“I’m also an engaged woman.”
“And I didn’t even notice!” Jennie looked for a ring. “That’s wonderful!”
Ariyah giggled and leaned in to Jennie. “It’s perfect. And I’ll have the most unique engagement ring ever. Voilà!” She spread her hands across the keys. “He said he wanted to buy me a ring, but I like the idea that the promise of our marriage will be kept in music.” She patted Jennie’s hand, held her friend’s eyes. “Don’t worry about Charles. He’s venturing into something new.”
“We’re in this together, but it feels as though something’s missing between us.” Not unlike the jokes she never understood: she could hear the words but miss the subtle point that made others laugh and left her in the dark.
“It’s my first major transaction. Of course I had to celebrate a little. It would have been rude not to.” It was late on an August evening and Jennie smelled alcohol on his breath. “We’ve made enough on this one to buy you your own buggy and I’ve paid for the pearls. I’ve put the order in. That’s why I’m so late. Don’t put a damper on this day, Jennie.”
Dougie looked up from his new wooden horses he’d shown his mother. She frowned at Charles. “He already has wooden horses.”
“These are quality. He has to learn how to handle nice things.”
Quilton scratched in his box. The porcupine still kept his quills laid flat even when Douglas dallied filling his water bowl. The rodent expressed agitation as voices grew louder. Jennie wondered later if Quilton anticipated the tension that came next, the way horses race around a field, tails to the air, before a thunderstorm crests the horizon.
“The spending, Charles. It concerns me.”
“Everything concerns you.”
“You haven’t done any carpentry work for the Parrishes and they’re about to loan us the second half. We have a quarterly payment due. We need to keep the bargain. We don’t need another buggy. We have yours and—”
“I try to do nice things for you and what do you do?” He stumbled backward. “You thwart me at every turn.”
“I’m not. I—I’m worried.”
“You have no faith in me.” She thought of what Ariyah had said.
“I’m proud that you’ve made the first sale. I am. It’s just that . . .”
He looked around as though he’d mislaid something, his eyes settled on Dougie. “Come on, Douglas. Leave the toys. Let’s give your mother time to appreciate what she has and what she’s about to have.” Dougie dropped the horses and followed his father out without a word of protest.
The quiet left behind with the slammed door felt like the heat preceding a summer storm.
Why didn’t she wait before confronting him, especially when he smelled of spirits? Instead of his inebriation making her hold her tongue, it loosened it. She should follow them, rescue Dougie. But Dougie’s presence might encourage his father’s better judgment. Will it?
Everything was a decision.
She fed Quilton, fixed herself some tea, remembered Scripture: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”
Her mind skittered to noises within the household, hoping for sounds of her husband and son returning. They did not. She ate a biscuit. Watched the day melt into sunset. Slept the night in the chair. She did not dream.
The new clock Charles had bought that stood sentry in the living area struck six when she heard the horse whinny and pulled the curtain back to sunrise and her husband in the carriage.
Dougie wasn’t there—What on earth could he have done with Dougie? But then her son’s head bobbed up, allowing her full fury she could direct at Charles. “Thank goodness.” Her words stirred Quilton, but the porcupine would have to wait for breakfast. She grabbed her shawl and rushed out.
She’d prayed that if he wasn’t sober she wouldn’t say anything until he was. There was no sense arguing with someone influenced by strong drink.
Then weak spirited as she was, she violated the vow.
Charles missed the step as he slid from the carriage, grabbing the handhold to balance himself.
“Charles, are you—drunk?”
“Oh, she’s so smart this woman. Drunk? No, celebrated. Help me unharness this thing, woman. You drove me to be out so late, so no lectures.”
“I drove you? How dare you—”
“Mama, my tummy hurts.”
“I don’t doubt it. Have you eaten?” She reached for Dougie. “What have you done to him?”
“Miss Priscilla gives me giggly candy. I don’t feel so good, Mama.”
“Miss Priscilla? Who is—”
“I got him.” Charles lifted Dougie from her. “Come on, boy. We’ll get you some laudanum.”
“No. Charles. Please. I’ll take him.” Charles had already swung Dougie onto his shoulder, wobbling toward the house. “Saleratus, not laudanum. Please. It’s in the white tin.”
She shook as she led the horse toward the barn. I should follow them in. The horse wasn’t hot, so they hadn’t been far away. Who was “Miss Priscilla”? And what had gone on? She headed inside.
Dougie cried and ran to her. Charles had sprawled on the settee, his lanky legs hanging over the narrow seat. His eyes were closed.
“Did Daddy give you some white powder for your tummy?”
Dougie shook his head no. “Tummy hurts.” His eyes weren’t dilated. He had no bruises she could see. She couldn’t name the scent from his breath.
She scurried to the cabinet with cooking spices. The tin of saleratus used to raise bread dough had not been moved. She opened it and put a small spoonful into a glass of water. Dougie drank it down. She hoped the leavening agent would soak up some of the stomach acid caused by, what had he said, “giggly candy”?
“Better?” He nodded and she settled Dougie in his trundle bed. No fever. He drank water but didn’t gulp it. “Try to sleep. You’ve been up a long time.”
“I saw Mary and Nellie.”
“Did you? You went to Aunt Lucinda’s. Was Miss Priscilla there with her candy?”
He shook his head. “Papa and Uncle argued. Miss Priscilla lives in a bi-i-i-ig house.” He yawned. “I like giggle candy. Papa likes it too.” Dougie lay in his trundle bed and then closed his eyes, immediately asleep.
Fury like a fire burned inside her. What kind of “candy” had her child been exposed to? And his own father had allowed it to happen. Just as before, only this time he’d given Dougie whatever it was, not merely “allowed” him to drink from the bottle while Charles slept in his stupor.
“Wake up, Charles!” She shook him. “You wake up and tell me right now what’s gone on.”
He moaned and rolled over, his neck in an odd position. He’d have a headache when he awoke. It would serve him right. “Charles!” Nothing. And then she heard an inner voice remind her of that earlier vow: Don’t argue with a drunk. She would have to wait to expectorate her anger.
She unharnessed the patient horse, cooled him with the curry-comb, fed and watered the gelding, then let him out to the small paddock where he shook his chestnut mane and pranced around, then came to the fence to nuzzle her. Maybe for human touch too. He was there to do his duty and then receive reward for it. Green moss grew on the top rails except where the horse had rubbed, leaning across for a pat on his nose. He whinnied low as she caressed the velvet.
“What do I do with this . . . outrage that’s burning in my stomach?” Surely holding such anger was a sin. And one was supposed to confess sins and then be given a route to freedom or at least another path away from self-righteous rage.
She left the horse eating, went inside. Her knitting needles passed the time. What would Joseph say about his assistant superintendent not showing up for work? She checked on Dougie now and then. He snored, so she knew he breathed all right. He looked peaceful in his sleep, so she didn’t consider another humiliating trip to that doctor.
The clock struck twelve times, waking Dougie. When she asked if he was hun
gry, he nodded yes and she sliced a piece of ham for him and spread butter on bread to make a sandwich. She ate one too and finished it as Charles awoke.
He groaned. “What time is it?”
“Almost one in the afternoon.”
“I really slept.” He sat up and shook his head. “Uh . . . I didn’t, that is, I didn’t hurt . . . ?”
“Physically, no. I’ll fix you a sandwich so you can work a part of your shift at least.”
He leaned back, his arm across his forehead and his eyes. “Ah, Jennie. It’ll be all right, so I don’t want you to sputter now when I tell you this, but Joseph fired me.”
“What? After you go in to work for him at dawn? After all you’ve done through the years for him? No. We need that stability, Charles. We need—”
“I can turn it into a good thing. I’ll have more selling time. I can’t be trying to do this evenings or the day of rest. People are uncomfortable speaking of buying and selling on the Sabbath. And I have to consider time to do the carpentry for Parrish. You even mentioned that. My not working at the prison will make that easier.”
“But they’ve made the loan with the understanding that you had a job and could make repayments. Now you—”
“We will. With the one transaction I’ve got a quarter of the payment already.”
“But now we’ll need to live on that. Maybe Joseph will take you back.”
“He won’t.” He sat up. “Don’t you worry. I’ll work for Parrish this afternoon.”
“It’s already afternoon.”
“You worry overmuch.” He yawned, closed his eyes, and was asleep within seconds.
Once a woman had come to her for something to ease burns. She confessed to throwing hot coffee at her husband as he slept off too much brew. She expressed great remorse but at the time had been furious that he had simply slept through her deep, profound, and futile expression of frustration and fear. They had stayed together, her husband saying he deserved the pain she inflicted, a tit for tat. At the time, she thought the interaction belonged to the lower classes, but at that moment, as Charles snored, it was all she could do to let him sleep and pour the hot tea water into the pot.
Charles took his tools and the buggy to the Parrishes the next morning where he spent the day, and he said he was too tired to talk when he got home. She tried not to interrogate Dougie, but when on Tuesday Charles walked to “pick up the new buggy and horse” over her objections, she drove their existing buggy toward Liberty Street with Dougie along. Brick buildings lined the commercial center, and at a cross street, Dougie pointed and said, “Miss Priscilla’s house. Down there.” How did he remember that? Her cheeks felt warm and her stomach lurched. She knew of that area.
She flicked the reins on the horse’s back and he picked up to a trot, moving at a good clip down that street. “That one.” Her son pointed to a two-story house with a wide porch back among the firs and behind a white picket fence. The shrubbery was well trimmed.
Even though she knew of the work those women did, Jennie had always felt compassion for them. Now and then one had come seeking herbal treatments for their intimate rashes. She wished she felt more confident using pasqueflower. A trained doctor would know better what to do. The plant looked like a buttercup and Indians back in Illinois used it to speed childbirth—and to treat syphilis. But it also dangerously slowed the heart. Though she had the treatment, she had turned the woman away, suggesting she speak with a doctor who would have more options.
“Those willing to treat us are difficult to find,” the woman had said. Jennie didn’t doubt it. Men caused the problem but didn’t like to participate in the solution.
Miss Priscilla is behind that door.
Jennie tried to think kind thoughts. She understood how easily a woman abandoned by a husband or abused by a father or beau could fall into such work. Alcohol took its firm finger and wrote on the lives of women and children, even if they didn’t imbibe. That her husband would expose their son to that. Surely not because he . . . perhaps someone there was the person who had bought the land Charles had sold. Maybe Charles being there was innocent, land being exchanged and a little celebratory drink, as he had claimed. Didn’t the proprietor of the house—the Madam, she was called—often have money she needed to invest? Yes, that was it. Charles might have only stopped for a moment. He’d visited the Sloans long enough to have an argument, hadn’t he said? And to get fired. Charles spoke of not being drunk but “celebratory.”
But that didn’t explain nor excuse Douglas’s condition. She turned the horse at the end of the street, heading toward Pringle Creek. A steamboat whistle perked the horse’s ears forward, then back, paying attention. Maybe the fox would come by and remind her that he knew how to heal himself.
She would have to deal with Charles, whether he wanted to talk about it or not. She just didn’t know when or how or if she could accept whatever answer he offered. DW, her attorney brother, had advised her once to never ask a question unless she already knew the answer. That might work in law but not in life.
12
Rivers Gouging Canyons
Ariyah arrived the next morning full of nuptial talk. “We’re going to marry in the parlor. I hope your father will officiate. And you’ll be my matron of honor. You will, won’t you?”
“If it means honoring you and honoring marriage, yes!” She chose not to flatten her friend’s enthusiasm with the realities of what marriage sometimes brought.
“My parents are so happy. Peleg’s even paying for my wedding dress. It’s going to be a deep madder red, the hue Vermeer used in his palette. Maroon is such a sunrise color, don’t you agree?” Jennie nodded. “And we’ll serve Norwegian Omelettes.”
“Something exotic, I suspect.” Jennie served her friend tea, only a little embarrassed at their frugal furnishings. Ariyah didn’t seem to notice.
“They’re little cakes Peleg said Thomas Jefferson served with iced cream inside a pastry and meringue baked on top. The cakes will look like our Mt. Jefferson.” She pointed with her chin toward the east where that white peak rose up as if pushed out of the rolling green fields and forests. “Peleg says they’ll be our ‘Alaskas’ but not Seward’s Folly. He’s quite distressed that Congress authorized that purchase. Our Alaskas will be the toast of the town, not the joke of it.” She stopped talking. “What’s the matter? You’re so quiet.”
Shame is a powerful silencer. “It’s—it’s nothing. Tell me what I’m to wear, what color? And what materials. Oh, and goodness, when is this grand event happening?”
“Two o’clock on the twenty-first. I’ve even arranged for someone to watch over the children so you’ll have nothing to worry about with Douglas. I know how you worry.” She patted Jennie’s hand.
At the moment, Dougie shouted like a buckaroo, riding his hobby horse outside. The women watched as he swirled a rope, hoping to lasso the butter churn on the porch.
“Peleg is composing a piano piece for me that he’ll play. I think that’s so romantic, don’t you? I’m getting flowers from that fabulous garden of the Parrishes. He offered. Or rather, Mrs. Parrish did through her husband, when she heard of our engagement. Peleg had some business with Reverend Parrish when he first arrived. Something about sheep, I think. The roses are gone, but the gladiolas should be beautiful.” Ariyah stood, her dress a swirl of blue. She clasped Jennie’s hands and pulled her up, spreading their arms as she looked down at Jennie’s short frame. “Let’s see those dimples. Perfect! I’m using the seamstress on Center Street. She’ll design something to show off your tiny waist and that creamy skin and those emerald eyes. A buttercup yellow, I think.” She sighed. “How I envy those eyes.”
“That seamstress, she’s . . . expensive.”
“Don’t fret. I’ll pay for it, Jennie. Or rather, Peleg will.”
“Oh, no. I was just thinking about the new millinery shop. She’s hoping to make a go of it, a small business, widowed. I’m sensitive these days to women who take a risk like that. I won
der if we could—”
“You’re a collector of lost souls, Jennie.” She held her friend’s eyes with warmth. “It’s one reason why I love you so.” She smiled and adjusted her hair clip. “All right. We’ll use your milliner for hats and ribbons and chemises and my dressmaker for our gowns. This’ll be such fun.” She swirled herself around, then grabbed Jennie in a hug. “I like your new home, Jennie.” She smelled of rose water. “Both our lives have a new melody written over the score of love.”
The music she described fit her life, and Jennie wouldn’t do anything to silence it for her friend.
Lucinda kissed Jennie on both cheeks, then turned to Douglas. “We don’t see you often enough. Douglas, you’ve grown. Such a big man you are.”
“I see you sooner.”
Lucinda frowned. “Oh, you mean earlier. Yes, you did, with your papa.”
Dougie put his hands on his hips, his elbows out the way Charles stood when he hoped to look impressive. “I’m a buckaroo.”
“Did you bring your horse along?”
Dougie shook his head, his shoulders dropped.
“Maybe Nellie and Mary will help you find one to play with today. They’re in the backyard. You know where that is.” He headed out and Lucinda turned to Jennie. “How are . . . things?”
“A bit wobbly. Charles being fired has certainly complicated things. But that happens, I guess.” With her fingernail, Jennie picked at a dried piece of pastry stuck to the deep grain of Lucinda’s oak table edge. Her sister placed her palm over Jennie’s to stop her mindless picking.
“He wasn’t fired, Jennie. Is that what he told you?” She sighed. “And you believed him?”
“He wasn’t?”
“Oh, Sister. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to sound harsh.” Lucinda reached to hold Jennie with one arm, rubbing gently. “We didn’t know what to say, actually. He up and told us he was quitting.”
Married people often said “we” and “us” as though the “I” of a partnership needed to disappear in order for the marriage to work. Jennie didn’t belong to much of a “we” anymore. She’d been saying “my son” rather than “our son” for some time. Had it been a subtle awareness that her heart knew of the disruption before her head did?
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