Page 54 of Beyond Montana's Sky
Henry cleared his throat.
Everyone looked at him.
“After school, I’ll want Ben to join me at work,” he said with a pointed change of subject. “Can’t waste too much more time. Why, my father had me learning the business when I was a twelve-year-old. I started your uncle and father at the same age.”
“I’ve been working for Uncle Caleb, learning the hotel business.” Ben grinned. “He says I’m good at accounting.”
Henry ponderously nodded, his jowls quivering. “Excellent. A knowledge of accounting is important in any financial endeavor. However, you’ll find Grayson Enterprises is far more complex than a mere, small town hotel.”
Ben’s grin fled.
Once again, Edith shook her head in a warning for her son to keep quiet.
Ben nodded and smoothed out his expression. He reached to fiddle with his fork, and then drank some tea.
Even though Edith had braced herself for living with in-laws who didn’t approve of her, she never realized Ben, the adored grandson, might have the same struggles.I’ll have to take my in-laws aside later and point out that disparaging anything and anyone from Sweetwater Springs—for that matter disparaging me—will only alienate him.
Ben was no longer a young child, oblivious to the undercurrents of family relationships. She could foresee having difficulty in conveying the concepts of Ben’s autonomy in a way the Graysons understood.
The heartache was back, but this time for her son.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
That night after she’d bathed, wearing a robe over her nightgown, Edith went to say goodnight to Ben, instead of waiting for him to come to her. In the past, her son often spent the night with his grandparents, and the Graysons preserved his bedroom exactly as he left it. The only difference was adding electricity to the house, and a plain chandelier overhead glowed with pale light. Gas lamps flickered on the walls. A blue-glass oil lamp shone from the bedside table, bringing a faint smell of kerosene into the room.
The window was cracked open, allowing in cold air. Next to a shiny brass bugle, toy soldiers marched in neat rows across the top of a campaign chest. A sled stood on end in one corner, and a sailboat hung on pegs on the wall.
These toys were only to be played with at his grandparents’ house. At their home, he’d had others, which traveled with them to Sweetwater Springs. Except the bugle, of course. Neither she nor his father had ever been foolish enough to buy him something so noisy.
For the first time, Edith wondered if Ben’s toys had returned to Boston with him. She hadn’t overseen his packing. Since taking on more responsibility at the hotel, her son—the young man—hadn’t much use for his toys.
Ben lay propped on pillows in bed, reading. He’d tilted the book to take advantage of the light from the oil lamp. Seeing her, he closed his book and set it on the table.
“Supper was….” she searched for the right word. “Challenging.”
“That’s all right, Mama.” Ben lifted his chin, his brown eyes clear, expression determined. “I spent almost four years disliked by my schoolmates and probably most of the town for setting the fires and lying to get the Thompson twins sent away.”
Edith made a sound of protest, even as she knew he spoke the truth. She sat on the bed next to him.
Ben waved away any response. “After stooping so low, I deserved every bad thought and rude comment I had to live with.” He thumped his chest. “I changed people’s opinion by changingmyself. By asking forgiveness from the Thompsons. By becoming someone others could respect, or at leaststartto respect.”
“I didn’t know you’d talked to the Thompsons.” She tilted her head. “When did you do that?”
“When I asked Daniel for the loan of the Falabellas so Uncle Caleb could court Maggie by taking her on a drive in the miniature buggy. He certainly needed help, and you know how they say those little horses are magical.”
Fierce pride filled her, making her eyes misty. “You’re a good man, my son. I love you more than I can put into words.” With stark clarity, Edith knew she also had much to atone for. “I’m so sorry for the kind of mother I was after we left here. We both mourned your father in different ways. Mine was to retreat from others, look down on them, and be far too indulgent of you. Not that I wasn’t already that way. But I becameworse. You probably wouldn’t have gotten into such awful trouble if I’d been a different mother—the kind you needed.”
He sat up, an eager expression on his face. “But Mama, don’t you see? If I can endure the disdain of the whole town, I can endure when Grandfather and Grandmother are condescending or critical. I just wasn’t prepared tonight. I’ll know to be guarded from now on.”
His maturity made her heart ache with an odd combination of pride and annoyance that he needed to defend himself at all. “Well, my love. You’re only sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen.”
“Seventeen might be practically a man in the West—” she leaned forward and smoothed the hair back from his face “—but you’re still aboyin Boston society’s eyes. One, whom, for politeness’s sake,cannottalk back to his grandparents. You can, though, gently attempt to educate them about yourself and what you found worthwhile about your time in Montana.”
He smiled then, and she saw again the man he was becoming.
She held up a warning finger. “Nor, my love, doyouneed to fightmybattles—not that they’rebattles, per se. Your grandparents just aren’t very fond of me. However, I can handle their attitudes.”I have plenty of practice.
