by Caroline Lee
Arabella shrugged, and began to pack up the leftover food and organize the basket. “We were unable to have children.” He made a noise then, one she couldn’t identify. “And we eventually gave up. He joined the First Massachusetts in ’64, and I saw him once after that, around Christmas. He was killed at Hatcher’s Run when a shot hit his ammunition chest, and it blew up.”
Vincenzo groaned then, and she twisted towards him, afraid he was in pain. What she could see of his expression looked aching, but was tilted towards the sun. When he finally spoke, his voice was a strangled whisper. “And he didn’t know you were pregnant, did he?”
Was her story that common, then? “No. I’d barely realized it myself, by then. But the war left many widows, and I was just one more. When Eddie was one, my father’s business collapsed, and I became desperate. Milton offered me marriage, and we eventually moved out here.”
“Where he warped your view of yourself.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“I’m sorry.” He scrubbed his hand down his face again, pulling the blindfold slightly askew so that she could see the collection of scars where his brows once lay. “I’m… No, I’m not sorry, Arabella.” He dropped his hand, and turned that horrible, wonderful visage fully towards her. “You’re a beautiful woman. You’ve always been a beautiful woman. Age doesn’t change that. There are beautiful women who are eighty. But it shouldn’t matter, should it? Are those women only valued because they’re beautiful? Am I without value, because I’m not beautiful?”
She was speechless. Where had this outburst come from? He’d been so polite, so gentlemanly, but these words…these sounded ripped from his soul. But of course he’d think that way, looking the way he did. He couldn’t see her, couldn’t see what she looked like, or imagine what she used to be, in her prime. Taking a deep breath, she let it out with “I used to be beautiful…”
“No!” With startling energy, he pushed himself to his feet and stood over her, his hands fisted. “You still are…” And then, as she watched, mouth agape, he began to sway. Alarmed, she jumped up and reached out to steady him.
“Vincenzo, I’m sorry that my story upset you, but I really do think you’re—“
“No. I’m sorry.” He seemed to sag, and she hurried to put her arm around his middle, to support him. They stood like that for several heartbeats longer than was proper, pressed against one another. In the warm stickiness of the spring afternoon, she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began, and that seemed right. “I…” He took a deep breath, and pushed himself upright. “I’m not used to the sun.”
He was a recluse who’d lived his life on stage. A man who only went out in the evening, only stood under the harsh gas lamps. A man who wore a red silk scarf around his ruined eyes because he knew that flagrant disguise is what people would remember, rather than the scars. A man who’d wanted peace and quiet, and had found her and Eddie and Everland instead.
“I think I should go home now.”
“Yes. Yes, I think that would be a good idea.” Hurriedly, she called Eddie to come help, and they packed up the picnic and began the trudge back to town. This time, unlike on their way to the Lake, Vincenzo’s steps dragged, and he didn’t participate in conversation. He seemed willing to accept her help, but had drawn in on himself, as if reluctant to share anything of himself with them. He was a recluse again, and her heart tightened to realize it.
They helped him up the front stairs of his home, where Gordon met them with an alarmed look, and insisted they take the picnic basket home to enjoy the leftovers. Then Eddie asked to go back to the Lake with Tom and Jack, and she agreed absent-mindedly. She was worried for Vincenzo, worried that the exertion of the day might’ve been too much. They’d been having such a lovely time, until he’d asked her for her story…
And now she sat at her dining table in the back room of the store, staring at nothing while waiting for the kettle to boil water for tea. This table had come from Boston with them; it had been where she’d eaten meals as a child. The bed in the corner had belonged to Edward’s parents, and was now where Eddie slept. The tea set in front of her had been a wedding gift from Milton. These were all parts of her life, but none of it felt right, squeezed into the tiny room that was meant for supplies.
This wasn’t home. This was Milton’s place. She could still see him standing in front of the long table that used to sit under that window, patiently splitting stems and seeds, breeding for color of bouquet or height. Never for heartiness, though, always beauty. Always striving to bring more beauty into the world.
He’d use that potbelly stove to keep his seedlings heated, then he’d carefully transplant, gibber excitedly as each sprouted, and hurry to record his findings at the big desk there in the corner. The Society that sponsored him expected yearly publication, and he’d been thrilled to comply. Arabella herself had made use of his equipment to distill her own concoctions; her honeysuckle scent, and the roses and gardenia that Milton had deemed more worthy of his wife.
And now she and Eddie were living here. Milton had died of the influenza that had swept through the town two years before, and while she hadn’t exactly mourned, she’d missed the stability he gave her life. The Society sponsorship had ended, the income from his publications trickled, and her bookstore had never made enough to support them. So they were living here, in this little back room, and renting out their home above. Rojita and Sherriff Cutter would be moving in this week.
Arabella was pulled from her musings by a knock at the back door. Who could that be? She hurried over to the little alcove by the closet, and unlocked the door to the garden.
Standing on the back step were Zosia Spratt and Snow White, and both of them looked upset. “Hello, Mrs. Mayor.”
“Hello, ladies. I was sorry not to see you this morning at church.” This was directed at Zosia. Although the Spratt family was Jewish, they attended St. Crispin’s with the rest of Everland, just to fit in.
The young ladies exchanged worried looks, and Snow slipped her arm through her friend’s elbow in a show of support. Arabella glanced from one to the other, and could see that something was terribly wrong. So she stepped back, inviting them in. “The water is about to boil. Why don’t you come in for some tea?”
They smiled gratefully and slipped past her, not letting go of each other. Arabella followed thoughtfully, and began to go through the tea-making ritual. These two were best friends, as close as Zelle and Briar. But Arabella preferred these two to the younger girls; for one, they were more mature and level-headed, and did very little squealing. And for another, they adored her books as much as she did. It was impossible not to like a fellow bibliophile, but she also admired their fierce friendship, in spite of hardships. So the fact that they were so obviously unsettled was upsetting.
“Is everything alright, Zosia? You look…” Pale. Drained. But Arabella didn’t like to comment on another’s appearance. The habit came from years of trying to avoid comments about herself. So she settled on “…bothered by something.”
She placed the tea set in the center of the fine tablecloth on the dining table, and the other ladies took seats, still avoiding her eyes. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Mayor.” Snow dropped three lumps of sugar into her teacup and stirred it gracefully, pretending great interest in the whirl of the spoon. Zosia just stared at her cup and saucer, her shoulders hunched under her tight dark curls.
Arabella sank into her seat across from them, her stomach knotting in worry when she watched Snow place a hand comfortingly on Zosia’s forearm. “Please do call me Arabella, remember?” She said, hoping to get at least one of them to talk.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Arabella.”
“And now, I think, you’d better cut right to the point and tell me why you’ve come to see me. Is everything alright? Is someone hurt?” A horrible thought made her breath catch. “Eddie?”
“Oh! Oh, no, Arabella.” Zosia finally met her eyes, and Arabella could see the tear tracks clearly. “I’m s
orry for worrying you.” The young woman made an effort to pick up her cup and saucer, but her hand was shaking too strongly to hold them steady, and she put them down. “It’s just that… that…”
Helplessly, Zosia glanced at her best friend, and the darker woman patted her arm once. “We’ve come from the orphanage, Arabella. Abuela Zapato passed away this morning.”
Arabella gasped sympathetically. Abuela Zapato was the old woman who kept the shoe-shaped orphanage outside of town, and had been a grandmother to everyone in the town since before Arabella had arrived. She’d dispensed grandmotherly advice and care to nearly everyone, and had been close friends with Zosia’s mother, Mary. “Oh, Zosia, I’m sorry. Your mother must be devastated.”
The younger woman nodded, obviously holding back tears. “Mama was there when she…when she left. Mama on one side, Rojita on the other. It was…” She sniffed twice. “It was fast.”
Arabella nodded. The tea had turned bitter on her tongue. “I didn’t even realize she was ill.”
Snow handed her now-crying friend a handkerchief, and moved her hand to take Zosia’s. “It was her heart. Very sudden, just like my father.” The mulatto woman looked down at her teacup, and Arabella wondered—not for the first time—how she’d ended up in Wyoming with her red-headed sister. “I’m glad that her family—and Mrs. Spratt—got there in time.”
“Me too. Oh, poor Rojita and Micah. They must be aching.” The siblings had really been just two of Abuela’s orphans, but now helped run the orphanage. “I wonder if there’s anything we can do?” The two oldest boys left at the orphanage—Tom Turner and Jack Horner—were Eddie’s closest friends. “Maybe I could offer to help with Tom and Jack for a few days?”
“Sheriff Cutter sent us over here.” Zosia dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sure that they’d welcome any help with the boys, but I didn’t think to ask. He wanted you to know, though, that they wouldn’t be moving in this week.”
Arabella’s eyes widened as she realized the implications of Abuela’s death. “Of course, they probably need a few days to settle things, come to terms with—“
“Actually,” Snow interrupted, “I don’t think they’ll be moving at all. That’s what he meant.” She sounded apologetic. “The reason they were moving was so that they could have their own space. But Rojita will want to stay at the orphanage to take care of the children, I’m sure. And now, I suppose, there will be more space.”
There will be more space. With Abuela gone, Rojita and Hank would be moving into the larger bedroom, and of course they’d need to be there to care for the children. But… Her stomach clenched. But they were going to rent her apartment. What would she do now for income? How would she and Eddie survive?
She shut her eyes on the all-too-knowing gazes on the young women across from her, and tried not to panic. Calm down. It was selfish to bemoan her own sorrows, to think of Abuela’s death as a nuisance to her. After all, a delightful woman—a woman whom she genuinely did care for—was gone from this world, and that was a loss. She really shouldn’t be thinking about how that loss was going to inconvenience her…but what was she going to do?
“I’m sorry, Arabella.” Snow’s sympathetic tone broke through her self-pity, and she opened her eyes to see two sets of compassionate eyes on her. “We know that you were hoping that they’d move in soon.”
Did they? Did everyone in town know her shame? Did everyone realize how much she needed money? Rule Number Three forbade sharing shameful secrets… but lately, Milton’s rules just didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. What difference did it make if everyone knew her business? She was a single mother who’d been supporting them on a bookstore people rarely visited. It was obvious that she needed money.
So she sighed. “Yes, I was rather counting on them.” And then, deciding to ignore Rule Number One that said she had to always keep up appearances, Arabella placed her elbows on the table and let her forehead sink into her hands. “I know it’s selfish to think about myself at a time like this, but…”
“We understand,” Zosia sniffed, sounding better than she had a minute before. “Is there anything that we can do?”
As Arabella exhaled, she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. It felt good to be sitting with these women, sharing tea and support. Although she was breaking several of Milton’s Rules, she found herself anxious to share her worries with them. She propped her chin up on one hand and smiled sadly. “I appreciate the offer, Zosia, but I can’t imagine what can be done. There’s a limited number of people who are looking for places to live.”
“How about Ian and Ella?”
Zosia glanced at her friend. “The Crownes? I didn’t realize they were looking for a new place.”
Snow shrugged, and sipped at her tea. Arabella liked the way she pursed her lips while she thought. “I’m not sure that they are. But the other day I was in the Mercantile, and Ella mentioned Ian rescued another dog, and it’s almost as big as Shiloh.”
“Oh dear.” Zosia’s smile was watery, but there. “There can’t possibly be room for them all?”
Even Arabella had to smile at the thought of yet another animal squeezed into the tiny apartment above the mercantile. “Ian mentioned to me that Shiloh and Manny live in his storeroom now, but that he has to pick the flour sacks off the floor so they don’t get into them.”
Snow smiled triumphantly. “See! He’s probably desperate for a new space!”
“Especially now that Ella’s expecting.” Both women turned their gazes sharply to Zosia, who nodded once.
“Zosia Spratt, bless my soul, you never told me a thing about that!”
“I just heard it from Mama yesterday. She heard from Papa, who heard from Ian himself.”
Arabella’s brows went up, impressed despite herself. “You’re right; they’d probably love a bigger space. But I’m not sure if we’d do well with so many dogs running around.” It would be tight, with the Crownes living upstairs and her and Eddie living downstairs and the dogs living…well, everywhere. Although in all honestly, Eddie would probably love it.
“Well, that’s certainly true.” Snow sat back. “I don’t think I would care to share a building with that many animals.” Snow lived with her sister and mother in a lovely home nearby, but Arabella couldn’t imagine them allowing pets to track dirt all over.
“You could get married.”
Arabella managed not to react overtly to Zosia’s casual comment. Instead, she picked up her tea again, gripping the saucer a little too strongly, to keep her hand from shaking. “Whatever makes you say that?”
The young woman shrugged one shoulder, the action causing her dark curls to bob exotically. Her sharp features were bewitching in the afternoon light streaming through the open window. “Mr. Mayor has been gone two years. You’re doing wonderfully with Eddie, but having a husband to help would certainly mean you wouldn’t have to move out of your home.”
“I’ve already moved out.” Arabella tightened her jaw when she took a sip, trying to appear nonchalant while she flicked her eyes about the room, taking in all of the furniture she and Eddie had moved downstairs.
Zosia made a dismissive noise. “But you could move back in, again. Or into another house, if a man offered…”
Arabella carefully placed the cup and saucer on the tablecloth, resisting the urge to trace the ornate fleur de lis with her fingertip. Milton’s death had been scary. It left her alone. Though it wasn’t as scary as Edward’s death, but still… she’d wanted another husband, then. But in the two years since, she’d realized how strong she could be on her own, and had known that she wouldn’t remarry. She’d had two husbands, and one True Love, and that’s more that any woman could say she deserved.
But… in the last week, she’d been…thinking. Been thinking about Vincenzo. Often. Thinking about the time they spent together, and his stories, and his music that seemed to make her complete. She’d been wondering what those sinewy forearms would feel like as he pulled her against him; how hi
s lips would taste. She’d been thinking about his hands on her, and that’s when she knew that she wouldn’t mind re-marriage, if it was to the right man.
It seemed that others in the town had picked up on the time they’d spent together. Snow exchanged a look with her friend. “Another man who had his own house, for instance? A lovely, brand-new home?”
They were talking about Vincenzo, and Arabella hurried to insure his reputation was intact. “I couldn’t possibly leave my garden, ladies. And no one has offered marriage.”
“I’m sure it’s just a matter of time, though.”
“No.” She hadn’t intended to sound so harsh, but it slipped out. Vincenzo had shared his music with her, but that was it. “I cannot remarry. Not at my age.”
There was silence for a moment after her announcement, and then both women made identical tsking noises and rolled their eyes. They could’ve been sisters, and Arabella definitely didn’t smile, because the subject matter was not funny—but it was close.
“Arabella, you—“
Snow interrupted her best friend. “You’re beautiful, Arabella. You’re not old, you’re not worn-out. You’re beautiful.”
The statement, given so matter-of-factly, made Arabella pause in the process of dismissing it. She stared across the table at the younger woman. Snow’s brown skin was pristine, smooth and creamy like hers used to be. She had striking green eyes set under delicate brows, and a perfect little cupids-bow mouth. She was stunning, even prettier than her sister Rose, and she had to know it. But here she sat, calling Arabella beautiful? There was no false praise in her expression, nothing to indicate that she hadn’t mean what she said. Snow thought she was beautiful.
Zosia clicked her teeth, dismissively dabbing at the last of her tears with her handkerchief. “And even if you weren’t beautiful, it hardly matters, Arabella. You are a kind person, who doesn’t gossip or say mean things, who cares about others and works hard. That’s what a husband would care about. Those are the sorts of things that make a woman worthy.”