Page 45 of Montana Groom of Convenience
There were no sweets in the house for dessert. Even the last of the fruit she’d canned last fall was gone. She promised herself she’d find time in the next day or two to make something special. After all, she had her reputation as a good cook to uphold.
Sawyer insisted he and Jill would help do the dishes. Father said he’d like to help, too, but it was difficult with his bum leg.
“I’ll bring you dishes to dry,” Jill offered, seeming to think she did Father a favor.
Carly kept her back to the table so her father wouldn’t see her amusement. He was firm about men’s and women’s roles. Women ran the house. Men did the real work. Her hands grew still, and she stared out the window over the cupboard. Why did she fight him on this?
Sawyer seemed to think it was because she tried to be the son Father never had.
But that wasn’t it. She simply did what she enjoyed. And what needed to be done. Good thing she’d taken over the ranch work already, or where would they be with Father now crippled up?
She ignored the answer that blared through her head. There was Sawyer, ready and able to do the work. But if Sawyer hadn’t been in the diner, looking for someone to care for Jill, there was the threat of selling the ranch.
At least her marriage had stopped that plan.
She finished the dishes, picked up the bowl of crocuses, and left the house without a backward look.
Up on the hill, she stepped through the gate and carefully closed it behind her. She stopped momentarily before each of the tiny graves. Father had carved the names on the simple wooden crosses. Callum was the name on the oldest cross. Errol on the next one. After that, they hadn’t named the babies. Simply put Baby Boy Morrison on two crosses.
She knelt at her mother’s grave. Father had ordered a real headstone with an angel carved into it. Carly set the bowl of crocuses in front of the headstone and sat back on her heels.
“Mother,” she whispered. “I need you.” Why had God left her without a mother? Her heart went out to young Jill. Carly had agreed to provide a home for the pair, but a home needed family. Sawyer and Jill needed a family. She and Father provided that, but they needed even more. “There’s a little girl here who needs a mother.” There was no mother. There was only Carly.
She sat upright on her knees and stared at the angelon the headstone. There was only Carly. Could she be a mother to Jill even though the child made it clear she didn’t want it? “Mother, I wish you were here. You’re not. That means things have to be different.” She sat quietly, listening to her thoughts—something Mother often said surfaced. “Things are not always what we want. Disappointments leave us staggering, but in all things we can trust God to guide us through. Never forget what He says in His word. ‘Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with Mine eye.’”
Mother had suffered so many disappointments, and yet, she never stopped trusting God’s goodness and guidance nor His sufficiency for her every need.
“Thank you for guiding me and teaching me.” She would do her best to honor God in the life she had chosen—wife to Sawyer, mother to Jill.
The creak of the gate drew her attention. “Jill.”
The child’s mouth set into a stubborn line. “You said you would show me where your baby brothers were.”
“I did. Come in.” She rose and went to Jill, offered her hand.
Jill shook her head.
She wasn’t going to make it easy, but Carly, having made up her mind, wasn’t going to let it deter her. “They’re right there. Four little boys.”
Jill studied the four little crosses. “Did you get to meet them?”
“Two of them I did.” Callum had lived several hours. Errol just two. “Not the other two.” They’d neverdrawn breath. She’d only seen their tiny bodies wrapped in white cotton before they were laid in the ground.
Her heart twisted at the pain of the loss. She knew her sorrow was but a drop of what Mother and Father felt. Mother, especially. But Mother had never let her sorrow quench her faith or her joy. She tried to find words to explain it to Jill. “I think the hardest thing for a mother is to lose a child. Mother said loss could turn us bitter or grow our roots deep. We get to choose.”
“Like the crocuses?”
Surprised that Jill had listened to Carly’s comment and then taken it and applied it to this situation, Carly answered, “That’s right. And a very keen observation.”
“My mama would say things like that, too.” She looked into the distance. “One time, I was angry because a trip to the store was canceled. Papa had promised to buy me a candy. Mama said I’d learn there were lots of things in life I could be upset about. Or I could learn to be happy anyway.” She sighed deeply. Her shoulders rose. “Don’t suppose she meant her and Papa dying.” She turned to the headstone. “Is that where your mama is buried?”
“Yes.” Carly led her to the foot of the grave.
“I like the angel.”
“Me, too.”
“Why do you bring her flowers? She doesn’t know.” When looking at the four little crosses, Jill had shown only curiosity but now her voice grew hard, her expression tightened.
