Part Four

After the events that occurred in Chicago, the two remaining weeks of separation seemed interminable to Mart and he was more than happy to be heading home to Sleepyside for Christmas. He did feel a little ambivalent about staying in the same house as his girlfriend, however, and having to be on his best behaviour. He itched with impatience through the various legs of his journey, and particularly through the last section, where he shared a car ride with Honey and Dan. His friends sensed his mood and left him be, making their own conversation along the way.

The gravel of the drive gave a familiar crunch as Dan slowed and made the turn. A minute later, they had pulled up near the house. Mart was out of the vehicle before it had completely stopped. By the time he reached the door, it had been thrown open from within. Daphne sped outside, heedless of the gently falling snow and her lack of a coat, and the two embraced.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Mart murmured in her ear.

“Mmm,” she replied, her face buried against his chest.

He laughed as she shivered and pushed her gently towards the house. Turning, he claimed his luggage from Dan and invited the pair inside for refreshments. At their polite refusal, he bid them goodbye, thanked them and watched as they drove away.

Daphne stood in the doorway, unwilling, it seemed, to let him out of her sight, but too cold to stay outside. She smiled at him and he went to her, with a feeling of peace and belonging in his heart.

Once inside, he was quickly engulfed in the familiar bustle of the farm during any celebration. Delicious scents wafted out from the kitchen and laughing voices could be heard in other rooms. Hurrying footsteps heralded the arrival of his mother, who hugged and kissed him. More casual footsteps belonged to his brother Brian, who greeted him and took his bags.

“Hey! Where are you going with those?” Mart asked, as Brian failed to take the stairs.

“We’ve had a slight change in the arrangements,” his mother explained. “You’ll be staying in the guest room–”

Trixie, arriving on the scene at full speed, interrupted her mother by grabbing Mart in a tight hug. “She means, I’ve kidnapped your girlfriend, and Brian’s, and left her with all the men. And Brian thought he’d like a room to himself and he’s kicked you out into the guest room.”

“Inaccurate in some details,” Brian noted, dryly, as he returned to the group, “but right concerning the essential points. Actually, Moms suggested that one of us take the guest room, so in your absence I flipped a coin to decide who stayed where.”

Mart nodded his approval of the plan and caught Daphne’s eye. His heart jolted in his chest to see the satisfied look on her face. As his mother excused herself to attend to something in the kitchen, he leaned towards his girlfriend to whisper in her ear.

“Why are you looking so smug?” he asked, as his arm slid around her waist.

For a moment, she just smiled up at him. “Trixie is a good sister to you.”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Her fingers entwined themselves in his short hair as she pulled him down for a slow, sweet kiss. Finally, she answered, “None of your parents’ rules apply at Trixie’s house.”

The world spun around him for a moment as Mart digested this little snippet of information. “Do you mean to tell me that my sister – my own sister – is encouraging us to…”

“Your own sister is allowing us to make our own choices, whatever they happen to be.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he answered, with a faint smile. “If I thought she was encouraging us, I think I’d feel a bit guilty about all the times I discouraged her. It could be a bit off-putting.”

“You should treat your sister better,” Daphne told him, her chin tilting up to a challenging angle. “She’s much better to you than you are to her.”

“Probably,” he answered, matching her teasing tone. “But she is so much more trouble.”

Laughing, his girlfriend shook her head.

The Beldens’ Christmas Day celebrations were in full swing and the house was filled with laughter. Seeing that Daphne was deep in conversation with his mother, Mart took a minute to sit by the fire and enjoy a peaceful moment. His eyelids dropped, leaving him to enjoy the radiated heat on his face and the feel of the rug beneath his fingers.

“How are you doing?” Trixie asked of him, dropping down next to him so suddenly that he started in fright.

“Trix!” he chastised, clutching dramatically at his chest. “Way to scare a guy!”

“Sorry,” she said, though without sounding particularly regretful. “You didn’t answer the question.”

He took a moment to consider. “Okay,” he replied, finally. “In the last few weeks I’ve been lectured by practically everyone I’ve ever met, asked to explain myself more times than I care to count and just about all of the plans I’ve made have somehow gone wrong while other people’s plans work like clockwork. On top of that, I feel like I’ve been through an emotional wringer and come out of it a different shape. Other than that, everything’s just great.”

She leaned back. “No one wants to see you go,” she told him, in soft tones. “We care about you, Mart. We don’t want you to leave.”

“The only place I’m going is back to Iowa,” he contradicted. “None of my plans have changed.”

His sister cast him a bitter-sweet smile. “But they’re going to. I have been talking to Daphne, you know, in all the time we’ve spent together. She’s got two more years before she graduates.” She let out a sigh. “I couldn’t stand living in the City while Jim lived in Sleepyside, so I can’t see how you two can stand living on opposite sides of the world.”

“You think I’m going to go to her?” he asked, watching her carefully. There was no change in her stance or expression; she simply nodded.

“I know you’re going to go to her,” she replied. “You won’t be able to stand not knowing, and you won’t let her be the one to make a sacrifice.”

He shrugged. “It may not go that far. She’s here for another seven weeks. Maybe we’ll know by then.”

Trixie gave him a curious look, but did not answer. Instead, she patted his hand. After a long delay, she spoke again, in soft tones. “I’m going to miss you.”

“And I’ll miss you – if, and I really do mean if, I go.”

His sister shook her head in disbelief. “Of course you’re going,” she replied cheekily, even as she rose to leave. “I’m your almost-twin, I know these things.”

A few short days later, Mart and Daphne packed up and left for Happy Valley farm in Iowa. In a way, it was a relief to Mart. He was getting very sick of hearing other people’s opinions, and was looking forward to something of a break. The Gormans, who managed the farm on his uncle’s behalf, did treat him almost as part of their family, but they were less likely than Sleepyside natives to tell him plainly that he was doing something wrong or try to pressure him into courses of action for which he was not yet prepared.

He took a simple pleasure in pointing out the sights to Daphne as they travelled along the familiar roads to the farm, just as he had done when they first arrived in Sleepyside more than a month before. To his overwhelming relief, the introductions went smoothly, too, with no sign that anyone was going to give him a lecture or hand him their opinion.

“Let me show you around the farm,” he offered, as soon as Daphne emerged from her room in the farmhouse.

He helped her into her coat and the two went outside to see what there was to see. For some time, the only sound was the crunch of their boots in the icy snow. As they came out into an opening between the farm buildings and looked out over the rolling hills beyond, Daphne let out a contented sigh.

“It’s nice to be back on a working farm,” she explained, “even if this one is covered in all this strange, white stuff.”

Mart let out a surprised laugh. “Well, it does kind of go with the climate,” he admitted. He took his eyes off the landscape and rested them on his girlfriend. “So, does this mean you’re thinking of life on the land in the long term?”

Her expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe,” she finally decided. “I miss home when I’m at uni, even though it’s less than an hour away and I can go home any time I like.” She sighed. “I don’t know whether I really want the life of a farmer, but I’m not cut out for cities. I’ve been trying to think of a career I could have and still live in the country without commuting. I haven’t really come up with anything, yet.”

“You will,” he assured her. With a weak little smile, he took her hand and continued the tour.

“Come into my office for a minute, Mart,” his uncle directed one day after lunch. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, and something I want you to do.”

Mart’s immediate instinct was that he was due a lecture and he suppressed a groan. Once inside the comfortable room, however, he found that the instinct was incorrect.

“You look worried,” Uncle Andrew noted. “Don’t be. It’s a matter of some old papers that your Dad asked me for. They’re from my grandfather and great-grandfather, concerning Crabapple Farm. I thought you might be interested in seeing them before I send them off. I wondered, too, whether you might post them for me, when I’ve packed them up. I want to send them registered.”

“I can do that,” Mart answered, bending his head towards the documents spread out on the desk. “Thanks for showing me; they’re very interesting.”

A silence stretched out, while Mart examined the papers, broken a short time later by his uncle.

“What were you thinking I was going to ask you?”

Mart looked up with a start. He felt his face begin to redden. “Well, more than one person has told me that I’m making a mistake with Daphne. I thought, maybe…”

“You thought I might agree with them? I don’t. I think she’s well suited to you. If you’re going to stick with farming, I think she’s a lot better suited to you than your last serious girlfriend was. Diana’s a lovely girl, with a personality as beautiful as her face, but she would never have liked farm life.”

Nodding his agreement, Mart kept his eyes on a hand-drawn diagram of plantings in the crabapple orchard. He decided not to mention a relationship that had occurred since his break-up with Diana and before his one with Daphne.

“Do your parents object?” Uncle Andrew asked, breaking into his melancholy thoughts.

“My Dad does,” he answered with a wince. “I’m not sure about Moms. She seems to be just going along with Dad.”

His uncle laughed softly. “I guess she would, at that.”

Mart looked up in surprise, having sensed a deeper meaning in the words. “What does that mean?”

The older man shrugged. “You never wondered why your father was so angry with you?”

“How did you know he was angry?” Mart demanded. “Has he been asking you to–”

Uncle Andrew waved him into silence. “He didn’t have to say anything. I’ve known him my whole life and I know what happened with him and your mother. I know how he reacted then, even more than she knows, and I know how he’s reacted to similar situations since then.”

“What do you mean, with him and my mother?” Mart asked, aghast. “What happened with him and my mother?”

“They got married,” his uncle answered with a grin.

“I know that. I meant, what else?”

With a calming gesture, his uncle explained. “They almost didn’t get married. Your father liked your mother, but he didn’t get around to asking her out until it was almost too late. She’d taken up with an older man – not all that much older, just enough to make your Dad feel a little inferior – and things were getting pretty serious between them. There was talk of marriage and your Dad overheard your Moms talking to a friend about it. He got so angry that he told her how he felt about her – then and there, in front of her friend – and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Mart stared at his uncle in stunned silence for a long moment. “You mean, he’s equating me with his rival for Moms?”

Andrew Belden shrugged. “Try asking him sometime and see how mad he gets.”

“No, thanks.” Mart gave a shudder and returned his attention to the papers. “But thanks for telling me that, Uncle Andrew. It puts a whole lot of things in a different light.”

That evening, Mart made a special effort to get some time to talk to Daphne alone. Mrs. Gorman had some strict rules regarding bedrooms that they did not dare to flaunt, which limited the amount of privacy they could obtain at the farm. His room upstairs in the barn, where Ben had lived when the Bob-Whites came to stay, was out of bounds to Daphne and the whole upstairs of the farmhouse was forbidden to Mart. At this time of year, this did not leave many places to go. As they often did when they wanted uninterrupted conversation, the pair drove into Des Moines to a little coffee shop that they knew.

When they were settled in a quiet corner, hot drinks in front of them, Mart brought up the topic that had been troubling him since his uncle had talked to him earlier.

“Daphne, I’m kind of wondering, is there anyone else that I’m crowding out? Someone at home that wants you for a girlfriend?”

She looked surprised, answering immediately with a firm, “No. Of course not.”

He shook his head. “I want you to think about it properly, not just say what first comes into your head. Is it possible that there’s someone – maybe someone you never noticed was interested?”

For a moment, it seemed that she was going to just brush off the question, then she stopped. The minutes stretched out as she thought, sipping her hot chocolate from time to time. Finally, she shook her head. “No, I’m quite sure that there’s not – at least, no one that I would actually consider going out with.”

His insides tightened. “So, there is someone, but you wouldn’t consider going out with him? You might change your mind.”

Her laughter bubbled out and somehow he felt a little better. “I never said it was a he.”

“What?” He narrowly avoided snorting hot coffee out of his nose and felt the burning of liquid in places it should never be.

“But it is,” she clarified, laughing harder still. “And I’m sure I won’t change my mind. I’ve known him since I was six and he was always the stupidest boy in the class. Why should I descend to those depths when I can have you?”

Daphne’s tone was light, but her words weighed him down like lead. “Because we live on opposite sides of the globe,” he answered.

The amusement slid from her face and she closed her eyes. “Please, don’t remind me of that. We still have a few weeks to pretend that it isn’t happening. I want to think that this can just go on and on without end.”

He ran a finger down the side of her face, not knowing what to say, but wanting to connect with her in some way. After a few moments, she opened her eyes.

“Okay,” she said, in brighter tones. “Pity party over. Let’s enjoy now, instead of wasting time on what’s going to happen in a few weeks.”

Mart nodded and allowed her to steer the conversation to other topics, but a sadness remained inside him. The time when she would go was coming soon and he was beginning to wonder how he would cope when that time came.

As Daphne’s stay drew to a close, Mart started to become frustrated with the lack of privacy at the farm. It was true that they had taken quite a number of weekend trips away, but for the rest of the time they were subject to Mrs. Gorman’s rules when the Gormans were there and it was a rare time that they were not. One evening in her second-last week there, the older couple attended an anniversary dinner for some old friends at the same time as Uncle Andrew was away for a few days. The younger couple were left alone. From the first time it was mentioned, Mart intended taking full advantage of the circumstance, while still obeying the letter of the rules, if not the intention. When the time came, it seemed as if Daphne had the same idea.

“I think Mrs. Gorman thinks I’m going to corrupt you,” she teased, as the two were setting the place to rights for the night. “She’s always got an eagle eye on us, whenever she’s here.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s actually the other way around,” Mart spluttered. “You’re the one she’s protecting, not me. I think she knows, deep in her maternal heart, that I’m not exactly pure as the driven snow. You, on the other hand, fall into her category of sweet young things who need protecting.”

He secured the back door and let Daphne lead him into the living room, where she dropped onto the sofa. Her eyes slid shut and her body relaxed. As he sat down next to her, she swivelled in place, until her legs rested across his lap and she reclined against the cushions. Around them, the whole place seemed still and quiet, a stark contrast to the way that he felt.

“I don’t need to be protected,” she objected, in belated reply. “I’m eighteen.”

“Which, in Mrs. Gorman’s eyes, makes you barely more than a child,” he laughed. “I’m surprised she let us stay here by ourselves. I thought, for a while, she was going to get us a sitter.”

“A sitter?” she demanded. “Remind me to have a little talk with Mrs. Gorman when she gets back.”

Mart laughed even harder. “Like that’s going to do any good! It’s likely she’d be fully convinced you needed watching and promise herself never to leave you alone again.”

“Speaking of being alone…” she murmured, trailing a finger lazily up his arm.

“Hmm?” he enquired.

In response to her crooked finger, he slid sideways to kiss her. She giggled a little, as her legs tangled with his, and with her arms around his neck pulled him closer until he was on top of her. She gazed up into his face for a few long moments before they began to kiss once more.

Much later, they still lay curled up together on the sofa wrapped in a soft blanket that Daphne had brought down from her room. Their conversation was light and trivial, as they simply enjoyed each other’s company and the touch of skin on skin. Mart was feeling pleasantly sleepy and quite willing to stay where he was indefinitely.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Daphne announced, peering over his shoulder at the mantel clock. “They’ll be home soon.”

Mart sat up with a jolt. “I’d better go,” he decided, leaning over the side of the sofa and searching around on the floor for his discarded belongings.

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” his girlfriend complained, while hindering his progress by tickling his side. “I’m not ready for you to go, just yet.”

“Neither am I, if it comes to that,” he answered, “but since I don’t want to explain this to Mrs. Gorman, I think I’ll go.”

“I’d really like to hear you explain it.” Her smile held a mixture of teasing and seduction. It made his heart beat harder to see it.

“Really? I think I’ll concentrate on getting out of here so that I don’t have to.” Finding his shirt, he roughly pulled it over his head and tried to stand up. Daphne’s hand on his arm stayed his progress.

“Kiss goodnight?” she asked, with a soft smile.

Mart nodded and allowed their lips to meet in a tender kiss. “Goodnight,” he murmured.

“Goodnight,” she returned, remaining where she was as he went out into the dark and snow to cross the yard to his own room.

Before breakfast the following morning, Mart headed up to the main house with a view to talking to Daphne. Something about the previous night’s encounter had disturbed him, drawing to his attention the rapidly dwindling amount of time they still had left. Not finding her in the kitchen, he set out through the house.

“What are you doing?” Mart saw his girlfriend give a start at the sound of his voice. She turned from her contemplation of the view from the living room window and faced him.

“Just looking and thinking.” She gave a careless shrug. “Wondering how this is going to turn out.”

Mart nodded, slowly. It was a matter to which he had also given a lot of thought, and one for which he had no definitive answer. One part of him wanted to throw caution to the wind and just live in the moment, while another warned that pain was the inevitable result of that course.

“I’m also trying to think of a way for us to be together more permanently,” she admitted. “I haven’t come up with anything, yet.”

It was his turn to shrug. “We’ll just have to wait, I guess.”

She nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.” Her gaze returned to the view outside, but when she spoke her tone was sharp and insistent. “Mart, I don’t want to just leave you here and go home alone. I want us to live close enough that we can see each other whenever we feel like it.”

His head bowed. “I hope we’ll have that, one day. I can’t say when that will be, though.” He looked up to find her watching him. “When it’s time for you to go, I know it’s going to hurt both of us, but that’s what you’ll have to do.”

Once more, she nodded. “But you’ll keep thinking about how we can be together?”

“Of course,” he replied, “and I hope that you will, too.”

He started as her fist came down on the windowsill with a thump. “It shouldn’t be like this. Why is this so hard?” With the back of one hand, she swiped away a stray tear. “There should be some kind of solution to this problem, but no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t find it.”

For several long moments, Mart was silent. “There will be sacrifices,” he finally whispered. “For this to work, we will both have to give up things that we want. If we aren’t prepared for that, then we’ll have to sacrifice the relationship.”

“That’s what scares me so much,” she replied. “Right now, I can’t decide what I’m prepared to give up – or let you give up – and I definitely don’t want to give up you.”

There was another pause. “Maybe we need some space to think,” Mart suggested. “After you’ve gone home, when we’re not here to distract each other…”

“I don’t want to go home,” was her petulant reply, though it seemed a little half-hearted. An instant later, her mood changed. “But… since you mention distracting each other… I could probably do with a little bit of that right now.”

Gently, Mart took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. With tenderness, he kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “What a good idea,” he murmured. “I could do with some distraction, too.”

After a flurry of last-minute sightseeing trips, the final night of Daphne’s visit had arrived. Outside on the porch, Mart and Daphne looked up into an Iowa sky filled with countless sparkling stars. For a long time they said nothing, just held each other close against the chilly air.

“I don’t want to go,” Daphne finally admitted. “I don’t want to leave you again just yet.”

“You have to,” Mart replied. “You need to finish your studies.”

“But I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” she complained, turning to face him. “I don’t think I can afford to come back here any time soon, even if I get a second part-time job. And you have commitments here.” She squeezed her eyes shut as they began to fill with tears. “Let’s go up to my room. It’s too cold to stay out here.”

Wordlessly, Mart followed her, hoping that not even Mrs. Gorman would have the heart to uphold her rules tonight. They reached the upper floor unchallenged. As the door shut behind them, the two embraced fervently. Pressed against the door, they began to kiss with a kind of desperation that they had not felt before.

The minutes stretched out, until finally Mart pulled away to take a breath. He looked down into a pair of unhappy blue eyes and his heart constricted in his chest. At once, the desperate feeling fell away and he was left with a longing so deep that it hurt, and something else that defied his mind’s attempt to give it a name. With slow, loving tenderness, he began to kiss her anew, kissing the tears away and working his way around her face to end at her mouth.

“We’ll see each other again,” Mart told her, his breath whispering against her lips. “I promise.”

The End