Free Whispers from Yesterday by Robin Lee Hatcher

accident. His younger brother was playing with their father’s handgun. Billy grabbed for it just as their mom entered the bedroom. It went off. She was killed instantly.”
    “Oh no.”
    “Billy felt responsible, and he hated himself. He told everyone that he should’ve died. Not his mom.”
    “How tragic. But I thought they, the boys, were all … you know, in trouble with the law. That sort of thing.”
    “No. Just at-risk. And that can mean many things.”
    “Billy’s such a sweet kid.”
    “Yeah, he is.” Dusty glanced at Karen. A shimmer of light from the just-rising moon played across her pale hair. “You wouldn’t have known him only a few months ago. He didn’t talk to anybody. Never smiled. His family was afraid he would try to take his own life. He was that despondent.”
    There was a lengthy silence before she asked, “And coming here made such a difference in him?”
    “No. It happened before he came here.”
    “What did make the difference?”
    “God worked a miracle.”
    “A miracle,” she whispered. “Too bad I don’t believe in them.”
    She looked so sad; Dusty’s heart tightened in his chest. He had to resist the urge to take her in his arms and offer comfort. He sensed it would be a mistake if he did.
    Saturday, November 14, 1936
    Dear Diary,
    Mikkel came to see Papa today. He asked to speak to him alone. They were closed in the parlor for such a long time. Mama seemed nervous. I have never seen her so jumpy before. Every time the wind made the house creak, she looked toward the parlor door.
    When Mikkel left, he spoke hardly a word to me. In fact, he scarcely looked in my direction. And Papa looked grim. I could hear him and Mama talking in their bedroom long after they are usually asleep.
    Is Papa in some sort of trouble with the church?
    Esther
    Sunday, November 22, 1936
    Dear Diary,
    Mama announced this morning, before we went to church, that she has invited Mikkel Christiansen to take Thanksgiving dinner with us, and he has accepted. Sophia acted as if Mama did it just for her. On the ride to church, she pinched me and said, “I will sit next to Pastor Christiansen when he comes to dinner on Thursday.”
    Nothing has been right between Sophia and me for months, but it has been worse since the night of the blizzard, when Mikkel brought me home from the Tallman farm. The way she has acted, you would think I had the ability to make it snow.
    It is sad, losing my sister as my friend. I know, deep down, that she loves me, but she has set herself against me. She can tell what I want just as I can tell with her. We are transparent to each other, now as always. And no matter which one of us catches Mikkel’s eye, or even if neither of us does, I think this will remain a wall between us.
    Believing that makes me want to cry.
    Esther

EIGHT
    Over the next ten days, Sophia observed her granddaughter as she was drawn, little by little, into the daily life of the ranch. Karen spent less time in her room. She even managed to look if not happy at least less miserable.
    Sophia had Billy to thank for it. The boy had become almost a shadow to Karen. He found countless reasons to come to the house and linger in her company, and Karen responded to him as she had to no one else, talking with him, smiling, sharing an occasional confidence.
    Hal, on the other hand, was a source of deep concern for Sophia. On the surface he was the same. He’d always been surly and somewhat arrogant, straining against the restrictions placed upon him at the ranch. He wasn’t used to anyone caring where he was, what he did, who he was with. But something had changed inside the boy since that Sunday at the restaurant, and it wasn’t a change for the better.
    Sophia spent her mornings, as usual, in prayer, fervently seeking the will of the Father for everyone at the Golden T.

    Karen wasn’t certain how it had happened, but by the end of hersecond week in Idaho, she’d begun rising with the sun and not resenting it.