Janet Tronstad - At Home in Dry Creek

The wedding was bringing it all back to her. It had taken her years to end her marriage to Neal, despite the fact that he had started cheating on her almost from the beginning. When she had tried to talk to him about it, he’d become abusive and accused her of being boring and not open to having any fun.

She’d remembered thinking at the time that it was hard to have fun when they never had the rent money and never stayed in one place long enough to make a home. No, she’d given up on fun. What she hadn’t given up on was having a father for her children and a faithful husband for herself. She had kept trying to make Neal into that man, but she’d failed miserably.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from your ex-husband?” the sheriff asked Barbara as he passed a plate of cake to someone on his left.

“I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Ever wonder if he has something to say to you?”

So she was right, Barbara decided. It really was her ex-husband that was making the people of Dry Creek hold back on accepting her. Well, there was nothing she could do about it. She’d already divorced the man. That should tell people what she thought of him.

“I should go check on my children.” Barbara walked over to where the children were playing a game of hide-the-spoon. She’d initially counted on having her children by her side during the wedding reception today, but when they’d asked to play with some of the other children, she couldn’t refuse them. Just because she was uncomfortable at weddings, she didn’t want them to miss out on a good time.

Barbara waved at Amanda and Bobby. They both grinned up at her and waved back, but they didn’t stop what they were doing.

There was a chair by where the children were playing and Barbara sat down.

What she needed to do was lighten up, she told herself. After all, if she weren’t here for a wedding, she would have enjoyed being in the community center again.

The community center was really an old barn that had been donated to the people of Dry Creek. Tonight, it shone with polish. Mrs. Hargrove had organized this reception and, in Barbara’s opinion, she’d done a wonderful job. Barbara had offered to help, but everyone had said she should just take it easy. Tables had been scattered across the wooden plank floor, and they were all draped with white tablecloths.

The air smelled like a mixture of coffee and crushed rose petals. There was a hint of lemon too, but Barbara couldn’t decide where that aroma was coming from. Maybe it was from the filling in what remained of that five-tiered cake.

The weathered high rafters made the barn look vaguely like a cathedral, especially with the iridescent white streamers that a couple of high-school boys had strung from them. The night outside was dark, so there was no light coming from the open windows, but rows of small twinkle lights circled the inside walls of the barn. A late-March breeze coming in the windows made the streamers sway a little. Yes, it was all very dignified and very bridal.

The wedding ceremony had taken place earlier in the town’s small church, and then people had walked over to the barn for the reception. Lizette and Judd were still shaking hands with people.

Barbara realized she might never have a real home with the people of Dry Creek, but she had no question that she had a family with Judd. When she had tracked Judd down, she was desperate for help. She didn’t even know Judd back then, but she had no other family and she’d never lived anywhere long enough to make real friends.

The separation from Neal hadn’t been going well. After she’d finally found the courage to leave him, she suspected he would try to find her, and hurt her and she didn’t want the children to be with her if that happened. Barbara needed someone to care for the children while she made the trip to find them a shelter.

Barbara knew it was not love that had made Neal angry when she’d told him she was going to divorce him. No, he might not want her to divorce him, but he didn’t love her. Neal hadn’t just cheated on her once or twice. He’d made it a habit. Barbara hadn’t known about the robberies he’d been involved in until later, but she had faced the fact that something in Neal had changed dramatically over the years.

Barbara was only twenty-nine years old, but the day she’d left Neal she’d felt like an old woman. It was as if she’d lived an eternity, and nothing had turned out the way she had hoped it would.

It was odd that it wasn’t until she finally found the courage to leave Neal that she found the closest thing to a family that she’d ever had. Judd had invited Barbara and her children to stay with him indefinitely.

Barbara figured it was his new-found religion that made Judd so eager to help them, but she didn’t think it was a good thing for him to do. Family did have limits. And life wasn’t lived in a church. She hadn’t had much experience with God, but she had wondered sometimes if God even knew what went on in the world. He certainly had never paid any attention to what went on in her world.

No, Judd and his new wife wouldn’t find life as simple as they thought it would be. Marriage never was. Barbara knew all of the things that could go wrong with a marriage and she didn’t want to be responsible for any of them happening to Judd.

That’s why, now that he was getting married, Barbara had moved off Judd’s ranch and into the small town of Dry Creek. Lizette had offered the room at the back of her dance studio as a temporary home for Barbara and the children until they found something more permanent. There weren’t any houses for rent in Dry Creek right now, so Barbara knew she’d have to wait. Not that there would be any houses for rent soon.

The only house that wasn’t occupied was the old Gossett house, and Mr. Gossett was in prison. Mrs. Hargrove wrote to him regularly, and in her last letter she’d asked him if he’d be willing to rent the house. He wrote back saying he was thinking of giving the house to his nephew, but he’d find out if his nephew was interested in renting it out to her.

Even if the Gossett house did become available, it would take a lot of repairs before anyone could live in it.

In the meantime, the room in the back of Lizette’s dance studio had become the resting place for Barbara and her children. The room wasn’t large, but it was bigger than most of the hotel rooms where they’d lived for periods of time over the past few years. Lizette had lived in the back room of her studio before she got married, and there was a kitchen and a bathroom attached to it. It would be fine.

There wasn’t much furniture in the studio’s back room and Barbara had vowed that, now that she and the children weren’t moving so much, she would replace that old folding table with a solid kitchen table, the kind of table children needed for family meals and homework.

They might not have a home yet, but they’d have a table. It was a start.

And, for now, the back room was convenient for Barbara since she was temporarily working in the fledgling bakery that Lizette had started in the front part of the building. Barbara knew she’d eventually need to get a job that was more solid, but she was grateful for the bakery job. It was helping her gain some job experience and it was early-morning work so she was done by the time the school bus came through Dry Creek to drop the children off after school.

Barbara ordinarily kept a close eye on her children, but she was checking them even more frequently of late. She’d had these funny feelings the past few days that someone was watching her and the children through the storefront windows. Whenever she looked up, however, she didn’t see anyone on the street outside the window, so she was probably being foolish.