The Price of Forgetting

Chapter 5

Something I hadn't foreseen once everyone knew about me and Matthew was how much our freedom would be limited. We were no longer allowed to roam wherever and whenever we wanted. We could still go walking, but Mama and Papa said we mainly had to stay out in the open. If we were allowed to go into the woods, we had a time limit. I'm not sure what they were so afraid of. I was happy just kissing Matthew and holding his hand, and they seemed fine with that as long as we didn't get too affectionate in front of everyone, which we never did. It was bad enough that we'd been caught a few more times after Isaac first discovered our secret. I certainly wasn't looking for an audience.

I didn't really even know what else we could do, and I wasn't ready to find out. And Matthew would never try to push me into anything. Mainly we spent our time as we always had - talking, teasing, laughing, and occasionally fighting. Only now our fights usually ended with a kiss.

Unfortunately, our new restrictions meant that visits to our special place were rare and short. We still managed sometimes, but it wasn't quite the same. Usually we only had time to actually get there and maybe sit for a few minutes before we'd have to start heading back.

Still, it was like Heaven knowing Matthew loved me the way I'd always wished he would. And while we had always spent most of our time together, now it felt like we were heading toward something.

As a little girl, whenever I thought of marrying Matthew, I always felt a little silly. At the time it seemed so far away, not to mention impossible since I hadn't known how he felt. But as time passed, it didn't just seem possible, it was expected. And not just by us. Our whole family thought so too. They'd never actually come out and said, but there were plenty of comments about the future - about Matthew's and my future together - that let me know there wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind.

By the time I was seventeen, Mama had started helping me prepare for my own home. I'd always helped around the house plenty, but now she expected me to do more. I was expected to make meals on my own and I had to keep up with several more chores than I ever had to before. I also thought that the item she was currently working so studiously on, looked suspiciously like a wedding dress.

I didn't mind any of it. I just wanted to know when things would change. I expected Matthew to propose any time now, but he gave no indication it was coming. I suspected that the secret project he spent so much of his time on was a house. My guess was that he wanted to be finished with it before proposing. Which was sweet, but also kind of frustrating since I had no idea how far along he might be. He'd been working at it for several months, but that didn't tell me much since I had no idea how long it should take or how many people might be working on it with him.

Part of me wanted to wait to be surprised, but a much bigger part wanted to catch him at it. Maybe I wasn't quite as mature as I thought, because I really wanted to be able to surprise him first.

And so, I planned to try to track Matthew down. Part of the mystery was that I had no clue where he might choose to build a house. I guessed it wasn't too far from Grandmother's or his parents' house, but that didn't really narrow it down. The area was large. He could literally be a few miles in any direction. He could have chosen to stay near the road or, as I suspected was the case, he could have chosen a spot into the woods a bit.

Wherever it was, I couldn't very well just wander around until I found him. Even if it was practical, Matthew would kill me.

Instead, I planned to corner him or someone else who might know. I just wasn't totally sure who would know the details. I guessed he was getting a lot of help from Papa, Uncle William, and Uncle Michael, but I knew none of them would tell me anything helpful.