A Hope Remembered Read Free Page B

motioned them ahead of her, back into the parlor. “There are three bedrooms up there.”
    The couple exchanged a smile and started up the stairs, but Nora paused with her foot on the first step. Did she want to stand by while the two of them, nice as they were, looked at and touched more of her things? Things she’d be forced to leave behind because they wouldn’t fit into her suitcase?
    “Take all the time you need,” she called up to them. “I’ll be outside.”
    She slipped on a sweater to guard against the spring chill and let herself out the front door. The sound of the screen slamming shut behind her was both comforting and familiar. Nora moved down the porch steps and across the yard. Oscar trotted up to her side, his tail wagging. She stopped to rub the soft, brown fur between his ears, wishing again that she could take him with her. The old hound dog would detest being cooped up on a ship, though, and Tom’s younger brothers had already consented to permanently caring for him.
    Nora crossed the road running in front of the farm and slipped beneath the leafy limbs of the giant oak tree that stood like a sentinel before the fields. Oscar moved off to explore.
    For the first time since the couple had arrived, Nora managed a full breath of air. She circled the trunk to peer at the carving Tom had cut into the bark years earlier. Lifting her finger, she traced the worn outlines of the heart and the letters whittled inside: TC + NL.
    Tom had kissed her for the first time under these branches. She’d bade him good-bye in the same place, the night before he and his brother Joel had left to fight in the war. This tree had also been privy to Tom’s promise to marry her when he came back and Nora’s anguish when she’d received word he wasn’t returning.
    She shut her eyes and leaned back against the rough bark. Memories of Tom washed over her with such intensity she could almost believe when she opened her eyes she’d see him walking up the road, ready to pull her into his strong arms, as he’d done countless times before the war. His teasing manner and quick smile had been the perfect complement to her more serious nature.
    A tangible ache throbbed in her chest and Nora pressed her hand against it. It had been two years since Tom had been killed. When would missing him hurt less? When would she stop feeling bound to a promise neither one of them could fulfill anymore? The life they’d hoped and planned for might be gone, but she still had to move forward. She had to stop dwelling on the past. Maybe then she’d find peace from the pain.
    Opening her eyes, she pushed away from the tree and removed the wrinkled envelope from her skirt pocket. She’d memorized every word of the letter—about her being the next of kin to inherit Henry Lewis’s sheep farm in England’s Lake District. Letters had arrived sporadically through the years from her father’s uncle, but Nora was still surprised to learn the man had died. And that like her father and grandfather, the man had so few living relatives.
    She’d nearly written her great-uncle’s solicitor back and declined the offer of the sheep farm. She had a home and a life here. Yet the prospect of a fresh start, in the land of her heritage, took hold in her mind and wouldn’t leave her alone.
    For the next week as she milked the cow, fed the animals, and tended the farm, the idea consumed her every waking thought until she finally relented and wrote a letter of acceptance. Even after posting it, though, she couldn’t say why she’d agreed to go. Tom’s sister Livy, and Nora’s best friend, had certainly questioned her reasons for leaving. But the only thing Nora could say was “I have to.”
    She smoothed the envelope as she admitted in a whisper, “I don’t know anything about sheep, Tom. But this is my chance to leave, like you did.” She splayed her free hand against his carving. “I don’t want to leave behind the life we dreamed of here…” Her