The Stills

by Jess Montgomery

  Though once she’d found the term complimentary, she’d come to hate it.

  All it means is feisty—yet powerless.

  Which is exactly what she’d been after her first husband Martin’s death.

  Fiona had been angered to discover that Martin had borrowed against both his shoe repair business and their house to feed a gambling habit she hadn’t previously known about, engaging in poker games at the Kinship Inn’s speakeasy. Fiona had gone to the speakeasy with only a vague plan for demanding to know who Martin had lost his money to. When she started asking around, though, a brute grabbed her arm so hard that she thought it would crack in his fist. Instinctive defensiveness arose quickly from a nearly forgotten past, and she’d spit in his face. He’d slapped her—and a tall, stark man in a fine suit intervened. Abe Miller, the right-hand man of the great George Vogel, acting at George’s behest. Later, she’d piece together that even then George was in Kinship looking for just the right farm for his future plans.

  In that moment it was her behavior—that was the first time he called her a little spitfire—that sparked George’s interest. The realization of the power George wielded, casually yet absolutely, more than sparked Fiona’s interest. Shaping herself to his desires hadn’t been difficult. George had turned out to be a surprisingly thoughtful and gentle lover. Becoming his wife had brought her luxury and ease beyond her wildest dreams.

  Yet, so quickly, it had also cost her her dignity. Cost her the respect of her son.

  Now she has a plan to correct that. To divest herself of George but keep the luxury and ease, at least a goodly portion of it, if she can just outwit George. The first step is winning Aunt Nell over to do as George wants—but with a change that she’d thought up over the past two days.

  “I think,” Fiona goes on, “that you’ll find George is really quite generous. He wants to offer you a good price for this farm. Didn’t you and Uncle Henry used to talk about wanting to someday retire down to Florida? A cottage near the ocean?” Sentimentality crosses Aunt Nell’s face. “Well, with what George is willing to offer—”

  “He can’t possibly know anything about farming. Why would he want to buy?” Aunt Nell crosses her arms. “And why are we talking about this here?” At last, she glances at Uncle Henry’s grave, then back at Fiona, her expression conveying that such discussion here is desecration.

  Fiona frowns. She hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. “Well, he wants to buy it for me,” Fiona says. This is what George had told her to say. “So I have a place near Kinship.…”

  “Here? You hated it here,” Aunt Nell says, flicking her gaze toward the other hill with the hateful cabin. “Only visited once or twice after marrying Martin, moving to Kinship—and then only when he made you. May he rest in peace. Martin was a good man—not weak. And since you left Kinship as soon as you could hitch your wagon to George, you haven’t looked back.”

  Frustration grows in Fiona, keeping pace with the thickening snow. “George wants to buy it from you—and he will have it one way or another. For me. And … honestly, to convert the barn for storage and distribution of Vogel’s Tonic in the area. You’ve had Vogel’s Tonic, right?”

  Aunt Nell shrugs as if to say, Sure. Who hasn’t? So what.

  “Here’s the thing—if you told him you’d sell, but only to me, then I could turn it over to you at any time, later. If you didn’t like Florida.”

  Aunt Nell lifts an eyebrow, skeptical. “Why would you do that?”

  Ah, a reaction Fiona had anticipated. Aunt Nell is right to be skeptical. Fiona has no intention of ever turning it back over, but she has an answer she thinks Aunt Nell will like. “You and Uncle Henry saved my life, taking me in.”

  For a moment, Aunt Nell’s gaze softens. Understanding passes between the two women—and then Aunt Nell gives a short, barking laugh. “Henry saved you. I didn’t want to take you in. And I didn’t want him to go back after you.… Anyway, I’ve already met him. Your George Vogel.”

  “When … how…,” Fiona gasps, sucking in cold snowy air.

  “He came to visit us, just three weeks afore dear Henry passed on. Wanted to talk your uncle Henry into selling our farm to him. Told us that he knew how much having this farm, a place to stay and visit in your beloved home county, would mean to you. Course, Henry wouldn’t sell. He was right polite about it. Said you could visit anytime—no need to buy the farm. And your George seemed to easily accept no for an answer.” Your George. Fiona would laugh—George belongs to no one—but for her aunt’s pitchfork gaze, prodding and stirring, seeking to unbury within Fiona some realization that Aunt Nell appears to already grasp. “Then two weeks later, Henry died. Right out in the field, running the plow for the field’s final turn.”

  Fiona casts her gaze downward. Shadows of the bare limbs of the nearby oak weave a Spartan pattern on the dark, snow-dusted earth. Suddenly her head throbs, and her stomach pinches as if she’s swallowed a handful of straight pins. “A stroke, that’s what the obituary said. A stroke. I—I’m sorry we didn’t get out for the funeral—”

  “Look at me! Henry had a strong heart. When he didn’t come back proper for supper—well, I found him fallen alongside the rig. The mule had drawn the plow back over him, gashing his head. I saw boot prints, two sets, trailing off. That’s what I told Sheriff Lily Ross when she came out, but by the time she got here, too many other prints were around Henry—neighbor men who helped me move his body. She looked sorrowful enough, but disbelieving. Like she just pitied me for doubting Dr. Goshen saying it was a stroke that felled my poor Henry.”

  For a moment, the women stand before Henry’s fresh grave, widow and niece, connected by loss and understanding, the only thing between them the bright snow-sparkled wind.

  Then these words, soft and wispy, as if the wind carries them rather than Aunt Nell’s voice: “When Mr. Vogel came, he had a doctor with him—the one used to work in Kinship. Elias Ross.”

  Fiona swallows hard. George’s newest yes-man, on his way here with George and Abe. Uncle to Daniel, Lily’s deceased husband, and the sheriff before her.

  “Dr. Ross kept staring at Henry, like he was sizing him up,” Aunt Nell says. “I thought it strange at the time. Two weeks later … healthy man, a stroke? And Fiona, oh, when I found him, turned him over, well, I saw a lump on his head.”

  Fiona shivers, more from the image of her aunt kneeling over her uncle’s wrecked body than from the snow and wind. Martin—seeing him for the first time after his passing—crosses Fiona’s mind, and she blinks hard to push away the image.

  “Mentioned it to the sheriff and to Dr. Goshen. He said Henry would have gotten it when he fell from the seat. Sheriff Lily said the boot prints I saw were probably from Henry doing something with the rig—or that I’d stirred in the sight of the neighbors’ boot prints with his. So—what do I know, a farmwife like me?”

  Fiona crosses her arms, shivers, again not so much at the cold as at the knowledge that though it’s possible Uncle Henry really had died of a stroke, it’s just as possible George had acted ruthlessly, like the morning after their wedding—but she pushes that memory aside.

  She considers another memory—how unsurprised George had been by the news of Uncle Henry’s passing. How smoothly he suggested visiting, as if for the first time. And why had he kept that visit from her?

  Of course George would arrange to have her uncle removed when he would not bend to his will. It is exactly what George would do.

  Just for an additional storage and distribution facility for Vogel’s Tonic?

  There must be more at stake than that. Something else George is hiding from her—just like his mistresses, though those have become more of an open secret.

  Fiona inhales the bracing coldness. Either way, it’s to her advantage to play along with her aunt’s belief that George had somehow been involved in Uncle Henry’s death.

  Fiona looks back at her aunt. “Well then. All the more reason to make sure that this land goes to me—not t
o George. He will find a way to get it, one way or another. Tell him you’ll sell to me, and I’ll take care of … things … going forward.”

  Aunt Nell looks skeptical. “How?”

  Fiona smiles. “I don’t want to trouble you with details—”

  Aunt Nell crosses her arms, pinches her lips together. Fiona knows this look all too well. Her aunt will not budge without a bit more convincing.

  “Have you heard about the US versus Sullivan Supreme Court ruling?” Fiona asks.

  Aunt Nell looks blank.

  “Well, it was settled just this past spring. I read about it in the Cincinnati newspapers,” Fiona says. She’d read everything then, just to keep her emotions and thoughts from racing about George’s affairs. She’d started with the advice columns, which hadn’t helped; moved on to serial stories, which bored her. Yet desperate to stay distracted—it still hurt her so that George had hit her, something Martin would never have done—she began reading crime and legal news, and found that fascinating. And much more helpful than advice columns.

  “It’s a case that allows prosecution of criminals for income tax evasion.” Fiona can’t help but let pride creep into her voice, at her own knowledge. “Even income through criminal means.”

  After a moment, understanding overcomes the blankness on Aunt Nell’s face.

  Fiona puts a hand to her abdomen. “Once George knows about his—our—child, he will want to protect his assets for the child’s future. How better than by putting assets in my name?”

  She’d imagined herself asking him in a tremulous, soft voice, But what happens, George, if somehow you are found out? While he didn’t share details of his criminal activities, he also didn’t keep them well hidden from her. And the revenuers can take all your assets? What will happen to—and here she’d put her, no, his hand gently on her belly—to our son? Your son.

  Of course, there’s no way to know if she’ll have a son or daughter. But she’ll go with son. That would better please a man like George.

  Leverage. The first time she’d thought of this new baby as just that, she’d been appalled by her own sentiment. Then she’d told herself, it could be true both that the infant would be leverage and that she’d love it just as much as Leon. A man like George—his first child? He’ll be proud. Do whatever he can to ensure its safety. Its future. This baby would be proof of his manhood—especially at age fifty-three. Why, he’d put the interests of his own child ahead of hers, or Abe Miller’s, or even his own.

  Aunt Nell casts a doubtful look. “And you think you have the guts to follow through on such a plan? You never were as resolute as you liked to think—”

  “I was a child!”

  For a long moment, the only sound in the cemetery is the hollow wind whispering between them, as if of atrocities best left buried with the dead.

  “Well, with Henry gone,” Aunt Nell says, “it’s true that only I can sell the farmland. And I have gotten weary of being here.” She casts a spiteful look across the hollow to the hill with the cabin where she’d grown up. “I always wanted to get away from here. Early on, Henry promised we’d go far away. Put this entire region out of mind. But this farm had been in his family for generations—just like that, that patch of land and cabin was in ours. I wanted to go. He wanted to stay. And I loved him, so…”

  So she stayed. In that trailing off is something else. A longing that never quite died to get away, far, far away, and not just because Florida is exotic and warm.

  If Aunt Nell truly believes George had had Uncle Henry killed, her resolve to thwart George by not selling might be stronger than her longing to leave. Fiona resists the temptation to speak, to push Aunt Nell too hard. She lets the fragile moment play out.

  Aunt Nell breaks the silence with a harsh question: “How do you know I won’t just tell your George about this conversation?”

  Fiona doesn’t flinch as she replies, “You might. But then, I’ll deny it. It won’t change anything about George wanting this farm. Once he gets his mind made up that he wants something, he pursues it ruthlessly.…” She pauses. That had been, she thought, true of her—though she’d offered little resistance, seeing him as a quick and easy way to what she thought she wanted: riches, security. Maybe if she’d put up more resistance, he’d have at least waited longer before having affairs. “And why sell it directly to him? He’ll pay the lowest he can get away with. I can beseech George to give you a much nicer price. Plus, consider your insinuations about Uncle Henry. What happens if I tell George about those?” Aunt Nell blanches, as Fiona offers up a slow, even smile. “And, come to think of it, what becomes of this land if something happens, unfortunately, to you?”

  Aunt Nell inhales sharply. That’s right, Fiona thinks. As the only kin—I inherit anyway. So long as Aunt Nell hasn’t written up a new will. And from her telling gasp, she hasn’t. “Uncle Henry would want me to do things this way. To make sure you’re taken care of.”

  “Why do you hate me so?” Aunt Nell asks.

  “Why did you hate me? I know I was like a daughter to Uncle Henry. I wanted to be like a daughter to you. But you would have sent me back—”

  “You were nothing more than a reminder.”

  At that, it’s Fiona turn to gasp, and cold fills her, burning as only the hardest unrelenting chill can. She stops shivering.

  “It’s up to you, Aunt Nell. You can have sufficient funds from this farm, in the warm land far away in Florida, knowing that you can trust me to … well, set things right for Uncle Henry? After all he did for both of us?”

  At that, tears well in Aunt Nell’s eyes. Her shoulders slump, and she looks like no more than what she is—an old, weary woman.

  Fiona goes on a bit more gently. “All you have to do is agree to sell—but to me. Your only kin. No one can blame you for that. Just talk about how blood runs deep in these hills. Can you do that?”

  Movement at the bottom of the hill, down on the road by the turnoff, catches the gazes of both Fiona and Aunt Nell.

  Another Model T, driving slowly up the lane toward the farmhouse, a dark dot progressing under the sparkling snow.

  That would be George Vogel and his two yes-men, Abe Miller and Elias Ross.

  Fiona’s heart quickens. She looks back at her aunt, now shivering so hard that her teeth clack together. The movement makes her seem weak, broken, but after a moment Aunt Nell manages to stutter, “I-I can do that. I promise.”

  Fiona takes off Aunt Nell’s coat. She no longer needs it. She drapes it back around Aunt Nell, puts her arm around her, and starts to walk her back.

  Aunt Nell stops, making them both stand still. She glances at the hill with the cabin, and Fiona realizes it’s for one last time. Aunt Nell says as soft as the feathery snow drifting around them, “Careful, lest by hating you become what—or who—you most hate.”

  Are the words for herself—or for Fiona?

  They walk down the hill, away from the cemetery, back to the farmhouse where George awaits.

  CHAPTER 3

  LILY

  Thursday, November 24, 1927

  1:42 p.m.

  Lily gazes over her dining table laden with abundance: the wild turkey, which she and Marvena had bagged on a hunting trip just two days before, taking Jolene and the boys with them, though Mama fussed and clucked and said Jolene should stay behind with her and Frankie, then relented at Jolene’s crestfallen expression. Corn-bread stuffing, aromatic with sage. Mashed potatoes in the good cut-glass bowl, gravy in the white ceramic tureen, home-canned green beans, pickled corn, even pickled eggs turned purplish red from pickled beet juice. Usually, those were saved for Easter, but Caleb Jr. had begged for them and finally Lily relented—as Mama had done with Jolene going on the hunt. Later, Lily had caught her listening with rapt attention as Jolene told her all about it.

  Mama’s rolls in a wicker basket, lined with washed and pressed tea towels.

  Soft butter the children had made, shaking heavy cream in pint-size canning jars that afternoo
n—a good way to keep them out from underfoot while contributing to the lavish dinner.

  And of course pies—pumpkin from the sugar pumpkins Lily’d grown, plus apple from the jar that Ruth Harkins had sent, which Lily had made at the last minute because that’s Micah’s favorite, and even a sorghum pie brought along by Hildy Cooper, Lily’s best friend, who now teaches in Rossville, one of the coal-mining villages in the eastern part of the county.

  Lily’s and Hildy’s eyes meet across the table, and Lily smiles at her dear friend. Nineteen twenty-six had been challenging for both of them: Lily running for reelection as sheriff of Bronwyn County while investigating the fraught case of an elderly woman’s murder, Hildy insisting she must help, to the point of putting her own life in danger. Truth be told, their lifelong friendship had been strained in ways neither could have anticipated or imagined.

  But 1927 has been calm thus far and there’s no reason that the rest of it shouldn’t be as well. Even more wonderful than the plentiful food is the abundance of people at the tables in the dining room, alight with coal-oil lamps and the candle chandelier over the dining table.

  The children are gathered at the smaller kitchen worktable, covered with a pressed, embroidered tablecloth just for this occasion: Lily’s daughter, Jolene, and son, Micah; Lily’s little brother, Caleb Jr.; Marvena’s daughter, Frankie; and her nephew, Alistair.

  At the adults’ table sit Marvena and her husband, coal miner and union organizer Jurgis Sacovech, and next to him his sweet mother, whom everyone calls Nana, sitting on one side of Mama. Lily smiles—within moments after “Amen” concludes their grace, Mama and Nana will be clucking away at each other, friendly old hens.

  On the other side are Hildy and, next to her, her betrothed, Tom Whitcomb, Marvena’s widower brother and Alistair’s father. A flash of memory sends a shuddery slash up Lily’s spine—two years ago, Alistair had nearly died in a coal-mining accident, but, through sheer will and the grace of God, she and Marvena had saved him. Now he’s a tall, lanky thirteen-year-old, stroppy limbs keening toward adulthood, beaming with a goofy smile as he teases the others—the eight-year-old girls who snub him, and the six-year-old boys who adore him.