By now I carried a pad of paper in the pocket of my skirt. I wrote carefully, and I had excellent penmanship.
She’s alive.
Mr. Hart found her on November 11 in a rented room in Boston not far from the wharf. When the story was published, he wrote that Julia had been abused and had seen no other way to escape and that her husband had shown his character and his intent when he’d married another while she was still alive. To be married to two women was a crime and was treated as such. Mr. Rowan Ballard was tried and convicted of polygamy and sentenced to four years in prison. This wasn’t part of the plan; he had made his own fate and it was one he deserved. Such things took time, however, and it would be spring before he was convicted. But my mother was let go as soon as her husband, if that’s what he was, was arrested. Mrs. Ford was the one who told her she would no longer be needed, and she seemed to get great satisfaction from doing so. My mother was to pack up her belongings, which consisted of very little, although she did manage to pinch Mrs. Ford’s silver creamer. Mr. Ford and Mr. Fuller took us to the mainland through an early storm that left icicles in our hair. We hadn’t a cent to our names, but Mr. Ford took pity on us and paid for two tickets for the train to Boston.
“I’ll be glad to be out of here,” my mother said as we walked the three miles to the station. The cold was bone chilling, but I didn’t mind. My mother had taken off her wedding ring, which she’d likely pawn as soon as she was back in the city, along with Mrs. Ford’s silver. “Now that we’re off that wretched island, you can get a job and make some proper money,” she told me.
I would miss the white stones and the tide pools and the way the stars shone at night, so close it seemed you could touch them. I’d miss the goats and the niece’s grave and how the storms came in so quickly you had to run and hide. I understood why my father loved the sea and why he had left it. I closed my eyes and went through a list of everything I wished I could thank him for giving me. Patience, loyalty, trust, and hopefully, in time, kindness. By the time we arrived in Boston, I had stopped listening to my mother. She had plans for me to work in a tavern; surely they took girls as young as me, and if not, we would lie about my age. I let her talk, because talk was cheap. At North Station I took off through the crowd. I heard my mother calling for me, but by then I was running, and soon enough I was too far away to hear her voice. In the letter I’d received, Julia had written that she had a place for me where I would be able to go to school, at last, along with Billy Goat. I had their address, and if I became lost in the bustle of the city, it wouldn’t be a problem. I could ask for directions. I had honored my father and had done right by his memory, and now I was ready to speak.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Deborah Feingold
Alice Hoffman is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew, The Rules of Magic, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, The Red Garden, the Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, and The Dovekeepers. She lives near Boston.
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