Circa A cotton one will do. We shall never see father again. And yet, where are her tears? Where is the vacant look in her eyes that I see reflected back from my own each time I look in the mirror since Father left us to meet his maker? This morning we took the Ford to Lakewood Cemetery. To think of Father laying in that receiving vault until Spring when we can have a proper burial. There was just a small group of us to wish Father Godspeed.
Mother, myself and William, Martha and her husband Martin, and our dear neighbor, Alonzo Rand, who has been in and out of the house since we got the terrible news. Rand went home before luncheon, after giving Mother a meaningful look and a kiss on the cheek. Casey stayed on and I heard him and William running around the ball room. Mother stands, puts on a stern face and marches up the stairs. I think if I can keep my hands busy I can blunt my tears for a moment.
So I find my crochet needles and work on the collar I started before our sad news, but nearly immediately I think of how Father would compliment my work, and I have to brush away another tear. Suddenly, Casey surprises me, running down the stairs, shoes in his hand instead of on his feet. His summer-sky blue eyes hold my own and I see true sorrow there. When my mother was taken from us, I lost part of my heart.
That makes me cry again, but Martha never returned with my hanky and seeing my empty hands, Casey reaches in his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief for me, his initials monogrammed at the corner. I accept his kindness, and he reaches for my other hand. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
That is one of his favorites, so that Father quotes it often. I see it in his grin and the way he pushes at the swath of thick, corn-yellow hair that covers his forehead and nearly his eyes.
