After the sounds of clearing the table came low conversation, and then the soft strumming of a guitar . . . Billy’s voice, lower than last year, singing softly of peace on earth and goodwill—for her benefit, she sensed.
The music lulled her. Mercy closed her eyes . . . stretched out to nap while his lullaby lasted. She was strung too tightly to sleep, so her mind drifted on the words and melodies, which sounded disjointed and out of key because she was so exhausted.
In a restless state between waking and dreaming, Mercy rose and took the scissors from her sewing machine. She opened the trunk in the corner, where she’d stored Judd’s clothes that day Rachel and Nell had helped her. The sturdy denims and soft chambray soothed her need to touch her husband again, to see the browns and butternuts and blues he’d worn so well . . . the colors of the earth he’d worked and of the eyes that no longer sparkled with love for her.
Why had God taken him just when she needed him most?
With a keening cry, Mercy slashed the pants in her hand. The scissors seemed to fly of their own accord, dismembering shirts she’d sewn only months before. Muslin and corduroy and cotton fell prey to her exasperated wrath, and she didn’t stop until she’d reached the bottom of the trunk. She was panting, holding her belly from her exertions, when Billy’s gasp brought her out of her fixated state.
When she saw the boy’s fear—heard him mumble something like “crazy and helpless, just like Mama got,” Mercy became too horrified to cry. The floor was littered with pieces of Judd’s wardrobe, the very fabric of her life with him.
Michael and Asa were beside her then, coaxing her up from the floor. “I’ve put on water for tea. It’ll help you sleep,” the old Negro said, while Malloy felt her forehead for fever.
She allowed them to remove her shoes. She made no protest when they plumped her pillow and eased her onto the bed. Asa’s tea tasted medicinal and warmed her all the way down. When she’d sipped the last of it, she got under the covers—only so they’d stop fretting and leave her alone.
Mercy closed her eyes, pretending to rest. She heard the three of them slip into the front room, whispering among themselves, but the colored cook’s potion was casting its spell.
All she could think as she sank into oblivion was, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Chapter Twenty-seven
Mercy awoke from a deep sleep to see the scraps of Judd’s clothing stacked neatly beside her sewing machine, with the glassless wedding portrait on top of them. Poor Joseph had been swept up from the hearth, too. As Asa set a plate of mush and stewed apples in front of her, his dark eyes filled with sympathy.
“He was in too many little slivers to glue back together,” the old man said sadly. “I know you didn’t mean to—”
“I know just how broken Joseph must’ve felt,” she replied with a sigh. “Thanks for taking care of me last night, after I spoiled your nice dinner. I hit bottom, Asa.”
“Yes, Miss Mercy, you did. Can’t any of us just sweep away our grief like I cleaned up that little statue.” He gave her a hopeful grin. “But once you hit bottom, why, the only way to go is up! When God’s all you’ve got, He’s all you need. You’ll figure out how to preserve your life with Judd, now that your heart’s on the mend.”
Was it? Mercy looked at all those ruined garments—fabric scraps too small and oddly shaped to be of any use—and ached with the sheer waste of it. Had Judd been here to witness her loss of control, he would have been appalled.
No, he would’ve made the best of it. He wasn’t wearing clothes when you conceived his baby, after all.
That intimate thought made her smile—not as brightly as when she was a bride in that photograph, but with the renewed hope of a woman who’d survived her life’s most difficult loss.
She set the portrait on the small table beside her bed, as inspiration. And as Mercy fingered the scraps of blue and brown, colors of the earth and sky her husband had loved so much, she knew exactly what she must do. This little curtained-off corner of the house he’d built for her would again become her haven, and by the time her baby came, she’d have a fitting memorial to Judd Monroe’s all-encompassing love.
Every spare moment that winter, Mercy focused on the newfound purpose that made the cold, snowy days pass into weeks: The ache for Judd’s love became a feverish need to create a permanent picture of their life together. Something grander than she’d ever attempted. From the clothing she’d destroyed, Mercy pieced together their Kansas homestead: the fields her husband had plowed, the rutted road of the stagecoaches, the endless sky above the prairie, where a sunrise parted dark storm clouds.
Once she’d stitched the larger scraps into her quilt’s panoramic view, she engrossed herself in the details that would make it so intensely personal. From another trunk she pulled out her embroidery basket and the bright silk and satin scraps left from making the log-cabin quilt on Billy’s bed.
During January snowstorms that blew in horizontal sheets of blinding white, Billy and Asa followed a rope they’d stretched between the house and the barn so they could tend the animals. In the corner room of the house, Mercy tended her own needs: This quilt was her lifeline. Except for walking around occasionally to ease her back, and helping with the meals Asa now cooked for the stage passengers, she contentedly spent her hours behind that calico curtain.
More often than not, she awoke with her clothes on, after naps that lasted longer than she intended. She lived by her body’s clock, smiling when the baby moved inside her. It was a sign of life to come; a miracle to anticipate while this quilt gave her days a focal point.
With infinite care and patience, she embroidered fields of golden, waving wheat and corn standing proud and green. Near the center, a two-story log house of brown corduroy chinked with muslin appeared. Behind it, she placed a barn and corrals where Morgans with embroidered black manes looked toward the approaching red Wells Fargo wagon. Cottonwood trees shimmered along the bend in the Smoky Hill River, fashioned from scraps of Mrs. Bristol’s pretty green evening gown.
Because the fabric pieces reminded her of the people who’d worn them, as she worked, Mercy recalled the occasions the clothes had graced. Sometimes smiling, sometimes wiping away a tear, she relived the best and worst moments of her life as Mrs. Judd Monroe, acknowledging those times—and her feelings about them—as sacred.
Since this project had become an obsession that now required her total attention, Billy and Asa kept their little snowbound world functioning. They called her when meals were ready, respecting her strict order not to look at this quilt yet. They plastered the walls with wet newspaper to block the drafts, and they brought in cow chips for the fire. Both of them understood, after that incident with Joseph, that she needed these weeks to heal in her own way. In her own time.
Cold, wet noses and curious bright eyes made her stop to stroke Snowy and Spot when they came inside after the chores were done. Asa filled her pitcher with fresh water each day, and emptied her chamber pot—that extremely personal chore Mercy would never have expected a male to perform before.
But life was different now. She was different.
Mercy had attained the very elemental state of knowing that whether her life continued in the way she’d prayed it would—or not—and whether she lived through her isolated ordeal of childbirth—or not—everything would work out as it was supposed to. Asa was right: All she had was God, and her faith, and her two caretakers, and they were all she needed. It was the way Judd would have expected her to live.
And as February blew in with snow drifting so deep the stagecoaches didn’t run, Mercy embraced the isolation as she embraced the baby growing huge in her womb. She knew now that she could not only survive whatever hardships life handed her, she could triumph over them. As Billy read one night from the Psalms, his passage resonated within her:
“ ‘Delight thyself in the Lord,’ ” his voice drifted through her curtain, “ ‘and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ ”
And what were those desires? She wanted her child to be healthy, of course. And she wanted to raise it as a living memorial to Judd Monroe’s love in her life.
But when Mercy looked beyond this birth—beyond the time when Wells Fargo paid her and brought the rest of the world to her doorstep—what did she want? She’d been so occupied with day-to-day survival, she hadn’t given her future, her inner needs, much thought.
I can raise this child alone. But do I want to?
If Michael Malloy proposes marriage again, what will I say?
The steady dripping of icicles sang to her of warmer days approaching, just as Billy’s guitar blessed her nights with its benediction. As Mercy worked on the quilt’s final details, she wondered if Elizabeth and Obadiah Jones were still speaking to each other—or if those four little towheads had driven the ostentatious cattle baron crazy by now. They couldn’t have remained holed up as contentedly as she and Billy and Asa had, that was for sure!
Aren’t you glad you chose the wiser path, allowing your heart to heal?
Was that Judd’s voice inside her head? There were times when she couldn’t recall what he sounded like. But because she saw him in her dreams, alive and potent and whole, Mercy could better accept his absence now.
She could also assume a different perspective about the day Elizabeth humiliated her, insinuating that she’d shamed herself by kissing Michael Malloy. Because , while he had taken that first kiss sooner than she was ready for it, she’d given him the second one without conscious thought. She’d stood on tiptoe when he leaned down from his horse, and her mouth had latched on to his as though she had no intention of letting go.
He tasted different from Judd. He moved his lips differently—and didn’t you linger in that kiss because the silken tickle of Michael’s mustache made you laugh when you needed to? There’s nothing wrong with that, Mercedes.
Mercy’s fingertips went to her lips as she paused over her embroidery. That was Judd speaking to her, so plainly that she glanced around the little room to see if he’d come back. It unsettled her, that her husband knew what fascinated her about Michael’s kiss.
Yet he was encouraging her to enjoy it. Encouraging her to feel again.
The baby kicked and wiggled inside her, and Mercy felt a giggle bubbling up from a place she’d thought had died last September. She laughed out loud, and moments later she noticed the pale glow of sunshine from outside the frosted bedroom window. These omens urged her on—and when she realized that the aroma from the kitchen was roasting meat rather than corn or eggs again, her fingers flew. The facial features of her last patchwork family member came to life beneath her needle, and when she snipped the floss, a feeling of exultation washed over her.
“It’s finished! It’s finished!” she called out. Carefully she folded the large quilt so the design wouldn’t show, and then lumbered over to throw the curtain aside.
There stood Billy and Asa with expectant, conspiratorial grins on their faces. And behind them, a very familiar, silken mustache flickered beneath eyes as warm as a midsummer evening.
“Mercy,” he murmured, coming toward her with his arms open wide. “It’s the first day the road’s been clear enough to . . . I’ve missed you, and wanted to see how you were—”
A strong spasm doubled her over. She looked down to see a pink puddle spreading around her shoes.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Keep walking, Mercy. Let gravity help you,” Mike instructed gently. He hoped his worry wasn’t showing, but Mercy’s labor was continuing into the wee hours of the next day.
“I’m tired of walking around these rooms!” she wailed. “And if I have one more of those awful pains—”
“Here, missy, more of this tea might help.”
“Begging your pardon, Asa,” she rasped, “but if I can’t guzzle some laudanum or whiskey or . . . Lord help us all, here comes another one!”
Mike held her hard against himself, torn by the torment on her face. She was getting weaker with each pain, and if this baby didn’t come soon, it meant there were complications he couldn’t deal with. The nearest doctor was miles away, in Abilene. There was no riding over to fetch Rachel Clark or Nell Fergus, either, because another snowstorm was keeping them housebound.
“Maybe we should walk you up and down the stairs.”
“I’ll fall. My legs feel like rubbery noodles.” Mercy wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her flannel nightgown. Tears dribbled down her pasty face. “I bet you’re sorry you showed up, Michael. I just want to lie down and forget this whole thing.”
Mike smiled sympathetically, kissing her forehead. “Shall I tell you about our house again? About our bedroom in the back, overlooking the river? And the nursery beside it—and those four bedrooms upstairs?” he said in a quiet sing-song. “And have I told you Gregor Larsen’s gotten up the money to build a church in town? It should be finished for Easter services. A good time to christen this baby, I’m thinking.”
Grimacing, Mercy began another walk around the front room. “Nice of you to keep believing we’ll both make it.”
“The first one’s the hardest, honey. I can’t tell you enough times how much I love you, and how much I want my own children to be yours, too.”
“You’re not listening, Michael! I refuse to go through this ever again.” She sucked air between her teeth until the contraction subsided. “Maybe this is why Judd didn’t stick around. Didn’t want to go through this with—”
“That’s your pain talking, Mercy. Judd was ecstatic about this child.” He glanced at tired old Asa, and at Billy, whose eyes were wide with concern. “Let’s get her back to bed. See if we’ve made any progress.”
Mercy was growing slower and heavier, just as her talk reflected her long hours without sleep. More than once she’d wanted to put this behind her—to awaken and find her pain was only a nightmare. Mike wished it were that easy.
“Here—I’ll sit behind you, with my back to the bedstead.” He moved as fast as his own tired limbs allowed. He then felt her weight fall against him, and he prayed this was the right thing to do for her. “Catch your breath, honey. Gather your strength again.”
She let out a long sigh. Then she slumped sideways enough to look up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Why are you doing this, Michael?”
“Because I love you, and—”
“Why?” She sounded out of her head with agony, yet lucid enough to expect a real answer. “You’ve been saying that ever since Judd died. But I will always love him—”
“I expect you to, Mercy.”
“—so I can’t understand why you’d settle for another man’s child, and a woman who can’t give you her whole heart.”
She nipped her lip. It wasn’t her way, to rail at people and make demands. “It’s not like you couldn’t have your choice of women, Michael,” she went on more gently. “You’re young—”
“Old enough to know what I want in a wife.”
“—and able to afford a farm and a new house, and—”
“Didn’t have time to spend my pay while I was a stage driver.”
“—attractive enough that any woman would want you.”
A ripple of warmth flowed through him as he focused on her doelike eyes. “Why, thank you, Mercy. I’ll take that to include you?”
She blinked, and then valiantly gritted her teeth against another contraction. “I still don’t understand the fascination,” she rasped. “You’ve fallen for some paragon of your fantasies, but right now you’re with the real Mercy Monroe. What do you see in me, Michael?”
Malloy hugged her, amused by her humility—but also aware that she wasn’t nearly as strong as she’d been an hour ago. “Who wouldn’t love you, Mercy?” he asked softly.
Billy and Asa sat slumped against the wall, but they might as well be his witnesses—in case this poor woman forgot what he was telling her from the bottom of his heart. He couldn’t endure many more of her intense questions, but they gave he
r something besides her pain to concentrate on.
“From the first time I came here, I knew you were different from other homesteading women. Special,” he began. He called up his memories from three years ago, hoping to convince her of his sincerity. “It wasn’t that I had designs on you, or wanted to steal you away from Judd—”
“He wouldn’t have let you.”
“—but every time I entered this house, it felt like a home,” he insisted, his voice going shaky with unexpected emotion. “You didn’t put food on the table for strangers as a job, Mercy. You did it because you believed in feeding people, and in being your husband’s helpmate. You offered your hospitality and friendship to me—seemed genuinely glad I was here.
“And every time I drove off,” Mike said softly, “I told myself what a lucky, lucky man Judd Monroe was. I spent a lot of my hours in that driver’s seat wishing I could find a woman just like you.”
Her mouth fell open into an O, so he pressed on.
“My daddy was a pretty fair carpenter. Worked hard to keep us fed and clothed,” he said in a faraway voice. “And while my ma did the best she could at raising my sisters and me, I took a lot out of her, just being the seventh one born. I tested her at every turn, and ran off to fight for the Union because I felt cooped up by her rules.”
He paused to honor the glimmer of grief he still felt; the guilt for being too arrogant and cocky to understand his mother’s sacrifices back then.
“Came home from the war to find she’d died just the week before,” he sighed. “My sisters claimed she’d been ‘pining for her precious Michael’ since the day I left, and my name was the last word she ever spoke. Well, that was a sad way to wake up to how much that woman loved me. How she’d been a guiding light in my life.”
A Patchwork Family Page 25