Page 107 of Always to Remember
Lucian ignored his hand. “Don’t thank me. If it’d been left up to me, we wouldn’t have come, but Clay’s the head of the family, and he was worried you might have a hard winter if you lost your crops.”
Sam ducked his head, his face turning beet red. “Look, things got out of hand the other night. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt. We were just going to frighten him.”
“You didn’t do anything to stop them from hurting him though, did you?”
Sam snapped his head up. “I didn’t see you out there stopping us either.”
Lucian took a menacing step forward and Sam flinched. “No, you didn’t, but I won’t make that mistake again. You and your friends show up on our land again with flour sacks over your heads, and you’ll have to put knives through four of us.”
Meg was grateful that Mama Warner had drifted closer to heaven and was unaware of all that had happened the last night Meg saw Clay. The knowledge would have broken the older woman’s heart.
It very nearly broke Meg’s.
Each day she sat in the rocker beside the bed and readThe Scarlet Letteraloud. She could not read the words without thinking of the puckered pink scar that Clay bore upon his chest. The army had hurt him. The people in the area had hurt him. Yet she knew she’d hurt him most of all.
“Meg?”
She glanced up and gave Robert a warm smile.
“You have company. The Holland twins.”
Rising from the rocker, she set the book on the table and slipped past Robert. She hurried into the kitchen. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life as she wrapped her arms around both boys.
“I’ve missed you,” Meg said as she planted a kiss on each boy’s forehead.
“Yes, ma’am, we been missin’ you, too,” Josh said.
“Do you want a piece of pie? I made it fresh this morning.”
“No, ma’am, we didn’t come here for ourselves. We come about Clay.”
“How’s his hand?”
“It ain’t bandaged no more, but he don’t never use it. He just keeps it buried in his pocket like he’s ashamed of it or something. Thought maybe you could come talk to him—”
Shaking her head, she stepped back. “I can’t.”
“But, Miz Meg, he just walks up one row of corn and down the other all day long. We know he said some powerful ugly words the night he was hurt, but that was pain talkin', Miz Meg. Not Clay. He didn’t mean none of it. Wish you’d come back and let him apologize.”
Placing her hands on their shoulders, she felt the tears sting the back of her eyes. They had such earnest faces. “I wish it were that simple, but it isn’t. Nothing would be solved if I went to your farm. Things would only worsen.”
The boys released baleful sighs as their shoulders slouched. “Reckon we’ll mosey on then,” Josh said. The boys shuffled to the door.
“Would you like to take a pie with you?” Meg asked.
“No, ma’am, but thank you. People just ain’t eatin’ much around our house these days.”
When they disappeared through the door, Meg slumped into a chair, buried her face in her hands, and fought back the tears. She heard Robert’s footsteps echo through the room. Why wasn’t he in the fields where he belonged?
“Meg, I know this is none of my business—”
She dropped her hands and found him kneeling beside her. “You’re right, Robert. This is none of your business.”
He gave her a disarming smile. “Think you need some low talking, girl. Why didn’t you go with those boys?”
“Mama Warner needs me.”
“Meg, you and I both know that she’s not even aware that you’re here. Why didn’t you go with those boys?”
