Blood, Dreams, and Olive Drab (Pride & Promise) Read online

  Instantly, little Clarene started to bubble with tears as you could see her lip start to quiver and her shoulders tremble slightly. Then a few slippery tears doused her eyes and they burned red.

  "Oh . . . ." Angela half felt bad and half was annoyed with her daughter who was more of an infant than a little girl. "I’m sorry." She stepped lightly to her side and knelt down, taking her somber little girl into her arms. "I didn’t mean to yell. You startled me, that’s all. Stop crying." As quickly as the tears had started, they subsided, especially when the little girl’s eyes told her stomach she saw a pie on the counter.

  "Is . . . that . . . a pie?" Clarene sniffled, her words slow and eager. She still managed to keep a few sulking tears in her eyes with the simple yet mischievous effect of a child.

  "Yes!" Angela could not help but smile as she turned away and placed the pie into the oven. Just beyond the width of her view, the young girl watched intently.

  "If you’re good today, maybe I’ll make a pie for you, too. If you’re good," she emphasized, letting a frown crest her face as she tried to stare seriously at her daughter. But it could not last and her face cracked with a grin. It felt good to look upon Clarene’s face, surely a touch of fairy dust on this morose day.

  Angela walked out onto the rickety front porch with her daughter, and they sat and watched silently as the wind swept across the tall weeds that lined the dusty trail. The breeze fluttered through their hair and played like a child among the swaying corn stalks, vanishing into the abyss of the sky to come swooping back down into the valley, skirting and skipping off the scorched yellow blades of grass. With one last spin the winds caught the aroma of the pie. It lingered just long enough to make the little girl’s mouth start to water and her eyes widen with each smell of the flakey crust and the berries melting together.

  "I better get going." Angela ran her hands through her daughter’s hair and felt her locks fall from her fingers as if they were water cascading from her palms. Angela sighed as she stepped from the stoop.

  "Can I come, Mama, can I?" Clarene’s impish face stared up with great intent.

  "No, dear." Angela looked down into the bright simple eyes of her daughter and the world was small. It was just she and her child standing on the porch in the midst of a hot summer morning. "You go back to bed."

  "But the pie . . . ," Clarene whimpered.

  And suddenly it was just that basic. The Earth had stopped for a few seconds, long enough for her to realize life was short and we all want just a piece of fresh berry pie. Angela bent over and cupped Clarene’s face in her hands. Clarene closed her eyes and felt safe with her chin in her mother’s palms.

  "Later, dear, later," Angela said softly, letting her lips pucker and press gently against Clarene’s forehead, feeling the soft heat rise off her daughter’s brow. "Later."

  They both straggled back inside and Angela took the pie from the oven, wrapped a few old dishcloths around the pie tin, and started for the door. She glanced back and could see Clarene’s eyes peeking sadly through the crack in the bedroom door and it gave Angela warmth in her soul. With the heat of the pie pan heavy in her hands, she took the corners of her dress and doubled it around the pan and started out the door. Within a matter of seconds Clarene dashed out the door and pressed her face against the window to watch her mother lumber sullenly down the lane.

  .....

  As Angela walked, her mind folded over itself until she had so many thoughts that she could barely think. The sunlight stretched out before her like a rug, but with each step it was not a rug of welcome, more of unlucky destiny, for she knew not what to say once she arrived.

  Angela had made this walk with a pie many times before. Paul had lived a life of either charity or belligerence, and in the case of the latter, a pie arrived on a neighbor’s porch or landing usually accompanied by a letter of apology signed by Paul. Most people knew it was Angela’s handwriting. But on this day, a simple and heartfelt letter would not suffice. Angela was doomed to look this person in the eye and beg and possibly plead for forgiveness.

  The quaint peak of a pitched roof came into view over the tips of the emerald leaves of the trees, much the way a steeple would in the midst of a charming town. There was more breeze here, and off under a tall maple, a lazy dog lay panting and grunting in the coolness of the shade. The whitewash of the house was nearly blinding in the direct beams of the sun, but you could still make out the gingerbread that lined the gables. In each corner were decorative wooden lattices that linked the porch together till it was as soft and elegant as a wedding cake.

  Skirting the wrap-around porch were beds of flowers. Purple, red, yellow, and pink surrounded the base of the house like a moat of full plush hues. Their long stems helped the blooms stand tall and proud of their beauty and stately ambiance. Down the lane you could see where the red barn stood with a silo that loomed like a shepherd watching over the land. The animals of the barnyard were alive with mirth and merriment, a few just as ornery as the day they were born, clucking, oinking, and bellowing, all hungry like they had never been fed.

  Angela climbed the porch. As much as the flowers were lovely and the gingerbread was beautiful and the day was marvelous in its simple splendor, all she could think about was what she would say. The pie pan had cooled, but it was still hot enough that her fingers had numbed under its blistering heat, but she did not feel the pain of her fingers. She shifted the pie into her left hand and rapped on the door. The door rattled and jumped on its hinges till hollow clapping sounds slipped into the house on the breeze.

  "You’ll just have to come in. I can’t quite make it off the couch," came a kind voice.

  Angela felt a twinge of remorse with those words. In her mind, she envisioned what she would see in the house and how the old man would look twisted and mangled on his couch. It turned her stomach and she shuddered as she stepped into the house, feeling the coolness of several fans and the shade of the lovely abode.

  "Samuel?" Angela called out. Her stomach twisted into knots as a sheepish redness glistened across her face. "Samuel?" she beckoned, again.

  "In here, Mrs. O’Grady," came the soft and welcome tone of her neighbor.

  Angela turned the corner with a bit of optimism as Samuel’s voice sounded somewhat normal but as she turned the corner of his parlor and his settee came into view, she saw the full effects of his injuries, and she gasped! There was not much of his body that was not covered either in a cast or splint. That which was not in either of those was wrapped in a heavy white bandage. Her mouth fell open.

  "Oh, Samuel . . . ." She scurried quickly to his side.

  "Hello, Mrs. O’Grady," he said rather shyly.

  "Samuel! Samuel!" she uttered as she reached for him and then realized the pie. She sat it atop a doily on a stand and returned to him. She took his hand but the mere grasping of his hand sent a charge of pain up Samuel’s body and his face twitched.

  "Oh, I’m sorry," she hurriedly apologized. Her sympathy went much deeper than just a few casual words.

  She looked into the wrinkles that surrounded the old man’s face which were now outlined by the bandages that encased his head, scrunching his brow down upon his eyes. And she didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, a fear started to tremble in her hands and she could feel panic coursing through her veins. She popped up and strode quickly across the room, standing like a petrified creature as she felt the sweltering breeze from the metal fan against her skin actually send chills down her spine. The hair on her arms rose quickly and she nearly felt sick to her stomach as a lurching nausea was building in her throat.

  "M-Mrs. O-O’Grady," Samuel stammered.

  Angela spun about and ran to him, nearly sliding across the floor as she stopped desperately at his side. She felt needles in her bones, her mouth was dry, and the trembling from her hands had spread like wildfire to the rest of her body and limbs till she shook nearly uncontrollably.

  "Samuel. Mr. Cartwright . . . Samuel." The fear was deep in her vo
ice. "I know you can never forgive us, but please find it in your heart to try, please," she pleaded. Her eyes were wild with desperation.

  "Angela, you have to understand . . . ," Samuel started, but he no more got his words out than they were interrupted.

  "Samuel, please!" She sounded like a child begging for a Christmas gift. "I know Paul did wrong, but he is a complex man, a man of many thoughts and personalities. Why . . . , why . . . , remember a few years ago when the tree fell on your fence during that storm? Who came to help? And when your fence broke and all your livestock started to roam away, who helped you coral them? And years ago when your son passed, who helped you dig his grave? Do you remember?" Her words were laced with tears as a stream of agony glazed her face till you could almost see the salt sticking to her cheeks as she cried.

  "I know, I know, and you know I appreciate those things. I do. But this is too much. Now just look at me," he demanded. And as much as Angela was trying to avoid gazing upon his shattered body, she had to look down at the bends and breaks in his torso and limbs, and she had to avert her eyes. "This has gone too far, too far! He hurt me, crippled your daughter, and what will happen next? Will he kill someone?" Samuel’s voice rose till it was nearly an echoing shout within the tired wounded walls of his house. The words slammed hard and fast into Angela’s mind.

  She stared at the floor and a single feather lay soft and peaceful on the hardwood, and she watched as it danced slightly in the calming breeze that skirted the baseboards. She wished she could be that feather, pure and white. In a moment’s notice she could escape, just be carried off by the miracle of the four winds and flee in any direction.

  He’s not a good man, probably not even a fair man, Angela thought. She was going to say these things about her husband, but if she did, she was not about to look anyone in the face as she admitted her husband’s legacy of failures. "Paul has made many bad choices and has contemplated hundreds more that I’ve stopped him from perpetrating, and yes . . . yes, he has hurt you very badly, and for that you have no idea how sorry I am, truly sorry," she rambled.

  At this Samuel tried to speak, but Angela raised her hand and continued. She looked with wounded eyes at the fluttering feather. "And yes, he has crippled his own daughter and you will never know how that hurts me. And as much as it makes my stomach churn to say it, . . . we still need that man. Oh, how I wish we did not, but we do," she said softly, letting her head hang low as a regretful woeful sigh came slipping from her frowning trembling lips. "I came here today, and I ask you as a friend, Samuel, if the police come and ask you about what happened, . . . I would ask you do not say anything about Paul. I beseech you, I plead to you, I beg of you, . . . please!"

  With that last word Angela let her head raise slightly, just enough so the timid light that slanted under the overhang of the front porch and through the lace curtains of the picture window shone meagerly upon her shattered existence. Her eyes were red with worry. Her hair was disheveled and frayed away from her face like a tree’s canopy in a wind storm. But her lip had stopped trembling and her face was strong and noble as she looked Samuel in the eye. A second passed and life was still and enormous.

  "They were already here," Samuel began and Angela’s heart sank. "I told them nothing. I said it was an accident and Bernice and I were both injured." The words made Angela’s spirits rise but in her heart and soul she saw the hurt that lived in Samuel’s eyes and she felt horrible in the pit of her stomach.

  With thanks and a bit of relief, Angela stood up and looked down at the man, but she could feel the animosity that lurked in Samuel’s eyes. She turned to go and she looked back as Samuel looked away with impudence and a steely bitterness in his solemn eyes.

  Angela took a shortcut through the berry patch on the way home and scavenged for another bunch of berries. After she had picked enough to make her back sore and her fingers stained with red, blue, and purple juices, she started back home. She tried to hide the look of Samuel’s eyes in the back of her mind, but with each step and thought, they slithered back into her brain and she felt a bit of her joy vanishing.

  She strode up the hill and walked through the gap between the two large oak trees. As she squeezed through the hedges, the tip of her house was just beyond the heat waves of the horizon. As she got to the top of the slope, she saw a car in her driveway. The last of the tree limbs swayed out of the way and she could see the siren on top of the car. The police were at her house and all the manufactured joy was gone from her aching heart.

  5

  Angela strode into the house with her face tight and stern as she swished past the three men sitting at her kitchen table. She unraveled her apron and let the berries fall gently to the counter. She shifted them about and took out the pie pan from the cupboard, all the while indifferent to the police officers that were in her house.

  The three men looked at each other with quizzical frowns and sat back in their seats, rather confused.

  "Mrs. O’Grady . . . ?" With his moustache twitching about his upper lip, the largest of the three men spoke up.

  "Yes, Sheriff," she said with a forced laugh as if she could have been busy enough not to notice their eminent presence.

  "Okay," he snorted and looked at his fellow officers who all shared a nervous chuckle, "I need to talk to you about your daughter Bernice and Samuel Cartwright."

  "What about?" Angela managed to actually seem befuddled by the Sheriff’s notion. She turned about, furiously wiping her hands upon her apron so that the juices of the berries spread across the front of the white tattered garment. Her brow was rippled with a perplexed gaze and now it seemed that the wiping of her hands was more of a nervous twitch as she continued to fidget about.

  "Well, Mrs. O’Grady . . . ." The Sheriff tilted himself out of his chair. His girth shifted enough that as he stood, the floor boards groaned. "I’ve been told by Mr. Cartwright that he and your daughter were thrown off his cart the other night, and that is why he is broken up and your daughter is injured also. He went as far as to tell me it was an accident."

  "It was, it was . . . ." She began to flutter about the kitchen making casual but completely useless motions as she shifted the knives about the drawer, slid the flour jar across the counter, and even started deadheading a flower that sat idly on the sill.

  "An accident, huh?" The Sheriff squinted with doubt in his eyes as Angela tried as best she could to avoid the glare of his dark hard stare.

  "Yes, sir, a very unfortunate accident," Angela remarked. She paced about the small room and it was plain for all to see she would rather have been anywhere else but there during these tense and brooding moments.

  "Mrs. O’Grady, where is your husband?" the Sheriff asked with a curt and bitter tongue.

  "Paul, you mean?" Angela had suddenly lost her thespian skills and started wiping her hands again against her apron. She squeezed her hands hard enough so that her palms were red while the tips of her fingers were growing white, but she kept them hidden by the edges of the apron.

  "Yes, Mrs. O’Grady!" he roared, getting more than just a tad frustrated with her lack of concern. "We all know your husband’s name is Paul."

  "I’m not too sure where he is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my baking, if you please." She finally glanced up and caught the daggers that surged from the Sheriff’s piercing eyes. The two other officers sat quiet at the table as if they were being scolded. You could see a sympathetic expression forming in their eyes as they tried not to look in Angela’s general direction.

  Angela turned away but out of the corner of her eyes she could see two sets of eyes peering out from Bernice’s room. It didn’t take long for her to figure out it was her other two daughters and her heart sunk deeply into her chest.

  "Sure, sure, Mrs. O’Grady, we’ll be going," the Sheriff started. His attitude had changed quickly and his words were soft and welcoming, which shifted Angela’s fears into a false sense of security. The tension that had grappled about her shoulders st
arted to dissipate. "Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Paul isn’t here. Mr. Cartwright says it is an accident, as do you. I guess that is about it."

  "Well, thank you for stopping." Angela hustled to the door and swung it open, holding it with a cheery face and resilience in her eyes.

  "Just one more thing," the Sheriff started as he looked down at the floor and then slowly and deliberately raised his head to look her in the face from across the room. "I’d like to talk to Bernice and just get her side of the story. You know, just for giggles," he said, and the words from his lips crashed down around the room.

  "You want to talk to Bernice?" Angela was much more than flustered at this point. Her brow spontaneously erupted with a torrent of perspiration.

  "Yes, this is her room. Isn’t this where the girls all sleep?" He walked to the door that was partially cracked open and you could hear a rustling of feet and a commotion of furious whispers on the other side of the door. Angela lunged across the room, but the Sheriff knocked once and walked into the room.

  Sarah and Clarene sat on either side of Bernice looking like marble lions at the foot of the king’s throne. Both of their young faces were completely void of emotions and they stared at the Sheriff with the dull petulant eyes of serpents.

  "Hello, girls." The Sheriff tried to sound cheery and harmless but Angela O’Grady’s kids were not about to fall for the kindly used-car salesman’s tone. They purely and simply nodded back at him with darkness in their once innocent eyes. Bernice lay almost flat on the bed except for the pillows that propped up her back and she stared out the bedroom window.

  "Bernice, dear, do you mind if I talk to you for a few seconds?" The Sheriff was trying to let the charm out of the barn as much as possible. His eyes were now soft and round and the anger had left his body. His shoulders slouched and he tried as much as possible to make himself small in the room, just a flower in a meadow. That’s all he was at that moment.

  Bernice barely moved. She just let her darling little head shift back and forth on her pillow and shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.