Circle of Love(48)

“Why can’t you adopt Eddie?” Ma asked.

“There are rules. No single parents.”

Ma just raised an eyebrow. She had no time to say what she meant because Peg bounced into the room.

Peg greeted Eddie quickly, then flew into her sister’s arms. “Why are you here, Frances? Where have you been? Tell me! Tell me everything!” she cried.

Frances settled into one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs in the living room and told Ma and Peg why she had gone to New York and about the orphan train children and their trip to Missouri.

“The building we lived in is gone, you say,” Ma murmured, and Frances could see memories pile like tears in her mother’s eyes.

“But the church was still there,” Frances told her, “and it looked exactly as it did when we lived on Sixteenth Street.”

Ma’s fingers plucked at the edge of the tablecloth. “That seems like such a long time ago.”

Frances grinned, leaning forward. “I saw Mr. Lomax,” she said, and went on to tell how she had puzzled him by speaking to him.

Ma laughed with delight. “So your journey both ways was uneventful,” she said. “I’m glad of that.”

Eddie smothered a noise, and Frances glanced at him, her eyes twinkling. There was a flash of humor in Eddie’s eyes, but it was obvious that he was a very tired boy.

“Ma, can we make up a bed for Eddie?” Frances asked.

“After a good hot bath,” Ma suggested, but Frances shook her head.

“Sleep first, bath tomorrow. Eddie’s had a very tiring day.”

Peg jumped to her feet. “I’ll put sheets on the bed in the spare room for Eddie,” she said. “Frances can sleep with me.”

As Peg and Eddie left the room, Ma said, “Frances, I’d like to hear more about the children you brought to new homes.”

“I wrote about all thirty children in the last few pages of my journal,” Frances said. She put the blue cloth-bound book on the table and said, “Wait until I make us some tea. Then I’ll use the journal to refresh my memory.”

She found some gingerbread in the pantry and arranged pieces on a plate while she waited for the water in the kettle to come to a boil. Finally the tea had steeped in the pot long enough to have body, and Frances carried the tray with the teapot, cups, plates, and gingerbread into the living room.

Ma waited until Frances had poured the tea, then said, “I was impatient. I glanced through the journal.”

“Ma!” Frances said.

“You didn’t tell me it was a private journal,” Ma said. “I thought you had written about the children in your care.”

“I did.”

Ma shrugged. “A little.” She looked stern. “You didn’t tell me about that man named Seth and what happened on the train. Just who was this Seth?”

Frances sighed. “As you probably read, I met Seth on the orphan train in the New Jersey depot. He was disguised as a preacher to escape the police, but he is a former Confederate soldier. A poor, mixed-up man who’s filled with hatred and bitterness about the war, like … like …”

“Like Johnny? You wrote quite a bit about Johnny.”

“Oh, Ma!” Frances said. “Johnny is never going to ask me to marry him. He even refuses to discuss marriage. He broods about the Confederate prison camp and what the Rebs did, and he’s shut me out completely.” She rested her head in her hands and said, “I thought I could forget about him, but I can’t. I love him too much.”

“Then don’t give up,” Ma said.

Frances looked down, blushing. “We had a terrible argument. There were things I said …”

“There are words to undo the harm. Try.”

“How?”

“Send Johnny a letter. Tell him when you’ll return to Maxville. Tell him you missed him.”

“What if I don’t hear from him?”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Frances thought a moment. “But I don’t know when I’ll go back. I’ll have to find a good home for Eddie first He’s a special boy, Ma I care very much what happens to him.”

Ma smiled and reached over to squeeze Frances’s hand. “Oh, Frances, love,” she said, “I thought you would have figured out the answer to that one by this time.”





17





THE NEXT MORNING Frances wrote to Johnny. Then, with Eddie at her side, she walked to town to mail the letter. “Let’s take a side trip on our way to the post office,” she said. “I want you to get a glimpse of the Missouri River in sunlight.”

The path Frances chose cut through a wooded area. When she and Eddie were deep in the shadow of the trees she thought she heard footsteps and the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. She stopped and listened, but there were no sounds at all, not even the usual trills of the birds.