Forsaking All Others

by Allison Pittman

  He smiled. “Shall we make a monument?”

  “I want you to know I’ll share that story with Lottie and Melissa. They’ll know every moment of our courtship, every story of our lives. And if you write, I promise not to hide the letters.”

  “I’ll write.”

  “To them,” I emphasized.

  “To them.”

  “They’ll like that.”

  I heard Mr. Bostwick call my name, and I hesitated just long enough for Nathan to come to my side, and we walked together into the sunshine. Kimana was at the gate, on her knees, wrapped within the combined embrace of Lottie and Melissa. At their father’s voice, however, they let go and ran to him.

  Whatever they said to each other in those final, private moments remains unknown to me. I went to Kimana, my sister and sometimes mother, and simply stood.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  I obeyed, still seeing the lingering shadow of the sun in my darkness. Then I felt her wide, warm palm on my forehead, and she spoke in the short, nasal syllables of her native tongue. It was, I knew, a blessing, and I moved my lips in silent agreement. Though our languages were different, our faith was the same, and somehow we came to say amen in unison.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I will not see you again, Mrs. Fox. Not in this lifetime.”

  “I know,” I said, though it ached to say it.

  “But one day I will go to sleep, and I will wake up in the presence of the Creator, where your little one is waiting. I will hold him and sing him the songs of my people, and we will watch for you.”

  “Thank you for loving my children, Kimana.”

  “And now I have others that I will love.” She winked. “That I will teach.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and for the last time took in her nurturing scent. When I turned around, Lottie and Melissa were already in the wagon, peeking over the side, and the team was beginning to prance impatiently. I paused long enough to give Sister Amanda a kiss on her powdery-white cheek, as well as one atop little Nate’s jet-black hair. Faced with Evangeline, however, I found no such compulsion. Baby Sophie, forever squalling and red, squirmed against her bunting, and Evangeline held her like a shield between us.

  “Good-bye, Sister Evangeline,” I said with a simple touch to her sleeve.

  “You’re no sister of mine,” she said. “Not in any way.”

  I grinned as widely as the Lord would allow. “I hope that changes someday.”

  I walked to the wagon, where Nathan waited to help me up to my seat, and I’m not ashamed to say I still remember that final touch. I turned back to the girls to see that they were ready.

  “Yes, Mama,” Lottie said, but Melissa merely stared at the tailgate.

  Apparently satisfied, Mr. Bostwick gave the horses a gentle slap with the reins and was turning them around when I called out, “Wait!”

  “Camilla, my dear,” he said, his patience wearing thin, “we really must—”

  “Just wait.”

  Without giving much thought to the spectacle I must be creating, I swung my leg over the wagon seat and our luggage, finding a clear spot on the floor of the bed. Immediately, Lottie scooted into my lap, and the first lurching movement of the wagon knocked Melissa off her knees.

  “Come here, Missy,” I said, beckoning, and she crawled over to my side. Each girl clutched her favorite doll, treasures their papa had brought home to them years ago, and I included their names as I said a prayer for our safe journey. By the time I finished my prayer, we were at the crest of the hill, and I looked out over the tailgate to see one man, his wives, and their children gathered in front of what was once my home. We’d spent one hour together living as a family built of false prophecy, and now my daughters and I served as anchors for each other, leaving them behind. Silently, as I held my girls, I begged God for two things: that he would change Nathan’s heart, and that he would keep mine strong. One prayer would be repeated and answered in that moment, and in every moment, in every mile that followed.

  The other, I would not repeat again.

  * * *

  We arrived in Salt Lake City well after dark. By then the girls were sound asleep against me. Mr. Bostwick drove capably on, but when we did come to a stop, I noticed he was at least as tired as either of the children he peeled away from me.

  “Where are we staying?” The effort of getting down from the wagon bed without waking Lottie gave me little chance to take in our surroundings.

  “This is Aunt Rachel’s house.” Melissa spoke through a yawn, and she stood sleepily, unsteady on her feet.

  “Rachel’s?” I was on the ground now too, Lottie heavy against my shoulder as I turned to verify. Sure enough, the dark, rambling house beckoned, looking as welcoming as a cave.

  “Our Mr. Fox had a key,” Mr. Bostwick said, producing said object from his vest pocket. He inserted it into the lock and opened the door to the cold, damp room.

  Melissa was able to walk in under her own power, and my aching back sang in relief as I laid Lottie on the sofa barely discernible under a white sheet. Of the three sofas that once furnished this room, only this one remained.

  Mr. Bostwick followed us into the house. “It will be my residence for the time being, until I can find something more suitable.”

  This was a revelation I had not expected, and I sent Melissa—obviously in dire need—out to the privy so he and I could discuss it in private.

  “You’re not coming with us tomorrow?”

  “I must stay until your case is settled, and I have a feeling there might be other women in this city who will need my help. It’s a strange phenomenon indeed when a lawyer is a welcome resident. I feel I must take advantage of the situation.”

  Propriety aside, I planted a kiss on his square cheek. “We’ll miss you, Mr. Bostwick. We all—Mama especially—have grown quite fond of you.”

  “And I as well,” he said, stepping away from my embrace and making a show of taking an envelope from his breast pocket. “Will you give this letter to your mother? And tell her you both may look for me at summer’s end, when I will no longer need your legal matters to lend an excuse for me to call.”

  I noted the strong, bold hand on the front of the envelope: Mrs. Arlen Deardon (Ruth). The sight of it called to mind an unfulfilled promise.

  “Will you post a letter for me as well? After we leave?”

  “I’d be honored. For our young colonel?” He held out his hand as if expecting me to hand it over on the spot.

  “Yes,” I said, though not indulging his assumption. “I’ll write it tonight and leave it on the foyer table.” Another of the few furnishings that had been spared uprooting.

  “Well then—” he rocked back on his heels—“it has been a long day, and I shall leave you to settle yourselves to sleep.”

  Only two of the rooms upstairs still had serviceable beds. Mr. Bostwick chose one, and I tucked Lottie and Melissa together in the other one, planning to squeeze myself between them later.

  One would think that, given the day, I would have taken myself fast asleep. Instead, I took a candle and stole downstairs to Rachel’s pretty writing desk—much more ornate than my own back home—and secured the light in a sconce on the wall.

  Not sure if she would have left such supplies behind, I was relieved to find the desk well stocked with stationery and envelopes, pen and ink. Upon bringing it to the light, I noticed the stationery bore Rachel’s monogram—an ornate R nestled within a beehive, surrounded by green vines. I thought at first to make a small note to identify myself, explaining the circumstances under which I came to write this letter on such a page, but abandoned the idea. After so many letters, Colonel Brandon was sure to recognize my handwriting, and the story itself could wait for another time, should such a time ever come.

  The ink had settled within its small jar, and it took a vigorous shaking to bring it to any useful form. Even so, my first few attempts created nothing more than blotches upon the page, and I knew I w
ould have to choose my words carefully.

  I ran my hand over the page, praying that God would take my hand and guide it. Then, as he has surely answered every prayer I’ve uttered since the first, he proved himself mighty and true again.

  All my convictions and all my misgivings remained in the recesses of my mind, just as many of my words remained lost in the shadow of the hand that wrote them. I could only trust my years of practice with a pen to know that each was borne upon the page in its intended form. Minutes later, I took my hand away, and my message stood firm on the ivory page.

  My daughters have been restored to me.

  Our family will be reunited soon.

  All is well.

  By the grace of God, I remain,

  Camilla

  Turn the page for a preview of On Shifting Sand

  Available in bookstores and online Spring 2015

  Chapter 1

  The bathwater was hot when I first got in. Hot enough to steam the mirror and turn my skin an angry red, with white finger-shaped dots where I poked it. Punishing hot, Ma would have said, and that first sting getting in felt a lot like the touch of Pa’s belt against my legs when I was little. But soon enough the water cools itself to comfortable. I wring out the washcloth and hold it aloft, letting most of the heat evaporate before pressing it against my face. I let my hair go damp with steam, debating whether I should dunk under to wet it enough for a good shampoo. It’s Wednesday night, though, and I’m going to Rosalie’s to get a new set on Friday, so I give it a run-through with my fingers and settle back with my neck on the porcelain rim.

  The faucet lets in one fresh drop after another, and I count them. Just ten more, and I’ll get out. But I lose track, drift off into pressing thoughts somewhere around number seven, and have to start all over again. Although, on this night, there’s nothing to lure me out of the water. Ariel, my little girl, four years old, is in her room, deep in sleep. My husband, Russ, and the oldest, Ronnie, are at the church. Wednesday night prayer meeting, which seems to be running later than usual. And I, given the rare opportunity of an empty house and unclaimed bathroom, let myself soak in the water, the only light streaming in from our bedroom across the hall. I’d tuned the radio away from the midweek gospel hour, and turned up the volume loud enough that I can hear strains of Louis Armstrong, but not so loud as to wake the child. I hum along, singing when I can, my lips skimming the top of the bathwater, making bubbles with the lyrics.

  The end to my peace comes with the open and slam of the back kitchen door, and Russ calling my name as if I’d been in danger of being sucked behind the baseboards.

  “In here,” I holler, trying not to sound too disappointed at his arrival.

  The bathroom door opens a few inches, and Russ peeks his head through, averting his eyes to ask if I’m decent. Or, he qualifies, as decent as a woman who skipped out on prayer meeting could be.

  “Your daughter was sick,” I say in mock defensiveness.

  “She seems fine now,” Russ says. “Sleeping well.”

  “I gave her an aspirin, and then she needed to rest.”

  He turns to look at me, his grin accepting my explanation. I sink down into the water, shooing him away while I finish washing up.

  “Ronnie needs to go.”

  “He’s a boy,” I say, lathering up the washcloth. “He can go outside. Then put him to bed and tell him I’ll be in to kiss him good night in a bit.”

  Russ leans against the doorjamb, then rises up on his toes to get a peek inside the tub. “You gonna have a kiss for me, too?”

  I fold my arms, hiding myself against the tub’s wall. “Put away the supper dishes and set out his school clothes, and I just might.”

  He considers it for a tick before grinning and backing away. Soon the radio is silenced, and instead I hear the clatter of dishes accompanied by Russ’s rich tenor singing “Jesus Is All the World to Me.” When he draws out the long notes, I hear Ronnie laugh, and I know they’re cutting up in the kitchen, the way they do when they’re alone. Both of them too much a man to let on they can be silly.

  By now the water is this close to cold, and I stand up, surprised as always at the displacement. There seems so little left in the tub, not nearly enough to have covered me, and I wonder if I haven’t soaked it all up, straight into my skin. The towel is scratchy from years of rough washing and wind-whipped sun, but it feels pleasantly warm wrapped around my body, and I tread carefully across the tile floor to the mirror above the sink, where I wipe the last of the steam away and lean in close for a look.

  My hair is dark now, but when it dries, the color will be on the lighter side of brown, and will frame my face in limp, soft waves. They’d been such a surprise the first time I cut it short, right before my high school portrait. I remember telling Pa I didn’t want to look like a Chickasaw princess in the Troubadour yearbook, not caring how such a remark might be taken for an insult to my mother and her own. But Ma was long dead by then, and the sharpness of my cheekbones keeps her heritage fiercely alive.

  Hearing Russ and Ronnie still occupied in the kitchen, I step across the hall to our bedroom and go to the dressing table, where my modest array of cosmetics waits. Nothing much, as Russ wouldn’t have me paint my face, but I do have a new set of Avon just delivered. Ariel, my favorite scent for as long as I can remember, so much a part of me that my daughter wears its name. I dab a drop of perfume at the base of my neck and behind each knee, like I read in a magazine to do. Then, my skin now dry, I dust the fat, powdered puff across my shoulders. Drop the towel and dust more before sliding a clean cotton gown over my shoulders in time to hear Russ’s voice leading Ronnie into his room.

  Leaning my ear against the wall, I listen to the muffled sound of my son’s prayer, knowing in my heart he lifts up me and Russ, and his baby sister, and Paw-Paw’s farm, and all the people needing work and money. I owe him a kiss and want to be there for the Amen, as I am every night, so I quickly move next door, stopping short at the sight of Russ kneeling at the bedside, his elbows on the well-worn quilt.

  “And help our family be a good friend to Mr. Brace,” Ronnie prays. “And heal his arm in heaven. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Russ and I echo, though my agreement is more than tinged with curiosity. I cross the room and bend low over the boy’s head, smoothing back the unruly curls that are so much like his father’s. Even in the dim light, I can tell he’s done a poor job of washing his face.

  “Who’s Mr. Brace?” Our town, Featherling, is small, and the church even smaller, so to hear an unfamiliar name is rare indeed.

  “Papa’s friend from before the war.” He speaks this last word with a yawn so broad I know he hasn’t cleaned his teeth, either.

  I look over my shoulder at Russ.

  “Just came to town,” he says. “You don’t know him.”

  “He’s comin’ for dinner soon, though,” Ronnie says.

  “Is he?” My words are meant for Ronnie, but I keep my eyes trained on Russ. “I guess we’ll talk more about that later.”

  I kiss Ronnie’s cheek, and when I straighten myself, Russ brushes his hand across my back and settles right in the small of it, turning me to the open door. The boy mutters a final good night, but I expect he is sleeping before we leave the room. At twelve years old, he so often seems to teeter on the edge of being a man that I treasure the times when the activity of the day catches up and turns him into my sleepy boy again.

  Together we walk to Ariel’s room, which is nothing more than a partitioned-off section of Ronnie’s. It isn’t much bigger than a closet and we can’t both stand in it without touching. Our girl sleeps soundly, her red hair a sea around her, and I lay the back of my fingers against her pale cheek.

  “No fever?” Russ asks, his voice shy of serious.

  “I’m telling you, she felt warm at supper.”

  She takes a deep, startling breath right then, and we back away, hushing each other lest she wake.

  Russ reaches for the switch to turn o
ff the hallway light, and soon our entire home plunges into near darkness, saved only by the lamp burning on my dressing table. He walks me to our bedroom door and takes me in his arms, like we are coming back from a date, and don’t have two children sleeping not much more than an arm’s length away. His kiss is like that, too. One of those kisses that comes along every so often in a marriage, like scales have fallen away from our very lips, and we’re seeing each other for the first time in new love.

  I break away—“Russ—” wanting to say that he hasn’t even taken his boots off. That we haven’t checked to make sure the doors are locked, or that the milk bottles are out, or that—

  “You feel beautiful—”

  My bare feet touch the braided rug that runs along the side of our bed, and soon the springs creak below our weight.

  “Russ.” I speak his name, stalling. Calculating as I always do. I brace my hands against his chest. “It’s not a good night.”

  He nudges the strap of the nightgown off my shoulder. “Feels good enough to me.”

  “You know what I mean.” I push him away. “Unless you’ve got it in your mind you want another baby.”

  He stops, sighs, and rolls away. Sitting up, he removes his boots, tossing them into the large wicker basket in the corner of the room.

  “Honey, I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but only manage to pinch my fingertips around the fabric of his sleeve as he stands, bringing the creaking once again. “A few more nights, maybe? It’ll be safer.”

  He shrugs out of his suspenders, strips off his shirt, and lets it fall to the ground. I bite my lip to stop myself from telling him to pick it up and take it across the hall to the hamper.

  “Funny.” He sends a smile sure to devastate my resolve. “I don’t remember you always being so careful.”

  “And it’s a good thing, too. Else you might never have married me, Pa’s shotgun or not.”

  “I never had a chance from the first I saw you. Not my fault you look every bit as lovely tonight.”