Christmas With the Colburns by Keely Brooke Keith Read Free Book Online Page B

only Mr. Colburn, John, and Mr. Colburn’s
blind sister, Isabella, and herself at the dinner table. It seemed extravagant
to spend two days cooking for four people, but she said as the overseer’s wife,
she never knew who else might join them and she wanted to be prepared. Some
Christmases travelers needed hospitality, and some Christmases people were
alone and she invited them over. Since I fit into both of those categories, I
smiled and continued pitting cherries for the salad recipe she was teaching me.
    Isabella sat at the
table, snapping green beans. She had a funny way of being so quiet for so long,
I’d forget she was around, and then she’d interject some comment proving she
listened to every word spoken in the Colburn house.
    As I worked on the
cherries, Violet made the sauce at the cook stove. “Beat two eggs in your
saucepan with a wooden spoon like so, and then add one cup of sugar and one cup
of heavy whipping cream.” She scraped every drip of cream out of the cup. “The
trick is to keep stirring the sauce on medium heat for about fifteen minutes.
For the perfect cherry salad, you’ll want the sauce thick, but be careful not
to burn it.”
    My fingers were tired
by the time I’d finished pitting thirty ounces of cherries, but the smell of
the warm sweet sauce assured me the work would be worth it. I carried the bowl
of cherries to Violet. “When do we mix these into the sauce?”
    She wagged a finger at
me and moved the saucepan from the cook stove to a potholder on the countertop.
“Oh, not for hours. We have to let the sauce and the cherries chill before we
mix them together. And we’ll mix in a cup of crushed walnuts then too. Now,
keep those cherries in their juices and cover the bowl. I want you to take it
down to the cellar to chill in the icebox. Then come back for this sauce. I’ll
have it in a covered dish by then.”
    I held the bowl of
cherries with both hands as I stepped out the back door and descended the sunny
steps to the dark cellar. As I pushed the heavy wooden door open and stared
into the blackness inside, I was overcome with grief. I’d spent the day cooking
with Violet in her warm sunlit kitchen and had enjoyed it so very much that I’d
forgotten the dark loneliness that awaited me.
    I leaned against the
open door without a ray of light touching me and closed my eyes. My tears fell
silently at first, but were swiftly followed by forceful weeping. Bereft, I
forgot all about the cherries and cried.
    I don’t know if I heard
him coming, but when I think back, I know I felt him there. At once, the bowl
was taken from me and a hand was on my shoulder. I wiped away the tears that
blurred my vision. John Colburn was standing there, holding the bowl and
looking down at me. His steel blue eyes were full of concern. I hid my face in
my hands. “I’m so sorry you saw me like this. Please go.”
    I heard movement and
peeked between my fingers, hoping he’d left the cellar. Instead, he set the
bowl in the icebox and lit a lantern. He blew out the match and turned back to
me. “You need light.”
    “Thank you.” Ashamed he
could now clearly see my face, I tried to blink back my tears. “I didn’t come
down here to cry.”
    “I know.”
    “It’s just that your
mother is so kind and your house is so peaceful and until I came down here I’d
forgotten I have to leave in a few days and not just leave this house but the
village. My home. This village is my home. I am a grown woman and my parents
said I had to go with them to Northpoint or go to my cousin’s in Riverside, but
I don’t want to. I want to stay here in Good Springs, but my brother’s wife
didn’t want me to live with them. My father said I’m still his responsibility
since I’m unmarried, but the best he could come up with was to send me away.
But I don’t want to leave Good Springs.”
    I stepped toward John
and he wrapped me in his arms, reflexively, which was fitting because he was
training to be the overseer