“What did Nathan tell them?”
“At first, nothing. Just that you were at Evangeline’s. Then later, that you’d simply vanished. Left us all to go back to where he found you and would never be back. He said he didn’t want to scare them.” She gave a furtive look around and behind us. “I don’t want to frighten them now. And if those people in there . . . Well, I can’t imagine the scene. Go back to the house. Kimana’s there with the baby.”
“Your little boy?”
Her face brightened, and I saw the first hint of the vibrant woman I’d known. “Little Nate. He’s my life, my very life.”
“So you understand why I have to take my girls with me. I have a home ready for us with my mother back in Iowa.”
“Away from all this?” She inclined her head toward the wall on the other side of which a new song burst forth, singing of Adam-ondi-Ahman. I remembered Nathan teaching our girls that song before bedtime, telling them of Adam and Eve, sent from the Garden of Eden to live after their fall.
“Just think,” he’d said, “the mother and father of all mankind living in the land we call Missouri. And to think, one day, it will once again be the holiest of places with a gathering of all the prophets.”
How my ears had burned listening to such lies. I blamed the firelight for the flush on my face, unable to voice the shame I felt at my silence. And now, there they were inside, singing the lies I’d allowed them to learn.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said. “Not about the church so much. Seems one’s as good as another. But I don’t much like sharing my husband, and I don’t know that I’d want my daughters growing up to do the same.”
“I’m divorcing Nathan. Legally,” I added when her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I don’t know what that will mean for you. There’s still Evangeline, but the girls and I will be gone. I guess that will make you first wife.”
She offered a weak smile. “I do love our husband, you know.”
“He’s your husband,” I said, “not mine. But I know what it means to love him.”
Silence again inside the church house.
“I’d better get inside,” Amanda said. “The girls’ll be worried. You can wait for us at the house. If you like, I can talk to them on the way home, tell them it was an awful mistake and you’ve just been traveling. . . .” Her voice trailed as she grappled with what would be an impossible conversation.
“No. Don’t say anything. Just come home as quickly as possible. And don’t invite Elder Justus for dinner.”
“Well, that’s not likely to happen anyway.” In a spontaneous burst of camaraderie, she took me in a surprisingly strong embrace before disappearing around the corner.
I made my way back to the grove to find Honey waiting patiently. A hooded woman astride a horse would surely attract attention in our small town, and truth be told, my legs relished the idea of a long, stretching walk. So, assured that all Saints were safely tucked inside the church house, I led her along the edge of the clearing. Dew still sparkled on the ground despite the efforts of the sun. I dropped the reins and allowed Honey to follow of her own accord. I peeled off my gloves and untied the cape’s thick ribbon, instantly refreshed as I lifted the heavy wrap from my shoulders. The tiniest breeze touched my skin and cooled my scalp.
From inside came another round of singing, this time one of the rare hymns shared by Mormons and Gentiles alike. I recalled the warm familiarity I felt lifting it with my voice within those very walls, and now, with them well behind me, I hazarded a soft utterance to the morning.
A mighty fortress is our God, a tower of strength ne’er failing.
For just a moment the volume of the congregation increased, calling back my attention, and just as they and I proclaimed our God a mighty helper, there they were—my little girls framed in the church house doorway. I saw their lips mouth, Mama! and my world was reduced to four little running feet as the expanse of dewy grass between us grew smaller and smaller. I fell to my knees within seconds of their touch and held them to me—one in each arm. Still I remember the sweet smell of their hair, the hot, wet tears on my neck, our sniffling, soft words saying nothing of any great meaning. Honey gently stepped aside as our reunion became one great, silly, rolling mass with bits of blue sky appearing and disappearing behind the close, beautiful faces of my children.
Once we’d righted ourselves, I looked past them in time to see Amanda step back inside and close the doors.
“Lottie looked out the window and thought you were a ghost,” Melissa said, sounding as mature and authoritative as ever. “And she pestered Auntie Amanda to let us go outside and see.”
“But Auntie said I mustn’t disturb.”
Hearing Lottie speak brought new tears to my eyes. Gone were the soft, round sounds of the little girl she’d been. Her voice had thinned along with her face, and traces of Amanda’s accent were unmistakable.
“So we waited for the first prayer,” Melissa began.
“—and I prayed and prayed that you weren’t a spirit—”
“—and when we started singing, Auntie Amanda told us to go see for ourselves.”
“Well, what a wonderful thing for Sister Amanda to do.”
“Do we have to go back inside?” Lottie’s pout harked back to the child of my memories.
“Of course we do,” Melissa said, already attempting to stand.
“No.” I grasped her hand and held her close. “Think of the ruckus we’d cause. Let’s go home. We can surprise Kimana. And besides, I’d love to meet your little brother.”
At this Lottie erupted in new glee and leaped to her feet. She reached for my hand to help me up and, with unbridled childish horror, recoiled at what she saw. “Mama, your fingers!”
This captured Melissa’s attention, but she appeared more intrigued than frightened. “Frostbite?”
“Yes.” I stood, feeling more than a little self-conscious as I brushed my skirt. “Do you see why I always tell you to bundle up?”
“Will they grow back?” Lottie’s nose hovered inches above my scarred flesh.
“Of course not, silly,” Melissa said. “They’re flesh and bone.”
Lottie looked up, her eyes wide as dollars. “Did it hurt?”
“Not as much as being away from you.”
I could tell it took all of my little girl’s strength to reach out and touch that unfamiliar hand, but when she did, I felt the years slip away. I held my other out to Melissa, but she preferred to take Honey’s reins, recounting how angry her papa had been when I’d taken the horse the first time.
“But you’re both back now,” she said, setting the pace with slow, resolute steps.
“Yes.” I tried to guard my reply from falsehood.
We walked along the narrow stream leading to our house, the chatter of the girls running as fast as its water. They told me of Amanda’s son, Nate, but I said nothing of the brother awaiting them elsewhere. Lottie had started school, and she loved it, though arithmetic gave her fits. Melissa had memorized Mark Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and was quoting the last familiar line when the little home we’d shared came into view.
Even from this distance, I could see that the property had taken on what my papa used to call a “widow’s look.” The small fence around the house had fallen into disrepair with its gate hanging at an unlatched angle. The woodpile was down to just a few split logs, and nary a tool was to be seen. Still, a thin ribbon of smoke came up from the chimney like a beckoning promise, and I answered with my quickening step.
Some would be puzzled as to how I could feel this to be a homecoming, knowing that my true home was a bright-yellow house hundreds of miles east. They might not understand how, having so recently reunited with my mother, I could ever hold my arms out to the small, brown woman who had walked so slowly from the front door, only to stand perfectly still at the gate. But those people, I think, have never been held in arms as soft as Kimana’s.<
br />
I fell into her that morning the way I imagine one would land in a cloud. She smelled, as always, of flour. Speechless, we held each other until I stepped away. Her round, unlined face was just as I remembered, though she’d grown more streaks of silver in her hair. Small, button-brown eyes brimmed with tears, and her chin quivered in an effort to maintain a calm demeanor.
“So,” she said, her voice the same iron-flat, “the mother fox has come back.”
I nodded, too enthralled with this woman to speak. It was she, I knew, who had fed my children, tucked them in at night, brushed their hair, and bandaged their wounds. Most of all, I knew her prayers blanketed them head to toe, night and day. Stronger and closer than even my own.
Kimana took my face in her broad, soft hands. “I knew it. Even when Mr. Fox said you passed over, our Creator told me you were still alive. I have prayed for this day, Mrs. Fox. I have spoken your name in the night and the morning.”
“I know you have.” Unlike Kimana, I allowed my emotions to flow unchecked. Tears, however, weren’t enough, and I felt my knees give out beneath me, sending me once again into her embrace. My body, it seemed, had used its final bit of strength to get me here, but I could not take another step on my own.
“Poor child,” Kimana said, half-leading, half-carrying me to the house.
I felt Lottie’s hand in mine. “Is Mama sick?”
“No, little one,” Kimana soothed. Whatever other words of comfort she shared, however, were lost to the darkness that overcame me before I even saw the door.
Chapter 31
In my dreams, a child cried, and I reached for him. Rather than finding a familiar, soft bundle, I found myself tangled in thin arms, my fingers entwined in silk.
“Mama, can you hear me?”
The voice at the edge of the darkness was both familiar and not, as was the face I saw when my eyes fluttered open.
“Mama, are you awake now?”
Lottie, of course. Nose to nose beside me on the goose-down pillow. She’d taken her braids down and her hair made a golden cloud in the afternoon sun pouring through the window.
“Are you ready to get up?”
That made three questions before I could peel my lips apart to work up a response. I closed my eyes and nodded, humming an affirmative answer, and drew her closer to me. She remained still for a few minutes but soon became a mass of wiggling elbows and knees.
“Auntie Amanda’s been home from church for hours, and Kimana has biscuits and gravy waiting for you.”
At the mention of food my stomach turned itself inside out as my brain scrambled to remember the last time I’d had anything to eat. More than a day, by my fuddled calculations.
“Tell her I’m coming.” The last word was stretched around an enormous yawn that sent Lottie into her own. Playfully, I nudged her out of the bed, and she scampered out of the room announcing my imminent arrival.
I don’t know if I should blame the night’s ride or the morning’s nap while wearing a corset, but every muscle, bone, and sinew in my body ached with movement, and once Lottie was out of the room, I indulged myself in all manner of wincing and groaning like I’d suddenly been transformed into a woman twice my age. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat, taking in the familiar surroundings.
My room. Never shared with my husband. I remembered well how Nathan had expected it to compensate, somehow, for ousting me from our marriage bed upon Amanda’s arrival. It had its own cozy fireplace and expansive window—everything that, under different circumstances, might have felt luxurious. But I’d taken it as a place to hide away during the long winter nights when the girls were asleep and Nathan and his new bride chatted away beside the front room stove. By the time they were ready to take themselves off to bed, I’d be gazing into my embers or huddled down under my quilts.
Now I could see that nothing had changed since my departure, save for the missing lamp that now adorned Evangeline’s parlor. Everything, including an abandoned knitting project, gave the impression that I’d only gone to the market for the afternoon, rather than across the country and back again, having lost a father and gained a son along the way.
Somebody had thought to remove my boots, and my stockinged feet padded across the thick braided rug as I made my way to the mirror hanging above the bureau. I don’t know what I expected to find, having had no opportunity for close personal scrutiny in several days, but I found myself pleasantly surprised. My hair was, understandably, falling out of its pins, resulting in soft waves framing my face.
“You’re here,” I said to the woman in the glass, though I refrained from a gloat of total victory. My cheeks might have been flushed from new sleep, but there was a lingering fatigue in my eyes.
I plunged my hands into the water in the washbasin below the mirror and brought it up to splash my face. A square washcloth was draped over its edge, and I soaked this too, wrung it out, and patted it along the back of my neck, under my collar. I longed for a bath, remembering evenings with the large, galvanized tub right here next to my fireplace, stepping quickly in and out of my sacred garments long after I’d given any credence to their power. Opening the top drawer of my bureau, I found my bone-backed brush, strands of my hair still wound around its bristles. Despite my hunger—which was by now to the point of nausea—I considered taking out my hairpins, giving myself a good brush, and pinning it all up again. Not so much for vanity’s sake, but as a diversion from what awaited on the other side of the door. Sometime within the next few hours I would be telling my daughters that we were leaving this place—their home—forever.
Still bootless, I walked into our front room in time to see the familiar sight of Kimana pulling a tray of piping-hot biscuits from the oven. A pot of sausage gravy bubbled on the stove, and in less than a minute, a mass of both mingled on a plate in front of me. I restrained myself long enough to thank the Lord for my safe journey and ask for a blessing on this meal, digging in even as I opened my eyes at amen. Lottie and Melissa sat across from me, each with their own biscuit and a dish of jam between them. So much time melted away in that moment, as though God had set back the calendar of my days and it was any other Sabbath, with Nathan just out in his workshop or walking a dinner guest halfway home.
“May we join you?”
Amanda emerged from the front bedroom, having taken the time to rebrush and braid her hair since I’d last seen her. On her hip sat little Nate, happily occupied with a wooden block.
“Of course,” I said through a mouthful. How odd it must be for her to feel she needed to be invited into her own home.
“Look, Natey,” she said, “your auntie Camilla has come to visit.”
She used the boy’s body itself to point in my direction, and the child fixed his eyes on me with the curiosity and expectation of one who hadn’t reached his first year.
“Hello, Nate,” I said as she plopped the child on the table in front of me. My eyes welled with tears for my own little boy, but I whisked them away before anyone could question. Not that they would, as it was immediately obvious that Nathan’s son commanded the full attention of everyone in the room. Kimana’s voice jumped to an octave I’d never heard before as she bustled about the room finding the perfect biscuit for his little hand and pouring milk into what must have been his special tin cup. Lottie and Melissa were about the business of tweaking his toes and offering him new blocks to play with while Amanda looked upon all of this with well-coiffed maternal pride.
A new twist of guilt wedged itself in my gut, and I worked my fork around in the newly unappetizing dish.
“Isn’t he the sweetest thing?” Lottie proclaimed, willingly giving up her place as the baby in the family.
“Auntie Evangeline’s baby is ugly,” Melissa said, causing all of us to gasp in protest, through which my older daughter remained unfazed. “Have you seen her?” she pointedly asked me.
“Just a glimpse,” I said, uncomfortable under her suspicion.
“So you went there fi
rst before you came here?”
“I came in a stagecoach.” I tried to lay a groundwork of enthusiasm. “It arrived in Salt Lake City, so I stopped by to visit.”
“You saw Papa?” Lottie’s whole face shone with love for the father she adored. “Was he so very happy to see you?”
“I’ll bet Auntie Evangeline wasn’t,” Melissa said with a womanly cynicism I chose to ignore.
“I did see your papa, and we had a long talk.” I set my fork down entirely, regretting every bite I’d taken as each seemed determined to climb up my throat and choke my words. “Your papa is married to your auntie Amanda, and now your auntie Evangeline, too. And . . . well, when I was gone for such a long time, I decided that maybe I shouldn’t be his wife anymore.”
I don’t know what I expected their reaction to be, but certainly I’d expected something other than the vague, puzzled look on Lottie’s face and the outright contempt in Melissa’s.
“You can’t do that,” Melissa said. “When a man marries a woman, she is his forever, here and in heaven.”
Amanda chose that moment to lift her son from the table and cuddle him in her lap. Lottie, too, sensing something was amiss, climbed up into Kimana’s softness, leaving Melissa and me to face each other over food that might just as well have been little piles of dust.
“In a sense,” I said, venturing into an explanation with all the care of walking on a frozen pond, “but marriage is also a promise, and your papa and I have both broken promises to each other.”
“You’re not supposed to break a promise,” Lottie said, breaking my heart with her disappointment. Kimana looked away.
“You’re the only one who broke a promise when you ran away from all of us.” Melissa’s voice held nothing but cool condescension. “What promise did he break?”
Before I could stop myself, I glanced at Amanda, who hid her face in her child’s thick, black hair.
“Oh,” Melissa said. “You don’t want him to be married to Auntie Amanda.”
My mind went back to the cheeky, brazen woman who’d invaded our home—nothing like the woman sharing this table with me. Now, in contrast to the coldness I’d initially greeted her with, I felt a tug of affection. And while, yes, her arrival had delivered a deadly blow to my marriage, it was hardly the first, and I would not lay blame at her feet.
Forsaking All Others Page 29