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Apparently the mistress had been pregnant at the time and it wasn’t clear whether he knew this or not when he walked down the aisle with his chosen bride. Sad!
She always told these stories in a hushed voice that always seemed to transfix me, and the baby who was usually on my hip or in her highchair as I made her fresh vegetables for lunch.
As for Callan, we seemed to move together and around each other like a well-oiled machine. There was never an uncomfortable moment in his presence, which wasn’t exactly normal for me. The girl who usually takes her time getting used to new people.
Trudy was still a bit of a mystery to me, and not even Ella said too much about her. Sometimes at night I’d hear her climb the stairs and sneak down to his room. Only to hear her footsteps retreating seconds later followed by muffled tears.
I find that I can’t fall asleep until I hear those footsteps at night, like a routine. Always my body would tense up as I listen to hear if he’d accept her. Their relationship was a strange one for sure.
It was obvious he didn’t like her, not even a little bit. But still he didn’t seem to mind her being here, even though she wasn’t allowed near the baby. Weird!
And my dreams. By the third night I found that I was rushing through the day, looking forward to nightfall. To that secret time alone in bed when he visited me in my dreams. It had become an obsession.
It was always a struggle between sitting out on the porch with the real Callan, listening to the soothing timbre of his voice, or rushing up to bed to fall into his arms in my dreams.
We’d fallen into the habit of spending more and more time together in the evenings after dinner. Once Trudy disappeared into the shadows and the baby was down for the night, it was just the two of us, alone.
Outside at night became a whole other world. Under the dark blue sky blanketed with stars, the crickets singing in the grass as the frogs seemed to answer them from the pond.
You could almost get lost in the euphoria that always seemed to descend as soon as the sun went down in the sky. I love that time of the evening, between dusk and full dark.
When everything seemed still and eerily quiet. As if there was no other place in existence. And we were the only two people in the world. Us, and the sweet baby asleep upstairs.
That’s when I’d learn all about what he’d done with his day. I never thought I’d find such pleasure in hearing about cows and sheep and the cotton and bean fields that had been part of his family since the beginning.
He was such a great story teller I could almost see his day play out in my minds’ eye. Sometimes it was hard not to be lulled into a trance just by listening to the strong cadence of his tone. And more than once I wondered at the strange power his voice seemed to hold over me.
It was during those moments, the two of us alone in the coolness of the coming night, that he shared more of himself with me.
It was then I learned of his love for working on the oil rig, which as it turns out, is part of his family’s many business holdings, but that his heart was really here on his family’s land.
The land that has been in their hands since it was first settled over two hundred years earlier. The land he wanted his daughters and sons to one day inherit.
“Now that Belle is getting older, I think I might stick around here more often though. She needs her daddy to look after her.” I don’t know why him saying that should make my heart pitter-patter but it did.
I love the way he loves that little girl. The way he sometimes looks at her like she’s a miracle and he’s lucky to have her. It touches my heart deeply.
What’s more, those times alone with him has helped me to heal in a way I never expected. In fact, just being here has gone a long way in doing that.
My days are filled with too many new wonders for me to dwell too much on the past. The old house with it’s centuries of history, with it’s hidden secrets, just waiting to be revealed, have occupied my mind completely.
The past! Has it only been a few short days since I arrived here? Somehow it feels much longer. Like half a lifetime. That’s just one of the strange things about this place.
It’s almost like the house has opened its arms and welcomed me. Now I feel comforted and safe. And never more so than when I’m with him.
