Bougie swept past the table. Emmalyn stifled the urge to grab her wing-like sleeve and beg her to sit with them until the meal was over. From the way the women were positioned, only Emmalyn could see when Bougie made the international hand signal for “praying for you.”
“What do you really need, Emmalyn?”
“Thanks, Tia.” She ran her finger over the smooth handle of the stoneware mug with her initial on its base. “I need to work here. For a while.” Her answer had nothing to do with her room and board debt.
Tia nodded her head. “That’s it, then. Go for it.”
Their mother cut the beautiful brown crust off the bottom of her scone and set it to the side with two fingers. “But, Emmalyn, these people are”—she leaned in closer, her bosom smashing into the lemon curd and clotted cream on her plate—“strange!”
Tia started it—the laughter. When their mother sat back, aghast at her daughter’s manners, Shawna joined in. Emmalyn pressed her lips together, determined not to give in to the moment. Her mother’s navy cashmere sweater might never recover from the yellow and white accessories smeared across the front.
“Girls! Settle down. This may not be uptown, but you can conduct yourself with— Oh, good glory!”
She’d found it. She held her cloth napkin across her chest and excused herself with a huff. “I’ll be right back.”
“No hurry.” Emmalyn was the only one capable of talking. The other two had launched into teary guffaws.
When they’d regained control, Emmalyn took a breath of courage and said, “Tia, I really am happy for you with this baby.”
“I know it has to be hard on you.”
“Don’t . . . don’t let it come between us. I want you to feel you can share the joy of it with me.” Where did that tear come from? She’d been doing so well.
“Oh, hon.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be okay. A little rogue wave of the old me.” She dabbed at the tear, grateful one dab took care of it. “Besides, I think Max and I are going to look into fostering or adoption after he’s released.”
Her sisters traded looks couched with furrowed brows.
“Not right away. We have to get . . . used to each other again. Build our own relationship.” Providing he comes home to me, not Claire. “I know I’ve been set against adoption all along. That’s one of the things about me that’s changed.”
Shawna opened her mouth, but Tia shook her head in warning.
“What is it? I’m in a much healthier place than I was even a few months ago. This is good news. Why the somber looks?”
“Emmalyn.” Tia bit her lower lip, then expelled a full breath in a whoo before drawing another. “You two can’t adopt. And you aren’t candidates for foster parenting.”
“Max is a felon, Em.”
“I’m aware of that, Shawna.” Blood pulsed in Emmalyn’s temples.
“Felons can’t adopt.”
“You’re using the word felon as if you don’t know Max, as if you don’t know what a good man he was. Is. A good man who made a . . . a horribly costly mistake.”
Tia dug in her purse for a tissue and handed it to Emmalyn. “This isn’t about our opinion. You know we love Max. It’s the law, honey.”
She’d finally found a thread of hope. One small thread. God, don’t take that away from me, too. They’re wrong. They have to be wrong.
But they weren’t. Shawna punched in a search on her smartphone. The criminal background check would stop most applications. Exceptions? A few. Convincing an adoption agency or the foster care system to overlook Max’s prison record loomed higher than the national debt.
* * *
Emmalyn couldn’t fake joy for the rest of their stay. It’s a good thing they didn’t expect it. The mood hung fog-low despite the beauty of their surroundings, the history of the island, the lure of the November cold but still inspiring beach. The waves put on an impressive show, their white petticoats can-canning throughout the afternoon. None of the three wanted to brave the whitecaps to ride the ferry to Bayfield for what had promised to be an elegant evening meal at the Old Rittenhouse Inn. They made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and ate them in front of the fire.
Her mother’s embarrassment from brunch at The Wild Iris kept her tongue corralled. Or maybe the girls had pulled her aside when Emmalyn wasn’t looking and warned her to take it easy on Emmalyn. Whatever the reason, the tone of the remainder of their visit softened.
“We could watch TV,” Shawna suggested when the conversation died out.
“I don’t own one.”
“I wonder what the reception’s like up here,” her mother said.
Emmalyn let it lie. What would they say if she told them she didn’t intend to purchase one?
“Scrabble?” Tia looked around as if the game board would already be laid out somewhere in the room.
“Most of the games are still in storage. In Lexington.”
“Oh.”
“I guess I’ve gotten used to the quiet.”
She was sure her mother didn’t intend her to observe how she pursed her lips and shook her head two inches side to side.
“So, what time is your ferry tomorrow?” Emmalyn asked, praying for calm water.
The visitors exchanged glances. Shawna spoke. “We thought we’d get a fairly early start. It’s a long way home.”
“What’s ‘fairly early’?”
“We’ll check out by, oh, nine,” her mother said.
“That means breakfast by eight. That’s okay. I need to get used to setting an alarm.”
Her mother shifted in her chair. “Don’t bother, dear. We can say our good-byes tonight. Sleep in. You look like you . . . need it.” Her final words faded to an almost imperceptible level.
Emmalyn didn’t cringe. Numbness spread through every cell. Numb doesn’t flinch. But it also doesn’t feel. She stared into the fire, aware how recently it had been that she’d started to feel again.
* * *
They’d gone through the routine of good-bye. Shawna and Tia hugged her tighter than usual. Emmalyn’s heart thunked noisily in her chest when she realized she stood inches away from a womb growing a baby like the one she’d never have.
The thought didn’t devastate her as it once would have. It saddened her to a depth few people dare dive without air tanks.
Her lungs screamed at her by the time the black sedan with road dust on its sleek fenders pulled out of her driveway. She felt her soul kicking hard to shoot her back to the surface where she could breathe again. How far? How much farther?
Her first breath came in a wild gasp followed by a body-wide shudder that startled Comfort from her nest near the hearth. Emmalyn dropped onto the couch, face first. Moving only one arm, she reached for the throw and tossed it over her back. A five-pound weight told her Comfort had disobeyed the house rules and jumped onto the couch with her. The dog crawled over Emmalyn and settled between her shoulder blades, a heating pad for her heart.
Emmalyn flipped the satin belted pillow to its plain side and pressed the side of her head into it. She didn’t move until Comfort hopped off. The clock on the wall said she’d been prone for two hours. Her neck protested that it might have been longer.
Comfort danced at the door, eager to go out. Emmalyn obliged. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched Comfort’s paw prints mark a trail through new fallen snow.
* * *
The wind’s blowing through a mouthpiece of tall pines. It sounds like a cross between a whistle and a roar.
Emmalyn laid aside her pen and took another sip of an imported tea that had been part of the Bougie-Cora housewarming basket. She picked up her pen again.
It’s a haunting sound, Max, when the snow is flying. In warmer days, it seemed a white noise background to other activities. Today, it’s taking center stage.
She tucked her feet underneath her and snuggled into the asymmetrical scarf Cora made from the wool they’d chosen together. She fingered the smooth wood of th
e handcrafted button—heart-shaped—that sat just above her own heart.
I start work at The Wild Iris Friday morning. Five o’clock, if you can believe that. Not my favorite time of day. That’s probably close to when you’ll be starting your day. Wish we could have coffee together to start our tomorrows.
The curse of ink. As soon as the last sentence formed on the page, she regretted it. Too personal, too soon? He hadn’t written back yet. He might never write back. Somehow, she’d have to live through that. If she crossed out the sentence, he’d know what she meant to say and had recanted. Too late now.
She reread what she’d written. “To start our tomorrows.”
Cora had said, “I can’t survive if my primary thought is that Wayne might not come home from his deployment. I know it’s a truth. But I have to let a stronger truth override that one.”
When Emmalyn asked what that stronger truth was, Cora said, “He is my husband until he’s not.”
No matter how far away. No matter the danger he’s in. No matter what he’s done or neglected to do. No matter how long it’s been since I’ve heard from him . . .
She’d finish the letter later. Time to head upstairs and figure out what she would wear for her first day on the job before she called it a night. If only she had a prom dress she could cut up.
* * *
The view from the master bedroom never failed to amaze her—the lakeside French doors offering her a nearly wall-wide view of beach, water, and sky. Mesmerizing any ordinary day. Captivating on a morning bright with new snow. She abandoned the resumption of her wardrobe search in favor of sea-gazing, watching the fat snowflakes melt on the water’s tongue like a million communion wafers or flakes of manna.
Biblical references. Not her normal fare. A hand of resistance pushed against her softening soul. But that’s the thing about a softened soul—it has the strength to push back.
In a bedroom she couldn’t quite call theirs yet, with a too-wide bed a symbol of loss and distance, she surrendered to the unexpected peace. It filled the room like music. She watched the snow until it stopped. It looked like four inches or more. First snowfall of the season. Which bickering old man at the café had won the bet?
Not enough snow to thwart her mom’s and sisters’ escape from the island. They’d called earlier to let her know they were as far as Bayfield. Without knowing, she could have told them the moment the weight of them lifted from Madeline Island. The air had changed between snowflakes and the music resumed.
A rude sound from behind the house stopped the music again. What on earth? She could only view that part of the property from the bathroom window upstairs. When she looked out, she saw a pickup with a plow blade attached to the front, plowing the lane to her cottage. She hurried downstairs, grabbed her “chunky” coat and slipped her feet into the boots she’d purchased none too soon.
Beside the back door, leaning against the cottage, sat a snow shovel boasting a plate-sized red satin bow on its handle. Nick waved and smiled from the driver’s seat. He turned the truck around and headed back the way he’d come, plowing a wider path. He pulled onto the side road, waving again, and disappeared.
“Thank you,” Emmalyn said to the cold air. She turned to walk back into the cottage and noticed that her car had been cleared of snow, too. If it didn’t snow overnight, her morning routine would be much easier now.
“Bless you, Nick.”
Saint Nick.
Ankle bracelet and all.
“God, let somebody somewhere see beyond Max’s chains, too.” The prayer rose unbidden, like a tension-releasing sneeze.
Also unexpected was the inaudible response she heard: You. You see beyond them.
She had a feeling that meant more than writing an occasional note.
The warmth of the cottage beckoned, as did Comfort’s incessant bark. Emmalyn opened the door and let the dog slide past her, then pulled on gloves and shoveled a path from the door to the driveway while Comfort answered nature’s call.
Emmalyn ducked into the cottage for her camera. Max would appreciate how the departing clouds allowed the sunshine to dust the snow scene in diamonds and purple shadows. She pulled in close for a shot of light landing on the snowy roof of the small, forlorn shed, lending it an elegance it hadn’t had before the storm.
A puff of snow fell from branches high overhead. Then another. The trees were already shrugging their shoulders, shaking off the crystalline dandruff.
Emmalyn stood in the middle of it all, enraptured by the silence and shadows, the flashes of brilliance as individual snowflakes had their moment in the spotlight and simple weeds became pedestals for frozen sculptures. If it hadn’t been for Emmalyn’s own call of nature, she would have stayed in the scene another hour.
“Comfort? Come here, girl.” Small footprints in deep snow littered the unwooded part of the backyard. “Comfort?” Her belly must have been dragging in the deepest sections.
Emmalyn walked around the side of the cottage, calling. No response. She shuffled through the heavy snow to the edge where the sea grass ended and the beach began. “Comfort! Don’t . . . leave me,” she chided. The humor in her voice disappeared more quickly than the snow melting into the water.
“Now? You picked now to find a new home?” she asked the absent dog.
* * *
It was harder than she thought it would be—letting the dog go. She knew it was coming. Everyone had warned her. But as she stood gazing the length of the damp, snow-spotted beach late that afternoon, she wished they hadn’t been right.
Emmalyn lifted her face to the sky and drew the deepest breath the cold air would allow. She turned toward the cottage. Comfort sat on the front porch where Emmalyn first found her. Except for the patch of caramel brown on her sweet face, Comfort blended into her surroundings of white cottage and white snow.
“Come on, dog,” Emmalyn said, slapping her thigh. “Let’s get inside. Big day tomorrow.”
* * *
“Can you work Thanksgiving?” Bougie asked midmorning of Emmalyn’s first shift. “Say no if you’d rather not.”
“Spending it here is better than brooding at home,” Emmalyn said, wrapping cloth napkins around sets of silverware.
“You weren’t going to visit Max that weekend?”
The question caught her by the throat. “I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Waiting for an invitation?” Bougie tilted and ducked her head to look Emmalyn in the eye.
“Something like that.”
Bougie crossed her arms over her chest. “You are one patient woman, M.”
“Far from it.”
“You’ve been waiting for that invitation—what?—four plus years now? Still patiently waiting.” She uncrossed her arms, held her palms up, and shrugged. “Is there another word for it?”
She turned and busied herself at the hostess desk, leaving Emmalyn to consider words like foolish, stubborn, self-centered, pitiful . . .
Emmalyn pushed the words out of the way and focused on the task at hand, which took way too little mental attention.
Bougie smoothed a page torn from a magazine and laid it on Emmalyn’s work surface. “What do you think of this idea?” she said, her expression that of a child waiting for a turn on the water slide. This is going to be so much fun!
Emmalyn didn’t have a hard time understanding Bougie’s anticipation. The idea fit The Wild Iris perfectly. “I love it.”
“You do? Good. You’ll help me choose some fonts and which sayings will translate best into wall art?”
“Happy to do that.” Emmalyn considered adding, “All we really need to do is pull lines from what comes out of your mouth every day, Bougie, and we’ll have all the conversation starters the walls can hold.” Instead, she pointed to a couple from the magazine image. “I love how they kept the quotes high on the wall and wrapped the text around the room, from one wall to another, if necessary.”
“Me, too. Are you thinking cream paint?”
Emma
lyn considered the color mix in the dining area. “Cream would work against all these colors. The continuity would make it more elegant, I think.”
“Agreed.” Bougie closed her eyes briefly. “You’re what I’ve needed to build my courage.”
“Me? To build your courage? That’s bordering on the absurd, Bougie.”
“Even for me?” She pointed out the outrageously oversized lace collar on her emerald green satin knee-length, sleeveless gown.
“That used to be a doily, didn’t it?”
“Two of them.” Bougie said.
“Nice.”
“I’m going to have to break down and add the coral sweater, though. Why do they even sell sleeveless in Wisconsin, I wonder?”
Working at The Wild Iris would never get boring.
“However,” Bougie said, “sleeveless allows me to do this.” She stuck her tattooed arms straight out in front of her. “Hope and Healing,” she said, and clapped her forearms together. “Boom!” She held her arms out, as if expecting Emmalyn to check if the words had switched arms.
What must Jesus think of His lovechild, Bougie Unfortunate? Emmalyn pictured her worshiping, arms raised, waving her inked banners of Hope and Healing for all the world to see.
Pirate Joe slid the cookie jar from its resting place. He carried it to the table by the window, lifted the lid, and waited while the mayor deposited a dollar bill.
No. Never boring.
* * *
On Monday afternoon, The Wild Iris shooed its last customer out in plenty of time for Emmalyn to stop at the post office. She hadn’t conquered the combination on the box before the postmistress poked her head through the window a few feet away.
“Got a son in prison, huh?”
Emmalyn’s neck cracked when she turned her head toward the window. “Excuse me?”
“The letter you were waiting for? There’s one in there from a correctional facility. It’s stamped with it.”
First of all, I’m not old enough to have a son in prison. But she was. Second, isn’t there some kind of privacy deal people who work in the post office have to sign? Third, nobody told you yet?
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