The Husband She Can't Forget

“So, I’m guessing we’ll be doing the same thing on the way back home,” he said, watching her face.

“Absolutely.” She smiled at him. “Thanks, Luke. I’ve hardly ever had help with this before, except when Lisa or Gemma is riding with me. Mostly, my garden helpers will assist in the rescues, but if they’re afraid of being seen by their friends, they’ll laugh at me and wait while I finish running back and forth across the highway.”

“You’re welcome. Say, I haven’t had lunch yet. How about you?”

“No. I was going to grab something here in town.”

“Why don’t you let me buy you lunch?” he asked as she pulled into the parking lot at the back of the restaurant where she was delivering her produce. “This looks like a good place.”

“It is.” She hesitated as she stepped out and walked to the back of the truck, where he joined her.

He knew it wasn’t a good idea and he was sure she knew it, too. Riding in the truck, talking about the passing scenery, hustling tortoises out of danger, was one thing. Sitting in a restaurant, eating a meal, seemed too...intimate, even though they had certainly shared meals before, including last night’s barbecue. Besides, although it was three o’clock in the afternoon and there wouldn’t be many customers in the place, it might seem like they were a couple—then he wondered if she actually cared about that. She seemed so completely sure of herself now. Maybe she wasn’t affected by gossip.

She smiled at him. “The chef, Beth Orwin, makes the best grilled trout in southeastern Oklahoma.”

“And we already know that she buys the best produce around.” He pulled back the cool, damp cloth and picked up a bin full of lettuce and other vegetables. He looked down at the fat, red radishes, bright orange carrots and cream-colored parsnips. “These are beautiful, you know.”

To his surprise, her cheeks flushed and she hitched up one shoulder in a slight shrug. “I always think of them as jewels uncovered in the earth. Silly, I know.”

“Not at all.”

“I guess we should try some of my vegetables,” she admitted. “I mean, quality control and all that.”

“Yes, we should.”

They unloaded the truck, took care of the paperwork and then walked around to the front entrance.

Luke marveled at how things had changed in twenty-four hours. Yesterday at about this time, he had been nervously pulling onto her property, worrying that she wouldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t have blamed her if that had been the case, but he had known she would accept what Wendolin had left her. He only had to remember to keep this light and casual. They would eat lunch, run any errands she needed to take care of, then go back to unpack the trunk. He wasn’t sure why his grandmother had wanted him to be involved with this, but he was determined to follow her instructions. He owed it to her, but he also owed it to Carly to stay away from her. He already knew how much he could hurt her.

Luke gave her a regretful glance. His heart sank because he knew he was about to do it again.

* * *

THIS WASN’T AS easy as she’d thought it would be. In fact, it was much harder. They had eaten a late lunch then talked to Beth, the chef and owner of the restaurant, who praised the vegetables and ordered more. Carly had decided to forget the stop at her favorite junk store. Her usual routine of digging through their ratty stock wasn’t something she wanted to do while Luke tagged along. Besides, she wasn’t dressed for it, which she hadn’t really considered when she’d put on this fancy skirt. So, after they ate, they had returned to Joslin Gardens, the drive interrupted by three more stops to rescue tortoises.

Carly was able to control her edginess by focusing on returning home. She and Luke took the empty vegetable bins into the shed where Sheena would rinse them before they were used again. Once they were inside the house, they washed their hands then went to the living room, where the trunk awaited them. Luke slipped the letter out of his pocket and laid it on an end table within easy reach.

The lid wasn’t hinged, but separated completely from the body of the trunk. Luke set it aside, then came to sit by Carly on the sofa. The first item they removed was wrapped in yellowed tissue paper that Carly peeled back carefully to reveal satin and lace, also yellowed with age.

Luke ran a hand over the smooth fabric. “Is this...?”

“Wendolin’s wedding dress, I’ll bet,” Carly said, lifting it out reverently to unfold it. “She gave us her wedding dress.”

“I had no idea she still had it. I’ve never seen it before. I’m her only grandchild, so I guess it makes sense it would come to me.” Luke’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t think it will fit me, though.”

Carly rolled her eyes at him, refolded the dress and set it aside. Beneath it were textiles, finely woven tablecloths and napkins, some embroidered in bright colors, one set with exquisitely detailed cutwork embroidery.

“These are beautiful. Perfect, in fact,” Carly said. “Family heirlooms.”

“And they’re all yours, Carly. I would never use them.” He glanced around her living room then gestured toward the embroidered cloth covering an old table that had been one of her thrift-store discoveries. “And it’s obvious you would.”

“Thank you. I’ll treasure them.”

Carly found many other packets of letters and she was wildly curious to know what they said, but she couldn’t read German and they weren’t from her family, so she knew they weren’t her business. Instead, she reached for a cardboard tube about fourteen inches long. It was very heavy and had a cloth stuffed tightly into each end.

“I wonder what this is.”

“One way to find out,” Luke said, tugging the fabric at one end and pushing it at the other. “Here, hold on to the tube.”

As instructed, she gripped the tube with both hands while he worked to free the wrapped object. By wiggling and twisting it, he managed to pull it out. He handed it to Carly, who placed it on the sofa between them and began unwrapping the layers.

“This is silk,” she said at one point, rubbing the red, white and black cloth between her fingers.

“This is a flag,” Luke added, pointing out the grommets where it would be attached to a flagpole.

When Carly pulled away the last fold of silk, they discovered there was yet another layer of cotton batting, which they also lifted off.

“Oh, my goodness,” Carly breathed, staring at the bronze statue they had revealed. “It’s a little girl. Isn’t she beautiful?”

The figure was twelve inches high and depicted a child of about seven years old. One hand was held up in front of her face and a butterfly rested lightly on her palm. The wonder and delight on the little girl’s face was a joy to see.

Carly examined the base and bottom to locate the artist’s name but couldn’t read the faint markings. “Whoever did this was a master craftsman. The attention to detail is amazing. You can even see her eyelashes and the lunules on her fingernails. See?” She pointed out the half-moon shapes at the base of each nail. “And the hands are perfectly done, the mark of a talented artist.” She ran the tip of her calloused finger over the delicate hands. “Is it Wendolin as a little girl?”

Luke shrugged. “I think so, but I’m not sure. I have a few pictures of Omi when she was little, but they’re not very clear. Whoever the family photographer was, he felt obligated to stand at the top of the most distant hill to get everyone in the picture, so there are no close-ups of anyone’s face.” He held up the fabric that had been wrapped around the statue. “This is definitely a flag, pre–World War II German. I wonder why this was used.”

“Maybe they kept the flag because they were giving up their country but not their nationality. Seriously, Wendolin never talked to you about this?”

“Very little. I remember her saying she wasn’t brave, but I never knew what she meant by that.”

They both looked at the statue again and Carly ran her hand over the flag. “It’s possible, too, that if the statue is valuable, someone wanted to make sure it was wrapped in natural fabrics rather than synthetics...” She paused. “Although, now that I think about it, the 1930s weren’t exactly rife with nylon and, of course, polyester wasn’t created until 1941.”

Luke grinned and raised his eyebrows at her. “I wouldn’t know and I have to wonder how you do.”

She shrugged. “I must have read it somewhere and it stuck in my head.”

Carly ran her fingers over the figure, imagining they were touching soft hair, the fabric of a skirt, the gloss of shiny dress shoes. Although the little girl looked happy, enthralled by the tiny scrap of nature that had lit upon her fingers, the tableau made Carly sad. She glanced up and said as much to Luke.

“Why sad?” Luke asked.

“I’m not sure, except that it’s a moment frozen in time and...and Wendolin moved on from this beautiful moment and never recaptured it. Maybe it’s not so much sadness I’m feeling as it is melancholy or nostalgia.”

Luke frowned as he gave the statue a considering look. “Wait a minute, I do remember this. When I was small, it sat on a table in Omi’s living room. I wanted to play with it, but, of course, she didn’t want me to break it, so she must have put it away then never got it out again, at least, not where I could see it.”

Carly cradled it in her hands then looked up with tears spilling from her eyes. “I can’t accept this, Luke. It’s a family heirloom.”

“She wanted you to have it.”

Carly went to find a tissue and took several minutes to compose herself. When she returned to the living room, Luke had replaced everything in the trunk and put the lid on. The statue stood in the middle, a happy little girl, frozen in time.