Authors: Samantha Forest
“That is a coincidence,” I told him. “I hope there will be enough space for all of us.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Michael said. “Sam’s found a small plot of land nearby. We’ll only be together until the wedding. Then Sam and his wife will move in there.”
“I see,” I answered, trying not to sound too relieved at this. After sharing two rooms with eleven people at my aunt and uncle's home in Boston, I was looking forward to having my own space with just one man.
We arrive at the farm and I’m more than happy to see everything exactly as Michael’s words had painted it. As far as the eye could see, Michael’s cattle roamed freely. Crops grew in fenced fields and in a gated pasture, horses galloped to their hearts content.
My heart leaped to see how far removed this was from the crowded, smog filled streets of Boston.
When we arrived at the small farmhouse, I wandered inside as Michael removed my crate from the wagon.
The wooden house was larger inside than I expected it to be. And much cleaner than I imagined a home with two bachelor's would be. It would certainly be more comfortable than my little blanket crammed beside a window in Boston.
I wandered aimlessly past a small table next to the kitchen when a piece of paper on top of it caught my eye. I looked down to inspect it. When I did, I found my heart had stopped.
I let out an audible gasp and moved away from the picture as though it were a disease.
I could not believe it. Hardly dared to believe it. But, there it was all the same. Staring up at me from the black and white frame of that paper photograph, was my sister.
***
“Mary?” Michael asked as soon as he entered the room and saw me staring down at the table. “Is something wrong?”
He drops my trunk and sets it beside the wall before moving hastily over to me. I moved my eyes from the portrait and shook my head firmly ‘no’.
“I’m all right,” I answered. “Just a little tired from the journey.”
Michael looks at me skeptically for a moment but then nods.
“That’s to be expected,” he said giving me a half grin. “Sam should be in from the field in a moment. I’d like you to meet him if you can. Then I’ll show you where you can rest before supper.”
I barely had time to nod my approval to this plan before the front door bursts open.
A young man with hair just as blonde and eyes just as green as Michael’s stamps in without pretense.
“The rooms are ready, Michael,” he said. “The girls should be comfortable there for the week.”
“Sam,” Michael said gently. Sam looked up and noticed me for the first time since entering the room. There was no embarrassment or shame at having burst into the house like a bull in a china shop. He merely smiled curiously.
It was now clear to me that, though Sam and Michael looked enough alike to be one and the same person, Sam was the wilder of the two.
“Sam, this is miss Mary Mcgovern. My fiance,” Michael said.
“How do you do?” I asked offering my hand to Sam as evenly as I could.
“Good to meet you, at last, miss Mary,” Sam said jovially, taking my hand. “Michael’s been waxing poetic about you for weeks.”
“Not as much as you have about your Rose,” Michael joked. But, the name caused my breath to freeze inside my chest. My hands began to shake.
“Rose?” I asked.
“My intended,” Sam said. “Miss Rose Reynolds of Boston. Here’s a picture if you’d like to see her.”
I watched in shock as he picked up the picture on the table. The one that had caused my very blood to stop coursing through my veins and handed it to me.
Moving slowly, as though in a dream, I reached out and took the portrait from him. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. After all these years.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Sam was saying from somewhere very far away.
I forced myself to nod ‘yes’ though my stomach was still churning.
“Mary?” Michael moved sideways towards me and I felt his warm, strong arm wrap around my shoulders.
I tore my eyes away from the picture and looked up at him.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked. His eyes were filled with genuine concern and I did not know how to answer. Between those large, kind eyes and Rose’s picture or that of her twin in my hand...it was all too much.
“I need to lie down,” I said quietly. Without waiting for Michael to show me the way, I moved down the hall, opened the first bedroom door I found, walked inside and shut myself in.
***
I immediately sunk down on a bed just beside the door without bothering to look at the unfamiliar room. The only thing that filled my mind was that photograph and that name, Rose.
Tears filled my eyes as I tried to make sense of it in my mind. It wasn’t...couldn’t be my Rose.
She would have written under grandmama’s last name, first of all. And our Grandmother’s name was Winslow, not Reynolds. But the picture, the picture was so like her.
But, I reasoned, I had not seen my sister for over ten years. She was a girl, barely six years old when we were separated. She may have changed in that time. The girl that stopped my heart in that photograph may have looked absolutely nothing like my sister.
No, a little voice in the back of my mind told me, this cannot be your sister. That would mean that I had found her. That I had kept my promise and that we would be together again.
Not only that but, we would be together in this place. A place where we could both be free of the ties that bound us. A place where both of us might find love and happiness.
It was too good. Too amazing to be true. As much as I wanted it, I knew that things like this simply did not happen in my life.
I was not certain how long I sat on that bed, tears running down my cheeks before I heard a knock on the door.
Hurriedly, I wiped my eyes, took a breath and stood up.
“Come in,” I said.
Michael peeked his head hesitantly through the door.
“I thought you should know,” he said. “This is my bedroom. Yours is down the hall.”
I felt an embarrassed heat race to my cheeks which, I knew were already red.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I suppose that I was so tired, I didn’t even think.”
He stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Mary,” he said gently. “I know you’re not just tired from your journey.”
I opened my mouth to make an argument against that. But, soon found that there was nothing I could say. I sank back down on the bed.
“I wish you would tell me what’s troubling you,” Michael said moving towards me. When I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he wanted to sink down next to me. But, something, perhaps proprietary, stopped him. We were not yet married after all.
I found at that moment I wanted him to sit next to me. I wanted to feel a warm, steadying presence by my side when I said what I had to say.
As none was allowed, I took a steadying breath and resolved to tell the story myself.
Finally, I told Michael about Rose. About the way we were separated when we were children. About my promise that we would be together again. Even about the letters in the old trunk I had written to her.
At the end of it, he was silent. I looked up for his reaction to find that he was looking down at me thoughtfully.
“And, you believe your sister and this Rose my brother’s been writing to are one and the same?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I was ashamed to hear my voice break once again and more tears threatened to fall.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. And the name isn’t quite right. But…”
“But, you’re almost certain you know her?” he asked as though he knew the answer already. Tears began to fall freely once again and I could not find the voice to tell him that he was right. I simply nodded and pursed my lips together to keep a sob inside my throat.
Michael, hesitantly took one step towards the bed and, to my surprise, sank down beside me. Perhaps it was this that caused me to find my voice again. Before I knew what I was doing, I was pouring out all my worries and fears to him.
“I just...I couldn’t stand it if it wasn’t true,” I told him. “And, knowing my luck...the way things have gone for me so far...it won’t be. I will expect to see my sister again. I’ll expect to have the home...the family I’ve always wanted. And, then it will fall apart. I know it will. I...I can’t allow myself to hope…”
I trailed off as a series of sobs broke through my voice once more. A moment passed before I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my shoulders. I felt Michael’s callused hands pressing me into a hesitant but warm embrace for a moment before I returned his hold.
We stayed like that for a long while. Michael holding me on the bed as I grieved quietly. I grieved for Sean, for Rose, for the hope I once knew but had somehow lost.
After what felt like several hours, he pulled back but kept a strong hold on my shoulders. He looked into my eyes with an earnest expression.
“Mary,” he said. “No matter what happens, even if this girl isn’t who you think she is, you’ll always have a home. You’ll have a home and family with me. As long as you want one. You believe that, don’t you?”
He looked at me with a very vulnerable gaze, as if everything he held dear was riding on my answer. Looking at this man who had given me a second chance. Who had given me what I’d always wanted and never believed I could have, there was only one answer I could give.
“Of course, I believe that,” I said. “I’ve believed it since your very first letter to me.”
He seemed to let out a breath he was holding and I saw a relieved smile cross his face.
“Good,” he said. “Now, should we get you to your own room?”
I chuckled slightly at my mistake and allowed him to lead me up from the bed. As he walked me to the room set up for me down the hall, I knew that no matter what happened next week, or next month, or next year, I would be safe with this man.
***
One week later, Sam hurried through breakfast and excitedly made his way to the train station in town. It was the day his Rose...quite possibly my Rose was meant to arrive.
“There’s no point getting nervous,” Michael said looking at me with an amused smile as I pace the length of the entrance. “It won’t get them here any faster.”
“I can’t help it,” I told him. “It’s killing me not knowing what to expect.”
He laughed at me from his seat at the kitchen table across the room.
“Sometimes not knowing is half the fun,” he said. Normally, I would have laughed right along with him. But today, when my stomach was a ball of nervous knots and not even pacing could calm my anxious thoughts, I looked over at him sternly.
“Not for me,” I told him.
“No,” he answered standing from his chair. “You like things to be predictable. Don’t you?”
I heard him coming closer to me. I didn’t turn around to look. Instead, I settled on a spot by the window and began peering out, waiting for the wagon to come back.
“I just don’t like to be surprised,” I told him. “It sets me on edge.”
“I can see that,” he said. His voice was still laced with laughter. I paid it no mind. Instead, I listened for the pounding of horse hooves on the trail.
When I heard them, the clamping of the single horse pulling the wagon, I turned hastily towards the door.
As I did, I felt my foot catch on a loose board in the floor. I began to fall forward when a strong pair of arms caught me by the waist and pulled me back.
When I stood up, I was looking into Michael’s deep green eyes. We were so close that I could see the freckles on his nose, feel his warm breath on my face.
For a moment, we stared at each other. Then, simply, naturally, he closed his eyes and pressed his lips gently to mine. My own eyes flew closed and I reveled in the sensation. A warm pair of lips. Michael’s lips, moving on my own.
When he pulled back, what felt like a long time later, he smiled at me again.
“Remember,” he said in a low voice. “No matter what is waiting for you outside that door. You have a home. With me. Always.”
“Always,” I repeated with a gentle smile.
I heard the wagon roll towards the front door. The horse neighed its stop.
Michael smiled at me and offered his arm.
“Shall we go together?” he asked.
Unable to speak, I nodded and linked my arm with his.
We walked out the front door and I had barely made it halfway to the wagon before a desperate cry met my ears.
“Mary!” it shouted. Before I could take stock of what was happening, a bright mess of blonde hair had obscured my vision and small slender arms were encircling me in a hug much more forceful than I would have expected.
When this blonde force pulled away, I did as well. And there she was.
She was older, certainly. Her cheeks had filled out as had the rest of her body. But, there was no mistaking the intelligent spark in those bright blue eyes.
I was looking at my sister, Rose, for the first time in ten years.