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Amelia's Heartsong

By Blossom Turner

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JULY 1868 SHENANDOAH VALLEY
CHAPTER 1
“He what?” Amelia Williams’s heart battered the inside of her chest cavity with a wild thumping. She slammed her teacup into the saucer, splashing hot liquid onto
her hand. The pain of the burn was nothing compared to the sting of truth. She mopped up the mess with her napkin, then lifted it to dab at the tears that fell free.
“I wanted to tell you rather than have you find out from prattling tongues like that of Hattie Mayfield. I’m so sorry, dear sister.” Katherine reached across the small end table and squeezed Amelia’s hand.
“But Edmund told me just the other day how much he loved me... I don’t understand. Where did Josiah see this?”
“He happened upon them kissing behind the General Mercantile—”
“Who was Edmund with?” Her words came out strangled.
“The daughter of that wealthy railway builder who moved into town a few months ago. I think her name is Helen.”
“I know the one. I’ve seen her strutting about town in her fancy clothes with her nose in the air and all the men buzzing around her as if she was some kind of special. But Edmund?”
“Josiah said they didn’t see him. He came home directly and told me.”
Amelia’s heart pounded in her chest. Like an early morning mist, all her dreams of love and marriage and a happy home to raise children of her own were vanishing in the heat of one conversation. “Where is Josiah? Is there any way he could’ve mistakenly—”
“I asked the same thing.” Katherine placed her teacup down. “Just a minute.” She stood, moved across the parlor, and called down the hall. “Josiah, can you come in here for a moment?” She returned and slipped her arm around Amelia’s shoulder. The warmth curbed the urge to run straight out that door to Edmund’s house and confront him.
Josiah rounded the corner. The grim set to his mouth and the empathy in his eyes spoke volumes.
“I’m hoping you witnessed this from a distance and there’s room for doubt.”
He shook his head. “Edmund, I know, and with all the hulla‐ baloo over the Tyson’s moving into our area, and the way their daughter parades about town in her low-cut dresses—”
“Why that two-timer... How dare he—?” Amelia stood and paced, furious and heartsick.
Josiah swayed on his feet.
“Are you all right?” She hurried to his side and led him to a nearby chair.
Katherine rushed over and crouched beside him.
He lowered his head into his hands. “Whoa, I don’t know what that was all about. Felt a little lightheaded for a second. It’s past now.” He brushed both doting women aside. “Give me room to breathe, ladies. I’m fine. Let’s concentrate on the situation at hand.”
***
Amelia walked across the room and stared out the window. “It’s too late today, but I intend to take the buggy to his place first thing tomorrow and address this.”
“You’re not going alone,” Katherine said. “I’ll come with you.” “I’ll take you both,” Josiah offered.
Amelia held back the tears stinging behind her eyelids.
“Tomorrow it is.”
The next morning came all too soon. Josiah and Katherine sat beside her in silence as the buggy rattled along. Amelia felt numb. This couldn’t be her life. A thin slice of sunlight fought its way through a patch of cloud-filled sky, mirroring her heart. She must find the courage to have the hardest conversation of her life. The landscape blurred behind a sheen of tears.
All she had ever wanted was to find a love like her parents had, get married, and raise a family of her own. Nurturing came instinctively to her. She had so much love to give—the most fulfilled when encouraging the down-hearted or tending to the sick. And ever since she was a young child helping with her younger siblings, her ma had told her what a fine mama she would make someday. Was that dream about to be thwarted?
How could this be happening to her? How could her long- time friend betray her? How many times had her family and the community razzed her and Edmund about when their nuptials would be announced? After three years of courting, still she waited. Edmund kept going on about his big dreams of making it rich. He said he would not promise marriage before he could properly take care of his wife. Yet just recently he had insisted it wouldn’t be long before he placed a ring on her finger.
They rumbled to a stop in front of Edmund’s home.
Katherine squeezed her arm. “We’ll be right here waiting, and if need be, Josiah will verify what he witnessed.”
Josiah’s grim nod confirmed Katherine’s words.
Amelia stepped from the wagon. Her mind spun in crazy circles. Chaotic. Confused. Though she’d been here many times, this was the first when she approached the house with appre‐ hension. Knots crowded the space between her shoulder blades.
After a light rap on the door, it swung wide, and Edmund’s mother greeted her. “Amelia, dear. To what do we owe the plea‐ sure this fine Saturday morning? Come in. Come in.” She lifted her eyes and noticed Katherine and Josiah in the wagon. “I have a batch of pancakes on. Please invite you sister and her husband in. The more the merrier.” She laughed and held open the screen door. The sweet offer made Amelia want to cry. She loved Edmund’s mom.
“I can’t stay, but can you tell Edmund I need to speak with him outside?”
Mrs. Olson’s brows knit together in confusion. “I’ll go get him. I do hope everything is all right, my dear.” She patted Amelia’s shoulder before she bustled away.
A moment later, Edmund came around the corner. He looked so tall and handsome. Her heart squeezed tight.
He took one look at her face, and his smile faded.
“I need to talk to you in private. Can we walk to the barn?” He nodded, grabbed his hat from the rack, and flopped it on
his head of curls. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you too.” Amelia’s stomach twisted and dropped to her shoes.
He glanced up at Josiah and Katherine and touched his hat
but didn’t say a word. He and Amelia walked in silence across the yard. Chickens scattered in their wake, and the soft moo of the cow could be heard in the near distance. Edmund kicked a hen out of his way. His antics reminded her how much he hated the farm. They were halfway to the large red barn behind the house when he said, “I gather you know.”
Tentacles of fury spread their hot fingers throughout her body. Oh, she would not make it that easy for him. “Know what?”
“By the look on your face, I thought...well I assumed you heard—”
“Heard what?” He could darn well put into words what he had done to her.
“What I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. I’ve fallen in love with someone else.”
“Love.” She spat out the word. “Seems you use that word loosely. Not so long ago you were saying you loved me.”
“I do care for you—”
“Don’t bother with the platitudes, Edmund. You owe me far more than that.”
“What can I say without hurting you?”
“You’ve already hurt me far beyond words. Imagine how it felt to hear from my brother-in-law that you were at the back of the store kissing up a storm with the new tart in town.”
“She’s not a tart. She’s fun, intellectually engaging and—”
“And rich. Let’s face it Edmund, the only thing that has kept us from marriage is your obsession with money. And how convenient you can fall in and out of love at will.”
“Her father is going to give me opportunity to join his management team building the railway, and so what if I’m motivated by money? I have no desire to be a dirt-poor farmer—”
“Or marry a farm girl.”
He took a deep breath. A hot blast of air pressed through his lips as if to release his frustration. All that remained in his eyes was a blank stare. “Can we remain friends?”
She almost capitulated, they had been in each other’s life a long time. But how would she begin to entertain that scenario with Helen at his side. No. She spoke the words she had been thinking all night. “Friends do not do what you did to me. The least you could’ve done was respect me enough to break it off with me before starting with someone else.”
“It just happened. How would I know a lady of her caliber would take a shining to a nobody like me?”
“Nothing just happens, Edmund. We make decisions every day of our lives, be they right or be they wrong. The fact that you think you’re a nobody without the money her family totes around is sad. You were never a nobody to me.”
“Ahh, Amelia.” He raised his hand and slid it down her tear- stained cheek. “I’m sorry.”
She slapped his hand away. “I’m not. I’m glad I found out how weak you are before we were married. God has saved me from a lot of heartache.” With her head held high and starch to her spine she walked out.
Hopefully her display of strength didn’t reveal her angst. After years of friendship and three years of courting, how could he cast her off like a worn-out shoe? Sure, his new Helen was prettier, slimmer, and richer than she, but did their history mean nothing? How would her sorry heart ever believe she was good enough for anyone after being so easily discarded?
She marched back to the wagon, where her stunningly beau‐ tiful sister and handsome husband only added to her pain. Had she looked more like her sister or had the money Josiah had, Edmund would still be hers.
After pulling herself up, she settled her plump frame onto the seat. What a waste of the last three years of her life. The valley wasn’t exactly teeming with available men, and they sure weren’t lining up at her door. All her dreams had shattered overnight.
“Are you all right?” Katherine swung an arm around her shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here.”
***
“I’m leaving and that’s that.” Amelia folded her arms. A crack of thunder split the room.
Amelia jumped and Ma let out a shrill “Ahh!”
“That storms a-coming.” Pa strode to their parlor window and slammed the sash closed.
Black clouds billowed and swirled. Fat drops of rain pelted the glass in a sideways dance. The weather mirrored her stormy heart. She turned back towards her parents and placed her hands on her generous hips. Though quivering on the inside, she had to stay firm. With a lift to her chin, she narrowed her brown eyes into a deliberate squint, praying her determination spoke through.
“Looks like the storm is already here,” Ma said.
Though she had always tried to please her parents, Amelia needed to remain strong.
“Why are you so insistent on leaving the valley?” Ma’s eyes held a shimmer of tears.
“Please don’t cry.” Amelia bit her lower lip. “Do you really want me to have to paste a smile on my face at Helen and Edmund’s wedding? On my nineteenth birthday no less? I can’t bear it. All of Lacey Spring is invited, and if I don’t show up, it will look like sour grapes.” She wrung her hands and side‐ stepped the hug Ma tried to pull her into. “I don’t need your sympathy, I need your support.” She joined Pa at the window and stared out at the rain thundering down.
“Jeb, what do you make of this?” Ma asked. “Don’t just stand there in a daze, praying into the heavens. Set your daughter straight.”
“We sure do need the rain.”
“That’s it? That’s all you can think of right now?” Ma’s voice rose an octave.
He wrapped Amelia in a warm hug and pulled apart facing Ma. “Much like that dry, dusty old earth needed a good soaking, a change can bring a blessing.”
“Why, I do declare, Jeb. Have you completely lost your mind?”
He walked over and pulled her into a one-sided hug. “She’s an adult, Doris. We raised her well, and now it’s time to let her go.”
Amelia allowed the breath she’d been holding to ease out of her tense body. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks.
“Why Richmond? For heaven’s sakes, that is too far away for a mother’s heart.”
Amelia held firm. “I’m officially an old maid—”
“You’re not an old maid,” Ma said.
“I am, and you know it. Just the other day at the General
Mercantile, I overheard Hattie Mayfield going on—"
“The day you believe a word that old biddie has to say is the
day—”
“Doris,” Pa said, “that is not the way we talk about others.” Ma flung her hands in the air. “Jeb, I love you, but ever since
you got Jesus, I can’t say a blasted thing about anyone without you interfering. The truth is the truth. That woman is the town gossip and you know it.”
Amelia hated to cause dissention. Her stomach knotted. “Ma, the city provides distance. Change. Plus, Grandmother and Grandfather invited me to come anytime. It’s not as if I’ll be alone.”
Ma grunted and held out her arms, and Amelia fell into her embrace. Did this mean yes?
Ma squeezed her tight, then patted her back and leaned away. She met Amelia’s eyes with her warm and loving gaze. “Let your pa and I talk in private.”
Pa winked over the top Ma’s head.
“And if you don’t mind starting supper...” Ma suggested.
Amelia rounded the corner into the kitchen. This was her future they were discussing, and Ma had a penchant for twisting Pa’s arm. Amelia couldn’t let that happen. She tiptoed back to within hearing range by the doorway.
Footsteps paced the floor from rug to hardwood and back again. Her ma always paced when she was bothered.
“Jeb. Get your head out of the clouds and help me sort this.”
“’Tis what I’m doing good wife. Never hurts to ask the Lord for a little wisdom, now does it?”
Amelia couldn’t deny the changes in Pa since he had become a Christian. That unexplained sadness had left his eyes, and he was peaceful, not so easily irritated or riled by Ma’s frustrations.
Ma harrumphed. “We did just fine without Jesus over the years, and we’ll do fine going forward.”
“Now, Doris.”
“Don’t you now Doris, me. I shouldn’t have gone to visit my parents last year. Who knew it would lead to losing one of my daughters?”
“You still have Jeanette, Lucinda, and Gracie to fill your days, and me of course. Besides, Richmond is not the end of the earth.”
“But everything about that city haunts me.”
“Everything? We grew up there. We have many happy memories. Don’t let the bad outweigh the good. Your parents—” “Spoiled and favored my sister because she was the beautiful
one, the belle of the ball, the witch on a broomstick—”
“That shade of green has never looked good on you.” Pa’s words held the perfect blend of both compassion and firmness. “Emmaline may have been beautiful on the outside, but you had the heart, the soul, the love. You have always outshone your
sister, but you’ve never believed that truth.”
“Balderdash.” Ma said. “You say that now, but we both know
the spell she cast over you.”
That was more information than Amelia should know. A stab of guilt pricked her consciousness. She shouldn’t be eaves‐ dropping, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
“Your parents apologized and treated you like gold on your last visit, did they not? And they loved Amelia. Correct?”
Ma released a long sigh. “To be honest, that’s the one thing that gives me hope they’ve changed.”
Ma’s words were muffled as the rain picked up once again. A loud blow into a handkerchief followed. Was Ma crying? What in the world had happened?
“It’s apparent you feel good about allowing her to go,” Ma said. “Wish I felt the same, but it’s clear I’m not going to change either of your minds today. Off with you, old man. I need a few minutes to myself.”
Amelia could not help the grin that spread across her face. A fresh start was one train ride away.
“I’m not going anywhere until I get a smile from my beau‐ tiful girl,” Pa said. “Come on... just one for me.”
Amelia’s heart squeezed tight. She longed to have a man love her the way Pa loved her ma.
“Do you need a sweet kiss to remove the sour, because I’d be more than willing to oblige?”
Amelia smiled at Pa’s teasing and scurried into the kitchen.

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