Bicycle Built for Two (23 page)

She bit her tongue and
didn’t utter a word of protest when Alex gently lifted her mother
into the carriage. She even smiled at him. A little bit. He gave
her an ironic salute, and she knew he understood her smile had been
forced.
What’s the matter with
me
?

An answer eluded her and continued to do so
as Alex settled a lightweight blanket over her mother’s knees, then
turned and assisted Kate into the carriage. He was a prince of a
guy, really. She shouldn’t resent his attentions to her mother,
since they were making Ma happy. Ma’s happiness mattered more than
Kate’s state of confusion. A lot more.

The carriage ran pretty smoothly on the
paved streets of Chicago. Kate had noticed before this that Alex’s
carriage rode more smoothly than any cab she’d ever been in. Money
could sure work wonders. She shot a peek at her mother’s face, and
wished money could work a wonder of a permanent nature for Hazel
Finney.

“This is so nice,” Mrs. Finney murmured as
the carriage rolled along the highway.

Kate watched with fascination as the houses
got farther and farther apart, and green stuff began showing up at
the sides of the road and in people’s yards. She’d seen fancy
houses before, so she knew that many people who were wealthy enough
actually grew grass in their yards for no better reason than so the
kids in the families could play there.

A grass lawn sounded sort of like a poor
girl’s version of heaven to Kate Finney, who’d grown up playing on
the streets. Heck, she’d learned to dodge the milk wagon and the
delivery carts by the time she was three. Walter and Bill and the
Griswold kids used to make a game of it.

“This is really pretty,” she said, hoping the
comment would serve as an offering of some sort to Alex, who didn’t
deserve her bad temper.

“You think so?”

He sounded merely curious, so Kate didn’t
snap at him. “Yeah. We don’t get much green growing stuff in my
neighborhood.” She spoke lightly, because she didn’t want her
mother to start feeling guilty.

“True, true,” Mrs. Finney said upon a sigh
that set her to coughing. The spasm didn’t last long, although it
made Kate’s heart skip and her fear rise up like a monster in her
heart.

“You okay, Ma?” Her voice was breathy with
worry.

“I’m fine, Katie.” Mrs. Finney took a small
flask out of her handbag and sipped from it. “The doctor gave me
this. It helps to calm the spasms.”

“I wish we’d had more rain recently,” Alex
said, sounding as if he, too, were concerned. “There’s so much dust
being kicked up by the horses and the carriage wheels. I think I
ought to let down the isinglass windows until we get farther out
into the country.

He moved to do so, and Mrs. Finney laid a
hand on his arm. “Please don’t do that, Mr. English. I mean Alex.”
She gave him such a sweet smile, Kate would have wept if she did
things like that. “I’d rather see the countryside than worry about
my health right now. I—well, I don’t know how many more
opportunities I’m going to have to see this.”

Kate uttered a strangled noise that she
hoped didn’t sound like a sob as Alex sank back down onto the seat
across from her and her mother. “Of course,” he said. “I
understand.”

So did Kate, and she hated it. Very seldom
did she allow herself to admit that her mother was dying. When Kate
thought about Ma dying, she felt as if her heart were being gouged
out of her chest by a monster’s claws. If Ma died, she’d die.

Or she wouldn’t die, which would be worse,
because then she’d be left to face the world all by herself. Sure,
she’d have Bill and Walter, but they always looked to her for
everything. She’d have no one left to whom she could talk, of whom
she could ask advice, to whom she could cry if she needed to. And
sometimes, although she hated to admit this, too, Kate Finney
cried.

Oh, God, please don’t take Ma away from
me.

As usual, God paid no attention to Kate
Finney.

Chapter Eleven

Mrs. Finney managed to stay awake almost the
whole way to the English farm, but nodded off during the last
portion of the trip. Alex had thought to provide pillows for
her—the darned man thought of everything—so Kate propped a couple
of them next to her, and her mother lay her gray head there. Kate
wanted to cry but, naturally, didn’t.

“We’re almost there,” Alex whispered after
several minutes of silence on the part of the coach’s
occupants.

Kate realized he’d been watching her mother
and herself closely during the preceding couple of hours as his
fancy carriage rolled them out of Chicago and into paradise. It
looked like paradise to Kate, at any rate. She nodded. “I think
Ma’s getting kind of tired.”

“Evidently.” Alex smiled, nodding toward the
sleeping woman, and Kate’s insides fluttered.

Because she knew she’d been unjustly
snappish earlier in the day, and because she truly appreciated what
Alex was doing for her mother, she said, “It’s really pretty around
here, Alex. I’m surprised you ever want to leave it to visit
Chicago. I’d want to stay here, where it’s so pretty and
clean.”

“I like visiting the city sometimes, but this
is my home.”

Kate wished she could say that. She’d kill
to be able to live in the country. And wouldn’t Billy and Walter
love it? They would. She could envision her brothers working behind
plows and doing other farmerly things of a similar nature. They,
unlike their father, were hard workers.

Also, Kate didn’t know about Walter, but
Billy loved animals and horticulture. She couldn’t even remember
all the strays he’d taken in over the years. And even though he
lived in a flat not unlike Kate’s in a boardinghouse for young man
and located in an even worse neighborhood, he liked to grow
vegetables in a box he’d built and set up in his window. He brought
Kate carrots and radishes quite often, and had even managed to grow
beans on a trellis he’d rigged.

Recalling something Alex had said to her a
few days ago, she said, “How long has your family lived here?”

“We’re into the fourth generation.”

He didn’t sound proud exactly, but Kate
heard what she identified as satisfaction in his tone of voice. She
didn’t resent it. If she could claim sixty or seventy years of
family farming in so gorgeous a setting, she’d be satisfied, too.
“That’s a long time. My family was in Ireland three generations
ago.” She shrugged, grinned, and added, “One generation ago, too,
come to think of it.”

Darn it, why did he have to go and chuckle
like that? Every time he chuckled, everything inside her curled up
and started purring. “I remember your mother telling me she was
from Ireland.”

“Yup. So’s my old man.” Kate wrinkled her
nose, a reaction that had become automatic for her over the years
whenever her father intruded himself into the conversation.

Alex was silent for a moment or two. “I’m
sorry, Kate. I’d give anything to free you from your father’s
influence.”

She’d been looking down at her mother and
thinking how pale and exhausted she appeared, but Alex’s words made
her head snap up. “Thanks, but you’re doing plenty already.”

His lips thinned as he pressed them
together, and Kate wanted to slap herself upside the head. She
hadn’t meant to sound so defensive. It was only that every time he
did or offered to do something nice for her or her family, she
reacted badly. She wasn’t used to people being nice to her, darn
it. Because she knew she’d managed to offend him again, she said,
“Thanks for filing charges. I think that’ll help some.”

“Not enough,” he said grimly.

She sighed. “Nothing’s ever enough when it
comes to him. I guess we won’t have any peace until he kicks off.
With my luck, that’ll be years from now.”

He looked at her for long enough that she got
to feeling uncomfortable, then said only, “We’ll see.”

Whatever that meant. He sounded like Madame.
She didn’t trust him.

Oh, who are you trying to
kid, Kate Finney
? she asked herself
nastily.
You know darned well you trust
him. He’s one of the only people earth you
do
trust.

The thought didn’t comfort her appreciably.
She didn’t want to begin counting on Alex to be there for her,
because she feared for her state of mental health once he vanished
from her life. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would.

“It’s right there.”

His brief comment jolted her out of the
bitter contemplation of things that could never be. Kate turned her
head, trying not to jostle her mother, and looked out the window
toward where Alex pointed. The carriage took a slow, sweeping turn
and passed through a gate that Kate could only consider
picturesque. It reminded her of a gate belonging to a huge estate,
pictures of which she’d seen in a book at the church school she’d
attended. Sister Benedict, who’d taken a liking to Kate, had let
her look at it whenever she wanted to. The book contained
photographs and paintings of famous English castles and mansions.
Kate had spent hours pretending she lived in one of them.

“Oh, boy,” she said for lack of anything
more original popping into her head. “This place is great.”

She wasn’t fibbing. Trees bearing all sorts
of different kinds of fruits lined the drive leading to a huge
white house. To Kate, the place looked like a castle in disguise.
She knew castles were supposed to be made out of stones and had
battlements and crenels and so forth, but this place was big enough
to be a castle, even if it was crafted from wood and painted a
bright, sparkling white. Dark green shutters looked perfect against
the white.

The porch was something wonderful. Kate had
daydreamed about porches like this one. She could imagine sitting
out there on a summer evening, sipping lemonade and listening to
owls hoot and watching cows graze, or whatever it was cows did. The
only part of the cow Kate with which was familiar was the decaying
odor of it once it went to the slaughterhouse.

“Thanks,” said Alex, and the genuine pride
ringing in his voice caught her by surprise.

When she tore her gaze away from the house
and directed it at his face, she saw the pride there, too. It
wasn’t vanity; it was honest-to-goodness, genuine, true pride—in
his family, in his heritage, and in himself for maintaining the
former two. Kate didn’t blame him. She’d be proud if she’d managed
to hang onto something like this, too. Heritage was good, if it was
this type. Her own brand of heritage stank.

She saw a woman and a girl step out onto the
gigantic porch and wave at the carriage. “That your mother and
sister?” An imp of nervousness began dancing in Kate’s chest and
chipping away at her self-confidence. She wasn’t sure she was up to
meeting the high-class English ladies.

“Yes. They’re both looking forward to
meeting you and your mother.”

I’ll just
bet
. Kate wondered how many arms Alex had
had to twist in order to get them to agree to have a couple of
women from the slums visit their precious farm.

Lordy, there she went getting snappish
again, and it was all due to nervousness. She advised herself to
calm down and tried to take her own advice. It wouldn’t do to
approach those two ladies with a bad attitude and a chip on her
shoulder. Kate knew how to behave. Her mother had tried her best to
rear her with an appreciation of proper manners and deportment. The
fact that her father had always interfered with these attempts, and
the fact that they lived in a neighborhood where such qualities as
manners and deportment weren’t honored or valued, didn’t matter
now. At this particular moment, Kate needed all of her mother’s
teachings, and she aimed to use them.

She jiggled her mother’s shoulder gently.
“Ma? Ma, we’re here.”

Mrs. Finney stirred and struggled to sit up.
“Oh, my,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. “So soon?”

“Yup. It’s really pretty, too.”

“Did you have a good rest, Mrs. Finney?”
Alex’s smile was as soft and tender for her mother as Kate’s had
been. Kate appreciated him a lot just then.

“Yes. Thank you. What a wonderful carriage
you have.”

“I’m glad you were comfortable.”

“Oh, my, yes, I was comfortable. I’m sorry I
slept, though, since I really wanted to see everything.”

“I’ll be sure that you do,” Alex assured
her. “Now I’d better let them know they’ve been spotted. He leaned
out the window and hollered, “Ma! Mary Jo!” in a voice so loud it
made Kate jump and Mrs. Finney laugh.

It was moderately
encouraging to know that even so sophisticated a swell as Alex
English could holler when he was excited about something. Heck, it
was encouraging to know he could
get
excited about something, for
that matter. Kate spoke softly to her mother. “You ready for this,
Ma?”

“I’m looking forward to it, Katie.” Mrs.
Finney patted her daughter’s hand. “Mr. English’s family must be
exceptionally fine, for him to have turned out so well.”

Hmmm. That put a new light on things. Kate
said, “Right. Sure. Makes sense.” So, what did that make her? She
was the product of a sainted mother and a devil of a father. Nuts.
She didn’t want to think about her miserable beginnings now.

Alex drew himself inside
the carriage, laughing, and sat back with a
whomp
. “They’re excited about your
visit. I’m afraid Mary Jo thinks farm life is dull and boring. I
promised she could return with us to Chicago. I’m going to show her
the Exposition.”

Mrs. Finney laughed. “You sound as if you’re
a very good brother to her, Alex.”

“I try to be.”

“My brothers are good to me, too,” Kate said,
feeling defensive on her brothers’ account.