Widow 1881_Flats Junction Series

by Sara Dahmen

  “My word, Jane. Do you have any idea how pretty you are?”

  His words fill my spirit, but he says them plainly, and without a twinkle of affection. He has been too long in the company of men on the train car. I shake my head.

  “You are flattering me just so I agree to return to the Dakotas with you to keep house. I’m no old maid yet, but I know beauty when I see it. Kate, not me.”

  His eyes are already closing. As he drifts off to soft slumber at once, I hear him mutter Kate’s name, as if the reminder of her made him dream of her loveliness from the start. How can I compete with that?

  It is not even worth a try.

  Chapter 37

  16 October 1882

  I sneak glances at him as he sleeps while I pour myself some tea and quietly warm up leftover soup I brought from the Chesters. There is enough for two, especially when I add in some bread and put a squash in the tiny oven.

  The storm howls. It will get dark quickly due to the time of year and the rain clouds stretch across the sky. I wonder when he made the arrangements at the inn and when he’d decided to make the trip east. There grows in me a bit of hope, even while I push against it, that he came to see me, to stop Andrew from marrying me, to whisk me back to the Dakotas so that I am with him always.

  I sit at my little table and look out over the black waves and angry sky. Doctor Kinney’s arrival sets loose my heart, which has not stopped pounding since he walked across the beach toward me. When, for a fleeting, wild moment, I thought he was coming to claim me. I’m flattered he wants me back to cook and clean for him, but I don’t know if it is the right thing for my own mind. It would be torturous. And then there is Andrew, who has courted me so prettily, and who I have grown to care for as a very kind friend.

  The problem is being near Doctor Kinney again has reminded me how passionate I feel. I cannot help myself wanting to be with him, wanting to touch him and be touched by him. It is an almost violent desire I thought I’d never find, and to deny myself that and turn to a quieter type of marriage is much harder to do. Now that I remember how such a love feels in the flesh, how can I say yes to Andrew, knowing I will be living a lie?

  I think I’ve had my fill of such half-truths and hidden feelings.

  I weep just a little and bury my face in my hands, willing myself to stop this silly emotion and be strong. It will be fine. He will leave and I will not see him again, and I can go back to trying to forget. The thought is not comforting, but it is true, and the sooner I set my mind to the reality, the better.

  “Mrs. Weber.” I hear him sit up on the couch. “Jane.”

  “Yes.” I raise my head. “Would you like some tea?” Anything, so he doesn’t see my red eyes.

  He swiftly rises, his movements quick and precise, so unlike Andrew’s simple, slower ways, and his hand is on my shoulder.

  “Are you alright? It’s been so long, but you’ve recovered well?”

  I smile a little. I do not think of my little boy buried so far away in that Catholic cemetery half as much as I dream about Doctor Kinney, and I do not think of my health at all. “Oh yes, I have. Thank you.”

  I push off from the chair, keeping my back to him, and pour him tea. The soup is nearly heated, and he clatters about setting the table, as he did when we ate together in his home. I try to keep myself from thinking how wonderful the arrangement is, and how easily we move around each other in a house.

  “Jane’s cookin’. I can’t wait.” He pulls around the edge of the table, catching my eye. “What is it? You’ve been weepin’!”

  “Seeing you brings back so many memories of my friends in Flats Junction.”

  “Good!” He plants himself in front of me. “Then you’ll come back.”

  “Doctor Kinney,” I sigh. “You cannot ask me to leave this life I’ve built. It was hard enough to start over. Tell me instead of Alice and Mitch. They’re well and little Pete is still growing?”

  He pulls out our chairs and we sit. After giving me a long look, he dives into the food and the news. “Aye, and Alice’s just confirmin’ she’s pregnant with the second, so Mitch is hoverin’. And Sadie is expectin’ again and even Marie, so I’ve been told.”

  We talk about everyone: the postmaster died of a heart attack, but Nancy is happily managing the office without Douglas while her elderly father-in-law watches the little ones. The Brinkleys have added a hundred head of cattle to their farm and Danny Svendsen had another successful steer run. A bison was found wandering the street one morning this past summer, and there were no fireworks on Independence Day. One of the Salomon boys had severe burns from hot steam while working with Thaddeus in the forge, though the doctor wasn’t called to treat the child, and Tim the farrier has a new apprentice who has all the single girls making moon eyes. I drink in the news, more colorful and funny than when it arrives in a letter. I watch his face, trying to commit his words to memory. The news feels never-ending, brilliant and exciting and comfortable. I miss everyone with a painful, tearing pull, but I don’t know truly if I fit there. How can I, now? If I went back, what would I do? What would be the point?

  We do the dishes companionably as we used to do, and he asks me about my work at the Chester house, and Aunt Mary, and the townsfolk, and how I fill my days, and who my friends are in Gloucester. He grows quieter as I tell him about Rose, Jean, my aunt’s dear friends, tea parties, the Chester pantry, Beth’s lessons in the kitchen, and then of the Angus farm, and Andrew’s kindness, and his sweet children.

  As we finish the last of the tea with a few biscuits I find in the back of my larder, he looks out into the deepening sky. A heaviness sits inside my chest as I look at his profile. I have missed him so desperately, and this will likely be the last time I see him.

  “It’s been long since I’ve been back. It feels good.”

  “Back to Boston?” I ask, running my finger along the rim of the teacup.

  “That.” He nods. “And Gloucester. I was here, once, in my youth with my auntie and her employer. You recall what I told you of Mr. McClure? In fact, my old friend, Bobby MacHugh, the one who placed my ad, and sent your letter, used to live here in his childhood.”

  “He’s a doctor too, isn’t he?”

  He smiles a little, thinking back. “Aye. It was a peculiar set of days, to be sure, the time I spent here. Hot. His father was ill. It’s how I got my first real start as a doctor, in truth.”

  I want to ask him more, but as he is not the man courting me, I don’t wish to pry into his past unless he offers it on his own. Instead I just sneak looks at him from behind my tea. How do I memorize him? How do I settle him into my past without losing a piece of myself?

  “What happened?” I forget myself and ask anyway.

  He rewards me with a sideways grin. “Oh, Bobby’s father had an episode. Lookin’ back, I’m sure it was some sort of heart condition, somethin’ acute. When it happened, I was only a small boyo, just learnin’ the early ways of bein’ a vet. But when Mr. MacHugh fell on the beach, gaspin’ for breath, well . . . I just knew I wanted to help. I had a knack for it. And Mr. McClure agreed.”

  “Where’s Mr. McClure now?”

  Doctor Kinney’s shoulders sink an inch and I know his answer before he gives it, remembering he told me once, more than a year ago.

  “He passed—oh, a while ago now. His death is the reason I headed West with Aunt Bonnie. It was my turn to support her, and there wasn’t much room in Boston for yet another physician, especially an Irish one. Granted, it took me many years to settle and find a place that could support me. As much as Flats Junction supports me as a doc,” he finishes ruefully.

  I’m glad he doesn’t dwell on his time in Gloucester. I would learn what streets he walked, and what he did when he was last here, and every time I walk there I would think on this. I do not need more reminders of him.

  He rises with his empty cup. “So, you’ve given up your proper ways then, have you, Mrs. Weber?”

  I stand with him, frowning. �
��My proper ways?”

  His arm circles carefully, balancing the teacup in the saucer as he does. “Havin’ a man here, unchaperoned. It’s unseemly, isn’t it? Will you be branded a brazen widow now?”

  Is he teasing me? Trying to be lighthearted? Or is he blaming me—accusing me of my forward ways with Theodore, and now him? My head buzzes, but I settle on his eyes, and they are gentle and kind.

  I smile slightly at him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve given up all those ways where you’re concerned. It’s worth dashing my respectability to see an old friend. And besides, it was raining too hard for you to leave.”

  He smiles back, then puts his cup on the sideboard. “Speakin’ of rain and weather, let’s put up your fire.”

  Turning to the hearth, he bends for the wood box and pauses. The chink and chirp of glass crunches slightly as his boots find purchase against the broken amber bottle I’d left, and he slowly straightens, toeing the fragments and swirling the torn label. A piece flits up half-heartedly in a puff of air as he scuffs, his scrawled name obvious on the white of the paper, and a painful stillness chokes the kitchen. My face feels bloodless, and the old tears claw up my throat.

  Doctor Kinney clears his own, methodically adds the log to the fire, and then another, bending and tossing fluidly. He watches the fire build itself back up for a long moment, then spins to find me, where I’ve been glued to the floor. What will he think? My eyes fall to the busted bottle, the purposefully ripped note, and my heart rattles and cracks.

  Sighing, he takes up his hat. “It’s early, but I ought to leave for the inn. Good night, Jane.” His voice is flat.

  I am both relieved and dismayed. He does not press his case by continuing to ask me to return to Flats Junction. I suppose he is too much a gentleman to do so, though a part of me wishes he would vehemently protest about my staying in Gloucester. He could demand I go back with him because he needed me, for myself. But that is a silly girl’s hope, and nothing more. And I know it. Now, more than ever.

  “What time is your train?” I ask, as he clatters down the two steps onto the path leading to the road. “I’d like to see you off in the morning if I might, before I need to be at the Chester’s kitchen.”

  He looks up at me, where I stand on the porch. The rain has ended, but the wind is still strong, and I can just see him in the lantern light.

  “The early one, at four.”

  “Good.”

  He turns, and melts into the darkness towards the town’s brighter lights. I go inside; I do not sleep all night.

  Chapter 38

  17 October 1882

  We meet on the platform at a few minutes to four. The air is chilly, damp, and cool, and the fog lays so heavy the train is a few minutes late. He wears his Stetson, a hat that looks so out of place in the East, but it makes him look as I remember him.

  If I’d never been bold in my past, I might speak out against the properness suffocating me. I would not have qualms about breaching propriety and telling him how I feel. But, why should I? He has not offered me affection, and I’d be even more a fool if I put voice to my own. It’s best if I stay aloof and calm. But oh! My heart feels heavy and silences me at first, until I find words.

  “Please give my best to Esther, whenever you see her next. And tell Alice hello. And Kate too, of course,” I say, the usual niceties falling heedlessly. “And . . . all the others. All of them.”

  He turns to me. I hear the train coming, and there are more people on the platform than I would have liked, because I want him all to myself when I say farewell for always.

  “Will you really stay? And marry the man who courts you?” His eyes are grey this morning, as if he is tired, too.

  The train comes in, loud, obnoxiously so, and I wait for the noise to clear, and the bustle of bodies to start.

  “I don’t know if I can marry him,” I say carefully. “But I can’t go home with you.”

  The whistle blows. He must board now, but still he loiters. This goodbye is even harder than the first one. It removes the hope I carried that he would come after me. He has, but not in the fashion I dreamed about. It is wonderful to see him, but it’s devastating to realize that my fantasy is just that.

  “So, thank you for coming,” I tell him, as the whistle blows again. “I know you want me to go to Flats Junction with you, Doctor, but I won’t.” For one, brief, moment, I find more strength inside than I thought I had. I look at him, and I do not weep. “You have to board.”

  “You won’t come with me, Janie?” He sounds resigned.

  “I won’t go, only to watch you finish courting Kate,” I say in a rush. “You cannot ask me to help you woo her, to dance at your wedding, and bounce her children on my knee as if my loneliness would be filled simply by watching your happiness. I can’t do it.”

  “All aboard, sir!” The conductor is behind him, shuffling him along. Doctor Kinney pauses, his face raw and unreadable. I do not believe the situation is as dire as all that. He will find another housekeeper if he truly needs one. I am dispensable. I always have been. He is edged closer to the train as the last few people rush by to swing into the car.

  “Jane—” He shakes his head slightly, and shrugs with a shoulder. “Goodbye, then.”

  The whistle shrieks the final call, and the steam rushes out in an angry hiss. He boards, and when his back is turned, my eyes finally fill, and I don’t bother to brush away the tears. He takes a seat near the window, his face disjointed through the wavering, watering glass, looking down at me, then away.

  The train pulls out and rushes off, and he is gone.

  Chapter 39

  17 October 1882

  I pull the pastries out of the oven for Mrs. Chester’s latest tea party. I must concentrate carefully. I feel as if I am in a half-dream. Did I really say goodbye to Doctor Kinney only hours ago? How could I have let him go without telling him of my heart? I know the answer: it is because I could not bear it when he would pat my shoulder, and be sorry, because he loves Kate and she loves him. I am the unrequited woman, and I know I am not alone in such a situation. Knowing so does not make the pain in my chest go away.

  “Can I fill them?” Beth asks.

  She is too young to realize I am troubled, and I am grateful I do not have to explain myself. Just as I lay out the different preserves and spoons, Beth shrieks so loudly my ear feels as though it bursts.

  “What is it?” I whirl, following her eyes, and spy the small grey shadow flickering along the perimeter of the kitchen.

  “A mouse!” Beth breathes unnecessarily.

  Grabbing one of the skillets, making sure I take one without feet, I stalk the mouse, hoping to catch it before it hides behind the wide stove. The animal pauses behind the great, plumped barrel of brown sugar and I plant myself so it cannot pass without running over my shoe.

  Beth screams again as the rodent makes a dash for the pantry, running over my foot in the process. But my aim is still good, and I smash the mouse hard, feeling the sickening splatter under the iron.

  I straighten, take up the broom from the corner to sweep the mouse outside, and then put the soiled skillet into the big pot of hot soapy water we keep on the edge of the oven. When I turn around, Beth has her skirts still bunched to her knees and she’s staring at me with something like worship.

  “That was amazing, Mrs. Weber,” she breathes. “How did you learn to do that?”

  “Practice,” I say crisply. “You’ll learn too.”

  I pretend the action doesn’t fill me with dread and sorrow. Beth would not understand how the thwack of the skillet against bone and wood reminds me of my regret and the torment of my own weakness and loss. Of the doctor, staring at me with shock and, quite possibly, disdain. Or his quiet discovery of the broken bottle, and, most horribly, the obvious clutter of his note, written in kindness, which I tore apart as if it was so worthless it could not even be burned. If only he’d known. Would he understand?

  I’ll never know. Will the unkn
own ever stop eating my soul?

  We make salad with fresh whitefish from the market. Beth walks to the stalls to get lettuce, though it’s slim pickings in October. There are raspberries on top of the pastries, and I arrange a plate of quickbreads made with pumpkin and cherry.

  When the food goes upstairs, I sit at the table and think over the rest of the week’s menus. The fall produce is bountiful, so I will be able to make hearty food. There were recipes I used last year when I’d first arrived that did not go over well, but others were good, and Mr. Chester requested them again, so I pull those out and set to writing down the lists.

  It does me good to keep busy like this. I suppose I would be just as busy if I married Andrew Angus.

  But can I, now? I still don’t want to. I truly do not.

  It is not comforting to know I cannot move forward, even though I have been trying.

  Chapter 40

  21 October 1882

  The week slips away. I realize, surprised, that tomorrow is Sunday and Andrew will find me at Aunt Mary’s parlor again. Will he ask me to wed him? I was so certain of my answer a week ago. I was sure I would be happy enough.

  Ada Baker and Jean are busy in their market stall. They have many different squashes out, eggplants, late blackberries and root vegetables. I will make a soup for the Chester’ lunch and supper for tomorrow. I pick up the meaty beets and zucchinis, weighing them in my hands.

  I glance up, my eyes wandering through the market. Andrew is at the dairy stall, but he looks surly. I ought to stop by and try to liven up his day, but as usual I am never quite sure what to say to him. Our rapport is still shy as it ever was.

  It is harvest, and the market is busier than usual. My sleepless nights and daydreams of the doctor have me imagining him everywhere out of the corner of my eye. Every man in a dark traveling suit might be him, but I know it is not. I turn to Ada, who watches me shrewdly, her hands on her hips. I am pressed close to her. The swell of people in the walkways is thick. She shakes her head at me.