An Excerpt from Lily's Sister

Lily's Sister
by Karen J. Hasley

My father died in my arms, an experience difficult to accept at any age, but for the young woman I was then, smart and confident and happy with life, especially hard. He died in the family store stocking shelves, a common task done without a thought of danger or death. Father had placed one foot on the ladder to lift up a sack of flour, and I heard him make an odd, choking sound. When I turned, I saw the pallor of his face, reached for him to break his fall, then cradled him in my arms as he died. I suppose his death was an omen of sorts, but I was just nineteen at the time and of a practical nature with little patience for the intangible. Besides, omens are revealed as truth only after the fact, and I'd have to wait six years before I realized that the store held life and death for more people than my father. Me, for example. I nearly died inside the family store and still have the scar to prove it. More than one scar inside and out, truth be told, but scars, even ones that heal clean and smooth, have their place in the telling of this story, and I'm not complaining.

I remember the beginning of the story as if it happened this morning—little Jeffy Hansen calling for help, poking his head just inside the door of the store to tell me Billy was in trouble, then taking off without further details to find his father. Catching Jeffy's urgency, I picked up my skirts and rushed outside, turned the corner, and came face to face with two toughs who might as well have had the word TROUBLE, all in capital letters, stamped on their foreheads. Grown men tormenting my Billy and my temper rising at the sight, since I have never been able to tolerate a bully.

That alley altercation was how I met John Rock Davis, a man who brought a different kind of trouble into my life—and heart—although never a bully, thank God. Anything but. If it hadn't been for that morning and the seemingly random intersection of simple-minded Billy and two thugs and John Rock Davis, Civil War veteran and man with a past, only God knows how my life would have turned out. But I did meet John that morning and loved him practically from the first moment I caught the full force of his clear blue eyes. For better or worse, that meeting set the future course of my life, and I believe now it was never random, couldn't have been, the way things turned out. The hand of God was busy in Blessing, Kansas, not that I realized it at the time. Too young. Too content with life. Too blinded by other loves, past and present. Too independent to admit any man held appeal. Too afraid of change. Too stubborn. A woman of excess and proud of it.

In the end when it came down to choices, I made mine although the memory still causes heartache, and I wouldn't wish what I had to go through to make that choice on anyone else. All hell broke loose that summer of 1880, but heaven, too, and it's the touch of heaven that makes even the worst times worth remembering.

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Copyright © 2006 Karen J. Hasley.
All rights reserved.