The Star Garden by Nancy E. Turner Page A

your work in the front room there that you’ve made into your office, and Rachel will see to the children. You won’t be far away. I won’t be, either. Melissa will be just over your shoulder, too. I was sorry to see you leave the ranch, but life in this town will be more what your little ones are accustomed to than at the ranch. They’ll have regular schooling. Friends to play with. Epworth League at the church. It’ll be good.”
    “But not the same.”
    “Harland, nothing ever is. Will you come down for Christmas?”
    He sat on the edge of a wooden crate and picked at a loose thread pulled from the weave of his trousers. At last he looked at me and said, “We’ll bring the goose.”
    “Fine,” I said.
    Well, instead of playing with Rachel, I found Blessing sitting on a chair next to Chess, who was warming his hands at the kitchen stove. She was recounting her trip to the train station and he nodded now and then, repeatedly asking, “What happened next?”
    That evening I repacked my purchases to be ready for the drive home, and waited for my supper as if I were some royal personage in a castle. Likely to get plum spoilt, having all that work go on without me. While we ate, commotion went on overhead as some fellows hoisted the last two beds into place upstairs.
    It wasn’t a bad meal that Mrs. Ramsey cooked, it just wasn’t enough for two people, much less the twelve of us. Everyone had a taste of the potatoes and carrots and peas, and a morsel of meat. If I hadn’t made the soup, we’d have all gone hungry. The dessert was a single pie. Only eight inches across and cut into twelve pieces, it was little more than two bites each. Well, everybody is new at something once. Mrs. Ramsey would have to learn her job, I suppose.
    After supper, Harland’s children were sent to the parlor where Rachel read them stories. The last workmen left and then Harland went to his study and started sorting things. I climbed the stairs slowly, feeling foreign as a daisy in a rose garden in this old familiar place, now all done up fancier than I’d ever seen it.
    In the washroom I closed the door, ran the water, and had a good soak. From the tub, I stared at the mirror high over the washstand. How many times had I stood there, talking to Jack’s reflection as he worked that straight razor across his neck and face? After I dried off, I went to the mirror and touched the place on the washstand where Jack’s shaving cup had sat. When he was eleven, Charlie once knocked off and broke the shaving cup his father had carried through the Indian Wars. He’d had to buy a new one out of his allowance. I remembered the smell of Jack’s shaving soap tinctured with oil of bergamot and eucalyptus.
    The room was cold. I dressed quickly and went to my new old room; it had been transformed, too. The cot was gone and in its place was a fine bed. Against one wall was an armoire, and a cushioned chair waited beneath the window with a companion table. The chair was padded and fat, and made a nice warm nest for someone to curl up their feet and have a good think. The bed had been laid with linen sheets and new blankets.
    I put out the light. The almost dozen other people in the house managed to get themselves to bed without me, and I didn’t mind it a bit. In that fancy, soft bed, I stared into the darkness. If Jack were here right now, I’d make him love me and then wrap himself around me so we’d stay warm all night. The house got quiet. It was my house no longer. Felt different, sounded different, smelled of the new furnishings. It took a while for all the memories I knew of Jack in this house to fade into the night.

Chapter Four
December 15, 1906
    The ruckus of our return home was equivalent to watching the Sixth Army abandon its post years ago, and it appeared we were taking half the town with us. This being so close to Christmas, it seemed as if a migration had begun to points south. Since we were traveling with all those folks, for once