He put his hand out to me.
The trolley was almost full now. The new passengers slumped in their seats, tired from their day at the beach, faces flushed from the sun. At any moment, the trolley driver would ring the bell and we would begin to move, slow, then faster as we traveled away from the beach and returned to the city and to the Central Hotel.
I reached up and took Oscar’s hand.
Hours later, at the hotel, it went much as I had imagined: the speculating glances from the desk clerk, the sinking into the bathtub, my wobbling knees, and Oscar’s expectations. What I had not imagined was me. I had not known I would break down into sobs when he finished or that I would say nothing when he apologized. I could not tell him that I loved another man, that Edward’s abandonment had hurt me to the quick, and that my mother’s had hurt me even worse. I could not tell Oscar that when he embraced me, his arms around me, tender at first and then turning into a quick rush of desire, the pain of the past eight months had unexpectedly welled up inside of me and pierced my very being. Instead, when it was over, I curled away from Oscar, overcome by the turmoil of so many raw and exposed feelings. I wept, Oscar’s apologies faint in my ears. I wept, and in that way, I let him think he was the cause of my pain.
CHAPTER FIVE
Down the Island
The wet hard-packed sand crunched beneath the turning wagon wheels. Oscar’s horses, Maud and Mabel, plodded as they flicked their tails and shook their heads at the black flies that bit their reddish-brown rumps and gathered in the corners of their eyes. To our left, shallow lacy waves rushed close to the wagon wheels, then fell back and merged with the next oncoming wave. Off to our right by a hundred feet or so, rows of tall sand hills edged the beach. There, bushes with yellow flowers and tall sea grass rippled, swept by the hot breeze.
‘We call this the beach road,’ Oscar said, breaking the silence between us. He and I sat on the wagon’s short buckboard under a canvas canopy. Washed-ashore splintered trees, crates covered with barnacles, and parts of glass bottles littered the flat wide beach that stretched ahead of us for what seemed like miles. I felt small and insignificant. Apart from the steamships and schooners far off on the horizon, there was only Oscar and me.
‘Beach works good for the most part,’ he said.
‘It certainly lacks traffic,’ I said.
‘That it does.’
The sky was a sharp blue, and the gulf was silver in the morning light. The shallow waves chased small brown-speckled birds that ran and pecked the wet sand. Flocks of seagulls stood near the water’s edge and rose in flurries of gray wings as we came upon them.
The slow surf was a soft crash in my ears. The feathering on the legs of the horses was covered with sand, and specks of it flew up from their hooves and splattered the front of the wagon. Oscar’s rolled shirt-sleeves flapped in the wind, his suit jacket stored under the buckboard.
‘Roads aren’t paved on our end,’ he said, not looking at me. His hat was low on his forehead. The tendons on the backs of his scarred hands were taut as he held the lines steering the horses around a long tree that lay partially buried in the sand with its bare branches poked up into the air.
I should say something. I should behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened last night. That was what Oscar was trying to do with these attempts at conversation.
The wind made hollow beating sounds as it pulled at my shirtwaist and skirt. I said, ‘Where do all these dead trees come from?’
‘From the rivers, the ones that feed into the gulf.’ I felt him glance at me. My straw summer hat hid much of my face. He said, ‘Maybe they come from the Brazos south of here or maybe from the Neches at Sabine Pass. Hard to say when it comes to water.’
I nodded as though I were familiar with these names and places. Oscar said, ‘Sailors dump the crates overboard, most of it’s trash and such. Once in a while, passengers lose things, leastways that’s what we figure. A year ago in June, Andre found a baseball, and that, I can tell you, was a big day for him.’
‘A baseball, of all things,’ I said. Andre. My stepson. I couldn’t begin to picture this child with a French name.
The wagon wheels ground in the sand. The sun bore down. Perspiration ran from under my arms and into my corset.
Oscar said, ‘We have the ridge road; it’s inland over a half of a mile from the sand hills.’ He inclined his head toward the right. ‘That’s where the house and dairy are, on the ridge.’
‘Here?’ I said. ‘We’ve arrived?’
‘We’re on down a ways.’
I nodded.
The muscles in his forearms flexed as he navigated the horses around a barrel crusted with barnacles. ‘We use the ridge road when the tide comes up too high on the beach,’ he said. ‘The ridge is rough going, it not being much more than tracks – and plenty hot. But here we get the breeze.’ He paused and gave me a sideways look. ‘Thought you might appreciate that.’
‘A breeze is most welcome,’ I said.
‘It surely is.’
The horses plodded on, the wheels turning, but the scenery didn’t change. Just more sand hills, the water, and the long beach before us.
‘There used to be a narrow-gauge train,’ Oscar said after a while. ‘It ran from the city to the lace factory.’
‘A lace factory? Here?’
‘Had been. By Offatts Bayou. Building’s still there but it’s empty. It was called Nottingham, and I didn’t like the idea of it, women cooped up and doing that kind of work with machines. And in this heat. Wasn’t right, and I wasn’t altogether sorry when it closed down.’
The three layers of lace on my shirtwaist ruffled in the wind. I’m not prone to hysterics, I wanted to say to Oscar. But last night … To say this, though, called for an explanation that would shock him and humiliate me. I couldn’t tell him that I cared for someone else. I couldn’t tell Oscar that last evening when he held me, his heartbeat in my ear, I felt myself give way to raw feelings. During the night, we had stayed on our own sides of the saggy bed. Spent from weeping but my nerves pulled tight, I listened to Oscar’s breathing settle as he eventually fell asleep. Around dawn, I felt the mattress give when he got up. The floorboards creaked while he dressed, the rustling of his clothes loud in my ears. He whispered that he was stepping out for a while. He wanted to check on his horses at the livery, and after that, he’d stop by the barber’s for a shave. I lay still, feigning sleep. As soon as his footsteps faded in the hallway, I got up, my legs shaky and my eyes puffy. I hurried, desperate to be washed, dressed, and to have my hair arranged before Oscar’s return.
I waited for him in the hotel parlor, my composure somewhat in place. We had breakfast in the dining room where I managed a piece of toast while Oscar had eggs and bacon between quick cups of coffee. Our conversation about what time to leave and about the loading of my trunks in the wagon was short and choppy. I was unable to meet his eyes. Yesterday, while riding the trolley, I believed I had seen disappointment in his eyes. This morning there must be regret that he had married me.
Now, we rode in the wagon, the beach stretched before us without end. It was all endless: the water, the sky, and the need to cover my past and my feelings.
‘See that on up ahead?’ Oscar said. ‘Those two big houses on the landward side of the sand hills, can you make them out? That’s St. Mary’s. It’s a home for orphans.’
I needed to stop thinking about last night. Oscar was trying to do so. I said, ‘Those poor little children.’
‘The sisters do their best.’
‘Who’s looking after your son? Or is he in school?’
‘Nan Ogden’s looking after him; school doesn’t start until the first of October. She’s a neighbor woman. Her brothers are the two that work for me. She’s been a big help, knows her way around a kitchen. She’s willing to stay on. If that suits.’
‘Thank you. I’d like that very much.’ I paused. ‘Nan Ogden and her brothers. Are they next door?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘They live nearby, but not like how people do in town. The Ogdens are on down a ways.’ He gave me a quick look. ‘They’re a mile and a half wagon ride from us, give or take a few feet.’
‘But you called them neighbors.’
‘It’s different here, most of us spread out like we are. They’re the closest to us and that makes them neighbors.’
We fell back into silence. Waves lapped and receded, and the sun was a hard light. Coated in a fine layer of salt, my skin prickled. It was impossible to imagine how I would manage on this remote part of the island. Yesterday’s bathhouses and crowds of bathers could have been figments of my overwrought imagination. Nor could I think what I would say to Andre, who must be waiting for us.
‘Look,’ Oscar said. ‘Pelicans. There, offshore.’
I drew in my breath. A flock of brown birds with long beaks coasted on a current of air only they could feel, one after the other, their wings spread wide and their shadows skimming the surface of the water.
‘Ten of them,’ he said. ‘I admire them, have ever since I got here. Folks say their wingspan is five feet across.’
‘Nearly my height,’ I said. ‘And so graceful.’
‘Surely are.’ He clicked his tongue and turned the horses away from the surf. My traveling trunks and hatboxes in the bed shifted and slid. Now, I thought. Allow yourself to lean toward him. Put your hand on his arm. In that way, apologize for your aloofness and for your frozen smiles. But I didn’t. The horses had picked up their pace and we headed toward the sand hills. There, boards formed what appeared to be a makeshift road over the soft sand and between the hills. On the far side, three rooftops were visible.
‘We’re home,’ Oscar said.
Four dogs shot out from nowhere, barking and yapping as they streaked toward us. The wagon wheels creaked as we bumped off of the warped sand hill road and onto a pitted trail that led inland toward three buildings. My stomach roiled. A sharp pungent odor had hit like a slap. Dung. Wave after wave. I held on to the side of the wagon and fought the urge to be ill. My eyes watered as the stench filled my nose and mouth.
‘Catherine,’ Oscar said. ‘You all right?’
I shook my head, my hand to my nose. ‘That smell,’ I said.
‘It’s the barn. Frank T. and Wiley didn’t have time to clean it. I’ll get to it this afternoon.’
His hands, I thought. And the things they touched.
‘Settle down,’ Oscar called out, the dogs darting around the horses and the wagon. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed and whined. Still covering my nose, I saw his home in fragments as though I could absorb only one thing at a time: the flat, rough scrubland, a small grove of short bushy trees; the stable, the barn, and the house, all in a row and facing the beach.
‘Here we go,’ he said when we got to a split in the trail. ‘This’ll help.’ We turned east, my trunks and hatboxes sliding again in the wagon bed, the stable and the barn now behind us and the house up ahead.
‘Better?’ he said.
‘Much.’
I breathed through my mouth, now seeing the details of Oscar’s home. It was a small one-story clapboard perched on top of thin wood stilts. The only solid thing that secured the house to the ground was the base of the red brick chimney that ran up one side.
Do not fall apart, I told myself. Not in front of Oscar, not before the little boy who stood on the covered porch watching our arrival. Oscar’s son. His hair was dark, and he wore brown short pants and a white shirt. A young woman – the housekeeper, I thought – was with him, her hand on his shoulder.
We stopped just before reaching the foot of the porch steps. Oscar pulled up the brake handle, and as if its grinding screech was a signal, the boy leapt down the steps and ran toward us with his arms spread open. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Oscar jumped down, rocking the wagon. Andre flung himself around Oscar’s knees.
‘It’s only been one night,’ Oscar said, but with his back to me, he squatted and pressed the child to him as though it had been months. ‘Andre,’ he said, and in that one word spoken so softly that I almost didn’t hear it, I understood what his son meant to him. They held on to one another, Andre’s arms around his father’s neck. The dogs circled them, their tails a blur of movement.
Andre raised his head just enough to look over Oscar’s shoulder and up at me where I sat on the buckboard. His face was brown from the sun, and freckles dashed across his nose and cheeks. Black hair flopped over his forehead. He was so young, I thought. So little.
He frowned, his dark eyes wide and unblinking. ‘Who’s she?’
‘You know,’ Oscar said, his voice low. ‘I told you yesterday. Remember?’
He ducked his head, his small fingers curling into Oscar’s shirt.
Andre didn’t want me here, I understood. He had his father, and that was enough. Until now, Oscar’s son had been a shadowy figure in the back of my mind. So, too, was Oscar’s first wife, the woman who was this child’s mother. But here, at Oscar’s home with this small boy clinging to his father, I was pierced by one more truth about this marriage. With barely a thought to it, I had intruded into a child’s life and changed the balance of his existence.
Oscar feathered the cowlick at the back of Andre’s head, then straightened and stood up. Andre’s arm went around his father’s leg.
‘Miss Ogden,’ Oscar said to the woman who stood at the top of the porch steps.
‘Mr Williams.’ Her tone was flat as though our arrival was of little consequence. She wore a plain blue dress, and its white collar was unbuttoned at her throat. She’d crossed her arms, and her sleeves were rolled to the elbows. Her gaze drifted off toward the sand hills, then wandered back, finding me.
‘Ma’am,’ she said.
Her coolness startled me. So did the touch of Oscar’s hand as he held mine and helped me down from the wagon. My feet on the ground, the dogs pushed their noses into my skirt, driving me toward the wagon. Oscar whistled, sharp and curt, and they backed off.
‘You’re not scared of dogs, are you?’ he said.
‘Only when there are so many.’
Andre said, ‘There’s just four,’ and that started the introductions. ‘This is my boy,’ Oscar said to me. ‘Andre Emile Williams.’
‘I’m so very pleased to meet you,’ I said, but the sentiment was not acknowledged. Andre wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he studied the polished tips of his laced-up boots.
‘Young man,’ Oscar said.
Andre looked up.
‘What do you say?’
He wrinkled his nose, the freckles blending. ‘Thank you?’
Oscar hesitated, then, ‘Thank you, what?’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
Oscar nodded. ‘Andre, this is …’ Oscar glanced at me and then away. He didn’t know what to call me. He cleared his throat and said, ‘My wife.’ Andre’s eyes widened again but Oscar ignored him and turned toward me. ‘Let’s get out of this sun,’ his hand now on my elbow.
‘House is five feet up,’ Oscar said as we mounted the steps, Andre behind us. ‘Never had a drop of floodwater inside.’
I heard the pride in his voice. I said something foolish about the comfort of living in a house that did not flood. It was the best I could do. We were on the covered porch now and Oscar had begun the next set of introductions. The woman was Miss Nan Ogden, and I was Mrs Catherine Williams. She and I exchanged greetings, my ‘How do you do?’ hollow in my ears and her ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance’ equally hollow but spoken with a drawl that stretched each syllable. She was thin and bony with knobbly wrists and high cheek-bones. Andre leaned against her, one foot on top of the other, and clutched a fistful of her skirt. I had to look up past the brim of my hat to meet Nan Ogden’s eyes. They were gray and remote, and her eyebrows were full. Her skin was smooth; she was younger than I. She’d tied her brown hair at the nape of her neck and with her arms still crossed, she stood with most of her weight on one foot, her hip out at the side. It occurred to me th
at she did not wear a corset. Her gaze skimmed over the daisies on my hat, dropped to the rows of lace on my collar and shirtwaist and then, finally, moved on to Oscar, lingering there.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said to Andre.
‘You do?’ Andre said.
‘Yep.’ Oscar pulled out a small paper sack from the pocket in his trousers. He crouched down so that he and Andre were eye level. Andre put his hands behind his back and grinned with excitement. He bent his knees a little and peered into the sack that Oscar held open. Astonished, Andre sucked in his cheeks and rounded his mouth. His eyes sparkled as he looked at his father and then up at Nan. ‘Candy,’ he said.
‘Lemon drops,’ Oscar said. ‘Your favorite.’
I’d made a terrible faux pas, I realized. I should have brought Andre a book, a spinning top, or a ball. A gift would have smoothed the way for both of us but it had never entered my mind.
‘One piece,’ Nan said to him. ‘Or you’ll spoil your dinner.’
There must be something I could give Andre. I opened my cloth purse. My mirror. My comb. The torn halves of train tickets. I fumbled with the purse, trying to find something suitable without anyone noticing.
‘Give you a bellyache, too,’ Nan was saying, a thread of sternness beneath her lazy drawl. ‘One piece. You hear me?’
‘Yes, Miss Nan.’ Andre held up a yellow drop of hardened sugar between two fingers, twisting his wrist as he studied the candy. I found my coin purse inside of my bag.
Oscar said to Nan, ‘Did Frank T. and Wiley get off on time this morning? Everything all right around here?’
‘Maisie’s leg’s still swelled up. Frank T. couldn’t get much milk out of her, her not taking her feed.’
‘Can’t say I’m overly surprised,’ Oscar said, his attention on the barnyard. ‘Course I’d hoped otherwise.’
The Promise Page 6