Pappy's Plan

Maeve Mackenzie left and, shortly thereafter, so did the rest of the mourners. Pappy and Regina cleared the plates and glasses that were scattered all over the parlor and kitchen and washed up in silence. Regina wanted to say something about the conversation between Pappy and Maeve. But she had no idea how to bring it up without letting on that she'd been eavesdropping. For his part, her grandfather was thinking no further than the empty bed that awaited him upstairs.

The last glass was stowed away in the cupboard and the plates were dried and stacked. The tables had been wiped clean and the floor dry mopped one last time. Regina didn't want to stop working. At least as long as she was cleaning and mopping, she didn't have to think. She didn't have to feel. She didn't have to wonder what lay ahead.

Once in bed, Regina lay awake long into the night, listening to the sounds of the birds in the trees and the summer insects. Sleep finally overtook her, and then her dreams were dark and disturbing. She awoke before dawn in tangled sheets and drenched in sweat. She sat bolt upright and realized she'd been crying. And then she remembered that Gran was gone.

~*~*~*~

Pappy had sat her down after breakfast as she was clearing the table and about to start in cleaning up as Gran would have done if she were still with them. He held her hands as he explained that she was to pack and tomorrow they'd leave, making the long trip by train to California. The new railroad had been built and went from the East Coast and the world Regina knew and loved, all the way across the country to the golden state of California.

Gran and Pappy had known men who'd ventured out West to that place, before it had become a state, to try their hand at getting rich. Stories abounded of gold nuggets lying about, waiting to be picked up. Some had abandoned families and children, wives and homes to attain wealth. Most promised to send for their families, or to return and build large homes and buy great tracts of land. No one did. Some died on the journey, victim to illness, injury, weather or criminals. Some simply disappeared into the life in the great expanses of California. And a very few others returned, penniless and broken by their experiences.

But that had been before Regina's parents had married, before she'd been born. But somehow, in Regina's mind, California was a dangerous place, a land of Indians and immigrants, a wild land barely tamed. Pappy laughed softly when she'd expressed her fears and explained that it was a large place and while some of that might be true in remote parts of California, she was going to a wonderful new school, just for young ladies where she would receive a good education. What he didn't say was that he hoped it would give her the skills and knowledge she would need to find her own way in the world. He knew there was little chance he would to see her graduate.