THE JADE'S SECRET GARDEN

Chapter 2

    Dad can't be dead, Claire told herself, She'd always been so certain that one day she'd look out her window to see him coming up the front walk. She needed to believe that he was out there somewhere, living out his dreams. If her father had found the courage to break the chains that had bound him here for so many years, then one day so could she.

    Coming into the kitchen, Claire took down her apron from the hook on the pantry door and put it on. "Uncle Phillip sends his regards," she told her mother, who was busy at the stove, " and Mrs. Eldridge, too. I met her on my way home." 

      "She's well, I hope," her mother replied.

   "She looked as hearty as ever, and she couldn't wait to give me the news that her Liza is expecting again."

  Jane Pennington turned away from the bubbling pot she'd been tending and wiped her hands on her apron as she regarded her daughter, her faded blue eyes filled with compassion. " You mustn't let it bother you, dear."

  "It doesn't bother me, not at all, " Claire shot back, perhaps too quickly to be convincing.

    She took down a stack of plates from the cupboard and carried them into the dinning room. Her mother followed, laying a hand on her daughter's arm as she set the last of the three plates on the table. 

  "I know it's been lonely for you, " she began. "There aren't many young people here anymore. But I've just received a letter from your aunt Charity. She was saying how nice it would be if you were to come to Albany for a visit." 

    Ordinarily, Claire would have welcomed such an opportunity, but now, as she studied her mother's hopeful expression, she realized that the purpose of this visit was likely to introduce her to another "suitable" gentleman. This sort of romantic scheming had been undertaken by the female members of her family on more than one occasion in the past few years, but invariably those gentlemen whom her mother and her aunts considered "suitable," Claire found to be decidedly not and vice versa.

   Still, Claire managed a smile as she reached out to tuck a stray chestnut curl, threaded with gray, back up under her mother's lace cap. "It's too late for me, Mom," she explained patiently. "I'm not a young girl anymore."

  "You mustn't say such things!" her mother scolded. "Everything happens in the Lord's own time, and while His plans for us may not always be apparent to our eyes."

   Claire backed away. Uneasiness had been growing in her since her encounter with Mrs. Eldridge, and then she'd come home to find a tangible reminder of her father sitting there in the parlor. She was by no means in the mood for her mother's sermonizing just now, and all at once she lost her temper.

   "Look at me, Mom," she demanded. "look closely and then tell me: Which one of your suitable young gentlemen would choose such a plain old maid for his bride?"

   Jane Pennington was startled by her daughter's outburst and began wringing her hands nervously. "Perhaps if you put away your glasses you don't really need them all the time and we could make you a new dress from the length of pretty taffeta your uncle has on his shelf." 

   Claire had not raised her voice to her mother in years, but she could not stop herself now as all the bitterness she'd been holding inside spilled over. "A new dress won't change things. I might have had a chance for happiness once before my family interfered maybe once, but not now."

   They stood there, neither saying a word, with the specter of Matt Parsley standing between them. Mrs. Pennington's face had paled, her hands were clasped tightly together over her apron, her knuckles whitening. Claire hadn't meant to bring the incident up again, but then, it was never far from her thoughts. She had never gotten over the hurt it had caused.