Page 10 of Taming Lady Temperance

Her smile was so annoyingly hopeful that Noreen turned her mouth down the same degree in the opposite direction just to balance things out.

“Not a suitor, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Noreen grabbed the extra apron from the hook near the door, fit her head through the opening above the bib, then tied the strings around her waist. “And Deputy Paxton’s not all that young. He’s at least thirty.”

“Well, you’re not all that young yourself.” Mama turned back to the stove and the gravy she’d been whisking when Noreen came in. “Seems to me thirty and twenty-seven fit together quite nicely.”

Noreen sighed as she collected the pot of boiled potatoes and poured them into a colander that was waiting for her in the sink. Mama always left the potatoes for her to mash. The arrangement served them both well. Noreen had an excuse to smash something—an excellent outlet for the frustration that invariably beset her when visiting her mother and stepfather—and her mother ended up with well-creamed potatoes for the dinner table.

“Mama, we’ve been over this a hundred times.” She exhaled heavily enough to flutter the ruffles on her apron bib. “I don’t need a man to take care of me. I’m fine on my own.”

The whisk slowed its cast-iron scraping. “But are you happy?”

Noreen dumped the drained potatoes back into the hot pan and moved to the wooden worktable. She glanced toward the stove, and a genuine curiosity pushed aside her normal defensiveness. “Are you happy, Mama?”

The hint of a shadow passed over her mother’s lined face. “I’m content, and, yes, at times, I would classify myself as happy.”

At times. Times that were rare and far between as far as Noreen could tell.

“Now, don’t go pitying me, Reenie.” Mama pushed the gravy skillet to the back of the stove and covered it with a lid. “Arthur has been good to us. In fact, he was an answer to prayer. I was barely older than you are now when your father died. I had no money, the bank was fixin’ to take the farm, and I had a daughter to feed and clothe. I needed a provider, and the Lord sent Arthur. A man who attended church, who owned his own business, and—most important to me at the time—a man who abstained from strong drink.”

Mama’s gaze carried the weight of haunting memories. Noreen shared many of them, but she’d likely never know the full extent of what her mother had suffered. Father had been a brute when he drank, and when the farm began to fail, his drinking—and his temper—worsened.

“Arthur isn’t perfect,” Mama said as she checked the green beans simmering in a small pot, “but he takes care of me, and if you ever found yourself in need, he’d take care of you, too.”

Noreen didn’t share her mother’s faith in the goodness of Arthur Clevenger’s heart, but she had to admit that the man had kept food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. It was too bad that in return he expected subservience and the forfeiture of any opinions that differed from his own. Mama might have a nice house and pretty things, but her spirit had shriveled from years of emotional drought.

Noreen contemplated her mother as she pummeled the potatoes. Long ago, Noreen had vowed never to surrender her identity to a man. She refused to become her mother, trading independence for security. Yet hearing Mama talk about being near Noreen’s age when she was left on her own with no way to provide for a child stirred an empathy she’d not experienced before. She knew how difficult finding work as a single woman could be. Adding a child to the equation would complicate things a hundredfold.

Perhaps Mama hadn’t taken the easy way out by marrying the first man who came along. Perhaps she’d chosen the only viable path open to her at the time. Noreen couldn’t even imagine having a child to take care of in her current circumstances. She barely managed to provide for herself. Perhaps it was time she stopped judging her mother for her choices and started extending grace.

Releasing her grip on the masher, Noreen moved to the stove and wrapped her arms around her mother from behind, resting her cheek against the back of Mama’s head. “Thank you for taking care of us all those years ago. I’m sorry if I’ve acted ungrateful for the sacrifices you made.”

Her mother’s body quivered as she let go of her spoon and squeezed Noreen’s arms where they rested at her waist. Affection had never had room to flourish with Fiery Finn O’Sullivan at the family helm. And after his death, Noreen hadn’t wanted any connection. Any softness. She’d withdrawn and hardened herself, determined to rid her heart of all vulnerability. As if that were possible. Yet in the midst of this odd backward embrace, a pleasant warmth moved through Noreen that she hadn’t felt in years. The warmth of family.

“Ramona!” A door slammed at the front of the house, and Noreen’s mother jumped.

Pulling away from Noreen, she grabbed the bean spoon and started stirring with a vengeance.

“Better finish those taters,” she said as she lifted the edge of her apron with her left hand to give her eyes a quick swipe. “Arthur will be wanting his Sunday dinner.”

Arthur’s dinner could wait a few minutes in Noreen’s estimation. Some things were more important than a man’s eating schedule, like rare moments of emotional closeness between mother and daughter. But Noreen complied with her mother’s request and smashed with renewed frustration. As much as she wanted to encourage her mother to stand up for herself and not worry so much about bending to Arthur’s every whim, she bit her tongue. She could leave this house after the dishes were done. Mama lived here. She’d sworn Arthur had never hit her, but there was more than one way to inflict wounds, especially on the soul.

“Is your daughter here?” Arthur’s footsteps pounded in the hall. “I warned her not to dawdle with the deputy, but that girl is obstinate enough to defy me out of spite.”

Noreen rolled her eyes. Nice of him to confirm her absence before making free with the insults. Although, her presence had never inhibited his criticisms before, so he likely would have said much the same had he been standing directly in front of her.

“Noreen’s here,” Mama called as she poured the beans into a waiting serving bowl.

Arthur strode into the kitchen, sans hat and coat, the accoutrements no doubt hanging from a hook on the hall tree in the entry way. “Good, I intend to have serious words with her. You’ll not believe what this girl of yours has done now.”

Noreen scraped a heaping spoonful of butter into the potatoes, then sprinkled salt and pepper liberally into the mash. “At seven and twenty, I’m hardly a girl, stepfather. You really must stop addressing me as a child.”

Arthur’s eyebrows dipped into a sharp vee. “I’ll stop addressing you as a child when you cease acting like one. I swear, Noreen. You are the most selfish, willful female I’ve ever encountered. You give no thought to how your actions will reflect on others or what repercussions they might carry.”

Not in the mood to listen to her sins recounted ad nauseum, Noreen took up the bowl of perfectly seasoned potatoes in one hand and the bowl of green beans in the other and backed through the swinging door that led into the dining room.

“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you, girl.”

Noreen gritted her teeth. Sunday dinners in the Clevenger household were rarely enjoyable, but this one was gearing up to be especially unpleasant.