What Once We Loved

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “He never told you he was married?”

  “We knew he was married to—”

  “My mother,” Grace said.

  “Yes,” Mazy said. “Your brother talked of her to me. She must have been a fine woman.”

  “Indeed,” Sinclair Taylor said.

  “She has no need of compliments from you,” Grace said.

  “Grace,” Mr. Taylor scolded.

  Mazy raised her hand as though to say it was all right. She thought of what it must be like for Grace, a mere child, uncovering betrayals within her own father s life. Not that anyone could ever know what their parents thought or did, even if they had the interest or courage to ask while their parents were alive. Grace had lost her mother and her father. She was an orphan as certain as Sula was. And here Mazy was, someone threatening to disrupt memories perfectly intact.

  For the first time, Mazy asked herself just what she was doing here. Just what did she think she needed to know?

  “You immigrated?” Mazy asked.

  “Before Jeremy. He is, was, my younger brother. There were only the two of us. We both married in England, and Jeremy had this idea to go to the provinces. Canada. And make our way to Fort Vancouver. He was always the one with ideas,” Sinclair smiled for the first time. “He could always talk me into doing them first, so I arrived in Vancouver before them. We became enamored of the idea of having our own dairying, here in California. The purebred bull you delivered will complete that phase of what he wished for, what we wished for. And I am grateful.”

  “You wont have a purebred herd,” Grace reminded him, “without the cows.”

  “No,” he said. “But a good sire and sturdy cows will nevertheless add to the herd we already have. And your fathers widow needs some just compensation. Adjustments are always called for, Grace. Its not a sign of weakness.”

  The girl blushed. “Yes, Uncle,” she said.

  “And the rest you know, I presume. He was a good son to our father. A good brother though more prone to impulse than me. He treated his wife and children well from all I know, and he left fully intending to come back, fully planning to keep his commitments. I trust that. There was an injury, an illness, I believe, that may have affected his timing.”

  “My father and mother and I nursed him back to health. He told me he had arrived by ship, just that year.”

  “Then he was less than candid with you or confused by his trauma.”

  Mazy nodded. This talk was revealing nothing, nothing she didn't already know, nothing that would fill the empty places.

  “His son, David,” Sinclair continued. “I bear responsibility for not contacting him. I hoped to know what had happened to his father first. My own…difficulties after arriving here made finding David an impossibility. I have still not found a way to answer his letter.”

  “Did he write?” Grace asked, casting a surprised glance at her uncle.

  “Just recently,” Sinclair answered. “But that is not your affair, Missis…Bacon, I believe you go by?”

  “That's my name,” she said.

  “Is there anything more then, Mrs. Bacon?”

  She tried to think. Was there something she should ask, some piece of forgotten information, some tidbit of her husband's past that in knowing would somehow make her life complete? She could think of nothing. She rose.

  “I do thank you for delivering the bull. I know it was an inconvenience,” he said. “I, too, am widowed.” He coughed. “I've had no way to travel and still provide for Grace.”

  “I'm sorry, “ Mazy said. “I didn't know.”

  “No reason you should.”

  “Can I take a message back for you to David?” Mazy turned to look at Grace as well. “He and his wife are helping my mother on my farm while Im here. I'll see him when I return.”

  “Tell him I'll write,” Grace said. “And that I'm helping Uncle Sinclair.”

  Mazy nodded. “I guess it's good-bye then,” she said.

  “We seem to have covered all that's essential,” Sinclair said, his use of the word essential springing tears to Mazy s eyes. It had been Jeremy's word.

  She rode sidesaddle, taking her time, to Suzanne's. Had she gotten what she hoped for? She wasn't sure. It was clear though, any sense of family could not be forced. There was no family here, just people who had crossed her path, intersected her life and moved away. No amount of her persisting would make that different; if anything, it could drive a possible friend away.

  What she had with Jeremy was real, had been real, even with its tainted edges. To make it something more, to insist that Grace or Sinclair or even David Taylor fit some fabric she called family did them a disservice. They were simply good people going about their way. Insisting on more meant sending out an invitation for disappointment. She couldn't fix the mess. She couldn't make the past go away by trying to reshape it. It was what it was. Nothing more, but nothing less.

  Jeremy had loved her. He had known what might hurt her and had not used it to harm her. He had lived with the knowledge of his deception. To his death he had refused to send her into a fault that could not be altered. Wasn't that an act of love?

  “How did you find us?” Suzanne asked Esty.

  “Esther sent word of your new location.”

  Esther had sent word? How strange. Esther had practically snubbed Esty when she'd first arrived with Suzanne, insisted that there was no room at the boardinghouse for her. Maybe Esther felt guilty about judging the woman harshly instead of seeing that she merely wanted to start a new life, move out of the casinos and saloons and into the millinery business.

  “I'm pleased she did.”

  “Is she here?” Esty asked. Into the silence she added, “I have a hat to talk with her about.”

  “Esther is going to buy a hat?” Suzanne couldn't imagine Esther without the little cap everyone said she always wore. Perhaps she did wear hats, and Suzanne simply hadn't known.

  “No. Yes. She's looking at some feathers,” Esty said. Something in her words sounded so…lame. “There you are!” she said, and Suzanne heard Esty stand, the rustle of her crinolines telling Suzanne she was walking away.

  “I…let's go to my room,” Esther said. “You can find the…color that will match the feather I need. Will you excuse us, Suzanne?” The two women were gone before Suzanne could say anything.

  How odd, she thought. She stood, thinking to pour some tea. She counted her steps to the sideboard, patted for the tea cozy. The doorknocker caused her to turn, and she shouted to no one who cared apparently, “I'll get it,” and headed down the hall to let in Seth. She felt herself blush.

  The evening before, the others had finally gone on to bed leaving her and Seth in the parlor alone. They talked the night away, at least Suzanne believed it was late though she lost track of time. Seth was an easy listener, and she found herself telling him confidences she hadn't known she was thinking.

  “He worries me, yes,” she said of Sterling Powder. “But I think it's just my wish to control things. I do that, you know, try to make things happen. But I'm certain his being here is important. For Clayton. And I'm committed to my boys.”

  “He seems a little stiff,” Seth said.

  “I know. But the boys come first. I'm firm about that. And he tolerated my moving us, my need to have things in a swirl.” She laughed. “I used to like to dance.”

  “The belle of the ball, no doubt,” Seth said. “You still can.”

  “Oh, I don't think so. My balance. I can't imagine being dragged around the floor by some poor soul having to dance for the both of us.”

  “Might be a poor soul out there willing.”

  “You think so?” She patted the bun at the back of her neck. “Maybe someday. When the boys are grown.”

  “You won't do them favors by putting your whole life on hold, Suzanne. You can't put them first if you don't tend to yourself. You'll be all drained out with nothing to give them.”

  She hadn't thought quite that way before. “Do you thi
nk that's why I keep looking for things to occupy my time? I thought about training dogs. See how that's turned out.” She scolded herself. “And music lessons, singing or the harp. I'd love that, but Esther doesn't think there are many students about.”

  “Might only need one or two to make you feel like you were being worthy.”

  “Being worthy,” she sighed. “That is what I long for. To feel as though I can do something well, something that might matter. I'd like to add a little light to another's life.”

  “I know what you're saying,” he said. They'd talked about small things then, and large. She would have kept talking except for the yawn she heard him suppress, reminding her of just how late it must have been.

  “I'm so sorry. Tomorrow. We can talk more tomorrow. You've had a very long day. I shouldn't have kept you.”

  “It was my pleasure, Suzanne,” Seth said. “My pleasure indeed.”

  So when she found herself alone with him again, it was almost as though they had never stopped talking.

  “And then there's this new vision that came to me,” she said after he'd been seated and she'd poured him tea, placing her finger to the inside of his cup just as she did for her own so she wouldn't overfill it. “I've been dying to tell someone. You're the perfect person.”

  “Talk on,” he said.

  “It…it has to be kept secret. And if you think I'm…well, that I'm addle minded, you must tell me.”

  “You already have my undivided attention, Suzanne.”

  She blushed. “I want to start a theater company. Art soothes human wounds, and this California lures people with open wounds, or splits them open when they least expect it. Theater, stories, can help with that, can wrap arms around a person. The stories help us remember what we were, who we are, and where we're going.” She thought she might be babbling. “I'll seek investors. We'll build a building. Or perhaps see if the Rays are interested in selling that Sacramento Theater they own.”

  “And you'd perform?”

  “Maybe. I want to choose the plays and hire the actors and oversee things. Isn't that a funny word for me to use, oversee. But that's it exactly. Sister Esther could work for me then while I'm gone, and maybe not have to spend her nights cleaning. I'd hire someone else to clean my theater.”

  “Esther might like to keep working.”

  “Perhaps—”

  “Keep me working where?” Esther asked, returning to the room. Suzanne could sense that Esty stood there too, smelled her delicate perfiime.

  “I want to buy the Sacramento Theater,” Suzanne said. “To use the money I made singing in the gold mines to give something back to the citizens here. You all have your interests, and you know how consuming they are, how gratifying. I want that too.”

  “But you have your boys.”

  “I'll still have my boys. I'll still have Mr. Powder, I hope. But I want something that will, well, help stir me up and be consequential, beyond my little family.”

  “And you believe plays and things will do that?” Esther said.

  “Shakespeare matters,” Suzanne defended. “He alone touches more lives than… His stories reach to the heart of people,” she finished, her enthusiasm suddenly spent. “Never mind,” she said. “It was only an idea. Not well thought out.”

  A silence Suzanne guessed was being filled with knowing looks permeated the room. “What?” she said. “What is it?”

  “Suzanne, Seth.” Esther cleared her throat. “Esty and I have something… of consequence to share.”

  Suzanne heard the swirl of intrigue in Esthers voice, savored the taste of anticipation.

  13

  Elizabeth appeared to be having a fine time. Carl “Gus” Grotefend, the little German, squired her to church now and frolicked before her at the Twelfth Night Dance. They'd insisted Mazy come along, and they'd even come out early to help her finish up her milking chores though that had proved unnecessary. She already had good help.

  Oltipa had taken to the handling of the Ayrshires and the Durhams like feathers to a felt hat. And with her willingness to bend beneath the cows' bellies, the other Wintu women seemed to ease into the role, leaving their framed plank houses and learning the squeeze-pull rhythm of milking too.

  They had discussed how to keep the women and children safe while David carried the mail and Mazy was gone for a few days. Mazy's mother and Gus had said they'd alert the sheriff to keep an open eye. “The authorities call them ‘Mrs. Bacon's Indians,' “ Elizabeth told her. “They said they didn't know a soul who wanted to take you on. I think they'll be safe while you're gone.”

  And they had been. Even David commented about the little bed Mazy made up for Ben on a mat next to his parents'. “Now you're close enough to climb up anytime you want; but safe from me rolling over you and squishing you like a bug,” David said. He decided they could stay for a time longer, “What with the uprisings and retaliation and all.”

  They became a daily part of her life, just as she'd hoped. Strange how when she stopped “planning,” things fell into place.

  A goat now walked the treadmill, so the butter churned itself. Mazy could concentrate on the business side of things: breeding, calving, forming two-pound frames of butter in the hinged molds she built herself, and working out ways to get the white-gold “crop” delivered while the taste stayed sweet and cool. That was probably another reason Mazy found the winters less troublesome than some—the winters made milk cooling easier. It was only keeping the roads passable for deliveries that could throw her schedules and plans off.

  She loved farming, the constant creativity of finding some new way to relate to the land—humus. It was a word that meant the earth and had something to do with humans, too. And humility. Surrender. She'd come some distance in her thinking, allowing the land to help shape her. She'd keep giving herself that quiet time each day to remember to be humble and grateful, too. She was hatching wisdom there, that was what she was doing.

  She'd taken care of Charles Wilson with her request he take the bull south. He hadn't, of course. But at least for a few days, he'd stopped coming out, as she knew he would. Lazy men never stayed around long if a woman had a list of “dos” for them. But he'd shown up again to invite her to the Twelfth Night Dance held for the last time at the Shasta Hotel. Next year Norton and Tucker's new brick building would serve that purpose. She'd refused, of course, and instead come along with her mother and Gus to this gathering. “You're always huddled out there working your fingers to the bone,” Elizabeth had said.

  “You said I should settle in, and I finally have,” Mazy told her.

  “Digging in is different than settling, I'll ponder,” Elizabeth said. “Even dirt needs to lie fallow some to grow richer crops. Time you had a little fallowing. You come with us.” And so Mazy had.

  Elizabeth stood nearly a foot taller than Gus, but it didn't seem to hamper their enthusiasm for the music. Mazy couldn't remember when her mothers eyes had sparkled so, couldn't imagine that she'd ever seen that round face framed by curls damp from the combination of both levity and love. Love? Was her mother in love? Mazy pushed that thought from her mind.

  Had her parents ever gone dancing? Mazy didn't think so. It was something new her mother discovered in this western landscape.

  Mazy declined the dance requests she received. Instead, she placed herself behind the table, serving lemonade from one glass bowl, hot cider from another, and helping two single women at an adjoining table with their eggnog supply. It gave her an opportunity to be a part of things, but still under her control. She smiled at that admission. That was her, all right. Always wanting control.

  Well, at least she was participating, wasn't hiding herself away. And she did enjoy seeing people spirited and happy, getting acquainted with new families arriving daily, talking books and business with the owner of yet another bookstore—number five for Shasta City. Thomas Maupin stood off to the side. He owned a big farm in Bald Hills, and word had it he wanted to bring in hundreds of hogs. That made he
r think of her dog, Pig. Whatever could have happened to him? Sometimes not knowing was worse than a bad answer.

  She watched the dancers, her eyes catching the children at the edges giggling and imitating their elders. Her foot tapped to the fiddle and the accordion. She nodded when addressed, chatted easily with a stranger or two as she handed them a cup to sip. She wouldn't have done this back in Wisconsin, not made herself be a part of what she didn't always find comfortable. She would have judged herself too unkindly, said she “didn't do well with new people” or “took up too much space” with her “ampleness.” But it was good to stretch herself a bit, to make herself do things that didn't harm, but challenged. She thought of her dream of her friend in Wisconsin asking her if she was in service. Being here, handing out eggnog—was that service?

  “You're looking quite thoughtful this evening, Mrs. Bacon.” Mazy turned to face Charles Wilson. “You're so obviously occupied with doing good works here,” Charles said, “that I hate to intrude. But what would a Twelfth Night Dance be without a turn with the most beautiful woman present?”

  “And your gout…?”

  He lifted his boot slightly, the new leather sole barely scuffed. “Healing nicely. Your concern is well taken.”

  He was a handsome man in an odd sort of way, that ear chunk and all. But like discovering a spider, his appearance made her wary. Mazy turned to stare out at the dance floor. The fiddler had taken a break, and she welcomed the flock of hot dancers seeking respite with eggnog. “Oh, looks like I'm back to work,” she told him. “Perhaps another time.”

  “Let me help you,” he said. “Lovely ladies, please forgive my intrusion.” The two women at the eggnog table, sisters, Mazy thought they might be, stepped out of his way, grinning behind their fingers and flashing knowing looks at Mazy.