Chapter Sixteen
Leigh’s pulse pounded so loudly in her ears that she almost didn’t hear Jeremiah’s words.
“The resemblance is remarkable,” he murmured. “There is no doubt that you are related.”
“Does she look like me?” Leigh whispered.
“You in about twenty-five years. Apparently, you will age well. This woman has.”
Jeremiah waved a hand in greeting. “Good morning, madam,” he called out. “Are you Mrs. Nancy Reid?”
“I am,” she said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jeremiah Cook. This is Mrs. Leigh Peters, and our friend Mr. Jefferson Lundrum. We wondered if we could have a word with you?”
Leigh’s great-grandmother didn’t exactly welcome them with open arms.
“If you’re asking about the place, I’m still not selling. We’re doing fine here.”
“No, no,” Jeremiah said. “May I climb down? It is an entirely different matter. I do not blame you for not selling. What a lovely house!”
“Yes, you can get down from the buggy,” she said.
Leigh stared hard, wondering if there was a resemblance. So busy was she gaping at Nancy that she didn’t see Jefferson had dismounted and waited to help her down. Jeremiah had come around the front of the horse’s head to do the same but turned away when he saw Jefferson.
“The resemblance is startling,” Jefferson whispered.
“Really?” she asked. She stepped forward and followed Jeremiah to the large wraparound porch. The house was in decent shape, and she remembered seeing it still standing in the twenty-first century, though abandoned and covered by moss and vines. It stood alone in a field of some sort of crop. She had never paid attention. The larger white farmhouse to the left belonging to the Henker family stood as well, also abandoned to Washington’s fertile overgrowth.
“What can I do for you?” Nancy asked in a fairly brusque manner.
Leigh swallowed hard. Her image of a sweet, nurturing grandmother was fading fast.
“The matter is delicate, and it would be best if we could sit and talk with you, perhaps in those chairs on your porch?”
“Not until you tell me what you’re here about,” she said. She smiled as if to soften her words, but she seemed not at all intimidated by them.
Jeremiah looked at Leigh, who hunched her shoulders. He started to speak, when Nancy interrupted him.
“You look familiar, Mrs. Peters. Have we met before?”
Leigh’s heart fluttered. Nancy had dropped the hand shading her eyes, and Leigh saw her own blue-and-white eyes mirrored on her great-grandmother’s face.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I think we might be related though. I asked Dr. Cook and Mr. Lundrum to come with me to talk to you.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Nancy exclaimed, her smile widening. “I should have recognized that head of hair. Looks just like mine did when I was younger and like my daughter’s hair does now.”
Leigh could have died with happiness at that moment. “I have my mother’s hair,” she said.
Nancy moved down a step to take Leigh’s hand and pull her onto the porch.
“Well, who is your mother, dear? I’m sure I know her...or of her. I know all my cousins!”
Leigh thought quickly. She really didn’t think she could lie her way out of the situation, and she didn’t want to. But she couldn’t tell the truth either.
“Harriet Day,” she said.
“Come sit down on the porch, gents!” Nancy said, settling Leigh into a weathered wicker love seat. She took the seat next to her, and the men sat down in single chairs.
“Harriet Day,” Nancy pronounced with a squint. “That name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“My mother came from Iowa.” Leigh vaguely remembered her mother mentioning family stopping in Iowa on their westward trek. She hoped she’d thrown Nancy off the scent.
“Oh, Iowa!” Nancy said with a nod. “Yes, we do have some leftovers in Iowa who didn’t move out here. Well, I’ll be darned. So you’re a Johnson! Well, of course you are. Your hair! That widow’s peak. And you’ve got the Johnson robin’s-egg eyes!”
Leigh put a hand to the outer corner of one eye.
“Is that what they’re called?” A tear threatened to slip out of one of those eyes. Nancy wasn’t anything like her sweet mother in temperament, but she certainly looked like her. Leigh struggled to keep herself from sobbing and hugging the older woman, reminding herself that the gesture might seem a bit grabby for a newly found cousin relationship.
“That’s what the Johnsons have called them for as long as I’ve been around. They’re special. That’s how I knew you were one of us.”
Nancy patted the hand that Leigh had resting on her lap. “So what are you doing here in Orting? Are you visiting?”
Leigh threw Jeremiah a glance. “Well, I recently moved down to Kaskade. I’m working for Dr. Cook down there.”
Nancy looked at Jeremiah, then at Jefferson. Her wonderful eyes narrowed. “Kaskade, huh?”
Leigh could see that Nancy had already come to some sort of conclusion, and Leigh wanted to prevent what she thought might be a hasty denial.
“I was looking forward to meeting your daughter, Rosanna, and her husband, William. Are they here?”
“They are,” Nancy replied. “They were just upstairs tending to the baby, Jane.”
“A baby!” Leigh exclaimed. “Jane! Just think! She’ll be a great-grandmother one day!”
Jeremiah coughed, and Leigh realized what she’d said. Nancy drew her brows together, though she smiled.
“Well, I guess that’s probably true. I can’t say we’ve actually thought about that yet.”
“Silly of me to say.”
“I’ll go get them in a minute because I know they’ll want to meet you, but I think you’d better tell me what you’re really doing here. I know my father lives in Kaskade. Is he dead?”
Leigh gasped and looked to Jeremiah for help. Jefferson crossed and recrossed his legs, as if uncomfortable.
“Why else would you come with a doctor and a lawyer?”
“That is entirely a coincidence, Mrs. Reid,” Jefferson said. “I am only here as a friend to Leigh.”
“Harry is alive,” Jeremiah finally said, “but he is very ill. He is suffering from a severe bout of pneumonia, and I do not know if he will recover. He has had pneumonia before, but this episode has brought him low.”
“Is he in the hospital in Tacoma?” Nancy asked. Her expression was guarded, but Leigh swore her eyes watered.
Jeremiah shook his head.
“No, he will not consent to go to a hospital. He is staying at my house.”
“Stubborn old man,” Nancy groused. “Well, I’m glad he’s staying with you.”
“He asked us to find you and your daughter and ask you to come see him.”
Nancy was already shaking her head.
Leigh spoke up. “Please, Nancy. Give it some thought. I’ve heard a lot of history, a lot of sadness, regret, mistakes. Please think about it before you say no.”
Nancy patted Leigh’s hand again.
“You sound like you know more than you want to know,” she said. “Look, my father made my mom’s life so miserable that she left the only man she ever loved, would ever love, took her kid and moved away without any help from him. She took in washing, cooked in the diner, planted bulbs and did every other job she could find until she could finally afford this house. She died loving that man, but he loved the drink more than he loved her...or me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Leigh said, curling her fingers around Nancy’s hand. “I’m so sorry. I can’t change the past. I wish I could.”
“No, we can’t. Harry doesn’t deserve a visit from me or my daughter.”
Jeremiah sighed. “As it happens, Rosanna will not be able to visit him.”
“What?” Leigh exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“I have no guarantee that Harry’s pneumonia is not infectious. I do not think it is, but I cannot guarantee it. Rosanna is a new mother with an infant. Both should not be exposed to the disease. Will not.”
“Oh!” Leigh said. “Of course. That makes sense.”
“But what if I were to see him?” Nancy asked. “Wouldn’t I bring something back to the baby?”
“No,” Jeremiah responded. “If Harry were infectious, it would not be transmitted so indirectly, but only through him. It is likely that we would have succumbed by now, but we have not. Still, we cannot take chances with an infant or the infant’s mother.”
Jefferson looked as if he felt a bit out of place, and Leigh wondered if he wished he hadn’t joined them. She hoped not.
“I’ll have to think about it,” Nancy finally said, rising. She looked down at Leigh. “Let me go get Rosanna, Will and the baby so you can meet them.”
“Thank you!” Leigh said.
Nancy nodded and went into the house. Leigh followed her progress, then turned back to see both Jeremiah and Jefferson watching her, as if trying to gauge her reactions.
“Well?” she asked.
“Well, what do you think?” Jefferson asked in a hushed voice. He leaned forward in his chair. “Was meeting her as satisfying as you hoped?”
Leigh smiled so widely that her cheeks hurt.
“Oh yes! Oh yes! She looks just like my mother!”
“Excellent!” Jefferson said, his own smile mirroring hers. “I am so pleased for you.”
“I am sorry that we cannot coax her daughter to come down to Kaskade, but perhaps if Harry recovers, that might be possible.”
Jeremiah’s intent study of her face unnerved Leigh. It was as if he was trying to read her mind, as if her feelings mattered a great deal to him.
“I understand completely, Jeremiah. Besides, Nancy hasn’t agreed to come down to see her father.”
“I thought I detected some wiggle room there,” Jefferson said.
Leigh nodded. “I did too. Isn’t she just beautiful?” She let out a long sigh.
“Yes, she is,” Jeremiah said. “You are the spitting image of her.”
Leigh heard the compliment, and she caught her breath. She put a hand to her warm cheeks and looked toward the door.
Nancy pushed open the screen door. Two people followed her out. Well, three if one counted the sleeping baby in Rosanna’s arms. Leigh jumped up. Rosanna looked just like her mother and just like Leigh. In a world where Leigh felt she had lost everything—her parents, her husband, her home in 2018, even her sanity—she had found her family, people who looked like her, people who had given her life.
“Oh, mother! She is one of us, isn’t she?” Rosanna said in a lovely warm voice. Reddish-brown curls framed her face, and she looked at Leigh with blue-and-white speckled eyes. Her pink gingham dress was reflected in the baby’s quilt. Leigh stared at her great-grandmother Jane, a baby wrapped in her mother’s arms.
Rosanna moved forward to hug Leigh with one arm.
“Hello, cousin Leigh,” she cooed.
She appeared to have none of her mother’s brusqueness, but Leigh loved them both already.
“It’s so lovely to meet you. This is my daughter, Jane, and this is Will, my husband.”
Leigh had focused on the women so much, she had almost forgotten that Will Ferguson was her second great-grandfather. Tall, slender and tanned, he towered over everyone. His thick handlebar mustache didn’t cover his grin. He seemed pleased that Rosanna and Nancy had met a cousin. Leigh knew he was quite unaware that he was meeting his own great-great-granddaughter.
“Hello, Will,” Leigh said, sticking out her hand for a shake. She wanted to hug him, but dared not.
“Any cousin of Rosy’s is a cousin of mine,” he said. He surprised Leigh by wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jeremiah’s expression. He smiled widely, seemingly pleased at the outcome of their visit.
Jefferson smiled as well, but he probably didn’t realize how deeply Leigh was affected by her family’s welcoming. She herself hadn’t realized how she would feel. True, she had been nervous about meeting them, about possible rejection, but Leigh hadn’t understood how very lonely she’d been. She had been lost, and suddenly she felt at home. That she had found her roots in the past only made sense.
Jeremiah’s blue eyes sparkled, and Leigh could have sworn he had tears in them. She looked up at Will.
“Thank you,” she finally said in a tight throat. “Thank you so much! It’s wonderful to meet you all!”
Leigh looked down at the sleeping baby, and Rosanna opened her arms.
“Do you like babies? Do you want to hold her?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can,” she said, throwing Jeremiah a silent inquiry.
“Yes, of course you can.”
“Yes, please!” Leigh took Jane into her arms and cradled her. A tiny wisp of dark-copper hair peeped out from under her bonnet. Leigh looked up at her great grandparents.
“Thank you for being so welcoming,” she said.
“Well, if I were that welcoming, I’d had you into the house,” Nancy said with a crooked smile, “but it’s a rare sunny day here, and this is the best place in the world. Turn around and you can see Mount Rainier from here.”
Leigh turned, and indeed there was the top of the snow-capped volcanic mountain. Fields surrounded the house, allowing for an unimpeded view.
“This is beautiful! I’ll bet this house stands for a hundred years or more.” She threw Jeremiah and Jefferson a knowing look.
“Well, it’s sturdy enough. I sure hope it does,” Nancy said. “Let’s all sit down for a moment.”
Everyone complied, sorting themselves out into various chairs. Leigh offered Rosanna the baby, but Rosanna insisted she continue to hold her, and Leigh was happy to comply.
Nancy spoke as if she was the matriarch of a family meeting. She was, in fact.
“I told Rosanna about you and my father. She’s never even met him, but she thinks I should go down and see him.”
“I do,” Rosanna said. “I would go if I could, but I guess Dr. Cook here says that I shouldn’t.”
“No, it would not be wise for you, and most definitely not the baby.”
“I understand,” Rosanna said.
“I love my daughter,” Nancy said, swallowing as she looked at Rosanna. “She’s smart as a whip. If she thinks it’s time to mend fences, then I’ll do it. We’ve got the new baby, and maybe it is time to let the past go.”
Tears slipped down Leigh’s cheeks, and she wiped at them before they fell onto Jane’s sweet chubby cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll come down tomorrow,” Nancy said. “Will can drive me down.”
“Harry will be so pleased to see you,” Jeremiah said.
“Just as long as you all know that I’m doing this for Rosanna, for Jane, so that we can bury all this bad blood. I’d been thinking about it for some time now, but couldn’t get up the gumption to go down to Kaskade and see Harry.”
“We understand,” Jeremiah said. He gave them the directions to his house, and Will repeated them, committing them to memory.
Jane opened her eyes. Slate blue as most baby’s eyes were, the irises already contained the white flecks that the Johnson family shared. She smiled briefly at Leigh before seeing her mother, at which point she started to wail. Rosanna laughed and took Jane from Leigh.
“I’d better take her upstairs and feed her,” she said, rising. “I hope to see you again soon, cousin.”
Leigh rose, feeling it was up to her to make the move to leave.
“We should go. The minister’s wife is looking after Harry while we’re up here.”
The rest of the group stood up, and Rosanna gave Leigh another hug before going into the house.
“See you tomorrow,” Will said, turning to follow his wife inside.
“I’ll see you tomorrow too,” Nancy said. She folded Leigh into a hug and released her before saying goodbye to Jeremiah and Jefferson. She waited on the porch while they returned to the buggy and Jefferson’s horse.
Jeremiah maneuvered the buggy around, and Leigh waved at Nancy one final time. She felt a sense of emptiness in her arms now that Jane had been returned to her mother.
Leigh mused aloud. “You know, I never knew what the expression ‘my arms ache to hold a baby’ meant before now, but I feel it. I feel the loss of the baby in my arms.” She looked over her shoulder to see Nancy still watching them make their way down the lane toward the road.
“I thought I didn’t have a maternal bone in my body. It’s not that I didn’t want kids, just that I didn’t know that I wanted kids.”
“I am confused,” Jeremiah said. “Are you saying that you do want children?”
“Yes, I believe I do. Someday.”
“How did it feel to hold one of your grandmothers in your arms?” Jeremiah asked.
“Surreal. But mostly just wonderful. I loved Jane instantly...for being an adorable baby, for being my great-grandmother.”
“I cannot imagine how it must have felt.”
Leigh crossed her empty arms over her chest.
“Is it time for lunch, Jefferson?” she asked.
“I am starved!” Jefferson answered, riding down the road beside her.
“Me too!” Leigh exclaimed, still buoyed up by meeting her relatives. “I was just telling Jeremiah that holding Jane made me think that having a baby wasn’t a half-bad idea. In fact, I rather liked it! Okay, I loved it. I see it in my future.”
“Ah! Better you than I,” Jefferson stated. “I do not see myself as a father. I might make a good husband, but children seem to require a lot of care. I am not at all certain fatherhood is in the cards for me.”
Leigh thought fast. “Well, I hate to point out the obvious, Jefferson, but if you marry, how are you going to avoid fatherhood?”
“There is that question, is there not?” Jefferson smiled again. “Right now though, I am debating what I shall order for lunch.”
Jefferson deflected the question successfully, and Leigh studied him. For such a warm and good-natured man, his ambiguously negative response about children, though congenial enough, surprised her.