Family Regrets

By N.L. Bowley

Callie a young woman who dreams of being a writer, longs to break free of the small town of Bend, Oregon. But it won't be easy and is tied to family strife that plagues her mind and leads her down an undesirable path of manipulation, hypocrisy, and murder in London, England.

• Language: English
• Publisher: N.L. Bowley
• Release date: Apr 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310215957

Book preview

Chapter One

Callie come on…Callie!

Joanne was running ahead of her in the tall grass. Callie trailed behind, intentionally, flipping through National Geographic. The glossy, vibrant pictures brought to life the waters, wilds, and cultures of exotic places.

She wondered what it would be like to travel to these unforeseen destinations. Looking up, she brushed her strawberry blonde hair out of her eyes; she stared at the rolling grass and plains surrounding the family farm.

Callie wasn’t really seeing it; she was looking beyond it, metaphorically speaking. Her imagination, as immature as it was in a girl of twelve, saw fairy tales and foreign love affairs. She imagined herself being a daring adventurer like Ernest Hemingway or Teddy Roosevelt. But unlike these popular Americans, she had no desire to kill big game or indigenous peoples.

Callie had loftier purposes. She wanted to learn, to know everything like Faustus. She didn’t want to lose her soul for it, but she would do almost anything to get there.

She squeezed the magazine to her chest, making a wish to whoever was listening. Kicking the loose dirt through the tall grass, she removed her plaid shirt and tied it to her waist. Rolling up the magazine, she tucked it into her jeans back pocket and looked up at the sun making its slow ascension into the morning sky.

Joanne kept calling her in the distance, but she ignored her and swiped the fly from the front of her face. Callie always hated the weather in Oregon, so cold in the mornings that you needed a jacket, and so hot in the afternoons you could go swimming, well for most of the seasons anyway.

Living in Bend was like living in a high desert; dry and desolate in places but perfect for farming potatoes, which was the family business. In others it reverted to a forest; a beautiful forest, with several different blossoming vegetation. Callie reveled in this atmosphere; the smell of sage, pine, and juniper filling her nostrils as she tramped through to the Deschutes.

Oh, and the Deschutes! A beauty of its own, the rocky terrain of the river was surrounded by a picturesque scene of flowing, bubbling, clear water and sky scraping mountains in the distance. Oregon in general was a place for the outdoors man or woman. Anything you wanted to do outside you could do in Oregon; hiking, fishing, rock climbing, skiing, horseback riding. Because of the different atmospheres all in this one state; it seemed like anything you wanted to do was possible.

She glimpsed flashes of blue with swinging yellow hair in the distance. Obviously Joanne had given up on her and ran ahead to the Deschutes that bordered their property.

Callie sighed, but even if she lived in Bend; which was one of the largest cities in the state, it still seemed so small town. She needed the freedom, the space, and the pure enjoyment of being on her own, of visiting and even living in places that were bigger. In other words that had more sophisticated life and places than Bend.

Callie looked around the dry rugged plateau again and wondered what her ancestors had seen in this place. Her father had told her, on one of their many fishing trips to the Deschutes, about the opportunity his great-great grandfather had in the eighteen fifties gold rush.

Bend, had started as a logging town, but by the eighteen fifties gold fever had swept the nation. Pulling his line slowly through his fingers, tugging gently to manipulate the fish, he assured Callie his great grandfather wasn’t looking for gold. His great-great grandfather, Lewis Jefferson Farish made a profit instead on selling food to the travelers headed westbound. Lewis, as her father had told her and his father before him could not risk the spontaneity with three children plus a wife to feed.

Lewis Jefferson Farish was a simple potato farmer and he loved what he did, most of all he loved Oregon. The minute he had stepped on this land, with its mountainous rugged beauty he had fallen in love.

He had passed that love onto his son, his oldest son James Benjamin Farish. Callie had never understood why her father would repeat each name fully; first, middle, and last every time he spoke of them. So she had asked him one day while they were sitting on sun beaten rocks, the river gurgling by them.

Her father, Dennis Michael Farish, would smile at her and say there is nothing more important than where you came from. He firmly believed that his children should know their heritage. So he would sit and tell his two little girls everything he knew of his ancestors, every anecdote and story.

Callie would listen with rapt attention, while Joanne would impatiently drum her little pudgy fingers on her knee, constantly saying, Daddy can I go swimming now?

After several pleas, their father would relent and release the girls to do what they would, the story half finished. Joanne would happily trot off, her curly blonde mane flapping behind her. Her father would laughingly yell after her to put on her floaties, while Callie waited patiently by his side.

She was painfully aware of the stone digging into her backside and her behind obligingly falling asleep. The water bugs would fly before her eyes making her swat at them erratically, but none of this really mattered.

What did was her father’s ability to spin a story that kept her intrigued. Callie loved hearing about her relatives. How they struggled and ultimately thrived in farming. Her favorite story, that she would beg her father to relate over and over again was how his great-great grandparents Lewis Jefferson Farish and Clara Callie Massey, her namesake, met.

Her father never got tired of telling Callie the story. It became a special bond between them, while they were fishing or working in the fields, planting and picking potatoes.

It went a little something like this: Clara's family had just moved to New York from the muddy and downtrodden streets of Limerick, Ireland. Clara, even though Ireland was in a period of economic decline, still loved her country, her home. She wasn't at all happy about moving to this America; where people dreamed of becoming rich and making all of their impossible fantasies come true.

Depending on how one looked at it; Clara was either a realist or a pessimist. She did not believe in the idealism that everyone else believed about this young country. Her cousin Meredith told her of the real America; how her family fought to make ends meet. Her mother was a laundress, taking in odds in ends from the neighbors; which did not make enough money for food let alone rent.

Meredith had to work as well; being a nanny for a rich woman's little girl. The girl would taunt Merry about her accent, incessantly throw tantrums, and kick Merry in the knees when she did not get her way. The girl's mother was far worse; withholding Merry's pay for any little slight, or so she said. What she was really doing was padding her own pocket so she could buy more gaudy jewelry or clothes; that she otherwise wouldn't have gotten because of a cheap husband who would rather spend his money on his mistress.

It was all so cliché Clara thought. The struggle of the lower class; and it did not seem to change from nation to nation. America toted itself as a nation that would make an average poor immigrant change into a rich envied man or woman of town. But what would you have to do to get there? Clara wondered if you would have to sell your soul to the devil himself?

It all seemed too good to be true and if someone like good Merry; with her shining blonde curls and vivid violet eyes could be kicked and trodden upon without a second thought, then who was she. How would Clara fare?

Clara's mother Fiona; with her red tawny greasy hair wrapped in a torn scarf; dead and dull green-yellow eyes, blackened crooked teeth, would cry at her that they had no choice. Clara knew she was right. Looking at her mother she saw what the hard life of Ireland could do for you, but she did not see how America could be any different.

So it was with a heavy heart and a sense of dread that she went with her family to Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first ship that they could get out of Limerick, and it was packed with the most dirty, poor, and diseased of Ireland. How would America let these people in its country?

When they arrived they weren't exactly welcome. The docks of Boston were dirty and fishy smelling; but that wasn't the unwelcoming part. That was only natural, Clara reasoned. What were not were the men and women lining the docks; laughing at the immigrants that disembarked the great ships. Some even turned their noses away in disgust; as if the Irish smell was overpowering the rotten scent that permeated the wharf.

At that moment Clara's heart hardened and her small fists clenched at her side; diving into the folds of her dirty blue floral dress. She was so proud of this dress; in a last ditch effort at trying to be optimistic about this trip, this new adventure; she had made this dress. Spent the last of her money, frivolously in a good luck gesture, she thought.

Now she regretted it. She pulled at it with her fingers, wishing she could rip it apart in her frustration. Thinking these words she looked at her fingers in concentration; noticing for the first time the grime and dirt that lined her fingernails and no doubt covered her entire body. Her hands went involuntarily to her hair; feeling the knots and tangles; the frizzy grimy red, and something white and moving touching the strands.

Clara was disgusted at herself; at what her life had become. In truth, what it had always been. It wasn't that her family was simple. She could live with simple, what she wanted was a clean, full bellied simple; a sturdy husband that was faithful; respectful and dutiful children that were God fearing. Not grubby sunken faced little urchins that begged and pleaded; ignorant and illiterate. That she couldn't stand; and it filled her country of old, it couldn't fill her new adopted country, it would break her in two.

Somehow, she and her family had stumbled off that dock; avoiding the stares and the laughs as best they could. It seemed ridiculous to her; the jokes and laughter from people she did not know, simply because she came from a different country. Clara wasn't stupid, she knew that acceptance wasn't something usually willingly given. Somehow you had to prove yourself, with time and a good amount of jadedness thrown in, they would survive, at least among their own kind.

In time, this is exactly what happened. Clara became jaded; but also bitter. She missed the rolling hills of Ireland, the sweeping green landscape. Being stuck in a teeming city, with the stink of clustered unwashed bodies filling your nostrils it was enough to make your already pessimistic views turn to depression. Clara found that eating was more of a chore than a pleasure for her.

What food they had was either old, rancid, or found on the street. The fresh, was stolen by her brother's the two cute little brown haired boys; Quinn and Riordan were now the two little urchins she had feared of her own future children.

Clara became thin, her hair lank and lifeless, much like her soul she felt. It was then that she met Thomas. Walking through the market; men and women harking their wares, or day and week old vegetables; rats crawling around them, Clara saw him, or heard him to be more precise.

He had a loud boisterous voice, but it was his laugh that fully caught Clara's attention. She was staring at a head of lettuce in front of her; debating as many often did whether or not to hide the leafy vegetable within the fold of her cloak. A rat crawled over the top of it, nimbly idly. But this didn't deter Clara's train of thought. It wasn't for her anyway; she couldn't possibly bring herself to eat the lettuce.

Her cheeks sunken in her face, dark circles lining her eyes, the same blue dress now draping her body, like a child wearing her mother's dress. Clara's sense of snobbery was still intact; she often giving up food for paste to use on her teeth.

The loud laughter, the merry quality of it broke her thieving revelry. She turned and glimpsed the source, a tall and even in the simple woven clothing a distinguished figure, dark hair, broad strong shoulders, a bright and white smile, sea blue eyes. He seemed, to Clara's eye to be a man destined to make it-in whatever he chose. She tilted her head, in deep thought, it was odd but she could see herself marrying this man. He could make her happy.

He obviously didn't let the inferiority of his circumstances blight his attitude. This man was the exact opposite of Clara. Wasn't that what Merry was always spouting to her in her letters? Opposites attract, or some such nonsense?

Clara looked down at herself, knowing that if he saw her here and like this that he would never look at her. Just then he turned, as if he could feel someone's eyes on him.

Clara tried to hide; ducking behind the laden tables of vegetables-nearly stepping on a cluster of rats fighting over the same head of lettuce Clara had been staring at. The owner of the stand had come from behind the stall; crushing them under his heavy boot and voluminous girth-spitting tobacco from the side of his mouth, his blackened teeth clenched in anger.

The broom he held in his meaty hands, grazed by Clara's temple-and she dove out of its path, making her fall to the muddy ground of the street. She strove to get to her knees, the clinging and stinking mud covering her worn and ravaged dress. Her face was splattered and her hair had fallen from its flimsy clip that lay broken under the stall owner's feet.

The man looked at her and snorted, as if she was not worth his effort, his stinking huge hulking form, with its black teeth and stringy greasy long hair falling below his shoulders. Clara's eyes glared in return, a biting retort about to spring from her lips, but the smell of the mud made her gag-and she retched into the street, as the owner laughed at her predicament.

Tears of embarrassment and shame started to stream from her eyes; she could see in her peripheral vision her brother's running towards her to help. Their scraped knees bloody from horseplay-their noses running as they often did. But they stopped in their tracks-staring in what seemed like awe at someone or something behind her.

She felt hands on her shoulders, lifting her up from the ground-her shaking knees barely standing on the slippery muddy earth. Clara tried to steady herself, hoping that the good-looking dark haired man wasn't watching her, had walked away somehow. Her hopes were dashed when she was turned around to reveal the too good looking face of the man she wished it not to be.

Clara stared; her mouth open-he was even more beautiful up close. There wasn't an imperfection on his face. He surely had to know this, the effect that he must have on all women. It was really unfair. He smiled then, and Clara's heart stopped-like some tawdry romance that Merry always read.

Clara stopped and released herself from his grasp, a little rudely. What he must think of her?! A dirty, smelly, and sunken specimen in front of him, without thinking she grabbed the hands of her two awestruck brothers' behind her and quite literally dragged them through the muddy streets back to their little apartment.

Clara sat brooding all day, feeling the walls closing in on her. The screaming children, the dirty filthy streets, this was her future. This is where she was going to spend the rest of her life? She couldn't, she would rather die first!

Clara clenched the ruined dress in her hands; the dress that had once meant so much. She began to cry copiously-biting her hand to keep the sound at a minimum. The ruckus outside her door grew louder, the boys running around the small room as their mother yelled at them to be seated for heaven's sake.

Clara had tried to clean up herself as best she could-the mud now gone but a lingering smell of fecal matter still remained. She breathed deeply trying to fight off the moment of weakness. Clara knew that if she gave into it she would never want to return to the mind numbing feeling that had previously gotten her through this horrible life she was leading.

Little feet started jumping up and down in the other room. Their mother's laughter was heard thanking someone profusely. Clara got up in wonder-wiping the tears from her face, still smelling the awful streets on her hands. Wrinkling her nose she pushed open the door of the family bedroom-where everyone slept, four little straw mattresses pushed in the small room.

Turning the corner she caught the scene in front of her. The boys eating-what was that? Chocolate? Their faces were covered in the sugary substance, huge yellow grins lighting their faces. Her mother was clenching a ham to her chest like she was afraid it would grow legs and run away, her toothless grin staring in adoration at the tall dark haired man before her.

Clara felt a sickening feeling in her stomach and she halted in the entranceway, her eyes wide in horror. If she thought about it she would have turned and run away, but she was so surprised that this attractive man was standing in her family's kitchen. Smiling, was he smiling? He was smiling as if the fetid stench and dirty little children, and her toothless mother did not bother him. How could it not bother him?

He grinned; taking her hand-she looked down at their hands in even greater shock. I was wondering if I might speak with you Clara.

Clara looked at him dumbfounded. How did he know her name? As if he heard her unasked question he answered.

Forgive me; I learned your name from one of your neighbors in the market. I thought I would come and see if you were alright. You took quite a fall.

Clara couldn't believe this, not only was he breathtaking he was nice and gentlemanly as well. Back in Limerick-men said such things to get you to lay with them. This man, he was different Clara could tell.

All she could think to say was, Thank you.

He looked confused, Clara trying to clarify stumbled over her words, I me..mean for the marketplace.

His brow cleared-understanding dawning on his face, It is alright-it was what anyone would have done. His brogue was true Irish and Clara thought longingly of home.

But it was the statement, and the thought of the dirty fat stall owner that really stuck out in her mind and made her retort, I don't know about that!

When she realized what she had said, and noticed the worried look on the man's face she felt ashamed. I'm sorry. It was embarrassing. I'm still a little out of sorts.

The man looked at her then, his gaze penetrating and if Clara could place it perceptive. He saw right through her statement to the anger that permeated her entire being. He looked concerned but had not let go of her hand.

My name is Thomas, Clara. Would you like to walk with me?

That was how they met, and Clara was never hungry or unhappy again. It was a real love story, with a woman who although in awful circumstances was real. It was the only word for it. Callie could understand her anger, her sense of unfairness. She herself knew what that was like. But when her father would tell the story she was more smitten with the pure romanticism of it to delve into the details. Now it seemed as if history was repeating itself. Well sort of-at least the embittered part.

Callie looked around her Joanne was nowhere to be seen. She knew why she was in a hurry and Callie wanted nothing to do with it. So she took her time and reminisced about her time with her father.

He was such a great man and it was always so hard for Callie to believe he was gone. She would wake up every morning, expecting to hear his footfall, making his way to the kitchen to pour his morning coffee into his thermos, and then carefully shut the door behind him.

Callie would sit up in bed and will herself to hear those familiar sounds. Then a vise gripped her heart and she would realize all over again that he was gone. The tears and sobbing would come and she would muffle her face in her pillow so her mother would not hear.

It had been four years since Callie’s father had passed away, and it had not gotten any easier, for any of them. Joanne seemed to be adapting better than Callie and her mother. More to the point she seemed to bounce back from everything pretty easily.

Joanne had always been the optimist, believing things happened for a reason. For the most part their mother had been the same way, until their father had passed away. She could not see the point of that and frankly neither could Callie.

Ella Joanne Farish married her husband fresh out of high school. They were high school sweethearts that had been neighbors ever since they were born. The families the Farishs’ and Martins’ would spend a fair amount of time together, picnics, working in the fields, and various family events.

When they first met they were forced together by meddling family members, making them both against the suggestion. It wasn’t until high school that they both started to notice each other.

Ella, had always been outgoing and cheerful, joining cheerleading and various other clubs. Dennis on the other hand preferred un-school related activities. He spent most of his time with his brothers; fishing, swimming, and working on the farm.

He would always watch Ella out of the corner of his eye, whenever she came around, which as the years went by was not that often. She had her own group of friends and boyfriends that kept her busy.

So Dennis would just stare, in a non-committal way. Ella was tall and lithe with bob length dark hair. She was not beautiful, not in the conventional since, her nose protruded a little too far; her teeth were a little crooked with a gap in the center. But it was her mystique that held his attention. Dennis sensed that there was more to Ella than she cared to show people.

One day, during another family event he found out he was right. Ella was sitting off by herself, on the wooden steps outside the back door. The rest of the family was in the kitchen drinking (apple cider), picking at various different trays laid throughout, or talking at extremely high volumes.

Dennis could tell from looking at her that she would rather be anywhere else but here. The attitude didn’t suit her and he found that he would like to change that. He was used to seeing her smile; completely oblivious or uncaring to how people felt about her imperfect teeth.

Pushing the screen door open he walked down the steps and sat right next to her in such a close space. Normally this would have bothered Ella; she liked her personal space and disliked anyone who entered it. Dennis bumped her knee playfully; it was a thing he did, one of his trademarks to get people to smile.

Ella looked at him dumbfounded; she had heard girls who had dated Dennis gush about him. In return to these comments she would ask, Then why didn’t you stay with him? The answer would always be the same, he was cool to hang out with but he was more like a friend or brother.

Sitting next to him she could see what those girls were talking about. He had a laid back, you can tell me anything attitude. Most boys, if she liked them, were hard to talk to and more often than not they weren’t interested.

They didn’t want to know about your problems, they wanted to have fun. Ella was all for having fun but sometimes she needed someone other then her parents to talk with.

So for no reason at all, besides his amiable attitude, she opened up to a complete stranger or who she saw as a stranger. They had lived next to each other all their lives and never uttered more than one or two sentences to each other.

Sure she had seen Dennis staring at her, his brown eyes curious, as if she was an exotic bird that had mistakenly found itself in the mountains of Oregon instead of the jungles of Brazil. But she had never really paid him any mind; he was stocky and a bit short at five feet nine inches; his hair spiky and strawberry blonde, as if he could care less what it looked like.

At first that is all that it was, to them anyway, a friendship. They found that they could talk to each other about anything; with one another they were uninhibited. Their families looked on with knowing smiles; Dennis’ brothers never letting him hear the end of it.

Dennis would just smile and shake his head in his nonchalant way. Ella was quite the reverse; she would angrily insist that nothing was going on between them. She didn’t want to lose Dennis as a friend; he was the only one she felt completely free with.

So she decided to spend less time around him, just to get everyone off her back. Ella didn’t want Dennis to think he had done something wrong so she told him of her plan. He had looked at her confused for a moment, and then turned his attention towards the mountains in the distance. When he turned back to look at her his face was devoid of all emotion as he asked, Why do you care what other people think?

Ella knew that feeling or thought had never entered Dennis’ mind before. He didn’t seem to care about anything and it drove her insane. She wanted some sort of emotion out of him so it didn’t make her feel crazy.

He had stared at her intently and she put her hand on his, feeling the rough dry hands of a farmer. Dennis stood stock still, waiting for her answer. She simply said, "I