To Be a Mother Read online

  Mrs. Devon reached for a large metal colander filled with lima beans. “I can shell these for you.”

  “Sure. I’ll get you a saucepan.” When she’d settled her mother at her task, Rianna stood a moment, watching her mother’s once-nimble fingers now slowly taking apart each pod to extract the beans. Rianna frowned, but refrained from saying anything or offering a helping hand. Instead, she turned back to the kitchen counter and continued her supper preparations.

  “I hope you had a nice walk today. The roses were lovely. I smelled them as soon as I awoke.”

  Rianna thought once more of her encounter… Perhaps her mother could shed some light on Noah’s brusque, forbidding manner. And the existence of his daughter. “I thought you’d like them. I walked over to the old Samuels place. I remembered the nice bushes they had there.”

  Mrs. Devon clucked her tongue. “It’s a shame to see that place go. Every winter storm does a little more damage. Pretty soon the house or barn will cave in.”

  “Oh, no.” The idea shocked her. “It’s not that far gone. A little fresh paint, a few new shingles, the grass cut…” She pictured how tidy it used to look when Noah’s grandparents had been alive.

  As the two worked together silently, Rianna puzzled awhile more over Noah’s reaction to seeing her. Although she had turned him down, that was long ago. She’d heard he married shortly after she’d left Wood’s Harbor, so Rianna had assumed his feelings for her hadn’t been too deep. She took out a wooden board and brought out a chunk of salt pork from the pantry. With a sharp knife she began slicing it. “I ran into its owner this afternoon.”

  “Whose owner?”

  “The Samuels place.”

  Her mother dropped a handful of lima beans into the pan. “Oh, you mean Noah. I haven’t seen him lately. What was he doing out there?”

  “I don’t know. I never did get around to asking him. He caught me trespassing.”

  “Nonsense. I shouldn’t think anything of it. I’m sure he was glad to see you.”

  Rianna pursed her lips, hesitant to say anything to her mother, but certain that glad was not Noah’s reaction to the encounter. She put aside the meat to dredge in flour later and went back to the pantry to get some of the new potatoes her father had dug up that day.

  “I also met someone else.”

  Her mother lifted her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “Noah’s daughter.”

  Her mother looked at her, her expression almost…guilty.

  “You never mentioned her.”

  “Didn’t I?” Her mother picked up another bean and concentrated on shelling it. “I suppose with the war…so many other things going on…it slipped my mind. She’s quite a big girl now.”

  “Yes, she told me she’d just turned eight.”

  “My, my, how time flies.” Her mother’s hands fell idle as she sat back in the wooden chair, her expression troubled. “I’m sorry, dear, I should have told you, but at the time, your own loss so fresh…”

  Rianna nodded. “I understand.”

  Her mother sighed. “Yes, Noah and Charlotte had a daughter, about a year or so before he was drafted. He was one of the last to go. Nice-looking little girl, takes after him with her dark hair and eyes.”

  “He hasn’t remarried?” Rianna asked as she set the potatoes on the table and sat across from her mother.

  Her mother shook her head and picked up another bean. “He pretty much sticks to himself, ever since he came back from the war and found himself a widower. Awful shame about Charlotte, being all alone here when she died. And with a baby. Her own folks passed away in that awful epidemic we had the year before.” She clucked, her fingers stilling on the bean pod. “The neighbors did what they could, but it wasn’t the same as having family close by.”

  Her mother sighed. “I haven’t been out to the Samuels place in ages. It would have made a lovely home for him and Charlotte, but he doesn’t take any interest in it now.”

  “Where does he live?” Rianna asked, wondering how someone could pass up the chance to live in such a lovely house overlooking the sea, especially with a child of his own. A home of one’s own for oneself and one’s offspring. A cozy picture presented itself to her.

  “He boards over at Mrs. Avery’s. Can’t think that must be very nice for a man his age, no real home. He must be thirty-one now. All he does is work. I imagine he must have saved up quite a bit by now. But of course, Melanie needs someone to look after her.”

  Rianna’s paring knife stopped. “Mrs. Avery does that?”

  Her mother nodded. “He told you?”

  Rianna smiled. “Actually, Melanie did. Noah wasn’t too talkative.”

  “He has grown so reserved since coming back from the war. I don’t see him much anymore.”

  Rianna could only nod, taking it all in. The image of Noah—so harsh and dour—with a smiling young girl so like him physically, was still hard to square. “How sad that they don’t have a home of their own, especially when the old Samuels place is sitting there empty.”

  “Yes, everyone thinks it’s a shame, but of course, Mrs. Avery is a kind soul.”

  “Still, it’s not like having a home and mother of her own.” The thought of a little girl without her mother wrung her heart. A child without a mother and she without children…how strange life could be. If she’d been asked at seventeen where she’d be at twenty-seven, would she have pictured a husband and a child at her side? She had dreamed of seeing the world, but that hadn’t meant she didn’t want to someday fall in love and have a family of her own. “I wonder why he hasn’t remarried.”

  Her mother only shook her head.

  “He doesn’t seem anything like the boy I remember,” Rianna said at last, tossing the peeled potato that was beginning to turn brown in her hand into the pot of water. “But that was quite a while ago.”

  Her mother looked shrewdly at her daughter. “Seems to me he had his eye on you once.”

  For a second, Rianna relived the sensation she’d experienced when her fingertips had brushed Noah’s—a sensation she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on. As soon as the memory rose now, she dismissed it with the same firmness she used to push aside the growing mound of potato peelings. “He only danced with me a few times. I hardly think that’s enough to constitute a courtship.”

  Her mother smiled at her. “Still, he wouldn’t make a bad catch for some woman. He does well with his fishing. His grandparents left him that house. He’s got a few acres of timberland besides. What does he spend money on? He has no family but Melanie, and she’s a dear thing.” Her mother let another handful of lima beans fall from her hand. “Then again, he might not be so easy to live with. The war and widowhood changed him.” She sighed. “He was such a fine young man, a bit serious, but always polite and helping others out.” Her mother rose with effort to take the filled pot of beans to the sink.

  “Here, let me—”

  Her mother waved her back down. She filled the pan with water and set it on the stove. “I never hear anything but good about Noah from Mrs. Avery though,” she said, returning to the topic of conversation as she sat back down. “He’s away at first light in his boat. In the winter he helps her around the place. And he’s a good father. Mrs. Avery says he shows a gentle side to his nature around Melanie, and the girl adores her father.”

  Rianna thought how his tone had softened whenever he’d addressed his daughter.

  Her mother looked into the distance, her smile dreamy. “You were sixteen when you left, and he was just a few years older, I recall.”

  Rianna couldn’t help a smile of her own, remembering that time Noah had first asked her to dance, when she’d been only fifteen and he nineteen. Although they had grown up in the same town, she had never really known him. “Yes, but to me he seemed all grown-up.” That evening, she’d discovered a young man dedicated to his own dream, patiently helping out his grandparents as if he’d been their son, while keeping his eye fixed on his goal.

  Rianna
looked down at the potato in her hand, seeing Noah’s dark, unsmiling eyes fixed on her. “Noah certainly seems to need a little joy in his life.”

  “That’s for sure.” Mrs. Devon took up a potato and knife. “Well, I daresay there are plenty of widows just waiting for the chance to comfort a man like that.”

  Rianna shook her head, forcing herself to laugh. “I daresay.” With a determined effort, she put away thoughts of the brooding widower. “It would do you good to get out the way I did today. Why don’t we drive out together to the Samuels place. There were so many flowers in bloom. There’s also a bit of blueberry land around there, as I recall. I could collect a pail for a pie. Papa would enjoy that.” She warmed to the idea. “We could take a picnic. The sunshine would be beneficial. You’re looking far too pale.”

  “As long as it’s not too much work for you, dear.” Mrs. Devon sighed. “It’s so frustrating, not to have the strength to do what I want.”

  “I know.” Rianna reached out her hand. “Don’t fret. You’re going to get better.”

  Her mother smiled. “It would be nice to have an outing.”

  “Then we shall go tomorrow.” Rianna picked up another potato, telling herself the Samuels place was the perfect spot for an outing by the sea. No matter that there were plenty of other places offering wildflowers and blueberries.

  Why did Noah’s old homestead draw her as nowhere else in Wood’s Harbor had since her return? His daughter’s tone of longing when she’d expressed a wish to live there tugged at her heart. Poor child, both homeless and motherless.

  The following afternoon, Rianna turned to her mother, brushing the remaining crumbs off her skirt. “Now, wasn’t that a good idea?”

  Her mother smiled from under the brim of her straw bonnet. “I’ll have to admit it was. Too bad your father couldn’t come—but summer is such a busy time for him. It’s been a delightful afternoon.”

  The two women looked at the bay before them from the high ridge where they sat. The tide was out. Far out on the mudflats a few clam diggers bent over their rakes. Some, already finished, loaded their bushels of shellfish onto their wagons and guided their horses toward the clamshell-strewn road leading off the flats.

  Rianna glanced down at the pail beside her. Its empty insides chided her. She turned back to the seashore. “I should have picked those berries before lunch.”

  Her mother looked at her in understanding. “Forget about them. Why don’t you go and take a walk along the beach instead. You’ve been so busy with me you haven’t had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather. Before you know it, it will be over.”

  “What about you, Mother?”

  “I think it’s a good time for a nap.” She lay back, resting her head on her folded shawl.

  Rianna opened her parasol and placed it beside her mother to shade her from the direct sunlight. “I’ll walk down to the beach then and see if there are any treasures.”

  Her mother smiled, her eyes closed. “Scavenging? You used to spend hours down there as a child. Are you going to fill the house again with bits of broken glass and shells?”

  Rianna laughed. “I’ll try to restrict myself to only the choicest objects.” As she spoke, she unlaced her boots and removed her garters. Wriggling her toes, she felt the years fall away from her as quickly as the stockings from her legs.

  “I won’t be long,” she told her mother as she stood and looked for the path that used to lead down to the beach. It was still there, though hidden by the long grass. The earth was packed down, as smooth and hard as stone, with only an occasional root protruding to hinder her progress. She clambered down until she reached the round pebbles and wide swath of rockweed edging the top of the shore.

  She shaded her eyes and looked over the curve of the beach. Her mouth curled upward as she recognized Melanie sitting on a rock in the distance. Quickly, she picked up her pace, curious to know more about Noah’s little girl.

  She waved as she neared the child. “Fancy meeting you out here.”

  Melanie greeted her with a wide smile, which made her stop short. What would it be like to have a child greet one so each day? The pain she’d thought she’d gotten over so many years ago hit her so forcefully that she had to clutch her heart a moment.

  An adult front tooth was halfway grown in, the space beside it still empty. “I’m waiting for Papa.” Melanie pointed far out to the mudflats. “See, he’s clamming.”

  Rianna looked at the distant figures. “Yes, though I can’t tell from here which one he is.”

  “What are you doing here, Mrs. Bruce?”

  Rianna smiled, putting her sadness away from her. “I’m scavenging for treasure.”

  Melanie’s brow furrowed. “You are?”

  “Would you like to help me look for treasure?”

  The girl scampered down from her perch. “Is there really treasure here?”

  Rianna widened her eyes in mock surprise. “You mean you’ve never hunted for treasure on the beach?”

  She shook her head.

  “Goodness, then we have a lot of work to do. I haven’t hunted on this beach since I was about your age, so there must be oodles washed up. Come along, I’ll show you what to look for.”

  Suddenly, Rianna got into the spirit of the task. In her work as a private nurse in the last decade, often she would meet a family’s children and had to reassure them in the face of serious illness. By being away from home so long, she’d missed getting to know her own nieces and nephews. At the time, it had helped ease the pain of her own loss, but now she wondered if perhaps she’d deprived herself of something precious.

  Over the next hour, she and Melanie examined wet clumps of rockweed and kelp strewn along the beach and peered into tidal pools formed in the undulations of sand.

  Rianna straightened, easing the kinks from her back, amazed at how much fun she was having.

  Is this what motherhood would have been like? She stopped a moment, unsure if she wanted to pursue the thought. For so long, she’d resigned herself to her childless, widowed state, content with her calling to be a nurse.

  Farther out, the sand turned into mud pockmarked by clam holes. Their feet sank into the warm, wet clay. “It feels warm and squishy!”

  Rianna laughed at the mud oozing between the girl’s toes. Seeing no one close by, she hiked up her skirts into the waist of her apron. Everywhere sharp edges of clam shells stuck out, so they turned back toward the sand, picking up empty mussel shells, their interiors pearly pink, and sticking them into their apron pockets.

  “Here’s one for you.” She handed an especially pretty one to Melanie. How delightful it was to be with a child, so filled with curiosity and enthusiasm about the simplest things. While she’d always wonder what it would have been like with her own son or daughter—the little one she’d been destined never to know—the happiness she found in today’s encounter helped her to disregard the pain.

  “Oh!” Melanie stooped down. Rianna came to look over her shoulder. A perfectly formed crab, desiccated by sun and sea, lay in a crevice between two stones. She picked it up carefully and set it in the palm of Melanie’s hand.

  “It’s so tiny,” exclaimed the girl.

  “Yes, not more than an inch and a half across, I’d say. Let me put it in your other pocket. If you’re careful, it shouldn’t get broken.”

  “I can show it to Tad and Robbie.”

  Rianna glanced at her as they resumed walking. “Who are they?”

  “Mrs. Avery’s grandsons. They’re visiting with their mother, Mrs. Johnson, over the summer.”

  Rianna nodded, remembering Mrs. Avery’s daughter, Amelia, from her girlhood. “Oh, yes, I think I saw her in town the other day, but I wasn’t sure if it was she.

  “Let’s see if we can find some beach glass,” she suggested to Melanie. Together, they trod the rounded stones carefully, keeping an eye out for the colorful fragments worn smooth by sand and surf.

  “I found a blue piece!” Melanie pounced on the col
orful shard as if it were the most valuable jewel.

  “I think it’s time to wash our feet off and take a rest,” Rianna suggested. She led Melanie toward a brook, which meandered from the meadow above down to the beach in a snakelike pattern to the sea. Offering Melanie a strand of goose grass to nibble on and taking one for herself, she explored the murky edges of the brook. The grass’s salty crunch took her back many years. She remembered so many summers scampering around with her sisters, not having a care in the world.

  She wondered Melanie hadn’t done the things she’d taken for granted as a child. “Doesn’t your papa ever take you out on the beach?”

  Melanie shook her head. “He’s very busy in the summertime fishing. He usually doesn’t take me like today, when he goes clamming. But I kept asking him, until he finally said yes. He told me to be careful and wait for him.”

  Rianna glanced back out toward the men bending over their clam holes, wondering which one was Noah.

  “Well, we shall have to find a way to remedy things. There is still so much to explore.” Why had she stayed away so long? First, there had been the war. Then she’d used the excuse of work to her family, but deep down she knew it wasn’t the reason. Was it fear?

  She shook aside the ugly word. Today was too beautiful a day to dwell on dark thoughts. Instead, she and Melanie waded in the fresh water as they followed the brook seaward, searching for seashells in the wet sand. On the other side of the brook, large boulders sat strewn upon the sand as if haphazardly thrown down there.

  “Here’s a good resting spot.” Rianna climbed up one slate-colored one and Melanie chose a granite one.

  They examined their treasures as the sun warmed them.

  “Ahoy there!”

  Rianna straightened at the sound of the masculine voice.

  “Papa!” Melanie called out joyfully.

  Rianna shaded her eyes, spotting the tall, lean man heading toward their rocks.

  She swallowed, thinking of her disheveled appearance and bare legs. If he’d sounded disapproving before, what would he think of her now?

  Bringing a hand to her mouth, she stifled a giggle. Nothing to be done for it but to put on a brave face. As he drew closer, she joined Melanie in waving to him.