by Lily Wilspur
“I don’t want anything from you,” Adam replied. “I just came to see you. That’s all.”
But she didn’t buy it. “You know I’m getting married tomorrow. You know there can’t be anything between us.”
“Tomorrow?” he repeated. “You’re getting married tomorrow?”
“That’s what I said.” Why did she have to say it at all?
“So you’re not married yet,” he said.
“I just said I’m getting married tomorrow.” This was becoming tedious.
Adam burst into a joyful smile. “I thought you were already married. I didn’t think I would get here before you got married.”
Lucy sighed. “I just told you I’m getting married tomorrow. Don’t you understand that?”
“I understand,” he replied. “I’m just surprised and happy about it.”
“Why?” she shot back. “There’s nothing you can do about it. I’m marrying Joel Bloom.”
“Have you met him?” Adam asked. “Have you met this Bloom character?”
“Yes, I have,” Lucy declared. “I’ve met him, and he’s a very nice man, and I’m going to marry him tomorrow, so I’ll thank you to stop calling him that Bloom character.”
Adam flushed. “I’m sorry. What would you like me to call him?”
“Joel,” she told him. “His name is Joel, so you can call him Joel.”
“Very well.” Adam smiled again, but his smile annoyed Lucy. “So you’ve met….Joel, and he’s a nice man, and you’re marrying him tomorrow. Now we’ve got that straightened out, are you happy about it?”
“Happy about what?” Lucy asked.
“Happy about marrying him,” Adam replied. “Are you happy about marrying Joel Bloom of Kalispell, Montana, and heading off to….where are you heading off to?”
“We’re heading off to his homestead in the mountains,” Lucy told him.
“Homestead?” Adam snorted. “You’re not going to any homestead.”
“Yes, I am,” Lucy maintained. “Joel has a homestead, and I’m going there to be his wife.”
“And do what?” Adam scoffed. “Cook and clean and scrub the laundry and hatch a brood of children for him? Is that what you’re going to do?”
Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes. If that’s what being a homesteader’s wife means, then yes, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“No, you’re not,” Adam retorted. “Not you.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “Why not me?”
“Well, just look at you!” Adam scanned her from head to foot. “Even in that wretched excuse for a dress, anyone with two eyes can see you weren’t made for that kind of life. You were made to decorate some brocade parlor in New York or some ballroom in San Francisco. You were made to occupy a private box at the Metropolitan Opera or dazzle the masses on Broadway.”
“And who’s going to take me there?” Lucy asked. “Oh, I forgot. You don’t know. My grandfather squandered my trust. I haven’t a penny to my name. I’m as poor as any other mail-order bride. Joel has been very kind to me, and he still intends to marry me, even when he knows I don’t have the skills he thought I did. I’m very grateful, and I’m going to do my best to be the wife he deserves.”
Adam regarded her from a distance. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. Let him argue with that.
Chapter 12
“Let me walk you back to the hotel,” Adam suggested.
“No one’s stopping you.” Lucy looked up at the mountains leaning over the town. They scrutinized her every movement, but they didn’t cast judgment on her the way society people back in Muncie did. They didn’t care if she spoke to a man other than her fiancé in the streets. They didn’t care if her grandfather left her penniless.
So what was their interest in her? Could they be interested in her for her own sake, the way parents watched and admired their children grow up? Could it be that they didn’t care what she did?
She started back more slowly than she came out. She no longer felt the restless agitation that drove her out of the hotel. She felt no hurry to get back.
Adam walked next to her, matching her stride with his own. “Do you have any plans for this evening?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m going to stay in my room.”
“What for?” he asked.
“To be alone,” she told him.
“What do you want to be alone for?” he asked.
“I want to think about things,” she told him.
“What things?” he asked.
“Just the whole situation,” she explained. “I find it helps me to think about it.”
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” he asked.
“No, nothing like that,” she replied. “I just like to sit with it. I sit with my decision, and the more I sit with it, the more comfortable I feel about it. I can accept it.”
“Accept it!” Adam snapped. “That ain’t right.”
Lucy halted and whirled on him. “I’ve had about enough of your comments, thank you very much, Adam Foley. I never asked you to come here to see me, and I never asked you to give me your thoughts on my marriage. If you don’t like it, you can get back on your horse and go back to Great Falls where you belong and leave me alone!” She spun away and started walking again.
Adam hastened to catch up with her. “Hey, wait a minute, Lucy. I didn’t mean to make you mad. Just stop for a minute.” He caught her by the arm and pulled her to a stop. “Just hear me out for a minute, will ya?”
Lucy stopped and crossed her arms over her chest again. “Say whatever you have to say. I have places to be.”
Instead of taking her seriously, Adam laughed out loud. “Places to be, huh? All right. Then just listen for a minute. I just don’t like to see you marry someone because you don’t have any other choice. So you’ve lost your money. That shouldn’t leave you with no choice but to go out to the mountains to be a homesteader’s wife.”
He paused, waiting for her to respond, but she just glared off into the trees.
Adam took a deep breath and continued. “You shouldn’t have to sit with your decision and you shouldn’t have to accept it. If that’s the way you feel about this marriage, you shouldn’t do it. You won’t be happy.”
“Is that what you came here to say?” she asked. “That I won’t be happy?”
“Yes,” he said. “I said it.”
She unfolded her arms. “So can I go now?”
“Aw, come on, Lucy,” he exclaimed. “Don’t be so hard on me. I just want to talk to you. Can’t we just do that without fighting all the time?”
“I didn’t want to fight,” she mumbled. “I haven’t fought with anyone since Great Falls.”
“Come on, Lucy,” he said again. “Don’t make me beg. Can’t you see I care about you?”
Lucy’s mind snapped open. “You…care about me?”
“That’s what I said,” he replied. “Why do you think I came all the way here to see you?”
“You…..care about me?” No one had said that before. No one had done it before. What did that really mean?
“Yes, I care about you,” Adam declared. “I don’t want to see you married to a man you don’t like, living in a place you don’t want to be, just because you don’t have any other choice.”
“But what other choice is there?” Lucy asked.
Adam stepped back, stunned. “I don’t know.”
Lucy’s face hardened. This conversation was nothing more than a colossal waste of her time. “Then there’s nothing more to talk about, is there?”
“I guess not.” Adam thrust his hands in his pockets.
Lucy didn’t say anymore. She walked back to the hotel. She didn’t even look back to see what happened to Adam Foley.
Chapter 13
The next day dawned….how did it dawn? Lucy didn’t bother to check. She got out her wedding dress and put it on. She uncovered all the jewelry and finery she’d packed in
her trunk for the occasion, but she didn’t put it on. The dress itself made her wince with embarrassment. It looked garish and obscene in Kalispell, Montana, but she had nothing else to wear.
At ten o’clock, she went downstairs and found the gig Joel hired to drive her to the church. The next thing she knew, the church door closed behind her and she saw the congregation lining the pews.
For a moment, she blushed to think they’d all turned out to see her get married. Then she remembered today was Sunday. They all came to church anyway, like any other Sunday. Why would they come to see her anyway? She would have to get rid of this snobbery. Montana wouldn’t put up with it.
Joel stood next the altar, waiting for her. His hair laid slicked back on his head, freshly washed and combed. He wore a plain black suit. Even then, he still looked middle. But she appreciated that now. Montana demanded the middle. It didn’t support any extremes. Sensible people kept to the middle to survive, and she would keep to the middle, too. She counted herself lucky to marry such a steady, middle man. Fortune smiled on her when it sent her to Joel Bloom.
She took the first step down the aisle but a commotion at the church door made her turn around. “What are you doing here?”
“Listen, Lucy,” Adam said. “I’m sorry about disrupting your wedding day like this.”
“Then don’t.” She turned back to the aisle.
“Don’t do this, Lucy,” Adam insisted. “You’re signing yourself over to a life of misery and an early death. You have to believe me. I’ve seen it enough times to know what I’m talking about. You don’t know the hardship you’re going to by marrying a homesteader. Trust me. Don’t go through with this marriage.”
“Trust you?” Lucy repeated. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
Adam blushed. “I know you don’t have much reason to. I know we barely know each other. But I can’t let you go through with this without at least trying to stop you.”
“Well, you tried,” Lucy declared. “You tried, and you failed, so here I go.” She turned away again.
He caught her by the arm. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” she maintained. “I don’t have any choice. I don’t even have enough money to get on the train to leave Kalispell.”
“Come with me,” Adam blurted out. “Come with me to Europe. I have enough money to support us for a good long while, and when that’s gone, we can always get more.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Lucy exclaimed. “Come with you? You’re dreaming!”
“Maybe I am dreaming,” Adam shot back. “But just try to think about it. You don’t belong here, in Montana, and you definitely don’t belong up in the mountains on some homestead with Joel Bloom. You’re better than that. Let me give you the life you deserve. So you don’t have any money. I do. Let me take you away from here. I can’t stand to see you throw yourself away like this.”
Lucy stared at him. The stupefaction of the last few days ebbed slightly and she finally, fully comprehended what he was suggesting. Through her resignation, she saw a glimmer of light through the crack in the veil of darkness before her eyes. Was there really a way out of this? Could she—would she—run away, even now, with Joel waiting for her at the altar?
But she’d resigned herself to Montana. She had to give herself to it body and soul. Didn’t she? Wasn’t that the end of the story? Her eyes welled up with tears. “It’s very nice of you to offer, Adam. But I can’t accept. I wish I could, but I can’t. I’ve come this far, and I can’t turn back. I’m here to get married, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
She turned away one last time. This time, when her foot hit the bare floor boards of the church aisle, she didn’t stop. She put one foot in front of the other and walked down the aisle, past wrinkled widows and scruffy cowboys and sunburned housewives. She walked down the aisle and took her place next to Joel Bloom. Joel took her by the hand.
The minister began the service. Lucy listened curiously to his instructions on the duties of a wife. He told her, and everyone else present, how a wife held a sacred duty to God and her husband and the wider community to bow her head to all her husband’s commands, to bear him children and maintain his home. Lucy didn’t hear him give the same exhortations to the groom. Maybe he just skipped that part.
But pretty soon he got to the meat of the service, and he asked if anyone present knew any reason why this man and this woman should not be joined in holy matrimony. The congregation waited out the polite silence before the service moved on and they could all go home to dinner.
But Adam Foley shouted out from the back of the church, “Don’t do this, Lucy.”
A gasp echoed through the church, and the congregation turned to look at the young intruder.
“Do you have something to say here, young man?” the minister asked.
“Don’t do this, Lucy,” Adam shouted again. “You’ll regret this for the rest of your life if you do.”
Lucy’s eyes brimmed over, and her tears fell. “Adam, please….”
“Lucy, I care about you,” Adam continued. “I only want you to be happy. Let me care for you. Let me take you somewhere where the sun can shine on your face. Let me take you somewhere where the people recognize you for the lady you are and will appreciate you. Let me appreciate you. I don’t want to leave here without you.”
Lucy shook the tears out of her eyes. “But I can’t…”
“You can,” he insisted. “Come with me. Let me get you out of this place. Don’t throw yourself away like this. I can’t bear it.”
Lucy looked around the church one time. She saw the minister, the people of Kalispell in their pews, and she saw Joel Bloom, listening to the conversation in horror. The veil of despair and anguish tore apart in front of her eyes, and a shaft of dazzling sunshine blinded her to everything else. A glorious smile burst over her face, and the tears of joy fell from her eyes.
She turned and ran up the aisle. Adam grabbed her by the hand and the two of them ran out of the church.
The End
Copyright
© 2014 by Lily Wilspur
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
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