Toward Sunset Book 1: Daylight Fades: Part 5

Jane was just beginning to ball up the dough for the nut cakes and put it in the frying pan when the sheriff finally returned with her sister. After a quick wordless nod, the sheriff made his departure. Jane revived from her dreamlike state long enough to accept her sister’s embrace.

Nell, at 16, was just beginning to fill into her womanly body. Jane knew the boys were starting to notice, too. From what she heard, Dan Cockerell had been spending a lot of time outside on her father’s front porch in the evenings, and her father was surely not the one he was hoping to see. It would not be long before there was a wedding in her mother’s parlor, with her baby sister as the bride. Her whole body tightened at the thought, remembering that her own wedding had not taken place in that most sacred of places.

Nell, noticing Jane’s stiffened posture, pushed herself away from the embrace and thrust a bundle into her older sister’s hands.

Jane stared down at it. “What is it?”

“Mama’s mourning dress. I knew you didn’t have anything suitable, so I asked her if you could borrow hers. You’re about the same size, now that you’ve had children.”

Jane barely noticed her sister’s somewhat disparaging comment about her changing figure. After all, it was a fact of life. Having babies changes a woman’s body. The left corner of Jane’s mouth flicked up for an instant. If young Mr. Cockerell had anything to say about it, Nell’s own slim figure would be changing soon enough.

Jane looked down at her white blouse and light rose muslin skirt. She had forgotten that she could no longer wear an outfit like that. She would need mourning, of course. She was grateful that her sister had thought of it for her. But then another thought struck her. “How did you get Mama’s mourning dress?”

“I had the sheriff ride me by the house on the way over here, of course. How else would I get it?”

Jane’s body sagged with a new burden. “So Father knows?”

Nell squinted her eyes and raised her right eyebrow impatiently. “Well, of course Father knows. I couldn’t very well go in there and ask Mama for a dress without him finding out why, even if he was holed up in his study when I first got there. You best tend to that grease in the pan.”

Jane turned back to the stove, where she’d already set the frying pan on the fire. The liquid lard sputtered ominously in the empty pan. She wound her skirt a few times around her hand and moved the pot to a safer, colder position on the kitchen table.

“What are you doing, anyway?” Nell asked.

Jane started at the question. “I’m making nut cakes.”

“Nut cakes?”

“Yes. We were going to have a celebration supper tonight – to celebrate our wedding anniversary.” Jane choked back a sob and sank down into a chair next to the table where she’d set the pan.

Nell gasped. “Oh, Jane! I’d forgotten that this was your anniversary. Of course it is. Of all the lowdown, rotten things to do – killing a man on his own wedding anniversary!”

Jane laughed, in spite of herself, at the ridiculousness of her sister’s statement. “I’d say it’s a lowdown rotten thing to do on any day.”

Nell pursed her lips. “Well, of course, it is. I just meant -.”

“I know what you meant,” Jane kindly stopped her from saying anything to make the situation worse. “So when is Father going to get here?”

“When is he coming? Well, I don’t know that he is coming, Jane.”

“Of course he’s coming. Ben’s dead. What’s to stop him now?”

Nell sheepishly lowered her face to ground. Of course, she knew about her father’s strained relationship with her brother-in-law. She’d just forgotten it. Or perhaps she ignored it – pretended it wasn’t real. That’s what Jane had tried to do for so many years, without success. Her heart was constantly tugged in two directions – one toward the man she’d come into the world loving with all her heart and one toward the tall, burly young man who’d swept in from Tennessee and had stolen her heart completely away nearly ten years ago.

As if in answer to Jane’s question, little Martha came running into the house at that moment, screaming in delight, “Grampa’s here! Grampa! Grampa!”

Jane gave her sister a look, and Nell instinctively backed away from her older sister’s irritation. Then Jane wrapped her right arm around Nell’s, and the two girls walked out to face their father.

At just over fifty years of age, Davis Cooper was still in admirable shape. Even though he was a minister, and a man of letters, he never strayed too far from his farm roots. He owned about a hundred acres of land out behind his house that he used to plant and tend the tiny brown tobacco seeds he’d brought with him from North Carolina when he’d left his father’s house. The Good Lord had blessed him richly, and he never let anyone forget it for long.

The proud man tied his horse to a post and made his way slowly toward his two daughters. Jane felt her stomach churn and waited for the angry bile to make its way up into her throat. She didn’t want to be sick right here in front of her father, with her sister and children watching, but she didn’t know how she was going to stop it.

“Janie,” her father said and held out his arms to her. She saw the pain in his eyes and felt a little of her fear wash away. She fell into her father’s strong arms and wept again. She wept for Ben. She wept for her loss. She wept for joy at the small bit of progress that was being made in her own reconciliation with her father. She wept tears of hatred for this war that had devastated so much of this nation and now had come right to her front door.

Davis waited until his daughter’s tears stopped. Then he went over to his three grandchildren, who kept very close to each other during their time of grief. Davis placed a hand on John’s shoulder before he knelt down and hugged Martha and picked up little Bill.

“Janie, I’ll give you some time to pack up your things. I’ll be back here before sundown with the rig to pick you all up and take you home.”

The words baked the softness Jane had been feeling toward her father into a hard, dry brick. She bristled. “Take us home? But we are home.”

Her father sighed and kicked a clod of dirt with the steel toe of his boot. “This is not your home. This was his home.”

“Ben!” she screamed. “His name was Ben, and even now you can’t say it because of the hatred you felt toward him while he was alive!”

Their mother’s harsh words startled the children. Martha and John instinctively backed away from the angry adults. Bill whimpered and tried to squirm out of his grandfather’s hold. Jane couldn’t help noticing this effect on her children, and she cursed her own thoughtlessness.

Her father lowered his youngest grandson to the ground, stood and straightened. “Very well, Jane. You know this was Ben’s house,” he put special emphasis on her husband’s name. “Ben is no longer here. He is gone. This is not your home anymore.”

“It’s the only home the children have ever known. They were all conceived and born here,” Jane whispered.

Her father took a step back toward the post where his horse was tied. He knew that look in his daughter’s eyes. He’d seen it in the mirror enough. His oldest daughter, his firstborn, had inherited most of his worst qualities, including his stubbornness.

“All right. Spend the night here, if you wish. I think you’ll change your mind when you find out how lonely it will be. I’ll come back in the morning to see how you fared.”

“Oh, it won’t be lonely,” Nell piped up. “I’ll stay here with Jane and the children tonight. Sir,” Nell added the term of respect when she saw the look of disapproval on her father’s face.

Davis’s eyes darkened and he huffed. If he had been a more demonstrative man, he would’ve thrown up both his hands in exasperation and resignation. Without another word, he kissed his three grandchildren, untied his horse, mounted, and rode off toward his farm.

Nell giggled at her slight defiance and her father’s response to it. She wrapped an arm around her sister and leaned her head into Jane’s. “It’s all right, isn’t it? That I stay the night?”

Jane slumped with relief at her father’s retreat and nodded mutely. The two young women stood together for a moment, then went inside to finish making the nut cakes for the children’s supper.