A Father for Philip Read online

  Eleanor laughed. “You’re way behind the times! Super heroes are a whole different breed now. I can’t even begin to keep up with the new ones. But this is just an ordinary kid, by the sound of it. His name’s Jeff. They’re building a log cabin together. I suppose I could put a stop to it, but it seems a shame to keep him out of the woods. He’s like his father in that respect, loves the trees, the birdsong, the seclusion.” Her mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Poor kid gets it from both sides. I loved the woods, too, when I was a child. I wish he’d start taking an interest in the farm, in that way, he’s like me again. I couldn’t have cared less about milk production or anything of that nature.”

  She sighed. “Maybe Grant’s right when he says Philip needs a man’s firm hand to give him some discipline.”

  “But,” Kathy pointed out dryly, “Grant, for all that, is the one who advocates sending him away so some school can do it. Why doesn’t he try himself, starting, of course, by using some of that patience he expends on his precious horses?”

  Eleanor shrugged, not willing to discuss Grant or his inability to relate to her son. “Oh,” she lamented, “where are the days of coloring books, crayons, finger paints and pop-up books?”

  As she walked home Eleanor waded through the long grass she really should get cut, and star-gazed, remembering the early days of her son’s life, thinking back upon what it had been like as a new mother, age twenty, alone save for her father and infant son, never giving up the secret hope that somehow some time, David might come back.

  Where had he gone? Was he dead as her father had maintained or was he simply gone from her, unable to face the thought of being tied down by a wife and child? The David whom she had married at the age of nineteen, whom she had loved so intensely, and who had loved her enough to browbeat her stubborn old father into letting them marry, had not been that kind of man.

  He must be dead, her mind told her, while her heart denied it even after nearly eight years of silence from the jungles of Ecuador.

  “Where are you?” she whispered to the stars above. “Are you anywhere in this world? Should I have you declared legally dead, or should I keep on waiting, hoping?”

  Hoping for what? she asked herself as she had nearly every day. Hoping for the return of a man whose face was disappearing from her memory, a man who, if he did come back would be totally different? But people never change that much, she argued with herself. I haven’t forgotten. I’ve never forgotten entirely. I can still hear his voice in my dreams even though his face has gone from me.

  But what good are dreams, Eleanor? You’re twenty-seven years old. Time is passing. And Grant, will he wait forever? Who cares? whispered a small voice deep inside her. Who cares what Grant might do?

  In the house, Eleanor sat with Philip for a few minutes, then made him his usual bed-time snack—toast and peanut butter—and supervised his getting ready for bed. After a story, a hug, and several stalling maneuvers on his part, she gave him a final good-night kiss, turned off his light, and closed his door. Then, she opened it again. “I’m going to sit outside for a few minutes, honey. I’ll be in the arbor.”

  His mumbled, “’T’s’okay, Mom,” told her he was nearly asleep.

  She smiled. He played so hard he slept like, well, a played-out child.

  Outside, Eleanor sank to a bench and leaned her elbows on the table. She propped her chin on her hands and let her mind wander back… back to the past, to the day when she first met David.

  ~ * ~

  She’d wandered away from the house that day, needing to be alone, full of the vague sadness of a March morning after a storm. During the night the rain had come, thundering onto the farmhouse roof, beating into the grayish slush left from the last—hopefully the last and not just the latest—snowfall. When she awoke the world was new and clean, the earth black and fruitful-looking, the sky clear and the alder trees just shaded pink with the first touch of buds on gaunt, bare limbs. Eleanor strolled toward the creek and stood for a time looking into the rushing brown freshet, and a longing arose in her breast, an aching need to flee, to rush and tumble headlong into life as the waters at her feet raced away into the distance to join up with the Fraser River. There, combined with the thousands and thousands of other small creeks, streams, and steep, narrow rivers all over the hills and mountains of British Columbia, it poured into the Pacific and spread far away. Distant lands would feel its touch, foreign tongues would speak over the sounds of lapping waves. Oh! How she longed to join those fast-moving, restless waters.

  She jumped across the creek, left its exciting springtime babble behind and made for the edge of the forest, heading for her quiet place, her place for dreaming.

  She entered the forest, walking silently upon the thick carpet of needles covering the path. The moss beneath her feet was thick and damp. Mud splashed the backs of her legs, but Eleanor cared naught for that. Who was there to see her? Who was there to comment on the appearance of this girl whom no one loved as a woman longs to be loved? And who had no one of her own to love as a woman needs to love?

  Her private place, her little glade, welcomed her with a single shaft of sunlight and Eleanor sat upon a damp log near a small dogwood tree, not yet in leaf. She put her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. Her long hair fell forward to obscure her face. At the sound of a male voice saying, “Hello. Are you real, or something left by the sylvan gods for me to find?” Eleanor’s head flew up. Her hands swept the hair back from her face and she stared up at the tall young man who stood not ten feet away.

  He looked thin almost to the point of emaciation. Her eyes took this in even while her heart began a wild and tumultuous thundering, feeling like the brook running away with her into unknown territory. His gray eyes stared into hers for a long aching moment, and then he smiled. “My truck’s broken down. The engine overheated and now it won’t start. I was following this trail, looking for civilization.”

  The resonance of his voice should have come from a much deeper chest than the bony one under the green Forest Service work shirt.

  “I… Where?”

  “Where do I expect to find civilization?”

  “No.” She stood, laughing, and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “Where is your truck broken down?”

  “On the forestry road. Just through the trees there. I was surveying the old fire-break,” he said. “Checking it out to see if it needed widening or culvert repair or… whatever, and now I’m stranded. Can you tell me where I need to go for help, or do wood-nymphs not know about mundane things like that?”

  “Oh.” It took Eleanor a few moments to collect herself. “I… I’m sure my dad can help.” It hurt to speak. Her heart still thudded painfully in her breast, and those eyes, those intense, slate gray eyes under the thick brows and dark shaggy hair refused to release her.

  She needed to get away from him but did not know why, knew only it would be better to go than to stay the way her heart, her blood, her every nerve cried out for her to do. Stay! Stay! Stay! Her heart pounded out the word with each beat. Emotions tumbled through her, frightening, powerful, overwhelming. “I’ll, um, go get him.”

  “Wait!” he said urgently as she whirled to run. He reached out and took her hand. His felt enormous, cool and hard. “Wait.” She looked back at him over her shoulder. “What’s your name?”

  “Eleanor,” she whispered. “Eleanor Barnes.”

  “Eleanor.” He said it slowly, savoring each syllable as if it were sweet. “Eleanor,” he repeated. “I’m going to marry you.”

  Chapter Two

  Now, many years later, Eleanor sat in the rose arbor David had built for her, remembering those words. Eleanor, I’m going to marry you. The words had echoed and reechoed through the empty caverns of her heart, flooding and filling until she was no longer empty, no longer aching with the unnamed and unnamable needs of an early spring day, but spilling over with something just as unnamed, just as unnamable but equally potent.

  That day when he’d
made his startling declaration, she’d gasped, put one hand to her mouth and fled, casting a couple of disbelieving looks back at the strange young man who’d come out of the forest. He stood watching her go, the smile still upon his gaunt face, his eyes still glowing with the light from within. Eleanor had run all the way home that day, and her father, who’d been fifty-four years old the time of her birth, the birth which claimed his wife, looked up from nailing a new board on a broken stair-railing. At seventy-three, he had sparse hair gray. His skin hung loosely upon his frame as though waiting to be filled out the way it had when he was young. “Where have you been, girl?” he demanded. “What are you doing running around outside when there’s work to be done?” He seemed oblivious to the bed sheets flapping on the clothesline not far from where he toiled.

  “I went for a walk, Dad. The day’s much too good to waste inside. I met someone in the woods on the Anderson place. His truck’s broken down.” Eleanor heard her own words rush out breathlessly. From its heat, she knew her face was flushed. Her eyes felt bright, too, and she lowered them before her father’s keen stare.

  “What is it, Ellie?” he asked sharply. “Did he scare you?”

  “No!” Then, more sedately, “No, Dad. I was running because... because it’s spring.”

  A gnarled and gentle work-worn hand stroked the deep rich chestnut of her hair, and George Barnes said, “Yes, Ellie-girl. Spring days are for running. Your mother was the same, you know. The same in looks, the same in manner. Then when it seemed we would never have a child, she stopped running, stop singing and laughing and I thought my heart would break. But one more time, girl, just one more time, she ran to me, laughing, looking exactly as you look today. It was the day she told me you were on the way. I picked her up and carried her back to the house and from that moment on I looked after her, cared for her as if she was made of glass... And what good did it do me? But I have you, girl, to take her place. So like her you are, Ellie, so—”

  “Dad,” Eleanor interrupted gently. “The man on the forestry road?”

  “What? Oh, yes. I’ll go take a look, see what I can do.”

  “He said his engine overheated and now it won’t start.”

  “Right. Probably sprung a leak in the radiator. I’ll take a bucket and fill it from the creek over that way.”

  She watched with a deep affection as her father walked away, slightly bent yet still moving strongly for all his years.

  Having never known her mother, except through her father’s stories, which he repeated over and over to her, as if afraid he might forget, Eleanor had what may have been more than the usual amount of love for her dad, and he, on his part, loved his daughter beyond all else. She was his life.

  When he had been left a widower with an infant daughter to raise, he had flatly refused all offers of help from the neighbors, according to the late Mrs. Anderson from the neighboring farm. Many times her father had told her raising her was no trouble. He merely did it the way he would’ve raised orphaned calf, with good common sense, plenty of food and exercise, and outsized portions of love. She always laughed at that and asked if he really felt affection for orphaned calves, and read them bedtime stories, hugged them and cuddled them like he did her. “Of course, I did. All young things need hugs and pats so they know someone cares about them. It worked on the calves, and it had worked on her.

  Eleanor had grown up knowing little beyond her own immediate locality, and if a longing built in her now and then for far places and new sights, as it had this morning, she would always push it back and look around, happy with her lot.

  When Eleanor finished high school and graduated with honors and talked about further education, the expression on her father’s face had quickly changed her mind. Her guidance counselor argued that every woman needed a university education. She’d been tempted, of course. The thought of fusty old professors and exciting, younger, ones, huge libraries filled with the knowledge of the world, of parties, roommates and dormitory life had sounded like heaven to her, and what would—must—come after… Learning about the world, seeing it for herself… All that had been brought tantalizingly close by her counselor’s words, but her dad had sacrificed so much already, she couldn’t bear to leave him like this. As compensation, he’d brought in cable TV and finally, the Internet, though that meant putting up a satellite dish on the barn roof.

  She had become a wonderful cook over the years of her teens, an excellent housekeeper. She sewed, knit, gardened. Her flowers were a riot of color, her vegetables abundant and flavorful, and she worked long hard hours willingly beside her aging father, helping him to run his dairy farm. Throughout her high school years, and in the past year, since she had been at home all day boys and young men had come to call, but each came only once, until there were no more left to come at all and Eleanor became as much of a recluse as her father.

  But today! And Eleanor wrapped her arms around herself, spun in a dizzying circle, and laughed aloud at the hens scattering and cackling in her path. Today she had met someone whom she knew would not be put off by her irascible old father.

  How can it happen like this? she wondered. And what is it, exactly that has happened?

  She knew a little later when a Forestry Service pickup truck drove into the barnyard and the lanky young man climbed out. Her father got out of the passenger side and the two men stood talking for some time. Suddenly the young man put a hand to his head, swayed on his feet and old George put out a hand to steady him. Her father spoke, and Eleanor could not hear his words, but she could see concern reflected on his face. The young man answered, George spoke again, and the other shook his head, still holding the side of the truck. This time her father did not bother speaking. He grasped the green clad arm, draped it over his stooped shoulders and half dragged, half carried his burden toward the kitchen where Eleanor stood staring out the window.

  “What is it?” she asked, as they came through the doorway. “Is he sick?”

  “The boy needs food,” George replied. “Look at him— skinny as a rake, almost fainting from hunger. Well, don’t just stand there, girl, get cooking! I’ll get some brandy.” As George stomped out, Eleanor stared at the young man slumped on a chair.

  His eyes danced with laughter and he winked at her. “I had to see you again,” he whispered. “This was the only way I could get invited to lunch. No! Don’t back away. You have been chosen.”

  As George returned, he leaned back again, looking wan. Eleanor scurried to do things at the stove.

  “What did you say your name is, boy?” George asked . Eleanor paused in her task of making sandwiches.

  “David Jefferson, sir.”

  “Yes. I remember now. This is my daughter, Ellie.” Eleanor stirred the thick, homemade vegetable beef soup as it heated.

  “No, sir. Eleanor,” David said, and again his resonant voice caressed her name. “Don’t call her ‘Ellie’, please, Mr. Barnes.”

  George’s flint-eyed stare raked the face of the young man. “What’s it to you?”

  “Eleanor is going to be my wife, sir.”

  “Huh? What? The hell she is.”

  Eleanor held her breath. “Yes, sir,” came the confident reply. “You’ll see. Just wait.”

  “What do you do, boy, besides set out to work with a leaky radiator and overheat engines?”

  “I’m studying silviculture. I have a job with the Forest Service for the summer. I’ll be working in the area for the next few months. You’ll get used to me.”

  George said, “Hmmph,” and the meal was finished in silence until Eleanor offered second helpings, which David accepted.

  “Where do you live?” Presently, George pushed the sugar bowl closer to his young guest after Eleanor served coffee.

  “In town. In a rooming house. The meals are nothing like this. For breakfast, I got cornflakes.”

  “Hmmph. Not the kind of food a working man needs.”

  “No, sir, it isn’t.” David Jefferson drank the last of his coffee,
then stood. “Thanks for the lunch, Eleanor. When I get the radiator fixed, I’ll be back.” Reaching out to George, he offered a handshake. “So long, Mr. Barnes.”

  “Hmmph!” George said again.

  And David had come back. He came back that very evening to take Eleanor to the movies. George said, “No, she’s got to help me with the milking. Machine’s broken down.”

  “I’ll milk, too,” said David, and did. When they were finished, he said, “Go get changed, Eleanor. I’ll fix the machine while you do it.” He did that, too, and as David washed up, Eleanor could see her father eying him with grudging admiration.

  Three weeks later Eleanor bowed to the inevitable and agreed to marry David. George, however, continued to hold out, and in spite of this David won his permission to build a small house for himself in the hollow below the farmhouse, secluded by a grove of poplar trees. “Don’t mind renting you the land, Dave,” said the old man. “I’m not using it. Maybe, in time, we could even sell off that quarter acre to you.”

  “We’ll live there George, Eleanor and I, when we are married. You can visit us anytime you want... Within reason,” David had added sternly.

  “You are not marrying my girl, boy!” George had said and said, and said again, right up to the day of the wedding, and on that day what he said was, “So you married her, boy. But remember this: she’s my girl. I’ll share with you if I must, but just don’t you ever try to take her away. Do that and I’ll fight. I’ll win, too,” he had added. His tone made his words a warning.

  With his arm firm around Eleanor’s waist, David had replied, “She may be your girl, George, but she’s my woman. Where I go, she goes, and not you or anyone else will stop her. So don’t go laying down any laws you won’t be able to enforce.”