A Basket Brigade Christmas (37 page)

She let the curtain cover the name. Then her thoughts returned to the box of letters her mother had hidden away. How dare her mother do such a deceitful thing?

Cardiff’s words came back to tease her:
“Please know that I love you and ask your forgiveness and your patience as you wait for me to return.”

Love. Forgiveness. Patience. Three honorable qualities.

Which you don’t possess.

She pulled her legs close and let her forehead touch her knees.
I could have been patient and loved him and forgiven him, if only I’d known.

Suddenly, Zona needed to read
all
the letters. Every last one. Reading wouldn’t change anything, but not knowing their content was no longer an option. She longed to read his words and imagine his voice. She longed to know everything she could about him.

But where were they?

Zona could ask Mary Lou, yet she didn’t want her to know of her interest. She lit a candle and quietly slipped out of her bedroom to the hall. Mary Lou had found the box in the storeroom dresser. She’d been cleaning it out, so it was unlikely she’d return them to the same place, but it was a starting point. Zona tiptoed down the hall to the storeroom and went inside, the candlelight creating flickering shadows on the walls. She opened the top drawer. It contained table linen. The middle drawer contained towels and dresser scarves. The bottom drawer …

There it was.

Zona put the box under her arm and retraced the steps to her room. She set the candle and the box on the small desk, pulled up a chair, and only then allowed herself to take a deep breath.

She let her fingers rest upon the box, giving herself one last chance to keep it closed forever. Would it do more harm than good to find out what Cardiff had written so many years ago? Would it cause pain?

Yes, and probably yes.

But not knowing caused its own harm and pain.

She opened the box and removed the stack, noting that they were sorted chronologically. She recognized the letter she’d read the day before and set it aside. On to number two … and three. And four and all the rest. She read every word, yet her eyes lingered on certain lines:

This last line brought her back to the present. Cardiff, a doctor? He’d never shown any inclination. He’d worked in her father’s printing company. She’d begged her father to groom Cardiff to take over.

Which had been one of the reasons he’d left her.

Left her to go fight a war that had nothing to do with him. Who cared about Texas or Mexico?

That he chose war over marrying her and living a normal life still infuriated her.

She remembered a passage she’d read and found it again:

Zona let the letter rest in her lap. Medicine was a noble calling. Nobler than being a printer?

She sighed. One vocation wasn’t better than the other, but for one fact: Cardiff had made the choice. Not her.

The memory of her willful insistence regarding the details of their future ignited a wave of embarrassment. She’d been nineteen years old, an only child who prided herself in her ability to get people to give her what she wanted. She’d wanted Cardiff and, as such, had set her sights on getting him.

He had succumbed to her charms, and with that victory, she’d pushed harder to gain the rest of her wish list: a home, family, status, and wealth.

She looked across her bedroom. The living quarters she shared with Mary Lou were comfortable but far more humble than her youthful dreams of a mansion with servants.

“What’s done is done.”

The words rang hollow, yet not wanting to argue with herself, she picked up the final letter.

It began without the usual “My darling” salutation.

Zona jumped to her feet, the stack of letters falling from her lap. “He moved to St. Louis? He gave up on me?”

There was a knock on her door, and Mary Lou peeked in. With a single look, she took in the scene. “You found them.”

“You didn’t hide them.”

“I wanted you to read them.”

“Have you read them?”

“I have.”

Zona shook the final letter at her. “He gave up on me. He moved to St. Louis. He became a doctor.”

“I know.”

Her chest heaved with a heart beating too hard and lungs seeking more air. She pointed at the letters on the floor. “My entire life would have been different if I’d seen these letters.”

“I know.”

“Mother had no right keeping them from me!”

“I know.”

“Is that all you can say?”

Mary Lou removed the letter from Zona’s hand and led her back to the window seat, resting their clasped hands upon her knee. “I didn’t agree with your parents’ choices and suggested you might benefit from seeing his letters. But they wouldn’t listen. Your heart was broken, and they didn’t want you to be hurt again.”

“He said he wanted to come back to Chicago. If he would have received some encouragement, I’d be married. We’d be married.”

Mary Lou nodded. “Which is why your parents moved you here.”

Zona was confused. “I always thought they approved of our match. But to move because of his letters … They disliked him that much?”

“Let’s say they considered your match unequal.”

“Because Cardiff grew up poor and worked manual labor?”

“Not just that.” She hesitated. “Perhaps they believed you wanted the dream more than the reality.”

In hindsight, Zona knew this was true. She’d known very little of real life.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe. “You said they moved here because of the letters. We moved to Decatur because Grandmother was sick.”

“Not so sick. Not that sick.”

Another memory surfaced, of her grandmother getting well. “She lived until last year.”

“As I said.”

“So it was all a ruse to get me out of Chicago so Cardiff couldn’t find me?”

Mary Lou hesitated then said, “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know the full truth until I read the letters the other day. I knew you had received letters, but not their content. I thought Cardiff had left for good.”

“He did leave for good! He went to St. Louis. He’s probably in St. Louis now, married, with children.” She flashed a look at Mary Lou. “He’s probably living the life that should have been ours.”

Mary Lou shrugged. “It was not to be. He moved to St. Louis and your family moved here.”

Zona paced in front of the window, her thoughts skipping like pebbles on a lake. “Papa sold his business in order to move here. Were they that anxious to keep me away from him?”

“I remember hearing talk about an offer on the business, even before Cardiff left.” Mary Lou retrieved the fallen letters and stacked them neatly. “Perhaps Cardiff wasn’t as good a worker at the printing company as you thought he was. Perhaps your father didn’t like your plan of letting him take over.”

Zona had never thought of that. Cardiff’s working ability and her father’s wishes had never been a consideration to her plans. And then it hit her.

“I didn’t think about anyone else and what they might want, did I?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to answer so quickly. You could ponder it a moment.”

“The truth is the truth and needs no pondering.”

But the truth hurt.

Zona spotted a stray letter on the floor near the bed and returned it, along with the others, to the box.

“Do you want me to put them back in the dresser?”

“I need them here. Close. For they are the evidence of my folly and its consequences.”

Mary Lou pulled her into an embrace. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were just a girl. And your parents were in the wrong, too.”

“Were they?”

Mary Lou let go, looking into her eyes. “You approve of what they did?”

“I understand it.” New thoughts revealed themselves with a stunning clarity. “If I’d had my way, Cardiff and I would be married.”

“You loved each other.”

“We did. But did I love him enough to let him be who he was destined to be? Or would he have lived a miserable life, running my father’s company?”

Mary Lou moved a stray hair behind Zona’s ear. “We’ll never know.”

It was a fact that was heavy with its own pain.

Mary Lou left her, and Zona returned to the window seat, knowing that sleep would be elusive. She pulled the curtain aside and saw the name she’d written in the frost. CARDIFF.

She drew a heart around his name then pressed her hand against the pane, melting the letters into nothingness.

If Cardiff could have managed it, he would have gone to sleep on the front stoop of Mrs. Driscoll’s boardinghouse. His good leg was leaden, and his bad leg pulsed and ached so badly he would have gladly cut it off to be rid of the pain.

Just a few more steps inside then upstairs to my room. One step at a time.

Once inside, Mrs. Driscoll stormed toward him from the back of the house. “You missed dinner, Dr. Kensington. It’s after nine, and I specifically told you I served promptly at seven.”

His legs gave out, and he faltered on the first stair, grabbing for the banister. Mrs. Driscoll rushed forward to help him stay erect.

“I’m sorry for missing it, ma’am. And I’m all right now.” He stood straight, though his balance remained tenuous.

“You are not all right. You look terrible. Your face is ashen.”

He turned toward the stairs and, with all his determination, gained ownership of the second step. “It’s been a long day.”

“Have you eaten?”

“No, ma’am. We had an emergency when one of our boys stopped breathing.”

“Did he recover?”

Cardiff didn’t want to talk about it. “No, he did not.”

“I’m … I’m so sorry.”

“Me too, ma’am. So if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get to bed.”

“Would you like some help with the stairs?”

“No, ma’am. I’ll make it.”

And he did. Barely. He fell into the chair in his bedroom, his torso bouncing off the back cushion, unable to keep control of itself. His head felt too heavy for his neck, and he leaned it back against the wall. The bed beckoned, but he didn’t have the energy to move from here to there. He considered sleeping where he was—though the muscular consequences in the morning would be great.

But maybe if he could rest for just a few minutes, he could gain enough energy to conquer the bed.

His eyes snapped open to a tap on the door. “Dr. Kensington?”

What time was it? Surely it wasn’t morning already. He pushed himself upright and groaned with the ache of the movement. “Yes?”

“I’ve brought you dinner. May I come in?”

He gave his consent, and the door swung inward. Mrs. Driscoll entered, carrying a tray of food. “I couldn’t let you go to sleep on an empty stomach. Here is a roast beef sandwich, some squash and potatoes, a piece of spice cake, and some wine.” She set the tray on the dresser, moved a small table in front of him, then transferred the tray within his reach. “There,” she said. “A hard-working man like yourself needs proper nourishment.” She waited for him to take up his fork, and when he did not, she handed it to him. “Eat. Leave the tray outside when you’re finished.”

He ate a bite of squash. It was garnished with butter and sugar. “It’s delicious.”

“Of course it is. Now, finish every bite.” On her way out, she retrieved his wash pitcher. “I’ll bring you some fresh water.”