I’d read a chapter and a half when I heard pounding on the front door. Setting down the book, I headed for the stairs. The pounding was ceaseless and loud and I remembered the agents who’d searched the house the night before. Were they back with the police?
I pulled open the door to find Byron Dare on the porch, the pink sunset sky behind him.
“There’s a fire at the plant!” he said. “I see Hank’s car’s not here. Do you and Ruth want a ride over there?”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. I never referred to the factory as a “plant.” Then it sank in. The sirens. Henry was there, most likely with Honor, and I felt suddenly panicky.
“Ruth is out, but yes!” I said, grabbing my handbag from the table near the door. “Please take me!”
We raced down the walkway and across the street to his car, and he started driving off before I’d even shut the door.
“How do you know there’s a fire?” I asked.
“I heard the sirens and called the police to find out what was happening,” he said. “Where’s Hank?”
“He’s at the factory, as far as I know,” I said. I twisted my rings around nervously on my finger.
“He probably got out just fine.” Mr. Dare glanced at me. “Don’t worry.”
We drove in silence for another block or so, and the sky darkened. Both of us seemed to realize at the same moment that it was not sundown creating the darkness but smoke, and bits of ash began to settle on the windshield. I swallowed hard and saw Mr. Dare’s fists tighten on the steering wheel.
“A furniture factory would go up like tinder,” he said, more to himself than to me, and I braced myself for what we would find ahead of us.
When we turned the corner, we could see the blaze a couple of blocks ahead of us. The sight was shocking, flame and smoke licking from every window of the massive two-story brick building.
“Oh my God,” I said, my hand to my mouth. I shut my eyes momentarily, thinking, Please let them have gotten out okay.
We drove a short distance farther and saw a crowd of people congregating in the street. They stood en masse, pointing toward the building, lit up by the flames a block away. A policeman stepped in front of the car, holding up his hand to stop us. He walked around to the driver’s side.
“Mr. Dare,” he said, obviously recognizing him. “You can’t get any closer. We have to keep people back.”
I leaned forward so the policeman could see me. “I’m Tess Kraft,” I said. “Hank’s wife. Did he get out okay?”
A muscle in the man’s cheek twitched as he looked toward the building and the flames lit up his eyes. “We don’t know,” he said. “His car is in the parking lot, but we don’t know if he’s inside or out. The fire ain’t under control enough for anyone to go in to look for folks.”
“I want to get closer,” I said, opening the car door.
“No, ma’am, you can’t,” the officer said.
“She’s his wife,” Mr. Dare said, surprising me with his support. “Let her do what she wants.”
I got out of the car and started running toward the factory before anyone could stop me. The sky was black and filled with bulbous clouds of smoke, and the smell in the air was part flame, part chemical. Before I’d gone half a block, I had to stop. It was hard to breathe and my eyes watered and stung. Fire trucks and police cars were parked at crazy angles in the street, and ahead of me I saw the firemen aiming their hoses at flames that licked from the windows. The sound of breaking glass joined the sirens and the whoosh of water and the shouts of the men.
“Tess!”
The voice came from somewhere to my right, and I turned to see Zeke walking quickly toward me across a vacant lot.
“Zeke!” I rushed toward him. Grabbed his arm. “Did Henry get out?” I lowered my voice, although there was no way anyone could hear me over the chaotic sounds of the scene. “Was Honor in there too?”
“Honor’s home,” he said. “I was just coming back from taking her home when I heard the sirens. The place was already up in flames when I got here and I was gone no more than twenty minutes.”
“Did he get out!” I shook his arm, panicky.
He didn’t answer right away but looked toward the flames, squinting against the caustic air. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I pray to the Lord he did, but I just don’t know.”
79
The fire burned for five more hours, finally coming under control around two in the morning. By that time, Ruth and I were both back at the house, sitting rigidly next to each other on the living room sofa, waiting for news. Hattie and Zeke were with us, Hattie wringing her hands as she sat on the ottoman. Zeke stood by the front windows, watching the dark street as though he hoped Henry might come strolling up to the house at any moment. I thought we all knew the truth by then. If Henry were alive, surely he would have gotten in touch with us.
Teddy Wright stopped by to tell us the firemen were finally inside the factory, searching for “anyone who might have been in there.” He stood nervously in the doorway between the foyer and the living room, his cap in his hands. “It looks like it started in the boiler room,” he said. “They think a spark from the boiler ignited some sawdust.”
“Damn.” Zeke shook his head. “Sawdust is like gasoline,” he said. “Touch it with a spark and it explodes.”
“I thought the boiler room was protected from the rest of the building,” I said.
“Looks like the windows were open and the fire spread,” Teddy said.
“We got a new igniter for the boiler today,” Zeke said to Teddy. “I was at the polio hospital so I didn’t get to install it. Hank might’ve tried to do it himself.”
“Oh dear God in heaven.” Ruth lowered her head to her hands and I rested my palm on her back. I was afraid of the images running through my own mind. I could only imagine what this was like for her.
“I’m going back over there,” Teddy said. “I just wanted to tell y’all the fire was out.”
“You let us know anything you find out, hear?” Zeke walked him to the door almost like it was his house and he was in charge, and I thought Ruth and I were happy to let him take on that role. We were too numb and frightened to do much more than sit on the sofa, our hands knotted in our laps.
* * *
At three, I insisted Ruth go to bed and Hattie return to her cottage. Zeke offered to stay with me, but I sent him to Adora’s … once I realized that his home, that lovely room at the factory, was now in ashes.
“Honor must be going out of her mind, not knowing,” I whispered as I walked him to the door.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said rather formally. He seemed uncomfortable to be acknowledging Henry and Honor’s relationship so openly. “I should go be with her.”
“Thanks for staying with us, Zeke,” I said.
He looked like he wanted to say something more, but gave his head a shake. “There’s still hope,” he said finally. “Until we know different, we got to hold on to that.”
* * *
I was sitting alone in the living room an hour later, nursing a cooled cup of tea, when Teddy returned. I let him into the foyer.
“Please sit down, ma’am,” he said quietly, and if I hadn’t already known the nature of his visit, I knew it then. I walked stiffly into the living room with him close on my heels and lowered myself again onto the sofa. I looked up at him. He’d taken off his hat once more and held it between his hands.
“They found him?” I asked.
He nodded. “They weren’t sure it was him at first,” he said. “He was in the boiler room and everything was…” He turned his hat around and around in his hands. He was so young. He wasn’t used to delivering this sort of news. “The fire burned real hot and long in there,” he said. “The firemen said it was like one of them crematoriums. There wasn’t too much left. Just…”
“Just what?” I prompted.
“Just mostly down to the bones,” he said.
“Oh m
y God.” I was horrified, glad Ruth wasn’t in the room to hear this. The only comfort I could take from the scenario he described was that the end had probably been fast.
“I shouldn’t of said that,” Teddy said quickly, his voice a bit frantic. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t of put it that way.”
“How do they know for sure it was Henry, then?” I asked, although really, who else could it have been?
“The um…” Teddy looked like he was searching for the right thing to say. “The remains was charred real good,” he said, “but the left hand? It only had the thumb and forefinger on it.”
For some reason, that crushed me. His words felt like a sledgehammer to my chest, and I began to sob, my head bowed nearly to my knees. I thought of how Henry and I had finally connected over the past couple of weeks. How he’d shared the real Henry with me. How he’d loved Honor for most of his life and treasured the son and daughter he could never acknowledge as his. He’d had a sad life and now this tragic end. I hugged myself as I sobbed, ignoring Teddy who stood wordlessly nearby, unsure what to say. The depth of my pain surprised me. The realness of it.
“And there was this,” Teddy said finally.
I looked up as he pulled something from his shirt pocket. He reached toward me. I held out my hand and he dropped the object into it. Henry’s wedding ring.
I clutched the ring in my fist. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I’ll let myself out,” he said.
I didn’t watch him go. Instead I stared at the ring in my hand. It was all that was left of my husband. “I’m so sorry, Henry,” I whispered to the air. “So, so sorry.”
I’d wanted to be free of this marriage, I thought. But I’d never wanted my freedom at such a cost.
80
It seemed like all of Hickory turned out for Henry’s funeral. At the time of Lucy’s death, I hadn’t truly realized the depth of respect the town had for the Kraft family. I hadn’t known who all these people were. After Lucy’s funeral, I’d viewed the guests who came to the house simply as townspeople who distrusted and disliked me. Now I saw most of them as generous people who’d helped create a hospital that was saving lives, and I could tell by the sympathy they showed me, by the way they took my hands in theirs, that they saw me as a part of that effort. I knew they’d finally come to accept me as a genuine part of Hickory.
At Ruth’s invitation, Adora, Honor, Zeke, and Hattie had walked into the church with us and sat in our pew as if they were part of the family. People knew the linked histories of the Johnson and Kraft families—how Adora had worked for the Krafts for decades and how her children had grown up with Henry and Lucy—and I was unaware of any sideways glances at seeing us all come in together. I hadn’t been at Lucy’s funeral, but I supposed the same scenario had played out there as well. I wondered if anyone other than Honor, Zeke, Adora, and myself knew that Honor’s connection to the family went far deeper than mine. All that was missing was the marriage certificate Honor could never hope to see and the rings on my finger that, in a different world, would be on hers.
This was the first time I’d seen Honor since the night I’d surprised her and Henry at the factory and I was sure she felt embarrassed and possibly ashamed for betraying me. She’d avoided my eyes before we walked into the church and now she sat at one end of the pew while I sat at the other. I wanted to clear the air between us. I wanted to tell her that Henry had helped me understand. I wanted her to know that the tears I cried while the minister spoke were more for her than for myself.
* * *
After the funeral, many of the attendees returned to the house to mingle and chat and eat the food Hattie had gotten up before dawn to prepare. I was certain I wasn’t the only person feeling a strong sense of déjà vu, having been through this same affair for Lucy so recently. Much had changed since then, and today I felt able to greet people with my head held high. I was able to accept their sympathy. Lucy’s close friends still gave me wide berth, and Violet most definitely avoided me, cutting me the occasional hateful look as though I’d been the person to strike the match. Her eyes were red rimmed and I wondered again if Henry had tried to start an affair with her. She didn’t know that she was being spared a lifetime in a sham marriage.
As it was with Lucy’s post-funeral gathering at the house, Honor passed trays of food, and I wondered how she was managing to hold her emotions together. It was so wrong, I thought, for her to be working when she was actually a grieving widow—or as close to a grieving widow as she could be. Like Violet, she avoided my eyes—avoided me altogether, actually—as she moved through the living room with her tray. It was up to me to make the first overture, and when I was finally able to catch her alone in the hall on her way back to the kitchen, I stopped her, my hand on her arm.
“I’m so sorry, Honor,” I said, my voice a whisper. “I know how much he loved you.”
She lifted her chin, a bead of tears on her lower eyelids. “Thank you,” she said. She looked as though she wanted to say more, but people were beginning to fill the hall and she simply nodded. “Thank you,” she said again, and walked back to the kitchen.
* * *
Early that evening, Hattie knocked on the open door to my bedroom, where I was organizing my uniform, shoes, and stockings for the following day. I needed to go back to the hospital. Back to work. I needed to be near Vincent.
“What is it, Hattie?” I asked.
“Mr. Dare here to see you and Miss Ruth,” she said. “They down in the living room.”
“Mr. Dare?” I asked as I hung my uniform in the closet. “What about?”
Hattie looked uncomfortable. “Mr. Hank’s money, I think,” she half whispered as though embarrassed to be talking about something so personal.
I’d given little thought to Henry’s money or who would inherit it. I assumed the bulk of it would go to Ruth, and as long as I had enough to start my life over and surreptitiously give some of it to Honor for Jilly, that would be fine. I thanked Hattie and went downstairs.
“Good, there you are.” Mr. Dare stood up from the chair near the empty fireplace as I entered the living room. He held a thin folder in his hand. “I wanted to speak to both you and your mother-in-law at the same time.”
“All right,” I said, sitting down on the sofa. Ruth was in the chair nearest the windows and she didn’t look at me as I took my seat.
“I know you both must be exhausted after the last few days,” he said, sitting down again and resting the folder on his knees. “Especially after today,” he added. “It was a lovely service though.”
“Thank you, Byron,” Ruth said. The evening light from the window illuminated every line on her pale face and I was stunned to see the change in her. She’d aged dramatically in the few days since Henry’s death. Her hands were folded together in her lap and they looked bony and white.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t able to persuade Hank to write a will,” Mr. Dare said. “I know he planned to do so back when he thought he’d marry Violet.” He shrugged, then nodded in my direction. “And it seems he never got around to it after he married you, despite my encouragement.”
I heard no animosity in his voice, although surely he still felt some toward me for stealing Henry away from his daughter.
“And you must know his estate will have to go through probate,” he said, “so what that means, Tess … and Ruth, is that it will be a couple of years before you receive your inheritance. Tess, you’ll receive a small sum to live on in the meantime.”
I nodded. I wasn’t exactly sure what “probate” meant except that it was a time-consuming process.
“So, the way the law’s written makes it a bit complicated.” Mr. Dare opened the folder and removed a single sheet of paper. “Since Hank didn’t make his wishes known, the law says that the two of you will split his savings and any stocks and bonds he might have. As close as I can figure”—he glanced at the paper—“he has about five hundred thousand between his bank accounts and inves
tments.”
I thought my face must have gone as white as Ruth’s. Half of five hundred thousand dollars? I felt too numb to respond, and Mr. Dare continued.
“Ruth, you’ll get two thirds of the insurance money on the factory as well as two-thirds the value of that house Henry was building,” he said. “Tess, as Hank’s wife, you get a life interest in one third of that house.”
“I don’t think Henry would have wanted Tess to get anything from the factory.” Ruth suddenly spoke up, her tone businesslike but I could tell there was anger behind the words. “It’s been in our family for fifty years. There are Kraft relatives to consider.”
“I don’t need any of the insurance money,” I said quickly. I wanted to keep peace between Ruth and myself. “Ruth is right. It belongs to the Kraft family.”
“Of which, may I remind you, you are a part,” Mr. Dare said.
“I don’t need the insurance money,” I repeated. My head still spun from the idea of inheriting two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That alone seemed like far too much to me. We hadn’t been married that long.
“Well, if Tess wants to relinquish her share of the insurance money, I’ll have to look into the best way to do that,” Mr. Dare said.
“And the house?” I queried. “I don’t understand what that means, a ‘lifetime interest’ in the house.”
“A life interest simply means that you can live in the house until your death,” he said, “but you can’t sell it or pass it down to any children you might have. Upon your death, the house will revert to Ruth’s estate … or her next of kin if she predeceases you.”
Again I fell quiet. I had no need for the house. I hoped that Vincent and I would be leaving Hickory as soon as the hospital closed its doors.
“That lovely house.” Ruth shook her head sadly. “Hank was so looking forward to living there.”
The Stolen Marriage Page 35