Free Alone on the Oregon Trail by Vanessa Carvo

fresh petals on their kitchen table. Not so strange really that Mattie to this day picks lavender petals from the same field and brings the bouquets home and she places them all over the house.
    She can still remember the smell of fresh lavender on her mother as she laid there in her mother’s arms. It is sad that is all she has to remember her mother by, but Grayson said that it has left a part of his wife lingering in the home because of this.
    I was so saddened by the story of how Mattie’s mother passed before seeing the child she had carried and deep inside this angered me even more at God. I could not understand how a loving God could allow this to happen to such a beautiful woman, and this poor child deserved so much more than this bitterness she was carrying around inside.
    After Grayson explained this to me, he then sat and talked with me about staying on with them and perhaps I could find a way to get through to Mattie’s heart. He said that he and his oldest daughter had tried everything to bring Mattie out of her bitterness and nothing had worked so far.
    He was so worried that she would live her entire life being so full of sadness and anger. At the time I could not see how in the world I could help, but I agreed that I would try. I was not sure how long I would stay there, but I had no other options at the time, so I remained living there with them.
    I began each day getting up at dawn and I would spend my morning actually learning how to cook from Meredith. She had grown into a mighty fine cook and she put me to shame. My mother never taught me anything in the kitchen.
    She had mental problems the whole time I was growing up, and she did not come out of it until I had become older.
    By the time my mother and I began to have a relationship, she got sick with cholera and died. So, in a way, I too missed out on knowing my mother and my heart began to melt for this young girl Mattie. We had more in common then she would ever think, and perhaps Grayson was right, that I could in some way get through to her.
    But, it came to be a very long time before that would ever happen and the rest of this story shares my life living in the home of the Loves and all the lack of love that I received from this dear torn child, and the ways in which the Lord worked inside her and me as He began restoring my faith and bringing to this tiny girl hope and a release of her hatred and her shame she was carrying as she blamed herself for her mother’s death.

Chapter Seven
    (Brooklyn’s Bridges)
    It was a sweet summer morning with the sun announcing its coming with a bound of glory, shining its way through my window. At the awesome sight of its brightness I found myself scurrying around to get dressed and reach the front door with passion flowing from every pore in my body.
    Being on that rugged trail for six months had drained me of any love for the sunshine and this fine morning I found myself appreciating its presence. I wanted to feel its warmth bake my skin and I couldn’t do that sitting in my room as I usually did each morning.
    The house had become quiet and distant as we watched little Mattie come and go with her mood swings. It seemed that none of us by this time wanted to take the responsibility for this child’s heart as we watched it harden day by day.
    We all tried reaching out to her, but to our dismay; none of our touches ever bothered her. She spent day after day hardening like an old bitter woman and it was a sad waste of a life. For her to be so young, she should have been enjoying each day as a child normally would.
    It felt like her God given right to feel what children feel with joy and an innocent peace, yet she was ravaged with an internal time clock that took her well beyond her years, as if she deserved this demon that was forcing her to carry the blame for her mother’s death. It was Mattie who should be running to escape this dark cabin home to bask in the sunlight, not me.
    As I reached the door and