A Family Found by Laura Abbot

air cleansing your soul and invigorating your spirit. We are all grateful to the Hurlburts for their hospitality and relieved to know they are nearby should you require assistance. From the time you could walk, there was never any keeping you down. I think God created you to explore and embrace what life has to offer. This is how I deal with your absence—rejoicing instead of regretting. Although I imagine it may still be cool where you are, here the pastures are greening and the spring flowers blooming. Spring has always represented promise for me. I pray it does for you, as well. We eagerly await word from you and a description of your cabin, surroundings and new friends.
    Always with prayers and love,
    Your Pa
    Sophie folded the letter carefully and held it for a moment to her heart. With what nobility and devotion he had cared for his family. How difficult it must have been for him—a widower with two small sons and an infant daughter. Yet never once had she seen evidence of frustration or resentment in his treatment of her brothers or her. Quite the contrary. As she looked back, she suspected his children were the glue that held him together after the loss of their mother.
    Next she read a scrawled, smudged note from her adopted nephew Alf, followed by a few lines from his mother, Rose, with an enclosed recipe for venison stew. Then she picked up a letter from her brother Caleb and his wife, Lily. Caleb began with a detailed account of the cattle business in which they were all involved; and then Lily took over, telling about their children and Seth and Rose’s. Sophie looked up, nearly overcome by nostalgia. In the family’s loving words she could smell the lilac-laden breeze, hear the laughter of little ones playing hide-and-seek, taste Rose’s famous cinnamon buns and feel the love that so characterized her Kansas family. It would have been easier perhaps for her to remain cocooned in the circle of their care, but she had known that such a course would ultimately paralyze and change her. No, she had needed to leave.
    She glanced around her small cabin, fixing her eyes on those artifacts of home—the quilt, the photograph, Lily’s sampler. Even though it had been the right decision to come here, just for a moment tears of homesickness prickled as she pictured each and every one of them—her father, Caleb, Lily, Mattie, little Harmony, Seth, Rose, Alf and Andy. Blinking, she opened the final letter bearing the most recent postmark, one from her brother Seth. She unfolded the single page and tried to take in his few but disturbing words.
    Sister, our father has had a small stroke, but seems to be recovering. Doc Kellogg has recommended slowing down, but you know how stubborn Pa can be. We are all keeping an eye on him, so don’t fret.
    Sophie closed her eyes, trying to picture her vigorous father diminished. In her heart she knew the other family members would do all they could for his benefit, yet she couldn’t suppress her initial reaction. She should be there. Once more she blinked back threatening tears. In her planning she had tried to prepare herself mentally for the fact that she would miss important family occasions or health issues, but nothing had prepared her for this blunt reality.
    As if sensing her distress, Beauty rose from the hearthside, where she’d been sleeping, and came to Sophie, laying her head in her mistress’s lap. That one comforting act provoked what Sophie had so valiantly been trying to restrain—a lonely sobbing that filled the room.
    * * *
    Now what was he supposed to do? Tate paced his office early Friday morning, frustration and helplessness fueling his movement. The solution upon which he had pinned his hopes had blown up in his face. Why couldn’t people be counted upon to fulfill their obligations? He went to his desk and reread the offending letter.
    The previous evening, exhausted from a ride to and from a meeting on the far