“For what?” she asked, sure now of only one thing. She would never, never be sorry for last night.
“For taking what didn’t belong to me.”
“You didn’t take anything, Seth. I gave.”
“And for that, I’m sorry, too,” he said, and she could feel his eyes on her back even after she closed the door behind her.
After this, she thought, dying would be easy.
SHE’D GONE BACK TO THE OFFICE ON FRIDAY AND told Ansel that she was ill. Oh, she didn’t tell him she was dying, just that she had a sick headache and needed to go home. But she hadn’t gone home—not directly.
She’d gone to Sarrie’s grave and she’d poured out her heart and cried until she’d run out of tears. She wasn’t afraid of dying, she assured Sarrie.
Her mama was a great one for saying that if life were fair Abby’s father would be the bishop of Canterbury, and her mama would be the queen of Sheba. Jedediah always said it sounded like a chess game and said if life were fair, he’d be the white knight.
Clearly, Abby was a pawn.
Now Saturday morning bloomed like the first crocus of spring, bright and yellow and full of promise. She could hear the commotion downstairs and her father hurrying her mama with instructions for her to bring plenty of food and water to the new church site by ten o’clock, when the first shift of men would be ready for a break.
“Guess we better get stirring,” Patience said, stretching in the bed beside Abby’s, where she had slept since they were little girls. “Papa will be cross as two sticks if we’re not there to set a good example.”
“I’m coming,” Abby said as she tested how far she could see this morning. No window without turning her head. No door.
“He’s gonna think you still don’t want that church, Abby,” her sister warned as she sat on the edge of her bed, feeling for her slippers.
“Well, he’d be wrong then,” Abby said. Though she had spoken against it, a part of her had wanted the church so that she and Seth could have had a beautiful wedding. Now … well, now she needed the church more than ever.
“I’d like to be the first bride in the new church,” Patience said. “Don’t you think that would be a really special honor?”
Abby agreed it would.
“And I want my babies baptized there,” Patience continued.
Abby bit at the inside of her lip. She wondered how long she had. Would she see Emily’s baby?
“And I want my daughter to be the first bride to be married there who was baptized there,” Patience went on. “And when I die—”
“Well, at least you don’t want to be the first person to have their funeral service there,” Abby said, hoping to end the discussion as she fought the nausea that had become as constant as her headaches.
“Well, that’s maudlin,” Patience said. “I think that Dr. Hendon must be rubbing off on you. Is he a good kisser, Ab? Better than Frank Walker? When Emmet kisses me I turn to goo inside.”
Abby reached for her robe. “I’m very happy for you.”
“So then he isn’t a good kisser?” Patience asked.
“Who?”
“Who? Why, Dr. Hendon, of course! Everyone knows you’re crazy about him, Abidance.”
“I’m not interested in Dr. Hendon,” Abby said, opening the door to their room. “I don’t know where you get your crazy ideas! Seth Hendon! Why, I’d rather you didn’t even say his name.”
“Oooh,” Patience said, as if she’d learned a secret, as if Abby and Seth had just had some little tiff that now Patience was privy to.
“It’s not what you think,” Abby said, the door now wide open so that anyone else might hear her. “I’m marrying someone else. Someone from St. Louis.”
“What?” Patience asked.
“What’s that, dear?” her mother said.
“What did she say?” Pru called up from downstairs.
She’d done it now. She surely hoped that God forgave lies born of compassion, because she was going to meet her Maker with a whopper on her lips.
An hour later she doubted there was a soul in Eden’s Grove who hadn’t heard about her impending marriage to Armand Whitiny. Frank Walker, supplying all the nails for the new church and going from man to man as needed to make sure their aprons were full, appeared to take great pride in admitting that it was no surprise to him. He’d heard it straight from Abidance herself weeks ago.
“We got in some mighty pretty white moiré this week,” Frank told her when he came by the refreshment table for a quick drink. “I had in mind something else when I ordered it. That is, I had hoped …” he said with the hint of a smile.
“I’ll come see it on Monday,” she agreed. Oh, fine. Things. weren’t awful enough. Now she was making a wedding dress she would never get to wear.
“Sorry I’m late,” Emily said, coming up behind Abby and giving her shoulders a squeeze. “Had to do my morning worshiping at the porcelain bowl. Why is it, I wonder, that babies hate mornings until you can’t see your toes?”
“Good morning, Emily,” Abby said, turning and hugging her sister-in-law tightly. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Did you hear that Abby’s getting married?” her mother asked, coming over to lay a gentle hand on Emily’s belly as if she were saying good morning to her newest grandchild.
Emily’s eyes sparkled. “I certainly did,” she said, and winked at Abby. “We had quite a lengthy discussion about it yesterday.”
“Imagine!” her mother exclaimed. “Just like her to be so sudden! Just like her to keep me in the dark! Well, if I’d known she was carrying on down in St. Louis, I’d have been sure to have gone with her. I mean as a chaperone, of course. But when she mentioned Armand, I always thought she was referring to that sweet boy Anna Lisa is marrying. Now it seems they’re both marrying Armands! Isn’t that the most wonderful coincidence?”
“Armand in St. Louis?” Emily asked, clearly confused.
And why shouldn’t she be? Abby thought.
“Yes,” she said, holding Emily’s arm very tightly. “Where my fiancé lives, remember?”
“Armand in St. Louis?” Emily said again, trying to put together pieces of a puzzle that had yet to be created.
“Well, as I told Dr. Hendon, he’s going to build a house here, too, but our primary residence will be in St. Louis,” she said, still pinching Emily’s arm. “Where he lives. Now.”
Emily patted Abby’s hand, the one that was no doubt cutting off any blood supply to Emily’s left hand. “You know, I’m feeling just a little dizzy, out here in the sun. Would you mind taking me over to that bench by the mercantile?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Abby said solicitously. “Why don’t I just help you over?”
They hadn’t gone half a dozen steps when Emily yanked her arm out of Abby’s grasp and demanded to know what was going on.
“Not here,” Abby said, and then called back to her mother that she was taking Emily over to the Herald where she could have a little lie-down. That, of course, brought Ansel running and it took all she and Emily could do to get rid of him.
“Now, young lady, what is this all about?’ Emily asked. “Dr. Hendon didn’t remember asking you to marry him? Is that it? And now you’re trying to get him to declare himself? That’s a pretty tricky game you’re playing.”
“When we’re inside,” Abby said, and she could tell that Emily understood the import of her words, because now it was Emily who was clutching Abby’s arm, and it felt as if she were holding on for dear life.
“So you’ve decided that you have a brain tumor,” Emily said, her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face. “One article—no, one paragraph, and you’re now sewing a dress to be buried in. Have I got that right?”
It sounded ridiculous when Emily said it. “You make it sound like I chose to have a tumor,” Abby complained.
“And you didn’t ask Dr. Hendon, am I right?”
“It would kill him if I went and died on him like S
arrie did,” she said.
“And if you don’t tell him, then you won’t die? Abby this is the stupidest, most ill-conceived—”
“He’ll be long gone by the time I die. He won’t be here, watching me like he had to with Sarrie. He won’t see me lose my mind and soil myself in my bed and—”
“Stop it!” Emily began pacing between the counter and the printing press. “You have to see Dr. Hendon immediately. We are going to go over there right now and—”
“If you tell him, Emily, I promise you that you’ll never see me again.”
That stopped her, but only for a beat. “Well, I’ll just have to live with you being mad at me. I am still going to—”
“I’ll disappear,” Abby said, already figuring out how she could take a train to St. Louis, borrow money there from Anna Lisa, and move on to somewhere no one would ever find her.
“That’s ridiculous,” Emily said, but it was clear that she was taking Abby seriously as she sat in Ansel’s chair and opened and closed her fists in frustration. “You can’t expect me not to do anything, Abby. I mean, you tell me that you think you’re dying and expect me to say ‘That’s nice, dear? How can I help?’”
“Seth found someone to replace him—Dr. Ephraim Bartlett from Massachusetts General. He’ll be here in a few days. All I’m asking is that you help me get Seth out of town and then I promise I will do everything Dr. Bartlett says. But I need you to help me convince Seth that he has no reason to stay.”
Emily was quiet for a minute. “What if he’s too late? I mean what if he tells you that you’re fine and Seth is already gone? You have to see him before Seth leaves. Then you can just explain to Seth that you were an idiot and since he knows you so well he’ll have no trouble believing you or forgiving you.”
“Emily, the doctor won’t say I’m fine.”
Emily made a face. “Of course he will,” she said. “Now, swear that you’ll see the doctor before Seth leaves town. Or I’ll go straight to Seth now.”
Abby held up her hand as if she were taking an oath. But she didn’t swear, instead she asked, “Do you see my hand?”
“Of course I do,” Emily said. “Now, swear—”
“I don’t,” she said. She moved her hand closer and closer to her face until one finger came into view. And then she looked at poor sweet Emily, whose eyes were filling with tears. “I’ll see the new doctor, I promise. But you have to help me convince Seth that I love someone else and that he should leave Eden’s Grove.”
“Oh, honey, he would want to—”
“No, he wouldn’t. He’d do it, but it would take chunks of his soul. Please, Emily, help me do this one noble thing.”
The bell over the door rang, and they both looked up.
“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Seth said. “I was just dropping off an ad for some of my furniture and things.”
“Then you’re really leaving?” Emily asked, doing a good job of hiding the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
“There’s nothing to keep me here,” Seth said, grimacing at Abby.
“I suppose not,” Emily said. “Too bad you’ll miss the wedding, but then you probably want to be gone before they finish the church anyway.”
“There are some things that were Sarrie’s,” he said, his voice cracking as he said his sister’s name. “I think she’d probably like you to have them, Abidance.”
He stared at her, hurt, angry, waiting for her to say something, anything.
All she could manage was a nod.
He was getting used to things going from bad to worse. Even when he was already at the bottom of the well. But the little Denton baby was already dead, no one else was sick, and life had already kicked him in the teeth.
So it was hard to imagine that something else could go wrong on such a fine Saturday morning. Still, he supposed he should have expected that he’d have no time to himself to catch his breath, that someone would be waiting in his office when he came back. But even if he had, it wouldn’t have been Ella Welsh he’d have anticipated.
“Dr. Hendon,” she said, giving him a little cough so that he would know it wasn’t a social call.
“Miss Welsh,” he said, nodding his head at her. “Still not feeling well?” He’d given Ella enough cough medicine to fell a horse, or at least have it walking crosseyed. He was surprised she was feeling anything at all.
“You see the church going up?” she asked, gesturing toward the window through which he could see more than he wanted.
“Seems like they’re doing a fine job,” Seth said. “It looks like they’re leaving plenty of room for windows.”
“Letting the Lord’s light shine in, I heard the reverend say,” she agreed.
“Well, he ought to know,” Seth said. “You here for some more cough syrup?”
“I’m here to proposition you,” she said with a wink.
Seth felt sick. He sat down in his chair. “I’m sorry I’m not interested. I can’t tell you how sorry it makes me that I’m just not interested.”
“It ain’t that kind of proposition,” she said, “but I am cut to the quick that you won’t take me up on that one. Looks to me like your heart is elsewhere.”
“Heart? My heart? If I’ve still got one, it’s hundreds of miles away. Thousands.”
It was clear that she really didn’t care. “I’m thinking of leaving Eden’s Grove, and was hoping you might want to buy Joe’s house to turn it into that clinic you wanted,” she said.
“Where are you heading?” he asked, more interested in finding a direction than founding a clinic.
“South,” she said. “To some big city where no one’ll know nothing about me that I don’t tell them myself.”
It sounded like the right destination to Seth.
“So are you interested?” she asked. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman. Clearly she had been a beauty in her day, but that day had been ripped from the calendar several years ago.
“I’m planning on leaving Eden’s Grove myself,” he said. He meant it to sound more enthusiastic, but somehow the words came out flat.
Just like his life.
“You wouldn’t be going south, too, would you?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know,” Seth admitted. “Maybe.”
“Well, if you’re looking for a traveling companion …” Seth could see the loneliness on her face. He understood loneliness all too well.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, though he doubted he would.
She nodded, pulled her cloak around her, and stood. When she was nearly to the door she turned.
“I suppose some more of that cough syrup wouldn’t hurt,” she said.
He pushed his chair back from the desk and went to get her some. It wouldn’t solve her problem, but it just might ease the pain.
THE FUNERAL FOR POOR JAMES DENTON, JR., WAS nearly as brief as the child’s life. Abby had considered not going because she didn’t want to see Seth there, see him hurting and know that some of that hurt was her fault. But in the end, she went, hung back from the crowd, and hurried home as quickly as she could.
She’d only seen Seth’s back.
And that had been enough to rob her of breath.
At least no one else was home, and she could cry her heart out and be sick in the bathroom and all but feel her way down the stairs so that when they returned from the Dentons’ place she’d have had time to pull herself together and be sitting in the living room as if all was right with the world.
Her mother would be so proud, if only she knew what a great actress her daughter had managed to become.
“You missed a nice spread,” her mother said. “Did you work on your wedding list?”
“I meant to,” she said, stretching as if she’d been doing nothing at all. “But I fell asleep in this chair and got nothing done.”
“Dr. Hendon was there,” her mother said. “Poor man. He seemed to be taking the boy’s death real hard.”
“Yes,” Patience agreed, looking
at Abby suspiciously. “Something was really bothering him.”
“The cross cookies are cool,” Gwendolyn announced, coming from the kitchen with one in each hand. “Can I throw them out the window to see how it’ll work from Uncle Jed’s flying machine?”
“Go on up,” Abby said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Prudence and Michael stayed at the Dentons,” her mother said, handing her the basket to carry up the stairs.
Abby nodded and trudged up the steps, one hand on the banister, hoping that her mother wasn’t watching, ready to feign sleepiness still, if she was.
When she finally got to the attic, Gwendolyn was struggling to open the small window under the eaves, and Abby gave the child a hand.
“Will you hurry up and throw them?” Patience yelled up. “I’ve better things to do with my day than get hit by crosses, you know.”
Abby examined the basketful of various kinds of candies and cookies shaped like crosses and wondered if prayers would do her any good now. Of course they would, she chastised herself. She would pray for Seth, who would go on to have a wonderful life.
“Please let him be happy,” she said, kissing a taffy cross and tossing it out the window to Patience.
“Ow!”
No taffy.
“He’s known such misery,” she said to the shortbread cross as she let it go. “Let him find some peace.”
“Ouch! And it broke in a million pieces,” Patience called up.
“I think I’ve got it,” her mother said, coming into the room, her hair dusted with flour, her skirt being held on to by Gwendolyn. “Try this.”
Abby took the cross. It was small, fitting in the palm of her hand. It appeared to be meringue.
“We glued it to some paper,” her mother said. “That way it won’t crumble when it hits the ground.”
“Here comes another one,” Abby said, letting it go from the window. “Why are we bothering to do this when there is no chance that Jed’s flying machine is going to work?”
“Got it!” Patience yelled. “It kinda floated and I caught it. Send down another and I’ll let it hit the ground.”
Stephanie Mittman Page 18