by Lucy Evanson
Cora stepped closer to Nathan and reached out for his arm, pulling herself against him. She could feel her heart pounding fiercely in her chest, and she suddenly realized that her mouth had gone dry.
When a woman finally stepped into the hall and Cora saw who it was, she found herself speechless. The other woman, however, was not.
“Why, Cora,” her cousin Emma said, “how lovely of you to visit our home.”
Chapter 6
“I think you mean my home,” Cora said, releasing Nathan’s arm and stepping out from behind him.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” Emma said. “Now aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend here?”
Cora turned to Nathan. “This is my cousin Emma,” she said. “Emma, this is Paul. He’s my husband, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Emma said, her smile like a sliver of ice as she walked forward, her heels clicking sharply on the polished floorboards. “You did say that, didn’t you? It’s just so…hard to believe.”
“I know,” Cora said. “I can hardly believe it myself sometimes. But there you are.”
“Good to meet you, Emma,” Nathan said, sticking out his hand.
“Hello, Paul,” she said. She shook his hand quickly and subtly wiped her hand on her dress afterwards. She cocked her head to the side as she looked at him, as if sizing him up for a moment, then turned back to her cousin. “So when did you two get married?”
“Just yesterday.”
“Yesterday? Well, wasn’t that a lucky coincidence?”
“Yeah, really lucky,” Cora said. “We almost missed out on our inheritance. By the way, why didn’t you mention anything about Jack passing on when you saw me at church?”
A pained look spread over Emma’s face. “Wasn’t that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?” she asked. “Poor Jack. He barely got to enjoy this beautiful home.”
“So why didn’t you say anything about it?”
Emma reached over and patted Cora on the shoulder. “Oh, Cora, don’t take it badly,” she said. “I was just so surprised to see you in church, it put everything else completely out of my head.”
“Mr. Clark said that you told him you had no idea where I was living.”
“Well, you can’t expect everybody to keep track of all the boarding houses you frequent, can you?”
Cora could feel her cheeks begin to burn, but before she could say another word, Nathan reached down and squeezed her hand. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, what are you doing here, Emma?”
“We just stopped by to look at the place,” she said. “Oh, that reminds me,” she added, then turned toward the staircase that curled up from the foyer. “You all can come out now,” she yelled, and after a moment there was the sound of a door opening and footsteps from above. Shortly Emma’s husband and two boys came downstairs. “You can go look around down here,” Emma said. “Just remember what I said, and be careful not to damage anything.”
Cora watched as the three of them went down the hall and into the dining room, before turning back to Emma. “How did you even get in here? I had the key.”
“I had Mike climb the trellis,” she said. “The door to the veranda was unlocked.”
“That’s a lot of work just to get into somebody else’s house,” Nathan said. “Kind of sounds like breaking and entering.”
Emma’s gaze whipped over to him as if she were shocked that he had spoken. “If I recall correctly—and I do recall correctly—the deed to this house hasn’t been signed over to anybody yet,” she said.
Nathan shrugged. “Not yet.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the next few months bring,” Emma said. “It would be a shame for someone to get their hopes up for no good reason. You know, for example, if somebody was lying about something.”
The foyer grew silent, and Cora could hear the faint tick of a grandfather clock from some room down the hall.
“Mom, look at this!” There was a sudden stampede as the boys rushed out from the dining room into the hall, each of them jumping up and down at Emma’s side.
“Look!” the taller of them shouted, digging into his pants pocket and pulling out a silver salt shaker. “Jim has one too!” he added as the other one pulled out a matching pepper shaker.
“What are you boys doing with those?” Emma snapped. “Those don’t belong to you!”
“But you said to take any silver things we could fit in our pockets,” Jim said, a confused look spreading over his face.
“I was teasing you, silly,” Emma said quickly. “Mike!”
Her husband popped his head out from the dining room.
“Take the boys outside and let them run around.” She stuck out her hand and the boys handed over the shakers before following their father out onto the porch. Emma looked down at the shakers, tossing them lightly in her hand as if to gauge their weight.
“You were saying?” Cora asked.
Emma looked at her, then at Nathan. “Maybe it would be better if we talked alone,” she said.
“I’ll be waiting for you out on the porch,” Nathan said to Cora. She nodded and watched as he stepped outside, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.
“This is some house,” Emma said as she turned and started walking down the hall. Cora followed her into the large dining room, which was filled with light from the large windows that covered the outer walls. “You can tell that Jack put a lot of thought into it. Unlike his will.”
Cora bit her tongue for the moment and took in the room. A long table sat in the middle of the dining room, surrounded by chairs; although a thin layer of dust covered the wood, she could tell that the table had been sanded and polished until it was as smooth as silk. The cream-colored upholstery of the chairs was spotless; in fact, it looked brand-new. But then, Jack hadn’t lived here very long.
She turned from the window and only then realized that the inner walls had built-in shelves displaying china sets and serving dishes. The absence of any hutches or sideboards—combined with the two walls of windows—gave the room a delightfully open, airy feel.
Cora went to the fireplace. On the mantel were a few knick-knacks carved from wood and a silver locket propped up against the wall. She took the locket and examined it closely; finely etched in the metal were a pair of intertwined roses, the flowers coming together as if to kiss. She pushed the button and opened it; inside was an ivory cameo of a young woman’s profile. I wonder who this could have been. Guess we’ll never know now. Cora replaced the locket on the mantel and turned back to her cousin.
“I disagree with you about the will,” Cora said, walking toward the swinging door that she assumed led to the kitchen. “Jack hadn’t seen us in so many years and still wanted to leave us something? Seems pretty thoughtful to me.” She pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchen.
It appeared that Jack had wanted there to be natural light throughout the entire house. Like the dining room, the kitchen had large windows that lit up the room, making the polished copper pots gleam where they hung. Cora passed through the opposite door and found herself in the parlor. A large Oriental rug covered the floor, stretching from the long sofa against one wall to the chairs and side tables on the other side of the room. Bookshelves built into the wall were completely filled, from floor to ceiling. He even had more books than Mr. Clark, Cora thought.
“If he were really thoughtful about it, then he would have taken the time to get to know us again,” Emma said, following behind Cora. “Or at least he should have found out some basic information about us, instead of putting these asinine requirements into his will.”
Cora stepped back out into the hall and walked through the foyer until she reached the foot of the stairs. Through the glass side panels running along the door, she could see Nathan standing on the porch, gazing out at the long hill that unrolled in front of the house. There were shrieks as the boys climbed up onto the wagon seat, then hurtled over the back into the empty bed, where th
ey ran to the end and jumped off. Their father also stood on the porch watching them, short and soft next to Nathan.
Cora turned to Emma. “Maybe it’s time for you and I to get to know each other again,” she said. “That might be our problem right there.”
“So, newlyweds, huh?”
Nathan reluctantly tore his gaze from the rolling hills and looked over at Mike. “Yep.”
“Well, enjoy this time while you have it,” he said. “While it’s just the two of you, I mean. Are you planning to have kids?”
“I can honestly say that we haven’t discussed it.”
“Well, you better have that talk sooner rather than later,” he said. “Tim! Put your brother down!” he shouted before turning back to Nathan. “Yeah, once the kids come along, it changes everything.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“I didn’t say to drop him!” Mike shouted again. “Now help him up right now!”
“Two boys, huh?” Nathan asked. “You and Emma ever think about having another—”
“No, we’re done,” Mike said quickly.
“How long have you been married?”
“Oh, seems like we’ve been together forever,” Mike said, his eyes drifting off to the side. “Guess it’s been about…eight years now. Hey, you mind if I give you a little advice? A little secret about married women?”
“Shoot.”
Mike glanced around the porch, as if there might have been some previously unseen married women lurking around, then leaned close.
“When you have arguments, say you’re sorry right away,” he said. “You’re gonna have to say it anyway, so just get it out of the way. Saves time.”
“But what if you weren’t wrong?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Mike said. “You know, it even helps if you compliment her on something right then and there. Makes a woman think about something else besides whatever it was you just did. This morning, for instance, we were arguing about whether I was going to climb up the trellis.”
“How’d that turn out?”
“Well, I apologized and climbed up,” he said. “But on the way, I told her that she was more beautiful than any rose that those vines could produce.”
“Those are roses?” Nathan asked, turning his head to examine the vines that had woven themselves through the trellis. “I hadn’t noticed what they were.”
“Thorny ones, too,” Mike said, pulling back his shirt cuffs to reveal a multitude of bloody scratches covering his wrists and forearms.
“So Emma heard your compliment and that was the end of the argument?”
“No, she didn’t hear me,” Mike said. “She was yelling at the boys about something or other. Still, I made my point.” He turned to peer through the glass alongside the door. “I wonder what the girls are up to.”
“I’m sure they’ve got a lot to discuss,” Nathan said. “Looks like Emma’s not too happy about Cora getting the house.”
“No, she’s not,” Mike said quietly. “Hey, so are we brothers-in-law, now, or what?”
Nathan stared at him. Mike had a look on his face like a soldier who has just seen his reinforcements arrive.
“No, I don’t think so,” Nathan said.
“Sure we are,” Mike insisted. “You’re my wife’s cousin’s husband. That makes you my brother-in-law, once removed.”
“Nope,” Nathan said. “We’re just two men who married cousins. Sorry.”
Mike let himself fall heavily onto the top step. “Yeah, me too.”
Emma didn’t speak until they had reached the top of the stairs. “I think we know enough about each other already,” she said.
Cora looked left, then right. From the landing at the top of the stairs, she had no idea where either direction would lead her, but the closest door was the one on the left. Left it was, then. She opened the door and found herself in the master bedroom, as airy and bright as any of the other rooms in the house. The large windows framed a glass-panel door which opened onto the veranda. The sun was shining brightly as she stepped close to the door and peered through the glass. The trellis came up nearly to the top of the railing that ran in a half-circle around the veranda; as she looked closer she could see that the vines that had grown in and around the trellis were roses. In the summer it must be beautiful, she thought.
“Emma, we haven’t really known each other for years,” Cora said. She turned and looked at her cousin. “Nowadays all you do is look down on me like you think you’re better than I am.”
“Well of course!” Emma said. “Look at the way you live. The saloons, the men…I am better than you. In every way.”
“Not in every way,” Cora said. “Did you forget about the pine tree?”
Emma snorted. “Of course not,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.”
In that, at least, Emma was right. Cora had to think for a moment before she could remember how long it had been, and even then she wasn’t sure if it had been seventeen or eighteen years. As she had said, a long time ago.
The pine had always been in the backyard at Emma’s house, and as girls the two of them had spent countless afternoons playing in its shade. Emma had become Cora’s last remaining friend, if only one whose friendship was forced by the bonds of blood.
The weekend routine was a simple one at Cora’s house: breakfast, followed by chores, followed by lunch. Then a man would typically arrive to speak to her mother, and Cora would be unceremoniously ejected from the house and told to go play at her cousin’s for a few hours. When she would return in the evening, she usually found her mother reeking of whiskey and with a few more coins in her purse. She had learned not to ask too much about the afternoon.
It had been a Saturday like any other, and Emma and Cora had erupted into another argument while playing in the backyard. Even at nine years old, Emma was well practiced in ordering others around. Even at seven, Cora resisted. When she had protested against Emma’s new footrace rules—allowing Emma two steps forward at the start since she was two years older—things went downhill quickly.
“You’re just mad because you can’t win. I’m faster than you,” Emma had said.
“So what? At least I can climb the tree better than you can.”
“You can’t climb that tree,”
“I can too,” Cora said. “Watch.” She jumped and caught the lowest branch, then managed to scoot her feet up the trunk until she had struggled up onto the branch. “See?”
“You hardly got up there at all,” Emma said. “I can do better than that.”
“Prove it.”
“I can’t climb a tree with this dress on,” Emma said. “It’s too nice.”
“Chicken.”
Emma looked down at her dress. It was better than the worn and patched mess that Cora had on, but it wasn’t her nicest clothing. It would be fine. “I’ll show you,” she said, and grabbed the same branch that Cora was sitting on. In a moment she had pulled herself up alongside her cousin and was reaching for the limbs above.
Emma continued to climb, fairly quickly as Cora lagged behind. Emma may not have been naturally graceful, but she was taller and stronger than her cousin and she had soon risen quite high in the tree and stopped to survey her progress. She shuffled her feet on the branch and steadied herself by grabbing a tree limb on either side, effectively blocking Cora from joining her. “I told you I could do better than you.”
“That’s as far as you can go?”
“Yeah, so? I don’t need to go any farther,” Emma said. “You can’t get past me anyway.”
Cora held the trunk tightly and stepped off to her left. The branch was slender, but held her weight, bouncing slightly as she pushed off to the next one. The rough bark chipped off as she worked her way around, leaving flakes all across the front of her dress. In a moment she was on the opposite side of the tree and she had a clear path upwards.
“That’s cheating!” Emma cried as Cora pulled herself up to the next branch, then another, bringing her up to th
e same level as her cousin.
“It is not,” Cora said. “There’s no rule about what side you have to climb.” She reached up and just barely touched the limb over her head. With her arm stretched out as far as she could and standing on tiptoes, she scarcely encircled the branch with her fingers. There was no way she would be able to pull herself up with such a light grasp. Cora instead reached out to the right and steadied herself before taking a big step up to another branch off to the side. From there she was able to reach the first branch and then found that she could easily climb upwards again. She pulled herself up and straddled the branch, her arms tight around the trunk. A glance down showed that Emma was well below. Cora had won.
She had never been so high in a tree before. As the heavy branches swayed in the wind, they parted enough for her to catch a glimpse of the roof of Emma’s house far below. She could even see the river, shining like a silver string laid across the fields far to the south. There was a creak now and again, low and quiet, as the tree moved in the wind. It reminded Cora of a dog growling in its sleep.
“I can still go higher than you,” Emma shouted up at her. She reached up and grabbed for the next limb, struggling to pull herself higher.
“This is far enough, Emma. We should go down.”
“I told you I could climb higher than you,” Emma said. “But stay here if you’re scared.” She continued up, passing Cora on the other side of the tree.
“I’m not scared,” Cora said. “But this is enough.”
Emma kicked her legs as she struggled to pull herself up onto the next branch, and finally hooked her knee over the limb. She scooted close to the trunk and sat down on the branch, her feet now dangling well above Cora. “You see? I knew you couldn’t do this,” she said. Emma grabbed a thick ridge of bark on the tree trunk and leaned forward to stick her tongue out.
The bark in Emma’s hand tore itself from the tree with a sickening, ripping noise, and for a moment it looked as if she were doing some kind of trick, balancing on the branch while holding a chunky piece of pine bark. Then, Cora could only watch as her cousin pitched forward off the branch and down toward the earth far below.