A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(23)

“You know more than any of us, that’s certain. We’d love your help, if you’d be willing.”

The young man leaned back, his face a mask even without the black patch covering one eye. “I’ll think on it.”

“I may also need help getting the school rebuilding project going,” Del said. Perhaps this was a way to build a bridge. “I don’t know if Anders told you, but our school building was destroyed in a tornado last fall, and with the train coming through, the town hasn’t yet managed to rebuild it. Have you ever laid plans for a smaller building like that?”

RJ fixed his one eye coldly on her. “I said I’ll think on it.” He pushed back his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, folks, I’m afraid I need to turn in. All right if I bed down in the barn?”

After an awkward silence, Forsythia stood. “Of course. You must be weary from your journey. But we have a bed made up for you upstairs, RJ. You’ll share a room with Anders. Adam, would you show RJ where?”

Adam nodded and pushed back his chair also.

“I’m going to tuck this little one into bed too.” Forsythia lifted a drowsy Mikael from his high chair. “And then perhaps everyone will be ready for dessert? You sure you don’t want some before you head up, RJ?”

“No, thank you.” He hesitated. “Thanks for the good supper, though. ’Night, folks.” He nodded to everyone, then followed Adam up the stairs.

“Quite a man of few words, your friend,” Lilac observed, taking Anders’s empty plate.

Their brother shifted in his seat. “He’s had a hard time since the war.”

Hasn’t everyone? Del headed to the kitchen to help Lilac with the dishes, scolding herself again for her uncharitable thoughts. After all, the man had obviously been wounded. Though hadn’t Anders said he was in the Army Corps of Engineers? Well, they weren’t fully shielded from the horrors of war, clearly.

But everyone suffered. RJ had lost an eye, and Anders had been imprisoned. They’d lost their parents, and now much of their best remnant of their mother in the garden, at least for this year. Del’s fiancé had lost his life.

That thought made her pause in scrubbing stuck bits of potato from a plate. She hadn’t thought of Everett Hastings in months, and not frequently for a couple of years. But suddenly, unbidden, the memories came flooding back. Summer evening walks together down their quiet lane in Ohio. Long talks on her parents’ front porch, Ma or Pa always not far off, smiling their blessing. She had been the first of the Nielsen girls to be courted, the first to be engaged, that Christmas she’d been eighteen. Since Everett was the only son of a widowed mother and a farmer, they’d hoped faithfully growing crops and donating them for the war effort would be his only needed contribution.

Then came the draft, only a few months after their betrothal. And he’d had to go. Del had put on a brave front, but almost before she realized he had left, he was dead, struck down by a minié ball at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Her parents had passed within the next year, succumbing to a fever, and then the six siblings were on their own.

Del dashed the back of her soapy hand against her eyes. Why, after all this time? It must be all the emotion of this past week. Her loss was by no means a solitary one, she knew that. Forsythia had lost a sweetheart in the war too. So had probably half the young women in the country.

Well, no one had ever claimed life was fair. Generally, Del didn’t let herself succumb to sentiment over it. She had known love, and that was more than many women would get in this lifetime, with hundreds of thousands of the nation’s young men buried on battlefields. She had her school—not just a source of personal purpose now but real survival for her family.

“You sure are quiet tonight.” Lilac picked up a dish towel to dry. “Is it the grasshoppers? Or just brooding over your schoolhouse?”

“I’m not sure why everyone thinks it’s of such little importance,” Del snapped, dunking another plate in the rinse water. “I’m merely educating the next generation of a soon-to-be state.”

“I didn’t mean it wasn’t important.” Lilac sounded taken aback. “Just asking a question.”

Del sighed and swallowed back the lump aching in her throat. “I’m sorry. I’m awfully on edge tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Aren’t we all? I’m just glad Anders is here. He makes everything seem better.” Lilac dried in silence for a moment. “Why don’t you talk to Reverend Pritchard about the school? He’d be on your side, surely. He helped organize the Thanksgiving benefit and all.”

“On Sunday, he seemed right in agreement with all the other men. But I could try approaching him about increasing my salary, I suppose. Maybe his opinion there would carry some weight with the others.”

Forsythia entered, Robbie and Sofie trailing at her heels.

“Pie, Mama Sythia, Sofie want pie!” The little girl danced on her toes to see the flaky slices of peach pie Larkspur was slicing. It was a mercy most of the peaches had been picked before the swarming locusts, or there would be few pies in Salton at all. It would still be slim pickings from now on.

“What do you say, little one?” Forsythia rested her hand on her daughter’s blond head.

“Pie, please?”

“Very well, you may have some.” Forsythia scooped her up and kissed her cheek. “But let’s take some out to Uncle Anders first.”