When the World Fell Silent

by Donna Jones Alward

I was the widow left behind, but I’d been somehow made to feel my pain was self-indulgent. I’d known Frank for less than two years; his family had loved him his whole life. Their message was clear: they had earned their grief. I hadn’t. As if time was the sole measure of love, or misery was somehow a competition.

But you didn’t lose it, so there’s a blessing.” Blessings. Well, wasn’t that right up there with being lucky. I wasn’t feeling particularly blessed at the moment. How much more loss was I supposed to take?

Mrs. Thompson pulled out a chair and joined me with her own cup of tea, unsweetened but with the smallest dollop of milk turning it a muddy brown. I noticed, though, that she’d added a full teaspoon to mine. Funny how a spoonful of sugar felt like love.

Maybe I’d wobbled in the last few weeks, but who wouldn’t? No one really knew what they’d do in extraordinary circumstances until they were tested.

He chuckled. “You’re a stubborn woman, Nora.” “Thank you.” I brightened. It was just the kind of compliment I liked. It was lovely, of course, to hear that my hair looked pretty, or my dress was sharp, but admiring me for my determination was something that went right to my heart.

Every time I thought about it, I wasn’t sure which would feel worse. It would be awful to find out he’d been killed, but thinking he’d abandoned me was a different but equally devastating thought. Grief was one thing, but at least his silence would have a reason that had nothing to do with me. The thought that I’d been discarded cut me deeply. For a man who’d said he loved me, he had an odd way of showing it.

Pretty ribbons were an extravagance, and not something Jane had indulged in while trying to run a frugal household. And yet Captain McLeod had thought to spend his money on something pretty and frivolous, which was exactly what a Christmas present should be for a four-year-old.

I guess I just don’t understand what you would get out of this arrangement.” He looked at me evenly and his voice was warm and sure. “Why, I’d get you, Nora.

As the pain waned, I thought of Alley. How he should have been here. How he could have been a part of this if he’d chosen. He was the one missing out now. I would love and have the love of our child—something he would never know. I actually pitied him.

It was there I listened to the words of Hardy’s poem, there I pressed my hand to my heart, vowing to somehow bring my family together. Not just Clara, but Neil, too, and perhaps a child of our own, raising them all as brothers and sisters, joined not only by blood but by love. I’d been so blind. I’d thought love meant settling and perhaps even boredom, but the reality was so different. It was kindness and patience and steadfastness. It was knowing what the other person needed and doing it with a glad heart, not for any sort of reward other than love itself.

Running was the ultimate act of selfishness for my own ends, but not hers. And what kind of mother did that make me? A mother never, ever put herself before her child.

I don’t know if you’re a religious woman or not, but it feels like you were meant to have her… to bring her back home to us. I’m just so sorry that the cost to you is so dear.”