Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  He remembered backing away, yes. Remembered his brother making silly faces at him and dancing across the roof line in pursuit. His brother's face, filled with surprise as his last step took him over the edge of the roof, was etched forever in Ash's memory. But Cabot was far away from him, out of his reach as his short little child arms stretched out to catch him before he fell.

  "I did not push you from the roof," he said, turning on his heel and passing Davis, who was just coming into the room with Liberty on his shoulder. Even in his anger Ash noticed how big the bird was for the slight boy. Ash wondered how many burdens Davis bore that were too large for those small shoulders.

  "Did you come when I called you?" Cabot called out after him as Ash left the conservatory doors open behind him and took off for the stairs.

  ***

  Once Davis had gotten the double doors closed—there was a trick to it that the mister had shown him—he returned with the parrot to the stand near the wheelchair.

  "Your father will be here within the hour, I believe," Mr. Whittier said to him. He had a deep voice and spoke slowly, not like the men down at McGinty's, who spat words at him quickly and with anger. "Did you practice again today?"

  "Yes, s-s-sir." Always the same. Sir wouldn't come out. But here in the garden room there was nothing to kick that wouldn't fall over or crack, so he just dug his nails into his palm and tried again. "Yes." So clear. The word was his, belonged to him. "S-s-s-sir." He opened his mouth to try again, but the mister waved away the attempt.

  "I've given Mrs. Whittier permission to initiate a case for your removal from your present domicile. Do you understand what that means?"

  He thought it meant that the missus was going to try to get a judge to make his father give him up and that he would come live here, but they were some pretty big words that the mister was using. Words he was going to own someday, just like yes.

  "Yes, s-s-sir."

  "And you have no objections? Now, I'm not asking about reservations, mind you, but objections. Do you understand the difference?"

  Of course he didn't. "Yes, s-s-sir."

  "No, you don't, but you are quite right that it isn't important. What is important is that I am about to make you a promise, something I do not take lightly, in exchange for a promise on your part. I have made such a promise before and I have kept my word, and now I give that word to you.

  "For your part, you agree to do as I say, everything I say, and when I say it, without argument."

  The sun would have to shine for a week straight in San Francisco for Davis to agree to something like that.

  "And if you fulfill your part, I promise to make you the best lawyer in Oakland."

  Davis wasn't born yesterday. He knew he'd be lucky to wind up with a job cleaning up spilled beer on the floor at McGinty's or working at the canneries or the docks. Still, there was something about the way the mister was looking at him, right on, not sort of sideways the way people did when they lied.

  "All right, perhaps not the best. There is me, after all, and Mrs. Whittier. But you will read, write, and argue the law, and I won't quit until you do. Unless, of course, you don't live up to your end of our deal."

  It was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to him. Sillier than where babies came from or that his ma could hear his prayers at night. And still he stood there, considering, listening, wishing.

  "You think about it," the mister said. "And while you're thinking, you tell that parrot, See you soon, sweetheart."

  It wasn't right to promise the bird he'd be back. He struggled to get the words out that he might not. The mister waited patiently while he tried.

  "Oh, you'll be back. Mrs. Whittier will see to it. And you will practice and work your tail off for me and make me very proud."

  He opened his mouth to tell the mister he didn't think it was going to work, and that he wasn't so stupid as to believe he could ever become something so important as a streetcar conductor, never mind a lawyer, but the mister was already rolling toward the door.

  "See you soon, sweetheart. Over and over until one of those s's just slips off that recalcitrant tongue of yours. You know what recalcitrant means?"

  He didn't know what half of the mister's words meant.

  "Bet you wish you did," the mister said. "Bet you wish you could look it up in some book. I'd be willing to bet right now you're wishing you could tell me how much you hate me, or leave me a note saying as much. Without my help, though, you can't do a thing. With it you can rule the world.

  "Up to you, of course," he said rolling his chair up the slanted board that connected the conservatory to the rest of the house.

  Davis pulled the book with the pictures of mouths and tongues off the table and threw it to the ground. He stamped on it twice and then jumped with both feet up and down on the cover.

  He didn't deserve the chance. Could never take the mister up on it.

  But it would sure have made his mother happy.

  "S-s-see ya s-s-soon, sa-sa..." he told the parrot, who listened happily and then told him to shut up.

  CHAPTER 12

  It had been the longest week of her life. Of all the years to throw in an extra day, this one had to be leap year? The last three days of February had been spent trying to see Judge Mallory, without any success. On the first of March, Cabot had intervened and a hearing had been set for the following Wednesday. Then Davis had shown up on Friday night, his old bruises so faded that one would suppose he'd never been touched. Charlotte should have been relieved, of course, and the fact that she wasn't weighed heavily on her conscience.

  But without the physical evidence of his father's abuse, coupled with the poor boy's inability to articulate the situation even if he were willing (which she rather strongly doubted), her chances of getting the boy removed from his father's custody were slimmer than a woman getting into a voting booth. In fact, they were about as good as getting a woman elected to office.

  And while she had certainly made his case her highest priority, the truth was that Davis Flannigan was not the only thing on her mind—not during the week and not over this weekend, either, despite a houseful of people, all of whom seemed to have suddenly decided she needed watching.

  Kathryn, always independent before, had uncharacteristically demanded Charlotte's time and attention for everything from accompanying her to church to the color of her new dress. The woman had then abruptly and unilaterally decided that it was time Charlotte took her rightful place as the lady of the house and promptly left Sunday dinner in her hands. Unfortunately, this sudden relinquishing of authority didn't stop Kathryn from inviting Dr. Mollenoff and Selma to join them once again for dinner on Sunday afternoon.

  But it wasn't just Kathryn. Davis, bless the sweet boy's heart, had spent the entire weekend delivering at least a hundred messages from Cabot, every one of them seeming to start with the letter s. Starch in his shirts, the poor Iamb had tried to tell her. That had taken the better part of half an hour and in the end had meant rather little. More? Less? S-s-some st-st-st-starch in his sh-sh-shirts. There is? He wants? And on it went, a million interruptions she suspected were designed to keep Cabot abreast of where she was and what she was doing.

  Though why he would have any interest was beyond her. Except, of course, that she was feeling guilty. But even if that had been Cabot's intention (which presupposed that he was jealous—an utterly ridiculous presumption), how could the boy manage to tell him what it was she was up to?

  Which naturally was nothing but work, anyway, so the guilt was out of order.

  Oh no, her conscience shouted—overruled. That guilt was well founded and earned anew every time she looked at Ash Whittier. Each time she called up the memory of his breath on her cheek, every time she imagined his hand stroking her throat, and all the while she ached for the scent that clung to his hair. It was a wonder to her that after all these weeks at shore, he continued to smell to her of the sea and faraway places. Eau de Freedom.

  And if al
l those thoughts weren't distraction enough from his case, she was expected to make the dining arrangements for Sunday dinner with the Mollenoffs and Davis and Cabot and any other strays that Kathryn could manage to drag off the street and place around the table to keep her farther from Ash than she wanted to be.

  And since when didn't Cook know what to make and where the serving pieces were kept? And who had ever decided to place at the top of the breakfront that silver platter with the animals around the edge that might amuse Davis?

  "Let me help you with that."

  And what had ever possessed her to try to get it down herself? Oh, really, Charlotte, what indeed, she chastised herself as she allowed Ash to reach up along with her and hand the silver tray into her waiting arms, brushing now against his. What indeed, as his hands encircled her waist and lifted her from the step stool to set her on the floor only inches from him.

  "I thought Davis might like it," she explained, setting it down on the table and tripping over her feet as she backed away from the man whose nearness made her ears burn and her fingers freeze.

  "He's talking to Liberty," Ash said, steadying her with his hand and leaving it under her elbow years longer than it needed to be, then taking it away eons before she was ready. "I'm not sure which of them is more tortured, but the boy won't take a break."

  "Do you think Cabot could be right?" Charlotte asked.

  Ash was standing much too close to her, studying her shirtwaist with more than idle curiosity. All the women were doing it, the seamstress had told her. Just two rows of ruffles on the underlayer and even the least endowed woman became instantly shapelier. When she'd resisted, the seamstress had tempted her with promises that her suit jackets would fit all the better for the bit of fullness the hidden ruffles produced.

  "New blouse?" he asked, dousing any hope she had that he hadn't noticed that overnight there were two oranges where her pair of grapes had formerly been.

  "Yes," she said as brightly as she could. "It's the latest style. All the rage."

  "It's very nice," he said. He tilted his head and looked at her from first one angle and then the other. "Flattering."

  "Thank you." She studied the silver platter, unable to look him in the eye.

  "Be even more lovely with the lace on the outside," he said with just the slightest smirk, as if he couldn't resist teasing her.

  "Cabot doesn't care for lace," she said, putting the platter down and crossing her arms over her chest as if that would end the discussion.

  "So you had to put it somewhere." His smile was wide now, broad enough to include her in its shelter. "Well, you picked a good place to hide it."

  She had allowed Hedda to talk her into the blouse for Ash's sake, to show him that she really was a woman, but the plan had plainly backfired. "Is it that obvious?"

  "Only to someone whose eyes are roaming where they don't belong." He pulled them from her chest and met her gaze. "But everywhere I look at you does funny things to my insides. Your earlobe, for instance, drives me—"

  ***

  He stopped midsentence and stepped back a foot. Just over Charlotte's right shoulder he could see Davis, standing in the doorway, waiting and watching. And very obviously disapproving. The boy was Cabot's if he was anyone's, and Ash took an extra step back and another to the side as if to show that his hands were off Cabot's wife. Well off.

  "Hi, there, Davis. Miss Charlotte was just getting down a special platter she thought you'd like."

  "I'm going home, now," the boy said with several interruptions before the sentence was fully uttered. He added something about not wanting Charlotte to go to court.

  "Mr. Whittier tell you not to go ahead with this?" he asked.

  The boy shook his head.

  "So then you just like being a human punching bag? You know there's not much future in it—those bags don't last all that long."

  "I'll be okay," the boy answered in only two tries.

  "You ever get a good look at old Moss Johnson's face?" Ash asked.

  Davis's eyes widened, but he didn't flinch.

  "Your father wear gloves when he works out his liquor on you? Those bare knuckles are the ones that leave the worst scars. Why, I once saw a man with only one eye. Lost the other when a man's finger—"

  Beside him Charlotte swayed and reached for the wall to steady herself but found it too far away. He caught her just as she lost her balance. Without being told Davis pulled out a chair and pushed it up against the back of her knees until Ash let her go softly and she all but fell into the seat.

  "Don't get no worse than I deserve," Davis said after getting stuck on almost every word.

  "For what?" Charlotte asked, her heart breaking her words in two. "What could you do that would justify anyone raising his fists to you?" She reached out and traced a thin scar by the boy's eyebrow before he backed away.

  "'Nough." The word rang clear as a bell. "Sh-sh-shoulda b-b-been hung."

  Ash nodded gravely and pulled out a chair for himself and one for Davis, gesturing for him to sit. "You know, you've got to do something very serious to be hung." He thought about the charges that he faced and how very lucky he was that at least he wasn't contemplating the noose. "And you've got to have meant to do it."

  Davis looked at Charlotte for verification. She was as white as her starched shirt with the augmented bodice. It was utterly ridiculous how happy it made him that she wanted to look more womanly. Stupid even, because he enjoyed the thought that maybe it was for him that she'd bought the blouse. As if her dimensions mattered to him. If the circumstances were different, he believed his brother would actually be proud that he'd risen above such shallow standards for assessing a woman's value.

  He doubted it would be politic to point it out to Cabot now.

  "I didn't mean it," the boy said, his eyes getting overly bright. "I I-I-I-" He gave up and gulped back a sob.

  "Things happen," Ash assured the boy, "that we never meant to happen. We leave a lamp burning and start a fire. We leave a toy on the stairs and someone tumbles down." He searched for other things that Davis might hold himself responsible for. Just what could a boy so young, so small, have done that would make him think he needed to pay with his own well-being?

  "Sh-Sh-Sh—"

  Ash's skin crawled with the wait as he let the boy push the words from his mouth. Of all God's afflictions on man, all the scars and pains and disabilities, he thought Davis's must be up among the worst, and he wasn't going to make it any harder with his impatience. Not guessing what the boy wanted to say was almost as hard as not taking Charlotte's hand as together they waited for the child to spit out the awful truth he carried beneath his scars.

  When he'd gotten it out, Charlotte had grabbed the boy and was hugging him to her chest while Ash patted his back. All the while the boy cried, Ash tried to organize his thoughts, find a way to help the boy forgive himself.

  "You were how old?" he asked when the tears subsided and Davis wiped at his face with Ash's hankie, pulling away from Charlotte now in embarrassment.

  "S-S-S—"

  Oh, Lord! S's were the hardest for Davis. Ash wished the boy had been five at the time.

  "Six."

  "And this little six-year-old boy's terrible crime was that he stood up in a boat."

  "My ma," Davis began.

  "Your ma fell out of the boat and drowned, and that was a terrible, terrible thing," Ash agreed, reaching out to take Davis's hand, only to be denied. "But all you did was stand up. Could your ma swim?"

  Davis shook his head.

  "You?"

  Again he shook his head.

  "Your papa?"

  Davis nodded, but with a face that said his father wasn't ready to cross the bay without a boat.

  "So your papa, a grown-up, took you and your mama out in a boat on the ocean even though you couldn't swim, and you stood up."

  "But—"

  "Do I have it right so far?" Ash saw himself out on the roof his bare feet hugging the tile shingles
. "And you wanted to sit near your ma." He moved farther out onto the roof where he'd hidden Cabot's birthday present. "And you stood up."

  Davis covered his ears with his hands. "Sit down! Sit down!" he shouted, the words ringing true and clear.

  "Come here, you little twerp! Come on, Ashford, you little twerp!"

  "You were just a baby," Charlotte said softly. "A small child. You didn't do what you were told right away, and something went wrong. You were guilty of not listening, like every other child at one time or another, that's all."

  "Sit down! Sit down!"

  Cabot was laughing, placing one foot in front of the other down the ridge of the roof. "Com'ere! Com'ere!"

  Ash pulled Davis's hands down from his ears. Guilt was something he understood better than love, better than life. "It was not your fault," he told the boy. "Your memories are punishment enough, aren't they?"

  Davis shut his eyes tight rather than meet Ash's gaze.

  "Aren't they?" He shook the boy gently. "Do you need your father's beatings to help you remember?"

  Davis shook his head.

  "Believe me, son. There aren't enough beatings in the world to make you forget."

  CHAPTER 13

  The rain was wet and cold, but Charlotte was numb to it, numb to everything around her but the pain. She'd watched Ewing Flannigan charm Judge O'Malley with his lilting brogue, and then leave the courtroom with the collar to Davis's coat balled in his fist and his son nearly dangling from the strong hold.

  O'Malley had called her a frustrated woman, warped by guilt at turning her back on her true destiny, and hoping to steal away someone else's child for her own. He claimed that the mother in her would never be denied, but the course she had thus far chosen to pursue went so against nature that he feared she was actually unable to see the great injustice she was petitioning the court to effect. That just because a man had seen to his duty by raising a child up right in a world where anything had become permissible...

  She couldn't remember the rest. All she could recall was the hollow look in Davis's eyes as she and the court and the world all betrayed his trust and left him to the mercy of his father.