by Rachel Hauck
Her statement, so profound and clear, opened the door to a bevy of questions. Charlotte’s nerves prickled and she scooted forward with a glance at Hillary, who was frowning.
“So why did you leave it at the house?”
Okay, good question, but not the one Charlotte would’ve asked. Who gave the dress to Mary Grace? Who was the first woman to wear it? But today seemed to be about Hillary’s journey. Charlotte sat back and sipped her water.
“We sold the house to your mama and daddy, and when we were all packed up, ready to go, the trunk with the gown was one of the last items to be loaded.”
“I was about to carry it out to the moving truck,” Thomas said from his reclining position, eyelids at half-mast, “when Gracie told me, ‘Tommy, leave it. For that young girl.’”
“So you really left the trunk just for me?” Hillary’s voice trembled. Her countenance wavered.
“I felt I was to leave it for you.”
“She loved that dress too. But when the Lord gives Gracie a nudge, she responds.”
Hillary stood. “God told you to leave that trunk in the basement for me?” Incredulous. Doubt. Awe.
“I think He did. I believe He did. And you found it. And you wore it.”
“Yes, yes, I did. On the happiest day of my life. Which led to the worst. I wore it for a groom who was killed six months later.” Hillary was up and out the door before anyone could say another word. No excuse me, no thank-you, or good-bye.
“Hillary.” Charlotte stepped out the door into the hall. But her new friend was gone. “Mary Grace, Thomas, I’m so sorry.” Charlotte gathered her purse and Hillary’s. “She’s just working through old memories. Thank you for your time. May I come again?”
“Please, come and see us. Don’t worry about Hillary. She’ll fare all right. She’ll fare all right.”
From Mary Grace’s lips to God’s ears. Charlotte caught Hillary just as she got to the car.
“Hey, you run fast for an old lady.” Charlotte worked up a laugh, aiming her remote entry key at her car. Hillary stood by the passenger door with a stone expression. Charlotte slid in behind the wheel, dumping their purses in the backseat. “What’s going on?”
“Just drive.” An ashen-faced Hillary rolled down her window and hung her head out. Her left hand crossed her body and white-knuckled the door handle. “So God set me up in 1957 to be a widow? To marry a man six months before his end-of-life number was called?” She smashed the door with her right fist. “I am never going to step inside a church again.”
“You think God only hangs out in church? He was in that room with us five minutes ago. He’s everywhere.” She’d learned of His every presence that summer at youth camp. And dozens of times since. Charlotte backed out of the parking spot but stopped the car in the middle of the lane. “Are you okay?”
“He knew, He knew Joel was going to die.” Tears slithered down Hillary’s high, pink cheeks. She gulped the fresh air out her window. “And He let me marry him.”
Charlotte sighed. God, help me. What do I say? “Hillary, maybe God—”
“Is there a reason we’re stopped here in the middle of the parking lot?”
“Hillary.” Charlotte gazed out her window. The wind raced through the trees. Her thoughts raced through her mind. “What if marrying Joel wasn’t about you? What if marrying Joel was about him?”
“Getting married was about both of us.”
“But only one of you, using your theory, was slated to end his life in six months. What if marrying Joel was about sending a young man off to war, loved, happy, comforted by the idea of warm fires and a beautiful wife waiting for him at home? What if thinking of you, remembering your wedding, making love, your friendship and laughter”—Charlotte’s thoughts formed words faster than she could speak them—“were the only things that kept Joel going on those nights he was scared and lonely, cold and hungry, miserable as I’m sure only a man at war can be?
“What if your letters were the only grounding to sanity he had in the midst of battle? What if marrying Joel wasn’t about you, Hillary. What if it was all about Joel? Only for Joel? What if God loved him so much he gave him a bride before he died? Would that be okay with you? Would it?” Charlotte shifted into gear and off the clutch. The car surged forward, the road ahead blurry.
Hillary tucked forward and muffled her weeping with her face in her hands, her shoulders shimmering with rolling sobs.
Charlotte braked at the residence entrance and smoothed her hand over Hillary’s back. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” She waited, whispering, “Jesus, Jesus,” every now and then.
The breeze through the trees whistled comfort through the car. After a long while, Hillary sat up, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and gazed out the window.
Charlotte shifted into gear and eased on the gas. As she turned onto the road, Hillary reached over and squeezed her hand.
Chapter Nineteen
Emily
Emily sat alone in the downtown holding cell, waiting for Father or Phillip, someone, to rescue her. The block room with a barred door was cold and dark, chilling Emily to the bone. And to the heart.
Mother had come with Jefferson and demanded her release, but the warrant officer said bail must be posted. A thousand dollars. A thousand dollars. A working man’s annual wage. Of course, Father could afford it, but with the banks closed for the day, would he be able to get the money?
As Emily was escorted to her cell, Mother insisted—demanded—the officer give her the cloak she’d brought for her. “I’m off to find your father. Emily, be strong, you’re a Canton.”
But Emily had crumbled, weeping, so limp the officer had to drag her to the holding area.
When the iron door clanked behind her, she collapsed, barely landing on the worn, moldy cot. For long, sorrowful minutes, she heard nothing but her own sobs.
Now she sat against the stone wall, drawing her cloak around her shoulders. The November chill seeped through the concrete wall and gathered around her arms and legs.
She’d envisioned many things about her future. But being arrested and locked in a cell was never one of them.
How humiliating. Devastating. If only she were as strong and courageous as Mother implored her to be. She wanted to quit, promise to never visit Taffy Hayes again. She wasn’t a Canton. She was a coward.
Moving to her feet, Emily gripped the cell bars and pressed her face through a small square, trying to see down the dark corridor. “Hello. Somebody, please. Hello?”
Would they ever come for her? Or leave her to rot, trapped and forgotten?
With sagging shoulders and a weary heart, Emily dropped to the cot again and drew her legs to her chest, trying not to dwell on the dark walls inching in around her. But she could think of nothing but the stony chill in the claustrophobic box.
Who had done this to her? Who hated her so much to swear out a warrant for her arrest?
Emily tossed off her cloak as her thoughts began to boil. This whole ordeal was unthinkable. Downright absurd.
She had no enemies that she knew of. Back on her feet, she wrung her hands, her thumb pressing against her bare ring finger.
The officer took her engagement ring. For safekeeping, so he said. If she’d known she would be held for so long, she’d have demanded the ring be her ransom.
It was certainly worth a thousand dollars. Emily exhaled at the amount. One thousand dollars. Even her bail seemed of absurd proportions.
A steel door slammed. She jumped to the bars and angled her face to see the single gas light glowing on the far wall. Voices drifted toward her, then faded.
“Hey there . . . hello? I’m Emily Canton,” she shouted from the bottom of her belly. “Please release me.”
The voices faded, then disappeared. She sighed. They weren’t coming for her.
What the dickens happened to Mother? To Father? Why wasn’t Phillip racing to her rescue? Hours had passed since she arrived at the
jail. Night darkened the street-side barred window and the sounds of commerce had long since faded.
Emily retrieved her cloak and wrapped it around herself. How could they just leave her in here?
A door clicked. Emily jumped up and angled again to see down the corridor. A bright light broke against the wall. A double set of footfalls echoed. The gait and stride didn’t ring familiar. But then a face, a very familiar, handsome face rounded the corner.
“Daniel.” Emily stretched her hands through the bars, her pulse drumming in her ears. “What are you doing here?”
He gathered her hands in his. “I was going to ask you the same.”
“I’m accused of breaking a Jim Crow law.”
He laughed, removing his cap, bunching it in his hand. “What Democrat did you make angry, darling?”
“Do you think this is funny, Daniel Ludlow? I’m behind bars. Look around. I’m locked in this dank, dark, cold place. For what? Hiring Taffy Hayes to make my dress and visiting her shop.”
“Now you know what it’s like to be on the other side. You’ll have deeper compassion for others who are falsely accused.”
“I do have compassion for them.” Though in recent light, she’d doubted the depth of her commitment. “Did you come here to make fun of me?”
“I came to help you.” He reached through the bars and traced his finger along the curve of her chin. “Ah, Emily, even in jail you’re beautiful. Especially when you’re mad.”
“Keep taunting me, Daniel Ludlow, and you’ll see a beauty mankind has never beheld. Can’t you get me out of here?”
“I’m trying. I visited your father’s office, but he’d already left for the day.”
“It’s Thursday. He goes to the club. I’m sure that’s where Mother’s gone. But the banks are closed and I’m not sure he keeps a thousand dollars on hand. Oh, Daniel, I can’t spend the night here.” Emily drew her hands from his and folded her arms under her cloak. “How did you know I was here? Is it all over Birmingham? Did I make the evening paper? There was a photographer outside the jail when I arrived. Oh my, it’s all so humiliating.”
“It’s not in the paper, Em, not as far as I can tell. I found out you were here through Father’s friend, Lieutenant Flannigan. He sent word and I came as soon as I could.”
“Lieutenant Flannigan sent word to you?”
“He thought I’d want to know.” Daniel looped his arms through the bars and grabbed hold of Emily. The strong press of his hands on her waist gave her comfort. She wasn’t alone now. “It’s not hard for anyone, even a man’s friends, to see when a fella’s in love.”
His confession tied up her heart with soft ribbons. “Don’t say that, Danny. Ours was a most sincere friendship, and I adore you, but when you left to play with the Barons, it was over. Your kind way of saying good-bye to me.”
“Kind way of saying good-bye? I had no intentions of choosing between baseball and you. How was I to know you’d engage yourself with that blowhard Saltonstall? Now if you’d read my letters—”
“I found your silly ole letters.” She was in jail, why not confess everything? “Father hid them in the stable.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Daniel released her, stepping back.
“Never mind why. He just did. I started to read them but changed my mind. I’m engaged to another man, and I shouldn’t read my former beau’s letters. It wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t appreciate Phillip—”
“Going around with another woman?”
Emily twisted sideways out of his hands, ignoring the shivers-of-truth crisscrossing her tired form. “There you go again, accusing the man I love.”
“I didn’t accuse him of a thing, Emily.”
She gripped the bars and stuck her chin through them, facing Daniel nose to nose. “Do you know something else?” She fisted his coat collar. “Do you?”
“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer. We’ve been around this mountain once before, Emily.”
“For all that’s decent, Daniel Ludlow, tell me the answer.” She pulled his face into the bars. The cold steel pressed against his cheek, but he didn’t flinch or break free, holding his gaze steady on her face. “If I mean anything to you, if your lovesick confession carries any truth, then tell me what you know. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
“I’ve seen him. With her.”
“Besides that day on the street, you mean.” Emily released his collar and Daniel rubbed his cheek. “He was with her? Emmeline?”
“At the Italian Garden, during the midnight supper.”
“She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?” Emily turned toward the back of the tiny cell, feeling weak and dull, a lawbreaker, shamefully arrested. A poor, wretched sight compared to the striking Emmeline Graves.
“She’s nothing compared to you, Emily.”
She brushed the string of tears from her cheeks. “Can you believe he goes around with a girl who has nearly the same name as I do? Probably so as not to confuse us.”
“She doesn’t have your character. Look at you, in jail for sticking to your convictions.”
“Lot of good it will do.” Emily whirled around. “Taffy. Oh mercy, Daniel.” Back at the bars, she grabbed his collar again. “I’m so selfish . . . only worried about myself, but what will they do to Taffy? Please tell me she’s all right.”
“As far as I know, she’s fine. Flannigan said he was directed to merely send word for her to stay away from you.”
“Stay away from me? This makes no sense. None at all, Danny. Who would order such a thing?”
“Emily, you’re not so naïve to the ways of this city, are you?”
“No, but—”
“Tell you what . . . Remember my chum, Ross? He’s writing for the Age-Herald, and I can ask him to check into your arrest.”
“Please, Danny, would you? Help me find my accuser.”
“Now how can I deny such a sincere plea?” He reached for her hands. His thick, floppy bangs curved over his forehead, drawing Emily into his blue eyes. “I miss you.”
“Danny, don’t. It will do us no good to remember what we were. We must go forward with who we are, who we’ll be. I do want to be friends.”
“But I love you.”
Emily drew her hands back. “Then you should’ve spoken to Father. If not before you left with the Barons, then the moment you returned home.”
“I’d not even spoken to you, Emily. You’d not returned one of my letters. What was I to say to your father? ‘Hello, sir, I’d like to marry your daughter, even though I’ve not spoken to her in five months.’”
“Yes, Daniel, for pity’s sake, yes.”
He sighed and faced the dark clouds of the corridor. “Then why are you marrying Phillip Saltonstall?”
“I’m in jail, Daniel.” Emily let her hands fall from the bars and grabbed her cloak as it threatened to slip from her shoulders. “I don’t want to have this conversation. I can’t think about it now. I just want to get out of here.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right.” He slapped his cap against the bars. “Let me go see what I can do.”
“Thank you. And, Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“That night, at the Italian Garden. Who were you with?” She didn’t have a right to know but she asked anyway.
“My chums, Ross and Alex.”
“Did you dance?”
“Once, but only to save Ross’s neck and not embarrass the poor girl he dragged over to our table.” He fitted his cap on his head. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“I’ll be back with food and hot coffee, and hopefully news about your release.”
“Daniel, you’re so kind and I’m behaving so rudely. I’m sorry, but this is my first jail experience. I’ll be more cordial next time.”
She loved the timbre of his laugh. It cushioned her pain. “I’m sure you will.” He reached his hand through the bars and smoothed the back of his fingers over her che
ek. “Emily Canton, you can air your frustration to me anytime.” He bowed as he backed down the corridor. “Sparring with you is more fun than frolicking with any other girl.”
Emily leaned against the bars, staring at the spot where Daniel had been, inhaling his subtle, clean fragrance. Did she love him? Oh, that man could get under her skin, make her blood boil. But she loved sparring with him too. He made her heart and mind race. Unlike Phillip, who seemed only interested in . . . her body? He spoke constantly of her charm and beauty. And of her family’s name. But rarely commented on her stories or laughed at her anecdotes.
Did she love Phillip? At the moment she couldn’t think about anything but being freed.
Oh, what did it matter? She’d pledged Phillip her love, accepted his ring. What good was her word if she didn’t honor it when the day seemed difficult and fruitless?
Even if she loved Daniel, she was given to Phillip. Like it or not, she was bound by her own actions and confession.
Oh mercy. Emily yanked on the bars. “Let me go!”
The far steel door clanged again and her heart jumped. Daniel. Emily’s mouth watered in anticipation of food. Her pulse pumped in anticipation of Daniel.
But it wasn’t Daniel who came around the corner.
“Phillip.” She stretched her arms through the cell, her heart beating against the bars. “You came.” He walked beside the officer, his chin raised, his back straight, shoulders wide.
“As soon as I could, dearest.” He held her face and tipped her forehead toward him for a kiss. “I’m so sorry, Emily, so sorry. You can trust I’ll be speaking to the chief of police and the mayor about this miscarriage of justice.”
“Bail’s been posted,” the officer said. “You’re free to go, Miss Canton.”
The cell door opened and Phillip drew Emily into him, caressing her, whispering, “I’m here now. This will be handled. Trust me.”
“Oh, Phillip.” Tears soaked up the rest of her words. She felt weak and womanly, needing the arms of her man. How could she have flirted with Daniel only moments ago? How dare he deposit doubt in her heart? Again. Emily gazed up at Phillip. “I don’t want to wait.”