Page 70 of A Forgotten Heart
And Elsie felt a rush of uncertainty. Nick seemed to trust Rebekah. And Elsie dearly needed a friend.
She laid the rag on the sink. “Since you and Ed and Nick brought me here, I’ve felt like…felt like I’ve been home.”
Rebekah’s expression warmed.
It was more than that though, and suddenly Elsie felt herself swamped with emotion.
Bread. Bread would be nice at breakfast.
Elsie turned to the larder and pulled out a bag of flour. And words tumbled out before she could stop them. “My sister and I used to sing carols constantly during the days leading up to Christmas. Our father would grumble and protest, but if you watched him carefully, he’d smile when you weren’t looking.” She’d forgotten about that, right up until this moment.
Rebekah sidled next to her at the counter to help. “You have a beautiful singing voice.”
“Oh, nothing like my sister’s,” Elsie protested quickly. “Darcy has the most beautiful voice. She could be a professional singer, on stage somewhere in the East. She’s that good. Sometimes she’d ask me to sing in rounds with her, and we’d go faster and faster until I was so out of breath that I couldn’t continue.” And then both of them had collapsed in giggles.
“You love her very much,” Rebekah said as she pulled down the mixing bowl from the shelf.
Elsie nodded.
“But you won’t see her for Christmas?”
It should’ve been an easy question to answer. But Elsie hesitated again before divulging, “It’s complicated. My mother is…my mother isn’t easy. She and Darcy had a falling out a few years ago, and…”
Rebekah didn’t look up as she added a portion of the starter into the mixing bowl. “And if you visit your sister at Christmas, your mother will make things difficult for you?”
Rebekah had cut to the heart of the matter even without all the details. Mother hadn’t wanted Darcy to marry Reuben. Even before that, Darcy had chafed under Mother’s “episodes” and the way she manipulated circumstances to suit her whims.
If Elsie visited Darcy and Reuben for the holiday, Mother would offer cutting words in her next letter to Elsie, would perhaps refuse to speak to her for a period of time.
And if Elsie went home to visit Mother and Father, she’d spend the whole time missing Darcy.
It was easier to stay away. At least she wouldn’t make anyone unhappy.
Except herself, she was beginning to realize.
Elsie blinked away the heat building in her eyes and went to gather the oil from the larder.
Everything would change once Elsie wrangled the nerve to be able to tell Arnold she didn’t want to see him romantically, didn’t have any interest in marrying him. That was why she’d put it off for so long.
Mother and Father had chosen to take her in after her pa’s abandonment, but if they decided to cut her out of their lives, who would she have left?
There was noise from the living room, and Elsie glimpsed a flash of Clare moving around.
Rebekah was opening her mouth to speak when something banged into the side of the house.
Elsie jumped. Rebekah did too, whirling so she had a view of the back door.
“What was that?” Rebekah whispered.
Somethingscritch-scratchedon the porch. Was that?—
It sounded like a dog’s paws scrabbling for purchase.
“Patch?” Elsie whispered back to Rebekah.
But there was no sound of footsteps or Nick letting himself into the house.
“What if he pushed too hard and his head injury knocked him out?” Elsie’s words to Rebekah were a frantic whisper.
