“…extremely satisfying…heart, depth and masterful storytelling…“
From award-winning and bestselling author Kathleen Shoop comes this poignant, passionate novella set in 1969 North Carolina. Can two hurt souls — one wounded by war, the other by love — overcome their past enough to trust, and maybe even love, each other?
Return to Love, Book 2 of her enthralling Endless Love series, is now available. Discover Book 1 for only 99 cents!
Home Again (Book 1–The Endless Love Series)
by Kathleen Shoop
A novella set in 1969 on the shores of the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina.
April Harrington has fond memories of summers at her family home, Bliss. After her fairytale wedding disintegrates, it becomes her refuge–the one place where she can attempt to pull the unraveling threads of her life back together. Unbeknownst to April, the stately house has been neglected in recent years. The once-sturdy roof is leaking in a few dozen places, and the wharf is rotting. Nothing is the same as she remembers. Nothing except for Hale, a Viet Nam pilot who is haunted by a dreadful secret, and who is also her brother’s best friend, a brother killed in the conflict that is tearing the country apart.
In Hale’s presence, April finds familiarity and solace. They share grief for a lost loved one, and from the comfort of Hale’s arms, passion blooms. Yet, April’s future is unresolved. Her wealthy, arrogant almost-bridegroom wants her back and the ghosts of Viet Nam are whispering to Hale. Can they find new love in an old treasured home, the kind that lasts forever?
5-star praise for Home Again:
“I loved this novella! I was expecting a simple romance, but this was so much more…April is snarky and emotional and strong, and Hale is…empathetic and kind in a really masculine way…”
“…ABSOLUTELY worth reading!…takes you through heartbreak of various kinds and ultimate love and healing…refreshingly different from most books I have read recently.”
Home Again
by Kathleen Shoop
Autumn, 1969
APRIL HARRINGTON FINALLY arrived. Nine hours, straight through. After everything that had happened, she was simply drawn there. She swallowed hard—her raw throat ached as she stared in the direction of her brother, Andrew’s, memorial site. She missed him so much that she hadn’t been able to return since the service. Nothing had been the same since he died in Vietnam.
She stood where the cypress trees bowed to one another, forming a lace canopy of foliage that led the way to the dock. Her mind worked like a camera, snapping shots into neat frames that she filed away in mental drawers. Without trying, she compared all that she saw in present time with all that she recalled about Albemarle Sound. The call of the osprey that nested above the water drew April’s attention upward. What had she done to her life?
She looked down at her French silk wedding dress. She whisked her hands over the fabric, not believing she’d driven straight from New York in full bridal attire. She pulled her veil from her hair, peering at the fine creation that an elderly woman, with her bent, bulbous fingers, had lovingly fashioned for April’s special day.
The great blue herons screeched, their throaty voices as familiar as her breath. The toads, woodpeckers, hawks, and wolves—they set the rhythms of Bliss—the home where her family had spent every summer of her life before she left for college. She was sure she’d made the right decision to abandon Mason at the altar, but sharp guilt that she’d also left her parents at the wedding stabbed at her. She knew her parents would understand her not marrying Mason in the end, but they would not approve of her fleeing the scene.
She had worked so hard at Columbia University. A journalism graduate, she’d found her camera was her favorite way to observe the world, to tell a story. All that work—the elation she’d experienced when she crafted the perfect photo essay or framed the perfect shot, revealing someone’s soul in a single image—had been so fulfilling.
Yet she’d driven away from all of that and more. And standing there, April knew the deep regret of failure was dwarfed by what she’d seen in the photos from Woodstock, what she’d learned about life since Andrew died.
The hollow tone of wood thudding against wood made April head down the dock. The rowboat that had been carved 60 years before, shaped from one of the biggest cypress trees on the property, bobbed at the end of the dock. What would it be doing out of storage this late in the year?
She looked around as though there’d be someone there to answer her thoughts. A stiff wind dropped in and forced the waves to stand in sharp rows like soldiers marching toward the dock, bullying the boat. The gusts pressed April’s dress to her thighs, making it hard to walk. She raised her hand, the veil flapping in the wind. She opened her hand and the veil swirled around her fingertips, and then soared away.
At the end of the dock, she tried to squat, but the dress was too tight. Dammit. The dock creaked beneath her. She reached behind her and worked the buttons. It had been the one concession she’d made to her future mother-in-law; she’d had exquisite antique buttons sewn onto her otherwise decoration-free dress. She’d never imagined she’d be trying to wiggle out of the sheath on her own.
The woodpeckers and crickets performed as April reached up, then down her back to get at the last of the buttons. A wave tossed the rowboat upward, smacking it against the dock again. She took a deep breath and pulled at the dress, scattering buttons around her feet. A fresh wind broke over the mooring and blew the buttons in every direction, dropping them into the water below.
Another crash of the rowboat, and April refocused. She shimmied out of the dress then bent over and yanked the rope that tethered the boat.
The wind dropped away, bringing an eerie stillness that draped the water like a blanket. The boards creaked again. She froze. Her right foot pushed through the wharf. The dock couldn’t be breaking. Her father would never let that happen.
She pulled her foot out of the cavity and resumed pulling the rope. The creaking wood escalated into a whine, then a groan, and before she could react, the end of the dock collapsed, dropping April into the water.
It stung her skin. Its coldness made her feel as though her lungs were solid, unable to allow air in or out. She kicked hard; pulling toward the top, telling herself to be calm, a little chilly water wouldn’t hurt.
As her head broke the surface, the stiff waves pushed her up, throwing her nearly out of the water. She could see the boat was still roped to the piling—it was safer than her.
The sprays fell away as fast as they rose, and she plunged under water, brushing by a submerged tree stump. The punch of the severed cypress on her ribs almost forced her to inhale under water. She willed herself to ignore the pain and swim for the top again. She broke the surface and gasped as she stroked, head out of the water, toward the remaining part of the dock. A figure on the dock startled her. For a second she thought she was hallucinating—a man was there, kicking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.
She waved and yelled before going under again. She struggled to stay above the rough water and fell back under as she felt hands around her. The man grabbed her waist and set her on his hip while he used his free arm to sidestroke toward the narrow beach.
He kicked hard, bumping her body up and down. Eyes squeezed shut, she panted and coughed up water. Once on shore, he threw her over his shoulder and headed to the veranda of the great summer home, where he settled her on the wooden floor. Lying there, her breath began to calm and the dizziness released her. She squinted at the man who was now lifting one of her arms, then the other, then one leg at a time, asking if this hurt or that.
It was him. She couldn’t believe it.
“Hale,” she said. Hale Abercrombie.
He raised his gaze from her leg.
They locked eyes. Those indigo eyes.
“Hi there.”
How long had it been since she’d seen those eyes looking back at her?
He flinched and rubbed his shoulder.
Her teeth chattered. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
April slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. The movements made her inhale sharp and loud. She felt awful to have put him through such trouble. He had scrapes across his broad chest where she must have scratched him. She touched one of his wounds.
He pulled back. “Just a branch. Got a little too close to the tree cemetery.” Hale took her hand and turned it back and forth. His muscular arms tensed and relaxed as he moved. “Does this hurt?”
She drew her hand back and rubbed her arms to stave off the chills. “No, I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he said.
She nodded and pulled her knees up to her chest. This move caused her to groan. She covered the spot where it hurt with her hands.
He put his hand over hers. “Lie back,” he said.
She hesitated as she considered the fact she was dressed in only wet underpants and bra. Then flashes of their childhood came to mind—they’d spent countless summers running the grounds in nothing but bathing suits. He was Hale, her brother’s best friend, not some stranger.
He shifted his six feet two inches to get a closer look. His wavy, golden hair was cut close to his scalp, as any officer’s hair would be. He pressed her ribcage where the red skin was already blackening. She winced.
“Just a bruise,” she said.
“That’s not.”
She lifted her head to see what he was pointing at now. “Appendectomy.”
His eyes widened.
“A few months old.”
He ran his finger down the center of the crosshatched stitching. She pushed it away.
His gaze slid up to meet hers. His expression bore concern. He’d always been serious, but this concern was a darker, more troubled kind of somber. That made sense when she considered what he’d been through with her brother.
“I…” he said.
April felt connected to Hale—she always had. But this was an entirely new sensation—so strong and confusing to her that she had to order herself to stop feeling it. “It’s fine, Hale. Just a bruise.”
She struggled to sit up again. He took her hands and pulled.
“I didn’t mean to touch you. Your scar.” He ran his hand through his hair but wouldn’t look at her.
“You’ve touched me a million times, right?”
He nodded. “A long time ago.”
Indeed, today’s touches had evoked far different feelings than the ones that had marked their childhood.
“You’re okay? Really?” he said.
“Fine. Fuddy-Duddy,” they both said at the same time.
He met her smile with his, making her stomach quiver.
“If you’re okay, I’ll get your suitcase,” he said. “I’m on leave for a month, and I came to fix the kitchen sink. I figured since I was here, I should…well, I ought to check over the place. I took the rowboat out earlier. When the winds kicked up I came back to bring in the boat.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Your parents—they didn’t say you were coming.”
She looked away. She couldn’t start explaining all that had happened.
“Well, your suitcase.” He started down the steps toward her car.
She scrambled to her feet, grimacing, following him.
She looked down at her barely clad body and stopped. “No luggage.” Heat rose in her cheeks. “Just the dress, my purse, my camera.”
“That white thing on the dock is your dress?”
April nodded. She should at least try to recover some of the precious buttons, if possible. He took her hand. His fingers squeezed hers, sending a chill up her spine. She looked away from him, embarrassed at the excitement that swept through her.
“It’s gone,” he said.
April raised her eyebrows. She felt dizzy.
“The wind took it. Right over the sound.” He whistled and pushed his hand through the air. “Took flight like, well, remember that big old heron we used to call Matilda?”
April smiled. Their familiarity, the tales, the troubles—all of it made her feel as though they’d crossed paths just the day before.
A fresh wind whipped the trees. April and Hale looked to the sky.
Hale’s face grew troubled. “Storm’s coming,” He squeezed her hand once more, then dropped it. She clutched her hand to her body, feeling the spot where the engagement ring no longer encircled her finger.
“I’ll grab my stuff and get the rowboat.” Hale pushed his thumb in the direction of the water.
She looked at his wet jeans, the way they molded to his thick legs. Him saving her was really no big deal. Hale had lived his entire life saving others quietly, so circumspect and aware of what people needed. So old-fashioned, she’d always thought when she was younger. Not much fun, she’d always teased him. Now she just felt grateful—fortunate that Hale had been there to comfort Andrew as he had died, and glad he happened along for her sake a few minutes before.
She couldn’t help comparing Hale to Mason. Mason and his family were philanthropists, but when they sprung into life-saving action, it was with a checkbook, not their bare hands. Who would have jumped in after her if Mason or his parents saw her struggling in the water? They wouldn’t let her drown. They’d send the butler, Henri, but of course. Hale’s family, year-rounders at the sound, had nothing in the way of money, but they were strong, steady, and loyal.
“Go in. Get warm,” Hale said.
She nodded. No clothes, no family, no husband, no job. She needed more than to simply get warm.
“I’ll come back tomorrow to fix the dock and the tile in the blue bathroom,” Hale said.
“Thank you,” she said. “For Andrew. For everything.” She’d thanked him before for having tried so hard to save Andrew, but for some reason, she felt the need to say it again.
He nodded, and then headed toward the sound, humble as ever. April made it as far as the front door and stopped. She couldn’t believe what she saw. Like an old man’s mouth, the pointing between the bricks that faced the grand mansion was gapped and jagged, leaving the house vulnerable to wind and water. She slid her finger into a hole between the red brick and released a shard of aged plaster. She turned it back and forth as though it could explain how or why her father would have neglected to maintain the house.
The wood trim around the door was pitted, the paint lifting off, curling in sections. She examined the sturdy oak door. It seemed to be the only part of the house that wasn’t falling in or marred with age. She swept her finger along the carvings that depicted the nine rivers that fed the Albemarle, still amazed at the gorgeous work a family ancestor had done.
April sighed. She had to be honest about what she was seeing—utter neglect. Regret coursed through her. In living the silver-spoon life in New York, she’d ignored her parents, their pain, what that meant for this house. She hadn’t meant to be blind to what her family needed from her. She should have made sure the house was being kept up—it had been in their family for two centuries, after all.
She shook her head. She knew the cost of the wedding had been high, that her father had had some rough times with some real estate deals over the years, but she never imagined those things meant her parents might let the house suffer. Perhaps they’d just been focused on the inside of the home and had let the outside go until…until what? She didn’t know. The guilt she felt right then twisted at her soul. What had she done?
She turned the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. She checked behind the planter for the spare key. Nothing. She swallowed a sob, and then turned her back on the door. Hale must have the key.
She turned and saw him coming with the boat over his head.
She ran toward him as quickly as she could with the sore ribs. Thunder cracked, making her move faster.
He stopped and nearly buckled under the weight of his haul.
“I can get the bow,” she said.
“I have it,” he said through clenched teeth.
She reached to lift one end, but all she could manage was to blanch at the pain that emanated from her ribs and follow behind like a little kid.
When they reached the veranda, Hale stopped. “We’ll stow it in the crawl space for the night. I have to get going.”
He appeared irritated. He flipped the boat and set it gently down on its bottom. Together, they gripped it, shoulder to shoulder, pushed it under the veranda and reset the lattice that served as a door for the space.
“Oh. The key,” April said.
Hale appeared confused. She ignored his unasked question. She wasn’t ready to explain her flight from the altar to anyone, least of all old-fashioned, always-do-the-right-thing Hale.
He reached into his pocket, and then pressed the key into April’s palm.
The thunder rumbled. She hoped she wouldn’t lose electricity.
Hale looked to the sky again, then began to move quickly, fussing with the lattice again. “Shouldn’t be too stuffy inside the house. I had the windows open earlier.”
She started toward the front steps.
“I’ll let your dad know he doesn’t need me here anymore.”
“No!” April turned back to make sure he got the message.
He snapped his attention to her, eyes wide, before his expression turned to relief.
“Don’t do that.” She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest.
She needed time to sit with her decision, to be strong and decisive when she spoke to her parents next. She needed to reassure them she could handle her life alone.
Hale raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, sure.” He cleared his throat. “Careful there. The fourth stair is disintegrating. I’ll fix that, too.” He started up the stairs to show her the rotting board.
Thunder rumbled and he looked into the sky again so April couldn’t hear everything he said until, “Don’t suppose an accomplished Ivy League lady like you has much time for carpentry.”
April forced a laugh. Hale drew away. Her hands shook. Ivy League lady. Images of Woodstock, of the wedding, of the blurred faces she saw as she ran down the aisle and out the door snapped through her mind as though she were photographing the scene.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Hale reached out but didn’t touch her.
April shook her head.
“You’re crying.”
She touched her cheek and studied the tiny puddle of tears that she collected on her fingertips.
She felt Hale’s gaze slip down her body, reminding her she was nearly nude.
April covered her chest with one arm. She needed to get into the house so she could fall apart in private. The thunder interrupted their silence, and he abruptly started down the steps.
When he reached the bottom stair, he turned back and poked at something. April moved closer to see what he was doing. Inside a tiny circle of pebbles was a furry, black caterpillar. Hale plucked some grass and sprinkled it into the miniature fortress.
April squinted at him.
He shrugged. “Little guy just needs some shelter. ’Til the storm passes.”
She looked into the mottled sky. “I guess so,” she said, not wanting to embarrass him.
He shrugged. “I’m really glad to see you.”
April nodded. She was comforted, relieved that someone on that day would be happy to see her. The air sizzled with the coming storm. “Come in, stay for tea.” But as she spoke those words, a clap of thunder broke, and he didn’t hear.
He hopped into his Chevy and drove away, his truck winding around the house and disappearing. April pushed the key into the lock and turned it. She opened the door and faced the great marble staircase that rose up from the worn, but still stunning, cypress floors. You’ll be fine alone, she repeated to herself.
The echo of silence between the thunderclaps embraced her. She wondered if it was going to be too quiet at Bliss, if she should have just slipped into a women’s hotel in Manhattan and gotten lost in the crowd. No. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She would go on with her life, and she would do so in memory of Andrew and how right he’d been about everything.
She started toward the kitchen and passed the mirror in the hall, glancing at herself. Some of her golden hair was matted against her face and the rest was plopped on top of her head like a loaf of bread, still held in place with pins and elastics. Strands sprung out all around her scalp from where she’d pulled the veil off. Mascara ringed her eyes like the great owls that serenaded her summer sleeps.
No wonder Hale had run away as soon as he knew April was fine. She considered his Ivy League crack. She knew she’d hear that, coming back to Harrington. But she hadn’t expected it from Hale. She hadn’t expected him to be on leave at all.
April took her attention from her reflection to the empty space beside the mirror. She pinched one of the naked picture hooks between her fingers, twisted, then pulled it out. She turned slowly, surveying the fifteen-foot tall walls.
Her mouth fell open. Every single one of them was gone. Each of her mother’s treasured Albemarle Sound paintings had been removed. Only the silver picture hooks remained, scattered, winking at her in the soft foyer light. Where were they? Maybe Hale knew. She touched her belly where his fingers had traced her scar.
Categories free kindle nation shorts
KND Freebies: Bestselling AFTER THE FOG by award-winning Kathleen Shoop in today’s Free Kindle Nation Shorts
2012 National Indie Excellence Awards***KINDLE STORE BESTSELLER***
Historical Literary Fiction
From award-winning and bestselling Kindle Nation fave Kathleen Shoop comes an emotionally charged novel of family secrets and the redemptive power of truth…
set against a little-known piece of America’s past that’s as raw and real as we could ever hope to find…
Historic drama wrapped in a love story…
It’s 1948 in the steel town of Donora, Pennsylvania, site of the infamous “killing smog.” Public health nurse, Rose Pavlesic, has risen above her orphaned upbringing and created a life that reflects everything she missed as a child. She’s even managed to keep her painful secrets hidden from her doting husband, loving children, and large extended family.
When a stagnant weather pattern traps poisonous mill gasses in the valley, neighbors grow sicker and Rose’s nursing obligations thrust her into conflict she never could have fathomed. Consequences from her past collide with her present life, making her once clear decisions as gray as the suffocating smog. As pressure mounts, Rose finds she’s not the only one harboring lies. When the deadly fog finally clears, the loss of trust and faith leaves the Pavlesic family — and the whole town — splintered and shocked. With her new perspective, can Rose finally forgive herself and let her family’s healing begin?
5-star praise for After the Fog:
“…vivid, dramatic…will linger with you long after you close the book…a beautiful story of love, loss and survival.”
“The reader can’t help but get caught up in the lives of the strong yet emotionally wounded characters Kathleen Shoop creates. I found myself completely immersed in their struggles, hopes and dreams.”
an excerpt from
After the Fog
by Kathleen Shoop
Chapter 1
Tuesday, October 26th, 1948
Donora, Pennsylvania
Inside the Greshecky home, Rose pressed the light switch but knew it wouldn’t work. Ian appeared, his form outlined by the paltry light slipping through a gap in the wood siding. Even in darkness his complexion—white as the smoky plumes billowing from the zinc mill—told Rose things were not well with his Aunt. He opened his mouth, but Rose grasped his shoulders and shoved the twelve-year-old toward the kitchen before Ian could form a single word.
“Heat the water. Get the clean towels we hid away for the birth.”
Ian looked at his feet, but didn’t move.
“Go on. You remember,” Rose said.
Ian nodded.
Isabella’s screech from the back of the house summoned Rose toward the bedroom. She groped the walls trying to remember the placement of the furniture. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall. She stepped where the wood floor dropped a few inches into an unfinished dirt path, stumbled and twisted her knee. She grimaced and fell back against the wall, bent over, grasping her throbbing leg. Nothing felt out of place. Another wail. Rose pushed off the wall and limped down the hall toward Isabella. She slammed open the bedroom door, tearing it from its hinge.
In the middle of the shadowy room, Isabella squatted as though urinating, her nightgown splashed with blackened blood, its thick iron odor choking the air. Rose hooked Isabella under the arms and hauled her toward the window, and the mattress on the ground. Rose dug her heels in; thankful traction was the one good attribute of having a mud floor.
She gritted her teeth, wanting to reassure Isabella, to remind her of the slew of births Rose had assisted over the years. But Isabella’s awkward two hundred pounds consumed the energy Rose might have spent on reassuring words.
Isabella groaned and bucked forward. Rose knelt in front of her on the mattress, praying for the moon to move a sliver to the right and illuminate the shadowy room. Rose needed to assess why there was so much blood; Ian was spooked enough to forget the candles she had requested, and his uncle, the baby’s father, was on shift at the mill.
Rose gripped Isabella’s knees and tried to wrench them apart. “It’s all right, you can let go. It’s okay, Isabella. Baby’s coming.” Isabella’s legs gave way and fell open as she dropped back onto the mattress, gasping. Rose felt between the woman’s legs to the baby’s crowned head. She felt a surge of panic at Isabella’s sudden silence, but pushed her fear away.
Rose supported the baby’s head and reached for Isabella’s hand. She squinted, trying to gauge if Isabella’s nails had blued from lack of oxygen, but it was too dark.
“Isabella? You all right? Baby’s here. Prop yourself up, you don’t even need to push, he’s coming, he’s—”
The baby slid out, bringing the usual tumble of cording, but so much more Rose thought she was witnessing the birth of triplets. So much flesh falling through her fingers in the darkness. The rush of blood warmed Rose’s knees, saturating her nurse’s uniform as if it were consuming it.
Her breath tripped and sputtered as she fumbled through the mass of expelled tissue and peeled the baby away. She flipped the body over, whacking its back. Part of Rose understood what she was experiencing, but in the darkness, she could pretend.
“It’s a girl, Isabella. Your baby girl’s here. Just like you wanted. A girl to stay by your side.” Rose worked quickly, firmly opening the baby’s airway and bracing her against her chest, warming her back to life. The baby was definitely full-term, but too thin, and not breathing, heart stilled. Rose cursed herself for not forcing Isabella to take the labor inducement, but the woman thought God alone had the right to induce anything.
“Auntie Bella?”
Rose snapped around. She hadn’t heard anyone come into the room. Behind her stood Ian, a nearly invisible form holding fresh bleached towels that glowed in the twilight. The image of a happy birth flashed through Rose’s mind, a plump, pink baby and healthy mother. Rose’s heart heaved with desolation at what Ian was about to understand.
She waved Ian to her. “I need you to hold this little princess while I tend to your aunt. And, get the scissors from my bag.”
He nodded, handing over the downy towels and dashed to Rose’s bag. She didn’t have time to tell him how to be sanitary when handling them, too busy toweling the blood and fluid from the baby’s eyes, her own burning from the emotion she was stuffing away.
Ian dashed back with the scissors, thrusting them under Rose’s nose.
“She’s okay, right? Both of them?”
Rose lay the baby on the towel, not saying a word, and cut the infant’s cord. Next she swaddled the baby and handed her to Ian. She shuffled him toward the chair across the room and ordered him to sit; fearful he might pass out, afraid if he wasn’t in the room, she might.
Rose resumed her attempts to stop Isabella’s bleeding and rouse her with soft words, knowing the woman died with the birth of her daughter. Even without surgical lighting, Rose saw the woman’s uterus had been expelled with the baby and even in a hospital, it was unlikely she would have survived.
“Sweet Isabella,” Rose whispered, wiping the woman’s hair from her brow. “I’ll put in a call to Dr. Bonaroti.” Rose wiped her hands on the uniform’s apron; angered the physician hadn’t made it to the birth.
“No phone, Nurse Rose,” Ian said, “‘member last time yunz guys come down the house for—”
Ian began hyperventilating, his body shuddering rhythmically, bouncing him out of the chair. His desperation jolted Rose’s own grief. She dashed toward the boy grasping his arms.
“That’ll be enough, Ian. I need your help.”
He looked up, snot flying from his nose, saliva at the corners of his mouth like a rabid animal, and she grabbed him from the chair, hugged him so tight he choked. She held him there, baby between them. Rose eased his pain with the warmth of her skin, hoping that she could stave off the sadness he’d feel as he grew up without his aunt.
“Now Ian. You need to go next door and phone Dr. Bonaroti.” Where was that damn doctor? This was exactly why Donora needed to fund Rose for the next year. If her nearly one year serving as a community nurse had shown her anything, it was that they actually needed three nurses. Just two more months of funding and the program was shot if their data wasn’t convincing.
Rose took the baby and guided Ian from the room. “Tell Alice to tell the doc it’s an emergency.”
She rubbed his back and wanted to say everything would be all right, but she knew nothing would be fine for young Ian. His uncle had a lust for booze and when he wasn’t breaking his neck in the zinc mill, was inattentive even at his most benign.
Though she would have given anything to be one of those people who could lie to make someone feel better, she had discovered through the losses she’d experienced in life, she was not that kind of woman at all.
* * *
With candles finally lit and a mixing bowl of water by the bed, Rose wiped Isabella’s crusting blood with a moist pledget. The blood had hardened into shapes, a map of where a life had drained from a body; the heaviest, black splashes were caked near the opening that should have delivered the world vibrant life instead of death.
Rose swallowed tears and cleared her throat. More could have been done for Isabella. If only there was more than one community nurse in town. No time for tears. She prayed for Isabella, repeating Hail Marys and Our Fathers hoping somehow the act would help usher the lost souls into the afterlife.
A door slammed somewhere in the home and Rose stopped her work. Her lips kept perfect prayerful time. Dr. Bonaroti barreled into the bedroom, stopped short behind Rose, kicking dirt up from the primitive floor. His unusual silence conveyed sorrow that a patient had met her end in the way she had.
“Doctor,” Rose said without looking up from Isabella’s leg.
“Rose.” His voice was low.
She washed Isabella’s legs. Her touch was firm, but gentle, scrubbing as though Isabella’s spirit might feel the cleansing of her flesh. With her free hand, Rose fished around the bowl beside her for another pledget and held it up to Bonaroti. He shuffled around Isabella’s body, taking his place across from Rose.
The doctor and his nurse bathed Isabella in silent, tandem rhythm that reflected their sadness and expertise in caring for patients for decades.
When they finished, Rose got the white sheet she brought with her and snapped it into the air, releasing its fresh scent. It billowed up and out before dropping and draping Isabella’s still bloated shape. Bonaroti examined the baby and scribbled on his documents, lifting his gaze to Rose periodically. She met his eyes with a nod, noting that this death was particularly hard for him. In most situations, he was not afraid to infuse the moment with his dry sense of humor.
Rose wrapped the infant in a small blanket and marveled at her blemish-free face. Somehow they must be wrong; this infant, with no outward signs of death was really alive. Rose unwrapped the baby, listened for breath again, felt for the rush of blood where thin veins and arteries ran inside her tiny wrist. Certain the baby was dead, Rose tucked the precious bundle inside Isabella’s arm as though they were asleep after a late night feeding.
“You’re not going to try and baptize this one? Not going to call the priest?” Dr. Bonaroti said.
“I wanted to. But she was dead on arrival.” Rose cleared her throat worried the tiny soul would live in limbo, caught between heaven and hell. She sped through another Hail Mary and asked God to let this one pass through the gates without baptism. That couldn’t be right, sentenced to an eternity in limbo for lack of one breath and a splash of water over your brow? Rose didn’t think it was true, but still her heart clenched in dread.
Rose took one final look at mother and child and smoothed Isabella’s hair from her face, her fingers lingering, offering final comfort to a body no longer in need of human touch.
* * *
Outside the Greshecky’s, Rose sent Ian next door to the Draganac’s who agreed to take him in until his uncle finished working. Rose shifted her weight, hands on hip. In the early morning, the cool air mixed with her perspiration and chilled her. She waited for Doc Bonaroti to emerge from the house to discuss the coming day’s plans. Though standing by herself on the hill above town, she was hardly alone. The familiar machinations of sleepless Donora kept her company.
Down below, carving the land nearly into an island, the horseshoe-shaped Monongahela River pushed northward. The “Mon,” as locals referred to the river, fed Donora’s steel, wire, and zinc mills—three full miles of industry. The town was located twenty miles south of its big steel sister, Pittsburgh, but was no less important. Incorporated in 1901, United States Steel had gifted Donora with its prized zinc mill in 1915 for the loyalty of the steel workers. Donora understood the power of steel and the way it fueled their existence.
Rose yawned and stretched as the last of the lights snapped off in the Draganac home, hoping Ian might sleep even for a short time. A burst of fire drew Rose’s attention back down the hill. Like triplets, the three mills shared patronage, but each bore its own personality, voice and strength. The three industry siblings were the heart of the town—the reason Donora existed.
They shared veins and arteries in the form of rail systems, and each worked non-stop swallowing raw materials and spewing waste while producing steel to be flat-rolled and sheared, galvanized with zinc and finally driven into the world to gird the infrastructure that built and armed the greatest nation known to man.
The open hearth and blast furnaces were the family show-offs. Their fiery displays mesmerized onlookers with rushing flames, bringing people to a halt as though the hot work was a circus act. Even disposing of the furnace waste—the slag—inspired awe. Poured from rail cars the molten, lava-like debris lit up the sky as it spilled down hillsides in Palmer Park or into the Mon where it cooled and hardened, creating a sturdy riverbank.
Rose tapped her toe, keeping time with the firing of metal through molds in the wire-works—the loudmouth, most practical of the three mills. Its sensible nails provided never-ending uses as Americans clamored to build homes after the war. The rhythmic, measured beat of nails being shaped to industrial perfection accompanied life in Donora. It was a normal occurrence and expected, like breathing.
Rose checked her watch. Bonaroti and one of the funeral directors, Mr. Matthews, should be finishing up inside. Rose thought of Mr. Greshecky working in the zinc mill. That mill was the moody sibling. Everyone knew its value and so its punishing, scorching ways were overlooked. It produced a substance that protected steel from corrosion, keeping the products of the other two mills, rust-free, forever functional. The mill was so hot many workers toiled in four-hour shifts, rather than the typical eight.
Rose rubbed a knot in the back of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a light go on in the Hamilton home and a flash of the missus as she passed by a window. Like the mills that never stopped, Donora’s residents rarely did either. Sixty-five hundred of the fourteen thousand residents labored in the mills. Most of the men who weren’t employed there worked in businesses that supported them in one way or another.
And the women and children—their lives were wrought by the mills every bit as much as the steel produced inside them. Up early to feed husbands off to the day shift, and staying awake late into the night hours to cook for sons on the night shift, the women worked nonstop; children ate dinner at odd hours and opened presents as close to Christmas morning as their fathers’ shifts allowed. No one, nothing, in Donora was exempt from the body cracking, character-building work required of their lives.
And standing there in what would amount to the most quiet moments of Rose’s day she wondered what it would be like to experience true silence, with no machinery underwriting every second of her life. She heard the slam of a door and looked over her shoulder to see Doc Bonaroti emerge from the Greshecky home, his dour expression making the ache in her neck worse.
Bonaroti shrugged then kicked at the curb. Rose knew he was discouraged if he was risking a scuff on the toe of his perfectly shined shoes.
Rose sighed. “So. What are our options for funding as we head into the last two months?”
He pushed his glasses further back on his nose. “Present our case to the Easter Seals society, Women’s Club, Red Cross—”
Rose’s teeth chattered, and she pulled her coat tighter. “Fanny has plans for the Red Cross donations.”
Dr. Bonaroti nodded and held up his hand. “The new superintendent’s wife is the head of the Women’s Club now. She’s willing to look at your data, to go with you to the Lipinski’s and to another home of your choosing—”
“To what? To watch me work? No. Think of the patients. They aren’t zoo animals.”
Bonaroti set his bag at his feet and pushed up the arms of his suit-coat, revealing a trail of cheap watches people had used to pay him for his services. This was his way of reminding Rose that if citizens of a small town, even one with three thriving mills had to regularly pay a doctor with watches and the occasional hen, then she needed to make a damn good case for paying a community nurse.
Rose shrugged. “You’re right. I made twenty-five hundred calls in the last ten months. We need three nurses if we need one. So, whatever it takes, I’ll do it. We can’t have more Isabellas.”
Bonaroti pressed his lips together and pushed down his sleeves. He grinned, lifting his bag. “And a dentist, Rose. The Community Welfare Committee over in Moon Run springs for a dentist for the miners’ families. Surely we can rustle up some cash for a dentist to take a look at all these mouths full of mottled teeth.”
He started down the steps that served as sidewalks, a necessity in Donora due to the sharp angle of the hills. The fog was thick and hid him from Rose though she could hear his footsteps.
“Let’s get my services paid for another year,” Rose said, lifting her voice. “Before we add a dentist to the mix, don’t you say?”
“Yes, let’s.” His disembodied voice carried over the groaning tugboats and screeching trains below.
Rose straightened and took a deep breath, wondering how she’d make it through the day with all that had to be done.
* * *
The time between a difficult call and arriving home gave Rose a chance to reflect, to feel gratitude, to pray. She plodded through the misty night, negotiating uneven cement walks, moving slower than she liked, the fog adding heaviness to the darkness of the early morning hour.
Around her, four hundred-fifty feet of mountainside lurched into the air, and slumped over the valley. Near the mills the narrow, soot-encrusted homes of its workers marched along the flatlands. Heading up the hillsides, houses were stacked; clinging to dirt and rock like children nestled to their mother’s chest.
Rose enjoyed knowing the social makeup of the different sections of town and what that meant for her service to the people. Like a parent checking on children, opening bedroom doors and peeking inside to be sure they were sleeping peacefully, Rose did the same as she trekked home. She paused at certain addresses mentally ticking off whether all seemed well. She made lists of who she needed to check on the next day, which people might be still be suffering after an earlier visit and who was covering up an illness that needed to be addressed in the first place.
One section of Donora called Cement City boasted cement walled homes, built to last centuries and keep mill smoke out of the house. They were designated for mill management and lower-rung hotshots. Overlook Terrace, at the other end of town, was for the superintendents of each mill. But streets like Murray Avenue, where Rose lived, were home to American born newspaper editors and immigrant laborers. Some folks had money tucked away in Mellon Bank, growing as fast as their post-war families and others had barely managed to save a few dimes.
Donora was full of people with all manner of education, breeding, and heritage. There were twenty-two churches and a synagogue in the compact town, yet somehow they managed to live happily. Rose knew much of the contentment stemmed from steady work in the mills. The promise of a secure source of income helped people keep soft hearts and open minds toward neighbors.
Rose reached her hodgepodge home, drew a deep breath and sighed. She would not have enough time to sleep so she surrendered to the work ahead, hopeful that her large family would do their part to help.
She grasped the oversized doorknob, and heard familiar huffing and puffing. Before she could turn, the mutt gently clamped her ankle with his mouth and licked her. Its stinking slobber wafted through the thick air.
“Stupid dog!” Rose shook her foot to loosen its grip and grazed the dog’s muzzle. It collapsed into a ball, tail tucked in. Rose covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Go away, she thought, I don’t like animals. Rose had learned lack of cleanliness was host to many deadly or debilitating diseases. So, she’d decided long before that when she met an animal that didn’t carry disease or filth with it, she’d let it in the house.
Rose exhaled and stood over the pooch, disapproving of its shaggy fur, the ropey knots resembling the rags she used to clean house.
“I’m sorry I caught your nose with my foot, but you shouldn’t be here.”
It lifted its gaze and let out a raspy cry. Rose stared back, clutching her nurse’s bag to her belly. “Now go on, you raggedy rags!” He bolted, leaving a fresh burst of sour odor of scabby filth in its wake.
Rose twisted the doorknob, threw her body against the side-door and heard the usual screech across the linoleum. Inside, she fell back, shoving the door closed. She tried to wipe the sound of Ian’s sobs from her mind.
A rush of hot air from the radiator beside her flushed her face, and raised a rancid, bloody odor from her clothing. She looked at her watch. Five A.M. She felt every minute of the sleepless night. But The Techniques and Expectations of Community Nursing Manual demanded Rose immediately cleanse all used instruments and containers after a call. She swallowed a yawn and said another prayer for strength. Nursing meant everything to her; she was proud of her skill. To Rose, being a good mother was a given. She had no choice but to give her children a solid upbringing, but nursing gave her a sense of self-worth she’d never quite found any other way.
All she needed was a sip of water before she set to clean her instruments and start breakfast. Rose shook off her tweed coat. She sighed as she hung it on its own hook as per manual instructions, away from the other coats that draped the rickety coat-rack in the corner, behind the door.
Rose entered the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of her seventeen-year-old son hunched over the percolator, measuring coffee grains into the metal basket. Her jaw dropped at the sight of what he was using as a measuring tool. Urine sample cups. It didn’t matter that Rose scrubbed them after use with the prescribed green soap until they gleamed; they were still vessels for bodily fluids.
“Johnny? What the hell are you doing?”
He emptied one into the basket. “Making coffee?”
Rose wanted to rip the cup from his hands and beat him on the skull with it, but didn’t have the energy for it. “They’re urine cups. You’re damn lucky those college football scouts don’t make surprise visits to be sure you fellas are as smart as you look on paper.”
“Gee thanks, Mum.” Johnny laughed, dumping the coffee into the garbage can. “I was wondering why we had six coffee measures.” Rose got a whiff of alcohol as he turned toward her. He wouldn’t drink on a school night? Not him. Not her baby.
“Geez-o-man, Mum, that blood.” He covered his mouth and collapsed over the sink, retching.
Rose shook her head at his weak stomach, patted his back and leaned her hip against the sink. She sniffed near his mouth; the odor of booze was gone as suddenly as it had been there. Exhaustion must have been taking over her sanity.
She yanked open a drawer and flipped a worn dishcloth to Johnny. He wiped his mouth and straightened, leaning against the sink, mirroring Rose’s stance.
Rose fluffed his hair, its Vaseline sheen lost during the night. “Go back to bed for an hour.”
“Can’t sleep.”
Rose put her hand over Johnny’s. “You have a big week ahead of you.”
He stiffened. A grimace flashed across his normally affable expression. Rose was hard on him regarding his future, but she knew when to push and when to let go. An argument about the importance of college and a scholarship wouldn’t help anyone at this hour.
“I was wondering,” Johnny said. He squeezed Rose’s hand and seemed to search her face for permission to continue. “Maybe we could talk about college. This week, before the game.”
Rose closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek. She could not have this conversation again. “Sure, college. We’ll talk about how you’re getting a football scholarship and heading off to live it up in a fraternity house, smoking cigars after colossal wins and big tests. You just rest up for your game.”
Categories free kindle nation shorts
KND Freebies: Award-winning novel THE LAST LETTER by bestselling author Kathleen Shoop is featured in today’s Free Kindle Nation Shorts Excerpt
2011 IPPY AwardsWINNER, Western Fiction
2011 USA Best Books Awardsplus 124 rave reviews!
“…I cannot get the characters out of my mind…beautifully written…”
For every parent forced to make heart-wrenching decisions in the name of love…
and for every daughter who thinks she knows her mother’s story…
comes this deeply moving novel by bestselling author Kathleen Shoop.
Don’t miss it while it’s just 99 cents!
The Last Letter (Book 1- The Letter Series)
by Kathleen Shoop
Katherine wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t found the letter…
Katherine Arthur’s mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie’s husband Frank, it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank. But, it was a society of uncertainty—a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death.
Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, and far from the homestead, Katherine has found the truth—she has discovered the last letter. After years of anger, can Katherine find it in her heart to understand why her mother made the decisions that changed them all? Can she forgive and finally begin to heal before it’s too late?
Praise for The Last Letter:
“Gripping historical fiction—two women finding meaning behind all that went wrong in their lives. A timeless tale of redemption…”
-NY Times bestselling author Melissa Foster
“Shoop’s characters breathe. I am blown away by the authenticity of the dialogue and setting…a gifted writer with a bang-on sense of atmosphere, time, place, and social class.”
“…like Little House on the Prairie on steroids in the best possible way!…”
an excerpt from
The Last Letter
by Kathleen Shoop
Chapter 1
1905
Des Moines, Iowa
Katherine rubbed the second knuckle of her pinky finger–the spot where it had been amputated nearly two decades before. The scarred wound pulsed with each heartbeat as her mind flashed through the events that led to its removal. Was it possible for an infection to form inside an old sore?
Don’t think about it. Just do your work.
She snatched the clump of metal from the stone saucer and scrubbed the iron pot as though issuing it punishment. She caught her forefinger on blackened beans. Damn. She sucked on the nail. With her free hand she yanked the plug from the soapstone sink then opened the back door. Hot, thick wind brushed her cheeks and forced her eyes closed as she yanked the rope that made the dinner bell clang.
With a jerk of her hip she booted the door closed and wiped her hands on the gravy-splattered apron that draped her body. A crash came from the front of the house. A ball through the window? Another wrestling match over the last “up” at bat? She dashed toward the foyer to see what her children were up to.
She tripped over the edge of the carpet and caught her balance, gaping at the sight. There on the floor was her husband, Aleksey, kneeling over her sister Yale. A shattered flow-blue vase lay scattered around them.
Yale burped sending a burst of gin-scented breath upward.
Katherine recoiled as the odor hit her nose.
“She’s drunk? Take her to my mother’s!”
Aleksey looked up, his face strained.
“Just help…”
She couldn’t handle Yale. Not right then. She turned and headed back toward the kitchen. Their mother would have to rescue Yale this time. As though being scolded from afar, her missing finger throbbed again, like a knife scraping at the marrow deep inside her bones the pain forced her to stop. Her mother hadn’t been there when she lost the finger. Her mother was never where she was supposed to be.
Katherine looked over her shoulder at the pair on the floor and clutched her hand against her chest. Yale gurgled, growing pale grey. Aleksey hoisted her and carried her to the couch.
She looked down at her smarting hand, against her heart, and clarity took over. It wasn’t Yale’s fault she was fragile. She’d been born that way. She’s your sister. Do something. She puffed out her cheeks with air and then released it. Her anger receded taking the throbbing pulse in her hand with it.
She grabbed a pot of hydrangeas from a side-table and ran out the front door, shook the billowy, blue flowers out of the pot sending coal-black dirt splashing over the wood planks.
Back in the house she slid onto the couch, Yale’s head in her lap, pot perched on the floor to catch the vomit. Aleksey paced in front of the women.
“She was at Sweeny’s. Alone. Men, tossing her back and forth like a billiard ball. I barely…”
Katherine covered her mouth. She had enough of her mother’s failures.
“I knew this kind of thing would happen. And, now-”
“She’s your sister and I know you love them even if you say you don’t care. Your mother’s dying. We have to help them.” Aleksey’s jaw tensed.
Katherine bit the inside of her cheek, struck by his rare disapproval of her.
“You can’t ignore this one more minute,” Aleksey said, “seventeen years is long enough to forgive.”
Without warning, Yale bucked forward and vomited, spackling Katherine with booze-scented chunks before passing out again. Tears gathered in her eyes. Hand quivering, she swiped a chunk from her chin with the back of her hand then smoothed Yale’s black hair off her pale, clammy forehead.
She gulped and gritted her teeth.
“If Mother can’t take care of Yale, then it’s time for the institution.” The words were sour in Katherine’s mouth, yet she couldn’t stop them from forming, from hanging in the air, the spitefulness making Aleksey break her gaze.
Aleksey pulled the pot from between Katherine’s feet and held it near Yale as she started to gag again.
“Yale can stay here. They both can.”
Katherine rocked Yale, not wanting to let her go, but knowing she had to hold her mother accountable. She was the mother after all. She shook her head and slid Yale off her lap, patting her head as she stood.
Aleksey rolled Yale to her side as she heaved into the pot.
“I’ll call Mother,” she said heading toward the stairs.
“I recall a time,” Aleksey said as he held Yale like she was one of his own, “when you called your mother, Mama, and the word swelled with adoration.”
Katherine turned from the bottom step, her posture straight and sure, like she was headed to dinner and a play rather than to scrape someone’s vomit from her skin. She gripped the banister trying to channel the mish-mash of emotion into the wood rather than feel it.
“I don’t recall that. Calling her Mama, feeling warmth in the word. I don’t recall it a bit.” And with that she trudged upstairs to peel off the rancid clothes and to stifle the rotten feelings that always materialized upon the sight of her family, drunk or not.
Chapter 2
1887
Dakota Territory
“Mama?”
Jeanie jumped at her daughter’s thin voice. Katherine lay below her in tall sinuous grasses that bent with the wind, covering and uncovering her with each shifting gust.
“I’m hot and tired and when will Father be back?” Katherine rose up on her elbows. “I understand complaining is like an ice-pick in your ear, but I’m plum hot and plum parched and tired of waiting.” She jerked a blade of grass from the ground and bit on it.
Jeanie nodded and rubbed her belly. She was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone. Cramps pulled inside her pelvis. Would she lose this one? Nervous, she grabbed for the fat pearls that used to decorate her neck and smacked her tongue off the roof of her arid mouth.
She hacked up a clump of phlegm, turned her back to Katherine and spit it into the air. A sudden blast of air blew the green mucus back, landing on her skirt. Hands spread up to the sky, she stared at the ugly splotch marveling at how quickly her life had transformed. She would never have believed it possible before the scandal hit her own family.
With clenched teeth she wrenched a corner of her petticoat from under the skirt to wipe away the lumpy secretion. Her thoughts tripped over each other. Jeanie would not let doubt linger, mix with fear and paralyze her. She would be sure the family re-grew their fortune, that they reclaimed their contentment, their name, their everything. If only Frank were more reliable. Damn Frank was never where he was supposed to be.
Arms wrapped across her body, Jeanie tapped her silk-shoed foot. They should head for water, but she didn’t think that was prudent. She’d heard people could lose direction quickly in such expansive land. That frightened her, not being in control, but she also thought perhaps the people who ended up wandering the prairie lost were simply not that smart or were careless. Slowly, as she ran her fingers down the front of her swelling throat, each scratchy swallow symbolized the wagonload of errors Jeanie had made and she started to understand that intelligence and survival did not always walk together.
Damn him. Five hours. They’d waited long enough for Frank. She pushed away the rising tears that grew from thinking of the mess her father and darling husband had made for them. Be brave.
They needed to take action or they’d prune from the inside out.
“Let’s head for water.” Jeanie clasped Katherine’s hand and pulled her to standing. We can do this, Jeanie thought. Frank had tied red sashes around taller bushes that were scattered in the direction of the well. Katherine wiggled free of her mother’s grasp and raced-as much as a girl could dart through grasses that whapped at her chest-over the land.
“Stay close!” Jeanie stopped and pulled her foot off the ground. She sucked back her breath as her slim-heeled shoes dug into her ankles. Katherine looked up from ahead, waving a bunch of purple prairie crocus over her head at Jeanie.
Jeanie turned to see how far they’d moved from the wagon. She could only see the tip of the white canvas that arched over it. She looked back in the direction of the well, of Katherine. The wind stilled. The sudden hush was heavy. The absence of Katherine’s lavender bonnet sent blood flashing through her veins.
“Katherine?” She must be pulling more flowers, Jeanie thought and rose to her tiptoes. “Katherine?”
Jeanie looked back at the wagon.
“Katherine!” Jeanie stomped some of the grass hoping the depressed sections would somehow stick out amidst the chunky high grass when they needed to return.
“Katherine!” Jeanie’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat and shouted again. No answer. She shivered then clenched her skirt and hiked it up, thundering in the direction of Katherine.
KatherineKatherineKatherineKatherine! Bolting through the grasses, the wind swelled, it pushed Jeanie back as she pressed forward, turning her shouts back at her, filling her ears with her own words as she strained to hear a reply.
Jeanie stopped as though slamming into a wall, swallowing loud breaths hoping the silence would allow Katherine’s voice to hit her ears. Nothing. She ran again, right out of her luxurious, city-shoes, while cursing the mass of skirts and crinoline that swallowed her legs. Her feet slammed over the dirt.
The grasses tangled around her ankles, tripping her. Jeanie scrambled back to her feet and took three steps before taking one right off the edge of the earth. She plummeted into water. A pond. Jeanie stood and spit out foamy, beer-colored water. At least she could touch bottom.
“Katthhh-errrrrr-ine!” She slogged through the waist deep water, her attention nowhere and everywhere at once. The sounds of splashing and choking finally made Jeanie focus on one area of the pond. She shot around a bend in the bank to see Katherine’s face go under the water taking what little wind Jeanie had left in her lungs away.
Katherine shot back up. “Mama, Mama!” She dropped back under.
Jeanie lunged and groped for Katherine as the bottom of the pond fell away. Jeanie treaded water, the skirts strangling her efforts to be efficient. A bit further! The bottom must be shallow or Katherine couldn’t have bounced up as she had.
But the bottom didn’t rise up and Jeanie choked on grainy water. She burst forward on her stomach, taking an arm-stroke, her feet scrounging for the bottom. Her face sunk under the surface.
We’re going to die, Jeanie thought. Frank would never find them. Her boys!
Bubbles appeared in front of Jeanie and she reached through the murky water for Katherine. Finally, hands grabbed back, gripping Jeanie’s. She could feel every precious finger threaded through hers. Jeanie jerked Katherine into her body, lumbered toward the bank then shoved the floppy girl up onto it. Katherine lay on the grass, hacking and inhaling so deep that she folded over, gagging. Jeanie squirmed out and pulled Katherine across her lap, thumping her back until there was nothing left but empty heaves.
Silent tears camouflaged by stale, pond water warmed Jeanie’s cheeks. Her hand shook as she pushed Katherine’s matted hair away from her eyes, rocking her.
“We’ll be fine, Katherine. We’ll build a life and start over and be happy. We will. Believe it deep inside your very young bones.”
Katherine snuffled then blew her nose in her filthy, sodden skirt. Her voice squeaked. “Oh, Mama.” Katherine burrowed into Jeanie’s chest and curled into a ball in her lap.
Jeanie wiped Katherine’s mouth with the edge of her skirt, streaking mud across her cheek. She used her thumb to clean away the muck. Her daughter in need was all that kept Jeanie from rolling into a ball herself.
“My, my. We’ll be fine,” Jeanie said. And as her heart fell back into its normal rhythms heavy exhaustion braced her. “We’ll enjoy the sunshine all the more if we’ve had a few shadows first. Right? That’s right.” Jeanie knew those words sounded ridiculous in light of all they’d been through, but still they dribbled out of her mouth, as though simply discussing a broken bit of Limoges.
Katherine nodded into her mother’s chest. Jeanie shuddered, a leaden tumor of dread swelled in her gut. She wouldn’t let it settle there.
“Shush, shush, little one,” Jeanie kissed her cheeks. If Katherine and she lived through that they could live through anything. The pond event, as it came to be in Jeanie’s mind, was evidence they’d paid a price and would be free to accept all the treasures the prairie offered from that point forward.
“Are you crying Mama?”
Jeanie forced a smile then looked into Katherine’s upturned face.
“We’re not crying people.” Her fingers quivered as she tucked the stiff chestnut tendrils into Katherine’s bonnet. “Besides there’s nothing to cry about.”
Katherine gripped her mother tighter.
“I knew you’d save us, Mama. Even in Des Moines, I knew that no matter what, you could save us.”
Jeanie hugged Katherine close hiding the splintered confidence she knew must be creased into her face. What did Katherine know? She couldn’t know the details of their disgrace. She must have simply picked up on the weightiness of their leaving the family home for this-this nothingness.
Jeanie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find the strength inside her. She would not fake her self-assurance. She believed that kind of thing lived inside a person’s skin, never really leaving, even if it did weaken from time to time. Yes, Jeanie told herself, she was the same person she had been three weeks before. Losing everything she owned didn’t mean she had to lose herself.
***
Jeanie stood at the edge of the pond and inventoried her most recent losses: impractical shoes she shouldn’t have been wearing anyway; silver chatelaine that held her pen, paper, and watch; pride. Well, no, she was determined to salvage her self-respect. She clutched her waist with both hands, considering their options, then pulled Katherine to her feet.
“This standing pond water will poison us. We’ll continue to the well.”
Katherine patted her mother’s back then bent over to pluck some prairie grass from the ground.
The wooly sunrays seemed to lower onto their heads rather than move further away, settling into the west. Their dresses dried crisp-the pond-water debris acted as a starch-while the skirts underneath remained moist and mealy.
Jeanie wiggled her toes. They burned inside the holey stockings.
“Our new home will have a spring house, right Mama? Icy, fresh spring water?”
“I’m afraid, no, little lamb.”
“Oh gaaaa-loshes,” Katherine said.
Jeanie slung her arm around Katherine. “Let me think for a moment, Darling.”
The endless land looked the same though not familiar, appearing perfectly flat, though housing hidden rises in land and gaping holes that were obvious only after it was too late. All Jeanie could remember was running straight to the spot that ended up being a pond. Her heart thudded hard again reminding her she had no control of her existence.
A sob rumbled inside Jeanie, wracking her body, forcing an obnoxious, weak moan to ooze from her clenched lips. Toughen up. She pushed her shoulders down as her throat swelled around another rising sob.
Katherine pushed a piece of grass upward, offering it to Jeanie to chew on.
“You said you came around a bend, Mama.”
Jeanie closed her fingers over the blade of grass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“We’ll curve back around to get to the point where we can head straight back toward the wagon. Then we’ll know where the well is from there.”
They held hands, traipsed around the edge of the pond and rose up a gentle hill. From there, they could see a tree. Just one. Tall, yet knobby, as though surrendering to death a bit. But, even in its contorted form, Jeanie could see its vibrant green foliage and white blooms.
Katherine pointed.
“I forgot the world had trees.”
“Yes.”
“I’m thirsty Mama.”
“Don’t feel out of spirits. We’ll find the well. Better to ignore the thirst until then.” Jeanie wished she could take her own advice but she’d felt parched since she first perched atop the wagon seat three days before.
Katherine squeezed Jeanie’s hand three times saying “I love you” with the gesture. Jeanie squeezed back to say the same then looked away from the tree into nothingness.
They hugged the edge of the pond, following the bends back to the spot where Jeanie’s foot caught the cusp of the pond, tearing out some earth. Facing directly east, they headed back to where Jeanie thought the wagon sat.
“Get on my shoulders,” Jeanie said.
They faced each other with Jeanie’s wrists crossed, hands joined. Jeanie bent her knees and exploded upward swinging Katherine around her back. Katherine wiggled into a comfortable place on Jeanie’s shoulders and fastened her ankles around Jeanie’s chest.
“You all right, Mama?”
“My yes, Sweet Pea. All is well.” She was going to make all of that true. “Peel your eyes for the wagon.” Jeanie plodded, feeling Katherine’s weight quickly, thinking of the baby inside.
“Yes, Mama.” Katherine hummed a tune.
“Concentrate on the looking,” Jeanie said.
“The humming helps me look.”
“Well, then,” Jeanie said through heavy breaths. “Keep those eyes wide as a prairie night.”
“Wide as a what?” Katherine said.
“A prairie night,” Jeanie said. Katherine’s legs stiffened and she pulled hard around Jeanie’s neck.
Jeanie halted, absorbing Katherine’s tension.
“What’s wrong? What do you see?” Jeanie looked upward at Katherine’s face above her. She squeezed Katherine’s thigh to get her attention. Were they about to step into a snake pit, be trampled by a herd of cows?
“What is it?”
“A man,” Katherine said.
“Who?” Ridiculous question in light of them not knowing a soul in Dakota.
Katherine’s legs kicked-she gripped Jeanie’s bonnet making its ties nearly choke her.
Jeanie’s heart began its clunking patterns again.
“Where?”
Katherine didn’t respond so Jeanie swung her from her shoulders and tucked her behind her skirts. Jeanie glanced about the ground for something sharp or big. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon against a small rodent let alone a man.
Katherine clenched Jeanie so tight that the two nearly flew off their feet. Steadied, Jeanie couldn’t see anyone coming toward them. Her bare feet pulsed with pain making her feel more vulnerable. Katherine must be hallucinating, the thirst taking its toll on her.
Jeanie spun in place, craning for the sight of a man, the sound of feet, but a windblast made anything that might emit noise, soundless.
For a moment Jeanie was tempted to burrow into the grasses, hide there, play dead, anything to avoid the man, if there was a man. A new burst of sweat gathered at her hairline and dripped down the sides of her face. Katherine’s fingers delved into the loosened stays of Jeanie’s corset.
“Who’s there?” Jeanie yelled into the wind. She shuddered. She could feel someone watching them. She whirled again, Katherine whipped around with her.
“Who’s there?” Jeanie shouted. This time her words tore through the air, the winds momentarily still.
“It’s Howard Templeton! Jeanie Arthur? That you?” A full, gruff voice came from behind. Jeanie and Katherine twisted around a final time. Jeanie’s body relaxed. If he knew her name it must be a good sign. She tensed again, maybe not. Maybe he tortured Frank and the boys and…she wouldn’t think about it. This Templeton sported a pristine black hat. His ropy limbs were strong though not bulky, not threatening in any setting other than that of the naked prairie.
Jeanie shaded her eyes and looked into his six feet two inches, meeting his gaze. A crooked grin pulled his mouth a centimeter away from being a smirk.
“Mrs. Arthur, I presume? There. That’s more proper, isn’t it? Don’t be nervous.”
“It was the wind,” Jeanie said. You scared me blind, she wanted to say, but wouldn’t. “I couldn’t pinpoint…well, no matter.” She wasn’t accustomed to making her own introductions. It felt rude to say, who are you? So, she said nothing.
Templeton removed his hat and bent at the waist, lifting his eyes. Was he flirting with this dramatic bow? She grabbed for absent pearls then smoothed the front of her dress before pulling Katherine into her side.
He straightened, replaced his hat.
“I met your husband, Frank, on his way to stake a claim.”
Jeanie flinched. Where was Frank?
Templeton jammed one of his mitts toward Jeanie, offering a handshake. She stepped backward while still offering her hand in return.
He clasped her hand inside both of his. They were remarkably soft for a man ferreting out a home on the prairie. He held the handclasp and their gaze. Jeanie looked away glimpsing their joined hands. She cleared her throat and wormed her hand out of his.
She wished there had been a manual pertaining to the etiquette of meeting on the prairie. Etiquette should have traveled anywhere one went, but she could feel, standing there embarrassed in so many ways, how unreliable everything she had learned about life would be in that setting. Jeanie ran the freed hand over her bonnet, straightening it then smoothing the front of her pond-mucked skirt.
Templeton shifted his weight, and drew Jeanie’s attention back.
“I advised your Frank to jump a claim. To take up in the Henderson’s place. That family never proved up and rather than you starting from scratch, I figured you might as well start from something. Besides, I miss having a direct neighbor. Darlington Township might have well over a hundred homesteads settled, but it’s really the few closest to you, the ones you form cooperatives with, that matter.”
Jeanie swallowed hard. She eyed his canteen and had to hold her hand back to keep from rudely snatching it right off his body.
“Well, I’m not keen on jumping a claim, Mr. Templeton. I’ll have to consult my own inclination before we put pen to paper on that.”
She bit the inside of her mouth, regretting she’d lost her manners, her mind.
“I’m sorry. My manners. It’s a pleasure to meet you. This is my daughter Katherine.”
Katherine smiled. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Templeton shook her hand then folded his arms across his chest.
“You, Katherine, are the picture of your father. Prettier though, of course, with your mother’s darker coloring, I see.”
Katherine reddened, peered upward from under her bonnet then darted away, leaping and spinning.
“Stay close!” Jeanie said.
“So what bit you with good old prairie fever?” Templeton asked.
Jeanie looked around as though something drew her attention. She hadn’t considered what her response to that query would be. Her heart burst at the chest wall. Templeton’s quiet patience, his steadfast gaze heightened Jeanie’s discomfort.
“Circumstances.”
“I know all about circumstances,” Howard said.
“I don’t mean to be ill-mannered, but…” Jeanie eyed the canteen Templeton had slung across his body.
He rubbed his chin then slid the strap over his head.
“Frank sent me with some water, figured you’d need it, that I’d be the best person to find you.”
“Water, thank you, my yes.” Jeanie licked her lips.
He handed it to Jeanie. Her hands shook, nearly dropping it as she unclasped the catch. She would give her daughter the first drink.
“Katherine! Water!”
Katherine skipped toward them. She took the canteen, shoulders hunched, eyes wide as they had been on Christmas morning.
“Watch, don’t dribble.” Jeanie held her hands up under the canteen. She forced her gaze away, knowing she must look crazed, staring at Katherine’s throat swallowing, barely able to wait her turn.
Katherine stopped drinking and sighed, eyes closed, content. She held the canteen to her mother.
Jeanie threw her head back, water drenching her insides. The liquid engorged every cell of her shriveled body. She took it from her lips and offered it back to Katherine.
“You finish up,” Jeanie said, cupping Katherine’s chin, lifting it to get a good look into her now glistening eyes.
“There’s got to be plenty back at the wagon now, right, Mr. Templeton?” Jeanie said.
He didn’t reply. He squatted down, squinting at Jeanie’s bare feet.
“You’re not going another inch with naked feet and phalanges. What a great word, I haven’t had use for since, well, never mind that,” Templeton said.
Katherine’s eyes widened.
“I’ll thank you to find your manners, Mr. Templeton,” Jeanie said stepping back.
“Don’t be harebrained, Mrs. Arthur. Allow me to wrap your feet so they’re protected should you step on a rattler, or into a gopher hole. I’ll be as doctorly as possible.” Templeton stood and unbuttoned his shirt.
Jeanie waved her hands back and forth. “No, now, no, now please don’t do…” But before she could arrange her words to match her thoughts, Templeton ripped his shirt into strips and helped Jeanie to the ground. He turned her left foot back and forth. Jeanie’s eyes flew wide open, her mouth gaping.
Katherine sighed with her entire body.
“Sure am glad we stumbled upon Mr. Templeton. My mama wasn’t trying to be disagreeable. She’s just proper is all.”
“Katherine Margaret Arthur.” Jeanie snatched for her daughter’s arm, but she leapt away, humming, cart-wheeling. Jeanie’s face flamed.
Templeton’s deep laugh shook his whole body. He began to wrap her foot. “These feet look to have been damaged by more than a simple run across the land.”
Jeanie bit the inside of her cheek. She wouldn’t confide her utter stupidity to a stranger.
“Let me guess,” Templeton said. “I’d say you had a little trouble parting with your city shoes? Perhaps? The way your feet are lacerated below the ankles, as though stiff shoes meant for decoration more than work had their way with you?”
“Stay close Katherine!” Jeanie shouted to avoid admitting that in fact, she’d kept three pairs of delicate, pretty shoes and only traded one for a pair of black clodhoppers. The clodhoppers that bounced out of the back of the wagon just beyond their stop in Yankton.
Jeanie flinched as Templeton bandaged the other foot.
“Did I hurt you?”
Jeanie covered her mouth then recovered her poise.
“No. Let’s finish this production and get moving.” It was then Jeanie realized she was shoeless-and not temporarily speaking. She wouldn’t be able to sausage her swollen feet into the pretty shoes and she had nothing utilitarian in reserve. Frank was a miracle worker with wood, but wooden shoes? That wasn’t an option.
Templeton whistled.
“Nice you have such a grand family to cheer you while you make your home on the prairie. Times like this I wish I had the same. No wife, no children to speak of.”
“You’re unmarried?” Jeanie smoldered at the thought that not only a strange man handled her feet, her naked toes, but one who was batching-it! A scandal in the eyes of many. Thankfully, there were no prying eyes to add this outrage to her hobbled reputation.
Templeton snickered repeatedly as he moved with a doctor’s detachment. The feel of hands so gently, though firmly, caring for her, nearly put Jeanie in a trance. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had done such a thing for her.
“There. Good as new. Until we get you to the wagon, anyway. I assume you have another pair of boots there.”
“Well, I uh, I…” She told herself to find her composure, that she was one step away from a reputation as an adventuress or an imbecile if she didn’t put forth the picture of a respectable woman.
“Had a shoe mishap?”
“It could be characterized that way.” Jeanie wanted to die. How stupid could she have been?
She turned one foot back and forth and then the other before having no choice but to look at Templeton and thank him for his assistance. Blood seeped through bandages and she nodded knowing he had been right. She’d have been wrought with infection and open to the bone if he hadn’t wrapped her.
“Thank you Mr. Templeton. I thank you sincerely.” Jeanie put her hand over her heart.
He pulled Jeanie to her feet.
“My pleasure.” Templeton gave another shallow bow then tied an extra shred of his white shirt to a small cobwebby bush to use as a landmark, to show Jeanie and Katherine how the prairie land could work against even the most knowledgeable pioneer.
Jeanie knew she’d been careless that day, but she certainly didn’t need white ties all over the prairie to keep her from getting lost again. She’d be more vigilant next time.
Move on, Jeanie. No time for moping. Jeanie drew back and lifted her skirts. She stepped onto the fresh bandages then snapped her foot back in pain. She held her breath and pressed forward ignoring the pain.
“It’s this way,” Templeton said. “You’re turned around.”
Jeanie halted. Her face warmed further than the heat and anxiety had already flushed it.
“I suppose I’ve made some dire errors today, Mr. Templeton.”
“I suppose we all do at first, Mrs. Arthur.”
Jeanie puckered her lips in front of unspoken embarrassment. When was the last time she’d faced a string of endless failures? Never. She wondered if that could be possible, or if she was just making such a fact up in her mind.
“This way, my sweet!” Jeanie pushed her shoulders back, tugged her skirts against her legs and took off in the correct direction, Katherine beside her with Templeton just behind, gently guiding them back to Jeanie’s family, back to the life she didn’t think she could actually live with, but would not survive without.
Chapter 3
1905
Des Moines, Iowa
In the three days since Yale had stumbled drunk into Katherine and Aleksey’s home, the couple had made the decision that their Edwardian home, even with four children, allowed more than enough space to care for both the cancer-stricken Jeanie and Yale, who was slow. There wasn’t much to do in the way of transporting her sister and mother’s belongings into Katherine’s home for other than two trunks and some hanging clothes; they did not own a single item that needed to be moved.
It wasn’t Katherine’s decision to have them come. She resisted with all her might but Aleksey, had for the first time in their marriage, asserted the type of overbearing male dominance so many men reveled in regularly. He told Katherine she had no choice but to let Jeanie and Yale live with them. It was Katherine’s duty to nurse her mother back to life or onward to death and it was her job to comfort and house her struggling sister.
Katherine stood in their doorway and watched Aleksey help Jeanie, one awkward step after another, up the front steps and across the porch. Katherine may not have remembered any warmth toward her mother, any sweet, shared moments or precious mother/ daughter secrets, but she felt them from time to time, inside her skin, down in her soul, coursing through her body. Below the surface of her conscious mind was the memory of a woman she once adored. Normally when that flash of love for her mother shot through Katherine, she pushed it away, and let the resentment, the gritty hate that seemed to be layered like bricks, weigh on the goodness, squashing it out.
But now, with her mother being ushered into her home for Katherine to tend until she took her final breath, she let the shot of warm feelings sit a bit; saturate her mind, hoping the sensation would allow her to cope.
As Aleksey and Jeanie entered the front room, Katherine watched Jeanie’s gaze fall over the carved-legged mohair davenport, velvet chair, and an oil painting done by Katherine herself. The thick Oriental rug drew Jeanie’s attention, then when Katherine pushed the button, the diamond-like chandelier jumped to life, drawing Jeanie’s gaze before she settled it back on Katherine’s painting, one she’d done when they lived on the prairie.
Jeanie’s once graceful posture was hunched over an ugly black cane as her hand opened and closed around the handle as though the action soothed her. Jeanie’s brown hair, pulled tight into a bun, was thin, sprouting out of the severe style. The frail woman straightened, stared at the painting then brushed the front of her dress before falling hunched over her cane again.
Katherine told herself to find the love she wanted to feel. She took Jeanie’s elbow and helped her to the couch, hoping it didn’t smell like the old hound that often curled on one corner.
Aleksey kissed Jeanie’s cheek and took her cane, supporting that side as they shuffled to the davenport. Acid rose up inside Katherine and blossomed into full envy at the warmth Aleksey showed Jeanie-the fact that he could touch her without looking as though his skin would combust on contact, as Katherine felt hers would.
Katherine gritted her teeth as she and Aleksey turned Jeanie and settled her onto the davenport. She sighed and squinted at Aleksey. She loved him more than anyone except their own children, but this may be too much.
“I’ll get that sweet tea you made, Katherine.” Aleksey headed toward the hall.
Katherine couldn’t have guessed exactly what her mother was thinking, but the puckered lips and narrowed brows didn’t look positive.
“Well,” Jeanie said. “You’re a little late with your spring cleaning, but the place is respectable all the same. I can see you purchase things that last.” Jeanie smoothed her dress over her knees then smiled at Katherine.
“I know you mean that as a joke, Mother, but I don’t appreciate it.”
Jeanie scowled and Katherine flinched, waiting for hard words in return. Her mother opened her mouth and closed it then stared toward the painting with reed straight posture.
The pounding of the ice pick as Aleksey split the ice into cold slivers mimicked Katherine’s heartbeat. She took a deep breath. How could a person feel so uncomfortable with the very person who gave her life? She prayed for Aleksey to speed it up in the kitchen as time moved like a fly in honey for the two in the front parlor.
With a startling jerk, Jeanie grasped Katherine’s hand. She jumped in her seat, so surprised that her mother actually touched her. She stared at their hands then at her mother’s profile. Jeanie gazed at the moody landscape Katherine had created on that awful day so long ago.
“You were such a beautiful artist,” Jeanie said. “I remember when you did that one.”
Prickly heat leapt between their hands, making Katherine sweat with anxiety. Jeanie caught her confused expression then squeezed her daughter’s hand three distinct times. I love you. Each unspoken word was hidden in the three contractions of Jeanie’s grip. Katherine nearly choked on swelling anger as she fought the burst of tears that threatened to fall.
With her free hand, Jeanie brushed some hair back from Katherine’s face. Katherine, still as marble, wanting her mother to stop touching her, cleared her throat, feeling like she might pass out.
“Oh, I know,” Jeanie said. “So very serious you are. I was once that way…I…well. I’m sorry, Katherine. I shouldn’t have…I should have told you everything years ago, but…” Jeanie’s gaze went back to the painting. “I want to explain.”
Katherine nodded once but angled her shoulders away, trying to put as much space between them as possible. Katherine couldn’t go down that old prairie path again. It was too late for explanations. She would have sprinted out the door, but her legs were numb. The only energy in her body seemed to exist inside the space between her and her mother’s intertwined fingers. Hurry Aleksey. Katherine closed her eyes. Aleksey returned with a tray and tea, ice cubes clinking in the tall glasses.
He set the tray on the table in front of the women. Katherine silently begged him to notice her blood had rushed to her feet, that he should hoist her over his shoulder and take her away from this woman who, in merely touching Katherine, made her unable to render useful thought, to move, to live.
Trust Aleksey, Katherine told herself. She told herself to hope, to believe that something would be gained from this operation- from what Katherine saw as self-inflicted torture.
But, with Aleksey standing there, handing out tea, acting as though it were perfectly normal that Jeanie was there, with Yale asleep upstairs, Katherine decided she might never speak to Aleksey again.
Chapter 4
1887
Dakota Territory
Jeanie, Katherine, and Templeton crested a hill and stopped. Jeanie was eager to get to their wagon but relieved to give her smarting feet a break. She lifted one foot then the other, grimacing, as Templeton discussed their trek up to that point. He motioned back in the direction they had come, where he had tied a piece of his shirt to a bush, saying that even though the path to the crest upon which they stood had risen slightly and slowly, that Jeanie should always be aware of how deceptive the prairie land could be.
She turned in place, taking it in, seeing that on that sloping land the world seemed to open up but also it hid things. The fat, blue sky stretched in every direction without a landmark to mar a bit of it. Like the tie on that bush. It was gone, as though it never existed. Jeanie shook her head. So, it wasn’t just that she and Katherine had been irresponsible in getting lost earlier, it was tricky land.
Templeton walked Jeanie and Katherine twenty yards further over the slope. And as though a magician had lifted a curtain, there appeared, one hundred and fifty yards east, a small frame home and the Arthur’s wagon sitting near a crooked barn. Even from that distance, Jeanie could make out Frank, their eleven-year-old son James, and Katherine’s twin brother Tommy fiddling with the wagon wheel.
The three of them walked east as though searching for something lost in the grass. Frank swaggered; his wiry body bore his unconscious confidence. But, he tapped the side of his leg-the one outward sign that something was bothering him. His movements were like a set of fingerprints. Jeanie could pick him out of a thousand other men if they were all in shadow, she was sure.
Katherine tore away from Jeanie and Templeton, galloping, twirling around to wave at Jeanie before breaking into full sprint to greet her father and brothers. Tommy glanced up at his approaching sister then carried on with his play-walking a few yards before throwing himself to the ground, shot, by some evil intruder.
And her James. Jeanie’s first born. He lagged behind, but leapt into the air as Katherine raced by him and slapped his backside, making her fall into giggles that carried over the land. James had perfected a subtle, bellow of brooding, never quick to laugh or lash out. Each of them unique though together they formed a mass of love and pride, each one inhabiting a chamber of Jeanie’s heart. If one were to disappear it would surely kill her instantly.
Templeton pointed west, past Jeanie’s nose.
“If Katherine fell into the pond I think you’re describing, you must have seen that tree.”
Jeanie nodded toward the crooked one she’d seen earlier.
“That’s the bee tree. It’s actually part of the Henderson’s, no, your homestead, now. You can’t see the tree from everywhere, but it’s an anchor of sorts. Then there’s another anchor just over there, at the far end of the Hunt’s property, a cluster of six or seven trees.”
Jeanie rose to her toes to look.
“Your bee tree and the Hunt’s cluster are the most obvious landmarks between the five closest homesteads in Darlington Township. Gifts, sprouting from the land to guide and direct us.”
Hoots of joy from Frank and the children startled Jeanie. She looked back at the family. They ran into the sun, past the sinking yolk, their bodies exploded blaze yellow, each outlined in black to mark where one golden body ended and another began.
Jeanie looked at
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HOME AGAIN
by Kathleen Shoop
ONE
Autumn, 1969
APRIL HARRINGTON FINALLY arrived. Nine hours, straight through. After everything that had happened, she was simply drawn there. She swallowed hard—her raw throat ached as she stared in the direction of her brother, Andrew’s, memorial site. She missed him so much that she hadn’t been able to return since the service. Nothing had been the same since he died in Vietnam.
She stood where the cypress trees bowed to one another, forming a lace canopy of foliage that led the way to the dock. Her mind worked like a camera, snapping shots into neat frames that she filed away in mental drawers. Without trying, she compared all that she saw in present time with all that she recalled about Albemarle Sound. The call of the osprey that nested above the water drew April’s attention upward. What had she done to her life?
She looked down at her French silk wedding dress. She whisked her hands over the fabric, not believing she’d driven straight from New York in full bridal attire. She pulled her veil from her hair, peering at the fine creation that an elderly woman, with her bent, bulbous fingers, had lovingly fashioned for April’s special day.
The great blue herons screeched, their throaty voices as familiar as her breath. The toads, woodpeckers, hawks, and wolves—they set the rhythms of Bliss—the home where her family had spent every summer of her life before she left for college. She was sure she’d made the right decision to abandon Mason at the altar, but sharp guilt that she’d also left her parents at the wedding stabbed at her. She knew her parents would understand her not marrying Mason in the end, but they would not approve of her fleeing the scene.
She had worked so hard at Columbia University. A journalism graduate, she’d found her camera was her favorite way to observe the world, to tell a story. All that work—the elation she’d experienced when she crafted the perfect photo essay or framed the perfect shot, revealing someone’s soul in a single image—had been so fulfilling.
Yet she’d driven away from all of that and more. And standing there, April knew the deep regret of failure was dwarfed by what she’d seen in the photos from Woodstock, what she’d learned about life since Andrew died.
The hollow tone of wood thudding against wood made April head down the dock. The rowboat that had been carved 60 years before, shaped from one of the biggest cypress trees on the property, bobbed at the end of the dock. What would it be doing out of storage this late in the year?
She looked around as though there’d be someone there to answer her thoughts. A stiff wind dropped in and forced the waves to stand in sharp rows like soldiers marching toward the dock, bullying the boat. The gusts pressed April’s dress to her thighs, making it hard to walk. She raised her hand, the veil flapping in the wind. She opened her hand and the veil swirled around her fingertips, and then soared away.
At the end of the dock, she tried to squat, but the dress was too tight. Dammit. The dock creaked beneath her. She reached behind her and worked the buttons. It had been the one concession she’d made to her future mother-in-law; she’d had exquisite antique buttons sewn onto her otherwise decoration-free dress. She’d never imagined she’d be trying to wiggle out of the sheath on her own.
The woodpeckers and crickets performed as April reached up, then down her back to get at the last of the buttons. A wave tossed the rowboat upward, smacking it against the dock again. She took a deep breath and pulled at the dress, scattering buttons around her feet. A fresh wind broke over the mooring and blew the buttons in every direction, dropping them into the water below.
Another crash of the rowboat, and April refocused. She shimmied out of the dress then bent over and yanked the rope that tethered the boat.
The wind dropped away, bringing an eerie stillness that draped the water like a blanket. The boards creaked again. She froze. Her right foot pushed through the wharf. The dock couldn’t be breaking. Her father would never let that happen.
She pulled her foot out of the cavity and resumed pulling the rope. The creaking wood escalated into a whine, then a groan, and before she could react, the end of the dock collapsed, dropping April into the water.
It stung her skin. Its coldness made her feel as though her lungs were solid, unable to allow air in or out. She kicked hard; pulling toward the top, telling herself to be calm, a little chilly water wouldn’t hurt.
As her head broke the surface, the stiff waves pushed her up, throwing her nearly out of the water. She could see the boat was still roped to the piling—it was safer than her.
The sprays fell away as fast as they rose, and she plunged under water, brushing by a submerged tree stump. The punch of the severed cypress on her ribs almost forced her to inhale under water. She willed herself to ignore the pain and swim for the top again. She broke the surface and gasped as she stroked, head out of the water, toward the remaining part of the dock. A figure on the dock startled her. For a second she thought she was hallucinating—a man was there, kicking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.
She waved and yelled before going under again. She struggled to stay above the rough water and fell back under as she felt hands around her. The man grabbed her waist and set her on his hip while he used his free arm to sidestroke toward the narrow beach.
He kicked hard, bumping her body up and down. Eyes squeezed shut, she panted and coughed up water. Once on shore, he threw her over his shoulder and headed to the veranda of the great summer home, where he settled her on the wooden floor. Lying there, her breath began to calm and the dizziness released her. She squinted at the man who was now lifting one of her arms, then the other, then one leg at a time, asking if this hurt or that.
It was him. She couldn’t believe it.
“Hale,” she said. Hale Abercrombie.
He raised his gaze from her leg.
They locked eyes. Those indigo eyes.
“Hi there.”
How long had it been since she’d seen those eyes looking back at her?
He flinched and rubbed his shoulder.
Her teeth chattered. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
April slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. The movements made her inhale sharp and loud. She felt awful to have put him through such trouble. He had scrapes across his broad chest where she must have scratched him. She touched one of his wounds.
He pulled back. “Just a branch. Got a little too close to the tree cemetery.” Hale took her hand and turned it back and forth. His muscular arms tensed and relaxed as he moved. “Does this hurt?”
She drew her hand back and rubbed her arms to stave off the chills. “No, I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he said.
She nodded and pulled her knees up to her chest. This move caused her to groan. She covered the spot where it hurt with her hands.
He put his hand over hers. “Lie back,” he said.
She hesitated as she considered the fact she was dressed in only wet underpants and bra. Then flashes of their childhood came to mind—they’d spent countless summers running the grounds in nothing but bathing suits. He was Hale, her brother’s best friend, not some stranger.
He shifted his six feet two inches to get a closer look. His wavy, golden hair was cut close to his scalp, as any officer’s hair would be. He pressed her ribcage where the red skin was already blackening. She winced.
“Just a bruise,” she said.
“That’s not.”
She lifted her head to see what he was pointing at now. “Appendectomy.”
His eyes widened.
“A few months old.”
He ran his finger down the center of the crosshatched stitching. She pushed it away.
His gaze slid up to meet hers. His expression bore concern. He’d always been serious, but this concern was a darker, more troubled kind of somber. That made sense when she considered what he’d been through with her brother.
“I…” he said.
April felt connected to Hale—she always had. But this was an entirely new sensation—so strong and confusing to her that she had to order herself to stop feeling it. “It’s fine, Hale. Just a bruise.”
She struggled to sit up again. He took her hands and pulled.
“I didn’t mean to touch you. Your scar.” He ran his hand through his hair but wouldn’t look at her.
“You’ve touched me a million times, right?”
He nodded. “A long time ago.”
Indeed, today’s touches had evoked far different feelings than the ones that had marked their childhood.
“You’re okay? Really?” he said.
“Fine. Fuddy-Duddy,” they both said at the same time.
He met her smile with his, making her stomach quiver.
“If you’re okay, I’ll get your suitcase,” he said. “I’m on leave for a month, and I came to fix the kitchen sink. I figured since I was here, I should…well, I ought to check over the place. I took the rowboat out earlier. When the winds kicked up I came back to bring in the boat.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Your parents—they didn’t say you were coming.”
She looked away. She couldn’t start explaining all that had happened.
“Well, your suitcase.” He started down the steps toward her car.
She scrambled to her feet, grimacing, following him.
She looked down at her barely clad body and stopped. “No luggage.” Heat rose in her cheeks. “Just the dress, my purse, my camera.”
“That white thing on the dock is your dress?”
April nodded. She should at least try to recover some of the precious buttons, if possible. He took her hand. His fingers squeezed hers, sending a chill up her spine. She looked away from him, embarrassed at the excitement that swept through her.
“It’s gone,” he said.
April raised her eyebrows. She felt dizzy.
“The wind took it. Right over the sound.” He whistled and pushed his hand through the air. “Took flight like, well, remember that big old heron we used to call Matilda?”
April smiled. Their familiarity, the tales, the troubles—all of it made her feel as though they’d crossed paths just the day before.
A fresh wind whipped the trees. April and Hale looked to the sky.
Hale’s face grew troubled. “Storm’s coming,” He squeezed her hand once more, then dropped it. She clutched her hand to her body, feeling the spot where the engagement ring no longer encircled her finger.
“I’ll grab my stuff and get the rowboat.” Hale pushed his thumb in the direction of the water.
She looked at his wet jeans, the way they molded to his thick legs. Him saving her was really no big deal. Hale had lived his entire life saving others quietly, so circumspect and aware of what people needed. So old-fashioned, she’d always thought when she was younger. Not much fun, she’d always teased him. Now she just felt grateful—fortunate that Hale had been there to comfort Andrew as he had died, and glad he happened along for her sake a few minutes before.
She couldn’t help comparing Hale to Mason. Mason and his family were philanthropists, but when they sprung into life-saving action, it was with a checkbook, not their bare hands. Who would have jumped in after her if Mason or his parents saw her struggling in the water? They wouldn’t let her drown. They’d send the butler, Henri, but of course. Hale’s family, year-rounders at the sound, had nothing in the way of money, but they were strong, steady, and loyal.
“Go in. Get warm,” Hale said.
She nodded. No clothes, no family, no husband, no job. She needed more than to simply get warm.
“I’ll come back tomorrow to fix the dock and the tile in the blue bathroom,” Hale said.
“Thank you,” she said. “For Andrew. For everything.” She’d thanked him before for having tried so hard to save Andrew, but for some reason, she felt the need to say it again.
He nodded, and then headed toward the sound, humble as ever. April made it as far as the front door and stopped. She couldn’t believe what she saw. Like an old man’s mouth, the pointing between the bricks that faced the grand mansion was gapped and jagged, leaving the house vulnerable to wind and water. She slid her finger into a hole between the red brick and released a shard of aged plaster. She turned it back and forth as though it could explain how or why her father would have neglected to maintain the house.
The wood trim around the door was pitted, the paint lifting off, curling in sections. She examined the sturdy oak door. It seemed to be the only part of the house that wasn’t falling in or marred with age. She swept her finger along the carvings that depicted the nine rivers that fed the Albemarle, still amazed at the gorgeous work a family ancestor had done.
April sighed. She had to be honest about what she was seeing—utter neglect. Regret coursed through her. In living the silver-spoon life in New York, she’d ignored her parents, their pain, what that meant for this house. She hadn’t meant to be blind to what her family needed from her. She should have made sure the house was being kept up—it had been in their family for two centuries, after all.
She shook her head. She knew the cost of the wedding had been high, that her father had had some rough times with some real estate deals over the years, but she never imagined those things meant her parents might let the house suffer. Perhaps they’d just been focused on the inside of the home and had let the outside go until…until what? She didn’t know. The guilt she felt right then twisted at her soul. What had she done?
She turned the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. She checked behind the planter for the spare key. Nothing. She swallowed a sob, and then turned her back on the door. Hale must have the key.
She turned and saw him coming with the boat over his head.
She ran toward him as quickly as she could with the sore ribs. Thunder cracked, making her move faster.
He stopped and nearly buckled under the weight of his haul.
“I can get the bow,” she said.
“I have it,” he said through clenched teeth.
She reached to lift one end, but all she could manage was to blanch at the pain that emanated from her ribs and follow behind like a little kid.
When they reached the veranda, Hale stopped. “We’ll stow it in the crawl space for the night. I have to get going.”
He appeared irritated. He flipped the boat and set it gently down on its bottom. Together, they gripped it, shoulder to shoulder, pushed it under the veranda and reset the lattice that served as a door for the space.
“Oh. The key,” April said.
Hale appeared confused. She ignored his unasked question. She wasn’t ready to explain her flight from the altar to anyone, least of all old-fashioned, always-do-the-right-thing Hale.
He reached into his pocket, and then pressed the key into April’s palm.
The thunder rumbled. She hoped she wouldn’t lose electricity.
Hale looked to the sky again, then began to move quickly, fussing with the lattice again. “Shouldn’t be too stuffy inside the house. I had the windows open earlier.”
She started toward the front steps.
“I’ll let your dad know he doesn’t need me here anymore.”
“No!” April turned back to make sure he got the message.
He snapped his attention to her, eyes wide, before his expression turned to relief.
“Don’t do that.” She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest.
She needed time to sit with her decision, to be strong and decisive when she spoke to her parents next. She needed to reassure them she could handle her life alone.
Hale raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, sure.” He cleared his throat. “Careful there. The fourth stair is disintegrating. I’ll fix that, too.” He started up the stairs to show her the rotting board.
Thunder rumbled and he looked into the sky again so April couldn’t hear everything he said until, “Don’t suppose an accomplished Ivy League lady like you has much time for carpentry.”
April forced a laugh. Hale drew away. Her hands shook. Ivy League lady. Images of Woodstock, of the wedding, of the blurred faces she saw as she ran down the aisle and out the door snapped through her mind as though she were photographing the scene.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Hale reached out but didn’t touch her.
April shook her head.
“You’re crying.”
She touched her cheek and studied the tiny puddle of tears that she collected on her fingertips.
She felt Hale’s gaze slip down her body, reminding her she was nearly nude.
April covered her chest with one arm. She needed to get into the house so she could fall apart in private. The thunder interrupted their silence, and he abruptly started down the steps.
When he reached the bottom stair, he turned back and poked at something. April moved closer to see what he was doing. Inside a tiny circle of pebbles was a furry, black caterpillar. Hale plucked some grass and sprinkled it into the miniature fortress.
April squinted at him.
He shrugged. “Little guy just needs some shelter. ’Til the storm passes.”
She looked into the mottled sky. “I guess so,” she said, not wanting to embarrass him.
He shrugged. “I’m really glad to see you.”
April nodded. She was comforted, relieved that someone on that day would be happy to see her. The air sizzled with the coming storm. “Come in, stay for tea.” But as she spoke those words, a clap of thunder broke, and he didn’t hear.
He hopped into his Chevy and drove away, his truck winding around the house and disappearing. April pushed the key into the lock and turned it. She opened the door and faced the great marble staircase that rose up from the worn, but still stunning, cypress floors. You’ll be fine alone, she repeated to herself.
The echo of silence between the thunderclaps embraced her. She wondered if it was going to be too quiet at Bliss, if she should have just slipped into a women’s hotel in Manhattan and gotten lost in the crowd. No. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She would go on with her life, and she would do so in memory of Andrew and how right he’d been about everything.
She started toward the kitchen and passed the mirror in the hall, glancing at herself. Some of her golden hair was matted against her face and the rest was plopped on top of her head like a loaf of bread, still held in place with pins and elastics. Strands sprung out all around her scalp from where she’d pulled the veil off. Mascara ringed her eyes like the great owls that serenaded her summer sleeps.
No wonder Hale had run away as soon as he knew April was fine. She considered his Ivy League crack. She knew she’d hear that, coming back to Harrington. But she hadn’t expected it from Hale. She hadn’t expected him to be on leave at all.
April took her attention from her reflection to the empty space beside the mirror. She pinched one of the naked picture hooks between her fingers, twisted, then pulled it out. She turned slowly, surveying the fifteen-foot tall walls.
Her mouth fell open. Every single one of them was gone. Each of her mother’s treasured Albemarle Sound paintings had been removed. Only the silver picture hooks remained, scattered, winking at her in the soft foyer light. Where were they? Maybe Hale knew. She touched her belly where his fingers had traced her scar.
She gasped at the thought of his hands on her, the way he cared for her. She realized the sensation sparked by his touch—this quiet luring—was not new, but now, as a woman, she recognized the sentience for what it was.
There was and had always been a special bond between them even if she’d forgotten it was there for years. She wrapped her arms around her middle. Of course they were connected. They’d shared summers, her brother’s life and, most importantly, his death.
TWO
HALE DROVE THE Chevy back toward the road but had to stop. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, then strangled the steering wheel to make his hands stop shaking. His heart pounded so hard, he was sure he could track the rushing blood through his body from start to finish. He pushed his head back against the seat and clenched his jaw until the panic stopped.
The thunder. He hadn’t expected it to still bother him so much, not after two years. It had been a while since it had had this affect on him. He willed the terror to subside. It must have been finding April in the water, needing help. Yes, she was fine, but it had scared him. All it took was an unexpected hand on the shoulder, a door slamming, a clap of thunder… Any small, startling thing could trigger fright so vivid that sometimes, he threw up.
Dear God, please make it stop, make it stop. He pressed his feet into the floor of the truck, told himself he was grounded, he was safe. He re-gripped the wheel and said aloud, “You’re in the truck. You’re home.”
Gradually, his heart decelerated, his breath calmed, and the heat that scorched him from the inside out retreated. He could do this. He was okay.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he opened his eyes. He looked at the back of April’s house. There were lights on upstairs. Had April seen him sitting there? He imagined her calling her dad to tell him she had arrived. He gripped his knee. The lie had been out of his mouth before he’d even consciously formed the thought. He had not been invited to take care of April’s family home.
No. He was on a month’s leave. A chance to get his head straight, his commander had ordered. So he’d come to the only place he might be able to do that…Bliss. The place he’d always found peace and plenty. Hale’s father had died when he was a baby, leaving his mother to cobble a living by watching over all the homes on the sound when the summer season was over. April’s family had become his in too many ways for him to parse. But he never thought he’d have to face April before he was ready to tell her the whole story.
It hadn’t mattered that he was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He’d buried the medals inside the sweeping skirt of the giant cypress tree outside Bliss, near Andrew’s memorial. The idea that someone would award him for valor when his bravery hadn’t resulted in saving Andrew, well, Hale knew an empty gesture when he saw it, and he would never forgive himself for being the one who was alive.
He couldn’t sleep at night. Nearly every hour, he shot awake. The sharp screech of the missile hitting the plane rang through his head as though he was still in the rear of the F-14. He would wake standing in the middle of the room, or on the bed, feeling as though he’d just punched out of the plane. There amidst perfect safety he experienced the sensation of the entire seat rocketing out of the plane, his body shuddering as it had the very day it had happened. And as he came back to consciousness, he heard Andrew’s easy tone calmly narrating how he’d maneuvered them away from the missiles. That was what had happened every time, but once. Just once.
The part that affected him most was what happened after punching out. The ground fire. He couldn’t bear to envision it, but couldn’t shake it from his very being. The divot in his leg was nothing compared to the grooves that had been forever worked into his brain, his skin, his soul. Those memories—the missile, the odor of the fire—were creased into his core, which held onto that day, grasped onto the experience, making Hale sure that if he managed to pass a day without Andrew entering into his mind, every cell in his body would still recall his loss.
In fact, the events of that day had left him with the only thing that let them know he was still alive—pain. A fly buzzed near Hale’s ear. He swiped his hand through the air, capturing the insect. He opened his fingers and the fly flipped over on his palm and staggered back into the air, escaping to the back of the truck.
Hale put his hand over his chest. His pulse was even. He drew a deep breath. He would put his mind straight as he’d been ordered to do. He would. He put the truck in gear and started home. Glancing in his rearview mirror, a lightning strike made him jump as it lit the air and revealed the form of April at Andrew’s bedroom window.
His nerves leapt as he considered the attraction toward her sweeping through his body. He pushed away his misplaced feelings. No, April was just his best friend’s sister, and there was never any good to come from something like that. Not when she’d probably been left at the altar, and not when Hale was the reason her brother was dead.
In the kitchen, April threaded her fingers through the metal cabinet handle. She tugged and the hinges pulled right over the screws as though they were made of gelatin instead of metal. Her sadness deepened. What had been going on in this house? Had she spent too many spring breaks and summer vacations in Cayman Island resorts with the Franklins? Had Bliss always been run-down and she just never noticed?
She set the door aside and chugged down several glasses of water. She rubbed her chilled arms and went to find clothes. In her bedroom, she wiggled her toes on the worn Oriental rug. She jiggled the top dresser drawer then tilted it at just the right angle that would allow it to slide out. She dug between half-a-decade old undergarments. Girdles, for goodness sake. She’d sworn those off within the first five minutes of being in New York City.
She tried the next drawer. She held up some plain t-shirts. She was tall and angular and for the first time, seeing the small t-shirts as her only clothing option, she was grateful for her lean lines. Her closet was empty, and she needed pants.
She went to Andrew’s room. The light bulb was burned out, so she used the hall light to illuminate her quest. She excavated his drawers and found jeans she could cut into shorts. She went to the closet. Thunder continued to crash and rumble, bringing bright flashes of lightning with it. She fished through the closet and found an old tie of Andrew’s to use for a belt. She pulled a shirt from the shelf.
She held it to her nose. The aftershave smell she associated with her brother should have been long gone, but in the folds of the fabric, she swore there was a hint of him.
She buried her face in the shirt and sobbed. Her Andrew, her wise, fun-loving brother, had taught her so much about life. But it was his death that had educated her the most, that had helped make it so clear that choosing to marry Mason would mean a lifetime of awful.
She told herself not to cry that leaving him had been right, even if in the short run, it had felt so terrifically wrong. She gathered her new apparel, plucking Andrew’s old Converse sneakers off the closet floor. They would work until she figured out how she was going to reassemble her wardrobe, rework her entire life.
She sat on the edge of the tub while the water ran. She reached for the glass vial with the cut-glass stopper and opened it, inhaling her mother’s homemade orange oil. She turned it into the faucet letting the water carry the emollient into the bath.
Tucked into the water, she poked at the shiny islands of oil that floated on the surface. She patted at the bruise that formed where she’d hit the stump, then traced the appendectomy scar, thinking of Hale’s caring expression as he had stared at it.
This reminded her of the way Mason had gaped at the incision, turning grey, retching and nearly passing out, declining to assist her ever again.
It was true—the stitches had been relatively new. But with years of snapshots flipping through April’s mind, she realized how often he chose to turn away from her needs rather than step toward them.
She reclined further into the tub, her long hair floating like spider legs around her. The warm water cushioned her sore body. She would not let the loss of her almost-marriage feel like a death. Andrew’s absence and the experiences of soldiers who came home injured or simply forgotten were tragic. But April’s life, her loss? She shrugged at the thought. That was nothing.
She hadn’t felt so free in ages. Probably since the summer she’d left for college, when all was hopeful and everything she could imagine was possible. It had been at least that long.
… Continued…
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An Anthology of Novellas
Marcy Waldenville, J.D. Wylde
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Home Again (The Endless Love Series)
by Kathleen Shoop
ROMANCE, LOVE, AND A LITTLE BIT OF HEAT!A Novella set in 1969 on the shores of the Albemarle Sound, April Harrington has fond memories of summers at her family home, Bliss. After her fairytale wedding disintegrates, it becomes her refuge–the one place where she can attempt to pull the unraveling threads of her life back together. Unbeknownst to April, the stately house has been neglected in recent years. The once-sturdy roof is leaking in a few dozen places, and the wharf is rotting. Nothing is the same as she remembers. Nothing except for Hale, a Viet Nam pilot who is haunted by a dreadful secret, and who is also her brother’s best friend, a brother killed in the conflict that is tearing the country apart.
In Hale’s presence, April finds familiarity and solace. They share grief for a lost loved one, and from the comfort of Hale’s arms, passion blooms. Yet, April’s future is unresolved. Her wealthy, arrogant almost-bridegroom wants her back and the ghosts of Viet Nam are whispering to Hale. Can they find new love in an old treasured home, the kind of affection and trust that lasts forever?
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About The Author
Kathleen Shoop is an author and educator who has worked with teachers for over twenty years. She writes historical and women’s fiction. Her first novel, The Last Letter (Kindle bestseller), won a Gold Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards and her second novel, After the Fog, won Silver the next year. Kathleen has also contributed stories to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Runners, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Dad, and Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Cat’s Life. Kathleen lives with her husband and two children in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
Website http://kshoop.com
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Carolyn Jenkins strives for two things—to be the greatest teacher ever and to find true love. She’s as skilled at both as an infant trying to eat with a fork. Carolyn’s suburban upbringing and genuine compassion for people who don’t fit effortlessly into society are no match for weapon-wielding, struggling students, drug-using colleagues, and a wicked principal.
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an excerpt from
Love and Other Subjects
by Kathleen Shoop
1993
Chapter 1
I stood at my blackboard, detailing the steps for adding fractions. It wasn’t exciting stuff. It was stab-yourself-in-the-eye boring, as a matter of fact, but it was part of the job—part of my brilliant plan to change the world. And I had constructed a downright solid lesson plan.
Said lesson was met with exquisite silence. I looked around. Thirty-six fifth and sixth graders. All seated, almost all of them paying attention. So what if six students had their heads on their desks.
I told myself my dazzling teaching skills must have finally had an impact on their behavior. The bile creeping up my esophagus said I was wrong. The truth was they had probably stayed up too late and now were sleeping with their eyes open. I ignored the heartburn. I willed myself to revel in the tiniest success.
“Tanesha, what’s the next step?” I asked brightly.
Tanesha sucked her teeth and threw herself back in her seat.
I opened my mouth to reprimand her but the sudden sound of chairs screeching across hardwood filled the room. The resulting flurry of movement shocked me. Some students bolted, scattering to the corners of the room. Others froze in place. My attention shot back to the middle of the classroom where two boys were preparing to dismantle one another.
Short, fire-pluggish LeAndre and monstrous Cedrick sandwiched their chests together, rage bubbling just below their skin. Different denominators, I almost told the class. Right there, everyday math in action.
“Wait a minute, guys.” I held up my hands as though I had a hope of stopping them with the gesture. These daily wrestling matches had definitely lost their cute factor. “How about we sit down and talk this—”
LeAndre growled, then pulled a gun-like object from his waistband and pressed it into Cedrick’s belly. I narrowed my eyes at the black object. It couldn’t be a gun. The sound of thirty-four kids hitting the floor in unison told me it was. No more shouting, crying, swearing—not even a whimper.
“It’s real.” Marvin, curled at my feet, whispered up at me.
I nodded. It couldn’t be real. My heart seized, then sent blood charging through my veins so hard my vision blurred.
“Okay, LeAndre. Let’s think this through,” I said.
“He. Lookin’. At. Me.” Spittle hitched a ride on each syllable LeAndre spoke.
“I’m walking over to you,” I said. “And you’re going to hand me the gun, LeAndre. Okay?” I can do this. “Please. Let’s do this.” I can do this. I can do this. There were no snarky words to go with this situation. There was no humor in it.
Cedrick stared at the ceiling, not showing he understood there was a gun pressed into him. I stepped closer. Sweat beaded on LeAndre’s face only to be obliterated by tears careening down his cheeks. He choked on sobs as though he wasn’t the one with the gun, as though he wasn’t aware he could stop this whole mess. The scent of unwashed hair and stale perspiration struck me. The boys’ chests heaved in unison.
I focused on LeAndre’s eyes. If he just looked back at me, he’d trust I could help him.
The whine of our classroom door and the appearance of Principal Klein interrupted my careful approach.
“Ms. Jenkins!”
He startled everyone, including LeAndre and his little trigger finger.
**
In the milliseconds between Klein’s big voice bulleting off the rafters and the gun firing, I managed to throw myself in front of a few stray kids at my feet. I can’t take total credit for my actions because I don’t even remember moving. Suddenly, I was there on the floor, thanking God that Jesus or some such deity had been bored enough to notice what was going on in my little old Lincoln Elementary classroom. LeAndre fell into Cedrick’s arms, wailing about the gun being loaded with BBs—that it wasn’t real.
My foot hurt, but I ignored it and assessed the kids while Klein focused on LeAndre. Could everyone really be all right? I checked Cedrick, who appeared unfazed. He was injury-free, simply standing there, hovering, as though guarding everyone around him.
I moved to other students—no visible harm. I hauled several up by their armpits, reassuring them with pretend authority. A firearm-wielding child usurps all of a teacher’s mojo in a short, split second.
I made up comforting stuff—words of phony hopefulness that might convince them that nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. And with each lie came the odd feeling that I was actually telling the truth. A little gun in a classroom was nothing.
Klein stuffed the piece into his pants and carried the withering LeAndre out of the room in his arms as a man would carry a woman over the marital threshold. His voice was devoid of its usual venomous tone and soothed LeAndre’s gulping sobs. Perhaps he’d been shot with a dose of compassion during the melee.
Stepping back inside the room, still holding LeAndre, Klein shoved his thumb into the air, giving us the old Lincoln thumbs-up. No one returned the gesture, but I figured that was all right this once. The school counselor came into the room and announced she’d take everyone to the library while I met with the police. Leaving the room, I noticed Cedrick’s face appeared to have been drained of blood and finally revealed his true feelings about what had happened. The rest of the students—their faces expressing the same shock I felt inside—wrapped themselves in their own arms, shook their heads and trailed the counselor out of the room.
It was like watching a scene through a window that wasn’t mine, that I couldn’t remember stepping up to. I forced calm into my voice and actions as I funneled the kids still inside the room to the door and told myself I could let the impact of what just happened hit me later. To get through the day, to be the type of teacher who could handle a weapon in the classroom, I had to leave the assimilation of the events for later.
These poor freaking kids. Where the hell did they come from and how did they end up with this life? I thought I’d known the details of their lives. Apparently not.
“Ms. Jenkins,” Terri said. She stopped and pointed at my foot. “Your boot.”
I gasped at the sight of the leather. It gaped like a jagged mouth, tinged with blood. I wiggled my stinging toe making more blood seep through my trouser sock. Nausea slammed me. LeAndre’s shooting arm had obviously moved in my direction when he’d been startled by Klein. Had that really been just a BB-gun?
I straightened against my queasiness. “Terri, go on. I’ll meet you in the library in a minute.”
She left the room. I collapsed into my desk chair and removed my boot and the torn, bloody sock. “Jeez. That hurts like a mother,” I said. I turned the boot over and a teeny ball fell out of it and skittered across the floor. I swiveled my chair and took my Pittsburgh Steelers Terrible Towel down from the wall. I dabbed my toe with it, staining the towel red.
I thought of the reason I’d become a teacher. That I’d searched for a way to make a difference in the world and thought, well, damn, yes, a teacher. I could save the urban youth of America. I just needed a little help and some time. I was only two months in to my teaching career, and I already knew chances were I wouldn’t be saving anybody.
The footfalls grew louder as they neared my room. I knew it was her. I turned my attention to the doorway. Our secretary, Bobby Jo, wheezed as she leaned against the doorjamb. With new energy, she pushed forward and barreled toward me. I set the Terrible Towel on the desk and stood to move out of her path, but she caught my wrist and swallowed me into the folds of her body with what she no doubt imagined was a helpful hug. She gripped the back of my head and plunged my face into her armpit. The spicy fusion of ineffective deodorant and body odor made me hold my breath.
Aside from being a secretary, Bobby Jo was an emotional extortionist. She pushed out of the hug, but, still gripping my shoulders, stared at me. Her labored breath scratched up through her respiratory system. I squeezed my eyes closed in anticipation of her “I’m Klein’s right-hand woman” crap. Not today, Bobby Jo. Not now.
She glanced around the room, and then dug her fingers nearly to my bones. “The boss is so upset.”
I gave her the single-nod/poker face combo, as disgust welled inside me. He’s upset? I weighed my inclination to tell her to leave me the hell alone with the ensuing sabotage that would follow if I didn’t kiss her ass hard and immediately. I wiggled out of her grip and leaned against my desk.
“The boss,” Bobby Jo said. “He’ll be in as soon as he’s off the phone with the superintendents from areas four, five, and six. They’re using your sit-u-a-tion as a teaching case.” Bobby Jo’s plump fingers with their fancy, long nails danced stiffly in front of her as if she could only form words if her hands were involved.
Man, this school year was not going as planned. I might have been delusional to think I’d alter the course of public education in just two months, but I hadn’t expected to be held up as a “what not to do in the classroom” example for one of the largest counties in the United States. Fame was one thing, scandal was another.
I looked back at my shoe, hoping Bobby Jo wouldn’t mistake my attempt to ignore her for the need for another hug. I was about to ask if I could see our nurse, Toots, about my wounded foot.
“It was only a BB-gun. You’ll be fine,” Bobby Jo said. “I don’t know why everyone’s so worked up. I heard the whole thing.” She ran one hand through the other, massaging her fingers.
“What do you mean, you heard?”
Bobby Jo looked around the room again. “Okay, okay, you got me. I’ll just spill.” Her eyes practically vibrated in their sockets. “I heard the entire thing because I was listening on the intercom.”
“What?” You can do that?
“The boss. He tells me to. Says your classroom techniques warrant that I get a handle on what’s happening.”
Chills paraded through my body as though they had feet and marching orders. No wonder he knew every move I made, was able to appear in my room at the worst time of the day—every day.
I readjusted my poker face.
The shuffle-clack-shuffle-clack of Klein’s clown feet stopped me from telling Bobby Jo what she could do with her intercom. She shambled back toward the door. “I’ll finish the report, Boss.” They gave each other the Lincoln thumbs-up—Klein’s way of encouraging school spirit while sucking it out of me.
I hobbled around my desk and picked up a paper that had flown off it. “I’m okay. Boy, that was something. I knew LeAndre had big problems.”
“Jenkins,” Klein said, “because of this incident, I have four meetings to attend before the day’s over, so we’ll have to meet about this on Monday.”
Guess that wasn’t newfound compassion I’d witnessed him offering LeAndre.
He crossed his arms across his chest and spread his legs, his pelvis jutting forward as though he needed the wide base to hold his slim upper body erect. “You’ll have to meet with some parents. Bobby Jo will bring the police in as soon as they get finished with her interview.”
He blew out a stout puff of air, the sound you heard when a bike pump was removed from the tire mid-pump. “I need you to think long and hard about how this transpired—about how I’ve gone twenty years with nary a gun incident and as soon as you show up, the kids start packing heat.”
Please, I’d been at Lincoln two months sans gun incident. “You can’t be serious. I’m not their mother. I only have the kids seven hours day. I didn’t—”
Klein held up his hand to shut me up. “I don’t have the whole story. LeAndre actually had two guns. The BB and another one that’s convertible from toy to real. That one was still in his pants. Doesn’t matter. What I need is for you to get your kids under control because there’s a reason this happened in your room and not in one of the other classrooms.”
“The reason is,” I said, “I’m the one with a child who is just this side of certifiable. I love LeAndre, I feel bad for him, but he’s not normal. I can’t get his mother to come in to see me or call me back. Maybe now he’ll be expelled and get help before he kills someone.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Which part of that?”
“LeAndre won’t be expelled. There are many reasons not to take that action. What good will it do him to sit at home all day, not learning anything? We can service him here.”
“He talks to clouds at recess,” I said. “He has conversations with himself all day. And not the kind you and I have when we’re trying to remember what we need at the grocery store. I swear there is something really wrong with him.”
Klein thrust his hand into the air again. “I’ll see you first thing Monday, Carolyn Jenkins,” he said. “And, for the last time, when I give the Lincoln thumbs-up—” he shoved his thumb nearly into my chest “—I don’t care if you’re in the grip of a stroke, I expect you to return the gesture.”
Oh, yeah. I’ve got the perfect gesture for you, buddy boy.
**
Two hours into my three-hour meeting with parents, police and suited men with thick, gold-plated pens, I realized Toots, the nurse, wasn’t going to swoop in and provide me with any sort of medical care. So while enjoying a lovely interrogation as to my role in the shooting, I rehung my Terrible Towel and fashioned a bandage from Kleenex and Scotch tape.
Once everyone had left, I was ready for a drink. Okay, ten drinks in a dank bar where I was a stranger, where I wouldn’t have to rehash the shooting. There was nothing like a good mulling over of Lincoln Elementary events in the company of my roommates. But as I limped to my car, a no longer frequent, but still familiar blue mood bloomed inside me.
It stopped me right there in the parking lot. I’d forgotten how the dread felt, that it actually came with warmth that almost made me welcome it. Driving down the boulevard, I decided not to go to the Green Turtle to meet Laura, Nina and my boyfriend, Alex. I wanted to be alone at The Tuna, the bar where nobody knew my name.
**
I drove my white Corolla to The Tuna and pondered my most recent teaching experience. Two months ago I’d been busy dreaming about saving the world and such. Man, those were the days. This afternoon’s event did not resemble my educational pipedreams in the least. I couldn’t stop replaying the shooting in my head.
Okay, so LeAndre hadn’t been aiming at me. And the bullet had only grazed my toe (but ruined one of my beautiful patent leather Nine West boots) and the bullet was actually a BB, but still, I’d been shot and frankly, it offended me. I loved those kids and apparently that meant shitola to them.
The further I drove from the school, the more I realized each and every county administrator and police official who’d interviewed me had implied I was somehow responsible for being shot by a disgruntled fifth grader. That left me feeling like I’d undergone a three-hour gynecological exam. The only logical next step was to get drunk.
Once in the parking lot of The Tuna, I shuffled across the pitted asphalt, squeezing in between a splotchy Chevy Nova and a glistening, black BMW. I paused and looked back at the vehicle. Who the hell came to The Tuna in a BMW? What did it matter?
Inside, I fussed with my purse while giving my eyes a chance to adjust to the murky atmosphere. The thick beer stench—the good kind—loosened the grasp of self-pity that had taken hold of me. I wove through mismatched tables and snaked a path to the roughhewn pine bar. The thunk of billiard balls punctuated quiet rhythms wafting from the jukebox. Several men cloistered at one end of the bar sent assorted, non-verbal hellos my way.
Before I reached my stool, the bartender I’d met the week before—the one with the sausage arms, overstuffed midsection and blazing red buzz cut—cracked a Coors Light and set it at my seat. I chugged the ice-glazed beer and swallowed the unladylike burp bubbling in my belly.
I blew out some air and thought about the day. Crap Quotient: 10/10. At least that bad. I’d coined the phrase Crap Quotient (C.Q.) after spending an entire day in grad school with a head cold, zero ability to smell and a hunk of dog crap on the bottom of my shoe. I’d traipsed around campus without any sweet soul letting me know I’d become the embodiment of the word stink.
I glanced at the hefty barkeep. He cracked a second beer before I had to ask. There was something precious about not knowing the person’s name that knew the beer you wanted at exactly the moment you needed it. I raised the bottle to salute him. He smiled while drying glasses and silverware. I wondered if that was part of the attraction promiscuous girls felt toward anonymous lovers. It was a near-miracle that a relative stranger could serve you in some perfect way even for a short time.
I plucked at the sweaty label on the bottle with my nail, thinking about Nina and Laura, my sisters in education. The greatest roommates a girl could have, except they were forever including my boyfriend, Alex, in everything we did. I’d have to get rid of Alex if I were to reap the full benefits of having such terrific friends. Alex and I were simply not a fit and me wishing exceptionally hard that I’d fall back in love with him wasn’t going to make it happen.
Because I’d missed lunch, the beer quickly did its job at anesthetizing me and eliminating the sensation that my skin had been removed and reattached with dental floss. A dark haired man slid onto the stool next to me. Great. Some slack-ass cozying up after the kind of day I had? I watched him in the blotchy, antique mirror across from us. He ordered a Corona then minded his own beeswax, thus, instantly becoming interesting. He was dressed in jeans and a blue, wide-ribbed turtleneck sweater, and his wavy hair whispered around his ears and neck. This was a guy with purpose, I could tell. I could feel it.
I admired someone who could communicate with nothing more than his appearance and manner—someone who had his shit together. That was exactly why we could never be a pair. I knew nothing about who I was. My shit was all over the place. Still, I was drawn to him as though we’d been destined to meet. I studied him. Maybe thirty-five years old. The cutest thirty-five-year-old ever.
This guy got points for reminding me of my eleventh grade creative writing teacher, Mr. Money. We girls had sat in class and fantasized that while reading our words, Mr. Money was falling in love with each of us.
The Mr. Money parked beside me in The Tuna made the air crackle and me want to grind my pelvis into his.
“All the parts there?” He swigged his beer.
“Hmm?” I swiveled to face him, studying his profile.
“I’d say take a picture, but that’d be wickedly clichéd.” He turned fully toward me. His knees touched mine, sending sizzling energy through my body. I shivered. I was in love. I clutched my chest where just hours before, searing, crisis-induced heartburn had made its mark. Now there was a good old-fashioned swell of infatuation.
“That’s a good one,” I said. We lingered, staring at each other, his direct gaze making me feel as though I’d come out of a coma to see the world in a new way. I turned back to the mirror and stared at him in the reflection again. He slumped a bit, and looked into his beer in that brooding way that made men attractive and women reek of need.
I searched for something interesting to say to a guy like this. I had nothing. If I couldn’t converse with a perfectly good stranger in a perfectly dingy bar, would I ever control my life? I didn’t have to marry the guy. Just have a freaking conversation about nothing. Not school, not my students, not my principal. Just brainless talk. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like tossing myself off the Key Bridge.
I swiveled toward him again. “Okay. I’ve had a hairy day and now I’m here and you’re here, too. Wearing those fantastic, understated cowboy boots. You don’t look like a cowboy. And your sweater and jeans—all blend to create a look of nonchalance.” I circled my finger through the air. “A man unconcerned, I might say.”
His profile, as he smiled, absorbed me. I could feel him watching me in the mirror.
“Hmm.” Mr. Money emptied his Corona.
“That’s all you have to say?” I said.
“That’s it.” He swung the bottle between thumb and forefinger in a silent signal to the bartender, who brought him another one.
“Humph.” I swiveled back toward the mirror and peeled the entire Coors Light label from the bottle in one piece. I must be losing my looks—the most important component of my Hot Factor. A person’s H-Factor (which was sometimes influenced by the level of her Crap Quotient, though not always) rated her appearance, potential for success, attitude toward life and sense of humor in one easy-to-digest number. One’s H-Factor was simply a person’s market potential.
I was never the girl who drew the most attention in the room with an effervescent personality or magnificent golden locks, but I was pretty. When attempting to discern her own H-Factor, a girl had to be brutal about her shortcomings, but glory in her strengths. And like my roommate, Laura, who had an irrefutable IQ of 140, I had indisputable good-lookingness.
“Your lips. They’re nice,” Money said. We made eye contact in the mirror. “Boldly red,” he said, “but not slathered with bullshit lip gloss. Perfect.” He sipped his beer.
“That’s better,” I said. “Mind if I call you Money?”
“What?” He gave me the side-eye.
“Nothing. An inside joke. So you’re okay with it, right?”
“Inside with whom?”
“With me,” I said.
“Very odd.”
His lips flicked into a smile that flipped my stomach.
“What do you do?” He swigged his beer.
“FBI.” I shrugged.
He chuckled. The corners of his friendly eyes, with their tiny crow’s feet, were not the mark of the twenty-three-year-old guys I usually spent time with. I wanted to kiss those paths of history, absorb some wisdom.
“I’m serious,” I said. I feigned maturity by tensing every muscle I could.
“That’s perfect,” he said. “I’ll go with it, Miss FBI. I’ll go along with your charade, but you have to do me a favor.”
“Sure. Though I really am in the FBI. Rest assured.” I held up my foot. “See that hole? I took a bullet. Today, right through the leather.”
He leaned over, glimpsing my boot, for two seconds. “That’s a hole all right. Looks like a small caliber. Very, very small.”
My face warmed. I didn’t respond. An FBI agent wouldn’t need to. Besides it was a bullet hole.
Money pulled a box of cigarettes from his pocket and emptied four joints onto the bar. “Tonight is kind of a thing for me,” he said. “Don’t make me smoke dope alone.”
I didn’t think anyone should have to do anything alone if he didn’t want to. As an only child, I knew sometimes a person just didn’t want to be alone.
Money shuffled the doobs around. I never smoked pot. It just wasn’t me. At one point I’d gone through this whole, “I’m going to marry a politician” phase that precluded doing anything that could remotely harm my unknown, future hubby’s rep. A real barrel of laughs.
Now, what if I got caught? A teacher smoking dope in a public place. What did I really have to lose? I’d been shot, for Christ’s sake. Screw it. Live like I’m serious about it.
“I’m off duty,” I said. “Really, what’s the diff between a few beers and a few joints? Other than a pesky law or two. For your ‘thing,’ whatever that is. I’ll do—”
He put the joint to my lips and lit the match, shutting me up.
Just a half hour later, an easy, goofy smile covered my face. I could feel its clumsiness and see its warmth in that mirror. Sort of.
We talked, we didn’t talk. The silence was spectacularly warm. I still didn’t even know his real name, but we connected in a way that almost made me cry. Sappy, cheesy, whatever people might say. It’s exactly what happened and I’d swear on Bibles and whatever else carried that type of weight that sitting in that bar, I experienced a genuine, once-in-a-lifetime soul slip. Sitting there with him, newly acquainted, feeling like reunited friends.
And that meant it was the perfect time to leave. Mid soul slip, before things slid back to normal. Perhaps if I left at that point, a bit of him would go with me. To keep for later when real life bore down.
I called a cab. There were just so many laws I was willing to break at one time. Going home made me think of Alex. I’d forgotten about him. Proving it was time to break up. Finally, I was sure.
“Cab’s here, Sweetie,” the bartender said.
“Thanks.” What to do about Money? I’d never see him again if I didn’t act. But it wasn’t like perfect would last past these few minutes, anyway.
“Give me your number, Money.” I controlled my voice as it wavered.
He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. His brown eyes shone in the darkness of the bar. He stared at me as though giving up his number was akin to sharing state secrets.
“I don’t know what this thing of yours was,” I said. “But you can’t take my pot-smoking virginity and not give me your number or tell the story behind the whole, glum guy with the cool boots, alone in a dive bar on Friday night. It’s simply not done.”
“Give me your number,” he said.
“No.”
He looked at his feet.
What could he be thinking? He was no spring chicken. Married? No ring.
He reached across the bar to grab a cardboard coaster, wrote on it, took my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. His gaze penetrated my insides, making me shudder as he nested my hand in his. I didn’t want to look away, but I had to see his hands around mine, to memorize the shape and what they said about him.
“There’s something sad about you,” Money said. “In a nice way.” He took my other hand and I swear he started to put it to his lips before he dropped both of them and sat back down on his stool. “See ya. Careful on that case of yours. I’d hate to hear you’d been shot again.”
“No need to worry, Money. Not to worry at all.”
And I sauntered toward the cabbie, hoping I could do just that.
Chapter 2
On the drive home from The Tuna, the cabbie rambled about all the benefits of living in various parts of Maryland, the Washington Redskins and the traffic over the Bay Bridge. Only blocks from the house I rented with my roommates and boyfriend, a car swerved in our lane. We nearly entered some guy’s home through his front window before whipping back onto the road and picking off the mailbox. I ricocheted from one side of the cab to the other.
Out of the cab, standing safely in front of my house, I slung my purse over my shoulder and patted the outside pocket where I’d hidden the coaster on which Money had written his number. I recalled the soul slip, the wholeness I’d felt.
I dug my fingers inside the pocket to nestle the coaster down deep where Alex would never see it and I could always find it. I closed my eyes against the crisp night wind that lifted my hair and cooled my hot neck. Where was it? I dug deeper into the pocket. Maybe I’d put it in the main compartment. Under the street lamp, I fell to the sidewalk, emptied my purse and sifted through lip liner, mascara, pencils, a notebook, and receipts. The coaster was gone. Gone. Gone.
Kneeling there, I ran my hands through my hair, too tired to feel anything other than spiky pebbles under my knees and a familiar “it figures” sensation. I always lost stuff. Disorganization and I were partners in life, but losing a piece of cardboard the size of a steno pad inside of five minutes was bad, even for me.
Everything back in the purse, I stood, chuckling. Through the bay window in the wood-sided Victorian I shared with Nina, Laura, and sometimes Alex, I could see them laughing their asses off about something.
My teeth chattered. Nina and Laura were the siblings I’d never had. Our friendship was like an afghan, providing warmth, but enough space between the fibers for each of us to have our own personalities, to get some air.
Alex waved to them then moved out of my view. Laura and Nina repeatedly mimed something, falling together, laughing some more. The light in my bedroom flicked on. Alex stood in the window, took off his shirt and yanked another one back over his head. He moved out of sight. Got into bed, probably.
When I pictured Alex in my life, I wanted to cut around his body with an X-Acto knife, extricating him from the image cleanly, painlessly. But that kind of removal was far too neat for the likes of me. I’d spent the last year wanting to be in love with him again, trying to ignore that we were unsuited for each other in every way. Tonight at The Tuna, everything had changed. There was no going back. The whole soul slip deal pushed the breakup from someday to pending.
I stepped inside the door and choking laughter greeted me. Laura and Nina recounted some story about beer coming out of one guy’s nose and spraying over the top of some other guy’s toupee. The story wasn’t all that terrific, but their laughter infected me.
They questioned me about my whereabouts, the meandering message I’d left on the machine. I waved them off, telling them I’d fill them in on everything in the morning. They were drunk enough to take my physical wellbeing as evidence I was the same person I’d been when I left for work that morning. And so they tripped off to their beds and I to mine.
I pulled on sweats and snuck into bed, barely moving the mattress. I hung off the edge, my back to Alex, hoping he was already asleep. But it only took a minute for him to mold his body around mine. His clammy foot touched mine, making me cringe. So far, no noticeable erection, thank goodness.
It was wrong to not just break up with him. Back in my undergrad years, I thought he hadn’t loved me enough. But as soon as I got tired of his wandering eye and cooled off toward him, he finally decided he was in love. By then it was too late.
He flopped his arm across my side, pulling me further into his body. His hot, boozy breath saturated the back of my neck. I held mine, waiting for Alex’s trademark heavy rhythms that would guarantee he was asleep and I wouldn’t have to have sex with him or be forced into avoiding it.
His hand crept up my stomach toward my breast. I shrugged it off, employing my own (fake) version of sleep breathing. I wanted to leave my body and start a new life somewhere else.
He nuzzled closer, kissing my neck in a way that felt more like licking. I stiffened then phonied up a snore.
“Mmm…Carolyn. I missed you. Here, let me see you, I missed you.” He rolled me onto my back. I kept my face toward the dresser, where stacks of teaching manuals teetered on the edge. I gave a full-slumber groan.
He slurped at my cheek, my neck, my shoulder. His hand caressed my breast and then he pinched my nipple.
“Jeeze,” I elbowed him away. “That hurt, Alex. Jesus, I’m asleep.”
“You never complained before,” he said. I could feel his face hanging over me, breathing into my ear, whistling like a hurricane.
I glanced at him then looked away again. “I’m pretty sure I never thought one caress and a nipple squeeze was a good thing.”
His whiskey breath slipped into my nostrils. He rubbed up against me.
“I’m tired, Alex. I had a terrible day and I just want to sleep.”
He stilled, his face hung above me. “Fine. Just don’t expect me to up and have sex with you the next time you’re in the mood.”
I turned to him and stared at the angular bones, the strength meshed with sweetness that I knew lived beneath his skin, the combination that used to make me crumble with love and ache to have him love me back. But at that moment, examining that same face, a continent of space between us wasn’t enough. Everything about him seemed wrong.
I looked away.
Alex slammed his body back on the bed. “This isn’t like you, Carolyn. And if you push me too far I’ll be out the door. You’re not a cold person, but fuck, you’re looking like one and I… Just fuck it.”
I winced at every word, unwilling to engage further. Two minutes later, he was snoring. This left me relieved and sad, but at least I could breathe again. I’d like to say our relationship exploded into that mess, but it didn’t. It sort of collapsed, both of us letting pieces of it fall away until we suffocated under the brokenness. At least I was suffocating.
And yet I was mired in the crap of indecision. If I couldn’t love him the way I used to, why hadn’t I just moved on already?
I felt bad knowing I had to break up with Alex, but it wasn’t the first time I considered the fact he didn’t really love me either, not in that genuine soul slip kind of way. I’d never be what he wanted in a woman. He was simply afraid of change and saw me as good enough. I frustrated him as much as he bored me. He hated that I hated cooking. He wanted me in an apron, elbow deep in cooking oil. Please. I was not that kind of girl. We were not that kind of match. He’d be relieved when we broke up.
I curled into myself and pulled the pillow over my head to block out the sound of his ragged breathing. Mentally, I went back to The Tuna, watched Money’s hand slip over mine, excited by the prospect of someone new. Someone mysterious.
But the coaster. Shit. How’d I lose it? It must have flown out of my purse in the cab. If things were meant to be different, the coaster would’ve been tucked in my purse, waiting to be sprung into action instead of knocking around in the back of some taxi.
**
I woke at 7:00 a.m. as Alex’s mucousy rasps hammered through my skull. With no chance of falling back asleep, I showered and thought about the shooting. I had to call my parents and tell them what happened. They’d want to know that I was okay. And I needed my mother. Like all daughters, I needed some reassurance that she believed in me in spite of my failures. I wanted to know that she didn’t think I’d made the wrong decision in becoming a teacher. I hoped that in this one phone call she would be the mother I needed her to be.
“Oh, hey, Carolyn,” my mother said over the phone. I recognized the rushed tenor. They were probably heading to breakfast at O’Reilly’s. If you didn’t get there by eight, you had to wait an hour for a seat. That would set off a series of unlucky events that might span weeks, at least. Don’t ask.
“I know,” I said. “You’re running out the door, right?”
“Oh, Carolyn. Don’t be snippy, please?”
“I’m being morose. Did the tone not come through?”
“Carolyn.” My mother sighed.
“Mom,” I said.
We were silent for nine seconds. It was my job to let her go without making her feel guilty. “All right, Mom. Call me back later. It’s nothing. Unless Dad’s there. Is Dad right there?”
“Nope. In the car, engine running, Madame Butterfly cranked. You know him. We’ll be back in two hours. Call us then, at the normal time. Love you Caro, darling. Love you truly.”
Yeah, right. I slammed the phone harder than I should have and caused a faint echo of the bell to rise from it. Was I the only person in the world who couldn’t count on her mother? I adored my parents in a complicated, resentment-infused way. They thought I was all right. I know, I know, boo-hoo. Until Laura, Nina, and I started living together, I’d always felt as though I were a puzzle piece tucked inside the wrong box. With them I finally belonged.
I’d like to be able to say my frequent moodiness stemmed from a childhood of slumbering in cold gutters, draped with trash bags, head pillowed on used diapers. But I’d managed to nurture such moods while in the embrace of a whole, middle-class family with parents who taught music and read compulsively.
I knew I shouldn’t complain. My parents were one of eleven couples in America who had been in love the entire length and depth of their relationship. Love like that is insane and almost unattainable but there it was with my very own parents. I was sure if I had siblings, I would have appreciated their relationship more. If I’d had siblings, I wouldn’t have always felt like an outsider in my own family.
My father was more affectionate than my mom, more interested in me, and more loving, when I really got down to it. He’d always filled in the gaps for her and when she could and was in the mood, she’d be warm, too. It was as though from time to time she awoke and realized I might need her to confide in, to go to for help, to have fun with. She seemed to struggle or wasn’t interested in offering any of the stuff other mothers seemed to do naturally with their daughters. I should have been used to it and satisfied with all my father did to bridge our gap, but I still wanted my mom’s approval over his.
Teaching—making a substantial difference in the world—was supposed to be the perfect thing to impress my parents. And teaching in a school where twelve out of twenty-four teachers were replaced each year would make my victory actually seem victorious. I’d do something good for the world (something I’d wanted to do since I was seven) and end up providing my parents with a true, important story. I would be the character they’d want to read about. Except things didn’t seem headed in the direction of me becoming an Educational Power Broker anymore. And that pretty much sucked.
**
Nina, Laura and I snuck out of the house before Alex awoke. By 8:45 Saturday morning we were cocooned in a booth at the Silver Diner. We perched next to the beverage station, close enough that we could serve ourselves when running low on the thermonuclear java that would see us past hangovers and into a day of lesson planning.
The girls bombarded me with questions about the gun, my foot, Klein’s latest abuses and where the hell I’d been all night. Saying I’d spent the evening at The Tuna put an end to that line of questioning. They’d never suspect, for many reasons, that I’d met someone interesting there.
“LeAndre’s loonier than a stuck pig. But a gun?” Laura drawled, drawing the word gun into twenty-three Southern syllables.
“Two guns,” I said, “though I only saw one. A BB-gun and some other thingy the cops said was a convertible. You can change it from shooting toy blanks to real bullets. Don’t ask me how that’s possible.”
“LeAndre needs a good ass-whooping.” Nina smacked her hands together. “When he comes off suspension, I’ll accidentally pelt him with the dodge ball a few times. Just for you, my sister.”
“Sweet child of Mary,” I said. “You can’t just pelt kids with fucking balls.”
“F-word.” Nina held her hand up. I pushed it down. She used every other swear word without hesitation, like the girl who’ll have every sexual experience known to man except traditional intercourse and call herself a virgin.
“The Lord—” Nina said.
“Bag the Lord stuff. For the love of God,” I said. My hangover was gnawing away at my nice-girlness.
Nina looked at me, eyebrows raised. She dug her fingers into her short, tight curls and twirled a section of it around her forefinger. I knew she was silently saying my prayers wouldn’t have a shot in hell of being answered. Laura, a full-blooded virgin, nodded. She always agreed with anyone who suggested taking the pristine, ladylike path in life.
Laura and I went to college together and then earned our Master of Arts in Teaching degrees there, but we became especially close once we realized we’d have to move to an unfamiliar state to get teaching jobs.
In Pittsburgh there were no jobs to get. The jobs there were too comfortable for most teachers to retire and they certainly didn’t quit. But, the Maryland/D.C. border was fairly bursting with positions.
Laura and I had met Nina at our new teacher workshops. Twenty-four years old, she exemplified the modern teacher: strong, knowledgeable, and confident. Trouble with her was she didn’t really deserve all that confidence. She didn’t know a whole lot about anything other than sports.
Oh, she’d kick my ass for saying that, but still. Sometimes the truth hurts. Nina talked with administrators as easily as friends, and never seemed unnerved or flummoxed by the odd situations at our school. It was as though she’d already taught for twenty years but still actually liked it. Even with all those admirable attributes, she sometimes wore an abrasive arrogance that could put off new friends. Me? I appreciated it most of the time.
“You need to toughen up.” Nina pointed her fork at me. “You’re the boss of those kids.” She broke into a broad smile. Not one blemish or laugh line marred her beautiful, cocoa skin. She could pass for a high school kid if she needed to.
“You mean,” I said, “I should pelt my kids with dodge balls? Maybe chuck a stapler or pair of scissors at them? I can’t get away with showing them I’m the boss like some people can.”
“Like the music and physical education teachers? I overheard you say that one time.” Nina said.
My head swam with fatigue and Coors Light. And thoughts of Money. But I couldn’t share him just yet. Ever really, because there was nothing to share. Had he really been there? Nina’s accusatory gaze pushed me further into our script.
“Honestly? Yes. You, the gym teacher, can get away with a lot more than a classroom teacher. The kids love gym. Let me see you teach them reading once and we’ll see who has trouble keeping a lid on things.”
“Physical education teacher.” Nina squinted at me.
“Same thing,” I said.
“No it’s not,” Nina said. “But you have to—”
“Nina,” I hissed. “A kid BB’d up my foot and Klein yelled at me for six hours. Suffice it to say my Crap Quotient’s high and anxiety-inducing.” My hands shook as I sipped coffee, then slammed the cup back onto the saucer.
“Your H-Factor ain’t setting the world on fire either.” Nina leaned forward.
“Really? You think so?”
“Nina,” Laura said. “Be like the old lady who fell out of the wagon.” Laura’s back straightened and her accent thickened. She was not a fan of a good argument between great friends.
Nina got up to get the coffee carafe. She shook her butt as she traipsed away. She looked back over her shoulder. “You just need to get to know the kids and their culture a little bit more. Read an article or two on race.”
I nodded. If only there was time to read such things. “But we have white kids, too.” I shook a sugar packet. Laura took it from me and put it back in the jar. I shrugged. “Katya’s white. Her mother is a wreck and her dad’s in jail. I know race is important, but it’s not race that keeps my kids from reading. Clearly it’s not that. I think they would have mentioned that in our coursework, if it were the case.”
Laura rubbed my back. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’re a great teacher.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s hard to be good when on top of teaching, you have to run some sort of combination psychiatric ward-slash-parole office-slash-jail and social work operation.”
“You worry too much, is all,” Laura said. “Now let’s talk about household chores…”
I shook my head. Laura needed people to tell how to do stuff like study, clean, straighten out their lives. And sometimes it suited me to be that person—especially at times like this.
For hours we sat and talked. I was grateful to no longer be talking about job woes. We bickered back and forth and finally, forever forward, Nina and I shot down her weekly chores idea. There was a lot of other nothing discussed. These moments lifted the dread brought on by all the ways I was unsure of life.
I tried to remember exactly when our friendship had locked into place like a steering wheel on a car. It didn’t matter when it had happened because the friendship had formed and in it, I felt fitted.
… Continued…
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KND Freebies: Award-winning THE LAST LETTER by bestselling Kathleen Shoop is featured in today’s Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt
2011 IPPY Awards WINNER, Western Fiction
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For every child who struggles to forgive…
And for every daughter who thinks she knows her mother’s story…
comes this deeply moving novel by bestselling author Kathleen Shoop.
The Last Letter (Arthur Family Saga)
by Kathleen Shoop
Katherine wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t found the letter…
Katherine Arthur’s mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie’s husband Frank, it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank. But, it was a society of uncertainty—a domain of natural disasters, temptation, hatred, even death.
Ten-year-old Katherine had loved her mother fiercely, put her trust in her completely, but when there was no other choice, and Jeanie resorted to extreme measures to save her family, she tore Katherine’s world apart. Now, seventeen years later, and far from the homestead, Katherine has found the truth—she has discovered the last letter. After years of anger, can Katherine find it in her heart to understand why her mother made the decisions that changed them all? Can she forgive and finally begin to heal before it’s too late?
Praise for The Last Letter:
“Shoop’s characters breathe. I am blown away by the authenticity of the dialogue and setting… a gifted writer with a bang-on sense of atmosphere, time, place, and social class.”
“…like Little House on the Prairie on steroids in the best possible way!…And in the center of it all is a strong-willed woman trying to do the best to hold her family together…”
an excerpt from
The Last Letter
by Kathleen Shoop
Chapter 1
1905
Des Moines, Iowa
Katherine rubbed the second knuckle of her pinky finger–the spot where it had been amputated nearly two decades before. The scarred wound pulsed with each heartbeat as her mind flashed through the events that led to its removal. Was it possible for an infection to form inside an old sore?
Don’t think about it. Just do your work.
She snatched the clump of metal from the stone saucer and scrubbed the iron pot as though issuing it punishment. She caught her forefinger on blackened beans. Damn. She sucked on the nail. With her free hand she yanked the plug from the soapstone sink then opened the back door. Hot, thick wind brushed her cheeks and forced her eyes closed as she yanked the rope that made the dinner bell clang.
With a jerk of her hip she booted the door closed and wiped her hands on the gravy-splattered apron that draped her body. A crash came from the front of the house. A ball through the window? Another wrestling match over the last “up” at bat? She dashed toward the foyer to see what her children were up to.
She tripped over the edge of the carpet and caught her balance, gaping at the sight. There on the floor was her husband, Aleksey, kneeling over her sister Yale. A shattered flow-blue vase lay scattered around them.
Yale burped sending a burst of gin-scented breath upward.
Katherine recoiled as the odor hit her nose.
“She’s drunk? Take her to my mother’s!”
Aleksey looked up, his face strained.
“Just help…”
She couldn’t handle Yale. Not right then. She turned and headed back toward the kitchen. Their mother would have to rescue Yale this time. As though being scolded from afar, her missing finger throbbed again, like a knife scraping at the marrow deep inside her bones the pain forced her to stop. Her mother hadn’t been there when she lost the finger. Her mother was never where she was supposed to be.
Katherine looked over her shoulder at the pair on the floor and clutched her hand against her chest. Yale gurgled, growing pale grey. Aleksey hoisted her and carried her to the couch.
She looked down at her smarting hand, against her heart, and clarity took over. It wasn’t Yale’s fault she was fragile. She’d been born that way. She’s your sister. Do something. She puffed out her cheeks with air and then released it. Her anger receded taking the throbbing pulse in her hand with it.
She grabbed a pot of hydrangeas from a side-table and ran out the front door, shook the billowy, blue flowers out of the pot sending coal-black dirt splashing over the wood planks.
Back in the house she slid onto the couch, Yale’s head in her lap, pot perched on the floor to catch the vomit. Aleksey paced in front of the women.
“She was at Sweeny’s. Alone. Men, tossing her back and forth like a billiard ball. I barely…”
Katherine covered her mouth. She had enough of her mother’s failures.
“I knew this kind of thing would happen. And, now-”
“She’s your sister and I know you love them even if you say you don’t care. Your mother’s dying. We have to help them.” Aleksey’s jaw tensed.
Katherine bit the inside of her cheek, struck by his rare disapproval of her.
“You can’t ignore this one more minute,” Aleksey said, “seventeen years is long enough to forgive.”
Without warning, Yale bucked forward and vomited, spackling Katherine with booze-scented chunks before passing out again. Tears gathered in her eyes. Hand quivering, she swiped a chunk from her chin with the back of her hand then smoothed Yale’s black hair off her pale, clammy forehead.
She gulped and gritted her teeth.
“If Mother can’t take care of Yale, then it’s time for the institution.” The words were sour in Katherine’s mouth, yet she couldn’t stop them from forming, from hanging in the air, the spitefulness making Aleksey break her gaze.
Aleksey pulled the pot from between Katherine’s feet and held it near Yale as she started to gag again.
“Yale can stay here. They both can.”
Katherine rocked Yale, not wanting to let her go, but knowing she had to hold her mother accountable. She was the mother after all. She shook her head and slid Yale off her lap, patting her head as she stood.
Aleksey rolled Yale to her side as she heaved into the pot.
“I’ll call Mother,” she said heading toward the stairs.
“I recall a time,” Aleksey said as he held Yale like she was one of his own, “when you called your mother, Mama, and the word swelled with adoration.”
Katherine turned from the bottom step, her posture straight and sure, like she was headed to dinner and a play rather than to scrape someone’s vomit from her skin. She gripped the banister trying to channel the mish-mash of emotion into the wood rather than feel it.
“I don’t recall that. Calling her Mama, feeling warmth in the word. I don’t recall it a bit.” And with that she trudged upstairs to peel off the rancid clothes and to stifle the rotten feelings that always materialized upon the sight of her family, drunk or not.
Chapter 2
1887
Dakota Territory
“Mama?”
Jeanie jumped at her daughter’s thin voice. Katherine lay below her in tall sinuous grasses that bent with the wind, covering and uncovering her with each shifting gust.
“I’m hot and tired and when will Father be back?” Katherine rose up on her elbows. “I understand complaining is like an ice-pick in your ear, but I’m plum hot and plum parched and tired of waiting.” She jerked a blade of grass from the ground and bit on it.
Jeanie nodded and rubbed her belly. She was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone. Cramps pulled inside her pelvis. Would she lose this one? Nervous, she grabbed for the fat pearls that used to decorate her neck and smacked her tongue off the roof of her arid mouth.
She hacked up a clump of phlegm, turned her back to Katherine and spit it into the air. A sudden blast of air blew the green mucus back, landing on her skirt. Hands spread up to the sky, she stared at the ugly splotch marveling at how quickly her life had transformed. She would never have believed it possible before the scandal hit her own family.
With clenched teeth she wrenched a corner of her petticoat from under the skirt to wipe away the lumpy secretion. Her thoughts tripped over each other. Jeanie would not let doubt linger, mix with fear and paralyze her. She would be sure the family re-grew their fortune, that they reclaimed their contentment, their name, their everything. If only Frank were more reliable. Damn Frank was never where he was supposed to be.
Arms wrapped across her body, Jeanie tapped her silk-shoed foot. They should head for water, but she didn’t think that was prudent. She’d heard people could lose direction quickly in such expansive land. That frightened her, not being in control, but she also thought perhaps the people who ended up wandering the prairie lost were simply not that smart or were careless. Slowly, as she ran her fingers down the front of her swelling throat, each scratchy swallow symbolized the wagonload of errors Jeanie had made and she started to understand that intelligence and survival did not always walk together.
Damn him. Five hours. They’d waited long enough for Frank. She pushed away the rising tears that grew from thinking of the mess her father and darling husband had made for them. Be brave.
They needed to take action or they’d prune from the inside out.
“Let’s head for water.” Jeanie clasped Katherine’s hand and pulled her to standing. We can do this, Jeanie thought. Frank had tied red sashes around taller bushes that were scattered in the direction of the well. Katherine wiggled free of her mother’s grasp and raced-as much as a girl could dart through grasses that whapped at her chest-over the land.
“Stay close!” Jeanie stopped and pulled her foot off the ground. She sucked back her breath as her slim-heeled shoes dug into her ankles. Katherine looked up from ahead, waving a bunch of purple prairie crocus over her head at Jeanie.
Jeanie turned to see how far they’d moved from the wagon. She could only see the tip of the white canvas that arched over it. She looked back in the direction of the well, of Katherine. The wind stilled. The sudden hush was heavy. The absence of Katherine’s lavender bonnet sent blood flashing through her veins.
“Katherine?” She must be pulling more flowers, Jeanie thought and rose to her tiptoes. “Katherine?”
Jeanie looked back at the wagon.
“Katherine!” Jeanie stomped some of the grass hoping the depressed sections would somehow stick out amidst the chunky high grass when they needed to return.
“Katherine!” Jeanie’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat and shouted again. No answer. She shivered then clenched her skirt and hiked it up, thundering in the direction of Katherine.
KatherineKatherineKatherineKatherine! Bolting through the grasses, the wind swelled, it pushed Jeanie back as she pressed forward, turning her shouts back at her, filling her ears with her own words as she strained to hear a reply.
Jeanie stopped as though slamming into a wall, swallowing loud breaths hoping the silence would allow Katherine’s voice to hit her ears. Nothing. She ran again, right out of her luxurious, city-shoes, while cursing the mass of skirts and crinoline that swallowed her legs. Her feet slammed over the dirt.
The grasses tangled around her ankles, tripping her. Jeanie scrambled back to her feet and took three steps before taking one right off the edge of the earth. She plummeted into water. A pond. Jeanie stood and spit out foamy, beer-colored water. At least she could touch bottom.
“Katthhh-errrrrr-ine!” She slogged through the waist deep water, her attention nowhere and everywhere at once. The sounds of splashing and choking finally made Jeanie focus on one area of the pond. She shot around a bend in the bank to see Katherine’s face go under the water taking what little wind Jeanie had left in her lungs away.
Katherine shot back up. “Mama, Mama!” She dropped back under.
Jeanie lunged and groped for Katherine as the bottom of the pond fell away. Jeanie treaded water, the skirts strangling her efforts to be efficient. A bit further! The bottom must be shallow or Katherine couldn’t have bounced up as she had.
But the bottom didn’t rise up and Jeanie choked on grainy water. She burst forward on her stomach, taking an arm-stroke, her feet scrounging for the bottom. Her face sunk under the surface.
We’re going to die, Jeanie thought. Frank would never find them. Her boys!
Bubbles appeared in front of Jeanie and she reached through the murky water for Katherine. Finally, hands grabbed back, gripping Jeanie’s. She could feel every precious finger threaded through hers. Jeanie jerked Katherine into her body, lumbered toward the bank then shoved the floppy girl up onto it. Katherine lay on the grass, hacking and inhaling so deep that she folded over, gagging. Jeanie squirmed out and pulled Katherine across her lap, thumping her back until there was nothing left but empty heaves.
Silent tears camouflaged by stale, pond water warmed Jeanie’s cheeks. Her hand shook as she pushed Katherine’s matted hair away from her eyes, rocking her.
“We’ll be fine, Katherine. We’ll build a life and start over and be happy. We will. Believe it deep inside your very young bones.”
Katherine snuffled then blew her nose in her filthy, sodden skirt. Her voice squeaked. “Oh, Mama.” Katherine burrowed into Jeanie’s chest and curled into a ball in her lap.
Jeanie wiped Katherine’s mouth with the edge of her skirt, streaking mud across her cheek. She used her thumb to clean away the muck. Her daughter in need was all that kept Jeanie from rolling into a ball herself.
“My, my. We’ll be fine,” Jeanie said. And as her heart fell back into its normal rhythms heavy exhaustion braced her. “We’ll enjoy the sunshine all the more if we’ve had a few shadows first. Right? That’s right.” Jeanie knew those words sounded ridiculous in light of all they’d been through, but still they dribbled out of her mouth, as though simply discussing a broken bit of Limoges.
Katherine nodded into her mother’s chest. Jeanie shuddered, a leaden tumor of dread swelled in her gut. She wouldn’t let it settle there.
“Shush, shush, little one,” Jeanie kissed her cheeks. If Katherine and she lived through that they could live through anything. The pond event, as it came to be in Jeanie’s mind, was evidence they’d paid a price and would be free to accept all the treasures the prairie offered from that point forward.
“Are you crying Mama?”
Jeanie forced a smile then looked into Katherine’s upturned face.
“We’re not crying people.” Her fingers quivered as she tucked the stiff chestnut tendrils into Katherine’s bonnet. “Besides there’s nothing to cry about.”
Katherine gripped her mother tighter.
“I knew you’d save us, Mama. Even in Des Moines, I knew that no matter what, you could save us.”
Jeanie hugged Katherine close hiding the splintered confidence she knew must be creased into her face. What did Katherine know? She couldn’t know the details of their disgrace. She must have simply picked up on the weightiness of their leaving the family home for this-this nothingness.
Jeanie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find the strength inside her. She would not fake her self-assurance. She believed that kind of thing lived inside a person’s skin, never really leaving, even if it did weaken from time to time. Yes, Jeanie told herself, she was the same person she had been three weeks before. Losing everything she owned didn’t mean she had to lose herself.
***
Jeanie stood at the edge of the pond and inventoried her most recent losses: impractical shoes she shouldn’t have been wearing anyway; silver chatelaine that held her pen, paper, and watch; pride. Well, no, she was determined to salvage her self-respect. She clutched her waist with both hands, considering their options, then pulled Katherine to her feet.
“This standing pond water will poison us. We’ll continue to the well.”
Katherine patted her mother’s back then bent over to pluck some prairie grass from the ground.
The wooly sunrays seemed to lower onto their heads rather than move further away, settling into the west. Their dresses dried crisp-the pond-water debris acted as a starch-while the skirts underneath remained moist and mealy.
Jeanie wiggled her toes. They burned inside the holey stockings.
“Our new home will have a spring house, right Mama? Icy, fresh spring water?”
“I’m afraid, no, little lamb.”
“Oh gaaaa-loshes,” Katherine said.
Jeanie slung her arm around Katherine. “Let me think for a moment, Darling.”
The endless land looked the same though not familiar, appearing perfectly flat, though housing hidden rises in land and gaping holes that were obvious only after it was too late. All Jeanie could remember was running straight to the spot that ended up being a pond. Her heart thudded hard again reminding her she had no control of her existence.
A sob rumbled inside Jeanie, wracking her body, forcing an obnoxious, weak moan to ooze from her clenched lips. Toughen up. She pushed her shoulders down as her throat swelled around another rising sob.
Katherine pushed a piece of grass upward, offering it to Jeanie to chew on.
“You said you came around a bend, Mama.”
Jeanie closed her fingers over the blade of grass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“We’ll curve back around to get to the point where we can head straight back toward the wagon. Then we’ll know where the well is from there.”
They held hands, traipsed around the edge of the pond and rose up a gentle hill. From there, they could see a tree. Just one. Tall, yet knobby, as though surrendering to death a bit. But, even in its contorted form, Jeanie could see its vibrant green foliage and white blooms.
Katherine pointed.
“I forgot the world had trees.”
“Yes.”
“I’m thirsty Mama.”
“Don’t feel out of spirits. We’ll find the well. Better to ignore the thirst until then.” Jeanie wished she could take her own advice but she’d felt parched since she first perched atop the wagon seat three days before.
Katherine squeezed Jeanie’s hand three times saying “I love you” with the gesture. Jeanie squeezed back to say the same then looked away from the tree into nothingness.
They hugged the edge of the pond, following the bends back to the spot where Jeanie’s foot caught the cusp of the pond, tearing out some earth. Facing directly east, they headed back to where Jeanie thought the wagon sat.
“Get on my shoulders,” Jeanie said.
They faced each other with Jeanie’s wrists crossed, hands joined. Jeanie bent her knees and exploded upward swinging Katherine around her back. Katherine wiggled into a comfortable place on Jeanie’s shoulders and fastened her ankles around Jeanie’s chest.
“You all right, Mama?”
“My yes, Sweet Pea. All is well.” She was going to make all of that true. “Peel your eyes for the wagon.” Jeanie plodded, feeling Katherine’s weight quickly, thinking of the baby inside.
“Yes, Mama.” Katherine hummed a tune.
“Concentrate on the looking,” Jeanie said.
“The humming helps me look.”
“Well, then,” Jeanie said through heavy breaths. “Keep those eyes wide as a prairie night.”
“Wide as a what?” Katherine said.
“A prairie night,” Jeanie said. Katherine’s legs stiffened and she pulled hard around Jeanie’s neck.
Jeanie halted, absorbing Katherine’s tension.
“What’s wrong? What do you see?” Jeanie looked upward at Katherine’s face above her. She squeezed Katherine’s thigh to get her attention. Were they about to step into a snake pit, be trampled by a herd of cows?
“What is it?”
“A man,” Katherine said.
“Who?” Ridiculous question in light of them not knowing a soul in Dakota.
Katherine’s legs kicked-she gripped Jeanie’s bonnet making its ties nearly choke her.
Jeanie’s heart began its clunking patterns again.
“Where?”
Katherine didn’t respond so Jeanie swung her from her shoulders and tucked her behind her skirts. Jeanie glanced about the ground for something sharp or big. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon against a small rodent let alone a man.
Katherine clenched Jeanie so tight that the two nearly flew off their feet. Steadied, Jeanie couldn’t see anyone coming toward them. Her bare feet pulsed with pain making her feel more vulnerable. Katherine must be hallucinating, the thirst taking its toll on her.
Jeanie spun in place, craning for the sight of a man, the sound of feet, but a windblast made anything that might emit noise, soundless.
For a moment Jeanie was tempted to burrow into the grasses, hide there, play dead, anything to avoid the man, if there was a man. A new burst of sweat gathered at her hairline and dripped down the sides of her face. Katherine’s fingers delved into the loosened stays of Jeanie’s corset.
“Who’s there?” Jeanie yelled into the wind. She shuddered. She could feel someone watching them. She whirled again, Katherine whipped around with her.
“Who’s there?” Jeanie shouted. This time her words tore through the air, the winds momentarily still.
“It’s Howard Templeton! Jeanie Arthur? That you?” A full, gruff voice came from behind. Jeanie and Katherine twisted around a final time. Jeanie’s body relaxed. If he knew her name it must be a good sign. She tensed again, maybe not. Maybe he tortured Frank and the boys and…she wouldn’t think about it. This Templeton sported a pristine black hat. His ropy limbs were strong though not bulky, not threatening in any setting other than that of the naked prairie.
Jeanie shaded her eyes and looked into his six feet two inches, meeting his gaze. A crooked grin pulled his mouth a centimeter away from being a smirk.
“Mrs. Arthur, I presume? There. That’s more proper, isn’t it? Don’t be nervous.”
“It was the wind,” Jeanie said. You scared me blind, she wanted to say, but wouldn’t. “I couldn’t pinpoint…well, no matter.” She wasn’t accustomed to making her own introductions. It felt rude to say, who are you? So, she said nothing.
Templeton removed his hat and bent at the waist, lifting his eyes. Was he flirting with this dramatic bow? She grabbed for absent pearls then smoothed the front of her dress before pulling Katherine into her side.
He straightened, replaced his hat.
“I met your husband, Frank, on his way to stake a claim.”
Jeanie flinched. Where was Frank?
Templeton jammed one of his mitts toward Jeanie, offering a handshake. She stepped backward while still offering her hand in return.
He clasped her hand inside both of his. They were remarkably soft for a man ferreting out a home on the prairie. He held the handclasp and their gaze. Jeanie looked away glimpsing their joined hands. She cleared her throat and wormed her hand out of his.
She wished there had been a manual pertaining to the etiquette of meeting on the prairie. Etiquette should have traveled anywhere one went, but she could feel, standing there embarrassed in so many ways, how unreliable everything she had learned about life would be in that setting. Jeanie ran the freed hand over her bonnet, straightening it then smoothing the front of her pond-mucked skirt.
Templeton shifted his weight, and drew Jeanie’s attention back.
“I advised your Frank to jump a claim. To take up in the Henderson’s place. That family never proved up and rather than you starting from scratch, I figured you might as well start from something. Besides, I miss having a direct neighbor. Darlington Township might have well over a hundred homesteads settled, but it’s really the few closest to you, the ones you form cooperatives with, that matter.”
Jeanie swallowed hard. She eyed his canteen and had to hold her hand back to keep from rudely snatching it right off his body.
“Well, I’m not keen on jumping a claim, Mr. Templeton. I’ll have to consult my own inclination before we put pen to paper on that.”
She bit the inside of her mouth, regretting she’d lost her manners, her mind.
“I’m sorry. My manners. It’s a pleasure to meet you. This is my daughter Katherine.”
Katherine smiled. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Templeton shook her hand then folded his arms across his chest.
“You, Katherine, are the picture of your father. Prettier though, of course, with your mother’s darker coloring, I see.”
Katherine reddened, peered upward from under her bonnet then darted away, leaping and spinning.
“Stay close!” Jeanie said.
“So what bit you with good old prairie fever?” Templeton asked.
Jeanie looked around as though something drew her attention. She hadn’t considered what her response to that query would be. Her heart burst at the chest wall. Templeton’s quiet patience, his steadfast gaze heightened Jeanie’s discomfort.
“Circumstances.”
“I know all about circumstances,” Howard said.
“I don’t mean to be ill-mannered, but…” Jeanie eyed the canteen Templeton had slung across his body.
He rubbed his chin then slid the strap over his head.
“Frank sent me with some water, figured you’d need it, that I’d be the best person to find you.”
“Water, thank you, my yes.” Jeanie licked her lips.
He handed it to Jeanie. Her hands shook, nearly dropping it as she unclasped the catch. She would give her daughter the first drink.
“Katherine! Water!”
Katherine skipped toward them. She took the canteen, shoulders hunched, eyes wide as they had been on Christmas morning.
“Watch, don’t dribble.” Jeanie held her hands up under the canteen. She forced her gaze away, knowing she must look crazed, staring at Katherine’s throat swallowing, barely able to wait her turn.
Katherine stopped drinking and sighed, eyes closed, content. She held the canteen to her mother.
Jeanie threw her head back, water drenching her insides. The liquid engorged every cell of her shriveled body. She took it from her lips and offered it back to Katherine.
“You finish up,” Jeanie said, cupping Katherine’s chin, lifting it to get a good look into her now glistening eyes.
“There’s got to be plenty back at the wagon now, right, Mr. Templeton?” Jeanie said.
He didn’t reply. He squatted down, squinting at Jeanie’s bare feet.
“You’re not going another inch with naked feet and phalanges. What a great word, I haven’t had use for since, well, never mind that,” Templeton said.
Katherine’s eyes widened.
“I’ll thank you to find your manners, Mr. Templeton,” Jeanie said stepping back.
“Don’t be harebrained, Mrs. Arthur. Allow me to wrap your feet so they’re protected should you step on a rattler, or into a gopher hole. I’ll be as doctorly as possible.” Templeton stood and unbuttoned his shirt.
Jeanie waved her hands back and forth. “No, now, no, now please don’t do…” But before she could arrange her words to match her thoughts, Templeton ripped his shirt into strips and helped Jeanie to the ground. He turned her left foot back and forth. Jeanie’s eyes flew wide open, her mouth gaping.
Katherine sighed with her entire body.
“Sure am glad we stumbled upon Mr. Templeton. My mama wasn’t trying to be disagreeable. She’s just proper is all.”
“Katherine Margaret Arthur.” Jeanie snatched for her daughter’s arm, but she leapt away, humming, cart-wheeling. Jeanie’s face flamed.
Templeton’s deep laugh shook his whole body. He began to wrap her foot. “These feet look to have been damaged by more than a simple run across the land.”
Jeanie bit the inside of her cheek. She wouldn’t confide her utter stupidity to a stranger.
“Let me guess,” Templeton said. “I’d say you had a little trouble parting with your city shoes? Perhaps? The way your feet are lacerated below the ankles, as though stiff shoes meant for decoration more than work had their way with you?”
“Stay close Katherine!” Jeanie shouted to avoid admitting that in fact, she’d kept three pairs of delicate, pretty shoes and only traded one for a pair of black clodhoppers. The clodhoppers that bounced out of the back of the wagon just beyond their stop in Yankton.
Jeanie flinched as Templeton bandaged the other foot.
“Did I hurt you?”
Jeanie covered her mouth then recovered her poise.
“No. Let’s finish this production and get moving.” It was then Jeanie realized she was shoeless-and not temporarily speaking. She wouldn’t be able to sausage her swollen feet into the pretty shoes and she had nothing utilitarian in reserve. Frank was a miracle worker with wood, but wooden shoes? That wasn’t an option.
Templeton whistled.
“Nice you have such a grand family to cheer you while you make your home on the prairie. Times like this I wish I had the same. No wife, no children to speak of.”
“You’re unmarried?” Jeanie smoldered at the thought that not only a strange man handled her feet, her naked toes, but one who was batching-it! A scandal in the eyes of many. Thankfully, there were no prying eyes to add this outrage to her hobbled reputation.
Templeton snickered repeatedly as he moved with a doctor’s detachment. The feel of hands so gently, though firmly, caring for her, nearly put Jeanie in a trance. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had done such a thing for her.
“There. Good as new. Until we get you to the wagon, anyway. I assume you have another pair of boots there.”
“Well, I uh, I…” She told herself to find her composure, that she was one step away from a reputation as an adventuress or an imbecile if she didn’t put forth the picture of a respectable woman.
“Had a shoe mishap?”
“It could be characterized that way.” Jeanie wanted to die. How stupid could she have been?
She turned one foot back and forth and then the other before having no choice but to look at Templeton and thank him for his assistance. Blood seeped through bandages and she nodded knowing he had been right. She’d have been wrought with infection and open to the bone if he hadn’t wrapped her.
“Thank you Mr. Templeton. I thank you sincerely.” Jeanie put her hand over her heart.
He pulled Jeanie to her feet.
“My pleasure.” Templeton gave another shallow bow then tied an extra shred of his white shirt to a small cobwebby bush to use as a landmark, to show Jeanie and Katherine how the prairie land could work against even the most knowledgeable pioneer.
Jeanie knew she’d been careless that day, but she certainly didn’t need white ties all over the prairie to keep her from getting lost again. She’d be more vigilant next time.
Move on, Jeanie. No time for moping. Jeanie drew back and lifted her skirts. She stepped onto the fresh bandages then snapped her foot back in pain. She held her breath and pressed forward ignoring the pain.
“It’s this way,” Templeton said. “You’re turned around.”
Jeanie halted. Her face warmed further than the heat and anxiety had already flushed it.
“I suppose I’ve made some dire errors today, Mr. Templeton.”
“I suppose we all do at first, Mrs. Arthur.”
Jeanie puckered her lips in front of unspoken embarrassment. When was the last time she’d faced a string of endless failures? Never. She wondered if that could be possible, or if she was just making such a fact up in her mind.
“This way, my sweet!” Jeanie pushed her shoulders back, tugged her skirts against her legs and took off in the correct direction, Katherine beside her with Templeton just behind, gently guiding them back to Jeanie’s family, back to the life she didn’t think she could actually live with, but would not survive without.
Chapter 3
1905
Des Moines, Iowa
In the three days since Yale had stumbled drunk into Katherine and Aleksey’s home, the couple had made the decision that their Edwardian home, even with four children, allowed more than enough space to care for both the cancer-stricken Jeanie and Yale, who was slow. There wasn’t much to do in the way of transporting her sister and mother’s belongings into Katherine’s home for other than two trunks and some hanging clothes; they did not own a single item that needed to be moved.
It wasn’t Katherine’s decision to have them come. She resisted with all her might but Aleksey, had for the first time in their marriage, asserted the type of overbearing male dominance so many men reveled in regularly. He told Katherine she had no choice but to let Jeanie and Yale live with them. It was Katherine’s duty to nurse her mother back to life or onward to death and it was her job to comfort and house her struggling sister.
Katherine stood in their doorway and watched Aleksey help Jeanie, one awkward step after another, up the front steps and across the porch. Katherine may not have remembered any warmth toward her mother, any sweet, shared moments or precious mother/ daughter secrets, but she felt them from time to time, inside her skin, down in her soul, coursing through her body. Below the surface of her conscious mind was the memory of a woman she once adored. Normally when that flash of love for her mother shot through Katherine, she pushed it away, and let the resentment, the gritty hate that seemed to be layered like bricks, weigh on the goodness, squashing it out.
But now, with her mother being ushered into her home for Katherine to tend until she took her final breath, she let the shot of warm feelings sit a bit; saturate her mind, hoping the sensation would allow her to cope.
As Aleksey and Jeanie entered the front room, Katherine watched Jeanie’s gaze fall over the carved-legged mohair davenport, velvet chair, and an oil painting done by Katherine herself. The thick Oriental rug drew Jeanie’s attention, then when Katherine pushed the button, the diamond-like chandelier jumped to life, drawing Jeanie’s gaze before she settled it back on Katherine’s painting, one she’d done when they lived on the prairie.
Jeanie’s once graceful posture was hunched over an ugly black cane as her hand opened and closed around the handle as though the action soothed her. Jeanie’s brown hair, pulled tight into a bun, was thin, sprouting out of the severe style. The frail woman straightened, stared at the painting then brushed the front of her dress before falling hunched over her cane again.
Katherine told herself to find the love she wanted to feel. She took Jeanie’s elbow and helped her to the couch, hoping it didn’t smell like the old hound that often curled on one corner.
Aleksey kissed Jeanie’s cheek and took her cane, supporting that side as they shuffled to the davenport. Acid rose up inside Katherine and blossomed into full envy at the warmth Aleksey showed Jeanie-the fact that he could touch her without looking as though his skin would combust on contact, as Katherine felt hers would.
Katherine gritted her teeth as she and Aleksey turned Jeanie and settled her onto the davenport. She sighed and squinted at Aleksey. She loved him more than anyone except their own children, but this may be too much.
“I’ll get that sweet tea you made, Katherine.” Aleksey headed toward the hall.
Katherine couldn’t have guessed exactly what her mother was thinking, but the puckered lips and narrowed brows didn’t look positive.
“Well,” Jeanie said. “You’re a little late with your spring cleaning, but the place is respectable all the same. I can see you purchase things that last.” Jeanie smoothed her dress over her knees then smiled at Katherine.
“I know you mean that as a joke, Mother, but I don’t appreciate it.”
Jeanie scowled and Katherine flinched, waiting for hard words in return. Her mother opened her mouth and closed it then stared toward the painting with reed straight posture.
The pounding of the ice pick as Aleksey split the ice into cold slivers mimicked Katherine’s heartbeat. She took a deep breath. How could a person feel so uncomfortable with the very person who gave her life? She prayed for Aleksey to speed it up in the kitchen as time moved like a fly in honey for the two in the front parlor.
With a startling jerk, Jeanie grasped Katherine’s hand. She jumped in her seat, so surprised that her mother actually touched her. She stared at their hands then at her mother’s profile. Jeanie gazed at the moody landscape Katherine had created on that awful day so long ago.
“You were such a beautiful artist,” Jeanie said. “I remember when you did that one.”
Prickly heat leapt between their hands, making Katherine sweat with anxiety. Jeanie caught her confused expression then squeezed her daughter’s hand three distinct times. I love you. Each unspoken word was hidden in the three contractions of Jeanie’s grip. Katherine nearly choked on swelling anger as she fought the burst of tears that threatened to fall.
With her free hand, Jeanie brushed some hair back from Katherine’s face. Katherine, still as marble, wanting her mother to stop touching her, cleared her throat, feeling like she might pass out.
“Oh, I know,” Jeanie said. “So very serious you are. I was once that way…I…well. I’m sorry, Katherine. I shouldn’t have…I should have told you everything years ago, but…” Jeanie’s gaze went back to the painting. “I want to explain.”
Katherine nodded once but angled her shoulders away, trying to put as much space between them as possible. Katherine couldn’t go down that old prairie path again. It was too late for explanations. She would have sprinted out the door, but her legs were numb. The only energy in her body seemed to exist inside the space between her and her mother’s intertwined fingers. Hurry Aleksey. Katherine closed her eyes. Aleksey returned with a tray and tea, ice cubes clinking in the tall glasses.
He set the tray on the table in front of the women. Katherine silently begged him to notice her blood had rushed to her feet, that he should hoist her over his shoulder and take her away from this woman who, in merely touching Katherine, made her unable to render useful thought, to move, to live.
Trust Aleksey, Katherine told herself. She told herself to hope, to believe that something would be gained from this operation- from what Katherine saw as self-inflicted torture.
But, with Aleksey standing there, handing out tea, acting as though it were perfectly normal that Jeanie was there, with Yale asleep upstairs, Katherine decided she might never speak to Aleksey again.
Chapter 4
1887
Dakota Territory
Jeanie, Katherine, and Templeton crested a hill and stopped. Jeanie was eager to get to their wagon but relieved to give her smarting feet a break. She lifted one foot then the other, grimacing, as Templeton discussed their trek up to that point. He motioned back in the direction they had come, where he had tied a piece of his shirt to a bush, saying that even though the path to the crest upon which they stood had risen slightly and slowly, that Jeanie should always be aware of how deceptive the prairie land could be.
She turned in place, taking it in, seeing that on that sloping land the world seemed to open up but also it hid things. The fat, blue sky stretched in every direction without a landmark to mar a bit of it. Like the tie on that bush. It was gone, as though it never existed. Jeanie shook her head. So, it wasn’t just that she and Katherine had been irresponsible in getting lost earlier, it was tricky land.
Templeton walked Jeanie and Katherine twenty yards further over the slope. And as though a magician had lifted a curtain, there appeared, one hundred and fifty yards east, a small frame home and the Arthur’s wagon sitting near a crooked barn. Even from that distance, Jeanie could make out Frank, their eleven-year-old son James, and Katherine’s twin brother Tommy fiddling with the wagon wheel.
The three of them walked east as though searching for something lost in the grass. Frank swaggered; his wiry body bore his unconscious confidence. But, he tapped the side of his leg-the one outward sign that something was bothering him. His movements were like a set of fingerprints. Jeanie could pick him out of a thousand other men if they were all in shadow, she was sure.
Katherine tore away from Jeanie and Templeton, galloping, twirling around to wave at Jeanie before breaking into full sprint to greet her father and brothers. Tommy glanced up at his approaching sister then carried on with his play-walking a few yards before throwing himself to the ground, shot, by some evil intruder.
And her James. Jeanie’s first born. He lagged behind, but leapt into the air as Katherine raced by him and slapped his backside, making her fall into giggles that carried over the land. James had perfected a subtle, bellow of brooding, never quick to laugh or lash out. Each of them unique though together they formed a mass of love and pride, each one inhabiting a chamber of Jeanie’s heart. If one were to disappear it would surely kill her instantly.
Templeton pointed west, past Jeanie’s nose.
“If Katherine fell into the pond I think you’re describing, you must have seen that tree.”
Jeanie nodded toward the crooked one she’d seen earlier.
“That’s the bee tree. It’s actually part of the Henderson’s, no, your homestead, now. You can’t see the tree from everywhere, but it’s an anchor of sorts. Then there’s another anchor just over there, at the far end of the Hunt’s property, a cluster of six or seven trees.”
Jeanie rose to her toes to look.
“Your bee tree and the Hunt’s cluster are the most obvious landmarks between the five closest homesteads in Darlington Township. Gifts, sprouting from the land to guide and direct us.”
Hoots of joy from Frank and the children startled Jeanie. She looked back at the family. They ran into the sun, past the sinking yolk, their bodies exploded blaze yellow, each outlined in black to mark where one golden body ended and another began.
Jeanie looked at Templeton and realized for the first time since he’d di