Page 59 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
He stepped farther out, and she could see in full the scars that mangled his facial features. They were healed, like Fern’s, but they warped his mouth, nose and one of his eyes in ways hers didn’t. Instead of just appearing as melted wax, his scars pulled his right eye low, so that Fern could barely see his iris; one nostril was missing; and his bottom lip had a large, gouged-out area near the corner of his mouth.
“I’m picking currants for the kitchen,” he offered. “That’s where I usually spend most of my time.”
Fern nodded. “Do you make the currant muffins?”
He grinned and bobbed his head. “Indeed. I hope you’re asking because you like them and not because they taste bad.”
“Oh, no! They’re delicious.”
There was an awkward silence. But then he cut right to the chase. “You know, your scars aren’t all that bad.” He quickly added, “Compared to mine, of course. Not that any scars are easy to live with, but…well… maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, on account of you being new here and all.”
Patrice’s friend, Sarah, had said the same thing. But this man was right—no amount of visible scarring would be easy to bear. Fern supposed a person with a single scar marring their face would be as self-conscious of it as she was of hers, or this man was of his.
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh, seven years or so,” he answered breezily. He pointed to his face. “Got these in the war over in France. Shrapnel from a land mine.”
Many soldiers had come back disfigured and scarred after the Great War. To have left home as a whole man and then return as something else had to have been a struggle. At least for Fern, her memory never knew a time when she wasn’t scarred.
“House fire,” she said of her own scars. “Do you like it here, then?”
He shrugged. “Sure. It’s a beautiful spot. Quiet. People don’t stare or scream when they look at you. Out there, this is all we are,” he said, gesturing again to his face. “It’s all anyone really sees.”
Even to those who are supposed to love us, Fern wanted to add.
“You’ll get used to it here,” he said, sounding as certain about it as Mrs. Crane. “Just give it some time. I’m Bud, by the way.”
He held out his hand. She shook it. “Fern.”
Bud ducked back into the shrubs to collect more currants, and Fern continued on her walk. But suddenly, she was too tired to go any further, so she turned aroundand headed back to the main house.Out there, this is all we are. It’s all anyone really sees.What Bud said rang through her mind again and again as she returned to the library. It was how she had always felt too. But the thing was…she hadn’t felt that way with Cal.
He’d seen her beyond her scars, or at least, that’s how he’d made her feel. Cal never outwardly reacted to the sight of them. It was possible he was just too cool, too even keeled and restrained to show his emotion. But instinct told Fern he just didn’t care about them. They didn’t affect him.
And that’s what she’d always worried about—how her face would affect other people, whether they were family members or mere strangers on the street. She’d been thinking about everyone except herself.
The next week, a letter arrived from her mother. She asked plenty of questions about Young Acres and how she was faring there but made no mention of having deceived Fern into her placement at the farm. Fern put the letter away in her desk drawer, unable to even think about how to begin a response to her mother. But the single sheet of paper weighed on her for the rest of the day, and the following day too. She had to write back. Maybe confronting her mother through a letter would be better than on the telephone or even in person.
At last, on Sunday afternoon—after she’d been at Young Acres for nearly a month—Fern sat down at her desk and took out a sheet of stationary that Margie had packed.
Her ballpoint pen hovered over the top half of the light pink paper. She wrote the date and greeting, whichwere easy to write, then chewed the capped bottom of the pen while thinking.
A pert knock on her room’s door saved her.
“Come in,” she called, then twisted to see who it was. Not Caroline, whose knocks were as timid as a mouse. Lena, the blind woman from across the hall, pushed the door open. Her filmy eyes peered into the room.
“Fern, there’s a man here who wants to speak to you,” she said, a bit breathlessly. A hesitant smile fluttered about her lips. Fern was suspicious. Was this a prank?
“A man?”
“I answered the door because Mrs. Crane is visiting with little Ben’s family,” Lena explained. Ben, a sweet and exuberant little boy with widely set eyes—mongolism, the superintendent had called his condition—was another resident, whose family made frequent trips to the estate. Nearly every weekend. Fern tried not to envy him those family visits.
“He said he wanted to talk to you,” Lena finished.
Fern pushed back her chair, dismissing the possibility it was a prank. It had been a few weeks since her call to Buchanan. He’d said he would visit, but when Fern hung up on him, she’d never expected him to follow through with it.
“Is it my brother?” she asked, standing up.
Lena nervously patted her chest with her palm a few times. “Oh, I’m not sure. Is your brother’s name George Black?”
