Holding His Hand, Tyson Goddard [best non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

lady such as yourself, no family, no friends?’ Thomas’s questions were not intrusive but caring, just a general interest in this strange little girl.

Tilly wondered nervously. She was not in the habit of recounting her divorce. It wasn’t so much that she felt sorrow over her broken marriage; it was more or less the shame that was carried with being a broken woman.

‘Just a change I guess, everybody needs a change, I just never thought I would end up in a wolf -infested town though.’

Thomas laughed heartily.

‘I don’t understand, what are you laughing at?’

‘Lady, there are no wolves in these parts, there are no wolves in all the land.’ Thomas threw back his head and laughed loudly into the sky.

“Oh you brute! You tricked me.” Tilly slapped his back but to her strange surprise she found herself laughing along with him when she realized the humour of her gullibility.

The pair had taken a slow afternoon canter into the neighboring town of Cudgen.

‘Cudgen, what a peculiar name. What does it mean?’ asked Tilly as she and Thomas stopped in the front yard of a quaint looking house. Thomas hopped off the horse first and offered up a strong hand to help Tilly down. Once she found both feet planted firmly on the ground Thomas knelt down and thrust his powerful hand into what Tilly had thought was quite hard soil. He pulled from the ground a generous clump of rich red dirt and with it the heady aroma of the ground, a pungent mixture of earth and wood that smelt surprisingly good to Tilly.

‘This red dirt is found all around here. It’s the best dirt for farming, and the natives have a word for it. “Cudgen” or “red dirt”, that’s how this place got its name.’

Thomas stood up with the earth still in his hand and held it out to Tilly. In any other situation in any other time Tilly would have spurned the dirty offering and turned away, but there was something about the soil, something inside its rich red heart that drew her hand from her side to reach out to his. She gently placed her hand on top of the dirt in his palm and let her fingers sink into the moist coolness of the soil until she felt his warm flesh underneath. His fingers reached up through the soil and enveloped her little hand pressing the dirt flat between their palms. For a moment in time they connected. And as soon as the moment had come, it departed.

Thomas’s hand dropped from hers letting the soil fall to the ground and the two found themselves shyly staring down at the ground. ‘Oh this red dirt leaves a stain,’ said Tilly, looking around for somewhere to wipe her hand. Thomas offered his sleeve.

‘Thank you,’ said Tilly, a rosy blush creeping up her cheeks. ‘Thank you for…. everything.’

She stepped back from Thomas and pulled the last pins in her hair loose, letting her light almost red chestnut tresses fall freely about her shoulders. Thomas stood watching this strange yet intriguing woman.

He took in all her features; she was trim of nose and ear and her delicate green eyes were accompanied by a dark lining of thick lacy lashes. Her waist was slim and she was taller than most women but not quite as tall as he. Her arms and wrists were slender and were that same porcelain white as her face and long swanlike neck. Struggling to pull his eyes away, Thomas put his foot in the stirrups of his horse and swung his leg over the horse’s back.

Tilly looked at Thomas sitting atop the beautiful creature, ‘What’s her name?’ she asked, reaching out a hand towards the horse’s long neck, she was silvery white in colour and as graceful as she was tall.

‘Her name is Star,’ he said, warmly patting the horse’s face.

Tilly shyly looked down when she asked the question, ‘What’s yours?’
Thomas stopped for a moment and watched the top of her head as she shuffled the dirt with her feet. ‘My name is Thomas Mai.’

Thomas held out his hand.

Tilly responded by taking his hand and saying, ‘I’m Matilda Tatten; friends call me Tilly.’
Thomas smiled.

‘Tilly…..Miss Tilly.’

Tilly smiled up at this brown-skinned angel and then pulled away from his warm grasp to pick up her bags. With all three somehow bundled under her arms she nodded at Thomas and nearly dropped her burden which brought a shy awkward giggle from both of them. ‘Thank you Thomas Mai,’ she said to him.
Thomas grinned at the odd yet beautiful woman and galloped off down the road, Star raising clouds of dust in a long billowy trail behind them. Now, thought Tilly turning to the house with its plain white walls and miniature porch; the next hurdle, meeting the family.


Shame in Buckets.

“We wake at four,” said the largish stern woman before Tilly had gone to bed. The house she lived in was made up mostly of women, four in fact and only two men. There were two women around their early forties, the third was only as old as Tilly and the last was a little girl of ten who was one of the older women’s daughter. The two men were brothers a year apart, both in their forties and one was married to one of the women. As curious as the little house was with all its strange noises and smells, Tilly could not help to fall asleep amongst these new foreign surroundings, even though she felt quite disturbed.

When it seemed that Tilly was just falling asleep the door to her small room swung open with a bang that would make a firearm envious and startled Tilly into an alarmed eye rubbing state. Sitting up straight trying to peer through the remnants of slumber into the blinding light from the doorway she heard a boisterous, “Wake up! Come on love, the sunrise waits for no man.” Tilly tried to mumble something about not being aware of the time but relented and slipped dozily out from under the covers.

The household was already waiting for her outside of the house in the front yard when
she came tumbling off the porch to meet with disapproving eyes.

‘Those clothes won’t do love,’ said the eldest woman who went by the name of Lilly or Lil as she was known by the town.

‘It’s all I brought,’ said Tilly feebly, shrugging her shoulders. She looked down at her long brown cotton skirt that went past her ankles and her white long sleeved blouse with frills at the neck and wrists. Indeed, this was the only outfit she thought suitable for housecleaning amongst her collection of gowns and dresses. Sighing, Lil took Tilly by the hand.

‘C’mon love,’ and she took the odd little girl back inside the house.

After three days Tilly was no better at scrubbing floors then she had been on her first day. She never realized how much she hadn’t done back home in Calvert. Bent over the front porch of some lady’s house that she really hadn’t cared to take the name of she found herself scrubbing away at a stain in the timber with fruitless results. The constant scratching sound of the brush was beginning to grate against Tilly’s ears.
‘Do you ever get easy stains?’ sighed Tilly.
‘There’s no such thing,’ answered Dolly, one of Tilly’s newfound friends. She was a young cheery girl of nineteen. Her real name was Mary, but no one called her that. When Tilly had asked why everyone called her Dolly, Dolly simply smiled her big wide warm rosy smile and Tilly knew right away. Dolly had one of those rounded faces with big rosy cheeks that grew plump whenever she smiled, which was usually all the time. The result being that she looked like a china doll with permanently plump rosy cheeks.

Tilly laughed and went back to her scrubbing. Watching her hand go back and forth, back
and forth, Tilly again couldn’t help but notice her bare finger. Stopping her work, she sat back on her knees and lifted her ringless hand. Staring blankly at the scrubbing water on the ground before her, she saw the memories of that dreadful night play out on the glassy reflection at her knees.

She remembered far too clearly every painful detail with sheer accuracy. She remembered exactly what she was wearing, she remembered the exact time to the minute, she remembered how her heels made that small click, click sound as she walked up the path at the side of the house. She’d spent the day with her mother but returned earlier than was planned. Walking up the step to the back porch she stood in the light of the doorway looking at the other woman. There she sat, no older than she, no prettier. Blonde curls angelically adorning her face, and there calmly waiting she sat in Tilly’s wedding dress. At first Tilly felt confused, not able to move from the place she now found herself glued to.

She, the other woman, made the first move.

‘Hello. You must be Matilda, John’s told me about you. Did he say anything to you about me?’

The girl held out her hand.

‘No,’ Tilly answered breathlessly.

‘Oh…well you see, John and I are getting married.’

‘He doesn’t want me anymore?’

‘Oh no, he does. He wants us both.’

‘Both of us?’

‘Together.’

‘How?’

‘We’ll both be married to him, we’ll both be his…’

‘Wives…’

‘We’re getting married in two hours.’

‘In my dress.’ Tilly was still in shock, she was waiting for the anger, yet it seemed
blocked by something stronger.

‘I couldn’t afford my own.’ The girl looked away in shame.

‘Have it! You can have him!’

Tilly turned to walk out the door when John came out of the house. He was a large man with a large face, hands, feet and build, all of it tight and muscular. He was dark and chiseled, a real Australian man descended from the first settlers that arrived.

‘Matilda, where do you think you’re going?’

‘I will not be a wife Jonathon. I am the wife or nothing. What sick idea is this?

The young blonde girl began to retreat into a corner.

‘I’ve spoken with your parents and they are fine with this.’

‘What is this John? What exactly is this? Am I no longer in a marriage but some mans harem? I will not share my marriage bed or my husband with another girl!’

‘You will do as you are told! And if that means sharing this house, so be it!’

‘It’s more than a house, John! Can’t you see that? Am I not enough for you? Have I not done enough? I’ve been loyal to you since our wedding day! And then to come home and find this’, with a disgusted expression she pointed to the other girl.

‘You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own house!’ John was shouting now and his voice thundered through the