry. Ashley had no strength to deal with her mother, but rather than order her to leave, Ashley waited to hear what her mother had to say. A thin ribbon of hope still existed that her mother, seeing Ashley’s grief, would find it in her heart to comfort her daughter. But that wasn’t the case at all.

  “You look positively ill—you don’t have the influenza, do you?” Ashley’s mother demanded to know.

  “No, Mother. I do not have the influenza.” Ashley wasn’t sure how to break the news that her look of ill health came from morning sickness rather than the epidemic.

  “Good. Look, I’ve heard of his death.” Ashley burned at the thought her mother wouldn’t even call Ethan by name. “We can still annul the marriage. You surely can’t protest it now. The man is dead and hardly cares what you do. You’ll forget about him, and in the meantime, you’ll marry that nice Manchester boy your father and I have picked out for you. He’s willing to overlook your indiscretion in marrying that Reynolds man.”

  “Will he also overlook the fact I will never love him?” Ashley threw back, feeling a bit of her determination return.

  “Love has very little to do with a lucrative marriage. This is what your father and I want.”

  “I can’t marry Mr. Manchester. Neither can I annul my marriage.” Ashley had been about to tell her mother of her pregnancy when the woman began a tirade that didn’t end until half an hour later. Ashley had been unable to even offer a word of protest or explanation. When her mother had finished insulting and demeaning Ashley and her choice of husband, Leticia Murphy had picked up her things and headed for the door.

  “You are dead to me—just like my father,” she decreed like a queen calling down a traitor. She had stormed from the room, but the mention of her father, Ashley’s dear Grandpa Whitman, had given birth to an idea. Her mother had turned away from him, just as she had turned away from Ashley. And all because the man had become religious. He’d sold off a successful business to his partner and settled huge sums of money on his two daughters. But that had only proven to Ashley’s mother that her father had lost all sense of reason
. She refused to have anything more to do with the man because she believed he was a fool. Never mind that he was trying to put his life in order with his new spiritual beliefs. Never mind that the real estate ventures he’d made a fortune from were underhanded and oftentimes illegal. They’d made money for the family. Money which Grandpa Whitman quite generously lavished upon them all. Now that would stop, and Ashley’s mother had been beside herself with the thought of what this would mean.

  There had been a trip to Los Angeles for her mother and father. Ashley remembered it well because she’d not yet met Ethan and was still living at home. Her mother had said very little except that she and her sister Lavelle would straighten their father out or have him committed. When her parents had returned from Los Angeles, Ashley had been stunned to hear her mother say that they would no longer have any association with the crazed old man.

  Ashley had tried to at least get her father to relay what had happened, but something had changed in him. It was almost as if her father’s entire demeanor had taken on a different personality. He was no longer the man she could talk to.

  Feeling isolated from her family and tired of dealing with her mother’s misery, Ashley had been easily won over by Ethan Reynolds’s winning charm. Within weeks of meeting, Ashley had married Ethan, furthering the disorder of her mother’s once perfectly ordered world. Then Ethan died, and Ashley had wanted to die as well.

  Natalie and Grandpa had given her a will to live—they’d made her happy in spite of her loss. And until now, life had been as close to perfect as it could be.

  Ashley raised her head and drew a deep breath. She blew it out rather quickly and drew another. The action seemed to calm her a bit.

  “Why can’t things go on as they always have?” she asked in the silence of her room. “Why must I lose the people I love?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A week later Ashley sat across the table from her grandfather. She listened to him read from a list of wishes he had for his funeral. It wasn’t at all what she wanted to hear. In fact, Grandpa had been feeling better the last few days, and Ashley liked to believe the doctor was wrong and that he had nothing more terminally wrong than a bout of old age.

  “I don’t want a lot of fancy flowers,” Russell Whitman said firmly. “Never could abide that kind of nonsense. If you want to give me flowers, do it now. That’s my motto.” He looked up and grinned at Ashley, his gray mustache twitching in boyish charm. “Frankly, I’d rather have candy than flowers any day.”

  Ashley smiled. He had a way about him that always managed to make her see the hope in every situation. He was just that kind of man. His spiritual walk made him that way, she supposed.

  “All right, so when I go shopping, I’ll bring you a box of the best chocolates,” Ashley finally answered, attempting to change the topic.

  “Make sure they have nuts in them,” her grandfather said with a wink before turning his attention back to the list. “Now, about the burial.”

  So much for giving reality the slip.

  “I want to be buried next to your grandma back in Los Angeles. The lawyer will have all the information about that and make the arrangements. Don’t be thinking you have to have a service here and there. Just have one here, put me in a box on the train, and ship me off.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk so casually about such things,” Ashley said, feeling a chill run along her spine.

  Russell reached out and patted Ashley’s folded hands. “But such things only deserve casual reference. I won’t be in that box—you know that, don’t you, child?”

  Ashley knew he’d speak to her again of Jesus and heaven, but for once she didn’t mind. Maybe she’d have some peace about her grandfather’s dying if only she could make herself believe that God really cared—that He understood her pain. But if He understood, truly knew how she felt and yet did nothing, then that made it even worse.

  “I don’t know what I believe,” she said frankly. “I think it rather cruel of God to give me the man of my dreams—the one great love of my life—and then take him away. Take him before his own child could ever get to know him—before he could get to know her. I think God is merciless at worst, or indifferent at best, to take you away now.”

  “So God is cruel and awful because He allows for death? Is that it?”

  Ashley considered his words for a moment, then met her grandfather’s hazel-eyed stare with determination. “Yes. I suppose that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “But what if one person’s death means other people live?” he asked softly. “And what if those who live go on to do profound and wondrous things—things that reach out to the rest of the world and inspire them to do something even better?”

  “I’ve heard all this before,” Ashley protested. “I know what’s preached—that Jesus died to save us from our sins. One man’s sacrifice for the masses. Which just proves my point. God let His own Son die a brutal death.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Jesus just then,” her grandfather said softly. “I was thinking of your Ethan.”

  Ashley felt the wind go out of her. “Ethan?”

  Russell nodded. “Ethan gave his life, throwing himself into the path of certain death, in order to save a unit of men. That much you know. But what you don’t know is where it went from there. These things always have a rippling action, like a stone thrown into the water. Ethan saved lives, and perhaps those men in turn went on to save other lives and so on. Perhaps Ethan’s sacrifice was the very turning point of the war. You have no way of knowing. Perhaps your daughter is living safe and free from the horrors that we heard about during the war because of Ethan and what he did.”

  Ashley said nothing. She had always seen her husband as a hero, had taught her daughter the same, but in truth she’d never considered how it might affect anyone else. In her own self-focused pain, she’d never really cared about the benefit to others.

  “You’re right, child, about Jesus sacrificing His life for the multitudes. But God wasn’t cruel in sending His Son. He was generous and self-sacrificing. We believe God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. God gave of himself—don’t you see? Jesus’ death and resurrection continue to ripple out amongst the masses and make profound changes in lives everywhere. He came to serve—to be a sin offering in order that those who deserved to die might live. Jesus gave His life, and in turn, I accepted His gift. He saved my life as clearly as Ethan saved those men in the war. Because Jesus saved me, I became a different person, and because of that, I was available to help you when your time of need came. Ripples—don’t you see? Jesus gave us a gift of eternal life. Ethan gave a gift of life to his men. Why can you accept one sacrifice and not the other?”

  Ashley had no answer. The words pricked her conscience as they never had before. Grandpa had never used Ethan in an illustration about salvation. It’s not the same, she told herself. Ethan did his duty. He went where he was sent and followed the orders given him. He had no choice.

  But as soon as the thought came to light, she chided herself, knowing full well that this wasn’t true. He had a choice. A choice to stay in his trench or to go after the enemy who was killing his friends and comrades.

  “I need to get to work on the laundry,” Ashley said, getting to her feet. “You should rest for now.”

  “I can’t rest. The pain is too great,” he admitted.

  “I have the morphine powder,” Ashley offered. “I can mix some up.”

  “That won’t help this pain,” her grandfather said, folding his papers. “My pain is over you, and I won’t be able to rest until I know you have come to an understanding of the Lord and how much He loves you.” He stood, folded the papers into his pocket, then shuffled across the room in a slow, determined manner. “You think on what I’ve said.”

  Ashley did think on his words, but if her grandfather had known exactly why she’d chosen to do so, he wouldn’t have liked it. Ashley knew Grandpa held great store in his faith and the issues that came out of that faith
. He wanted very much for her to believe—to accept the things he’d come to accept.

  “Maybe I can do this for his sake,” she said softly as she put another dress through the washer wringer. Squeezing the water from the material, Ashley contemplated what she should do.

  “Maybe I could just tell him that I’ve accepted Jesus and repented of my sins and then he’ll be happy,” she murmured. What could be wrong in that? God would know the truth, so it wouldn’t be like she was fooling Him. And Grandpa would die in peace.

  Still, lying about something so important to Grandpa didn’t seem right. Grandpa had always been able to pretty much read her like a book. Ashley couldn’t abide that he was hurting and suffering because of her pride, but should she go to such extremes to make him feel better? Wiping her brow, she sighed. “I just don’t know how to deal with this.”

  ****

  Natalie fiddled with her food, glancing from time to time down the hall to Grandpa Whitman’s closed bedroom door. “He never eats with us anymore,” she murmured.

  Ashley poured some milk into Natalie’s glass and took a seat opposite her daughter at the small oak table. “I know. He doesn’t feel well enough to eat.”

  “But wouldn’t food make him feel stronger? Doesn’t he want to get well?”

  Ashley knew the time had come to tell her daughter about the illness that would soon take her beloved great-grandfather. “Natalie, you know that Grandpa isn’t a young man anymore. The doctor says that this sickness is too strong for an old man to fight. Grandpa probably isn’t going to get well.” She threw in the word probably, hoping to soften the blow.

  Natalie put down her fork and stared down the hall. “He’s going to die?”

  Sorrow gripped Ashley’s heart. “Yes.”

  “When . . . when will he . . . die?” Her voice quivered.

  Ashley steadied herself with a deep breath. “Soon. The doctor said it wouldn’t be very long.”