An Excerpt from Lily's Sister
Lily's Sister
by Karen J. Hasley
I knew Jim was right, but his advice made me cross. My town, my friends, my store, my living, my life—no one had a right to barge in and disrupt any of it. But there was no use taking my bad temper out on a leprechaun.
"I know," I said meekly, then added with a touch of asperity as he headed for the door, "and he's not my Mr. Davis."
We were long spoiled in Blessing, a small Kansas town that always lived up to the promise of its name, an orderly and peace-loving community mantled under the rule of law. My sister Lily and I were born and raised on the southern edge of Blessing in what was for Blessing a mansion, a big stone house with a pristine white fence around the front yard and a welcoming crescent window of wine-colored glass over the elegant front door. Father had ordered that distinctive window from New York to surprise my mother, his dark-eyed Kansas belle with cameo skin and lustrous auburn hair. The window didn't match the color of her hair exactly, Father told us with apology, but I could tell the pleased smile on Mother's beautiful face made his effort worthwhile. Caldecott's General Store and Dry Goods, our family's flourishing business, sat solitary and successful on the eastern side of the street, directly across from the house. That small Kansas town was a wonderful place for two loved little girls to grow up.
"Not boom or bust," Father would often say, pleased with the play on words, "just Blessing."
When I think back to that summer, John Davis's blue eyes are what first come to mind although the dreaded combination of drought and locust had us all on edge long before I met John. Already by late spring, the rippling waves of heat rose with the golden intensity of midsummer as if the prairies had been set on fire. Even for the old-timers, 1880 was turning into the hottest year in memory. By June the ground had started to dry out and crack, the corn stood stunted, the wheat too brittle, the yellowing grass sharp like pins.
Father, dead almost six years by then, was spared all the pain of that time. Had it been otherwise, I know the summer's terrible events would have killed that good and principled man. Augustus Caldecott, my father and the only man I can name who successfully combined ambition and principle, carried two passions with him to his grave. One, the memory of Rebecca, the woman with the cameo face who became my mother, and the other her perfect image, my sister Lily. The affairs of that summer would have struck so mortal a blow to those passions that Father would not have recovered. I never thought to say "Thank God" for his quick and sudden passing, but with time and circumstance the words come more easily.
End of Excerpts
Copyright © 2006 Karen J. Hasley.
All rights reserved.
