Dear Readers, this is the 12th of my vignettes. They go in chronological order but each has a different theme. At the end of Vignette 11, Elizabeth and Jack were still living in Bear Creek and they wondering if she was pregnant after having made a frivolous wish. Enjoy this newest story!
Vignette 12
Chapter 1 - Wisps of Memories
Jack, tired and worn after days of travel, thought of the papers in his jacket's front pocket which he had received a few days earlier. Typed in single space in black ink were the orders for his next assignment.
His reporting date wasn't scheduled to be for another three months but he knew that time was a strange entity. When you wanted it to move quickly, it seemed to crawl at the pace of a tortoise. But when you wanted time to slow down or stop, it raced by like a locomotive.
Time was like an ornery person who did the opposite of what someone wanted or needed.
Their time in Bear Creek had gone faster than either he or Elizabeth had imagined. Somehow, in just ten months, the mercantile had become their home. The couple had become a family of three. The townspeople had become their close friends.
As sad as they had been to leave Hope Valley, Jack knew that it would be more heartrending for Elizabeth to leave Bear Creek. This was where their son had been born. Where their second child, still small and warm inside Elizabeth's body, had been conceived. Where they had been happy as a family.
He thought back to that first day in Bear Creek. They had ridden into the devastated town, full of people recuperating from Diphtheria. People afraid to touch each other. Afraid to stand too close to one another. Afraid to spread germs. It had been a town without a schoolhouse, but with students ready to learn. Students who found it exciting to have a new enthusiastic teacher who turned an empty mercantile into a home and a school.
Jack thought about his newest assignment, which he hadn't told Elizabeth about yet.
He wondered what she would say when she found the orders. He pictured her curiously unfolding the papers when she emptied out his pockets as she readied his dirty clothes for the laundry. She would most likely look at the words on the paper and mentally imagine a map of Canada, picturing the location that had been planned for their next home.
Her eyes will probably fill with tears as she looks at the orders, he realized. But there was nothing he could do about it.
We won't go there together. She'll go back to Hamilton to live with her parents, hiding herself away in their brick and stone mansion, with tears in her eyes.
He thought about Elizabeth's eyes. Their blue was solid and robust, without specks of other colors to adulterate the pureness. He loved how she looked at him with those eyes, and he smiled as he thought more about her.
As he thought about her looking at him, Jack realized that he hadn't shaved in several days.
She doesn't like it when my beard's that certain length before it becomes soft. Before it's soft and fuzzy, she complains that it prickles her skin and leaves it red.
A memory popped into Jack's mind, as if he were reliving the moment right there. It was so vivid that he could remember every word.
"I missed you so much."
"Let me shave and bathe and then I'll show you how much I've missed you."
"You've been gone almost a week. I can't wait any longer", she had said as she pushed his jacket down his shoulders and then pulled it off his arms.
"Elizabeth, I haven't shaved in days."
"I think it's sexy."
Jack had chuckled as he moved his arms down and began taking off his boots. "You say that now but in the morning, you'll be complaining that your face is red and raw. Not to mention some other parts of your body."
"Then I'm shaving you", she replied as she walked into the bathroom. She returned a moment later with a towel, his shaving cream, and his razor.
Jack stayed still in a simple wooden kitchen chair and smiled as Elizabeth straddled him. When she scrunched up her skirt to get comfortable, the pale skin of her thighs was visible as Jack glanced downwards.
With each slow caress of her hand as it spread cream on his face, he continued to smile.
She knew what she was doing to him. How her warm body on his lap was making him feel, yet she concentrated on carefully running the razor slowly and steadily down his face. Wiping the stubble and cream on her towel before returning the blade to his skin.
Elizabeth's bare feminine thighs were warm as she had kept them pressed tightly against Jack's own muscled legs. He had taken his right hand and began slowly caressing her skin. Moving his palm farther up her skirt. Back and forth along her upper leg, enjoying touching her soft flesh. Amazed as always at how it was so perfectly smooth.
When Elizabeth had scraped the last unwanted whiskers from Jack's handsome face, she began replacing them with her warm kisses.
"Now you can put your face wherever you want", she had said breathlessly.
Without another word, Jack had held her tightly around her waist as he stood up. She wrapped her legs around his strong torso as he had carried her into the other room. His hands fumbled to pull down her panties as she lifted her hips to him. Their mouths refusing to leave each other's as they fell onto the bed, and she finally felt his weight on her.
Jack thought what it would be like when he arrived home this time and Elizabeth took out a razor to shave his face, revealing the soft skin she loved to touch. Would she think about the time that he had just remembered?
His face fell as he imagined how she would react when she saw his face, full of days of dirty beard growth.
The crying in the distance interrupted Jack's thoughts, shifting them. They moved from Elizabeth to the small boy.
The sounds of crying.
Like a small boy ready to be changed.
Jack loved being a father. Next to Elizabeth, his son Jack Thatcher Thornton was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Despite the bitter coldness of winter when he had been born, the mercantile had been kept cozy with log after log in the stove. Elizabeth had lain in bed covered with a thick feather bed as Jack had spent his time snuggling with her, keeping the house warm, and checked on his son every five minutes.
"He's so small and perfect. I'm almost afraid to hold him again."
Elizabeth had grinned as she looked at her husband staring down into the bassinet at his day-old baby.
"You're a big strong Mountie. Face your fears, pick him up, and change his diaper."
Jack remembered exactly how it had been when he had picked up his son and held him to his chest, breathing in the smell of his hair and the dribbled milk on his small baby chin.
"I hope I'm a good father", he had said as he gently stroked his boy's delicate back before laying him down and lifting up the child's nightdress.
"You'll be perfect."
"How do you know?"
Elizabeth had smiled confidently. "Because you're my husband."
"What does that have to do with it?"
"I chose wisely. You didn't think I would let just anyone be the father of my babies", she teased.
"God, I love him so much. I can't imagine him ever being trouble. He's so sweet and tiny. . . .
. . . I wonder if my father felt like this when he held me", Jack had added wistfully.
"I'm sure he did."
"I wish he could be here to see his grandson. To see me as a Mountie. As a husband and a father."
"I wish he hadn't died when I was young" Jack had said barely above a whisper. "I never want to do that to our son."
The fox crying in the distance wandered away, but not before he cried one more time, as if saying one last goodbye to Jack.
Jack didn't care about the fox. He wanted to hold his son again. He wanted to cuddle with a pregnant Elizabeth in a soft clean bed with their son between them. He wanted them with him.
He imagined them lying next to him now.
As Jack lay dying in the grassy field, he pretended that the sun warming his bleeding body was them snuggled against him.
Jack wished that he had more time before he died. Time to see them once more.
But he was dying. And his body, when it was found, would be returned to Elizabeth.
Through her tears, she would shave his face, wash his clothes after emptying the pockets, and dress him in his uniform before kissing him goodbye for the last time. Jack imagined the feeling of her salty tears as they would fall on his motionless face. He hated when she cried.
It tore at his heart.
Jack remembered the first time he had seen her eyes filled with tears. She had sniffled her nose and wiped her face, with its swollen eyelids and flushed coloring from her sobbing. She had been sitting in the Saloon, trying to be practical and brave.
I'm not going to do it. I am not leaving coal valley.
Wait, but... Patrick's already here. They're not going to station two Mounties in this sleepy little town.
But I am going to put in an official appeal to stay.
But that could mean...
I know. Elizabeth, I know what the risks are with my superiors, And I'm willing to take them... For you. What?
Jack... I can't... I can't let you do that.
No. See, this is what I want.
I can't be who keeps you from following your dreams. I can't. You'd only end up resenting me.
Elizabeth, that is not true.
You may not think so now, But you will. You will. The same way that I could never have forgiven my parents if they'd kept me from coming out west in pursuit of my dreams. Jack... I am so sorry. You have to do this. You have to go. I know it in my heart. And so do you.
Her tears had been because of him and he had carried the guilt with him for days as he traveled through the countryside those many years ago.
Now she would have to let him go again. But this time, he wouldn't return to her.
Or to his son. Jack knew that his son would never even remember him.
That was the part that hurt the most. That his son would never remember him. He wouldn't remember how Jack had carried him with his tiny head on Jack's strong shoulder. Walking gently back and forth across the wooden floor planks when the tiny boy was colicky. Or how Jack had lifted him high in the air in the sunshine pouring in the windowpanes and grinned broadly at the little boy's first smile.
But maybe it was for the best that his son wouldn't remember those times. His little boy wouldn't miss him because he simply wouldn't remember him.
And what about his other child? The little baby that hadn't been born yet was growing larger in Elizabeth's womb even as Jack was dying. The child would never be held in Jack's arms. He or she would never know the feeling of having a father's chest moving up and down in slow respiration as Jack lay on the couch with the child held securely and lovingly on his body.
Jack imagined that Elizabeth would lie in bed alone in the dark, crying herself to sleep night after night. He wanted to be there for her. To tell her that it was going to be okay. But that made no sense. She wouldn't be crying if he could be there.
Jack, lying on the blood-soaked ground, suddenly worried that Elizabeth's feet would be cold at night without him there. That had always been his job. To warm her feet in bed in the winter. She loved to sleep barefoot even in the freezing temperatures. It made no sense but she insisted on taking off her socks and then, when her feet were shivering, she would smoosh them under Jack's legs to get warm. The coldness of her feet always startled him and he would half-heartedly protest.
"Elizabeth, they're freezing!"
"That's why I need you", she would say innocently.
They both knew that he loved that she did it. That she loved to have him warm her, and that he loved to be needed.
"You could just keep your socks on, you know."
"Uh uh. I want my handsome husband's warmth. It's much better than a pair of socks."
It was a little thing, but it bothered Jack now; that Elizabeth's feet would be cold at night.
As Jack closed his eyes against the sunlight, he thought how ironic it was. He had a wonderful wife and son. Another baby on the way. A job he usually loved. Life would be perfect . . . If only he wasn't dying.
His eyes filled with tears and his throat tightened in anguish. He gave a strangled cry of despair as he thought about how much he loved his family and how desperately he wanted them to hold him as he died.
Up next: Chapter 2
