Rash, Ron - The Cove by Rash Ron

Author:Rash, Ron [Rash, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction.Historical
ISBN: 9780061804199
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Hank left for the Weatherbees’ house early Sunday morning. I’ll likely not be back till dark, he’d told Laurel, making clear that, as on Friday night, she and Walter would be alone a long while. Walter had come to her room after Hank left. Afterward Laurel hadn’t put her gown back on. Instead, she’d spooned herself into him, Walter’s chest against her back, knees tucked close and his arm over her hip. The quilt was pulled only to their waists and Laurel let it remain so, his body a more soothing warmth.

Outside, it began to rain, at first a few slow drops tapping the tin roof, a sound much like yesterday when Hank and Walter boarded up the windows. Laurel had welcomed the hammer’s steady taps, because it signaled Walter’s presence. So different from the previous fall with her father newly dead and Hank still in Europe. Each afternoon full dark had come earlier, making the cove feel like a hand slowly clenching. Worst of all had been the days of unending rain, the barn and shed and woods dissolving into that grayness. The rain hushed all other sounds, so there wasn’t even the call of a cardinal or chatter of a squirrel to let Laurel know she was still in the world. Slidell had dug the grave and afterward reminded her to cover the cabin’s one mirror with a dark cloth, as had been done when Laurel’s mother died. Even after enough time passed and Laurel could uncover the mirror, she hadn’t, unable to shake the dread that she might look in the glass and see no reflection. Not long after the funeral, Slidell came one morning and boarded up the windows. It had felt as if she was being nailed inside the cabin forever.

Walter’s steady breaths warmed her neck and she thought of earlier that morning when she dreamed she’d heard her name spoken. The voice had been so real Laurel had opened her eyes and wrapped a quilt around herself to see if someone was outside. She’d fallen back asleep and dreamed that she had taught Walter to speak one word, her name.

When she awoke again the rain had stopped. Walter was up and dressed. Doing it for propriety’s sake, just in case Hank came back early. Before too long Hank would be with Carolyn and Walter could share her bed anytime. The thought pleased Laurel, but then curdled at why that was so, and how almost everyone, including Slidell she now realized, had known Hank’s plans before she did. By then, she and Walter might be engaged. It was possible, not just a fancy. As Laurel dressed, she imagined ways that Walter could propose—a drawing of them holding hands in church, or shaping a ring out of a gold piece, or even bending a knee with his hand over his heart, like she’d read in a book one time. He’d find a way.

Now that harvesttime was over and she’d picked the last of the beans and corn and grabbled up the last potatoes, she could teach Walter to read and write.

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