Falling for the Enemy

Worthless

                                                                        Catherine

How dare he say those things to me about Nathan?  He is not even a true gentleman. Now I know why he is without a wife because he is an incompetent snob.  He knows nothing about Nathan or me and our relationship.  Nathan is a good man; he is a good match for me.  He will help keep me grounded and he will provide for me and my family.  Nathan and I have always got along very well and I have always enjoyed his company and we often laughed and conversed easily in each other’s presence.  Why am I letting this man do this to me? I don’t need his congratulations on my engagement to Nathan to feel like it is the right thing to do.  I know saying yes to Nathan was the only and best choice I had.  The last thing Henry said continues echoing in my mind. Do I love Nathan? This I am unsure of.  I have not spent enough time with Nathan to truly love him, but lots of relationships and marriages begin this way.  We will grow to love one another and I am positive that it will be a deep undying love like the love stories I have read about in the books we used to have in our library prior to the encroachment of the United Army in our home months ago.   

    Walking onto the front veranda I make my way into the main hall and continue towards the kitchen.  Standing in the kitchen washing dishes is Sarah.  

“Sarah, look what Adam and Henry caught today.” I say holding up the fish and smiling.  

“We will have a real meal tonight!”  

Placing the fish on the table I am happy to be eating anything other than the stew that we have been eating for the last few days.  The stew is mostly water with tiny chunks of venison but I have been unable to find any game in the woods these past few days.  Sarah begins gutting the fish and preparing them for the pan.  

“I will go and see if I can find some mushrooms to add to our meal tonight.” I say grabbing a hand weaved straw basket that Sarah has recently made.  

    Walking towards the woods I am hopeful that I may find some oyster mushrooms that may have grown after the rains last week and in the warmth of this week.   I know that my chances of finding any actual mushrooms this early in the season are very slim, but I cannot just stand idly and think about what Henry has said.  

    Walking through the woods, I look near the trunks of the trees and under fallen tree stumps hoping to find anything that may be edible to add to our meal tonight.  I have spent many days doing this same thing since the beginning of this war, more so since our slaves left Moher.  I wander the woods often with my rifle hoping that I will stumble upon some type of game animal.  It took me a while to become a good shot, but when you know that whether you starve or not depends on if you can aim, you become a good shot rather quickly.  In January when I first came into the woods to hunt, I shot and missed handfuls of game.  Each time I would miss I pictured my family and I going hungry again for another night.  My family would once again have to lay their heads down on their pillows with their stomachs aching and crying out for food, and all they could do was pray that the next day Catherine would bring something for them to eat.  I on the other hand would lay down hungry, hoping that I would not be the cause of the starvation and death of the rest of my kin.  I never thought about my own hunger, I only worried about how my family was depending on me and I couldn’t let them down.  I missed the days when I could depend on my father for everything but since this war has begun his health has deteriorated steadily.  He uses a cane to get around and he is often seen coughing blood into his handkerchief.    We learned from the doctor at the beginning of the war that my father did not have tuberculosis as we all suspected but instead, the doctor believes he had cancer of the lungs, which is a very unheard of and rare disease.  The doctor knew very little about this disease but told us it was incurable and that there was nothing he could do for my father.  Since that day I have tried to make my father’s life as stress-free as possible because we all know that one day this disease will take my father from us and as he becomes weaker, the closer to death’s door he is.   We try not to talk about my father’s disease very often because none of us want to picture a life without him in it.  He is the backbone of this family and the day he leaves this world will be a dreadful one indeed.  

    Bringing my mind back to the here and now I notice that it is becoming darker and I should return to Moher.  I do not like the fact that I am returning empty-handed which means, Henry and Adam were our sole providers of sustenance tonight.  It bothers me that the North Rotta man helped provide for my family and not me. I don’t want to become reliant on someone who is going to leave so soon and who has no emotional attachment to anyone at Moher.   Walking back into the kitchen I lay the empty basket back on the table and find everyone gathered at the makeshift table we built after returning to our empty home.  

“Any luck, Miss Catherine” Sarah asks handing me my small portion of the fish that was caught today. 

I shake my head no and sit quietly at the table and begin eating the warm flakey fish.  I don’t want Henry to know that he got under my skin earlier so I decide to start up the conversation at the table.  

“Maybe Adam should go fishing more often and we could enjoy fish nightly,” I say nodding towards Adam and smiling.  

“Or Adam could teach me his secret for getting the fish to bite,” I say once more.  

Adam is smiling ear to ear proud of what he has done for the family tonight.  

“Well, Henry helped too,” Adams says looking towards the outsider that is sitting at our table.  

“Indeed he did,” I say and that is the end of the conversation.