A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  “I can carry that for you,” he called after her.

  “Stay away.”

  Ben looked down at Ham, whose wide grin occupied the lower half of his face. “Told you she was bossy.” When the boy nodded sagely, Ben pulled out his chair, sat, and prepared himself to be roundly trounced.

  Upstairs, Ridley delivered the glass to Lily and put the bucket beside the bed. “Make sure she drinks all of it. I’ll get the towels.” Lily was setting the empty glass aside by the time she returned. They worked together silently, soaking the towels in the cold water, wringing them out, and then tucking them around Lizzie’s fevered body. When Ridley was satisfied they had done all they could for now, she moved to the straight-backed chair beside the window. One of its legs was slightly shorter than the others and it wobbled when she sat.

  Lily said, “Jeremiah’s been meaning to fix that. You probably know that good intentions don’t get the work done.”

  Ridley nodded. “I spoke to Ham.” She saw Lily stiffen. “Don’t worry, he didn’t say anything, but I have to wonder at the harm it does him to swallow all the things he has learned that he shouldn’t say. Do you ever think of that, Lily? Does it concern you more that your children are witnesses to every sort of violence or that one of them will speak up about it? Have you considered that your silence, Ham’s silence, telegraphs a message almost as clearly as if you’d been honest with me? I suggested to Ham that you might have fallen on a patch of ice or while you were chasing him. There are probably a dozen or more explanations for how you hurt yourself, and neither of you offered one. I understand your boy’s unwillingness to talk, but your insistence that you’re fine says something else to me. I think you want me to know the truth but cannot bear to hear yourself say it. I think you want me to come to it on my own.”

  Lily laid her hand against the crown of her daughter’s head. She sifted through the damp strands with gentle fingertips. “You should leave.” She didn’t look at Ridley when she said it; her gaze was focused on Lizzie’s rosy face.

  Ridley glanced out the window. She wished she could see the forge, but this bedroom’s view was the backyard. A smile tugged at her lips when she saw the lopsided snowman the children had built to defend the equally lopsided battlements of their snow fort. The faint smile disappeared when she cast her eyes once again on the mother of those children.

  “For lack of an explanation from you, I’ve arrived at one of my own,” said Ridley. “I think you fell because you were pushed. You might have tripped over something as you were backing away or your fall could have been as dramatic as tumbling down the stairs. Regardless of what happened, it happened because of an outside force. You could have suggested an accident, Lily, but you didn’t. I appreciate that you won’t say a word against your husband, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t,” said Lily. “You’re wrong. Wrong about everything.”

  “Am I? What did you do this time? Butter his bread on the wrong side? I know you must have done something because it’s never his fault.”

  Lily remained mutinously silent.

  “Was he drinking?” Ridley did not expect an answer but she waited for one nonetheless. Finally she stood, crossed to the bed, and picked up her bag. “It’s all right, Lily. I’m done here. Since I won’t be able to return to check on Lizzie, you should carry on as you have. You’ll know when her fever’s broken. The medicine I gave her will help. If you need more, you can send Clay to the apothecary.” Ridley told her what Clay should ask for. “You could also ask for white willow bark tea. Mrs. Mangold will make that. You would benefit from drinking it as well, but if Mr. Salt’s conscience is not bothered by the sight of you limping around, then there’s no point in easing your suffering, is there?”

  Ridley was already in the hallway when she heard Lily ask for her. She did not hurry back; rather she stood where she was, ticking off fifteen full seconds before she retraced her steps. When she appeared in the doorway, she saw Lily’s surprise.

  “I thought you’d already gone.”

  “Maybe you wish I had.” Ridley thought it was more likely that Lily didn’t know what she wished for. “What is it?”

  “I want you to see.”

  At first Ridley did not understand, but then Lily began lifting the hem of her dress, and when she uncovered her knees, Ridley saw the point of being asked to return. Lily’s right knee was swollen half again the size of her left one. Ridley looked around for something that could be used to elevate Lily’s leg. There was nothing suitable but she remembered seeing a footstool in the front room from her first visit. She went to the top of the stairs and called to Ben.

  “You hollered?” he asked, leaning casually against the newel post.

  “You know I don’t holler.”

  Ben glanced down at Ham, who had suddenly appeared at his side. “Sounded to me like she hollered. What do you think?”

  Ham cupped his hands around his mouth and called in the hogs. “Sooie! Sooo-whee.”

  “See?” Ben said, grinning. “All right. What can I do for you?”

  “The footstool in the front room. Can you bring it here?”

  “Of course. Ham, get the footstool for me.” When the boy ran off, Ben raised his eyebrows, asking his question without giving voice to it.

  Ridley lifted her skirt, pointed to her knee, and then used her hands to indicate the swollen size of Lily’s. She pantomimed tumbling and saw him nod his understanding. When Ham returned with the stool, he carried it to her.

  “Will you be much longer?”

  “No, but I need a water bottle. Ham probably knows where one is. Find it and pack it with snow, then have Ham bring it here. You still can’t come in the room.” She took the footstool and waved him away.

  Back in the room, Ridley carefully lifted Lily’s foot by the heel and placed it on the stool. She examined the knee, feeling her way around the joint to locate the area where most of Lily’s pain resided. Torn or twisted ligaments had created the swelling. There was also bruising on the kneecap, which had taken the brunt of her fall. Ham showed up with the water bottle and gave it to Ridley. He stayed long enough to observe her wrap a thin towel around it, place it across his mother’s knee, and then he was gone.

  Ridley stepped back when she was finished. “You should keep the bottle there until the snow inside it melts and apply another cold bottle every few hours. When you go downstairs, take the stool with you and elevate your leg as much as possible. Brew Mrs. Mangold’s tea when you get it and drink it every few hours. Finally, do what you can to rest the leg.”

  Lily looked down at her knee. Her fingers fidgeted in her lap.

  “What is it?” asked Ridley.

  “Jeremiah doesn’t like me sitting too long. He works so hard, on his feet all day long. It pains him to see me shirking my responsibilities.”

  Ridley was quiet for a long moment, and when that moment passed, she decided it was better if she said nothing at all. She settled Lily’s dress in place, and then placed the back of her hand against Lizzie’s cheek. “She’s going to be fine,” she told Lily. “The worst of it will be over soon. When the fever breaks, remove all the damp towels and change the bed sheets. You should have Hannah help you. I’m not sure why Ham hasn’t come down with this because it’s highly contagious, but if he should, do the same as we’ve done for Lizzie.”

  Lily nodded. “Jeremiah’s not a bad man,” she said quietly. “He loves us.”

  Ridley could not hold her tongue any longer. “Then he should not be so careless.”

  Ben stood as soon as Ridley entered the kitchen. “What is it?”

  Ridley wondered what he saw in her face that prompted him to ask the question so quickly. Were her lips bleeding from all the words she’d bitten back? She regretted her parting shot to Lily, but she equally regretted not saying more.

  “We can leave,” she said, getting
her coat. “Ham, you help your mother if she needs you. You know where to find your father, and Hannah and Clay will be home from school soon. All right?”

  Ham nodded, but it was a glum response.

  Ridley squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “I know you’re going to miss him,” she said, glancing back at Ben. “He looks as if he’s just as sad to go.” She finished putting on her coat and took Ben’s hand. “We should leave before you both start crying.”

  Ham giggled as Ben made a face only partially behind her back.

  “I saw that,” she said, and pulled him along. She dropped his hand as soon as they were out of the house.

  “What happened in there?” Ben asked.

  “What do you mean? Ham was—”

  “I wasn’t asking about Ham. There’s nothing wrong with that boy that a little attention won’t fix. And I wasn’t asking about Lizzie. She’s on her way to mending or we wouldn’t be here now. So you tell me, who does that leave?”

  “Can we talk about it later?”

  He caught her arm and kept her from going on when he came to a halt. It bothered him some when she didn’t pull away. That at least would have given him an indication of the strength of her anger. What he felt instead was her resignation. Her head was bent; her eyes were lowered. He had to stoop to catch her eye and what he saw were tears.

  “Ah, Esmeralda.” He put his arms around her. He heard her soft, watery laughter as she laid her cheek against his shoulder. “What can I do?”

  “This is a good beginning,” she whispered.

  He held her in just that manner, nudging her hair with his chin.

  “I should not have been cruel,” she told him. “I think I was cruel.” She swallowed a sob. “I know I was.”

  Ben said nothing. He didn’t tell her it wasn’t in her to be cruel when he believed everyone was capable of cruelty, whether intended or thoughtless. He didn’t tell her it would be all right when he didn’t know that to be true. Whatever had happened, it was up to her to make peace with it, to resolve it in her own mind.

  “Did Lily throw you out?” he asked.

  “I wish she had that much backbone.” She raised her head, looked at him. “See? I can’t seem to help myself. And Lily’s inadequacies are only a reflection of my own. I know that, and still I make judgments.”

  This time when Ridley lowered her head to his shoulder, it was to knock her forehead against it three times. Ben cupped the back of her head, kept it steady. “Next time you want to do that, find a wall,” he whispered. He heard the low rumble of her laughter. That was all right, then.

  He released her as soon as he felt her trying to step back. She swiped at her tears with one tail of her scarf, and he stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. “Home?” he asked, though he didn’t know if he was referring to his house or hers. And when she nodded, he couldn’t know that she was wondering the same thing.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Because of the necessity of meeting up with Remington, there was no real question of where they would end up. Whether or not it was home remained unsettled. They were sitting at opposite ends of Ben’s sofa when Remington walked in.

  “You two look like bookends absent of all the books between you,” he said. “Is that for my benefit? I saw the kiss. You’d think that would be water over the dam by now.”

  Ridley stared at him. Her lips parted, but she had no words.

  Remington ignored his brother’s pointed stare. He removed his outerwear and blithely started up the stairs. “You don’t mind if I see Phoebe first, do you?”

  “You probably think you’re making an advance,” Ben called after him. “But I know a retreat when I see one.” He could hear his brother chuckling all the way to the top. Without moving from the sofa, he raised his voice so he could be heard in the kitchen. “Mrs. Rushton! Is Colt done helping you prepare the cookie dough?”

  “Indeed he is,” she called back. “I only need to clean him up.”

  “Is he sticky? Maybe with cookie dough between his fingers and on his face, some in his ears?”

  “He is surely all of that.”

  “Perfect. Forget cleaning him up. Sounds as if you’d have to dump him in a trough anyway. Send him directly to his father.”

  “But—”

  “Directly to his father,” Ben repeated.

  A moment later, Colt was galloping through the front room. He charged up the stairs as if he were a Rough Rider reimagining the Battle of San Juan Hill.

  When he was gone, Ridley said, “That was evil.”

  Ben shrugged. “Some might even say cruel.”

  From upstairs there was a bellow that could have only been Remington in the sustained grip of a cookie dough hug. They shared an easy chuckle.

  “I hope some of it gets in his hair,” Ben said. “He had no business mentioning that kiss.”

  Ridley repositioned herself in the corner of the sofa so she could see him better. “Does he know there’s been considerably more done than kissing?”

  “Not because I said anything.”

  “Hmm. Would he expect you to do something about it if he did know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ben,” she said in mildly chiding accents.

  “You’re talking about marriage. Am I right?”

  “You are.”

  Ben considered what she was asking before he spoke. “I figure Remington might have some expectations about that. He did with Phoebe.”

  “I see.”

  Ben shook his head. “You probably don’t, not really. Those two, well, that’s a whole other story.”

  “Do you ever think about marriage? It’s a general question; I’m not referring specifically to marriage with me.”

  Ben said exactly what he was thinking. “Doesn’t sound like a general question. Sounds like a personal one, whether or not you’re imagining yourself as the woman at the other end of the proposal.”

  “You’re right,” she said, practical and matter-of-fact. “It is. Will you answer it anyway?”

  “Haven’t we discussed you surrendering the bone?”

  “We have.”

  “Will you ever do it?”

  “Probably not.”

  Ben’s mouth twisted to one side. “Yeah, probably not. So here’s the answer: Sure, I think about marriage. Doc and I used to talk about it. He didn’t have to say much. Just being around him made me realize I didn’t want to be a curmudgeon, at least not on my own. There’s something about being married, growing old and cranky together, that puts balance in your life, gives it meaning.”

  “Uh-huh. Old and cranky. You do have an interesting way of looking at things.” Ridley looked around. “Don’t you have any decorative pillows, something I can throw at you?”

  “See? There’s that cranky part I was talking about.” He cocked his head to one side, studying her. “Have you ever actually thrown something at someone?” Before she spoke, he put up a hand. “The soup bone doesn’t count. You didn’t throw it.”

  “No, I’ve never done it. I’m tempted quite a bit since I met you, but my mother immediately comes to mind and that’s that. Even if you’d had a pillow handy, I probably would have just hugged it.”

  It was the answer he expected. A smile flitted briefly before he regarded her soberly and leaned a little in her direction. “Do you ever think about marriage?”

  Ridley arched a wary eyebrow. “Not often.”

  “Huh. I always reckoned most unmarried women thought about it all the time.”

  “You know we’re approaching a new century in a couple of years.”

  “I heard.”

  “You might want to consider crawling out from under that rock before it arrives.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”

  “Maybe.” Her shoulders stif
fened a shade militantly. She felt it. Couldn’t help it. “A little. If most unattached women think about marriage, it’s because it’s an expectation of their parents and our society and because so few women have opportunities to support themselves without a husband. It wasn’t so long ago that female teachers were expected to give up their positions once they married. I’m not sure that it’s still not happening. Laundresses. Charwomen. Prostitutes. Seamstresses. Those are traditional opportunities. Do you know that Jim Springer owns his butcher shop because Amanda’s father wouldn’t deed it to her? The woman who supported suffrage for women here in Colorado wasn’t seen by her own father as fit to inherit his property.”

  Ben shrank back into his corner and put up his hands. “Are you certain you can’t find anything to throw?”

  Ridley stood, turned her back on him, and walked to the window. She crossed her arms in front of her and stared out. Mrs. Vandergrift, the Butterworth’s exceptional cook, walked out the side entrance carrying a long list that she tucked into her reticule.

  Ben lowered his hands. He stared at Ridley’s stiff back, at her self-protective stance. “I’m sorry,” he said. And when she made no reply, he said it again, louder this time.

  Ridley did not acknowledge his apology. She continued to stare out the front window. Mrs. Vandergrift turned the corner and disappeared. The cook had only been a watery blur anyway.

  “I always wanted to be a doctor.” She spoke to her translucent reflection. “Always. One of my earliest memories is sitting on my father’s knee, listening to his heart with his stethoscope. My sister, and I suppose many other girls, played with their dolls as their friends or as their children. My dolls were my first patients. They contracted a variety of illnesses, most of them suddenly when my parents were fighting or Mother was inconsolable in a bout of deep melancholia. If I couldn’t heal them, I took them to my father. He always knew what to do.”