Her gaze flickered toward a man walking by us. She seemed to wait until he was out of earshot before turning back to me. “I’ve no idea. Father thinks he’ll find another position in a different town but, Theo, he’s old. This whole ordeal has defeated him. I’m not sure he’s well. He looks terrible.” She paused, shaking her head. “I want him to retire and take it easy.”
“That isn’t an option? I mean, if you could find a new place to live here in Emerson Pass?” Already my mind had moved forward, thinking through how we could help them.
“There’s nothing left. Mother needed an operation last year, which wiped out his savings. The rest of it he’d wasted on sending me to finishing school. We’re in terrible trouble.” She tilted her head and peered up at me from under her lashes. I fell backward into the past, as she looked much more like the frightened child she’d been than the moment before. She must be feeling the way she had when she was young, unsure where her next meal would come from or where she would sleep.
“I had no idea.” I felt certain my parents hadn’t, either.
“As a matter of fact, I wondered if your mother had any positions open?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know.” A job at the estate? Not Louisa. She was clever and educated. “What sort of position do you have in mind?”
“Anything.” Her shoulders heaved as she let out a sharp, quick breath. “I have to find a way to take care of my parents. I owe them my life. If they hadn’t taken me in, who knows what would have happened to me.” She looked sideways as if she wondered if someone watched her before answering. “I’m grateful to Father, but I wish I’d learned something more useful than how to walk with a book atop my head. I didn’t know we were in trouble or I would have done something useful and gotten a teaching certificate.”
A woman carrying the load of a household seemed unfathomable to me. However, the world was changing. Since
the war, women seemed to have different expectations for their lives. They’d carried on at home while the men were at war.
“My father has been on the same side as Flynn,” Louisa said. “As have all the early settlers. The newcomers are of a different ilk.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have predicted your father to be of that mindset.”
She gave me a tight smile. “He’s a Scotchman, after all. His stance on Prohibition is another reason why the church board wants him out. He and your brother haven’t exactly kept their opinions to themselves.”
“I worry about my brother and brother-in-law, if you want to know the truth.”
She fluttered her fingers toward the street. “The whole affair makes me sad. I never thought this town would be in such conflict.”
“Me either.” I hadn’t realized all this was going on while I’d been away at school. My stomach churned at the thought of my father’s peaceful town having two sides of a debate. In the past, we’d prided ourselves on our tight-knit community. However, I knew the spirits of the early citizens. They’d come from other countries where poverty and oppression had made it impossible for them to live satisfying and prosperous lives. Here in the wilds of the Rockies, they’d had the chance to live lives exactly as they wished. With new people coming in, had the original spirit of our community been stifled?
“Father’s soul’s broken,” Louisa said. “The trouble with the congregation and my lack of marriage.”
Why hadn’t she married? I couldn’t imagine she wasn’t sought after wherever she went. “I have to admit, I thought you’d be married by now.” That would be the obvious solution for her. She needed a husband with the financial means to take care of her and her parents. “Is there no one?”
“No. My father thought I’d meet someone rich and powerful to take care of me. That’s why he sent me away to school. Sadly, I didn’t realize that’s what he wanted.”
“It’s not too late. You’re young and beautiful.”
“Thank you, Theo, but marriage isn’t an option. Now go. I don’t want to make you late for your first day.”
“Yes, I should.” I glanced downward, thinking for a moment. “You know, I think you should go out and visit my mother this morning. I’m not sure she’ll have a position for you, but I know she’ll have some ideas about where you might move to. She and Papa own a lot of these buildings in town. Surely there’s a place for you to go. Papa’s not going to leave his oldest friend without a home.”
“You’re a good person, Theo Barnes,” Louisa said. “Some things don’t change.” With that, she turned away and made her way toward the church.
I watched her for a few more seconds before heading the other direction toward the doctor’s office. We’d been going opposite directions since the beginning. That, too, hadn’t changed.
4
Louisa
* * *
I walked away from Theo uncertain and disoriented as if I were waking from a dream. Theo had been gone a long time. I’d almost forgotten him. He was someone from my past. A past I’d buried deeply in the recesses of my mind. I was only aware now of the present. Going back only led to heartbreak. Theo, though? He was the embodiment of what it meant to be good. He’d always been sweet and kind to me. I’d not returned the favor when he’d needed me. I’d have to live with that shame. After the kindness the Barnes family had shown me, I hadn’t done much to repay them.
Of the two boys I’d known when I was young, Theo was always the quiet, sensitive twin. However, today I sensed a new confidence in him, along with his enduring kindness. There had always been this look about him as though his skin was thinner than the rest of ours. I knew the rumors about his birth mother. Everyone in town had whispered about her death. Even my own mother, who hated gossip of any kind, had told me that the original Mrs. Barnes was mentally troubled. Shortly after the birth of her fifth child, Fiona, Mrs. Barnes had walked into the snow and perished. Theo had been the one to find her. I suspected that, like me, the traumas of his early years haunted him. Was he able to push them aside as I had?
Perhaps repelled by our similarities, I’d had a crush on Flynn instead of Theo. Foolish as it was, I’d not been able to help myself, attracted to Flynn’s outrageous antics, how quickly he laughed, and his wit. He was nothing like me. I was drawn to him because of the differences. I was truly like a moth, attracted to the light, even while knowing it would burn me. I’d never had a chance with Flynn Barnes. When he’d returned from the war, he’d almost immediately started courting the beautiful Shannon Cassidy, and they’d married a few years later. Now they were expecting their first baby. Even I with my foolish heart wasn’t dumb enough to have clung to the idea that I might turn his head. Not when there were girls like Shannon.
“I ran into Theo Barnes in town.” I spoke as if it were an afterthought as I scooped coffee into the top of the percolator. “He’s working for Dr. Neal.”