Page 37 of Always to Remember
“They knew exactly what to say.”
“I think it’s because children don’t weigh their words before they say them.” He laid his knife on the stump and stood. “I think it’d be best if I waited until tomorrow to start work on the monument.”
She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “All right. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I’ll open the shed early so you don’t have to sneak in.”
She forced a quivering smile. “I wasn’t planning on sneaking. See you in the morning.” She turned to leave.
“I—”
Stopping, she looked at him.
He extended the wooden carving toward her. “This is what your husband looked like the day he told me he was going to marry you. Thought you might want it.”
She took the offering and studied it. “He couldn’t have been any older than twelve.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Why are you giving me a present?”
“It’s not a present. It’s just something I carved, and now I’ve got no use for it. If you don’t want it, you can throw it away. Makes no difference to me.”
“Is this what you were working on when we traveled to Austin?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She trailed her fingers over the small features he’d carved. Then she extended it toward him. “I can’t take it.”
“Why not?”
“Because we are not friends. We will never be friends. If I accept this, I’d be—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t take it.”
“Consider it payment for stitching my head. I know it’s not much, considering I nearly bled to death, but it’s all I have to trade. The carving for my life. Considering the value you place on my life, it’s probably a fair trade.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that I hate you?”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, meeting her cold blue gaze, he said quietly, “It bothers me a great deal.”
Meg stared at the land where Mama Warner’s sons and daughters had once toiled and crops had flourished. One by one, her children had left to build their own homes and harvest their own dreams. In abundance, the wildflowers had reclaimed the fallow fields.
Shortly after her return from Austin, with a strong need to tell someone about the granite and the monument, she’d confided in Mama Warner. She knew Kirk’s grandmother wouldn’t judge her actions and would understand her motives.
She’d come here today to savor and share her first victory, but she’d only shared the carving of Kirk that Clay had given her. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t boast about the pain she’d seen reflected in Clay’s eyes when he’d answered her question.
Lowering her gaze, she touched the delicate petal of a wooden flower that Mama Warner had planted in a wooden box. Kirk had made the box for his grandmother when he was ten. Clay had carved the flowers from twigs and bits of wood and painted them blue.
Everywhere Meg looked, she ran into their lives, intertwined.
“Do you like my buffalo grass?” Mama Warner asked.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Meg turned and smiled at Kirk’s grandmother. She’d grown frail since the war. Her grandsons and two of her sons had ridden away in gray. Only one grandson had returned, but it was Kirk’s death that had nearly broken the woman’s spirit. She’d always been closest to Kirk.
“They look like bluebonnets,” Meg said.
“Years ago, when I was young and filled with dreams, I watched the buffalo forage on the blue weeds that coated the hills. I haven’t seen a buffalo in a good long while, but I always have my buffalo grass.” She pressed the wooden carving against her breast. “And now, I almost have my grandson again.”
Quickly, Meg crossed the room and knelt beside the rocking chair. “I didn’t mean to upset you with the carving.”
