Only Through Love: A Cane River Romance Novella Read online

  Only Through Love

  A novella

  by

  Mary Jane Hathaway

  All rights reserved. © 2014 by Gumbo Books and Mary Jane Hathaway.

  Cover art provided by Kim Van Meter

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The title of this book comes from the Sara Teasdale poem called Child, Child. I’ve added the full poem to the end of the book under Novels, Illustrators, Poets and Poetry That Play a Role in This Book.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.virginiacarmichael.blogspot.com

  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18 (NIV)

  This book is dedicated to those who have ever loved too much. May you always have a soft heart. The world needs you.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  OTHER TITLES

  OTHER TITLES

  Acknowledgements

  Dear reader,

  Novels, illustrators, poetry, and poets which play a role in this story:

  BIOGRAPHY

  Louisiana Creole glossary

  Recipes

  Chapter One

  Heart, we will forget him!

  You and I, tonight!

  You may forget the warmth he gave,

  I will forget the light.

  ― Dickinson

  Charlie Soule glanced up from her paperback and squinted into the bright August sunlight. By the Book was unusually quiet for a Wednesday. She hadn’t noticed the hours slipping by until the late afternoon sun hit the front desk like a floodlight. On her right, a large gray cat stretched from tail to nose, the papers under his paws shifting with a whisper. Morphing into an upright position, he fixed her with a sleepy look. Van Winkle had been a resident of the old bookstore for as long as Charlie had been around. He was like a paperweight, but less mobile.

  “If you don’t like the sun, you should sleep elsewhere.” She was wasting her breath since Van Winkle was as much as part of the desk as the cash register. Setting down Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein, Charlie crossed the gleaming checkerboard foyer and pulled the blinds down as quietly as possible. As she came back around the desk, she paused to look into the playpen set up between the two antique office chairs. Sprawled on a light cotton blanket, arms outstretched as if ready to embrace the world, was three-month-old Aurora Olivier. Charlie leaned down, admiring how the baby’s dark curls were touched with highlights, how her long lashes curled against her flushed cheeks, and how her perfect mouth was open just enough for the softest breath to pass as she slept. She was wearing little pink shorts and a tiny white T-shirt that read “The Book Was Better”. Her temples were damp with sweat, but the temperature in the hundred year old building inched downward now that the room was cast into darkness. Charlie inhaled, wondering why Aurora always carried the sweet scent of strawberries.

  “Sedgwick said babies are alike as biscuits in a pan,” Alice said from somewhere behind her.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” Charlie straightened up and wondered how creepy she’d looked, hovering over Alice’s tiny baby.

  “I came through the back door.” She tenderly ran her fingers through Aurora’s fine dark hair, soft as corn silk. “I have to assume Sedgwick didn’t know many babies personally. They all look so different to me. And of course my own baby is the most beautiful of all.” She looked up. “Don’t correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “She certainly smells like a biscuit,” Charlie said. “I mean, she smells real good. Like something delicious.”

  Alice cocked her head and smiled. “She does have the sweetest breath, I do believe. Now, I hate to do it, but I’d better wake her up or her schedule will be all cattywampus. I’ve got that new tenant and even though the walls are thick, I wouldn’t want him to hear her up at all hours.”

  Charlie nodded. Alice and Paul lived above By the Book, even though Paul had been making noises about buying a big farmhouse outside of town. He said he wanted somewhere on the river where he could teach Aurora to fish, which always made Charlie imagine the little baby wearing infant-sized waders and a hat decorated in lures. The apartment next door had been left empty after the last tenant, the pretty historian Henry Byrne, had married Gideon Becket and moved to his place out by Lac Terre Noir. Last Christmas Charlie felt as if everyone she knew had paired up, like the animals before the flood, and she was going to be left behind. Now the thought didn’t bother her a bit. It would be such a relief to be left alone with her bruised heart and broken spirit.

  “You should meet him,” Alice said, “before you head back to school.”

  “Who?” For a moment, she thought Alice said “meet with him” and her heat skipped a beat.

  “Austin, the man renting my apartment. The new tenant.” She shot Charlie a worried look. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure am.” Charlie turned to shuffle a few papers on the desk, her heart still beating hard. She’d been avoiding Alice’s husband, Paul, all summer. Tell her now. It was nearly September. She didn’t know why she was so afraid, since she and Alice were good friends, maybe best friends. Charlie had started working in By the Book when she was just a teenager, and she’d come back to work in the little antique bookstore every summer and holiday throughout her college years. Now she was headed into her last year, the home stretch, the final push to getting her degree. Or she should have been.

  “He graduated from University of Louisiana and works down at the Juvenile Justice Center as one of their counselors. Cora Jeunesse says everyone loves him. The kids respond to him when they won’t listen to anyone else. It’s like he always knows exactly what to say.”

  Charlie didn’t respond. Once upon a time she’d given her heart to someone like that.

  Alice leaned over and ever-so-gently lifted Aurora into her arms. The baby was as limp as a cooked strand of spaghetti for a moment then started to stretch. “When he moved in, he mentioned how glad he was that the apartment was wired for cable internet because he plays Ultimate Voyager several hours a day. You can imagine how happy Paul was to hear that.”

  Charlie’s stomach flipped over. Paul created Ultimate Voyager, one of the biggest multi-player online games, and Charlie used to be completely dedicated to the game herself, besides being Paul’s biggest fan. She’d spent nearly five years with the same character and nearly four years with her guild. That little group had been like her family and she’d thought those friendships were rock solid. All that was gone and just hearing about the game made her sick to her stomach.

  Aurora scrunched up her face and made unhappy sounds. Alice rubbed her back in gentle circles, saying, “He really reminds me so much of you. Smart, young, passionate, loves technology and gaming, cares about people.”

  “Right. I’m sure he’s very nice.” She heard the flatness in her own voice and forced a smile. She didn’t feel smart, or young, and definitely didn’t care all that much about people. She didn’t care all that much about anything. She couldn’t afford to now.

  “And when he moved in, he brought in one suitcase full of clothes and about f
ourteen boxes of books. I think he chose the apartment just for all the built-in book cases.”

  Charlie caught herself before she could ask if Alice had seen what kind of books he’d brought. Meeting another book nerd used to give her happy bunny feels but not anymore. “Alice, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Of course.” She sat down and maneuvered Aurora into the crook of her arm with a practiced motion. “Let me change Aurora and I’ll feed her while we talk. She’s so sweaty. Can you pass me the diaper bag?”

  Alice quickly stripped the baby down and changed her diaper. “Hm. She goes through so many clothes. I thought people had sent us more clothes than we could possibly need but if she changes her outfit five times before noon, then we have just about enough. Or I could do laundry all day instead of run a bookstore.”

  “You could always put a washer downstairs in one of the back rooms.”

  Alice gave her a look of horror. “I thought you were going to suggest I pay someone else to do the laundry. I’m definitely not moving out books to make way for the washer.”

  She smiled. “Yeah. You’re right. Makes no sense.” For Alice, money was no option. She was happy for her. At the same time, she could see how it had changed the way she approached life.

  Alice gently dressed Aurora in a tiny red capris and a shirt that said “I Read Past My Bedtime”. Grabbing a little blanket, she settled into a chair. Charlie stared at the ornate cast iron lights as Alice helped the baby latch on. She wasn’t a prude but the nursing still seemed weird to her. It was so… personal. She’d never noticed babies nursing before. Now they seemed to be everywhere. It wasn’t really the nursing itself that bothered her, it was more the crushingly tender look Alice got in her eyes, the one that said almost everything she loved in the world was right there in her arms.

  “Mrs. Gaskell, I can’t hold you right now.” Alice wiggled her foot in the long haired tabby cat’s direction. “And you two, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mr. Rochester, looking as rough and scarred as ever, took up a position near the desk, and Jane Eyre gracefully settled herself beside him.

  Charlie glanced around and let out a snort of laughter. Darcy, the large black cat who lived high up on the top of the ranges, was perched at the end of the poetry section and seemed to be coldly observing the situation. Miss Elizabeth trotted toward the desk, eyes bright and mischievous as usual. Mrs. Bennet, a vocal and persnickety Siamese was close behind. “You ever get the feeling they’re critiquing your mothering?”

  “All the time. I think if I let Aurora wait another five minutes, we might have a riot on our hands.” After a few seconds, Alice relaxed in the chair, the baby tucked against her. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask?”

  Charlie paused and ran a hand over her hair, surprised again when she felt the silky strands end near her jaw. Having long hair had been perfect for cosplaying the dragon queen, and when she switched from bleached blonde to cotton candy pink last year, it seemed to match everything she wore, right down to all her gamer T-shirts. Now she didn’t care what she looked like, and for simplicity’s sake had cut it off, letting the color slowly leach away until it looked like yet another stupid mistake she regretted making. It had reverted to the same dark brown in all her baby pictures, but she didn’t remember herself that way, and every time she looked in the mirror, it felt like a shock.

  Ask her now. “I know you don’t really need that much help around here, but I was wondering if you had any hours extra available this Fall.”

  “Before you leave? Of course. You’re welcome to put in as many hours as you want all the way until the last day. And come back during Christmas break.” Alice nodded for emphasis. “You’re always welcome here, Charlie. You know this store as well as I do and you know the fantasy section much better. Bix does what he can, but with his eyesight, he just can’t help the customers like you can.” She leaned forward a little. “I really appreciate you. Maybe I don’t say that enough, but I do. You’ve been my right hand girl… woman… for years and years. Way back when I was struggling to keep this place afloat, you and Bix worked hard to bring in new customers and I’ll never forget it.”

  Way back when. Charlie looked down at her battered Converse. Before Alice married Paul, Alice had worried about money. Charlie hadn’t worried about money because Charlie’s parents had put aside thousands every year into a college account, planning for the day that their only child would go off to college. While Alice fretted about keeping the bookstore afloat, Charlie had acted like the selfish teen that she was and worried about reaching the next level in Ultimate Voyager. Now Alice never had to count her pennies again and Charlie was scared to death when she thought more than a few weeks ahead.

  “I meant this fall. You know, before Christmas.”

  “Wait. You want to stay here Natchitoches instead of going back for your senior year?”

  “Right. And it doesn’t matter how many hours you can give me. I don’t expect to work full time. I know Bix does a lot around here, too.” The elderly man was legally blind but he did a lot of welcoming customers and straightening the shelves.

  Alice switched to Creole, her voice soft. “Sha, why would you want to do that?”

  She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. Whenever Alice spoke to her in Creole, Charlie answered in English. It was the way it had always been. In Louisiana, quarter of a million people spoke some form of Cajun or Creole French but it the practice was fading away.

  Alice was young, but she acted like someone from her grandparents’ generation, stuck to the traditions of the Cane River people. Charlie had gone along with Alice’s funny projects and plans, but had always felt like being Creole set her apart in a way she didn’t want or need. Today she spoke it right back, hoping that she could head off all Alice’s questions.

  “Just don’t feel like going back.”

  There was a long silence, punctuated by the soft sound of Aurora’s little foot brushing against the desk, back and forth, back and forth.

  “Did something happen? I noticed you’ve been different this summer. I haven’t wanted to pry, but I saw…” Alice’s sentence trailed off and Charlie wondered what Alice saw in her now. Maybe the hardness she felt around her heart somehow translated to her eyes.

  “I just need to take a break for a little while.” Charlie looked around at the rows and rows of antique leather volumes filled with poetry, philosophy, history, ancient ballads and novels. “You always said that technology was going to be humanity’s downfall. I’ve been immersed in coding and digital art for so long I clean forgot what it was like to be in the real world.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “It’s just an experiment. I’m ready to step away from it all. You know, like Thoreau.”

  “You mean when he moved to Walden Pond? He didn’t step so far away. He was only a few miles from the city and I think his mom was still doing his laundry,” Alice said.

  “Really? Wasn’t he, like, forty years old?”

  “My point is that giving up technology completely isn’t the answer. The fact that I married Paul tells you I realized that I was wrong.”

  Charlie winced at the sound of Paul’s name. She thought the guilt would fade with time, but it had only grown stronger. “Or maybe you were just in love. People in love go against everything they believe.” She realized she’d said too much as soon as the words left her mouth.

  “Sha…” Alice’s green eyes shimmered with sudden tears. “Has something… did someone…”

  A hot band of grief tightened around Charlie’s heart. It had been four months, four long months of rebuilding her life but whenever she thought about what she’d done, it still felt like yesterday.

  “You can always talk to me,” Alice said. “No judgement. No advice if you don’t want it. I’m here, as your friend, if you need to talk to someone. About anything.”

  Girl, you’ve missed a lot and I don’t know even know where to begin. Charlie struggled to sound light hearted
. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. Imagine that you’re my Emerson, and I’ve finally decided to see what happens when I cut all ties to my online life. Who knows what kind of inspiration and understanding I’ll achieve. I could be a whole new person. Gentler, wiser, more open to accepting my fellow humans.”

  “Have you read Walden? It’s full of irony and satire. It skewers a lot of the social customs of the time. He’s not particularly gentle or accepting of people.”

  “Oh, well…” Charlie couldn’t think of a rebuttal. The honest truth was that this was no break. She never intended to go back. “Can I stay? If it’s not too much trouble? I might have to change my schedule a little when I get another job, but it would be so great if I could count on a few hours here.”

  “Of course, Charlie. Of course. You can even work here full time. I really do need a manager, now that Aurora takes up so much of my time.” Alice’s eyes were shadowed with worry. “You’ve been living with your cousin Jasmine for the summer, right? Are you staying there?”

  “No, she’s been real nice to let me stay the summer, but her roommate comes back for school in a few weeks. I’ve got some places lined up, but I haven’t exactly decided. I’ll let you know.” Six months ago she would have waved her arms in the air and shouted something about a dance party, but now she simply let the relief push away the ache in her chest. “Thank you. Again. Really.”

  Alice seemed about to ask another question when the little brass bell tinkled from where it hung on the front door. A tall, lanky young man walked through the doorway. His blonde hair was brushed casually to one side and he had an open, friendly face. The office wear hinted that he might be a lawyer or maybe a mid-level manager. He lifted a hand in greeting but Charlie didn’t respond. It only took a fraction of a second, but she pegged him for the golden boy type, the kind that needed only to flash a perfect smile and doors would open in front of him. Born on third base and going through life thinking he hit a triple. She’d never found middle class privilege so annoying before, but things were different now. She turned her back.