Once in Every Life

After she'd left, Tess stared at the closed door for a long time. It was older, with antique hinges and splintery wood, but it was still just another closed door between Tess and a family. She'd been looking at them all her life.

Hours later, Savannah stood at the kitchener, stirring the rabbit stew she'd made for dinner. Steam slipped through the cracks of the iron oven door, carrying with it the mouth-watering aroma of baking cottage bread. On the back burner, a heavy cast-iron pot full of slow-boiling water rumbled.

She wiped her sweaty forehead with the crook of her arm and plucked a healthy pinch of salt from the ornate wooden box beside the stove. The pine lid thumped back in place as she sprayed the coarse white granules into the stew.

She ran her hands along her rumpled white apron and headed for the larder. When the pat of freshly churned butter and the crockery jar of last summer's strawberry jam were settled alongside the silverware and plates, she allowed herself to sit down.

Dinner would be ready in about five minutes. Not that anyone would notice ... or care.

She plopped an elbow on the table and cradled her small chin in her palm. Her breath expelled in a sigh too deep and lonely for a twelve-year-old girl, but Savannah didn't know that. She was unaware that loneliness wasn't the normal course of things, for it was all she'd ever known.

Until recently. Her pale cheeks flamed at the memory. She quickly scanned the room to see if anyone was lurking around to see her blush.

For once, she was happy to be alone.

"Jeffie Peters." She whispered his name and closed her

48

eyes, lapsing into a gentle state of whimsy. Sounds filtered through her mind: books cracking shut, children laughing, booted feet shuffling hurriedly along a hardwood floor. The bell heralding the end of the school day pealed gaily.

"Savannah?"

She spun around. Jeffie Peters was standing beside her. She felt the whisper-soft brush of his elbow against her arm, and the contact made her pulse thump like a rabbit's.

"Yeah?"

"Can I walk you'n Katie home?"

Savannah's eyes opened. Heat crept up her cheeks again, leaving a blazing trail of shame and embarrassment. She hadn't even had the presence of mind to answer him. She'd just stared at him, her mouth gaping and snapping shut like a freshly landed trout. Then she'd grabbed Katie's chubby hand and dragged her stumbling baby sister out of the one-room schoolhouse.

It didn't make a lick of sense. Jeffie Peters had been her classmate for years. So why all of a sudden did she get all tongue-tied and stupid whenever he said her name? And why did he want to walk her home anyway? She'd been doing just fine on her own for years.

A miserable little groan escaped her. If only she had someone to talk to about the strange things she was feeling lately. Not just about Jeffie, either. She had strange feelings about lots of things. Even her body was changing. Her breasts were getting sort of sore, and her stomach was upset an awful lot lately.

Katie peeked her head around the corner. "Dinner ready?"

The emotion slid off Savannah's face effortlessly; it was a trick she'd learned from her father. Better to hide one's feelings and smile than to cry. "Yeah. Get Daddy."

"I'm right here."

As usual, the sound of her father's deep, baritone voice

49

filled Savannah with a sort of formless longing. She ground her teeth together and gave him a shallow, awkward smile, but he wasn't looking at her. The smile died. She tried desperately to hide her disappointment.

Rising stiffly, she rubbed her damp palms on her apron and strode purposefully to the kitchener.

She had to stop this. It was a useless waste of energy, this trying to capture his attention.

It was all because of The Times. That's how she thought of them in her head, capitalized, wreathed in silent awe. The times when all of a sudden she'd look up and find him staring at her. Those precious seconds when she was a somebody to him swelled in her lonely soul like grains of gold in a beggar's hand. One look, one touch from him, and it started all over again. She started wishing, hoping, praying-----

But the moments were so rare, so transient, that she was often left wondering whether she'd imagined them. Usually she came to the conclusion that she had.

She heard him coming toward her, and she stiffened instinctively. He stopped beside her, peered over her shoulder at the stew bubbling softly in the cast-iron pot. Then he reached toward her.

For one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to touch her arm or pat her shoulder. She leaned infin-itesimally toward him, enough so she might brush his sleeve and feel the heat of his skin or smell the wood-smoke scent of his chambray work shirt.