Stephen was busy at college; Julia drove each day into town to work, while Kara and Lisa started off to school every morning. Jennie almost envied Lisa who was too young to have experienced the ups and downs she was passing through. Each day as she watched Lisa hurry down the steps with her lunch pail in hand and her two neatly-combed pigtails bobbing in the air, she found that her bright smile and quick good-bye lingered long after she was gone.
Jennie was finishing changing her bed upstairs, then gathering up her stack of letters to mail to friends back in California when she heard voices outside. She rushed through the hall to the top landing to see who had come into the large entryway downstairs. It was Uncle Robert!
She fairly flew down the stairs two at a time. He was standing there talking to her mother. He had returned! Uncle Robert looked up as Jennie came bounding into the room. How good he looked: strong, tanned, and healthy.
When Aunt Sarah died, Jennie decided she would not let herself love anyone in the same way again, for fear of losing them. But as she watched Uncle Robert, she felt certain it would be a long, long time before he would be taken from them. He seemed so strong, so whole. Maybe it would be safe to let Uncle Robert into her heart.
Strong was the word that best described him as he briefly told of the hours they spent planting crops on his farm, tending them, then at last canning the ripened fruit and vegetables for the long winter ahead.
Mrs. Benton returned to the kitchen to prepare supper, while Jennie suggested to Uncle Robert that she and Lisa venture out with him in the softly falling rain and take a walk. They left Kara doing her homework in the dining room as they closed the front door behind them. Noticing how polished and shiny his shoes were, she wondered if she had made a mistake in asking him to walk in the rain. But he didn't seem to mind. The golden color of the fallen leaves was accentuated by the dampness, adding to their brilliant luster.
As they walked along, Jennie told him of Aunt Sarah's death, of how hard it was to see her slowly die. "It's so good to see you looking healthy and strong," she said, as they watched the gold leaves falling from the trees. "I couldn't bear to see someone else suffer like that." He was silent for awhile.
By the time they returned to the house, bright lights were welcoming them. A cheery fire burned in the fireplace as they entered. Muffin came running to Uncle Robert as if to welcome him back, while Mrs. Benton carried a steaming dish of chicken onto the supper table. Home seemed complete again.
Jennie finally took a job in a small store in Peterborough, doing secretarial work. It meant leaving early in the morning and returning home late each night. As the days grew colder, the mornings were often wet and rainy. She disliked standing out in the darkness under the trees in the cold, waiting for the bus to appear. But once busy at the office, she found she was enjoying keeping busy and the challenge of working.
The New England rain could seem unending, saturating everything with its chill and its interminable drip. The trees surrounding the Benton home were leafless now, the wind blowing the bare branches back and forth in sudden bursts of fury. Soon would be the time of snow, and slick, icy streets. How far away summer seemed, with its gardening, hay rides, and outings at the ocean.
Jennie was content with her secluded job, enjoying her work. Her desk was upstairs, over the shop, where she worked with an older woman. Her boss, a kindly, older man, sometimes reminded her of Uncle Robert with his sturdy build and head of white hair.
Just as she anticipated, she saw little of Stephen. The day they had climbed the Hillside was the last they were really together. Stephen started college the next week, so was engrossed in his studies most of the time. Occasionally they still walked home from the meetings or now and then saw each other at dinner time when two or three of the families were eating together. Then he would excuse himself and disappear with his books into some far corner of the house. She tried at first to make excuses for him, to persuade herself that it was only the busyness of his work, that nothing was really changed. But he was absorbed in a way of life she knew nothing about.
Even though they remained good friends, she could feel there was a difference now-an invisible barrier which she could no longer cross. She wondered if Stephen might be his old self again when summer returned.