Mittman, Stephanie (36 page)

"Annie
Patrice Morrow," Risa said sternly. "That man ought to be hitting you
over the head with those books instead of loaning them to you. It might do you
more good. You obviously need some sense knocked into you."

"What?"

Risa
let her shoulders sag. "The man loves you. You love him, admit it or not.
Why are you fighting it? You're perfect for each other. Anyone looking at the
two of you can see that."

"No,"
Annie said, her head shaking like she had the palsy. "No. It ain't—Isn't
so. I don't love him. I won't ever love him. He's got nothing. Nothing but a
dirt farm same as ours, babies like I already raised, bills and debts and a
privy to boot."

"And
so much love, Sissy." Risa sighed, as if that counted for anything.

"Miller's
got love. And he's got a fine house and a fine life to offer me. You know how
long I've been dreaming of putting on a clean dress in the morning and having
it still clean when I'm getting ready for bed?"

"Clean
clothes and a bathroom." Risa huffed. "If those aren't the two lamest
reasons I ever heard for marrying a man!"

Annie
heard a harsh laugh and was surprised to realize it was her own. "Oh,
Risa," she said. "You got one sweet little girl and another on the
way. You been a mama for three whole years."

Blackie
had begun to head for the farm on his own, and Annie had to pull the reins hard
to the right to remind the horse they were going to town.

"I've
been a mama nearly my whole life. I raised your husband. I raised all Cara's
aunts and uncles. You think when your babies are all grown you're gonna want to
start in all over again?"

"You
know you already love Hannah and Julia. It's written all over your face every
time you look at those girls."

Maybe
she did, but that didn't mean she wanted to give up all her dreams to raise
them. "He'd want more, don't you think?" she asked before she could
stop herself.

"Maybe,"
Risa conceded. "But wouldn't it be wonderful to finally have one all your
own?"

"Going
back to bottles and diapers and wiping up spittle? Lord, Risa, what are you
thinking of? I'm done with all that. Miller and me can live out our lives in
comfort, him in that gent's chair reading the paper, me mending his shirts, one
of those records on that gramophone he's got—"

"Sounds
wonderful," Risa said dryly.

"You
just don't see. You and me, Risa, we're at different stages. We want different
things from life."

"Everybody
wants love, Sissy."

Annie
didn't respond. Van Wert was quiet, twilight falling early with the winter
coming. Oil lamps glowed in windows, making the homes look inviting, especially
to two women in an open wagon. Annie could have taken Summit Street to Main,
could have gone right past Miller's door, but decided, with Risa huddled next
to her, to take Walnut Street instead. Lining the elegant street were the
houses of wealthy families, families like the Brothertons, the Cavetts, the
Straddlers. Houses where the literary society met, where money was raised for
the library, for the poor. Where the wife of the Reverend Miller Winestock
would be invited to tea.

"Now's
my time for
me,
Risa. The time for me to be raising children is behind
me."

Risa
nodded. "Of course," she said. "I suppose that when I'm as old
as you, I probably won't want to have any more children either. All those
diapers, the lifting, the bending—you just don't want to go back to that after
all these years."

"No,"
Annie agreed. "I certainly don't."

"Not
at your age. Why, when I'm that old—"

"Risa,"
Annie said with a laugh, "I'm only two years older than you are."

The
words hung in the air, full of meaning. Darkness closed in on them as they sat
in front of Hanson's Mercantile. Any minute now Charlie would come running out
to help his wife down from the wagon—his wife and the infant that rested inside
her, growing all the time like the love they felt for each other.

"Just
two years?" Risa's breath made gray clouds between them in the cold air.
"I thought you were so much older."

Maybe
old was all a matter of how you felt, Annie thought, as Charlie's face broke
into a warm smile at the sight of his wife and his sister.

"Thanks
for bringing my girl home," he said, tucking the lap robe around Annie's
feet after setting Risa on the newly cemented sidewalk.

Annie
pulled the wagon around and headed back toward Summit Street. She hadn't been
anyone's girl since she was nine years old.

***

Tessie
had offered to make Miller some supper before she left, but Miller had
declined. She had done very well with the letters he dictated to her. In
exquisite Spencerian hand she had taken down all that he said efficiently and
professionally. If only her face hadn't worn a mask of melancholy he would have
considered the day a good one, one of the very few he'd had lately.

The
knock at the door took him by surprise. Calls at the dinner hour were rare. But
he had learned to expect callers at any time: callers who came bearing
donations to the Wylene Eastman Memorial Fund in honor of the way Mr. Eastman
had risked his life for Paulie Mitchell. And what a Gordian knot that was
turning out to be. A memorial for someone who wasn't even dead. A woman who
walked out on two little girls and her wedding vows.

He
peered out the window that sat squarely at eye level in his front door. The
colored glass distorted his visitor, but there was no mistaking the woman who
stood waiting patiently on the porch for him.

"Sissy!"
he said, flinging open the door. "What a nice surprise!" Someone who
wasn't coming with a donation for the fund. At least he hoped not.

"Miller,
I hope I'm not coming at a bad time," she said.

She
sounded different, formal. Her speech was clipped, more cultured. The
g
s
were firmly in place at the end of her gerunds.

"Of
course not." He swept his arm back, offering her the warmth of his house.
"Come in, come in."

"It
is
getting cold out there," she said, heading for his furnace grate
and standing by the register for a moment before loosening her bonnet ties.

Her
coat belled slightly from the warm air forced up through the floor, bringing to
his mind the furnace problems and Noah Eastman.

"Is
something wrong?" Sissy asked him, her eyebrows coming together like
seagull wings drawn with just a stroke. Her face was getting paler with the
weather, making her look more fragile and fine-boned than she had in the heat
of the summer.

He
ignored the question, unable or unwilling to share what was bothering him. So
she stood, questions written on that open, honest face, while he searched for
something to say.

Finally,
he offered to take her coat, and she accepted.

"How
is Mr. Eastman recovering?" he asked when she moved away from the heater
and tugged at her gloves until her work-worn hands were bare.

There
was a shyness to her suddenly. An almost girlishness he'd never seen in her
before. She stammered when she spoke. "He's fine." A hint of a smile
brushed at the corner of her mouth. "He lost some of his eyebrow and looks
kinda crooked."

Miller
laughed, despite the way he felt toward Eastman. "But he's fully
recovered?"

"Mm-hm."
Her back was to him as she went to lay her gloves on the quarter-sawn oak hall
tree's center box. Tessie had left the letters she had written there for
mailing, and they fell to her feet as she turned back to him. He rushed to pick
them up, but her hands beat his and he watched guiltily the sad look on her
face as she traced the address on the top envelope.

"Tessie
do these?" she asked.

He
nodded, but could think of nothing to say.

"Writes
real nicely, don't she?"

It
was as though his chin were tied with some kind of string that kept his mouth
closed and his head nodding. As though he had a kerchief tied around him for a
toothache and someone was jerking on the knot. He thought the image quite
suitable, since her unhappy face caused him a certain amount of pain.

"I'm
learning, you know," she said, her light brown eyes steady against his
own. In fact, he didn't know. "Mr. Eastman's got a Spencer book he's
offered to loan me. So you won't ever have to be ashamed of me, Miller."

He
felt petty and small and stupid standing there in his fine house with his fine
ways and fine things around him. "If I made you feel that way, I'm
sorry," he said softly. Sissy Morrow was a good hard-working woman. He
doubted there were more than a handful of people who could make her feel
unworthy. He didn't like being one of them.

She
seemed to think before she spoke. "It doesn't matter," she said
deliberately. "I'd rather know I was saying or writing or doing something
wrong, so that I could fix it, than think that someone was laughing at me
behind my back or thinking I wasn't smart just because I didn't have the same
opportunities they did."

Miller
Winestock had never placed a wager in his life, but he'd bet money that those
words came out of Noah Eastman's mouth before they came out of Sissy's. Not
that she wasn't smart. Not that what she said wasn't true. He just couldn't
believe the thought had occurred to her, since it had never occurred to him.

"Anybody
who could raise five sisters and brothers, run a farm, look after an ailing
father, and still find time to be kind to an old man like me ought not to be
ashamed of poor penmanship. Don't you agree?"

"You
gonna tell that to everyone I need to write to? Please excuse my wife's
pen—" She stopped, red-faced, and put her hand over her mouth.

He
knew he should tell her it was all right. After all, she would be his wife
sooner or later; what harm was there in saying it aloud? He should tell her it
sounded surprisingly good to his ears. Better than he expected. What had
started out of some sense of duty and an admission that every minister needed a
wife had begun to take on a new dimension.

Sissy
was cheerful, she was conscientious, she was compassionate. Her qualities were
those a man could grow to love, as the years went by.

But
for now his heart still belonged to Elvira, and his tongue stayed mute in his
mouth while his eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"Well,"
Sissy said after a strained silence. Her chin was thrust up proudly and her
eyes glistened just a little too brightly with the hurt he had managed to
inflict. Time, he thought desperately. He just needed more time. If she would
only give him more time.

"So
he's teaching you things? I wasn't aware he was an educated man."

"Being
a farmer, you mean?" Sissy asked. There was just a hint of anger in her
voice. "According to Ethan, he doesn't come by the farming naturally. In
fact, he's better at teaching than at farming, it seems."

"Is
that so?" he said. He wondered what Noah Eastman had done before he came
to Van Wert. It occurred to him that the man had never said. Farming now,
everyone just assumed he'd been farming before. But then everyone assumed a
great many things about Mr. Eastman which Miller knew only too well weren't
necessarily true.

"His
house is full of books, and there's a globe like the one at the schoolhouse in
the girls' room."

At
the mention of the school Miller was overwhelmed once more with guilt.
"Paulie Mitchell's doing very well," he said. "I spoke with Dr.
Woods this afternoon, and he said his face is healing very well. His hands,
though . . ." His voice drifted off.

"It
was lucky that Mr. Eastman came when he did."

"Yes,"
he had to agree. "Quite remarkable, really. The man is somewhat of a
mystery, don't you think?"

That
look crossed Sissy's face again, the one that spoke of shyness and youth. He
wondered just what Sissy thought of Mr. Eastman. Did she find him attractive?
Interesting? He was a good deal younger than Miller, though he doubted that
youth was something that would appeal to a woman of Sissy's status. After all,
she'd been an adult almost as long as he had, even if she was younger in years.

"A
mystery?" she said, as if she had been considering the word he had chosen.
Perhaps she didn't understand him. He was always forgetting that her education
left her lacking.

"Yes,"
he said. "It means—"

She
cut him off, rather abruptly for the well-mannered woman he knew her to be.
"I know what it means, Miller. He hardly seems mysterious to me. He's a
poor dirt farmer struggling to get by, not much different from the rest of us.
He hates the rain and the cold and loves his daughters and a good peach pie. He
works hard and does his best. What's the mystery?"

It
sounded like a defense and an indictment at the same time. As though she liked
him and yet she didn't. He'd never seen anyone through Sissy Morrow's eyes.
How, he wondered, would she describe him?