It was going to be a long road, but at least now Victoria and the kids were safe.
I looked at Mom, sitting in her chair, the drugs that were intended to kill the cancer within her dripping from an IV into her veins. These drugs were going to help her, going to save her life. But in killing the cancer, they were going to kill a lot of the healthy cells, too. It was going to make her feel sick. I wondered then about the worth of the bad stuff. The stuff in our lives that we had to suffer through, that didn’t add up—could it possibly produce something good in the end?
She caught me staring at her IV bag and smiled. This was the last thing she needed right now. Stress wouldn’t help her heal, and yet how could we keep her from it?
I shifted in my seat. “I’m sorry you’re going through so much right now.”
She took a long, shaky breath. “It hurts to see Victoria suffering. It hurts to wonder if we’ve been betrayed by the man we gave our daughter to—one we thought was honorable. But, Taylor, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have you here, especially now. Not just for my sake, but for your sister’s.”
“I wish there was more I could to.”
“You just being here is enough.” She studied me then, and I tried not to avert my eyes from her probing ones. “It really hurt when we received that check in the mail from your lawyer.”
I couldn’t hold her gaze. At the time, I thought it had been a good thing to do, a worthy thing. Now I could see it for what it was—in some ways, the cheapest way to fling my guilt as far away from myself as I could.
“I—I see that now. I’m sorry.”
“And I forgive you. We forgive you. And I have to ask for your forgiveness, too.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t always the mother I should have been to you. I admit I was insecure about my place in your life. I was insecure about showing you my love, fearful Victoria would feel cheated. After that day she accused me of preferring you to her, I wrestled with myself a lot. Even wondered if on some level, it was true. You were easier to love, always thanking us, always grateful. She was—well, a normal daughter, I suppose. Half the time I felt I juggled both of you, only I could never keep up.”
I swallowed, felt her words knocking at the lingering remains of the chain link around my heart. This time I wanted to give myself over to it. “I thought sometimes you regretted taking me in. It’s hard being the outsider, you know? You and Dad did so much for me, but I guess I thought you felt obligated. It doesn’t change the fact that if I had been able to choose, I would have chosen you. I love both of you so much.”
She blinked and swiped at her tears. “You girls both mean so much to me. God answered my prayers when He brought you home, and now that you are, I feel like no matter what—even if I don’t beat this thing in the end—all will be okay.”
I went to her and put my arms carefully around her body. “I’m not going anywhere, Mom.”
I tried not to wince when I saw Kevin’s name on my phone. Again. I’d ignored him too many times these past several days.
I swiped left and answered. “Hello?”
“Oh, you are alive. I thought you fell off the face of the earth.”
“Yeah . . . sorry about that. Things are a little crazy here.” Still, in the middle of all this, I should have called him. I should have wanted to call him.
“What’s going on, Taylor?”
Part of me wanted to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. But another part of me—the part that was starting to become accustomed to this open, honest thing and even found it freeing—wanted to throw caution to the wind.
I took my phone onto the front porch, out of earshot from where Mom and I had been reading in the living room after her treatment. “I don’t know.”
“I’m flying over tomorrow.”
I panicked. “No. No, please don’t.”
“I’m getting the feeling you don’t want me around, Taylor.”
“Of course not.” Kevin was perfect. Almost as perfect as I thought Will had been. I shook my head. That was ridiculous. I’d been with Kevin for too long not to know him well. He would never hurt me. So why was I refusing to fully open myself up to him?
“I can’t live like this anymore.” His voice was heavy on the other end, and something within me scrambled to make sense of it.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“This, Taylor. I thought I was okay with it—you, having your space and all that. But I’m not. I think we should call it quits for now.”
I waited to feel heartbroken, sad. Something. But the only thing I could summon up was relief. Which wasn’t saying much for my compassion. “I—I think you might be right.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Silence on the other end, and I knew I’d hurt him. Even though I hadn’t been the one to initiate this separation, I realized he was looking for me to swoop in and save us. Tell him to fly out East, tell him I couldn’t live without him.
But I couldn’t tell him.
I wouldn’t.
“Okay, then.” Something seemed to catch in his throat, and I closed my eyes against my own tears. Not because we had come to this, but because I had caused him pain. “I’ll have my stuff out of your place by the end of the week. I’ll mail you the key.”
“Kevin, I . . .”
“What?”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you deserve. I’m sorry I wasted so much of your time.”
I heard a large intake of breath. “Taylor . . . it was never a waste. Keep in touch, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, though I wondered if I would.
And just like that we were over. I couldn’t quite understand the peace that brought. Kevin had been the only thing tying me back to California, and right now, I felt very much as if I belonged in Concord. And yet when he’d invited himself into my world here, I hadn’t wanted it.
I heard the screen door shut and I hung up the phone after saying goodbye, turned to Victoria.
“Hey.”
She nodded toward my phone. “What’s wrong?”
I sat on the rocking chair closest to me, and she sat in the one beside it. “Nothing. I am actually okay. That was Kevin. We broke up.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Honestly, I think it’s a good thing.”
We rocked for a minute before she spoke. “So I guess it’s just like back when we were teenagers, huh? At Mom and Dad’s, without men in our lives.”
I laughed, but there was little humor in it. “Yeah, just like it.” I turned my chair to face her. “How you doing?”
She shrugged, and her bottom lip quivered. “Hanging in there.”
I remembered what the domestic abuse website had said about doing things with Victoria that had nothing to do with Will. “You want a distraction?”
“You’re not going to make me cook, are you?”
I laughed. Real this time. “I wanted to show you something yesterday, remember?” From her expression, I saw she didn’t. “I’ll be right back.” I ran upstairs to grab the book I’d dog-eared and handed it, open, to Victoria. I pointed to the sentence in Louisa’s letter to May that mentioned a Johanna. “There.”
She read it and I didn’t think I imagined the slight uplift in her posture. “No way. This must be her, right? Our Johanna?”
“It has to be.”
“From the sounds of it she was a house helper while Louisa was in Europe.”
I nodded. “Maybe they communicated after John died, or maybe Louisa even reached out to the family of her ‘prince of patients.’ I just wish I knew where to go from here.”
Victoria squinted up at me. “Don’t you have a book to write?”
“I’m thinking of incorporating all this into it—if it’s okay with you. So I’m considering this research.”
“You don’t need my permission to write your story. You haven’t had it for the last sixteen years.”
“This one’s different. It’s a
bout two sisters. They’re not us, but you might see us in them.”
“Oh, boy.” She leaned back in her rocker. “Does it have a happy ending? You know I’m a sucker for happy endings.”
I grinned. “I think it might, but I haven’t written it yet.”
“Okay. As long as there’s a happy ending.”
I took the keys Victoria gave me. “You sure this is okay?”
“If anyone asks, just tell them you’re picking up some stuff for me to work from home. It’s the truth. I just don’t feel like going out quite yet.”
I tucked the keys in my purse and set out on my quest, landing at Orchard House once again. A few cars were out front, but overall it was much quieter than last week with Jo March Writing Camp. I parked at the offices and was relieved to see no one around. I let myself in and headed to Victoria’s office. Once inside, I used the key she’d given me to get into the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.
She told me she had a copy of the complete letters of Louisa in here—those in the book I’d bought, but also those not included. Victoria told me there were over six hundred letters in existence, but that not even three hundred had been published. She had obtained the copies years ago, and though they were officially the property of Orchard House, she insisted this was important—that this one time they could be taken off the grounds.
I ran my finger over the carefully labeled folders, some of them financial records for Orchard House, others information about programs offered, and others historical records. Finally I reached one marked “Letters” and jiggled the thick folder out from its tight spot within the cabinet. I placed it on my lap, opened it to the first page—a copied cursive letter from Louisa to her mother. This must be it.
I heard footsteps behind me and jumped up, feeling guilty even though I had every right to be there.
“Luke.”
He adjusted his hat. “Taylor. Thought that was your car.”
I lifted the folder. “Victoria asked me to get her something.”
“She feeling okay?”
Why did it feel wrong to be anything but 100 percent honest with this man? Yet blabbing Victoria’s business wasn’t my place. “I think she’ll be back soon. Everything running well?”
“As far as I can see.” He gestured to the bottom cabinet, still open with the key hanging out.
“Oh.” I shut it, locked it, and straightened. “How’s Chloe? I really enjoyed walking with you two the other day.”
“Yeah, me too. Maybe we can do it again sometime, if you’re planning on staying a bit longer.”
“I am.”
He raised his eyebrows, the brown of his eyes deep. “Definitely now, huh?”
I grinned. “Definitely.”
My family needed me. And I was starting to realize that maybe I needed them all along, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Much talk about religion. I’d like to see a little more really lived.
~ LMA
Johanna
NATHAN DID NOT AGREE to me traveling to Boston with Louisa alone. But he did agree to take me so that I could spend time with my friend while he worked.
My babe was scheduled to arrive in less than two months, but I carried small and could hide my growing womb beneath the large talma I now wore, though it was a bit out of fashion beside the bustles and hoop skirts of the women around me.
Louisa and I walked on the cobbled streets toward the Tremont House, where the women’s club met. The ladies in their beautiful dresses and hats, the gentlemen in their finery, all swarming through the streets intent upon their destinations, the scents of food from a nearby dining establishment, the colorful display of candy in a shop devoted to confections, a jeweler’s, flower stores and bookstores . . . it was all too much for me to take in. And to think my husband practically lived here. What adventure!
I heard Louisa laugh beside me. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”
I shook my head. “Forgive me. I am in awe of this city. But that’s no excuse for my inattention. Please tell me what you were saying.”
“Mr. Niles wants a second volume for spring.”
I stopped walking and placed a hand upon her arm. “Of Little Women?”
She nodded. “The first edition is gone and more are called for.”
I had to stop myself from jumping up and down, bursting at the seams with excitement for not only my friend, but for myself—that I would get to read more of the March sisters.
Louisa’s Little Women had quickly become a huge success, and I could see why. It was my own favorite of hers. Domestic, honest, and even simple, it was as far from Rosamond and Phillip Tempest as one could get. And it was winning new hearts every day, including mine.
“I will begin in November. I’m finding a little success to be quite inspiring, am now even finding my Marches to be sober, nice people and not quite the bores I feared the Pathetic Family would seem.”
“Far from it.” I adored her “Pathetic Family,” both in real life and in the pages of her book. “Oh, you will have Jo marry Laurie, won’t you?” Jo March had especially captured me with her fierce independence. I loved seeing my friend in fiction. For to me, Jo wasn’t fiction at all. She was Louisa. And all of America was proving to find her a breath of fresh air in the literary community.
She made a scoffing sound. “You are just as hopeless as the girls who write me.”
“But Laurie is so . . . perfect. And he loves Jo, doesn’t he?”
“What of what Jo wants? Whom she loves?”
“There is no one else.”
She raised her chin. “Not yet, perhaps, but I refuse to marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone, even you, Johanna.”
I could tell I had gotten her dander up and thought it best to not take offense.
“Jo should remain a literary spinster, but I haven’t the heart to disappoint all the young ladies who write me. Out of perversity, I plan to make a funny match for her and expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head. I can’t help but enjoy the prospect.”
“You are dreadful!” I teased.
She smiled. “Dreadful or not, know that I think of your brother as I write my honorable heroes. He inspires me to write them, along with all the other good men I’ve had fortune to cross paths with in this life. The same will be true for the match I make for Jo.”
Tears pricked my eyelids. “That is beautiful, dear. And you are brilliant.” I paused, thinking of those we’d lost. “It was so nice to know your Lizzie, even if it was in the pages of fiction.”
She didn’t speak right away, and I knew her to be thinking. “Beth is the character I have kept the most true, though in life she was ten times as sweet, never caring much for this world beyond home. She was such a dear little saint. I believe I’m better all my life for those sad hours I spent with her.” She looked down at my middle. “Do you need a rest?”
“No, I am splendid.”
“What of your writing? Did you bring any poems to share with me? Have you any news of them being published with Nathan?”
I shook my head, not wanting to spoil our time with talk of continued rejection. “No poems, no news. Besides, I’ve been too preoccupied preparing for this little one.” In truth, I had continued at my poetry, felt it a magnificent way to empty myself of anxious thoughts surrounding Nathan so that I could better pour myself into my marriage and my coming babe. I had accepted that publication might never come. Perhaps my poems were not all that good, anyway. I mustn’t bother Louisa or my husband with them any longer.
She smiled. “You will be a most excellent mother.”
“Tell me, how are Anna and the boys?”
“Nan is depending on her ear trumpet more than ever, but very well. Oh, and little Johnny! He’s a heavenly sort of fire to warm and comfort us with his sunny little face and loving ways. She is a happy woman indeed. I sell my children; though they feed me, they don’t love me as hers do.”
I placed a hand on my growing sto
mach, understanding the truth of her words. I’d dreamed of writing, but beside the promise of this child, such castles in the air paled in comparison.
We arrived at the hotel and entered the grand establishment. I followed Louisa to the back, where the ladies’ ordinary was located. She ushered me into the club, a venture that was little more than six months old but seeming to gain popularity. She introduced me to Mrs. Cheney and Mr. Higginson, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Severance, and Mrs. Howe, all names I knew either from their writings or Louisa’s praise of them.
We settled in to begin the meeting and I listened to the minutes of the last, felt pride over being part of such an official thing in the middle of Boston. One of the ladies stood to read a paper she’d written on women’s suffrage. My tiny babe kicked heartily within my belly as the words were read, and I wondered if the unborn child sensed something stirring within me as the speaker eloquently argued for the right of a woman to vote.
“Can you all please recall the first line of the Constitution? Not even the first line, rather the first seven words! ‘We the People of the United States.’” The speaker, a Mrs. Weiss, spoke with such poise and confidence, I couldn’t help but be entranced by her words.
“I have to wonder about that line. Why then, if our forebears did not wish women to vote, did they not write, ‘We the white males of the United States’? Here, in our very own Constitution, we are given our rights and yet they are ignored. We—men, women, blacks, Jews, we are all people! It is a matter not only of our rights, but of divine justice, that we claim this cause and fight for a voice—both within our personal futures and in the future of our country!”
All applauded as she finished, and I remembered my long-ago talk with Nathan by Walden Pond when we first began courting. We had ceased talking of controversial issues together, largely because I didn’t broach any contentious issues any longer. Things went along fairly well, and I didn’t see it wise to throw a stick in a finely running carriage wheel.
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