Stephanie Mittman (33 page)

He was ashamed to ask, to admit to being privy to so little, but his need to know was stronger than his pride,
and so he said, “Does anyone else know? Her parents? Ansel?”

Before Armand said her name, Seth knew that Abby had told Emily, Emily who had all but begged him to tell her where he was going, how he could be reached.

It wasn’t just some cliché, that pride goeth before a fall. The thought that Abby preferred someone over him had cut him so deeply that the only way to staunch the wound was to cut off the affected part. Of course, he couldn’t live without his heart, but he had tried.

“She said that every time she looked at the pain in Emily’s eyes she was convinced she had done the right thing in keeping it to herself. Dr. Hendon, I begged her to tell you,” Anna Lisa said, and Armand handed her his hankie so she could dab at the tears in her eyes. “I told her that even if you couldn’t help her—”

“She didn’t want you to watch her deteriorate,” Armand said, and it was clear that Anna Lisa wasn’t the only one whose heart was breaking along with Seth’s. “She has this notion that in the end … Well, I’m sure she’s wrong, just as I’m sure she’s wrong about the tumor and about dying,” he said as if that could make it so. “No matter what that Dr. Bartlett might have said.”

“Are you all right?” Anna Lisa asked him, reaching over and putting a hand on his knee.

“Fine,” he said, as if he could be, would be, ever again. Had Bartlett told Abby what the end would bring? How she’d lose her balance? Hell, she was already past that if that fall off the stool when she’d tried on her wedding gown was any indication. When he thought about it, she’d been tripping for months, up the stoop in front of his office, off his back stairs….

Then how she’d lose her vision as it narrowed—

He swallowed and looked out the window memorizing every detail as if he could save it for her, give it to her.

And how in the end she wouldn’t know him. How, unaware, she would finally slip mercifully from their midst and they would have to be happy that she was at peace.

“
No!
” He hadn’t meant to shout the word aloud, hadn’t meant to come to his feet and need Armand and Anna Lisa to shush him and tug at him to sit calmly with them once again, checking his watch, wondering what was waiting for him back in Eden’s Grove.

Abby was beating in the last bit of egg whites for the crosses when she heard Ansel’s voice behind her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “You ought to be in—”

She turned as fast as she could and spoke loudly over her brother’s words as her mother came in from the back porch. “Isn’t it just a glorious day out?”

Ansel looked at their mother, and then he turned his attention back to Abby as if the woman who had brought them into the world wasn’t even there. “Look, Abidance, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can go upstairs and lie down of your own volition or I can pick you up and carry you there and—”

“I’m just fine,” Abby said, glaring at him. It was hard enough with Emily knowing, with Ansel knowing. Having her family know, watch her every move, wait for signs … well, she knew she’d never be able to bear
it. “I’m sure it was just something I ate. Dr. Bartlett says—”

“He says rest is vital, Ab,” Ansel said. “And you know it as well as I do.”

Abby’s mother sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs and stared hard at Abby. “Abby, darling, what is this about? Are you sick?”

“No,” Abby said adamantly. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Is there, Ansel?”

“It’s just that you are looking a bit—” he began, trying to put the cat back in the bag now that he’d let it out.

“She looks more than a bit done in, Ansel. She looks like she’s knocking at death’s door. And here the two of you have seen Dr. Bartlett and kept me in the dark. Just like with this beau from St. Louis. I don’t like this at all, Abidance. It’s not like you!”

“Mother, I’m a grown woman now. That’s all it is. I don’t come running to you when I’ve a stomachache and am perfectly capable of taking myself to the doctor, who says I am just fine.”

“Abidance,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Don’t you think I know you’re throwing up every meal you manage to swallow? That you’re falling asleep every time you sit down?”

“Well, making all these crosses is exhausting,” she said defensively. “And this whole wedding business is, well, haven’t you ever been tired?”

“The last time I was as tired as you seem, and looked as ill, I was carrying you,” her mother said, and a look of pure terror came over her face. “Oh, my Lord!
Abby, you’re not—I mean, Mr. Whitiny isn’t even in the country! How could you—”

“Mother!”

“Compromising you! And your father’s shotgun barely cool from Prudence’s mistake! Where did I go wrong with you girls? Where did I—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mother, there is no Mr. Whitiny!” Abby shouted at her mother’s stunned face. “And there is no wedding, and there is no groom. In fact, there is no vineyard or perfumery or whatever else I told you.” She turned and glared at Ansel. “Are you happy now?”

“Abby, calm down. This can’t be good for you. Mother, would you excuse us for a few minutes?” he asked, trying to take Abby’s arm.

“No, I will not! I want to know what everyone around here but me seems to know already,” her mother said. “And I want to know now!”

“No, Mother, you don’t,” Abby said.

“Abby, could you be pregnant, too?” Ansel asked.

“What?” Abby demanded, not believing that Ansel would ask such a thing. And in front of their mother!

“Too?” her mother asked, seizing on Ansel’s words. “What does he mean,
‘too’?
”

“Like Emily,” Abby said quickly. “What else could he mean? And no, I am not having a baby. Not now, not ever! Are you happy? Would having a baby be the worst thing that could happen to me? Worse than dying?”

The room got oddly silent and Abby felt Ansel’s arm come around her and hold her while she swayed, feeling almost as if she were being buffeted by a breeze.

“I mean a fate worse than death,” she said, but it was too late. There was a hollowness in her mother’s eyes, an emptiness.

“Goddamn you, Ansel Merganser,” Abby shouted at him, pummeling her fists against his chest. “Look at her. And then ask me why I don’t want anyone to know.”

Ansel drew her against himself and patted her back rhythmically. “She has a right to know,” he said softly. “They all do,” he added, and Abby lifted her face to see Patience and Prudence standing in the doorway. She wasn’t sure when they’d come in, but it was clear they’d been there long enough to get the gist of the conversation.

They had a right
… “And my rights?” she demanded. “What of them? Or did you think I was simply being noble? Did it never occur to you that I wanted my last days on my terms? That I wanted to come and go as I pleased and—”

“Abby, maybe you should let us help you up to bed,” Prudence said, coming and taking Abby’s arm. “And then, maybe after you’ve had a little rest …”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, fighting tears and swells of emotion that would drown her as she pulled her arm away from her sister and headed for the back door. “The egg whites are done anyway. I’m going to see how Jed is doing on his air carriage or whatever he’s calling it today!”

She could hear her mother calling after her, but she stalked off all the same, leaving Ansel to answer their questions. Let him take their pain for a while.

She had more than enough of her own.

A
BBY LAY ON HER BED LISTENING TO THE SOUNDS
of a somber household. Maundy Thursday was never a happy day, but never was it more solemn than this year. There was no arguing in her sisters’ room about who was wearing whose favorite shirtwaist. There was no yelling up from the kitchen that no one was helping their mother with the preparations for Communion that night. Jed had made himself even scarcer and Pru’s children were quieter than usual.

“All right if I come in?”

Abby propped herself up on her elbows and smiled at her father, wondering when he’d gotten so old. “Of course,” she said, surprised by the tininess of her voice. And when had she gotten so meek? She cleared her throat. “I’ll be getting up in a few minutes,” she said in what she thought sounded like a much stronger voice.

“I could do Communion for you here if you aren’t feeling up to it,” he said before sitting on the edge of her bed and running a warm hand up and down her arm. “Or if you don’t want to face them all.”

Old, and wise. Who was this man who sat beside her
watching her with steady eyes that seemed to see into her soul? “Does everyone know?” she asked, reaching for the medicine that Dr. Bartlett had brought by just hours ago for the relentless pain in her head.

“I thought we could use all the prayers we could get,” her father said gently.

“I don’t think that’ll do it in my case,” she said, but because she needed to comfort him more than herself, she added, “I’m not scared.” It was a bald-faced lie, but he accepted it, patting her hand and saying nothing for a good while.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” he said finally. It wasn’t clear to her whether he was trying to deny that she would die, or that death was nothing to fear, but she didn’t ask him because she didn’t want to know.

“Do you expect the church to be ready by Sunday?” she asked instead.

“If only we’d built a hospital—” her father started, and she could see guilt cloud his eyes.

“Looks like I’ll have better use for the church, personally,” she said, surprised that she could still manage a chuckle.

“You were right to keep it a secret,” he said finally. “It hurt me, but I can see that everyone’s knowing is making it harder for you, and I would give the world to make it easier for you.”

“Oh, Papa! And I would give the world to make it easier for you.”

“The Lord sends tests, Abidance—”

“I don’t think there’s any passing this particular test, Papa.”

“Maybe this test isn’t yours, honey. Maybe it’s mine,
or your mother’s. Or maybe it’s Dr. Hendon’s,” he said, looking at her for answers she didn’t have.

“He’s had so many tests, Papa. I had to spare him this last one.”

“You really did love him then, I take it,” he said, not so much a question as a statement of fact.

She nodded, too choked by the thought of Seth to utter his name.

“And that Armand Whitiny was just a fabrication so that you could send him away? That was very brave of you,” he said, his eyes shining brightly despite the grimace on his lips.

“You always used to tell Jed there was a fine line between bravery and foolishness,” she reminded him, wishing she had more to comfort her than her nobility.

“Have you crossed it?” he asked.

“No,” she said, though Dr. Bartlett’s words kept coming back to her about how Seth would hate them for keeping the truth from him. Maybe she’d just been a coward, unable to stand to see pity in his eyes. “And it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

There’d been no one at the Mergansers when Seth had gotten there, out of breath, almost as winded as his horse, who’d pulled the buggy as quickly as its old bolts would allow. Now he and Anna Lisa and Armand stood on the steps of the grange hall listening to the voices raised in song to the Lord.

When the hymn was over, they slipped quietly into the last row in the hall and Seth searched the crowd with his eyes for the back of Abby’s head. He finally
found her, waiting between her sisters to take Communion, and his heart stopped beating. She was thinner, and she took Prudence’s arm to mount the steps to her father’s waiting hand.

And then, having received Communion, she turned toward the back of the church and he moved out into the aisle and opened his arms for her. He saw Patience whisper to her and watched her nod as if to say that she knew he was there. But she continued back to her seat and sat as if the whole world wasn’t spinning out of control.

Only it was, and he’d be damned if he would just sit down and watch it do a death spiral out of his reach. He looked at Anna Lisa and Armand as they stared at him expectantly. He nodded at them, as if to say that they could count on him, for all that that was worth.

Marching up the aisle he was well aware of everyone’s eyes on him. He could hear the whispers about Abby, someone hoping she wouldn’t faint again, someone wondering why he had come back, someone wondering how he hadn’t known. It seemed to take forever for him to reach the row in which she sat, but when he got there, he pushed his way to her side, where he stood with his hand out.

“I didn’t think you attended church,” she said attempting a haughtiness she couldn’t pull off.

“I don’t want to waste another minute,” he answered her back. “Do you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she started, but his look stopped her. He didn’t have to say
I know
.

“Do you want to waste this time?” he asked again.

She shook her head and he watched the tears glistening in her eyes. He put out his hand and she took it and rose.

“Take your shawl,” her father reminded her from the makeshift pulpit. “It’s cool out there.”