Laura's Shadow, page 9
“Hi, Grandma,” Trixie said, gravitating to the single bit of normalcy in the room. Alma was doling out coffee like the room was a roadside diner, Cam looked like a soap opera star, and she couldn’t bring herself to face GG Mariah quite yet. She gave herself over to Eugenie’s big, strong hug, taking in the scent of her sensible soap and the Aspercreme she rubbed on the back of her neck faithfully three times a day.
“Look at our big-city girl,” Eugenie said, stepping an arm’s length away. “Always the prettiest one in the room, I’ll bet.”
“Save that money for a rainy day,” Trixie said, trying not to imagine Cam’s eyes on her.
“I saw your last Little Laura,” Eugenie said, getting the name of the strip wrong as she usually did. Little Laura. Lots of Laura. Leaving Laura. She turned to Cam. “Our Trixie has the sweetest cartoon she draws. And Little Laura was standing outside of a bookstore, holding a copy of All the President’s Men, and she says … she says … What does she say?”
“She says they must be keeping all the president’s women in the back room of the store.”
“That’s it! Yes, my little Trixie. Picking up the torch of family feminism.”
Trixie hazarded a glance at Cam, who was smiling over the rim of his coffee. There were soft lines around his eyes—new since she last saw him. But then, he’d been nineteen years old. A lot could happen to a face in fourteen years.
“Come on now,” Eugenie said, softly gripping Trixie’s hand. “She’s been asking for you.”
It was nothing more than a turn, a pivot to the right, but the moment GG Mariah came into view, Trixie felt her strength drop and squeezed her grandmother’s hand.
The bed was tall—something Mariah insisted upon after a childhood and youth spent sleeping on pallets and floors—and looked like something that should be draped with animal skins befitting a Viking lord. Instead, barely making a three-dimensional form beneath the sunflower-scattered bedspread, Trixie’s beloved great-grandmother, Mariah Gowan, matriarch of generations, lay with her head propped up against the pillow and her hand listlessly at her side.
“Trixie.” Her voice sounded like a handful of dried leaves crumpling between the consonants.
“Yeah, GG. I’m here.”
“I know you’re here. I’m old, not blind.”
This was the GG Trixie grew up with, and the familiar sass in her voice gave more comfort than she knew she needed. She moved to the chair recently vacated by Eugenie and propped her elbows on the side of the bed, leaning in to kiss the soft folds of GG’s cheek. “Good to see your spirits up.”
“Glad to see your skirt so short. You have fabulous legs, my girl. I did too. Probably. But I was fifty years old by the time I could show them, and by then my knees were already wrinkled.”
Trixie laughed, burying her face in the mattress, wondering if Cam heard. Secretly hoping that Cam heard. The bedding smelled of detergent and sunlight—in fact, the whole room smelled of lemon and bleach. With the conviviality and snacks, the vibe of the room felt more like a family visit than a vigil.
“Are you hungry, Gram?” Trixie’s mother spoke with the same tone she’d used with Samantha. “Or would you like some coffee? Let’s sit you up a bit more.”
“No,” Mariah said with surprising strength. “I only want to talk with my great-granddaughter.” She beckoned Trixie closer. “Can you get these people to leave so I can tell you a story?”
Trixie looked around apologetically. “Maybe, give us some time to catch up?”
“That’ll be fine,” Alma said, smoothing the front of her dress. “Mother?”
“I’m coming,” Eugenie said, following Alma out the door. “Need to set something out for supper.”
Only Cam remained. He came to stand on the other side of Mariah’s bed and laid two fingers against the inside of her wrist while checking his watch.
“I’m still going, right, Doc?”
Cam smiled, bent, and kissed the back of her hand. “Stronger than they taught me in medical school, Mrs. Gowan.”
“Then you go back and teach them better.”
Cam took a white jacket that had been hanging on the back of the door and draped it over his arm. “I’m taking off now, but I’ll be back to check in tomorrow. In the meantime, of course, call me if you have any concerns.” He put his hand on the doorknob and turned back. “And, good to see you, Trix.”
“Good to see you too.”
“Maybe we can find time to catch up a bit?”
The amount of catching up seemed a bit lopsided: he had a daughter; she had a cat that hated her and may have kissed her boss. When she’d sat silent long enough for her great-grandmother to nudge her elbow, she said, “Sure. I’d like that.”
And then he left.
“That is one handsome man,” GG Mariah said.
“I know.”
“He’s a doctor.”
“I know.”
“And, he’s single.”
That got her attention. “He is? But he has a daughter.”
Mariah’s knowing smile knocked twenty years off her face. She patted Trixie’s hand and said, “My, my girl. We do need to have a talk. But not about him. Not now. Sit me up.”
“Okay.” Trixie gently slipped her arm behind Mariah’s back and eased her into a sitting position, bringing another pillow to brace behind her. She inhaled the familiar smell of her great-grandmother’s favorite apple-scented shampoo as she helped gather her long hair and drape it across one bony shoulder. “Better?”
“Bring me a sandwich,” Mariah said, and Trixie brought back the half-depleted plate and set it on the bed between them. Her great-grandmother had worn dentures for as long as Trixie could remember but had abandoned them in the past few years in favor of keeping to a diet of foods she could eat with her toughened gums. Looking on, Trixie couldn’t help thinking of the little girl downstairs enjoying the same snack as this woman who had been alive for more than a century. She grabbed one for herself before trotting across the room to grab a cup of coffee, now cooled to the perfect temperature.
She washed down the first bite. “What do you want to talk about?”
Mariah went silent, staring at Trixie for one heartbeat after another as tears pooled in her eyes. “You look just like him.”
Trixie felt her own tears. Aside from her blond hair, she looked nothing like her mother. “Him? My father? Do—do you know who my father is?”
“No. And haven’t I always said to put that aside?”
“You have.”
“Now I need you to put something else aside.”
Trixie leaned forward. “What?”
Mariah’s tongue flicked out to capture a drop of honey. “Everything.” She pointed, her hand steadier and stronger than Trixie would have imagined moments before. “In the dresser. Second drawer, there’s a book. Get it.”
Trixie obeyed, pawing through stacks of neatly folded blouses before her fingers bumped against the hard cover. She drew it out, not knowing what to expect, then catching her breath when she read the title. It was familiar; the image on the pristine paper jacket, however, was not. The illustration depicted a round-faced, bright-eyed, grown-up Laura Ingalls, her hoop skirt filling the bottom third of the book cover, Almanzo’s buggy in the background with an obscure Almanzo himself inside it.
“Is this a first edition?” Trixie asked, running a careful finger over the design, knowing, of course, that it was.
“I bought that the night you were born. Bring it here.”
Trixie returned, finding GG sitting up in bed, hands waiting. She took the book, opened it, and after turning a few pages, held it out again.
Trixie studied the illustration on the open page. The style was wildly different from those in the current, modern editions. Less detailed, though the faces of the characters depicted still managed to be distinct from each other and the scene complete, even without the benefit of depth and shading.
“I know this part of the story,” Trixie murmured, the memory of reading it long ago seeping back. “This is when Laura first started teaching, right? Her first students? Two sets of siblings—a brother and a sister, and an older boy with his younger brother and sister.” She began to skim the page. “What were their names?”
“Clarence,” GG said, as if reading them from an invisible roster, “Ruby, Tommy. And Charles. And Mariah. Don’t let the name Martha fool you.”
Trixie tore her eyes away and looked at her great-grandmother, the impact of her words sinking in. Then, back to the illustration, to the tall, plain girl standing next to what looked like a freckle-faced boy. She turned the book and pointed. “This is you?”
GG nodded.
“So, when you say you knew Laura Ingalls, you mean—”
“She changed my name. She changed all our names. But, yes. There I am. Not very flattering, is it?”
Trixie made a sound of commiseration. “I don’t think that style of illustration lends itself to flattery. Why are you just now showing me this?”
“Because I want someone—I want you to know who I am.”
“Not Mom? Or Grandma?”
“No. Just you. For now.”
Trixie closed the book and set it aside. “GG, did you by any chance exaggerate your … condition? So that I’d come to visit?”
“Maybe,” GG said with a shifty grin. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” Trixie said, thinking of Ron’s swift send-off kiss and the rush of memory at the sight of Cam. “Not mad, but definitely intrigued.”
CHAPTER 6
MARIAH
My brother, Charles, he who had been known to dither for fifteen minutes deciding whether or not to toast his bread in the morning, seemed more than ready to rush headlong into marriage. To be fair, Katrina was the driving force, declaring she wanted to be fully wed and established in their new home before the full force of winter.
“And by that,” she’d said, cupping her hand to the side of her mouth, “I mean I hope to be with child and spend the worst of the winter sitting under a quilt and getting fat.”
I’m not sure why she dropped her voice to a whisper and assumed such a conspiratorial air when she told me this. We were alone in my kitchen, drinking tea while Charles fiddled with something or another in the shop. Still, I acted appropriately shocked at her boldness and matched her giggle.
Moments like this made it difficult to remember that she was two years younger than I. She was the essence of what it meant to grow up as someone’s treasure—an adoring mother, doting father, and a household designed to be a shelter from any discomfort. I’d bet my soul Katrina Rose had never been hungry or cold or alone. Hers had always been a life of ribbons and silk stockings. New dresses every season. From what I’d noticed this summer, she owned multiple parasols, each with tassels and a bone handle. And though I could rattle off his good qualities at the drop of one of her feathered hats, I could not quite grasp how she had come to fall in love with my brother.
But she had, and the more I tried to cover that tiny grain of jealousy with disingenuous smiles and false enthusiasm, the more it became my own private, bitter pearl.
They chose the last Saturday in August as the date for their wedding—early enough in the harvest that people would sacrifice a day of work to attend the nuptials and far enough away to plan a true social event.
“Don’t know who she’s trying to impress,” Charles told me one night over one of our increasingly rare suppers alone. “Seems to me we could stand up in her folks’ parlor and make it official.”
Neither of us had ever been to a wedding, but I’d read enough about them in books to know they could be an all-consuming passion for a woman. “I’m sure she has many friends with whom she wants to share the day,” I said. “You’re the groom. All you have to do is show up.” Or not, I wanted to add. Increasingly, my sweet brother seemed to have been swept up in a tide, and I wondered more than once if he knew exactly where he would be washed ashore.
As for me, I lived that summer as a captive of courtship.
The week following Charles and Katrina’s announced engagement, Merrill Gowan arrived for our Thursday Supper (as I had begrudgingly come to call it) with a fresh shave, a recent haircut, and a shirt that bore faint scorch marks on one sleeve.
“Is Oscar not with you?” I asked, standing to my toes to look over his shoulder.
“He is not,” Merrill said, entering my home with more authority than he had a right to assume. “I hired him to help clear the last acres I need for planting and sent him on.”
“Sent him on?” I didn’t mean to mock, but he spoke as if Oscar were some sort of troublesome vagrant, which irritated me.
“He’s not a serious man, Mariah. He’d rather play baseball than work. And for all that, he’d rather work for someone else than own his own land and farm it. He’s a boy.”
I laughed. “He’s the same age as you. Or, I think he is. How old are you? I have no idea.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
To that, I’m ashamed to say, I laughed again. He had the face, physique, and manner of a man ten years older, at least. My mind scrambled for something to say that would belie the rudeness of my response, but finding nothing, I awkwardly reined in my outburst and walked into the kitchen, knowing he would follow.
As we ate, he monopolized the conversation with his accomplishments. His acres and crops and profits. I listened, making sounds of approval where appropriate, resisting the urge to remind him that, save for the clearing of the acreage with the help of Oscar Garland, all of his success came by way of inheritance, not labor. He told me (again) how his house had five bedrooms, plus a parlor and dining room—far too large for a bachelor’s rattling.
“All the more places for your hired help to sleep,” I said. “Come harvest. Better than making them bunk in the barn.”
“I won’t be hiring Garland,” he said. “I need workers who are more—”
“Serious?”
“For lack of a better word.”
“Oh Mr. Gowan. There is always a better word.”
Other women—silly women like Katrina—might have been flattered at the idea of one man’s jealousy of another, but I was not. I might have been if I had any reason to believe that Oscar was off brooding, plotting some way to pay a calling of his own, but surely he knew he need only step onto my porch to be invited in. There were enough girls in De Smet to keep him company, no need for him to travel seven miles to see me.
I changed the topic then, bringing us to talk about the heat and wind and weather—very nearly the same conversation we had every week. I asked if he had ever seen the ocean, and he said he hadn’t but that the shores of Lake Michigan were no poor substitute. I told him I’d recently read a novel by Jules Verne about an adventure in a submarine with great sea monsters and a mysterious captain. He said he saw no use for novels and had little time to read, given the work he must do daily on his farm.
And then we finished our meal in silence.
I’d barely cleared our dishes when I turned from the sink to find him directly in front of me, droplets of sweat on his brow that had nothing to do with the long-cold stove.
“Mariah.” He pronounced my name as if he’d been practicing it in front of a mirror for an hour. Each syllable heavy with intent. I could not back away, and to dodge to the left or the right seemed … comical. I wrapped my hands in the dish towel to ward off his touch. Subconsciously, my breathing synced with his, and for what seemed an eternity, the only sound was the ticking clock and our labored exhalations. His fueled by passion; mine, fear—not for my safety but for my person. He engulfed me, making it impossible not only for me to move but to think—to form any thought other than No.
“Mr. Gowan,” I said finally, “if you’ll step aside, please. I’d like to clean the table.”
He only repeated my name and stepped closer. I never had a mother to warn me about such things, but, like most women, I carried with me a keen sense that men moved through this world with the assumption that any and all in it was theirs for the taking. Including women. And, like most women, I found myself squelching the survival instinct that wanted me to stomp on his toes or kick his shin (or higher, if need be) to initiate my escape. One never knew what retribution a physical attack could inspire. All this left me with a woman’s greatest weapon: deception.
“Mr. Gowan, I asked Charles to come home early this evening. The handle on the oven door—”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me, Mariah.”
“Then step back, please?”
He complied but not without taking my rag-wrapped hands in his, creating both more space between us and none at all.
He lowered his eyes, shuffled his feet, then looked up again, fortified. “What I am about to ask will not be a surprise to you.”
“Then, please, Mr. Gowan, don’t ask.”
He plowed on as if I hadn’t spoken. “We have shown ourselves to be well-suited.”
“We have shared six meals together.”
“Which I have enjoyed, both the food and the conversation.”
I had to bite my lip to stop myself from thanking him. Or to return the compliment. I would not give him an inch or a word. I didn’t need to. He uncovered my hands and brought them within inches of his lips. “I believe you have too.”
Do not kiss me. Do not kiss me. The command rolled through my mind like a log let loose down a hill, but I spoke it only with a silent, narrow-eyed glare. Rage at the injustice of this helplessness—knowing he was in my kitchen, my home, at my invitation—brought a flush to my cheeks that I feared he would misinterpret. I could not stay silent.
