The Bridegrooms (18 page)

“Vada, please.” Hazel’s soft gesture now turned into a strong grip, but Vada would not be deterred.

“And you’ve got even less to say, Hazel. With your—”

She was about to embark on a diatribe about Hazel’s pathetic letters, but the panic and hurt in her sister’s eyes quelled her tongue.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though the two of them were the only ones in the room who truly knew the depth of her apology. She turned to Lisette. “And I didn’t mean any of those things, Lissy. You know that. I’m just…tired.”

Lisette pouted. “Am I really mean?”

“Of course not, dear.”

“Well, I’m sorry for what I said about you and Garrison. In fact, I think it’s fine that he doesn’t marry you because the two of you are like a doddering old couple already.”

Somehow Vada knew Lisette meant no harm and, unable to ignore the truth of the statement, she chose to ignore the statement itself. “Still, girls, I think we need to be strong for Althea’s sake. We need to take our fair share of time sitting with Eli, so she knows we believe he’ll wake up.”

“I’ll sit with him this morning,” Hazel said. “Doc’ll be out visiting patients, so he won’t need me in the office. Besides,” her eyes twinkled, “I have some letter writing I need to catch up on.”

They needn’t worry this last bit of conversation would pique Lisette’s curiosity as she was busy asking Molly to please pour her more tea.

“And Lisette?” Vada prompted. “Can you sit with Eli after school?”

“I was going to—” Vada and Hazel glared at her. Even Molly poured her tea with decided hostility. “Fine. I’ll be home by four.”

Vada held up her own cup as a request for more tea, and in response, Molly set the pot down firmly in the center of the table. It wasn’t a complete slight, though, because just at that moment there was a knocking at the back door. Probably a delivery boy—with ice, milk, groceries, something—so what a shock to hear Molly’s voice dripping with affection, saying, “Well, come in me boy-o, and just in time for some good hot breakfast.”

Kenny Cupid stepped into the kitchen, cap in hand, his face fresh from a scrub and a shave, tinged pink with a tiny scabbed-over cut on the tip of his chin. “I hope I’m not bothering anybody, coming this early.”

“Not disturbin’ a soul, sonny. Come sit.” Molly whisked Althea’s plate away and patted the seat of her abandoned chair. “Right next to our Lissy. And I’ll get a stack comin’ right up for you. How about I fix y’ an egg to go with it?”

“I don’t want to be a bother, ma’am.”

“Oh, please,” Lisette said. “Don’t tell me I have to sit through a meal with him at this very table.”

“Not at all, missy.” Molly said. “I’d be more’n happy to scrape your plate and send you off to school.”

Lisette looked at her plate, pancakes stacked four high in a moat of rich molasses. She gave Kenny a seething sidelong glance, never taking her eyes off him as she dug her fork into her food.

“You’ll have to forgive our youngest sister,” Hazel said. “She’s just a horrible person.”

“I’ll never believe that a day in my life.” Kenny was settled at the table, cap dangling on the chair post. He looked straight at Vada. “And is he—”

“No change. But you can go up to visit after you’ve eaten if you like.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Molly set a crowded plate of eggs and pancakes in front of him. He closed his eyes, made a rapid sign of the cross, and said, “Lord, bless this food and the hands that prepared it. Shine Your love on all who share it.” Another quick cross and, “Amen.”

When he opened his eyes, he offered a sheepish grin to the three Allenhouse sisters, especially to Lisette who stared, fork firmly lodged in her mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must sound a little silly to you.”

“Nonsense,” Vada said, silently imploring the other two not to laugh. Hazel’s smirk was dangerous enough. “It’s sweet.”

“It’s something my nan—er, mother taught me.”

“Which makes it all the more special.” Relieved to see Lisette quietly chewing, and Hazel’s smirk reformed to a small, soft smile, Vada excused herself from the table, asking Molly to put Althea’s breakfast on a tray that she could take upstairs.

“Already done.” And it was, with a silver dome covering the plate to keep the food warm, a cup of steaming tea, and tiny dish of butter and jam.

Vada bade them good morning as she backed out the door and carefully maneuvered up the stairs where she met her father on the landing. The grave look on his face made the tray she carried almost unbearably heavy.

“Doc?”

“I’m at a loss.” He scratched his chin, or would have scratched it if not for the springing tufts of whiskers. “If the injury had caused any bleeding or swelling in his brain, he would be dead by now. And if it wasn’t a severe injury, he would be awake by now. Instead, he just…”

“Sleeps?”

“And there’s nothing more to be done. But don’t be startled when you see him. I’ve propped him up to keep fluid from building up in his lungs.”

“Do you think it’s time to take him to a hospital?”

Doc shook his head. “There’s nothing to do for him there that we can’t provide here.” He offered Vada a weak smile and made his way past her to go downstairs.

She walked straight into her room, expecting to find Althea at her post. Instead, there was Eli, pale against the sea of pillows that surrounded him. His lips were parted, and the room was filled with a sound eliciting both comfort and concern: his breath, deep and regular, but accompanied by the softest rasping rattle.

She shifted the weight of the tray to one arm and glanced at the smattering of items on top of her bureau.

“Forgive me, Lord, if You consider this stealing.” She grabbed the folded note found in his pocket and dropped it into her own. Then, after the slightest hovering, she closed her fingers around the two buttons and dropped them in too.

Althea’s room was at the end of the hall—more of a large closet really,
but it seemed to suit her small, silent needs. The door was shut tight, and Vada knocked softly before opening it and peeking in.

The sound in here was eerily like that of the room she just left but without the fixed rhythm. Instead Althea, facedown in her bed, took in one long, wet breath and seemed to let out only half of it before gasping two or three more short ones.

Vada set the tray down on the little writing desk wedged into the corner and went to her sister, kneeling and placing a hand on the sobbing girl’s back. “Oh, sweetheart. He’s going to be just fine. I know he is.”

But when Althea didn’t answer, it was more than just a matter of silence. Despite the tortured breathing, the girl was sound asleep, and no amount of breakfast, no matter how delicious, seemed worthy of disturbing that slumber.

Vada turned to the opposite end of the bed and, one by one, unlaced Althea’s shoes, setting them gently on the floor. Then she took the blanket folded across the foot of the bed and spread it over Althea’s narrow shoulders, administering slow, smooth circles around her back until the quaking slowed.

Satisfied of her sister’s slumber, Vada rose to leave and, in her movement, knocked Althea’s worn journal to the ground. Under any other circumstances, Vada would never have pried into those hidden writings, but the book landed to an open page, and she took in the first lines:

She looked away, uncomfortable with this revelation. And, truthfully, a bit envious. When was the last time she’d felt she could not leave
Garrison’s side? Last night, of course, but her reluctance had nothing to do with contentment. More of a desperate grasping, really.

Quickly, before she could be tempted to read further, she closed the book and set it beside Althea’s pillow. Breakfast could wait, maybe until lunch, and she picked up the tray once more to take to the kitchen.

She arrived downstairs just in time to meet Lisette at the front door, her schoolbooks bundled in a leather strap. “You managed to make it through breakfast with your newest admirer?”

Lisette rolled her eyes. “Papa and Hazel are filling him in on all the grisly details about our coma boy. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Well, if you’ll wait for just a minute, I have an early morning errand to run. I could walk to school with you.”

Lisette pulled back the lace curtain covering the front door window and peered out. “No, thanks. The Britton twins are outside waiting to walk with me.”

Vada noted the hint of wistfulness in her youngest sister’s voice. “You don’t seem too excited about that.”

“It’s fine.” She dropped the curtain but did not turn around. “It’s just, after so much conversation at breakfast, maybe I wanted a little peace and quiet on the way to school.”

“Do you want me to shoo them away for you?”

“Are you kidding?” she said over her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful, they’d probably forget all about school and follow you on your silly errand.”

With that she opened the door, giving Vada a glimpse of the two earnest young men waiting at the bottom of the stairs, their identical faces lighting up at the sight of Lisette in her pale green spring coat with her long, caramel-colored curls streaming over her shoulders.

“I hardly think so, my dear.” Vada turned to go into the kitchen. Suddenly, the front door was open again.

“Oh, Vada!” Lisette’s sweet voice turned the summons into a song. “There’s a certain man here this morning to see you too. I don’t want to say who, but he’s awfully handsome, has red hair, and his team just lost to our little Spiders yesterday.”

Vada tightened her grip on the tray to keep from dropping it. “Tell him—”
What? To go away? To come back at a more appropriate calling hour? To leave her alone before she lost her head entirely?
“Tell him I have an errand to run.”

“Tell him yourself,” Lisette said, all of her sweetness gone. “I have boys waiting for me.”

“Lord,” Vada prayed to the empty hallway, “if You won’t keep Mr. LaFortune away from me, I’ll just have to work harder to keep
myself
away from
him
.”

She headed for the kitchen, hoping to offer to help Molly with the breakfast dishes. Not something she would normally do, but this morning she needed an excuse to keep herself inside the house. Instead she walked in to see Molly and Kenny side by side at the sink, happily sharing the chore.

Hearing the swing of the kitchen door, Molly swung around. “Just leave those on the sideboard, darlin’. We’ll get to them in just two ticks.”

“All right,” Vada said, a little taken aback by the scene. “Where are Hazel and Doc?”

“Down in your father’s office, plannin’ out the day.”

Kenny said something under his breath, and Molly joined him in a private chuckle.

“Do you need anything from me?” Vada set down the tray.

“Oh, no, dearie. You just go and get on with your mornin’.”

Vada eyed the back door, thinking for just a moment that she could escape and double back through the alley. But who knew how long Mr.
LaFortune would wait on the front porch. He might even be there when she got back.

No, no. On second thought, best to nip this problem in the bud and send him packing right off
.

She lifted the large silver batter spoon from where Kenny set the dried dishes, making a joke about looking for spots while she gave her reflection a quick check before heading for the front door. Another glimpse in the mirror beside the coatrack in the entryway reassured her—eyes bright, face free of anything sticky, bodice clear of crumbs, and dark hair arranged with the perfect combination of smoothness and puff.

Not that any of it mattered.

Rather than pulling on her light wool jacket, she opted for a bright plum-colored shawl from the hall closet, and with this securely clutched around her shoulders, she walked out onto the front step, looking straight ahead of her in order to be surprised. In fact, she jumped a bit at the high-pitched little howl he gave the minute the door closed behind her.

“Hoo-cher.”

There he was, standing on the sidewalk, one foot up on the third step, leaning forward with his forearm resting on his knee. The moment she looked at him, though, he straightened up and took off his cap, clutching it to his head.
“Gardez voir la belle!”

A pack of boys on their way to school turned and looked. Although it was doubtful they understood the French vocabulary proclaiming Vada as the man’s “sweetheart,” the tone of his voice was unmistakable. The boys made exaggerated kissy noises among themselves, bursting into full-out laughter when Mr. LaFortune raised a fist and feigned a chase down the street.

“Honestly, Mr. LaFortune.” Vada made her way down the stairs. “That’s the second time I’ve seen you threaten children. Be careful, or I’m prone to think you some kind of a brute.”

“Think anything you want,
cher
, as long as you thinkin’ about me.”

His eyes tracked her down every step until, by the time she joined him on the sidewalk, she felt positively pulled there.

“I’m afraid I don’t have time for a visit,” she said, ready to brush right past him, “I have a very important errand to run.”

“Then I run right along with you.”

He offered her his arm, which she declined, although she made no objection as he fell into step beside her.

“Don’t know if you heard, but we lost yesterday.”

“I heard.” She stopped short of saying she was sorry, because she wasn’t sure she was.

“’Course you don’t care, bein’ a Cleveland girl and all.”

“My lack of concern has nothing to do with being a ‘Cleveland girl.’ I simply find the end result of a baseball game to have little impact on my life.”

They were crossing the street now, and for the briefest moment, she found herself standing with Louis LaFortune on the corner where, just a few hours ago, she had been kissing Garrison Walker. Her pancakes flipped themselves in her stomach, and she should have told LaFortune to leave her there and go find someone else to sympathize with, but he was already asking if they were to turn left or right. Without answering, Vada spun to the right, up the familiar trek to Moravek’s.