Abbie's Child. Linda Castle
She sat down in one of the two remaining empty chairs. They were at the opposite end of the table, as far from Willem as possible. After a momentary pause she began to serve herself.
Willem cast a quick glance around the table and picked up a fat brown dinner roll. Ten men turned to stare at him in stupefied horror.
Mrs. Cooprel smiled patiently. “We say grace, Mr. Tremain.”
He dropped the bread as if it had burned him. For the life of him, he couldn’t prevent the advance of heat across his face. He watched the miners duck their heads, and he did likewise. What was it about this widow that made a man feel like a snot-nosed kid? He felt as if he’d stepped into some sort of bottomless pit where his old life flashed by like a runaway locomotive. Abigail’s clear voice invoked a blessing upon the men and her home, while he tried to tamp down his embarrassment.
Willem mumbled a hasty “Amen” just as the door opened behind him. Cool air rushed in. Will turned in his chair to see a panting boy, barefoot and encased from head to toe in loamy mud. The bedraggled child dropped a fishing pole at the back door and stuck a battered, shapeless hat on a peg halfway up the wall.
“Matthew, you are late.” Mrs. Cooprel fastened a stern look on the boy. Willem almost squirmed in his own chair. He felt an instant kinship with the child. Only moments ago he had felt the same icy sting of disapproval, he thought.
“I know, Mama. I’m sorry. But I stopped to get these for you.” Matthew thrust a wilting bouquet of purple columbines and crushed daisies toward Abigail. “And I caught these.” He proudly held up a piece of twine holding two glistening rainbow trout. The widow’s face melted into a beaming smile. She accepted the flowers with mist-filled eyes.
“Oh, Matthew, these are truly fine.” She raised her head and her eyes swept the table. “Aren’t they fine, gentlemen?”
Willem found himself wearing a grin. Damned if he could figure out how he’d got pulled into this drama and why he wasn’t wolfing down the savory meat, potatoes and carrots on his plate, but he sat there watching the little boy with rapt attention. While he stared at the dirty-faced boy he pain-fully acknowledged his own deep, abiding hunger to know his child.
“I’ll get these into a jar of water and put them on the table for us all to look at. Now you go wash up.” Abigail’s voice had the mellow quality of a mother cat purring to its kitten while she rose from the table.
The child nodded his untidy head and scampered off, dropping the fish to the floor on his way. Abigail stared at them as if a gold nugget had just been deposited at her feet.
“Don’t you bother. I’ll get them, Missus.” Brawley scooted his chair out and stood.
Mrs. Cooprel looked at him absently and smiled. Her face was almost angelic in its maternal happiness.
“Thank you, Brawley.” She turned and went to the cup-board by the water pump. She finally found a jar to her liking and filled it with water before she arranged the flowers in its mouth. They were wilted and broken, and dirt still clung to the roots in clumps, but she treated the gift as if it were the dandiest bouquet of posies a woman ever received. She placed them in the center of the long table and sighed contentedly.
“The lad needs a man’s firm hand but he’s comin’ along…He even cleaned the fish himself this time, ma’am. I told him he should do that last week. Guess he’s finally listenin’.” Brawley put the fish in a pan of water.
If the widow noticed the man’s remark she gave no indication. When she was settled back in her chair one of the men at the table took a bite—finally—and Willem seized the opportunity to spear a plump chunk of meat. He popped it into his mouth and savored the taste of venison.
The patter of running feet announced Matthew’s return. The boy darted in, still buttoning a clean shirt. His wet hair lay in curly waves around his wide forehead. Willem felt his jaw go slack. His fork froze in midair while he stared.
“Now you look like my little boy and not some ragamuffin.” She rubbed her fingers through the child’s clean, wet hair. When she patted the empty chair next to her own the boy plopped down. Several of the miners complimented him on the size of his fish. The child took it all with reserved humility.
“Who is this young man?” Will’s voice sounded hollow and stiff.
Abigail looked up and smiled proudly. “This is my son, Matthew Cooprel.”
Willem felt a tightness in his chest when Matthew turned and smiled at him. His eyes were a piercing sky blue—they made Will’s gut twist with pain for the child he longed to find.
“Matthew, this is our newest boarder, Mr. Willem Tremain.”
Willem blinked and forced himself to nod at Matthew in greeting. The boy smiled politely before he turned his attention to the food Abigail was piling on his plate. Matthew occupied himself answering his mother’s many questions about his fish. The rest of the men had lapsed into their own private conversations, leaving Willem to his own company. He found himself straining to hear the widow and her boy.
“How did you land such big fish, darling?” Willem saw the veil of reserve evaporate from her eyes. Mrs. Cooprel laughed, and for the first time he saw the real woman beneath the cool shell.
“Mama, you should’ve seen it.” Matthew paused long enough to shove some food into his mouth. He chased it with a gulp of milk. He wiped the white mustache with his napkin before he continued in a rush of words. “One was so big it pulled me down the bank!”
Abigail smiled indulgently and raised one eyebrow, but she didn’t comment. She watched Matthew from under her thick fringe of lashes. The boy frowned and wrinkled his nose, obviously considering some weighty problem.
“Well, he almost pulled me in. I did slip and fall in the mud while I was trying to get him out of the water,” Matthew admitted sheepishly.
They both laughed. Willem felt his chest constrict. No matter how much he might wish for this bright, healthy child to somehow be his own, he knew he was not—and it cut him to the marrow.
Willem ducked his head and tried to quell the over-whelming depression filling his insides. It had been foolish of him to hope, after all these years, that he could walk into Guston and miraculously find the child he’d never even seen—a child the Pinkerton men had not been able to locate in over a year, even though they had used all their resources and every cent Will could supply to them. He snorted at his cockeyed thinking and tore a piece of bread apart.
Seeing Mrs. Cooprel with her son made him realize how deep his feeling of loss ran. Willem found himself wondering how many similar conversations he had missed out on over the past six years. He shoved another forkful of food into his mouth, but it had lost all its flavor. Willem brooded silently and scolded himself for his foolishness. Matthew laughed and Will raised his head. He watched Abigail and her son while the pain of old scars and lingering regret gripped him in an ever-tightening fist.
Matthew was a fine-knit lad. Wild brown curls framed a face tanned and lightly freckled. He had a glow of health and happiness and blue eyes that twinkled with mischief each time the child answered a curious miner’s question. It was easy to see he was well liked by them all, but it appeared to Will that the boy kept himself somewhat apart from them. Brawley Cummins tried to draw Matthew into conversation several times, only to receive short “yes” or “no” answers.
Willem brooded in silence. He felt distanced from the group of men at the table. Certainly not the first time he’d experienced such a feeling of isolation; he’d spent most of his adult life alone, particularly since Moira had left him. But seeing Matthew Cooprel brought his loneliness into crystalline perspective. It was like watching the widow and her small son from behind a pane of window glass. He could see glowing family happiness, witness its magic, but he could never