Love's New Beginning (a Love Comes Softly fanfiction)

The Same Stream

Clark was in the fields when a neighbor came by to tell him about Ma and Ben's daughter Laura, found dead in the creek behind the small shabby cabin she had shared with Milt Conners, her new, and good-for-nothing, husband.

He hurried in from the fields immediately, putting Dan and Charlie in the barn with something less than his usual care, and went to find Marty.

She was looking up into the apple tree with an almost reverent look on her face, and the eagerness that shone in her eyes when she looked at him, when she reached out her hand for his to show him the blossoms on the tree, made his heart leap with joy, before it sank like a stone in his chest knowing that his news would take all the joy out of the day.

He explained what had happened as quickly as he could, wanting to get the news out and over with, telling her that Ma was going to need her. A close friendship had sprung up so quickly between the two women that Clark was sure it was Marty's comfort Ma would be looking toward first in this dark time.

Marty broke down sobbing, reaching for him blindly, and he held her close, stroking her hair, as she wept out her heartbreak and confusion.

When she had managed to pull herself together, they collected the children and took them along to the Grahams'. Clark left Marty there and hurried over to the cabin. The body was gone, on its sad way back to the Grahams', but Milt Conners was there, drunk and desperate to act as though he knew nothing.

Clark was surprised at just how angry he was. He could easily have done violence to this terrible man in front of him, who had destroyed Laura's life, whether he had been the one to take it or not. Instead, he settled for letting just enough of his anger show to sober Milt up a bit, and making it clear that it would go very badly for Milt if anyone else from the community found him still living there when the day was done.

By the time Clark accompanied Ben to the cabin, Milt was long gone, and no one they knew ever saw him again.

They asked Clark to say the burying words, and he got through them somehow, all the while imagining what it must be like to have to say good-bye to your child this way, and wishing he could somehow soothe the terrible grief the Grahams were feeling.

Weeks went by—weeks in which the crops and animals grew, and Missie contracted the measles, giving Clark and Marty some concerning days and nights before she was declared to be on the mend. During her illness, the first wagon train left for the East, but neither of them paid any attention to it. Missie was the only thing that mattered to them then.

One afternoon just at the end of the illness, Clark came in from the fields early to check on her. Inside the house, he found both of the children sleeping sweetly, and he stood for a moment watching their little faces, the way Missie's breath ruffled one of her wayward curls, the little movements of Clare's mouth as he sucked on his fist. How he loved them.

He looked outside and saw Marty on her way to the little spot by the stream that she had claimed for her own, her thinking place. By the time he followed her there, she was leaning against a tree trunk, eyes closed, lips moving faintly in prayer.

Sinking down with his back against another tree, Clark gave himself up to watching her, seeing the thoughts pass across her expressive face. Maybe this was the time to tell her, this quiet moment alone.

She opened her eyes and jerked upright, startled.

"Sorry to be a frightin' ya," he said. "I seed ya a comin' over here an' I thought me you'd maybe not mind me a comin' too."

"'Course not," she assured him.

Having gotten this far, he wasn't sure what to say next. He picked up a small branch and began tossing pieces of it into the water, watching them be carried away. "Guess life be somethin' like thet stream," he said at last.

"Meanin'?"

"Things happen. Leaves stomp it up—animals waller in it—spring floods fill it with mud." He hesitated. "Bright sunshine makes it like a mirror glass, sparklin' rain makes it grow, but still it moves on—unchangin' like—the same stream even with the changes. It breaks through the leaves, it clears itself of the animal wallerin'—the muddy waters turn clean again. The sunshine an' the rain it accepts, fer they give life an' strengthen it like, but it really could have done without 'em. They're extrys like."

He looked over at her, but her eyes were on the stream, watching it pass as he had done. He knew she still struggled with her grief for Laura and her sympathy for Ma, and her confusion as to why things happened in a world where God loved them all.

"Life's like thet," he continued. "Bad things come but life keeps on a flowin', clearing its path gradual like, easin' its own burden. The good times come; we maybe could make do without 'em, but He knows thet we need 'em to give meanin'—to strengthen us, to help us reflect the sunshine. Guess one has to expect the good an' the bad, long as we be a livin', an' try one's best to make the bad hurt as little as possible, an' the good—one has to help it grow like, make all the good count."

Clark looked down at his hands. What he had wanted to say to her still remained to be said, but he thought maybe he had said what she needed to hear—and what he did. If she left, he would make do. He would make the best of it. But he would continue doing his best to make her see that life flowed best when they were together, to allow her to come to that understanding on her own. And he would pray that God's will be done.

Quietly, he got to his feet and went inside to see to the children, letting Marty have her time there alone by the stream.