Loving Liza Jane by Sharlene MacLaren Page A

conscience. He could almost hear her scolding tone now. “Benjamin Broughton,” she would say, “you get them boots off that table straightaway. We’re gonna be eatin’ ar breakfast on that table.”
    A slow smile formed and lingered as the memories did.
    He’d met his Miranda at a barn dance when he was nineteen. The entire town seemed to have shown up for the affair, the nighttime celebration of the day’s barn raising. Glancing about the place that night, and looking for his buddies, Rocky Callahan and James Buchanan, he’d spotted Miranda Franklin instead. It was the Franklin family who’d lost their barn to a fire along with countless livestock. As was the custom, the men and boys from all across the region showed up the following week to raise another barn. He and his aging grandfather had been among them.
    He’d caught glimpses of the Franklin girl that day and thought she’d noticed him, too, but always when he’d sent a special nod or smile her way, she’d dropped her head in a skittish manner, picked up her flouncy skirt, and turned away, as if a mere glance at him were too embarrassing. She was a shy one back then.
    Well, that night he meant to change things. There she was standing as pretty as a picture in front of the punch table, golden curls hugging the curve of her neck, a fitted, flowery dress accenting her tiny waist. Mustering up all his courage, he’d approached her, afraid she’d run the other way. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d smiled and given him a curtsy. One look into her clear blue eyes had been like seeing the ocean for the very first time. Pricked by Cupid’s arrow, he’d felt the pangs of young love.
    Ben smiled at the simple remembrance. It hadn’t taken them long to figure out they belonged together, and so they’d married in June of the following year.
    That was ten years ago, although it felt like two entire lifetimes. He was a mere twenty-nine, but he could have been forty-nine for all the pain and suffering he’d endured in her passing. She’d been sickly during her second pregnancy, and when the complications of childbirth set in, there was little the doctor could do for her. Her resistance was too low, Doc Randolph had said. In the end, she’d bled to death and left him with an infant daughter and a six year old that he hadn’t the slightest notion how to care for.
    Now, here he was, fourteen months later, barely managing. If nothing else, he’d learned to place his faith and trust in his heavenly Father.
    Reaching for his tattered Bible, he opened it to the passage he’d been studying. In the margin, he’d scrawled, “The sorrows of death encompassed me, and the pains of hell found me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. Psalm 116:3–5.”
    He’d penned the words just after putting his newborn infant into her crib and his wife in her grave. Emotions he’d labored long and hard to keep under lock and key had gushed forth that night, as if a mighty dam had finally broken free. In his misery, he’d sought strength in God’s Word and found it.
    “Papa?”
    Ben went into automatic alert at the sound of Lili’s small voice. Booted feet hit the floor as he lay his Bible back down and turned to face his daughter. She stood in the doorway, golden curls mussed and sleep still evident in her eyes.
    “What’s the matter, pumpkin?”
    “I can’t sleep,” she mumbled, crossing the room.
    “Why not?”
    “Molly’s makin’ noises,” she complained.
    “What kinds of noises?”
    “Snorey ones.”
    Ben smiled. “At least she’s sleeping for a change,” he reminded.
    “Can I sit on yer lap?”
    Without giving him the chance to reply, Lili climbed up and snuggled into the crook of his neck.
    “It’s late, Lil, and you know how you are in the morning when you don’t get the sleep you need.”
    “I promise not to