“But the following morning, she... um.” His voice cracked, and he paused, swallowing hard. “She awoke with a fever, delirious and seeing things that weren’t there. I rode to town and fetched the doctor, but by then, there was nothing he could do.”
Caroline fought back tears at the thought of what her sister had endured. And Jackson, too. Regardless of his sins, it wasclear he loved Amanda. “Did the doctor know what the illness was?”
“Not with certainty. His best guess was an infected appendix.”
Caroline dropped her voice to a near-whisper, fearing the answer to her next question, but wanting to know it, all the same. “Did she suffer?”
Jackson shook his head. “Only a little, now and then, when the opium wore off.”
He shifted his gaze and stared, unfocussed, at some random spot beyond her shoulder. “If I’d paid more attention…” he murmured, his blue eyes filled with torment. “If she’d seen the doctor sooner…”
Caroline reached out and laid her hand on his wrist. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”
Jackson’s eyes cut to her hand, and he withdrew from her touch.
Did she have the faintest clue how her presence had affected him when she appeared without warning? His first words to her were curt and few—not because he meant to be rude—but because he was barely able to retain control of his emotions.
He was already raw with grief, and now he was forced to face the woman he’d hurt when he made the hardest decision of his life.
He scooted his chair back and rose. “I’ll take you to the grave.”
Jackson didn’t offer his arm this time. He led Caroline across the fallow meadow and up the hill, stopping a few yards away from Amanda’s resting place. “I ordered a marble headstone from a mason in Omaha,” he remarked, not sure what else to say. “He’ll send it by train to Fort Kearny, but it’ll be a while before it arrives, and longer, still, before I can make the trip to retrieve it.”
Caroline nodded, her eyes moist and her jaw tense.
“I’ll leave you to pay your respects.”
He started walking as they went their separate ways then turned around. As much as it hurt to look at Caroline, he felt compelled to do it, anyway. She was the same person he’d known most of his life, and yet, she was different.
Her mahogany mane that used to fall loose from its pins at the slightest provocation was now cinched into a tight chignon, and she carried herself in a way that radiated poise and maturity. To a degree, she always had, but—even if her face hadn’t been pale and drawn with mourning—he’d lay odds the girlish smiles she used to flash were a thing of the past. Caroline had changed.
She’d attained the epitome of womanhood, and it rendered her more beautiful than ever before.
As Caroline reached the humble mound of earth marked by a simple wooden cross, the remnants of anger towards her sister faded away. She knelt beside the grave, her fingers tracing the roughly hewn letters that had been carved into the wood.
Amanda Maguire
Beloved wife and mother
“Oh, Amanda,” she wept, her heart heavy with sorrow that was no longer tainted by bitterness. “I should have written to you,” she choked out. “I should have visited you, been here to take care of you.
“I was angry... for so many things. But I should have given you a chance to tell me what happened.”
Caroline covered her face and cried into her hands until her sobs subsided. Then she sat, listening to the wind drone over the dormant grass, begging both God and her sister for forgiveness.
Once her cheeks had cooled, she rose and brushed the dust and chaff from her skirt.
Jackson stood several yards away at the fence line, staring at one of his fields.
As she approached, the muscles of his back flexed and tightened under his shirt. His hands were gripping the top rail so tightly, the bronze was completely blanched from his knuckles, and his arms quivered with strain.
The trip to Amanda’s grave must’ve stirred his grief.
Caroline lifted her arm to offer a comforting touch.
“Go away,” he growled like a surly snapping dog.
She withdrew her hand and stared at his back. No man liked to be seen crying, but he didn’t need to be so rude.
