Cherry Hill, Episode 12 - Amanda Grieves

When we last visited the sleepy 1940’s town of Cherry Hill Saskatchewan our heroine, Amanda Fitzpatrick was faced with terrible news. Her husband, the town doctor Paul, had been killed in a terrible car wreck leaving the car’s other occupant, Nurse Valerie Peterson in a coma. 

In the time since, Amanda’s parents came to stay with her and tried to convince her to sell the house, pack up her two children, Sally and Bobby, and move back to Nova Scotia. 

But Amanda felt this would be too much change for the children. Knowing the adjustment they would have to make with their father gone, she didn’t want to pull them away from other familiar aspects of their lives. 

With the help of friends and neighbours, including the surprising support of town matriarch Mrs. Wilson,  Amanda has slowly begun to work through her grief - although at the other end of it, she has been left with some troubling questions… 

We resume our web series with the following letter from Amanda to her mother…

August 21, 1947

Dear Mother, 

It’s so terribly hard to believe that it’s already been two months since Paul’s passing. On one hand, the time seems to have passed by in a fog, one day bleeding into the next, but on the other hand the world keeps moving forward and I feel the need to move with it for the sake of the children. 

Both Sally and Bobby have been doing well, and I truly have the Wilsons and Jack to thank for that. 

Mrs. Wilson has been an angel, bringing Sally into her kitchen where she's been teaching her how to to bake and cook simple meals...

 

and Jack has continued to coach Bobby, taking him to the park for rounds of catch. 

  

He took both children on a fishing trip last weekend and they came home so excited after having caught and cleaned their very own fish and cooked it over an open fire. 

But I can’t rely on the good will of friends and neighbours forever and as much as I'm still deep in the throes of my own grief, I realize I must take the steps to begin moving on. 

If only I didn’t still have so many questions – and, yes, I know mother, you have urged me to let all that go, but I may go crazy if I don’t get to the bottom of why Nurse Val and Paul were driving around at that time of night with liquor in the car! 

I'm not lacking in intelligence and, certainly, if I were to put two and two together in the same way the rest of the town has done, I would have to conclude Paul was up to no good.

But the soft-hearted side of me remembers Paul’s proposal, remember mother? Or the night he built the children the ice rink and pretended it was Santa Clause. Those parts believe that there still might be some other explanation. 

This is what keeps me awake at night. If there were some other explanation as to why Paul was spending so much time with Nurse Val, perhaps then I could forgive him and more easily work through this heaviness on my heart. 

Unfortunately, though, the only person who really knows what was going on between them is Nurse Val herself and though she has finally come out from her coma, she developed a case of amnesia and remembers nothing that has happened to her during the last five years. 

It seems the only person she remembers and will talk to is Jack. I was unaware that the two of them were quite the item in high school before he went away to war. Now she claims he is the only person she can trust as she unravels what is left of her mind. 

In the meantime, I'm trying to remember the good Christian woman I was brought up to be and am doing everything in my power not to judge the woman who was found with my dead husband alone on a dark country road with a car load full of empty bottles. 

Oh mother!

Whatever will I do?

As always, 

Your loving daughter, 

Amanda 

To view the next installment of my popular Cherry Hill series, visit this link: Amanda Cooks Easter Dinner

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