The Deepest Sigh

by Naomi Musch

"Still happily married, like Evie and Dom."

  "I wish I could see them."

  "They all live elsewhere. They were here for Christmas, except Dominic of course. You didn't see him over there?" She pressed her fingers to her lips.

  "No, mother." He supposed it was hard for her to imagine the scope of the war and the vastness of their troop movements overseas.

  "He has two children now, and Evelyn has four. Bethia and George are expecting their second."

  Lang tried to take in the years that had passed, but there was really no way. "I'm sorry. I…I wish I'd known. It's hard to imagine Bethia having children."

  She nodded. "As it has been hard for us to imagine your life so far away in Wisconsin. You should write more often," she scolded, but her tone turned back from further reproof. "I'm so glad you've come, son." She wept and hugged him again. She coaxed him to sit on the faded couch, and she sat down beside him. "How long can you stay?"

  Lang had considered staying for a while, since he was in no hurry to face Marilla. Yet, now having seen his mother, he felt the nudge to continue on home. The reality that this place was no longer home seeped into him, no matter how glad his mother was to see him. Everything here was foreign, something from a lifetime past. "I'll spend tonight, maybe tomorrow too, but then I have to go. I have a wife too, mother."

  "I recall. How is she?"

  "Of course I haven't seen her since I left for the army, but I hear she's had another baby while I was away."

  "Oh? Then you have to go. She will be anxious." She stated the fact with acceptance if not with a bit of heartbreak.

  Lang nodded. "Yes." He gazed at her. "I had three children, Mother. Two sons and a daughter, but my oldest boy..." He swallowed hard, heartache thickening in his throat. "Emmett died. It was the flu."

  She covered her mouth. Her eyes filled with sadness, and she nodded in understanding. "Dom's wife was sick. We thought we'd lose her, but she made it. Our family is made of sterner stock than I had supposed, I guess."

  She offered him coffee and sandwiches, and they talked about the family and about Lang's work on the farm that he hoped to return to. He didn't tell her that there was every likelihood Rilla would send him packing when he showed up, or that he had hoped to run off with his sister-in-law. It all seemed like such a sham now, his life.

  His brother Roland and little sister Geneva came home a short time later. They halted at sight of the strange man in their parlor.

  "Don't stand there staring." His mother waved an arm at them. "This is your brother Langdon. Tell him hello." Roland's eyes brightened, and he stepped forward with a sturdy handshake. He was almost as tall as Lang, and his grip was firm.

  "Hello, Roland. How old are you now?"

  "I'll be eighteen in a few weeks. Old enough to enlist."

  "I'm pretty sure Mother's seen enough of her sons taken by the army. Maybe you should try something else."

  "The war is over. It'll be a ride."

  Langdon didn't argue. He turned to the pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl standing just inside the door with her arms folded across her middle. "You must be Geneva. Fifteen, I bet."

  She nodded. "Sixteen. Hello."

  "Don't be shy. Give your brother a hug," their mother urged.

  Lang chuckled and embraced his little sister with one arm as she hesitated to step forward. "You were just a wee thing when I left."

  "I remember you." Her eyes were big and pretty, not bright and changing like Rilla's, but she possessed a gentle comeliness.

  "I bet you like to dance."

  She nodded, her smile relaxing some more.

  "I'd like to take you sometime."

  "She isn't going to any of those dances." Her mother waved Geneva away. "Go start peeling potatoes. Roland, take your brother's bag to your room. He can sleep in there tonight."

  "Where will I sleep?"

  "Right here on the sofa."

  Lang remembered when they'd all shared rooms, he and Dominic and young Roland in one; Evelyn, Bethia, and little Geneva in another. Now he supposed they each had rooms to themselves. He'd left them before he was Geneva's age to make more space, to free them from the financial burden of feeding another man in the family. A year after he'd gone he had gotten a letter saying his father had passed on from a heart attack at only forty-one. Lang was in Wisconsin by then, too far away to go back and help—or so he'd told himself. His own selfishness had kept him away. His mother, along with his sisters Evelyn and Bethia, took in piecework, and Dominic got work as a newsboy. Evelyn found work as a shop girl when she was older. Together they had gotten by without his help after all.

  "I saw someone who knows you," Roland said as he drug Lang's duffel toward the hall.

  Lang raised his brows. "Oh?"

  "Yeah, he said he was an old friend of yours. Archie his name was. I remember. He was the fellow you went off with."

  "Archie Bristow?"

  "Yeah, I saw him...downtown." His hesitation let Lang know he'd been somewhere their mother wouldn't have approved. Lang's first thought was to go looking for Archie at one drinking establishment or another. "I can probably find him again. Let him know you're here," Roland said.

  "You could do that for me?"

  His younger brother grinned. "Easy enough. Say when."

  "How about tonight? I'll go with you."

  "Sure!"

  Lang glimpsed the frown on his mother's face and felt the pain she held inside. It seemed a mother's plight to worry for her sons.

  Chapter Thirty

  May 1919

  Marilla dragged her hoe down the garden furrow, deepening it. Dropping the hoe in the dirt, she plucked a pouch of bean seeds from her pocket and hiked up her dress, bending to drop each seed a couple inches apart in the dirt. "Dora, you come back here!" she hollered without looking up from her work. Dora liked to explore further than she was allowed from Marilla's sight.

  "I'm here." The little girl's voice came from around the house. "Playing in dirt."

  "You come play where I can see you."

  The little girl heaved a sigh and dragged her doll in the dirt behind her, plopping down at the edge of the garden.

  "That's better. And don't you be sassy. You obey Mommy."

  Marilla finished the row and bent to cover the seeds. As she reached the last seed, she straightened and stretched her back. Her milk was coming in. It was time to feed Bertie. She lifted her chin to see him waving his arms in the shade of the oak tree ten yards away. He was a good baby. She loved him with all the love she had left over from Emmett. She supposed Jacob had wondered why she would name the baby after Lang, given the fact their marriage had faltered to such a sorry state, but to Marilla it made sense. No matter if he hadn't survived the war, no matter if he left them now; she would not let his boy grow up thinking he hadn't been conceived in love. Langdon Jr., or Bertie as he was called, would harbor no doubt that he was wanted and loved.

  She plodded through the garden brushing the dirt from her apron front as she reached him lying in his shaded cradle. Jacob had insisted he needed the outdoor cradle. He was too good to her. She scooped Bertie into her arms and put him to her breast, relieved when he latched on and suckled. She sat on the ground against the tree and waved Dora over. "Look for ants," she said, trying to find entertainment that would keep her daughter near.

  "I find one." Dora crawled off on hands and knees, eyes steady on the ground before her.

  Rilla recognized the sound of Jacob's automobile driving in before she turned to look. She reached for a blanket from the cradle and covered the nursing baby.

  Jacob exited the car and walked as though something was heavy on his mind. She had learned to recognize his looks, the nuances of his expressions and mannerisms, just as she knew her own or her mama's or daddy's. He stopped a few feet away and looked to Dora with a smile.

  "I find ants!" she said.

  "Find some for me."

  She nodded with a wide grin on her face and went back to search.
>
  Marilla dipped her head toward the ground. "Have a seat."

  He lowered himself beside her, and she waited for him to say why he'd come. He was quiet for a time watching her daughter play. Then finally he spoke. "I had a telephone call today."

  Bertie quit nursing. Marilla put herself together beneath the blanket and raised him to burp. She waited for Jacob to continue. Bertie belched, and Jacob reached up to pat his downy head. Marilla situated him at her other breast as Jacob looked away.

  "It was from Langdon."

  Her heart stopped. Bertie fought to find her breast, but she didn't notice. She shot a look at Jacob.

  "He's coming home. He'll be here next week."

  She turned her attention to the baby and settled him. He acted like he hadn't just had half his meal. She looked at Jacob again, unsure what to ask, how to process this news. Her heart flipped. Langdon. Home. Would he be changed? The past flooded over her, spoke to her in dark whispers, worked upon her fears. Her throat constricted and her voice felt brittle and unused. "I don't know what to think."

  "He sounded good. Healthy. He was looking forward to getting here he said."

  To see Delia...

  Bertie let go and fell asleep. "Jacob…"

  He reached for her free hand. "It will be all right, Marilla. Don't be afraid."

  "How did you know I'm afraid?"

  He smiled. "I know things have been difficult for you for a long time. I know he hasn't been the husband you'd hoped him to be. It can change."

  "But you—"

  He squeezed her hand again. "You are not alone."

  He'd promised again and again, and he had always been true to his word, but he couldn't be there when Lang came home. Then it would be only the two of them, with Emmett's death and Lang's love for Delia between them. "I wish—"

  "Don't."

  She turned to him on her knees. She reached for him, but he stood up and pulled her to her feet. Then he loosened her hand. "Why not?"

  "You and I are a certain kind of people, Marilla. You're a Christian woman, and I am a Christian man. As such, we must remember that you are Langdon's wife, even though it pains me to say it."

  She wanted to shake her head, felt her chin jerk. When had she stopped wanting to be Lang's wife? When having Emmett failed to make him love her, or when Theodora was born? Was it when she had first realized he loved Delia, or during weeks and weeks of infatuation after? Was it that very day she'd addressed it, right before he left, when he didn't answer? Or had it happened before then, when he had stopped giving her reason to love him—while Jacob gave her many? Yet she didn't shake her head. She watched him step away.

  "I wanted you to know right away, so you would have time."

  As if I haven't had a year. She looked at him and away. "Thank you, Jacob. The children and I... We owe you so much."

  Dora had wandered over, and he patted her head. He smiled. There was love in his eyes and hope, but resignation too. "You may invite me to dinner sometime."

  She nodded and watched him walk to his car, get inside, and drive away.

  ~~~~~

  June 1919

  Archie Bristow had come home from war none the worse for wear except for a slight limp from some shrapnel he'd taken in his backside. He joked about it, saying he'd gotten a little too friendly with a French farmer's daughter and wound up on the wrong end of her old man's scatter gun. Lang doubted the tale but laughed at it nonetheless. Like Lang, Archie found himself back in his hometown for the time being, trying to get his bearings. Now they stood inside a taproom next door to a butcher shop. Archie was buying and complaining about what they would do when prohibition took effect next January, and because Roland had helped Lang locate his friend, Lang didn't stop his younger brother from partaking. At seventeen, he was man enough.

  Lang tilted a glass back, letting a long draught of beer flow down his throat. His head swam, but he liked the way it kept his thoughts from becoming morbid.

  Until Archie started asking questions. "So, you haven't told me. How is Delia? She keeping her bed warm for your return?"

  Roland leaned forward expecting another story, but Lang growled at Archie. "Shut your trap."

  Archie grinned. "You mean you didn't get that settled before you left?"

  "I said—"

  "Who's Delia?" Roland was eager to know.

  "She's his sister-in-law."

  The boy's eyes widened, but a grin lifted one side of his mouth. Roland was a good looking kid. He reminded Lang of himself at that age. Roland probably didn't suffer any lack of attention from the ladies. He flipped back a shock of unruly black hair and chuckled. Lang slid the kid a glance. "It's not like that."

  "Oh?" Archie smirked. "That's not what you said when I was there."

  "Things change."

  "How?"

  "They just do."

  "She didn't fall for your charm, you mean?"

  Lang turned at the bar, squaring himself to Archie. "Let it go, Arch. Things have been tough on Rilla."

  Archie smirked. "And now you care."

  "Our boy died, okay? Our boy died." He belted back the remainder of his beer and pulled away from the bar.

  Roland followed him. Archie was a step or two behind. Lang slipped out the door onto the street. Archie and Roland caught up to him and flanked him on the sidewalk. Archie laid a hand on his shoulder, turning him. His face had fallen. "Not little Emmett."

  Lang's gut ached, and he didn't think the alcohol was the cause. He felt like sleeping forever. He nodded.

  "Gee, Lang." Roland shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Archie put an arm around him, and they strolled off. "I'm really sorry to hear it. Poor Rilla."

  Yeah. Poor Rilla. She had been through nothing less than war herself. How had she borne it? While he had been wallowing in misery over a woman he couldn't have, the woman who wanted him had borne her grief and agony alone. To think of it that way helped him with his decision. "I'm leaving tomorrow, after I send a message and let her know I'm coming."

  "She doesn't know you're home?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet."

  "There's a telephone downstairs in our building," Roland said. "If you pay for the call, you can use it."

  Call? Who would he call? It would have to be Hessman's Store. That was the only place he could think of. "I suppose that's what I'll do."

  "Wish I could go with you," Roland said.

  Lang lifted one side of his mouth and patted Roland's back. "You finish school, and then come out and see us. We'd be glad to have you." He hoped he could keep that promise—hoped he'd still have a home once he faced Rilla.

  The question of whether or not he would have a home loomed larger than ever two days later as he sat on a train bound to Pennsylvania. He made a switch to Chicago, and another train brought him to Wisconsin on the third day of June. The trip on average took a few days. He planned to make it last a week with stopovers. There was no sense getting there before she was ready to see him. The time might work in his favor. Then again, it might not. He had called Hessman's Store and spoken to Jacob. The man sounded surprised to hear from him. Maybe he didn't think Lang would make it back. Many never would come home; that was certain. Some came home so disfigured from gas and gun fire, their loved ones probably wouldn't recognize them. The storekeeper had promised to get the word to Rilla and her family.

  During his intentional layover in Chicago, he bought gifts for Rilla and the rest of the family. He'd decided on a pretty silk scarf for Rilla. He telegrammed to tell her when he'd arrive. Would she be there when he got off the train? And Theo, how was he doing? He bought his brother-in-law a fancy deck of cards. The questions churned with no answers, just aggravations and worry. If he had been able, he would have stopped off for a drink, but was glad he couldn't. He didn't want the liquor to numb his mind. Maybe suffering in awareness was the least sort of penance he could do.

  It was a foggy morning the day the train pulled into the Spooner station. Mist g
athered and swirled, making it hard to see far out the window. He smirked at how àpropos the gloom was, how little he could see of what lay ahead for any of them. Passengers moved into the aisle, but Lang waited. His heartbeat picked up speed. Had it really been a year since he had gotten on this train and gone away? His nightmares told him yes. He might just as well be getting off onto French soil. Part of him was still there—might always be there. Where had the army sent Dickie's remains? Someday he'd go back. Find his young friend's grave. Honor him. He would write to his sister Millie, the pretty nurse Dickie had described. He'd tell her what he knew about her brother. She would want to know. He should have thought of that when he was lying there in the hospital. Maybe he could have written to Dickie's sister more easily than Rilla.

  Lang squirmed as the final passengers edged toward the front to disembark. Those remaining in their seats were going further up the line. He breathed out a rush of air and stood, dragging his duffel bag with him. He wore civilian clothes, but his bag told the story of where he'd been. He followed the last passenger out the back of the car and stepped down off the train to scan the platform. The crowd thinned away.

  Rilla stood off to the side near the building, watching him. The reality of her being there staggered him. For the first time, he realized what an apparition of his past she'd seemed, and here in the mist it should be even more so, but it wasn't. He swallowed and stared at her. She didn't move. With a hitch of his shoulders, he took slow steps toward her. At her side stood a little girl—their little girl. She wasn't a baby anymore, but there was a bundle in Rilla's arms. For a moment, he'd forgotten. Rilla, pregnant again. His breathing was shallow. He almost held his breath altogether as he stepped close enough to speak. They stared at one another a moment longer, and then his gaze passed over the children. For a split second, he looked for Emmett, hoped for him, but Emmett was gone. He'd never see his boy again.

  "Rilla."

  She blinked. She didn't step closer or open herself to him but kept both arms tucked around the infant.

  He bent his head to peer into the bundle. "Who have we here?"