Regards

By Brenda McCreight

A collection of short stories, set in different eras, about people whose lives are challenged by betrayal, loss, and confusing relationships but find their own path to courage and redemption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda McCreight
• Release date: Jan 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458056993

Brenda McCreight

Brenda McCreight, Ph.D., is a therapist, author, and consultant specializing in services for adoptive and foster families dealing with challenges such as FASD, ADHD, conduct disorder, attachment disorder, developmental delays, and cognitive impairment. Brenda is the author of “Recognizing and Managing Children with Fetal Alcohol/Syndrome” published by the Child Welfare League of America, and of “Parenting Your Older Adopted Child” published by New Harbinger Publications and “Eden’s Secret Journal: The Story of an Older Child Adoption” published by Adoption Press and “Help I’ve Been Adopted” by Tapestry Books. Brenda sees clients at her office in Nanaimo, British Columbia and she provides distance parent coaching by phone and by email. Most importantly, she is the mother of fourteen children and has seven grandchildren. She can be contacted through her web site at http://www.theadoptioncounselor.com

Book preview

REGARDS

BY BRENDA MCCREIGHT

Published by Brenda McCreight at Smashwords

Copyright @2010 Brenda McCreight

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Brenda McCreight at 229 Milton Street, Nanaimo BC Canada V9R 2K5.

Chapter One

The Proof

It was the darker side of midnight, that part of the night when even the moon shadows have exhausted their movement and morning light is still a dream or two away. The shifting waves of the lake washed against the sandy beach and the summer wind blew through the tall, leafy tops of the nearby cottonwood trees.

Julia MacKenzie listened to the sounds outside her cabin walls and tried to find comfort in them. Jim said the wind and the waves would lull her to sleep at night, but they were still so foreign, so new, that they caused her more grief than ease. She put her hands over her ears and tried to imagine the sounds she had grown up with. The sounds of horses hooves and wagons in the street, the trolley car clanging to a stop and ringing its bell the next street over, and the ever present swishing of the downstairs parlor maid attending to her endless chores as she bustled from one room to another. Julia tried to imagine her mother’s voice.

Are you awake yet, dear? she would call through the door, It’s gone past seven, time to be getting on with your day.

I’m up mama she would reply, even as buried herself deeper under the soft quilt.

Up with you now, her mother would say as she came into the room and shook Julia’s shoulders. Young ladies do not spend the day in bed.

Julia would reluctantly allow her mother to push the quilt aside and then she would get up, her feet dropping onto carpeting. You can see I’m up now mama, send Tilley in to help me dress. And her mother would leave the room, calling for the maid as she bustled down the long hall.

Julia stared into the dark. There would be no carpeting beneath her feet when morning came, only the roughly hewn plank flooring. When some of the other women from farther up the mountain heard that Jim had put good wood over the dirt floor they did not hesitate to express their shock. So much work for a cabin! Why, they asked, would a man spend so much money on wood for a floor? But Jim insisted. I took you away from all the comforts, he said, I promise I’ll make things as good as I can for you here.

They had only a canvass tent when he first brought her to the mountain last summer. She had written a letter to her father, telling of how she and the other women lived in the little tent town while the men, gone most of the week, worked the mines farther up the mountains. Julia enjoyed that part of her life even though it frightened her a little. The women in the camp were from all classes and countries. On the surface, it seemed as if all they had in common was that they were married to a man who worked in the mines. Yet they shared deeper, more intangible things as well. Each of the women had followed her man to the mountain for one of two reasons. Either she was alone in the world and had nowhere else to go and no one else to look out for her, or, she had something of a wild streak, a part of her personality that wanted adventure, that wanted something different than life had originally offered. So these women, bound together by their resilience and their inability to conform, helped each other in any way they could. They taught Julia how to cook and mend and how to do the laundry in the tin tub that served as her bath every Saturday when Jim came back for his day off. And in turn, Julia taught two of the women how to write their names and how to recognize numbers up to ten. The summer evenings were long and hot, and the women, tired after a day of cooking, cleaning and sewing, gathered together to talk about their husbands, their babies and about the lives they hoped to have. Few talked about the lives they left behind.

Julia found it easy to like these women. She was shy around them at first, but their open ways and friendly manner soon drew her to them and she started to feel like she had a place in this strange community of tents and dirt. Then Julia’s father, outraged that his upper class daughter was working like a maid and living like a peasant, sent money for Jim to put Julia up in the boarding house until she and James could move onto their new property, after the spring thaw.

I don’t want to leave the tent, Jim. she pleaded. There won’t be any other women for me to talk to in the boarding house except old Mrs. Fletcher. I’m doing fine here.

Jim had been unyielding. No, your father is right, he said. I won’t take his money to live on, but I’ll take it to make you safe.

Please Jim, she tried again. I knew it would be hard when I came out here. I can do it.

No, you don’t know what the winters are like. Folks say there’s a good ten to fifteen feet of snow on the mountain and some of the women and children die of the pneumonia every year. He had taken her hand and kissed the palm. I’ll not let my pride bring you down.

Julia stopped arguing and left the tent to live out the long, hard winter in Mrs. Fletcher’s boarding house. By November she knew Jim and her father had been right. The winter was colder, harsher, darker, and quieter than anything she could have imagined, and she knew she would not have made it through the winter inside the canvass walls of a tent.

That knowledge frightened Julia. She did not tell Jim, or old Mrs. Fletcher, nor did she mention it in her letters home. She was afraid people would think badly of her and Jim would be disappointed. He had such grand plans for their life together, but she would have to do her share if they were to come true, and she was no longer certain that she could.

Jim was the fourth son of the family, and although there was old money on his mother’s side, his late arrival in the family birth order meant that only a small amount would ever be freed up for him. Still, it had been adequate to purchase their property. Three hundred acres, some of it thick with forest and climbing the side of the mountain, providing a home for the deer, elk, moose, and bear that occasionally wondered out of the trees and down to the lake. The rest of the property had the potential to be good farm land. It was fairly flat, and most of it lay alongside Kootenay Lake, making it accessible by boat as well as by the new dirt road that wound out from the village. The soil, untouched since the last glacial retreat, was enriched by the ash from volcanoes that had erupted millions of years before, leaving behind fertile ground that was perfect for small farming endeavors.

Jim had gone to work in the mines so they could save enough to build a proper house and begin farming the land next year. He planned to raise pigs and cattle and grow fruit trees so they could make their living selling the meat and produce to the mining companies and the general store. Even her father thought it was a good idea. After all, this part of the country was growing fast and once the railroad was in, the logging would start in earnest. This would bring more people, all wanting to eat, and the rich soil of the ancient, stream fed valleys could provide whatever was needed.

Jim moved her into the small cabin just when her baby was beginning to show. Next year I’ll build you a house with ten bedrooms, one for each of our children. She laughed as he stroked her hair and held her close. We’ll build it on the rise, so that if the lake floods you and the children will be safe. And there’ll be a breeze up there in the evenings, so the mosquitoes and flies will be blown away from the house. She snuggled in close, feeling so full of her love for him that she often thought that if she were to die at such moments, it would be all right. It would be enough.

And I’ll put a big porch on the front, he went on, so that we can sit there of an evening and look out at the water and the mountains.He was a good man, gentle and full of plans. Better still, he was willing to do the hard work it took to make the plans come true.

Julia thought of Jim as she lay in the dark, so aware of his empty half of the bed. She had fallen in love with him almost at first sight when they met at her older brother’s school, where she was cheering him on in some sort of rowing tournament. Her brother’s team won, as it always did, and their father invited the young men back to their home for a celebration. It was not long into the evening when Julia found herself in conversation with the tall young man with deep blue eyes.

I have different plans for my life. I’ll not be working in the city, he said. I’m going to leave the coast and go to the Kootenays, there’s a good life to be had there. All it will take is hard work and time. But I’m young and I’m strong, and I can build a good life in the mountains.

This young man intrigued Julia. Jim had ideas that found companionship with her own restlessness and Julia spent almost every day of that year in his company. Their wedding was the social event of the season with all the best people attending.

You are so young to be going out to the mountains, they all said. Do you really know how hard it will be? Of course she knew. Julia knew she was in love and she knew she would follow Jim anywhere.

I can do it, she answered them all. She turned away when her mother cried and she shut out the tears with thoughts of the blue of Jim’s eyes.

She could feel tears running down her own cheeks now. What if I can’t do it? she cried into the night. She was not tough like the other women. She thought of Mrs. Fletcher who had become such a friend this last winter. The old woman had given birth to eleven children in various mining camps around the country. Only five of them lived to see adulthood, and her husband had been killed by a hungry cougar ten years ago, leaving her a widow at forty-five. Mrs. Fletcher felt she was too old to try a new life anyplace else, so after the mining authorities moved the camp followers further down the mountain to the outskirts of the village, she bought the old whorehouse and turned it into boarding rooms. She also took in laundry and provided food and a bath for the single men who came out of the mines on Saturday, eager to head down to the women who sold themselves for money. And when the prostitutes got sick, as they always did, they came back up the mountain and Mrs. Fletcher, who truly believed in the goodness of the Lord, gave them a bed and tended them till they died.

Julia had known that life with Jim would mean hard work, but she had not known it would mean loneliness and fear. And as the tears slid down her cheeks, she rubbed at her swollen belly, wishing she had more time before the added burden of a baby became hers to bear.

I can’t do it, she whispered again into the dark. I’m tired and I’m afraid. She had not realized, at the beginning, that working in the mines meant Jim would be gone most of the time. Nor had she understood that he would get down the mountain only once or twice a month, and then only for a few days. Days that he spent building a shed and corral for the pigs or digging the well that would provide water for the large garden, laid out so neatly beside the site where the house was to be built on the rise.

You’ll provide the vegetables for winter, Julia. I can shoot some deer and elk to put up and we’ll have plenty to spare. He had been so happy about the coming winter months, when he would be laid off from the mines and they would be together with their first child. You can go over to the Allbrecht’s farm, he’ll teach you how to make pork sausage. We won’t be hungry.

She worked the garden, sweating under the hot sun. At times, Julia’s back hurt so badly she could barely stand straight by the end of the day. And she christened the soil with the drops of blood that fell from her fingers, torn by the rough wood of the shovel and the hoe.

Once a month, Mrs. Fletcher came down the mountain to the village to load up with supplies, and when she did, she took the time to ride the two miles out to Julia’s. She always brought a pie or soft breads she had baked, knowing that Julia no longer had time to bake anything that was not necessary. Today, on Julia’s nineteenth birthday, Mrs. Fletcher arrived with a cake. Julia had been sitting on a log at the water’s edge with her shoes off, and her toes dallying in the wet sand. She looked up at Mrs. Fletcher, and didn’t bother to wipe away the tears, knowing there were too many to hide.

Good day Julia, Mrs. Fletcher looked down at her and sighed. I see you’re having a bad time.

That I am Mrs. Fletcher. Julia wiped at her eyes with her apron. I’m so glad to see you.

The older woman eyed the log, looking for the right spot on which to settle herself beside Julia. Well, you’re not crying over Jim, I’d have heard if there was an accident. Course, it’s not my business anyways. Julia moved over slightly to make more room while Mrs. Fletcher seated herself and squirmed around, as if she could find a soft spot on the water hardened wood.

I need someone to talk to, Julia finally let the sobs out. I’m so frightened and I’m so alone out here.

I know about that. Mrs. Fletcher sighed. I had several children by the time I was your age, my girl. Two alive, one dead, and another on the way.

Julia looked at her through the tears. How did you do it?

Mrs. Fletcher shifted on the log, still trying to find a comfortable spot. I just kept getting up in the morning and going to bed at night. And in between I kept cooking and cleaning and washing and feeding.

"It’s too much for me, Mrs. Fletcher. And