Wind Whispers: Virginia Whitlock's Story

Wind Whispers, Chapter 9: Adieu, Adios, Aloha...Goodbye?

Chapter 9: Adieu, Adios, Aloha...Goodbye?

And now we come to one of the longest and truly most trying times of my life.

Unlike the months and years after Jasper's "death," I wasn't miserable. Well, not miserable in the same way. I was definitely miserable, because I was denied the thing I wanted the most, but it wasn't like the crippling grief I'd experienced then, before I knew that Jasper was, indeed, still alive. In a way, at least.

You see, I had months to go before I turned sixteen. And sixteen was the age, at that time in Texas, when a child was considered an adult, and could marry without her family's consent. This was particularly important to me, because I wanted to marry Will with every fiber of my being, as soon as possible. Actually, I could have happily done without the ceremony and just run away with him to live in sin...but Will, it turned out, was a stickler for conventions and honor. Darn him. He refused to go beyond kissing and mild petting until we were legally wed.

He told me we could get married before I turned sixteen if I let him ask my parents for my hand. It was done in those days: I knew girls from church who had gotten married at fourteen, and they hadn't even been "in the family way" at the time, no shotgun wedding. Children grew up faster then, and I faster than most, given my unusual nature. I argued this passionately with my beau. I laid out the points in favor of this in all their logical splendor. I would have made a lawyer proud. But he didn't bend. He either wanted their permission to wed, or we had to wait. He kept pushing for asking them. I considered. For about thirty seconds. And then I discarded the idea.

You see, I knew my parents. The chances of my parents granting that proposal were slim and none; actually, to the contrary, there was an excellent chance that, if Will did go and plight his troth in the honorable fashion, poor naïve man, that they'd bundle me off to Chicago on the next train north, damn the actual date classes would start. Or, even more likely, they'd ship me back East to live with Mama's kin, who wouldn't let me see the light of day for however long it would take to get me to forget William Standing Bear.

Which would be forever. I'd never forget him.

So I decided I should wait. A few months of denial of the flesh as opposed to a lifetime of deprivation? I'll take the seven months, thank you very much.

School was scheduled to start at the end of August, which gave me another three months at home. Then, I had another five months until March, when my birthday rolled around again. Never had minutes, hours, days, weeks, months mattered so much.

What was I to do once August came? Was I to go to school and play the good girl, until March came? I contemplated the possibility and choked on it. There was no way I could bear it, being cooped up with a bunch of stuffed-shirt pretentious little misses for so long. I'd get sent home. I'd make a scandal without wanting to. I'd cause problems without meaning to.

Now, there's an idea! Perhaps I should go, and let them send me home!

I made the mistake of mentioning this idea to Will, during one of our Sunday rendezvous. We had a rhythm, a pattern: every Friday, like clockwork, I'd go and check the apple tree by the front gate, to see if the fruit were ripe yet. And there it would be, waiting for me: a note, tucked into the little hollow in the twisted bole of that tree, the hollow that Jasper and I had discovered years ago, and used to hide candy in, candy stolen from the kitchen beneath Mama Dina's benevolent eye.

I was like a child again, when I found those notes. I had no idea when he put them there, or how he got there. Houston was a good thirty miles away, a great distance back then, a day trip, really. But the notes were always there, and I'd snatch them up greedily, like a child with sweets, and seek out a quiet place to enjoy the words.