The Edge of Mercy

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  A native with a Christian name? Was he a Praying Indian, then?

  I felt if I placed my hand in his there would be no turning back. I would be unable to go home to Papa and Mr. Tanner and pretend as if all were normal.

  Time suspended for a long moment, until finally I could not leave Abram’s hand lingering in the air any longer. I lifted my white hand to his dark one. His flesh was warm, and as I looked at my small hand in his larger one, I sensed this was indeed the very beginning.

  “Elizabeth,” I whispered.

  “Elizabeth,” he repeated. “Come again.”

  I knew that I would.

  April 29, 1675

  It has been too long since I have written. Papa needed the last of the ink to write a letter. He has improved some, though his coughing still keeps me awake at night. I have a mind to ride our horse to Plimoth or Taunton myself to secure him a doctor, but he will have none of it.

  Mr. Tanner called on me this evening. It is the first I have seen of him since he bid me not visit the woods. I think he knew I was not happy with him. He brought me a gift of ink. I cannot stay angered at him for long after such a precious present.

  We did not take a walk today. Papa was in bed and Mr. Tanner did not ask that I leave him. Instead, he helped me gather eggs in the barn and muck out Church’s stall.

  Mr. Tanner asked if I named the horse. I tried not to turn away from his gaze when I admitted I had.

  “After Captain Church, I presume?”

  I nodded and expelled a long breath, hoping to cool my flaming face.

  “So he is my competition for your affections, then? A married man with children?”

  To hear it spoken aloud made me feel foolish, like a silly girl. “Never have I met Mr. Church. I only admire the work he does with the natives.”

  “I have no competitors, then?”

  What was I to say to such a bold question? I thought of Abram, of my unexplainable draw to him. I would not tell Mr. Tanner of him. He would deeply disapprove of my walking alone in the woods, of my consorting with a native.

  And no matter my strange feelings for Abram, I had made a promise to Papa, for the sake of his peace during this distressing time in his life. I would marry Mr. Tanner if he asked it of me.

  “There is no competition.” I turned from Mr. Tanner’s stare and felt his eyes watch me. I wondered if he would come closer. I wondered if he would try to hold my hand or even kiss me. I wondered what it would be like to be kissed by a man. ’Twas not unheard of among courting couples. Andia once told me Hezekiah stole more than one kiss before the banns were read.

  When I could no longer pretend to gather eggs I turned to him with my basket before me. He leaned against the pitchfork, again staring at me.

  “Is this how you work on your own homestead? If so, ’tis no wonder you haven’t expanded.”

  My tongue is the most disobedient part of my body. Mr. Tanner’s mouth grew into a firm line. Why must I speak before I think? A most unworthy character trait of a courting young woman.

  Mr. Tanner leaned the pitchfork against the large rock right outside of the barn and told me he would visit with Papa before he took his leave. When he was gone, I looked to the rafters of the barn, where a small field mouse perched. I wondered if he could get down, if he was frightened.

  I was frightened.

  ’Tis why I allow my tongue to run wild. I do not wish to marry Mr. Tanner, and yet I have promised Papa, so my only device is to scare him off with my unruly mouth.

  It appears to have worked.

  May 6, 1675

  I visited Goodwife Howland today. She gave me some ginger to soak in Papa’s teas. I helped her make soap in her leach tub. I lugged the ashes and water outside for her and when we managed to make lye strong enough to hold an egg, we boiled it with her grease. I love the clean soap that comes from the filth. How do dirty ashes and vile grease create such pure beauty? I asked Goodwife Howland if she thought our lives could be like the soap. If good things could come from the bad.

  She told me the good Lord promises beauty from ashes in his Word. I would like to read of such things. I will search Papa’s Bible tonight.

  I thought to tell Goodwife Howland of my native friend. Of all the people in the settlement, she would be the soul to understand. Yet I could not bring myself to speak of Abram. Instead, I asked her to tell me more of Squanto. She insisted she must have told me everything. I asked her might she tell me again?

  She said perhaps it was time to tell me of things I had not yet heard. I begged she do so.

  “When I first met Squanto I was frightened of his dark skin and unruly hair and way of dress. But after a time I ceased to see his skin or even his clothes. These things are but the trappings of what truly matters, of what the good Lord tells us is of most importance.”

  I placed my hand over my chest. “The Lord searches the heart,” I murmured.

  She nodded. “Yes. ’Twas a true blessing when I saw past these things when it came to Squanto. ’Twas a blessing to see the man himself.” She gave a great sigh. “Yet the Wampanoag sachem, King Philip’s father—Massasoit—did not trust Squanto’s heart as I did. He did not trust Squanto alone to deal with the settlers. He sent another native to help Squanto.

  “Hobomok, if this old mind can remember. I did not care for him. Squanto held nothing back from us. His motives were pure. I did not trust Hobomok. A year after John and I met Squanto, our native friend fell sick with brain fever when he returned from a meeting to repair hard feelings between the settlers and the Wampanoag. Within a few days he died.”

  This was not the sort of story I wished for Goodwife Howland to tell. I knew she told me for a reason. “You think Squanto was killed?”

  “Only the Lord knows the cause of his death. Hark, Elizabeth, even then, when we fared well with the natives, trouble found us. There are always a few on each side, both the natives and the colonists, who refuse peace. I fear for thy generation.”

  Her proclamation made shivers crawl up my spine. Squanto had been caught in the middle. Was that where Abram was also? He speaks English. He lives apart from his tribe.

  More than ever, I wonder his story.

  Chapter 13

  It was the same rock.

  I knew as much from Barb’s stories, but Elizabeth’s latest entries confirmed it. Still, standing here, on top of the rock where she and Abram stood over three hundred years ago, I felt united with them somehow. Every crevice, every pebbled formation, was just as she described.

  Yet, if that were true, then the legend of the rock must be true as well. My stomach curdled. I did not know if I wanted to read more of the journal if the legend proved to be genuine. It was one thing to listen to a hazy story of days long ago. It was quite another to stand here where it actually happened, to feel that I knew Abram and Elizabeth, that I had spent time communing with her private thoughts in her very own handwriting.

  I stood in silence in the same place I’d dropped my wedding rings more than a week earlier, in the same place Elizabeth Baker stood all those years ago. And while I knew that Barb had asked me to give the journal to her daughter, I couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t wanted me to read it as well—if some part of her knew I would need a purpose, that perhaps I would even find an unlikely companion in a seventeenth-century girl—a girl swept away by circumstances out of her control. A girl so caught up in caring for her family that she resisted her own wants and feelings.

  I began the descent down the rock, leaning back on my heels to avoid falling forward. A spider web caught my face and I wiped it away. I walked around the rock’s west side and sat at the top of Abram’s cave. Nothing of his existence showed in the cave now, just a small mark of graffiti, dirt and leaves, and a broken beer bottle.

  Not for the first time, a whisper of the past shrouded the place. Abram and Elizabeth had stood here.

  I wanted to bring Matt here.

  Maybe I could tell him about the rings and he could help me look f
or them. Maybe I’d tell him about the journal. Maybe he’d want to read it too.

  Almost as quickly as the idea came, I shot it down. Matt never wanted to walk in the woods with me. I’d asked him countless times, and each time he’d had something better to do.

  But then I’d done the same thing each time he’d asked me to go golfing, or sailing, or test drive a Harley. I couldn’t bear the thought of chasing a small white ball over acres of manicured grass, where trees were sparse and the sun hot. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in a confined boat, endless murky waters and unseen rip currents beneath me, where anything under the sun could make its home. And I was none too keen about riding on an open highway, air and bare pavement all around me, ready to jump up and meet me in an excruciating crash.

  I hadn’t been willing to face my fears, or even my comfort level, to share in something that brought joy to my husband.

  I sniffed and made my way onto the open trail leading away from the rock. Lorna’s words came back to me. Maybe the fault isn’t all with him. . . .

  Well, of course there’d been things I could have done different…better. Maybe I hadn’t loved my husband as perfectly as I thought. Yet, I’d never claimed to be perfect. I only claimed to be willing to wade through the ugly to fix us.

  But I needed Matt to wade with me.

  I unhooked the blood pressure cuff from Lila Rhineheart’s pale arm and folded it neatly with the portable monitor I held in my other hand. The cuff had made marks on her wrinkled skin, leaving the loose folds slightly red. “One fifteen over seventy-five. That’s great, Mrs. Rhineheart.”

  “Thank you, dear. Now if you’ll just help me to the facilities, I’ll be all set for my appointment with Dr. Keller.”

  “We’ll get to it, then.” I lowered the rail on the bed and helped the elderly woman swing her legs over the edge.

  “I like your band,” she said.

  I held up both my hands. I only had one band on—Lorna’s. “This one?”

  “Yes. It’s nice and simple, not overstated like all the flashy bling these young hotties wear today.”

  I laughed. “Oh I know all about flashy bling. Had myself some rocks on this hand up until recently. I lost them.”

  Mrs. Rhineheart tsked and shook her head. “Too bad. Bet a pretty thing like you has quite a looker of a husband, eh?”

  I could feel the blood rushing to my face. I helped her to a standing position. “He’s handsome, all right.”

  She curled a thin arm around my own and patted my hand. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to divulge my personal life to this woman. She was sweet and quite likely she wouldn’t remember my words next week, but I wanted to be professional. Then again, maybe Mrs. Rhineheart could give me an honest outsider’s opinion. I had enough of my parents’ advice, enough of Essie’s, enough of Mariah’s, and even enough of Jen’s. What would Mrs. Rhineheart, a lady with years of wisdom behind her, have to say about my marriage?

  I’d probably be able to tell her my whole life story by the time we made it to the bathroom.

  “Are you married, Mrs. Rhineheart?”

  “Please, dear, call me Lila. Never did like my last name as much as I liked my husband.” We shuffled a few laminate blocks at a time toward the bathroom. “He died ten years ago. Heart attack. Thought my world would fall apart.”

  More shuffling.

  “But you know, he wasn’t my first husband.”

  I tried to hide my surprise. “No?”

  Lila shook her head, wobbling the dangly earrings she insisted on wearing—the ones that stretched her earlobes almost to her shoulders. “I married my first husband young. Real young. We were two hot tickets, let me tell you. But passion fades. He held it against me that I couldn’t hold a pregnancy. We decided to go our separate ways after fifteen years.”

  I swallowed the bubble in my throat. “Fifteen years?” This wasn’t my destiny with Matt, was it? Married young, seventeen years . . . did he hold it against me that we couldn’t have more children?

  “Did you keep in touch?” Stupid question.

  Shuffle. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Halfway there.

  “With no children, there was little need. He sent a card when Will died, said he saw it in the newspaper. That was it.”

  I wanted Lila to get in touch with her first husband. I wanted their love to rekindle. I wanted healing to take place. If for no other reason than to bolster my own hope.

  She squeezed my arm. “When I met Will, he loved me without conditions. He made me happier than I’d ever been. I didn’t look back after I met him. Ever.” She stopped shuffling. “Things not going well with handsome hubby?”

  “We’re taking a break for the summer.”

  “Kids?”

  “One great sixteen-year-old.”

  She bobbed her head again. “It’s different when there’s kids I imagine.” Shuffle. “Can’t stay together just for them, though.”

  “We’re not—I mean, I don’t want a separation.”

  “Course not, dear. But sometimes there’s something better out there.”

  Something better than my husband? What Lila said went against everything I was ever taught. It went against the very grain of the fabric I was woven into. Divorce wasn’t an option. Even if there was something “better” out there, could I chase my own wishy-washy emotions and find a happiness that endured? Was there such a thing?

  We’d reached the threshold of the bathroom. A shadowed form near the hall cleared his throat. I startled, then held Lila to make sure she hadn’t been frightened either.

  “Don’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Pete—Dr. Keller, I’m sorry. We didn’t see you there.” How much had he heard? I was grateful I could hide myself away in the bathroom with Lila for at least another eight minutes. “Mrs. Rhineheart needs to use the bathroom.”

  He held up a hand. “That’s fine. I’ll check in on Mr. Brooks and then look over her chart while I’m waiting.”

  We took more than eight minutes in the bathroom. And the shuffling back to the bed took at least another five, but Pete sat in the chair at the end of Lila’s bed as if he had all the time in the world.

  When I’d settled Lila, she clutched at my hand. “Would you mind staying, dear? This is my least favorite part.”

  I had more patients to tend, but I couldn’t imagine denying Lila’s request. I looked at Pete and he nodded.

  “Of course.” Feeling out of place, I stood near her bed. She didn’t release my hand.

  “I’m just going to listen to how it all sounds in there, Mrs. Rhineheart.”

  Pete positioned the stethoscope in his ears and probed around above the thin cloth of Mrs. Rhineheart’s hospital gown. After a moment, he moved his stethoscope to her back and encouraged her to take deep breaths.

  Lila kept my hand clutched to her lap. When Pete was through, he helped the older woman lay down.

  “Sounds good. Your numbers are much improved too. I think we can say the angioplasty was a success. Any more chest pain?”

  Lila shook her head. “Does that mean I can go home?”

  “I think so. But no more step aerobics for you, Mrs. Rhineheart.”

  “And I was going to look just like Denise Austin when I was done, too.”

  Pete laughed. “I strongly recommend the cardio rehab we talked of earlier. They’ll help you with appropriate exercises that won’t strain your heart. The stent we put in will help prevent blockages, but it’s not a guarantee. It’s important you take your medications.” Pete put Lila’s chart in the slot at the end of her bed. “I’ll need to see you in another week to check how things are going.”

  Lila sighed. “I’ve always hated going to the doctors, even if it is to see a looker like you.”

  Pete’s gaze flew to mine and then to Lila’s bedsheets. He shook his head and smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Rhineheart. You stay well, okay?”

  Pete nodded to me and walked o
ut of the room, but not before Lila asked me, “I didn’t say anything wrong, did I? He is a yummy peach, isn’t he?”

  Somehow, I held my laughter. “Yes, I suppose he is.” I tucked Lila in, told her I’d be by one more time to say good-bye before she was discharged, and walked quickly out of the room.

  In the hall, I tried to hide my smile in my sleeve.

  “So, I’m a yummy peach, am I?” Pete hadn’t yet gone to another room. He looked like he needed to recover before seeing another patient.

  I sucked in a breath to hide my laughter, unsuccessfully. “Dr. Keller, I’m so sorry. I can’t help it.”

  He leaned against the wall and looked at me, an easy smile on his face. A lock of his dirty blonde hair fell over his forehead, and I got the strange urge to brush it away.

  “It’s Pete, Sarah.”

  My smile seemed to freeze on my face as awkward silence ping-ponged between us. Even with the vital check monitor in the crook of my arm, I still found my fingers fiddling with Lorna’s ring.

  “What time’s your break?”

  This wasn’t what I thought it was, was it? Of course not. He knew I was married. But he also may have heard that Matt and I were separated. Or maybe he didn’t care about any of that.

  “One.”

  “Want to grab lunch downstairs?” His eyes locked on Lorna’s ring, twirling on my finger, its luster all but gone.

  “Um, yeah, that would be great.” Lunch, in the hospital cafeteria, during work. There was nothing wrong with that. “I—I better go.” The blood pressure cuff fell from my grip and dangled a foot above the ground. I caught it up and wrapped it neatly with the monitor.

  “Okay. See you in a couple hours.”

  I didn’t need to feel guilty. There was nothing wrong with having lunch with a coworker of the opposite sex. Matt ate meals with his clients all the time—female clients—to discuss their plans and ideas. It was professional.

  I was being professional.