Secret Hearts

by J. L. Jarvis

  “Then throw it in the compost heap.”

  “I was only leaving it for—”

  “Damn it, Beth. Every bohunk comin’ down the pike’ll be stopping at our door.”

  “They’re hungry.”

  “Then let ‘em work hard and earn it, like I do.”

  “They don’t always have a choice.”

  “Well I do!” Hank pounded his fists on the table and pushed himself to his feet. He caught up to Beth on the back stoop and yanked the plate from her hand. Towering over Beth, he cupped her chin in his hand and squeezed it to distortion. “If those bums don’t want to work for their food, they don’t have to. But they can’t have mine. Understand?”

  A struggled nod was all she could manage in Hank’s grip. With a push, he released her and tossed the tin plate onto the yard.

  Maggie stood by, helpless to do anything. She had learned that speaking up only made it worse for Beth later. Beth had begged her to stay out of these quarrels and, for her sake, Maggie tried. Robin watched from her chair, with her doll hanging loosely by her side.

  “What’re you looking at?” Hank shouted to Robin.

  Robin looked down at her doll’s dress until the calico print became a pastel blur.

  Hank turned his attention toward the table, where he sat down and piled a second helping onto his plate. Beth sat gently down and prayed silently over the meal while a mollified Hank loaded and reloaded his fork.

  Pushing his plate away, Hank lumbered out of the room. As he left, the tension lifted like thick factory smoke while Beth, Maggie and Robin cleared away the dinner dishes. Remembering the tin plate, Beth opened the back door. There, by the stoop, was her drawing. She sat and numbly wiped the paper dry with a corner of her apron. Although smeared with mud and wrinkled with water, she could still make out the drawing of her home and her daughter. It was her life, mud and all. It was no longer clear or pretty, but she’d made it.

  She glanced up toward the surrounding mountains. In the distance, a stranger walked with an uneven gait into a thicket of trees and out of view. Beth picked up the plate and went inside.

  Chapter 8

  Andrew climbed to the top of the cottage stairway. A line of flickering candlelight shone beneath Allison’s door. He hesitated outside her door but thought better of it and continued to his room.

  Allison heard his approach and looked up, alert and listening. Not until she heard Andrew’s door close did she return to her task.

  D,

  I once married a most suitable gentleman whose overt devotion so effectively masked his private contempt that love seemed to mock me. My heart withered, and nobody knew. But a strong man with a gentle touch made my heart whole. Your touch! That I must hide its effect is the cruelest of fates.

  A

  Allison placed the letter inside an envelope, and then tucked it into her drawer. Dimming the oil lamp, she stood by the window and watched the stars, feeling no longer alone in the darkness.

  On an impulse, she retrieved the letter and hastened through her bedroom door and down the stairs. The house was dark and quiet. Softly treading so as not to awaken anybody, she proceeded stealthily through the back door and onto the porch. She exhaled in relief at having made it out of the house, the most difficult part of her short journey.

  “Trouble sleeping?”

  Allison’s body sprang up as her heart plunged. She heard herself gasp. “Andrew! Don’t scare a person like that!”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you saw me.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “I think the post office is closed now.”

  “What?”

  Andrew nodded toward Allison’s hand. “That letter in your hand—it’s a little late to be running to town to post it, don’t you think?”

  Allison looked at her hand and saw the letter there. “Oh, this? It’s—I was just going to finish writing—”

  “In the dark?”

  “I was going to light a lamp.” Allison feared her confusion showed on her face but hoped the darkness would conceal it. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

  “Thinking.”

  “How unlike you, Andrew.” Allison was relieved to have deflected the attention from her letter, which was now tucked inside her sleeve.

  Andrew grinned wanly. “How do you know if you’ve fallen in love?”

  Allison was unprepared for the question.

  Misreading her reaction, he said, “I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.”

  Confused, it took Allison a moment to realize he’d referred to the fact that she was, after all, a widow in mourning. He must have thought he had injured her feelings by speaking of love.

  “No,” Allison reassured him, “It’s alright. I don’t mind.” She reflected and softly repeated the question. She eyed her brother with suspicion. “Why do you ask? Have you…”

  “No.” He answered too quickly. “I don’t know.” Andrew looked at his sister with consternation. “It’s too early. I’m a fool even to think…”

  Allison’s eyes sparkled with mirthful pity. She took a breath and studied her brother. “If you have to ask, you probably haven’t.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s what?”

  “That’s all you can say? Well, thank you for that erudite analysis.”

  “Andrew, when you fall in love, you’ll know it.”

  “Everyone says that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “I think, perhaps, when you go from wanting a person to wanting to give to that person—maybe that’s love. But, if the other person doesn’t want to give back, then what you’ve fallen in isn’t love; it’s loneliness.”

  “Is that how it was with Edmund?”

  Her resigned look spoke volumes.

  Andrew was at a loss for words. He had known so little about his sister’s marriage.

  Allison turned to happier thoughts. “So. You’re falling in love?”

  Andrew shook his head. “Maybe.” He looked at Allison with a bashful grin. “Possibly. In the future.”

  The two smiled and soaked in the evening stillness. A pair of approaching footsteps interrupted their two separate reveries. Allison’s eyes widened

  Andrew said, “Samuel, come join your fellow insomniacs!”

  Samuel fixed his attention on Andrew. “I’d love to.”

  He took a seat that happened to be next to Allison. “What are you two up to?”

  Allison answered, “Nothing too ambitious. We’re just defining love.”

  Andrew looked out at the night sky. “Samuel? Have you ever been in love?”

  Samuel was silent for a moment. “Yes.”

  “How did you know? When did you know that you were in love?”

  Allison interrupted, “You don’t have to answer that, Samuel. Andrew’s just being—”

  “One day,” Samuel interrupted, “I looked at her—and really saw her—and I knew.”

  “With no doubt?” asked Andrew.

  “Not one.”

  “Really?” Andrew was intrigued. “So why haven’t we met her?”

  Ignoring the question, Samuel said, more to himself than to Andrew, “She’s a rose among thorns.”

  Andrew thought for a moment, and then said, “I don’t quite see Maggie as a flower. She’s too strong for a flower—maybe a tree…”

  “I wouldn’t share that with—” Allison lifted an eyebrow. “Maggie?”

  “Dammit,” Andrew muttered to himself. He hadn’t meant to name names. Not yet.

  “Who’s Maggie?” asked Allison.

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Maggie, the tree…” said Samuel, grinning.

  “Well, she could be…a maple tree—all sugary and sweet,” offered Allison on Andrew’s behalf. “You do seem a bit syrupy,” teased Allison.

  “Sappy,” said Samuel, agreeing.

  “Here I’ve bared my soul—”

  “You can u
nbare it, now,” said Samuel.

  “—and all you two can do is to make fun of me,” Andrew said, suppressing his own laughter.

  Just as in childhood, the three laughed and talked into the morning hours, steeped in the stillness of a clear mountain night.

  Jake tried to stop going to the library. Seeing Maggie did him no good, but the library was his only way to make up what he’d missed. After his father’s death, he did no more than others had done before him; he quit school and went to work. But he had such a mind—a fine mind. His teacher had told him so. His grades had told him so. Listening to library lectures by visiting so-called scholars had convinced him so. But his mind wasn't enough. He had forced himself to accept quitting school, but he would not deny himself learning. If he could not go to school, he would make it up by reading and learning more than any of them. All he would lack was a teacher’s help, but he could figure it out by himself. The information was right there in the books. He would make it his own.

  But the books were in the library, and so was Maggie. He cut down his library visits to one a week, during which he would load up with enough books to get him by until the following week. Busy times were best, for then Maggie was forced to stamp his books and move on to the next person without taking the time to converse. His plan worked well, for the most part. At first, he would catch himself looking forward to seeing Maggie, without any thought for the books. It was agony the first few times he saw her—not being able to talk to her, or look into her eyes when she smiled, or to be within reach without touching. But Jake was nothing if not willful. With concentrated effort, he trained himself to ignore his feelings and to go through the motions without revealing the truth within him.

  It became a test, of sorts, to hand the books to her, sometimes brush his fingers against hers, feel the softness of her hands, yet not succumb. He would look at her with a cordial yet distant smile and perhaps say a word about his family. Then he would watch for her reaction. The slightest flush in her cheek or crinkled brow would suffice. Then he would nod and leave, just like that. He took pride in being able to quash the pangs his heart tried to feel. The smallest show of emotion from Maggie brought him solace. With clenched jaw, he would walk home feeling certain he was now a little less in love with Maggie MacLaren.

  Even so, he would sometimes pass her on the street as she returned home and he headed to work for the night shift. Caught unprepared, his heart would race, words wouldn't come easily. It infuriated him, these feelings, and his inability to control them. On one such occasion, he was flatly rude, walking away with an abrupt greeting, and then leaving Maggie to stand in the street looking bewildered.

  There were lapses. One Sunday morning, Jake forsook St. John’s Catholic Church for the Presbyterian Church Maggie attended, sin enough in itself. He slipped into the last pew and sat unobserved. From there, he watched her. Every feature and mannerism enchanted and tortured him. Each unruly strand of hair, the way her head tilted a bit when she disagreed with something in the sermon, the faraway look in her eyes as she sang a hymn, or just her mere presence seared his wounded heart. But the blistering pain at least made him feel alive again.

  Like all such small towns, the young ladies and mothers of Johnstown were quick to detect an eligible bachelor. When Maggie turned to Andrew, observant young women turned to Jake. Some would drop by with fresh batches of baked goods and preserves they just happened to have whipped up. Maeve O’Neill enjoyed a sudden popularity with mothers whose daughters were of courting age. Of course, she was a willing conspirator herself, on occasion arranging a few chance meetings of her own.

  Jake would walk through the door to find nervous young women with saucer eyes studying his every move as he walked past with barely a nod. Tall, plump, pretty or plain, none of them was Maggie. Jake tried to be nice, but he had the patience of a wounded beast. So he took to sneaking into the house through the back door rather than suffer the frustration of hiding his impatience from some girl who, along with her mother, came calling. If he paid his young siblings a penny, they would wait outside and warn him to hide in the woodshed, where he kept a stack of old newspapers to pass the time until the feminine guests had departed.

  Sometimes he sat on the front porch and loathed himself for watching the street, watching her house, looking and wishing for her just in case she went out. There came a night when the pain was too great. He sought refuge in the dark corner of a saloon, where he dulled his senses with drink. But as the night wore on, the drink turned on him. His rankled emotions gnawed at his mind, so he drank more to squelch it. The evening wore on and the boisterous crowd thinned to a murmuring lot of disillusioned souls and last call lingerers.

  Jake went to the bar and pulled some coins from his pocket and tried to count them, but his eyes wouldn't focus, so he slapped the whole handful of coins on the bar. As he set down the emptied glass, something caught his eye across the room. At a dimly lit corner table, he thought he saw Maggie. A lascivious drunkard let go of her waist when he caught sight of Jake bounding across the room toward him. But there was nothing to stop Jake from venting his rage with his fists on the man’s jaw. He was preparing to land the next blow when she grabbed hold of his arm. Jake yanked his arm away then lost his balance. She caught him again by the arm, this time to keep him from falling. He regained his balance in time to see the other man’s head bob a bit, then fall forward onto the table. She tugged at his arm. Jake tried to look closely at her, but his balance shifted, and he caught himself on a chair, scraping it against the floor.

  “We’d better get out of here,” said the young woman.

  Once outside, he stopped. “Maggie?” He looked at the girl with his cavernous eyes. Her hair was the color and texture of Maggie’s, but there the resemblance ended. Still, there was something endearing about her disconsolate face.

  She looked back at him with a wan smile. “The way you say it, I wish I was, but my name’s Sophie.” Sophie put her arm around Jake’s waist and pulled him away from the door. He followed her, uncomprehending.

  “Sophie,” he slurred, as they walked toward the intersection of two streets long since deserted by respectable folk.

  The cool night air did little to sober Jake as he stumbled and fell, pulling them both to the ground. As he pulled himself to his knees, he looked beside him and saw something in this young woman’s eyes. Her lonely expression touched a chord in him. They both understood loneliness that could not be assuaged, and the longing to try. Inexpressible yearning gripped him. His dark eyes flashed with the fire. She touched his cheek with her callused hand, and he grasped it and pulled her against him. He kissed her and, in a few frenzied steps, backed her against the side of a building and leaned the length of his body against her. Both vented their clashing emotions with hungry kisses. Desperate to fill the emptiness, they grasped at what they could have, each other. For now. Groping in the shadows.

  A raspy woman’s voice cut into the darkness. “Hey, Sophie? Take it somewhere else.”

  Jake and Sophie looked up to see a rough looking woman leaning on the arm of a man with a leer that showed through his leathery stubble. The woman reached out and pulled Sophie by the hand. Sophie tugged and tottered to the sidewalk. By the time Jake followed, the others had gone.

  After a few sobering breaths, Jake ran his fingers through his hair, then carefully sought to regain his balance. Sophie watched as he stood very tall and began to walk with acute attention to the task. Then some renegade muscle would give way and set him teetering.

  “You okay?” she chuckled.

  He grunted some sort of response.

  “What’s your name?”

  He pulled her against him. “You know me, Maggie. No, wait. You’re not Maggie,” he said, disappointed.

  “No. But you are—?”

  “Jake.”

  She studied him for a moment, and then said, “Come on, Jake.” She took his arm and started to lead him along.

  Jake took a few steps and stopped. He
spent the next several seconds focusing on Sophie’s face, which was no small task when combined with the challenge of maintaining a standing position. Her hair was a brown blur, while her facial features, though distinct, failed to settle into any set form.

  “You look like Maggie.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been told that.”

  “Really?” He looked surprised.

  “Yes, by you,” she explained with impatient amusement.

  “She’d like you.”

  “I’m sure she would,” said Sophie with a wry nod.

  “And you’d like her, too.” His face grew morose. “But I love her.”

  “You poor, miserable wretch,” said Sophie with all the cynicism of one whose heart also had been broken. She looked at Jake’s profile as he stared beyond the pitch colored trees to the shadowy hills. She recognized those eyes and what lay behind them. They were the eyes of one mired in pain but still clinging to hope. He had yet to pass through sorrow, bitterness, and finally nothing. Oh, she knew that look from the inside out.

  Jake touched her face and kissed her. “Excuse me,” he said, pointing his finger upward to signal for her to wait where she was. He then turned and threw up.

  Sophie turned away with a questioning glance toward the sky. She then folded her arms and then buried her face in one hand. When he was finished, she said, “Jake?”

  “Huh?”

  Sophie touched his cheek. “Go home.”

  It took Jake a moment to grin, comprehending. She gave him a nudge, then he turned to walk home, bumping into a streetlight, to which he politely said, “Excuse me.”

  Sophie watched him walk down the block. “You’re excused,” she whispered. He rounded the corner. She hesitated, and then turned and walked away.

  Like a ship with three sheets to the wind, Jake toppled from one side of the road to the other until he found his way to his street, in front of Maggie’s house. He grabbed hold of a lamppost and stared at her unlit home. “Maggie!” Hearing nothing, he called out loudly, “Maggie darlin’!”