It went quiet, as it appeared the three older men had lost track or were afraid to go on.
Josiah broke the silence. “I was born first?”
Wilmington nodded. “Your mother was slow to get about on those days before. And when she started having contractions, I called Dr. Craven in here right away. It was raining hard that day, fattening up our wheat fields as we watched. We got your mother fixed up on the bed. Orion was here with us, more to support me than anything else. We waited in the room adjacent. The rain on the roof was so loud we could barely hear each other.”
Dr. Craven said, “I was practically yelling, the rain was so loud. Called Wilmington into the room because I needed help. He came running.”
Wilmington looked at his two sons. “You were the first babies ever born in Nowhere.” He closed his eyes as if to remember it all. Orion reached over and patted his arm and Wilmington’s eyes oozed back open. “You did come out first, Josiah—easily, just like we’ve always said. Crying and healthy, with lungs strong enough to register over the tumult against our roof.”
Wilmington glanced toward Jeremiah, who winced as he sipped from a glass of water. “Jeremiah, you came next. But your birth wasn’t a struggle like we always said. That happened after you came out.” Wilmington wiped his eyes and stared at the floor between his boots.
Orion took over. “I heard your father scream, so I came into the room.”
“What happened?” asked Ellen.
“Jeremiah was dead.” Orion took in every set of eyes around where Jeremiah lay on the floor and found them all rapt. “He was blue. Wasn’t breathing at all. Dr. Craven was working on him, but . . .”
Dr. Craven chuckled. “Truth be told, I didn’t know full blown what I was doing either. Delivering babies was something I had to learn to do.”
“How long?” asked Jeremiah. “How long was I dead?”
Wilmington said, “To keep myself sane, I watched the hands of that grandfather clock tick and tick as I hoped and hoped.”
“And then all of a sudden you gasped for air,” said Orion. “Like you’d been underwater for too long and were desperate for what was above the surface.”
Jeremiah said, “You said you counted the ticks, Daddy. How long was I out? How long was I not breathing?”
Wilmington watched both sons. “A minute and fifty-one seconds.”
Ellen’s heart raced.
Josiah wiped his face, and his eyes got big. “Same as the nightmares.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Exact same, Josiah.”
“Those weren’t nightmares.” Josiah faced his brother. “Those were memories.”
Jeremiah nodded. Wilmington watched them both like he didn’t completely understand. Jeremiah said softly to everyone gathered around the table. “It makes sense now. The angel and the devil trying to make me their own.”
Ellen felt her lungs deflate. “They fought over you.”
Jeremiah looked at his daddy. “I always saw a pinprick of light in all that darkness. Swirls of light and dark. Every nightmare was the same at the end, and I’d open my eyes gasping for air. But they were memories. I was pulled through . . .”
He hesitated, a strange look on his face as realization hit. “But somebody . . . somebody wasn’t.”
Wilmington stared, eyes red but dry. He nodded. “I used to stick a red rose in the lapel of my coat every morning. Every morning without fail.” He offered no more.
Orion said with caution, “Dr. Craven . . . while we were all stunned silent by Jeremiah gasping for air . . .”
Wilmington nodded for his friend to go on, and so did Dr. Craven, like he wasn’t ready to tell it either.
Orion said to Jeremiah and Josiah, “Dr. Craven focused his attention back on your mother, who was pale as a clean bedsheet but lucid enough to know . . . to know that there was another baby. A third baby.”
Wilmington smiled. He glowed like Ellen hadn’t seen him glow in years, like a tremendous weight had been lifted. “It was a girl. And unlike Jeremiah, she didn’t make it. But something amazing happened. As soon as she was delivered, that rain stopped.” Wilmington snapped his fingers. “Cold. Stopped just like that, like the weather froze. The clouds opened up and the sun shone so bright we had to squint against it.”
He looked over at Rose. “I named her Rose. We’d had names picked out for boys, and Rose was the name we’d picked for a girl.”
Ellen now understood why he’d embraced Rose the way he did when she’d first entered the Bentley Hotel days ago. Rose teared up as she listened.
Wilmington said to her, “I know we are of no relation whatsoever, but the instant you walked into that hotel lobby my heart grew warm. How old are you, dear?”
Rose said, “A year younger than your sons.”
Wilmington nodded, smiled, reached across the table, and briefly gripped her hand. “You see, I was never able to see my Rose.” He looked at both sons. “Neither was your mother. It’s just not something you did when a baby comes out stillborn. I didn’t see you either, Jeremiah, not until I heard you crying.”
A little choking sound escaped from Ellen, and she covered her mouth to stifle it. Josiah reached over to rub his wife’s shoulder.
Wilmington said, “Dr. Craven wrapped her up, and me and Orion buried her beside the house. I begged him to tell me what color eyes she had, and he said blue. He told me not to ask any more questions—that she was beautiful and that was that. But before I covered the hole with dirt, I took the rose from my lapel and placed it atop the bundle.”
He took in all the eyes around the table. “I can’t explain it, but I wasn’t sad. I cried as we shoveled the dirt back on top and marked it with a cross, the sun beating down on our shoulders. But they were happy tears. I know it sounds strange, but I felt we’d been given a gift, however brief it had been.”
Orion said, “It’s true what he says. I felt hope permeating. A sense of optimism such as I’ve never felt before. I hugged your father, and he hugged me back, and we stared at each other like we couldn’t even begin to explain what we were feeling.”
“It was kindness.”
They all looked at Peter, who’d just uttered those words unprompted. He said no more, even as they all stared at him. His expression showed he was as startled by the words as they were.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about Rose?” asked Ellen.
Wilmington shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because of what happened the next day.”
“What was that?”
“Amanda was tired and sore, but I walked her outside with me. Made her see what I was seeing, so I knew I wasn’t losing my mind. A rose had grown up from the ground right above where we’d buried our daughter. At first I thought the one I’d buried with her had somehow sprouted, but no, this one was different. I gave it a tug and found it rooted strong. The one I’d pulled from my lapel had already begun to wither. We sat there together, me and your mother, and stared at that rose. Never seen one grow up from the ground like that. As a single instead of off a bush.”
“Until this week,” Ellen said softly.
He looked up as if he’d forgotten they were all there. Then he nodded. “Until this week. Anyway, when the town folk stopped by to see the twins, they saw us sitting beside the house watching that rose and asked if we’d just planted a garden. We looked at each other and said that we had, never mentioning what really happened. And then, since we didn’t tell initially, it became harder to tell in the future. Especially the next day, when we went back outside and found that not one, but three, roses had sprouted. We sat there and smiled, in awe of the color.”
He looked around the table as relief washed over him. “I never planted a rose garden. All I did was bury your beautiful sister.” He looked at both of his boys. “Some things can’t be explained, so you don’t even try to.”
Ellen looked out the window to all those roses sprouting across Nowhere. “Yet the truth still finds a way.”
TWENTY-NINE
That night, despite the warnings for him to take it slow, Jeremiah insisted on getting up and walking. Even with the pain, he craved fresh air. So Josiah set up two chairs on the front porch and helped him out. From there they sat overlooking the town like they used to when they were kids.
The sky was still overcast, so the moon offered little more than a fuzzy purple blur, but their eyes had long since adjusted to the dark. Still mostly dust and tumbleweeds out there.
And roses.
Hundreds of them, sticking up sturdy and strong now well into the night. But who knew how long that would last. The short morning rainfall they’d had would more than likely be an isolated event. Didn’t mean the drought was over. Probably far from it.
Jeremiah said, “You think we’ll ever see green grass in the plains again?”
“Maybe someday,” said Josiah. “I hope so, for Daddy’s sake.”
“You think if we stayed out here and watched all night, we’d see more roses actually pop up?”
“You want to?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “Nah, I suppose not. Sometimes if you wait too hard for something it never happens.” He winced and grunted as pain resonated around his stomach wound.
“You need to head back in and rest.”
“Rest ain’t never helped me, Josiah. You know that.”
Josiah smiled, and Jeremiah found the smile contagious.
“That story in there.” Jeremiah glanced at Josiah. “That mean I’m technically your little brother?”
“It’s the way I’ve always looked at it. That story didn’t change the fact that I came out first.”
“You know how I can feel it when I’m around someone bad? Well, it goes both ways. Like two sides of a coin.”
Josiah looked over. “What are you saying?”
“Just that every time I got around you I felt something good. When you’d hold my hand when we were younger, during those nightmares, I’d know it. I’d feel it in my heart.”
“Okay.”
“I’m just saying, you must’ve had a little of what our sister had.” Jeremiah patted Josiah on the shoulder. “Sorry about that toe.”
Josiah laughed. “And I’m sorry about that shoulder.”
Jeremiah stood slowly, limped down the steps, and turned. “I don’t want what’s yours, Josiah. I hope you know that.”
“I do, brother. I do.”
It took Jeremiah longer to reach the Worst house than he expected, but he made it. After resting for a little while and drinking a glass of water, he checked in on Peter and found the boy typing away like he had a deadline. He closed the door and left him be. Then he made his way back outside and breathed in the night air.
He knew which room was Rose’s inside the Bentley Hotel. Her light was on. A shadow moved behind the curtain and then settled. Even from the Worst house he could hear the clacking of her typewriter. Rose was hard at work just like Peter.
How long would she stay in town? The way she’d left the Goodbye household after Wilmington’s story made Jeremiah think it would be shorter rather than longer. Rose was an ambitious woman who’d come into town with a goal in mind and a job to do, and truthfully he’d think less of her if she were to stray from it.
At least for now.
Especially since her work could one day mean his freedom.
Still looking toward the hotel, he pulled a quarter from his pocket and started to flip it in the air. His side screamed in pain and he dropped the coin on the dusty porch. He stared down at the result for a few seconds and then left the quarter where it lay. Thinking about what the result might could mean, he moved slowly down the road toward the jailhouse, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he confronted Deacon Sipes.
“You sure you should be out? You don’t look so good.” Sheriff McKinney shook his head, but didn’t object to letting him in for a quick visit.
“Wasn’t but a few days ago that you were intent on putting me inside one of these cells, Sheriff.”
Sheriff McKinney said, “Still might.”
Jeremiah couldn’t tell if he was kidding him or not. So he moved on toward the cell that held Deacon Sipes and found the young man sitting in the corner shadows with his knees raised and his elbows propped on the shelves of them.
Jeremiah gripped the bars and leaned with his forehead against them. He hadn’t come with anything particular to say; he’d just wanted to come. And he saw right away that some of that meanness was gone from Deacon’s eyes.
The dust no longer weighed as heavy.
Deacon was the first one to talk, which was what Jeremiah had hoped. “I’ve done some bad things in my life, Jeremiah. How’d you know I’d killed a man?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “Saw it years ago in my head. Gift and a curse, Deacon.”
“I’m sorry for shooting you. I didn’t want it to get out. Now the town hates me.”
“I don’t hate you, Deacon.”
Deacon chewed on it. “If you seen it years ago, why didn’t you flip the coin on me? Like you done with them other four men.”
Jeremiah laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Piece of candy saved your life.”
“How so?”
“That day I brushed up against you and saw what I saw, I’d just given the quarter in my pocket to one of the schoolchildren wanting candy.”
“So you didn’t have a coin to flip.”
“Not at that particular moment, no.”
Deacon digested it all. “Then why didn’t you flip the coin on me the other night, when you told me what you seen? I could’ve killed you, Jeremiah.”
“Never too late for lesson learning.”
“For me or for you?”
“Both, I suppose.”
A door latch echoed, and Father Steven entered the cellblock. The priest waited by the door until they were finished.
“Thought maybe it was time to confess some sins,” said Deacon.
Jeremiah grinned. “Send him my way when you’re finished.”
Ellen couldn’t sleep.
The reasons were multiple, and none of them were bad. She just couldn’t get the story Wilmington had told them out of her mind. As much as those roses out there could make sense, for her they now did.
Perhaps Wilmington had felt that same connection with Rose as she’d felt with Peter upon first sight.
Wilmington had left her bedroom ten minutes ago, and her forehead still felt the touch of his lips from when he’d leaned down to kiss her good night. He wasn’t accustomed to doing that. In fact, the more she thought on it the more finality that gesture carried, to the point where she’d almost gotten out of bed twice to check on him. Maybe that bullet hadn’t moved over the past three years because he wasn’t ready for it to move. He still had a story to tell, and now that he’d told it . . .
She swung her legs from the bed, checked on James, who was asleep in his crib, and then tiptoed down the hallway to Wilmington’s room.
She was satisfied for now to hear him snoring. She closed his door quietly and started back to her room, but instead of going in she continued on down the hall toward the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. Quit stalling, Ellen.
She knew why she couldn’t sleep. Wilmington’s story had righted a lot of ships, or at least kept them from tipping, but it hadn’t righted them all.
She drank the water and watched out the window and wondered what Jeremiah was doing walking home from the jailhouse. He had no business being out of bed, really. She watched him go inside the Worst house and close the door behind him, and she poured herself another glass of water.
She chuckled softly after she drank it, recalling the first time she’d kissed Josiah after secretly kissing Jeremiah so many times behind that barn. How she’d laughed after she’d done it. How Josiah had pulled away and said, “What?” like he’d done something wrong. Before he’d had time to turn red from embarrassment, she’d planted another one on him, this one good and lasting until she felt both of
their hearts racing.
She knew now why’d she’d laughed.
She was prone to do that when she was happy.
She finished the water and placed the glass quietly on the counter next to the sink. She walked through the kitchen and into the living room, where Josiah was asleep on his back, snoring with his mouth barely open and the knuckles of his left hand grazing the hardwood floor. She laughed at him and then shook his shoulder.
“Josiah,” she whispered.
He grunted but didn’t awaken, so she kissed his mouth, and that got him. She laughed again when his eyes shot open, and she wanted to say, “You were always the one I was supposed to marry,” but didn’t feel like she needed to.
“Ellen?”
She shushed him, gripped his hand, and pulled him from the couch. Next she led him through the kitchen. They quietly moved down the hallway, and she kicked the bedroom door closed behind her with the heel of her right foot.
They were both giggling now, like they used to when they’d first married and tried their best to be quiet with Wilmington down the hall.
“You sure about this, Ellen?”
“Never been so sure about anything, Josiah.”
Jeremiah gave himself a small dose of morphine after returning from the jailhouse, and it sent him under for three hours of deep sleep.
When he awoke, rested but groggy and feeling as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his abdomen and shoulder simultaneously, he heard Peter typing down the hall. That wasn’t a surprise. Peter stayed awake most nights writing those letters. Letters that had transformed the town, the messages and notes more contagious than any disease Jeremiah had ever come across.
Kindness breeds kindness.
But when Jeremiah knocked on the door and let himself in, Peter handed him a trifolded paper and watched as Jeremiah sat on the bed and opened it.
We’ve done what we came to do, Mr. Goodbye. Now it’s best we move on.
Jeremiah looked up from the note. In a way, it was as if the boy could read his mind. He’d been thinking about leaving Nowhere sometime soon. Though the dusters might have kept the law away for now, it wouldn’t keep them forever. But he’d figured Nowhere would still be the best place for Peter to live. As much as he’d miss the boy, Jeremiah wasn’t sure he’d been cut from the fatherly mold like Josiah. Ellen and Josiah would be good parents for Peter, and Wilmington the perfect grandfather.
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