by Debbie Burns
Searching for words to do this story justice, I gaze out the window at the gray and white of winter and remember a summer that was the most significant of my life.
Close to a year before it, I met the man my mother and father intended for me. I was fifteen. The man, Francis, wasn’t much younger than my own father, and the idea of entering his bed was horrifying. Still, I knew the path expected of me; my father’s fortune was dwindling even before the Depression came knocking on our door. If I wanted to live the life I’d been brought up to embrace, I would need to marry well.
But my body wasn’t stirred by the promise of fortune. As our wedding date neared, I lived on stolen kisses under arbors and in quiet corners at parties. When I turned sixteen, at my parents’ urging, I married your father. I was brought here to live in this house that has been in his family for so long. From the first day I laid eyes upon it, I loved this house and its gardens—far more than I ever loved any of those boys.
With the money that came to me by marriage, I began to dress smarter and had my hair styled as the women do in Bazaar. And I imagined every man, single and married alike, to be wildly in love with me.
By then, the Depression had stormed into Galena, as it had the rest of America. Shops and banks had closed. Homes were boarded up. Vagrant men, and even families, filled street corners. Bread lines were long, and not enough loaves available.
One summer afternoon, I was walking in town and spotted a newcomer sitting on a bench, his head and shoulders hung low. I paused, as was my habit—long enough to allow him to take in the shortness of my hem and the shape of my calf. He was handsome enough, though at the time, my only interest in him was that he looked my way longingly, even if only for a few seconds.
But he didn’t, even when I circled back the opposite direction. I walked on, wondering what it would take to get the stranger’s attention, to have him look at me as other men did. I wandered along the banks of the river and passed by him again in town on my way home. When he still didn’t notice me, I spoke to him. He had the most remarkable eyes I’d ever seen. Bright blue-green and full of sorrow. He answered my question—I don’t remember any longer what it was—and looked away.
A challenge rose within me then. I wanted this man to see me. He was handsome and young and broken, and in that moment, my life had a purpose again.
But who is there in our youth to tell us that, once some thresholds are crossed, life will be forever changed? Such are the big chapters of my life. Wife. Adulteress. Mother.
On my wedding day, my mother wrapped flowers in my hair and sprayed perfume on my wrists, but she spoke nothing of the ways of the heart. I doubt I could have stopped myself from loving him even if she had. Myron O’Brien, God rest his soul.
Myron needed work, and I needed a carpenter. The house always needed repairs; there were rooms that needed painting and papering. Bricks needed tuck-pointing.
My love for Myron grew like a puzzle coming together. The polite way he took his tea. How he stood in the rain one afternoon and turned his head and palms to the sky, the world around him glowing like a halo. The courteous nod of his head when our eyes met. The hint of a smile he couldn’t suppress at certain jokes I told. The security I felt when my heel broke and he caught me up in his capable hands. The smell of his skin: soap, sawdust, sweat, and cologne. The hearty sound of his laughter the few times he allowed it to escape.
Soon, I experienced a yearning for him deeper than anything I had known. I cried myself to sleep believing there was no greater wrong in the world than keeping me from this man I had grown to love. As fate would have it, the day came when I realized the man who’d become the center of my universe was also treating me as the center of his.
But if our love was fated, it was a shooting star.
By the time I realized I was pregnant with you, I was attempting to walk in two very different worlds. Your father, I think, knew about my love for Myron even before I told him. He was willing to forgive me for my infidelity so long as I never saw Myron again.
Gentleman that he was, Francis kept my affair quiet and allowed me the duration of my pregnancy to decide on my path forward. I spent those months reflecting on my choice. To raise you in this home, I would have to shut myself off from my heart. To leave Galena with the man I loved, I would have to walk away from the only life I had known. I would have to leave everything safe and familiar and never see my family again. Leave these comforting walls and the remarkable backyard that’s aglow with lightning bugs every July.
But love is an untamable thing. It grows like a vine and defies attempts to uproot it. Those months of my pregnancy, I didn’t know which man your father was. My decision might have been easier if I had.
It wasn’t until I held you in my arms for the first time and saw Myron in you that I knew. In that delirium of profound motherly love, I confided the truth to my mother, believing she would understand. I would leave Francis, leave Galena, leave my mother and father. Myron and I were meant to be together. You were meant to be raised by the man whose seed had created you.
But that was not to be. The next morning, I sent a letter to Myron at his room in town but received no response. I sent another letter and another. Days passed into weeks, and I began to fear he had abandoned me. Recovering from your birth as I was, no rumors of his disappearance reached my ears. Not until his body was found over three weeks later. The rumors that created became so thick, they pressed in through the windows and walls.
In a twist of fate, it was Myron’s murder that enabled the man you know as your father and me to grow closer. I could tell you a hundred lovely things about Francis that I’ve learned in the days since, but I know there is no need. Your father—by nurture if not nature—is a good man, and you will know his worth and kindness without my proclaiming them.
Do trust, Myra, that your father had no hand in Myron’s death. He was upstate hunting with my father when you were born a month early and Myron was killed.
I would never have believed who pulled the trigger had Myron’s murderer not confessed to me. To this day, my mind races in disbelief that the woman who raised me to keep my back straight and elbows off the table and to triple knot my thread in cross-stitch, shot to death the man I loved. She claimed it was a bout of insanity, fed by the belief she was saving my life.
There was at least one witness to my mother’s crime, a vagrant who helped her get Myron’s body to the river in the dark of night. I can only assume she paid him well, because he never came forward despite a generous reward offered for information leading to the arrest of Myron’s murderer.
You will have no memory of my mother. From the day of her confession until this one, I have never again spoken to her, nor will she have any role in your life after I am gone. Francis has promised as much. Yet, blood proved thicker than water; I did not turn her in for her crime.
This, my dearest Myra, is the story that weighs on me so heavily. In the quiet of fall afternoons when the dry leaves salute the sky before dropping off their branches, I hear them whispering to me to tell you. I hear the same whispers in the wind that whips around the house in winter storms, and in the tapping of spring rains on the windows.
Two honorable men have enabled you to spend your carefree afternoons playing in the garden. One gave you life, the other offers you pieces of himself every day. Will you blame me for staying here in the wake of Myron’s passing? Without Myron, I was lost. In Francis’ willingness to forgive me and to love you like his own daughter, I found a friend who has carried me through.
In you, my dearest Myra, I found a love as great as the love I had for your namesake. I hope you will believe me when I tell you I would take every step again to bring you into this world.
For all else, I hope you forgive me.
Love,
Your mother
Knowing there was nothing to do but tell Myra the truth, Josie headed inside.
/> Myra was with Carter at the kitchen table. They were finishing off slices of leftover wedding cake, a lemon pound cake topped with buttercream icing, fresh mint, and raspberries that everyone had raved about.
“Hungry, dear?” Myra asked. “We debated bringing you a sandwich, but you seemed entirely transfixed. I thought best not to disturb you.”
In the face of everyday conversation and leftover wedding cake, Josie felt like a bat who’d flown out of a cave into bright sunlight. “I’m not hungry right now, and I was.”
“Well then, how’d it go?”
Your father isn’t your father. Josie’s mind was going to be reeling for some time. The irony of it.
“Was it difficult?”
“Not really. Some of the words threw me, but I was able to figure them out.” She remembered the look on Nico’s face when she’d asked him to teach her Italian. Skeptical but intrigued. They’d been friends for a few months, and she’d already picked up a handful of everyday words. Even though Francie had been in the United States since she was fifteen and was fluent in English, she preferred speaking her native language at home. Nico had learned it as a child when Francie was babysitting him.
“Your fluency in Italian, mind if I ask where it came from?” Carter asked, sitting back in his chair and wiping his mouth. There was an unmasked curiosity on his face that made her adrenaline spike.
“Rosetta Stone.” Josie eyed him as coolly as she could. She’d played Two Truths and a Lie enough to know not to look away too quickly.
He cocked an eyebrow but said nothing.
“Well, shall we?” Myra asked into the silence lingering between them. “How about we join you on the patio?”
“Sure. I left everything out there.”
Carter trailed out the door behind Josie. “So, how long did it take to reach complete fluency like that?”
“Not long. It was something I wanted to do.”
As they took a seat, it occurred to her that translating those words and saying them aloud were two different things.
Myra placed a hand over hers. “I want you to give it to me straight. Word for word, as accurately as you can.”
“I will.” She cleared her throat. Carter and his grandfather—with their uncanny resemblance—had practically blended into one person in her imagination.
Moving the prayer book aside, she clutched the loose-leaf paper in hand and began to read. She hardly dared to pause, even when she read Myron’s name aloud the first time and saw, out of the corner of her eye, both Myra and Carter shift in their seats.
When she finished, Josie locked her gaze on the lined paper in front of her. Reminding herself that she didn’t bear any blame as a translator didn’t relieve her guilt over being the one to bring this news to them.
“As she mentioned, my mother was just a few weeks shy of seventeen when she married my father,” Myra said finally. “He was forty-one. Even back then, I’m certain their marriage was a scandal. But I don’t know that I accept that she could be so certain of his lack of paternity based on one glimpse at an infant. Or that the wonderful man who raised me wasn’t my father.”
“It’s possible she was wrong,” Carter said, his tone soft and compassionate.
Myra wiped at a few stray tears. “My father was a good man. The kindest father, friend, and brother he could be. And he taught me to appreciate a good cup of tea. A cuppa, as he called it. To think he raised me so selflessly; I can only love him more.”
Josie gathered the nerve to look at Carter. An uncharacteristic frown was visible on his face, but he said nothing.
“I’m sorry about your grandfather’s fate,” Myra said, looking at Carter. “To think his life ended at the hand of my grandmother, I can hardly grasp it.”
“It isn’t your fault, Myra. And it wasn’t your mother’s either.”
“My parents are long gone, obviously, but Carter, those DNA tests I hear talk of, would they be able tell us if we’re related?”
He nodded. “Definitely. If that’s a step you want to take.”
“If my mother’s belief is true, it would make your father my half-brother.” She placed a hand over Carter’s. “And you my nephew. There’s so much to take in right now. It may take me a few days to gather the courage, but most certainly, it’s a step we should take.”
Josie couldn’t say why, but it seemed as if a rug was being swept out from under her. And she couldn’t help but wonder if things were ever going to be the same again.
Chapter 14
Carter might never understand what led his grandfather to Galena that summer, but Abigail’s letter had given him a bigger glimpse into Myron’s life. The man Abigail described first seeing on the bench had been a dejected one. Carter felt safe to assume his grandfather had been weighed down by both his decision to leave his wife and child and by the people who’d lost their livelihoods after he’d closed the doors of a company who’d supported so many.
Only, what had made him stay here? Had Myron been pulled in by Abigail from the start, or had he been too ashamed to return home? Or something in between? Carter would never know.
And maybe it was because he was crushing on her, but Carter hadn’t been able to get the image of Josie as Myra’s young mother out of his head as Josie read the letter. Without meaning to, he’d memorized the exact light-red shade of her hair, the curve of her chin, the silky, clear sound of her voice, of her words, as she read. And none of this made it easier to digest the fate of his grandfather. Putting out his third cigarette only halfway through it, he headed up the sloping hillside and inside through the back of the house. Josie was in the kitchen at the sink, drying the glass pitcher from their lemonade.
Carter tossed his cigarette butts and the rest of his nearly full pack into the trash can. “If I don’t stop this now, I’ll be up to a pack a day in no time.”
“I’ve heard that about how easy it is to get hooked again.” There was a softness to her tone he’d not heard before. Not directed toward him, anyway. Maybe this foray into Abigail’s hidden life would chip away at those walls of hers.
“Yeah, well, do me a favor, will you?” He worked to keep his tone lighter than he felt. “If I cave and bring another pack into the house, will you toss them for me, then slap me in the face?”
A small laugh bubbled out, and she shook her head. “Happily.”
“I mean it, too, you little sadist.”
“So do I.” Maybe it was primal, and she didn’t even notice, but he could sense her responding to his banter. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. The more he got to know her, the more certain he was. “But right now, I’m heading out for a run,” she added, drying her hands with a towel. “If you succumb in a moment of weakness while I’m gone, I’ll have to slap you later.”
“A run? Want some company?”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, and she shook her head. “Uh, no, not at all.”
Her tone was too light to put him off. “Come on, you could very likely be saving my life. If I can get back into jogging, maybe I won’t cave into the nicotine cravings.” When she seemed to be considering it, he added, “And if I go jogging alone, I could get lost and end up in the wrong end of town.”
“There’s no wrong end of town here,” she said, laughing. “Besides, you just chain-smoked a half-dozen cigarettes. You aren’t in any shape to run.”
“Maybe, but I’m betting I’ve participated in more runs and triathlons than you have years on you. So, there’s that. Even if it has been a while.”
It took her a second to answer. “Fine, but when your lungs seize up, I’m not going to let you slow me down. I’ve got to change first. If you’re set on this, you can meet me out front in five.”
He winked. “It’s a date.”
Her lips pressed into a line for a split second. “No, it isn’t. It’s not even close.”
While waiting for her to change, he headed out front. After walking down to the base of the front-porch steps, he turned to appraise the house. Was his grandfather’s craftmanship still evident in places? Most likely, it was. After Abigail’s letter, Carter could envision a young man who’d been as enthralled with the remarkable house—and the young woman within it—as much as he was.
But Josie wasn’t married. At least, he assumed she wasn’t. As secretive as she was about her past, she could be hiding anything.
When she stepped out of the house, her knee-length leggings and clingy tank had his imagination spinning into overdrive. She might not be a perfectly packaged beauty like Myra’s mother seemed to have been, but he liked that even better. She’d not made any effort to catch his attention. It was the opposite, in fact.
But caught it she had.
He couldn’t help but wonder what something between them could lead to. He hadn’t come here to stay more than a night, two at most. Hell, he’d expected to be on the West Coast driving along Route 101 by now. But Josie and Myra and the house—the whole town, in fact—had a surprising draw. Enough to write off getting to California this year.
Still caught up in his grandfather’s story, it didn’t hurt to remind himself that he wasn’t Myron, and Josie wasn’t Abigail.
“You know, I wasn’t kidding when I said I don’t like company on my runs.” She swept her red-gold hair into a ponytail. When he mocked being hurt and clasped his hand over his chest, her lips pressed into a tight line, but her stifled smile still lit her eyes.
“If you ask me, you might be too stubborn to admit what it is you really like. Maybe even to yourself.”
“And I suspect you’re so perfectly attuned to me that you have the answer?” She used the stair above her to tighten her laces. Her back and legs were long and had all the right curves, and he ached to close his hands over her hips. He was about to answer when she stood up again and held up a finger. “That was rhetorical, Carter. Let’s go if you really mean this.” She hopped down the rest of the stone steps and moved straight into a jog.