Part I

© 2005 by Elizabeth Delayne



The house at the end of Main had at one time been a boarding house for travelers who passed through Lenox. Now it boarded the widows of town. More than their physical needs were looked after. Partially run by the local church and partially run by doctor and Mrs. Jenkins, it was a place where the widows found both friendship and comfort. They quilted and baked, and sold their wares to pay for their care.

"Well, good morning, young fella." Ruby called out as Thaddeous Whitaker walked in the front door as he had often in the last year. She sat like a queen on her throne in the wingback chair she'd ordered from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. Other chairs and women surrounded the large quilt that was stretched between them.

"Morning Mrs. Jenkins," he said, and easily greeted each woman in the room. They had all been part of his life, down to the last one who's hand he gripped. He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. His smile bloomed easily.

"Mother."

There was love now in the word, though they both knew there had been difficult times in their past. He'd despised her when his father died—though not as much as he despised himself. Grief had overwhelmed him, stripped him of his youth, his hope, his belief in the future.

He'd walked out on her and his brothers, left them in the middle of their own grief, a drought across the land. He'd unofficially joined the army as a scout, moving from place to place, trying not to think, to remember, all he left behind. Not his mother. Rarely his brothers. Only briefly the dimpled little girl who was now a beautiful woman he loved.

He refused to write, even when his heart ached for his mother, for that familiar embrace, the warmth of her kitchen. It took him time to admit his need. It took time for him to forgive himself.

The day he'd headed home for good, first stopping at the Newsome farm—needing to see, wanting to see Ellie—Martha Whitaker had welcomed him not like the prodigal son he was. Her arms had opened, and her eyes had rarely turned from his face.

Even now, her eyes sparkled. He looked down and across at the quilt of many colors, then around the room at each of the ladies who had each opened their arms in turn.

"Thaddeous. Put your feet up here for a minute with us," His mother smiled up at him, sliding her needle to rest in the cloth, delighted to be sidetracked for the moment. "You have a minute, don't you?"

"For you fine ladies I have all afternoon," he pulled a seat in between his mother and Mrs. Jenkins.

Martha asked about his brothers, their families, the farm. She made him laugh, even if it wasn't heart felt. He loved that he was easy with his mother again.

Ruby watched them as they bantered. Even in the midst of the joking there was a weariness in Thad's eyes that had been missing for sometime. She, for one, hadn't missed it. His father's death had brought on the first batch. She thought she knew the source of the second.

"How's Ellie?"

He looked over at her, grimaced. "Grieving still."

"She and James were close."

"Yes they were."

"And you and James were close," Mrs. Martha Bird noted. She was another widow—a recent widow—and somewhat younger then the rest of the women. Grey edged her hair and loneliness filled her eyes.

Across the room Ruby mentally praised the woman for her astuteness. Not all the women could hit a point so easily. She would have to speak to Thad later.

He nodded and reached to hold his mother's hand. Her hands were worn, from years of hard work and living. She'd done them well after his father died.

He wished that he had understood that. He couldn't go back and tell her then, but he could show her and tell her now.

Still, it had been James Newsome who saved him. The little Thad was home, he'd helped out on the Newsome farm, only able to bear the brief stays at his own for minutes at a time. The older man had become something that he'd needed, showing Thad that he still had a heart.

Helping him face that heart.

And then that heart had turned and discovered that it loved James Newsome's daughter, a miniature copy of her father.

"And Roberta?" Ruby asked, mentioning her niece, James' much younger second wife. "How is she?"

The answer didn't come so easily. It faltered on his lips. "As well as she can. She sees to the children."

"The poor dears, to loose their father so young. They' never know him." Thad nodded to the woman who spoke.

"They will through Ellie, through Thad. James was a good man." Still another said. "People will remember him. You remind Roberta of that."

Thad nodded, though he seemed a bit stiff.

Ruby cleared her throat and drew his attention. He was getting restless. It was time, she thought, to handle things.

"Thaddeous, I have some things in the kitchen you could deliver for me."

"Yes, mam," he said, and patting his mother's hand, rose to follow Ruby into the kitchen.

She randomly pulled from the baked goods and wrapped items in paper. Bread for Roberta and the children, biscuits for Ellie, some cake for Thad's sister-in-laws, Jodie and Catherine.

"Roberta—she's treating Ellie right, isn't she?"

Thad shuffled the final package under his arm. Something crossed his face and Ruby wanted to shake him. The girl was her niece, not a woman of perfection.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"James married her to be a mother to Ellie. To teach her more feminine ways. She had her own family begun to quickly. She never got around to those other things so well."

"She's done fine. Ellie was always female enough."

"To you, dear boy. But females need to feel feminine."

That stopped him and for a moment he stared at Ruby. "Does Ellie not?"

The shock on his face made her chuckle. She could picture Ellie, raised in pants with the ends lopped off to fit her short frame, oversized men's shirts, and ill-fitting dresses. "Between Jodie and Catherine, I suppose she has enough females in her life with your family. And Roberta's making the wedding dress. No prettier bride will a man have seen."

He smiled then and patted her hand much like he'd done for his mother. "Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins."

"You're welcome. Now you get those packages delivered. And have that girl of yours pay us a visit. It's been far too long."

"Has it?" he frowned. "But I thought she came out here just yesterday. She told me—"

He sighed, kicked at a chair so that it tapped against the table. "I'll see she comes."

Ruby frowned. There was more wrong then she had guessed. "Thaddeous, you give that girl a break."

"Oh, I'll break something all right."



"Can you fix it?"

Desperate and still hopeful, Ellie sat and watched Jodie with red-rimmed eyes. The coffee Jodie had poured in an attempt to calm Ellie sat untouched on the kitchen table. Jodie held the dress up in front of her and studied the long rip down the front of the bodice. Her fingers toyed with the frayed edges. At the top were tiny, almost haphazard looking stitches where Ellie had tried to fix the dress herself. But Ellie couldn't sew, or sew very well, so it was obvious the care she'd put into the attempt.

It broke Josie's heart to think of her sister-in-law worrying all night over the tare, waiting for the morning, holding onto a small bit of hope.

"I don't know what to tell you, Ellie," she looked up and Ellie felt her heart sink. She'd known. From the moment she'd seen the tear she'd felt her dreams cascade around her.

She reached out and started to gather the remnant of what would have been her wedding dress. It was her first dress since childhood that had been made specifically for her and not passed down or bought from someone else. The fabric was a pale yellow, sprinkled with tiny pink flowers. She'd worn a dress just like it once before, when her cousin visited from the east. The fabric was special ordered-sent to her by her aunt in Charleston.

Jodie placed a hand over Ellie's. "Don't give up. We might be able to do something."

"But it won't be the same."

"No," Jodie shook her head. "No it won't. Just give me time, let me see what I can do. It could be better."

Ellie looked at the dress, and thought of Thad, remembering the way he'd looked at her the day he'd escorted her to the church picnic wearing that dress. He'd told her she was beautiful. He'd looked at her and she'd known that he meant it.

She'd asked Roberta to make her a dress just like the one she'd worn that day. She'd tried on it and showed it to her dad days before his sudden death. So many hopes and dreams were slipping away.

"I'm supposed to get married a week from Sunday."

"Just give me a few days."



Thad slid off his horse just as the door opened to his brother's house and Ellie stepped out. She looked ... weary, so very weary and weak.

The fire that had pushed him from town cooled quickly.

"What is it?"

"I have to get back to the house. I haven't fixed breakfast."

Thad looked up at the sun. It was far late into the morning already. If Roberta hadn't found fixed something already then they could wait for lunch. "It's something else. Something more. Ellie—"

She turned, looked to where Jodie stood in the doorway.

"Ellie?" he grasped her arms gently, which brought her eyes back to his. She was trembling. She looked lost. Even in the last few weeks since her father's death she hadn't seemed so shaken. He wanted to draw her into his arms and hold on.

Instead, he held her eyes, held her steady. He had to know. "What's wrong?"

She swallowed and struggled to look at him. "We can't get married on Sunday."

"What?"

"Something happened to my dress."

"Your dress?" His mind spun with the information. They had postponed the wedding a month ago after her father died. "I thought Roberta finished it."

"It tore—she tore it ... last night—" her voice hiccuped and she seemed very young then, so very young and helpless. "I heard her weeping and I went in to see and she started ... And she was holding it. Weeping as if ... weeping. It can't be fixed ... Jodie says it can't be fixed."

He didn't know much about dresses or sewing. The most he could do was darn a hole.

But Jodie knew sewing and if she couldn't fix it then no one could. Or nearly no one.

"Ellie, we're getting married—the dress doesn't matter."

"Thad—"

Thad looked toward Jodie, his hands still on Ellie's arms. His sister-in-law was trying to tell him something, but he'd never been good at reading looks, not in girls. Not even with his mother.

But when he looked at Ellie, he understood at least one thing. The dress did matter. For whatever reason, the dress mattered a great deal.

Tears gathered in her eyes. He could do nothing but draw her close and hold on. He looked up, met Josie's eyes, and wondered what had brought this sudden storm of grief.



"I really wanted you to see me in that dress," she murmured.

She'd stopped crying—it had only been a brief spell, but she was silent and tired. They'd settled in Josie's house, on her worn davenport. He still held her. He couldn't seem to let go. His mind spun around with the words she told him.

Of Roberta.

And he wondered, for the first time, what she had been going through in that house since her father's death. It shamed him that he hadn't worried about Ellie before. His attentions had been divided between her and Roberta. How many times had he overrun Ellie's feelings in the last few weeks, catering to Roberta and the underlying tension he hadn't understood? He'd wanted to look after James's women, and had forgotten, momentarily, to look after his own.

His own. His arm tightened around Ellie. His love. He buried his lips in her hair, breathed her in. She was so much of his life.

His gift from God.

Whom he was to love and cherish. Whom he was to love as his own body.

"I wanted to be beautiful for you on our wedding day."

Her words seeped into his heart. He heard the weariness and the wistfulness in her voice.

"Beautiful?" he repeated and leaned back from her, seeking out her eyes. "Elizabeth Newsome, we can be married with what you have on right now if that's all you need. I've always been drawn to your beauty, but especially since I came back home and realized it brought out more, so much more, then I had ever imagined."

Her eyes glittered with a new set of tears. "You've never said so—only once that day you took my cousins with us to the church picnic."

He ran his knuckle along her cheekbone. "You staggered me."

She smiled as a single tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. He caught it with his fingertip and she grabbed his hand, her tear held between them.

"Thad, I wanted to stagger you on our wedding day."

"You do stagger me. Every day," he held her gaze wanting her, needing her, to believe him. "Why do you think I wanted to take you into the mountains with me? Show you those places where I thought of you and wished for you and ... wanted you. Even when I didn't even realize it was you I was wishing for?"

"That's why you want to take me to the mountains?"

"I told you I thought of you."

"But not in that way."

"What way?"

She shrugged, "I don't know. Just different. We were always friends."

"We're still friends."

"And sometimes I wonder if we're really more." She looked at their joined hands. "I've loved you for so long. So much longer than you've loved me."

"Longer than I've realized it maybe." He responded, then decided to give her more. "If you ever ask Rushing Waters—he'll tell you. I talked of you a lot. More than I realized. I came home for you. I even told him, without even realizing that I said it. Later, when I told him we were going to be married, he just looked at me and laughed. ‘Finally,' he said. That's all he said."

"Thad."

"You were with me in the mountains. You were with me when I was working for the Army. It wasn't mother, or the farm, or even your father that brought me back here to settle down permanently. It was you."

"I came home for them, at first. I don't think it was time yet for me to understand. You were still young, God still had some things He needed to teach me." He shook his head. "But that's not the point. The point is, you're the one for me. You're it. I look at you and I see ... the rest of my life. Tell me about the dress."

"What?"

He could tell the sequay confused her. He wasn't sure he even understood, but it was suddenly important for him to understand.

"It has a story. What is the story? Whatever is in your heart the you need to get out."

She thought about it for a long moment, then she rested her head against his heart. "The night you asked me to marry you. My heart, my mind ... was dancing. I couldn't sleep. I climbed out of bed and found my father whittling in front of the father. I sat on the floor at his knee, as I had as I child. I would often stay up late with him that way. He rarely sent me to bed."

She smiled weakly over the memories. "Eventually, I started telling him about the dress. How I wished for it. I guess I wanted to know if it was possible. I didn't know anything about finding out. Neither did he. I didn't know how to ask Roberta."

"I always thought it was easy between the two of you."

"It was ... I mean, she was never my mother. She had her own family with my dad and she made such a great mother to them. She was never ... she changed when he died. Things were fine until he died."

He wondered, for a moment, if she would finish the story. She fell silent and still, lost in her own thoughts.

"I thought he would ask Roberta himself," she said after awhile. "Instead he telegraphed his sister in Charleston. He wrote a few letters. Sent money. He wanted me to have my dress."

"Ellie—" his arms tightened around her,

Tears pooled in her eyes.

"I remember it," he reassured her as he rocked her slowly back and forth. "How could I forget? I'll never forget that day. I looked at you and realized you held my heart. I saw your eyes. I looked at your eyes. Before I saw the pretty dress."

"A cream dress with little pink flowers." She closed her eyes. He felt her relax. "Pretty pink flowers."

He lay his lips on to top of her head and closed his eyes as she drifted into sleep. "Pretty flowers," he murmured, "for my pretty girl."



With a good part of the morning gone, Thad sat at the table and fingered the torn edge of the dress. He didn't know much about sewing, but it did look ruined.

He thought of Ellie, how she'd wept silently as he held her. He was used to her tears. She found so much joy in life that sometimes it just welled up and over. Like the birth of her horse's first colt last spring. He'd teased her about it.

But he wasn't used to sadness.

She'd been up the night before, he'd learned, waiting for the morning so she could ride out to Jodie's.

Waiting alone, weeping alone, over a dress she had planned to wear on her wedding day.

He felt the ache in his heart. He was helpless to know what to do with it.

Jodie walked into the kitchen and sighed when she saw Thad studying the dress. "I don't guess it matters that you've seen it."

"Are you sure it can't be fixed?"

"I don't think so, but then, I don't know everything about sewing. It's not the seam that's torn, but the fabric. All I know how to do is patch a tare." She ran a hand over the dress and fingered the rough edge. "I thought about taking it in, showing it to Mrs. Jenkins, but how can I? She's Roberta's aunt."

"Maybe it's time. She knows things are not quite right at the house." He thought of the conversation he'd had with Mrs. Jenkins and his mother earlier. "I don't want Ellie to go back."

"Do you think you can stop her? What about Lucas and Mary, her brother and sister, her father's blood? If Roberta is that unstable ...."

"There has to be something we can do." He studied the cloth, the ragged edge and ran his hands over the print of tiny pink flowers. "I'm not going to not marry her, Josie."

"But you'll ask her to give up the one thing she wants, the one thing she thinks she can give you?"

"It doesn't matter to me—"

"Than she doesn't matter to you."

He shot his sister-in-law a hard look. "She thinks the dress makes a difference with me. It doesn't. I need to be able to show her that, somehow. Still, I want her to have a new dress. Something like this, as close to what she wanted as you can find. I've got some money put aside," he turned and paced, covering the familiar distance of the kitchen within a few strides. "Rushing Waters has been after me to go with him to the mountains for weeks—I was waiting for Ellie to go with me and now ... He's in town ... if I go with him, I could do some hunting, get more."

"She's not asking for gold or diamonds."

"It's a good thing for I've got neither—I just want to make sure we have some money set back."

"It will take time. I don't know if it can be done by Sunday."

"Then we'll wait." He frowned over the dress, over the painstaking tiny, but poor stitches that had been Ellie's desperate attempt to save both her dreams and Roberta's reputation. Husbands, ought to love their wives as their own bodies. "This is important to Ellie. I didn't realize how much."

Thad stood and gathered the dress, awkwardly folding it. "I need to get this to Ruby."

Josie gasped. "Thad—I don't think Ellie would want—"

"It's time someone does something. Ruby needs to know. Roberta needs someone to know. She needs someone to help her."

He took the satchel that Josie handed him and carefully placed the dress inside. "Tell Ellie to stay here until I return from town."

He thought of the words he had planned to say on his ride out here, the way he had planned to say them. He could only be grateful God stopped him in time.

"Tell her I need to talk to her before she goes back, if she goes back. It's important. Tell her—remind her that I love her."


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