SEASONS OF LOVE
Chapter Ten
All too soon, it was time for John Robert,
Ellie, and I to leave. I didn’t know where we could go, or what we could do. I
had very little money of my own—only the twenty dollars that I had put away
during the years of my marriage. Somehow, it just hadn’t seemed important to keep
putting money away as I had originally planned, for I had grown content in my
marriage to Andrew. Now, however, I wished that I had saved more.
I had never worked for a living in my life,
and wasn’t even sure how to go about looking for a job. I had no real skills,
but I had to do something. There was no one to provide for my children and me
any longer, and twenty dollars wouldn’t go far.
Where could I go? Back to my mother? I hadn’t
heard from her in years, not since John Robert was a baby. I wasn’t even sure
of where she was anymore, and I doubted she would want to see me. She had made
it perfectly clear that I was a disgrace, and that she wanted no part of me, or
of the grandson I had given her. Now there were two children, one of them
legitimate, but I didn’t think she would want to see either them or me.
I was surprised when young Andrew himself
solved the problem. On the day of his wedding to Mary Ellen, he presented me
with a check for one thousand dollars—enough for us to travel somewhere else,
where no one knew us, and to live on for a little while, while I figured out
how to make a living.
He smiled coldly at me when he presented me
with the check. Looking me over rudely, he told me, "I don’t want you to
walk away empty-handed. After all, you went to so much trouble."
I was tempted the rip the check up and throw
it back in his face, but common sense held me back. A thousand dollars would
take my children and me a long way.
"I don’t expect you to understand what I
had with your father," I told him, my voice as cold as his. "I can
already see that explaining will do no good. I can only hope that you treat
Mary Ellen with more respect than you have treated your own family."
He flushed a little at that, knowing that I
was referring to his plan to send his brothers and sisters away to school. They
still believed that it was my fault that they were being sent away, but I was
glad to see that their eldest brother felt at least some shame at how he was
treating them.
The moment passed, though, and he smirked at
me, knowing that he had destroyed the trust that his siblings had held in me,
and knowing, too, how much that hurt me. I didn’t understand why he wanted to
hurt me—I had never done anything to him. Perhaps it was the fact that I had
become his stepmother when I was only a few years older than him, or perhaps he
resented me for trying to take his real mother’s place. Whatever the reason, he
had always resented me, and nothing I had ever done or said had changed things.
He walked away then, leaving me holding the
check. I sank into a chair. I had money now, but I still had no idea of where I
was going to go, or what I was going to do.
*****
We left the next morning. I had been up all
night, trying to decide where to go. I couldn’t go back to Mother, and I didn’t
know of anyone else who might take us in.
Then, at last, I had thought of Jack. It
amazed me that I hadn’t thought of him before, but he hadn’t been a part of my
life in a long time, even with his visit last year. He had told me that he was
going back to Chippewa Falls, so I would go there, too, and try to explain
things to him.
Would he be happy to see me, I wondered?
Would that spark still be there? He had wanted to see his son the year before;
surely he would welcome John Robert, if not me or Ellie.
As we stepped onto the train, I reassured
myself. I had never stopped loving Jack, and deep inside I knew that he had
loved me, even though he had never said it. He had sought me out six years
after the Titanic sank, wanting to be sure I was all right.
I had sent him away then, but now Andrew was
gone, and I was a widow. We could start over, make the life that I had wanted
for us before the Titanic sank.
It was time to start over.