“Father, what did you say?” she gulped disbelievingly. Could it be true? she wondered anxiously. Could he actually care enough for her feelings that he would end this charade that he had forced on her? Did he truly care for her so much that he would put her feelings before his?
“I said we’ve come to take you from the convent,” Howard said, then had no time to say anything else. Hannah rushed across the room and flung herself into his arms. It had been a long time since she had been given any reason to hug him. She had not known until now how much she had missed his powerful arms around her, his breath stirring her hair as he leaned his cheek into it.
They embraced for a moment longer, then Howard gripped Hannah by her shoulders and held her at arm’s length.
“Thank you, Father,” Hannah said, tears streaming from her eyes, now realizing he cared so much for her. She even felt somewhat guilty for having disappointed him.
“Grace, get Hannah’s things together,” Howard said, nodding toward his wife of thirty years. “Then we’ll go and try and clear things up with Sister Kathryn. We’ve got to make her understand why this had to be done. When she hears that our son is going blind, and that this is the only reason we are taking Hannah from the convent, she will understand.”
“Yes, she’ll understand that a sister’s place is with a brother at times like this,” Grace said, going to take a satchel from beneath the bed. “Hannah is needed there, to see after his best interests, especially since we can’t stay with him. And Chuck most certainly will not leave his ranch to live with us.”
Hannah paled. She looked in jerks from her father to her mother, then back at her father, her eyes wavering. She had been wrong to think that her father had had a change of heart for her sake. He was taking her from the convent for someone else. Not for her, or her feelings!
She wrenched herself free of her father’s grip. She glared at him and wiped the tears from her eyes as she squared her shoulders.
Yet she couldn’t find the words to tell him how he had just let her down again, as he had so often in her life.
Then his words about her brother sank in. Blind? Her brother was going blind?
“How bad is Chuck?” Hannah blurted out, now feeling guilty for having thought of herself, when all concerns should be centered on her brother.
“His eyesight is quickly failing him,” Howard said solemnly. “Damn it all to hell, anyway. He has followed his dreams to the Kansas Territory, established a ranch, and now this.”
“Will he go totally blind?” Hannah said, her heart aching over her dear brother’s misfortune.
“Seems so,” Howard said, then turned to Grace when she brought Hannah’s satchel to him.
“Father, Mother said something about me looking after Chuck’s best interests,” Hannah said, swallowing hard. “What does that mean? That I am going there? To live with him?”
“Yes, Hannah.” Howard nodded. “You will be his eyes.”
“His . . . eyes . . .” she said more to herself than to her parents. She weighed this in her mind. She wanted to find the good in how her life would change again.
Yes, she was jubilant to leave the convent. And in Kansas she would be able to ride horses in the open range. She would be as free as the wind, to do as she pleased; the outdoors had always beckoned to her, as if it were her lover.
But she could not allow herself to be jubilant over her quickly changing future, and that in her brother’s misfortune came a beacon of light for her. She was deeply saddened over her brother’s worsening condition.
“Do you mind traveling to Kansas, dear, to help your brother in his time of need?” Grace asked, placing a gentle hand to Hannah’s cheek. “You and Chuck have always been close. It will delight him to have you with him.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” Hannah said.
Then she stepped away from her mother and turned glittering, mutinous eyes to her father. “But I wish just once that I could be allowed to make my own decision about something,” she blurted out. “I am eighteen, you know.”
“And so you are,” her father said, sighing. “And so you are.”
She inhaled a quivering breath, then left the room with her parents.
After bidding a good-bye to Sister Kathryn, Hannah left the convent with a wild, thumping heartbeat. She could hardly wait to board the riverboat that would take her to the Kansas Territory. She would be with her brother again. And without her parents or the sisters there to dictate her every move, she would finally know the true meaning of the word freedom.
For the first time ever, her life would be hers, to do with as she pleased!
Chapter 2
From her little head to her little feet
She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro
By each gust of passion; a sapling pine,