Family Bonds

Chapter 7, Episode 3, and Chapter 8, Episode 1

"I'm glad, but sometimes men hurt girls, er—young women, what you are now. Without meaning to. I don't want you moving so fast in that direction, mixing up the hormones with what you want, what you may want to think, and maybe that's what it is—love. You've had a rough couple of years. You lost your ma and you had to quit school, and it's only been a few years since Will died. Now you're trying to make enough money to go back to school. You need to be concentrating on that, not kissing that boy, or doing what it could lead to."

Bert pushed himself out of his seat at the table, coughed again and spat into the sink. After rinsing his mouth, he turned around. "Let me finish," he said, when she opened her mouth to speak.

"Chet has a reputation for fast living, just like his daddy. From what I've heard, you wouldn't be the first girl pining for his attention or the first time he took advantage. Boys his age don't always think before they act. It's what makes a man a man. You probably know that. I don't want you getting yourself into a pickle with him, over him."

"He wouldn't," her voice barely above a whisper. His reputation again. Why can't Bert let it rest?

In a voice that resembled an unhappy growl, Bert asked, "Are you in love with him, Jane? Do you want to marry him?"

She brought her hands to her mouth when he said that. If only Bert would stop looking at her like that, stop seeing right into her heart. Her face burned.

"Your mother told me once that a woman knows what's in her heart. She knows these things, maybe more than men do."

"That wasn't how she felt about Will. She never loved him like that."

Bert shook his head. "No, even though Will loved her, she married him so you'd have a daddy." He coughed into his napkin and wadded it in his fist. "She's not here to talk to you about such things. I guess it's my job now."

"Chet's never ..." Her eyes filled.

Jane remembered what Ashley had said about Chet and the girls she'd seen him with at Whitman. Before he got his own apartment, which she had visited, even though the first time he'd invited her, she'd turned him down. But then he insisted on making dinner to celebrate his scholarship. Would he ever invite her again? If she saw him there, what then? Her heart beat faster, imagining the possibilities.

"I don't want you hurt." Bert rumbled. "At least you kissed him in the house." He rose from his chair. "Not on the porch for the whole world to see. I'll talk to him."

Jane's heart clutched. They had kissed on the porch, before dessert and after. What if the neighbors saw them? Would they tell Bert? "You don't have to talk to him, Bert. If you talk to him, he might not come back."

"If he doesn't just 'cause I talk to him, he's not worth your knowin'!" Bert's voice rose. "When's he comin' over next?"

She shrugged. "He said he'd call me." Her stomach flip-flopped in her belly. Maybe she should call Chet, warn him.

"What are you going to say?" Will had never talked to her like Bert. But he'd died before she'd ever dated anyone.

"We'll have a heart-to-heart, is all. So he knows where I stand with things, between you and him. What I expect." He cleared his throat. "Your ma would never forgive me if I let anything bad happen to you. I'm beat and I've got the early shift at the mill tomorrow." After a quick hug, he shuffled into his room and shut the door.

Jan sat in the kitchen after Bert left, wadding and unwadding a napkin, trying to think through what to do. Was Bert right? Did she love Chet? Or was she feeling something other than that? And if it was love, did Chet feel the same way? Or was he like what Bert had suggested? Would he call her again? Chet had moved into his own apartment—for privacy. Would she have to do the same in order to be with him?