“He read your letters to me, then I told him what to write back. Looking for a wife in the mail order catalogues was his idea. I’d plumb given up.”
Oh, Max. Caroline wanted to reach for him. But he was so tense, he was practically vibrating. She wasn’t sure what he’d do if she touched him.
So instead, she said, “I can teach you to read.”
He shook his head. “Plenty of people have tried. But the letters, they change on me.”
“What do you mean?” How could ink on a page change once the page had been printed? “You mean they move?”
“Or they look different. Or they change places. I don’t know.” He threw his hands up in the air.
Maybe there was a problem with his eyes. Maybe he needed glasses. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“I don’t need a doctor to tell me I’m stupid too.”
Fine. There was no point in pushing when he was so clearly opposed to the idea. Might as well focus on what she could change.
“You said in your letters that you wanted to marry a practical woman.”
“So?” He looked suspicious at her sudden change of topic. Rightly so, she thought.
“So, the practical thing would be for you to focus on running the ranch and let me handle the accounts.”
“It would.” He was clearly unhappy to admit it.
“As long as one of us can read, there’s no problem.”
He flushed. “Tell me you’re not embarrassed to be married to a man who’s illiterate.”
“I’m not embarrassed to be married to you, Maxwell Kaspar. I fell in love with you when I read your letters. Those were your words, right? Not Bart’s?”
“My words.” He sighed. “I assume. It’s not like I could read ‘em and check.”
“I brought every letter with me. I can read them to you, if you want.”
Max grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer. “Look me in the eye. Tell me you don’t care that I can’t read.”
“I don’t care that you can’t read.” Caroline kept her expression steady as he searched her face for signs of a lie and didn’t find them. “We’re in this together, you and me. I’ll read for you, when you need me to.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. “Forgive me.”
How could she not?
῭ ΅
Half an hour later, Caroline mentally revised her shopping list for the sake of making their credit at the general store last longer. Max insisted on something called hominy, which he promised he’d teach her to cook. She had no trouble passing up the candies, the cosmetics, the magazines—all things she might have treated herself to in the past if she had a bit of money left over at the end of the month. But she couldn’t help lingering near the small display of pencils and journals and, right next to it, a set of watercolors with a brush. Her fingers itched to pick it up.
“You want them?” Max’s voice beside her. She hadn’t noticed him standing there.
“No.” She pulled her hands away, clasped them behind her back. “Don’t be silly.”
“You miss the factory?”
She shook her head. “I came here to start a new life. With you.”
And I’m not letting my impractical tendencies ruin that.
“But you miss painting,” Max pressed.
“Not enough to spend money we need to pay our mortgage.”
His face fell. “We’re going to be shearing soon, and I’ve got a contract lined up with a manufacturer back East. Beef’s up this year too. We’ll be paid up by May.”
“Have you told that to Mr. Maier?”
“Wouldn’t matter to him. All he cares about is how much money I’ve got now.” Max took Caroline’s basket from her and carried it to the cashier at the front of the store.
Caroline pursed her lips as she thought. Mr. Maier had seemed like a reasonable man, just frustrated with Max’s inability to keep accounts straight. She could see how it would be hard for a man of numbers to trust someone like Max, who struggled to write things down accurately.
But now that she was keeping the accounts, could she persuade the bank manager that Max’s ranch was a good investment?
῭ ΅
That night, Max handed her a book. Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. “Bart loaned it to me.”
But you don’t read, she almost said, before she realized what he was asking. “You want me to read it to you?”
“If it’s not a burden,” he said, his cheeks reddening as he studied the tops of his shoes.
“It would be my pleasure,” she replied. And meant it.
Over the next week, they fell into a comfortable rhythm. She cooked. She cleaned. She fed the chickens and gathered eggs. She mended Max’s clothes. She tended the minor injuries of the ranch hands. And at night after supper, she read to Max. She loved how he always wanted “one more chapter.”
She wondered if Bart had The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Or if she could find someone else in town who’d lend it to them.
If not, she’d buy Max his own copy as soon as they’d paid off their debts this summer.
“You never answered my question,” Max said one night, after Caroline had read herself hoarse. “Do you miss painting?”
“It was my job,” she replied as she turned the kerosene lamp on her nightstand all the way down.
“That’s not an answer.”
She hesitated. He’d emphasized that he needed a practical woman to help him keep the ranch going. “I like the work I’m doing now better than painting toys.”
“That’s still not an answer.”
How could she explain it to him? “Painting isn’t practical.”
“Who says everything in life has to be practical?”
“For someone like me, maybe it does.”
“What do you mean, someone like you?”
Would he understand? “You asked me if I was embarrassed to be married to a man who couldn’t read.”
“And you said no.” Max paused. “Did you mean it?”
“Yes. But now I have to ask you.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Are you embarrassed to be married to a woman of…mixed heritage?”
“No, I’m not embarrassed.” He pulled her close, kissed her forehead. “And I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be married to a woman who paints, either.”
She wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t help thinking of Stuart’s ugly words. Pretty for an Oriental. As nice as the townsfolk had seemed at her wedding reception, she couldn’t help wonder if they were all just being polite. If some of them might be whispering ugly words about her behind her back—and about Max too, for marrying her.
She was used to it. Had learned to ignore it. But the last thing she wanted was to cause Max more trouble. It was bad enough that every time they looked at her face, they thought foreigner. If she gained a reputation for being anything but a hard-working rancher’s wife who went to church every week, it would be that much harder for them to accept her.
She couldn’t risk being an artist, too.
Chapter Six
Late for church, on the day that Caroline had agreed to help Juliet with Sunday school. She’d stayed up late reading the last few chapters of Huckleberry Finn to Max, and had slept through the rooster’s crowing this morning.
Rummaging through her drawers, she snatched her last clean pair of bloomers and a pair of stockings. Tossing everything on the bed, she rushed to the wardrobe to fetch her best dress.
“What’s this?” Max asked.
She turned, and her stomach clenched. She’d left the drawer open—he’d found her grandmother’s paintings.
I knew I should have thrown them out. “Put them back.”
“Did you paint these?”
She shook her head. “They were my grandmother’s.”
“We should hang them in the parlor.”
“NO.” His eyebrows went up at her vehement tone. Caroline fought to speak more gently. “Plea
se, put them back.”
“Something this beautiful shouldn’t be hidden away,” he said. But he put the pictures back in her drawer and shut it.
She turned away to compose herself. If he’d insisted on displaying Grandmother Akiko’s art where others would see it, she would have felt compelled to destroy the paintings. And although they were a painful reminder of her otherness, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to do that.
As a child, Caroline had spent many afternoons with her grandmother—the old woman would paint with confident, bold strokes on rice paper, while Caroline attempted to mimic Grandmother’s images in her own childish scribble. Every picture came with a story about home. Grandmother’s childhood home, a small village on the outskirts of Edo. It had seemed like a magical world to Caroline.
A world she’d learned not to talk about in school, where talking about fox spirits and kami earned her more than one spanking from Sister Agatha.
As much pain as Grandmother Akiko’s stubborn foolishness had caused her, Caroline couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on the old woman’s love.
῭ ΅
On the wagon ride into town, Max tried to draw Caroline out of her shell by interrogating her about books she’d borrowed from the New York Public Library. He seemed to want a detailed summary of every single one.
“Imagine all those books, free to borrow,” he exclaimed. “Maybe someday Chuckwalla will have a library.”
“Maybe someday you’ll start one,” she’d answered.
He laughed sharply at that. “That’d be rich, a librarian who couldn’t read.”
She hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. But they were pulling into the churchyard and she could hear voices singing through an open window—worship had already started. There wasn’t time for a discussion. Caroline promised herself that she’d make time later.
Hurrying inside to the room where Sunday school was held, Caroline found Juliet helping the children into tiny, stained smocks as they milled around child-sized easels.
No. No, no, no. She couldn’t.
“There you are!” Juliet bounded over and practically threw an artist’s smock at Caroline. “Attention, boys and girls! Mrs. Kaspar’s going to teach us how to paint angels today!”
“I don’t think—”
“What did the angel say to Mary, children?”
“Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God!” the children hollered enthusiastically.
Juliet slapped a brush into Caroline’s hand. Her fingers closed around the smooth wood handle before she could stop herself. “This is—”
“Perfect,” Juliet said, leading Caroline to the easel at the front of the class. “I’ll go ‘round and make sure nobody eats the paint. You get them started.”
“Maybe you should get them started,” Caroline objected.
But Juliet was already kneeling next to a little boy, wiping a splotch of red paint from his forehead with the corner of her smock.
Caroline took a deep breath as the children quieted, watching to see what she would do next. Probably because she was new. Or maybe because they’d never seen someone who looked like her before.
The sooner she got this over with, the better.
Dipping her brush in the cup of water, she swirled the bristles over the black paint in the tin watercolor palette that Juliet had set up for her. She took a deep breath. Let her eyes unfocus. Willed her hand to move lightly through the air in big sweeping arcs, the way Grandmother had taught her.
A few minutes later, she stepped back from the easel.
Sketched in stark black lines that hinted at texture and depth, her angel brandished a fiery sword as he floated above a landscape of cactus and scrub and far-away foothills. Even though it had been more than a decade since Caroline had painted at Grandmother Akiko’s side, the image was very clearly in Grandmother’s style.
In the back of her head, she could hear her grandmother’s creaky voice. Beautiful, child. Why don’t you paint another?
She dropped the brush, ripped the smock off over her head. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not when people seemed to be actually accepting her in spite of who she was. She ignored Juliet’s protest as she abandoned the Sunday school classroom and sucked in a deep breath of clean, cool air.
Caroline paced beside the acacia tree, trying to calm herself, but the tears insisted on coming anyway. Hearing Grandmother’s voice again brought her back to those terrible last days, when the old woman could barely move without coughing up blood. Only nine, Caroline would race home from school, her heart beating so hard that her head pounded as she sprinted up the stairs to their third story apartment, fearing that Grandmother had died while she’d been trapped in a stuffy, dull classroom. Every afternoon, she thought she would faint with relief to see the old woman propped up near the window, a fresh canvas on her knees. Waiting for her granddaughter to come home and paint with her one more time.
Their last afternoon together, Grandmother hadn’t even been able to lift the brush herself. She could only watch as Caroline painted for her. Caroline had asked what she should paint.
“A bird,” Grandmother croaked. “Fuji-sama.”
By the time Caroline set down her brush and turned to show grandmother the lopsided mountain, the old woman was gone.
“What are you doing out here?” Max’s low voice jolted Caroline out of the painful memory.
She turned her back to him and wiped the tears from her face. Juliet made me paint an angel. But that wasn’t the problem at all. The problem was that Juliet had made her remember how much it had hurt to lose Grandmother.
Because when she painted, it was as if Grandmother was still with her. And putting down the paintbrush felt like losing Grandmother all over again.
Painting toys had been different. There had been no artistry there, just the same designs over and over, until Caroline could have painted them in her sleep. Her job at the factory gave her the comfort of a brush in her hands without demanding that she remember.
Max’s arms wrapped around her, warm and strong. He bent forward, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. “Tell me.”
“I miss her,” she blurted.
He didn’t ask who, he just hugged Caroline until the sobbing left her and she could breathe again. Then he turned her around and handed her his handkerchief so she could clean her face.
“We ought to check on Juliet,” he said. “She’s alone in the lion’s den right now.”
Caroline thought about how the children had settled down as soon as Juliet had announced that they’d be painting angels. “I bet she’s got them eating out of her hands.”
“That girl’s a force to be reckoned with. I feel for the man who ends up marrying her.” Max smiled, and offered Caroline his arm. “Bart’s already exhausted, chasing off suitors who don’t care she’s a mite too young.”
Caroline couldn’t help but smile back as Max walked her to the Sunday school room. “I owe her an apology for running out on her like that.”
“I think she’ll—” He stopped dead in in the doorway, his jaw dropping. He blinked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You painted that?”
For a horrible moment, Caroline wanted to lie. Did he think it an abomination to see an angel painted in a heathen style?
She forced herself to say, “Yes.”
“If God gave you the talent to paint like that, He intended for you to use it.”
Now it was Caroline’s turn to gape. “But—”
“You never heard the Bible verse about hiding your light under a bushel?”
“I’m not—”
“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house,” Juliet quoted as she emerged from the Sunday school room. She held a brush out to Caroline.
Hands shaking, Caroline took it.
Chapter Seven
Caroline wrinkled her nose as she sorted through the smelly, grea
sy fleeces, looking for spots that were too damaged or soiled to send to the manufacturer back East who would extract the lanolin and turn the cleaned wool into yarn. Her back ached from bending over the table where the shearers deposited each new fleece. But it felt good to be outside in the Arizona spring. The fresh breeze cleared away some of the smell of the animals and kept Caroline cool as she worked alongside Juliet. She tried to remember some of the sights for later tonight, when Max would settle on the couch with a mug of cocoa and insist that she paint while he watched.
He found it soothing, she said.
And with him there beside her, she found it easier and easier to pick up the brush.
She thought Grandmother would love the stark contrasts that the Arizona landscape presented, even though it differed vastly from the kinds of scenes the old woman had tended to paint. Flat-topped buttes in layers of red, orange and brown. Green cacti with silvery spines and, sometimes, pink or red or yellow flowers. Mountains shadowed indigo in the distance, backlit by a sunset so vivid it seemed the sky would catch fire. Even the spotted lizard that the town was named after, the chuckwalla, was a fascinating study in texture.
Caroline had given up Grandmother’s monochromatic style in order to capture the amazing colors she saw all around her. Sometimes she thought of that Gaugin she’d seen at the museum the night before she’d left New York. Watercolors would never achieve the same intensity, but she’d tried experimenting with those hyperreal combinations of colors in some of her paintings.
She wondered if her grandmother would have approved of her artistic experiments. Decided that she would have. Grandmother Akiko had never discouraged her from doing things the British way, only insisted that Caroline learn the Japanese way too.
“…and he said that he meant to ask me to the dance, but then Zoe asked him first, and I said that didn’t mean he had to go with Zoe, and he asked was I jealous, and I said yes. Was that the right thing to say?”
Caroline shook her head as if to clear it, then realized Juliet might have mistaken her gesture for a no. “That was definitely the right thing to say. You don’t want to be with a man who you can’t tell the truth.”
Caroline's Promise (Valentine Mail Order Bride 5) Page 4