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“Father, I’m not sure if I should tell you.” She smiled sheepishly at him.
“Tell me,” Boyd said. “I want to know everything about you. Everything. Tell me, Lauralee, why you were never adopted? When you were placed with the other children, for people to choose from, surely you stood out from all of the rest as something sweet and beautiful.”
Lauralee reached for a cloth and dipped it into the water basin, then began absorbing the sweat on his brow into it as she caressed his clammy flesh.
“Sweet?” she said, laughing loosely. “No. Not many saw me as sweet when I was at an adoptable age. Instead, as a small child, I was labeled a ‘rebel’ and troublemaker. When people came to the orphanage to choose a child, I always hid away in a closet, the way I hid when the soldier came into our house that day during the war. After a while I had those in charge of the orphanage convinced that I didn’t want to be a part of anyone else’s family. Not when I had my own true Papa out there somewhere who would come for me one day.”
“I would’ve had I known,” Boyd said, choking back more tears. “Oh, but if only I had known where you were. I searched forever for you, Lauralee. But never as far as Saint Louis.”
He coughed again and hugged his chest with his arms in an effort to ward off the pain. “And now that I have found you, it’s too late,” he said, giving her a look that caused her whole insides to ache. “I know my condition. I’ve had pneumonia before. This time I’m not strong enough to get well.”
“I will make it so,” Lauralee said determinedly. She rose to her feet. “I shall go and get Doc Rose. He’ll make you well. I know it.”
“Lauralee, come back here and sit down,” Boyd encouraged, patting the bed at his side. “We’ve got your future to discuss, and we must do it while I am lucid enough.”
Lauralee sat down beside him again. Her eyes were wide as he told her his plan.
“You have been alone without family long enough. You need to be with family,” he said. “And I must arrange that before I die. Then I can die with a smile on my face.”
“Father, I know you mean well,” Lauralee said, knowing that she must face up to the fact that he was dying. All of the forceful intentions of telling him that he was going to live would be foolish, and would make it harder on him to know that she could not face up to the truth. “And I am touched by your concern. But I am no longer a child. No one would take me in at my age.”
“Lauralee, I know that you are no longer a child,” Boyd said, his voice sounding more and more drained. “But family is important. You need to experience the warmth and love of family.”
“Father, perhaps that is true, but I know of no one who would wish to take me in, as family. And I want you to know that I have dreamed of being a part of a family for as long as I can remember. But I only wanted it to be with you. Not strangers.”
“The people who I have in mind aren’t total strangers,” Boyd said, patting her hand. “Darling, I have a distant uncle. He and his wife are childless. When Abner and Nancy were young, Abner was too busy to get involved in adoption proceedings. And now they feel they are too old to adopt a youngster. Sweetheart, you aren’t a youngster, and you are true family to them. We just never got together so that you would know them as a child. I’ll wire Abner and Nancy. I’ll tell them about you. You will have an immediate home to go to.”
He paused, then placed a finger beneath her chin and drew her face down so that they were eye to eye. “You must promise to go to them,” he said thickly. “Lauralee, promise me?”
“Only if you will go with me,” Lauralee blurted out.
“Lauralee, you know as well as I that I have seen the last of my traveling days,” Boyd said wearily. “And you know enough about things to realize that I am not on this earth for much longer. Promise me, Lauralee, that once I am gone, you will go and live with your Uncle Abner and Aunt Nancy.”
“But I do not know them at all,” Lauralee said, sighing heavily.
“They know of you,” Boyd said, patting her hand. “On my brief visits to Mattoon during my travels away from you and your mother before the war, I spoke of you to them. They hungered to see you then. But time was against those sorts of wishes. The travel time from Tennessee to Illinois is not a pleasant thing for a frail woman and small child.”
“You say they make their residence in Mattoon, Illinois?” Lauralee asked, a part of her thrilled with the idea of becoming a part of a true family. Another part of her ached, now truly knowing that it would never be with her father.
“Yes,” Boyd said, sighing when he saw that she was actually considering what he asked of her. “And Mattoon is such a lovely city. Abner Peterson. Judge Abner Peterson and his wife Nancy could be your parents until you find a nice young man with whom to make a family of your own. I know that even before I send the wire their answer will be yes. They will welcome you with open arms and hearts.”
“Father, I don’t know . . .” Lauralee said, still battling with herself over what she must do.
“You will go,” Boyd said flatly. “And when I send the wire to Abner and Nancy, I shall at the same time see that a wire is sent to my friend Joe. He owes me a favor from way back. I am going to ask him to escort you to Mattoon.”
“An escort?” Lauralee said, arching an eyebrow. Her jaw tightened. “I need no escort anywhere. I can very well take care of myself.”
Boyd patted her hand again. “Honey, I know how you must feel about men,” he said softly. “After what you went through, who wouldn’t understand? But believe me when I tell you that you can trust my friend Joe. There’s no other man on this earth like him.”
Lauralee grew silent, fighting off remembrances of that fateful day of her mother’s rape and murder. Men. She had grown up wary of most men.
Father Samuel had managed to change much of those feelings for her. When he had encouraged her to work at the hospital, where she was faced with men every day, gradually she had become less wary of them.
But to take a long journey with a total stranger?
The thought made cold chills ride her spine.
Boyd was lost in his own thoughts—of a young Cherokee warrior. Joe Dancing Cloud. He was now thirty-three, a mature man, and extremely handsome. Surely Joe would come and see to this old dying man’s last wishes. He and Joe had been so much to each other through the years. They had met often to keep their special bond between them, a bond that would give Joe cause to come at Boyd’s request.
