A Dry Creek Courtship. Janet Tronstad

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СКАЧАТЬ tell Doris June that her father wasn’t as perfect as she’d always thought. Edith would rather have her heart broken all over again than cause her daughter that kind of pain.

      Doris June seemed to be waiting for some response so Edith said, “I know.”

      And she did know she could count on people to care about what happened with her. Charley was her best friend. The two of them had fallen into the habit of looking out for each other after his wife had died. They’d started doing it when they both lived on their farms and continued when Edith moved to her house in Dry Creek.

      Still, Charley wouldn’t pay too much attention. It was only a haircut. And she wanted it to stay that way. Which meant she needed to get her daughter’s mind on something else before Doris June started asking why her mother had felt this sudden need to change the way she wore her hair.

      “Of course, Charley has other things to worry about. He’s growing a moustache,” Edith said.

      “Charley? Are you sure?”

      Edith nodded. She didn’t think Charley would mind that she was using him to distract her daughter.

      “Well, I’ll be—I wonder if he’s planning to start dating.”

      “I don’t think—” Edith blinked in surprise. Charley, dating! He never dated. Then she remembered that Harold had grown a moustache when he’d been courting her. It’s what men of her generation did when they wanted to attract the attention of a particular woman. They were like peacocks displaying their feathers.

      For the first time since she’d gotten that letter, Edith completely forgot about Jasmine Hunter. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought of Charley dating someone. It was unreasonable, of course, but she had gotten used to the way things were between her and Charley. She depended on him. If he started dating someone, everything would change.

      “I’m sure he would have said something,” Edith said. By now, she was frowning a little. “Wouldn’t he?”

      Doris June shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him at your place much lately. You two aren’t arguing, are you?”

      Now that her daughter mentioned it, Edith realized Charley hadn’t been spending as much time at her place as he had in the past. She would have noticed sooner if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with her own problems.

      “No, Charley and I are fine.” She hoped.

      “That’s good.” Doris moved around and started combing her mother’s hair again.

      “You’re not worried about something yourself, are you?” Edith thought her daughter was combing her hair longer than usual.

      “Nothing big,” Doris June said a little cautiously as she kept combing. “It’s just that, if you want your hair that short, it needs to be cut by someone who knows what they’re doing. I think we should go to the beauty place in Miles City.”

      Edith turned around. “But you always cut my hair.”

      “Yes, and I can do a straight cut with the best of them. But that’s just getting things even. What you want is a whole lot more complicated. Your hair has to curve to go over the ear.”

      Edith had gone to that beauty shop with Doris June so they could both get their hair styled for the wedding. Doris June had married Charley’s son, Curt, some months ago. They’d been high school sweethearts who’d been apart for over twenty-five years before Edith and Charley brought them back together. Edith thought it was the best thing she and Charley had ever done. It was also the last thing they’d done together.

      She wondered who Charley was hoping to impress with his moustache.

      Doris June kept combing. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get that deep oil treatment they offer. It’s good for your hair follicles.”

      “My hair follicles are doing just fine, thank you.” Maybe he had met someone in Miles City. He’d been driving there a lot for one reason or another lately.

      “Hmm, maybe,” Doris June said as she parted her mother’s hair and clipped half of it back. “But something isn’t right. You feeling okay?”

      “Of course.” There was that new woman at the beauty shop.

      “Have you been sleeping okay?” Doris June asked. “I know sometimes when people get to your age they have to keep getting up during the night to—”

      “I sleep just fine.” Charley might even be having that woman trim his moustache. What better way to get to know someone?

      “Good.” Doris June finished combing one side of her mother’s hair. “Are you taking your vitamins? I read the other day that—”

      “For pity’s sake, I take my vitamins.”

      “Well, I’m only trying to show that I’m here to help you with your problems, whatever they might be.”

      “I’m sorry.” Edith supposed she did owe her daughter some kind of an explanation. She could hardly mention the letter or Charley’s moustache. She could talk about the feelings they both prompted, though. “It’s just…It’s the dead leaves outside. And making the same old kind of jelly. I’ve been feeling like my life just isn’t very exciting.”

      It might be selfish, but she didn’t want Charley to date someone. When Harold died, she’d vowed no other man would ever make her feel the way he had. That’s why she liked her friendship with Charley the way it was. She thought they were both past all that dating business.

      “But everyone loves your chokecherry jelly. The whole church raves about it at the harvest dinner. It’s practically a town tradition to have it.”

      Edith brought herself back to the conversation. What Doris said was true. Everyone in the congregation tried to provide locally grown food for the harvest dinner and Edith had brought homemade chokecherry jelly and baking powder biscuits for decades. People said they loved her biscuits and jelly.

      She’d always been a good cook—in fact, that’s how she’d gotten to know Harold. She’d been a teenager when she cooked for the thrashing crew that cut the Hargrove wheat one fall. Harold was nineteen; she was seventeen. She’d been speechless with awe just looking at him. He was a laughing, sculpted work of art like she saw in her textbooks. She’d thought a miracle had happened when he proposed. After they became engaged, he used to joke that he’d fallen in love with her cooking first and then with her.

      She’d never dreamed at the time that there was anything wrong with what Harold had said. She’d told herself that just because a man liked her cooking, that didn’t mean he didn’t love her completely. Those doubts came later.

      After Harold told her about his affair, she’d spent days making chokecherry jelly from the raw juice she’d canned the fall before. The bitter tartness of the berry matched the sourness of her soul. The chokecherry was one of the few fruits that grew wild in the southeastern plains of Montana and it was able to survive in the drought in a way something sweeter and softer, like a peach, couldn’t.

      From that winter on, Edith had always pictured Jasmine as the exotic peach and herself as the sturdy chokecherry. She was the one who belonged; she was the one who could endure the dry days with or without Harold’s СКАЧАТЬ