The Mapmaker's Children, page 10
Alice and Siby entered the room at her shout. Sarah saw their slippered feet through her fingers: Alice in shimmering peach; Siby in burnt sienna. The colors ran together through her tears like oils on a palette.
“My apologies, Miss Brown,” said Freddy. “I spoke out of turn.” His boots marched out of the room.
“Please don’t cry,” begged Alice, on the verge of weeping herself. She came to Annie’s side, where she knelt to collect the doll. “You were supposed to help,” she told it, then sat the doll on the chaise beside Annie as if waiting for a spell to initiate or be broken.
Priscilla did not release Sarah. In fact, her grip strengthened.
“Sorrow will wear a person down to the grave,” said Siby. “I’ve got black tea, hoecakes, and apple butter to keep your spirits hardy.”
“Thank you,” replied Priscilla. “Just the tea for now.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed out nine times. How could that be? It seemed hours ago that Sarah had risen from bed. Days gone by since she’d been in the barn with Freddy. Weeks since they’d ridden the train from New York, and before that, so long past that it reflected a different life altogether.
The execution was to be at noon. Her father would be standing beneath the same dreary, cold sky for the next three hours. And after that…no more. There was nothing she could do. The powerlessness was unbearable.
Alice opened a book of cross-stitch patterns: fern fountains and wheat sheaths, tulips and twig ladders, feather stitching and tiny eyelets.
“Color threads are better for French hand sewing but difficult to come by nowadays. Ma’s got strong hair with more yellow than mine. I like using that for close relations. We’ve sewn wedding veils and baby bonnets, cuffs and collars, toys and samples—everything for near about everyone! Ma says I have gifted hands.” She splayed them before Annie. “And now—now we’re going to make Kerry Pippin’s dress.” She flipped through the designs until she came to the one of distinction. “Here.” She held the sample with both hands, staring so earnestly at the drawing that it appeared as if she were trying to see through it. “Apple blossoms. Love and new life.”
“Heady, unconventional love, by some interpretations,” whispered Annie. “Preference, too.”
Alice smiled and nodded in staccato beats. “Just the flowers. The fruits speak temptation.” She gave Annie a wary glare.
Annie fingered the edge of the muslin frock the doll wore. “I can help, if you like. Something to pass the time.”
“You and Sarah have the most beautiful chestnut hair. Might you lend us some from your brushes?” Alice bounced on the seat cushion until Priscilla patted her knee. Then she covered her mouth with a hand and commenced humming “O Tannenbaum.” The sound filled up the room so that there seemed to be nothing else.
“I have a little dark thread left on my spool,” said Priscilla. “Why don’t you fetch that and the frames, dear.”
Alice stopped humming. “But it’s not nearly enough for the outline.”
“I don’t mind,” Sarah offered. Her hair was thick and her brush notoriously full. “You can use my hair.”
At home, their mother often sewed initials into handkerchiefs and other garments with strands that fell away during her nightly one hundred strokes. Father had liked his socks darned with it. He claimed it kept his toes warmer and was more durable.
Alice rose clapping. She governed her gait to exit the parlor, then raced up the staircase.
Siby came from the kitchen with the tea tray. “Miss Prissy, snowdrops pushed up through Ma’s garden.” She poured their cups steaming full. “Thought maybe Miss Alice like to press a bunch for her fairy code talk while I’s down helping with Clyde and Hannah this afternoon.”
Priscilla nodded. “That might work well for all.”
“I reckoned.” Siby nudged the cup closer to Sarah’s hand.
The brew’s warmth gave way to malty chicory, and she drank it to the last drop without care for etiquette. As Siby had promised, the heat spread through her, thawing the iceberg of hysteria. Her stomach growled, appetite roused. She hadn’t the corset on to bind her belly from the grumblings. She put a palm to it like a hand over a crying child’s mouth, but that did little to quell the demand.
“This past harvest made the tastiest apple butter I ever crocked. Best orchard for a hundred miles be right in our backyard.” Siby busied herself, brushing unseen dust from the chaise with her apron. “Tastiest on hoecakes fresh outta the fry pan, like they is now.”
Sarah’s stomach groaned audibly again. The flesh betraying the spirit.
“Maybe I ought to have a little something.”
“Teensy bite, maybe so,” said Siby.
Sarah looked to Annie, whose visage had returned to the fire.
“I’ll look after her,” whispered Priscilla from behind her cup.
Before Sarah could argue, Siby was helping her off the settee.
In the kitchen, Freddy stood by the stove, a crock of apple butter in one hand and his mouth full. He choked down what he was chewing when she entered, composed himself, and nodded civilly.
A stack of round cakes, tall as a yellow top hat, stood with a fork run through the center to keep it stable. Siby forked a flap onto a plate, then nodded to the butter in Freddy’s hand.
“You going to share that with company or gobble it all yourself?”
“Yes, of course—I mean, no—I mean…” He held out the crock to her, then set it down on the stove, picked it up, and set it down again on the oak kitchen table.
It was the first fluster Sarah had ever seen in him. Color rose to his cheeks.
Siby lifted an eyebrow high. She set Sarah’s plate on the table. “I get you a fresh spoon for the jam,” she said, patting Sarah’s arm on her way to the pantry.
Freddy ran a hand through his dark hair and shifted uneasily. Sarah felt bad about her earlier outburst. She’d been angry at herself and heartsick at the turn of events. Freddy had just happened to be the easiest target. It was an unfair attack and more reflected her inner turmoil than anything she could articulate. She wished she could explain that to him.
The grandfather clock tolled ten. Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. Our life is but a vapour that appeareth for a time, and then gone: her father often quoted this verse. Inspired by it, Sarah had painted a picture using watered-down berry juice—too little left on the bush to make a deeper hue. She saw time that way. Sweeps of muted blue, scented with seasons past.
“I’m sorry, Freddy,” she said. “I shouldn’t have spoken as I did earlier.”
He took a step closer just as Siby returned waving a wooden teaspoon.
“All we gots. Used up the silver last night, and I haven’t a chance to polish ’em clean.” Instead of handing it to Sarah, she stuck it straight in the crock, then looked to Freddy. “What? I got seven jars in the cellar. You ain’t got to look so displeasured. I’ll go git another if you’re hankering.”
“No, I…” Freddy began, but she’d already started back to the pantry.
He turned to Sarah, his neck straining against his cravat. “Miss Brown, please don’t apologize. I really oughtn’t have said what I did. Today is an onerous one for you. I only want to be of service.”
His voice was tender, and Sarah found herself moved.
Alice poked her head through the kitchen door. “The bad fairies have stolen my sewing thimble!”
Sarah thought she spoke in jest, but her face was distraught.
“Mister George just asked me to put these up.” Siby held an armful of black drapes, bereavement coverings for the windows. She set the new crock of apple butter on the table. “Come along, Miss Alice. We’ll find that thimble. Fairies like hiding in the window nooks.”
“I understand if you’d prefer to be alone, Miss Brown,” said Freddy with a bow.
“I would not, in fact. And ‘Miss Brown’ was always better suited to Annie. I’m simply Sarah.”
She ought not be so bold with a man, she thought, but propriety seemed a trifling statute given the events of the day, the night before, and the gravity of her father’s work left to the living. She’d sworn to him that she’d carry on, and so she would. She’d do more than any of his children, more than all of his sons, more than a woman was expected or allowed. She would be her own new creation and paint the way for others to follow.
—
SARAH HELD her breath through each of the twelve chimes of noon, until the room swayed slightly for lack of air. She took that to be the physical sign of her father’s passing. Annie cried quietly into one of Priscilla’s handkerchiefs. Freddy stood tall with his head hung in reverence. Priscilla said a prayer.
The hearth fire sputtered on a mossy patch. The cleaved log hadn’t been seasoned long enough for a quiet, steady burn. The flames licked ghoulishly, calling to mind stories of the burning bush, fiery furnaces, and her father’s many biblical references to spirits ablaze.
How did a soul journey from earth to heaven? she wondered. Like in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, could it be sidetracked to visit family and friends before going on? Given her father’s standing as a prophet, she imagined God might allow him to drive up in Elijah’s borrowed chariot. It would be something he’d do, if she still had faith in such things.
A loud knock at the door caused them to jump. George wouldn’t have knocked at his own home, and Siby would’ve come through the kitchen; so whoever this was, he was not familial.
Freddy opened the door cautiously, then smiled. “Mr. and Mrs. Niles.”
“The bells rang out. Seems the deed is done,” said Mr. Niles.
“We’ve brought funeral biscuits for the Brown women,” said Mrs. Niles. “Being as we’re the only Scots together in town, I wasn’t about to abandon tradition, no matter the soil beneath our feet.” She gently handed over a parcel. “Just because this isn’t a typical passing doesn’t make it less mournful. The Spectator ran an article about Captain Brown. Leaving behind young daughters and a wife and losing practically all his sons in this dreadful business.”
Annie threaded her arm through Sarah’s and leaned into her. Sarah leaned back. It was easier to sit up straight as one link.
“We won’t be staying,” continued Mrs. Niles. “We left Ruthie at home, keeping after the little ones. She sends her condolences, too.”
“I’ll be sure to pass them along.” Before Freddy could close the door, a woman called out, “Frederick!”
Freddy gave Sarah a sympathetic smile, as if to say, Our neighbors mean well. Bear with us. Or at least that was Sarah’s interpretation.
“Mrs. Milton.”
“I see the Nileses have beaten me to your doorstep.” Mrs. Milton spoke robustly. “And the Jamisons are coming down the side street. I won’t be taking up a minute of your time, but I had a meat pie I thought I’d bring over. No doubt your mother has Siby preparing sustenance, but extra never hurts.” She placed a round pastry atop the biscuit package in Freddy’s arm. “I suspected Mildred Niles baked up her cinnamon teacakes, so I made a savory.”
“Thank you.” Freddy readjusted the pie.
“Tell your parents they’re good people for helping the Browns like they are. Real good people…” Her voice trailed off.
Priscilla rose and took the gifts from him. Freddy didn’t bother closing the door. “Here come the Jamisons with their two young ones.”
“Bringing a cider jug and a spruce wreath, too. Can’t fault them for kindness,” said Priscilla.
“What should we do?”
She looked to Sarah and Annie, then back to him. “We’ll have to burn twice the wood to keep warm if we have the door open the whole day.” She pulled the collar of her dress up under her chin.
It was true. The windowpanes had fogged, then frosted in a snap. The fire had drawn back on itself from the draft, and Annie’s fingers on Sarah’s arm had chilled.
“Mrs. Brown plans to immediately return to New York with Captain Brown for a wake and funeral,” explained Priscilla, “so as considerate as these gifts are…”
“Should I turn them away?” asked Freddy.
“No,” said Annie. Her eyes were tearful wide, and Sarah knew what she was thinking: Hebrews 13. Turning a stranger away might be turning away their father, come to them in angel form.
Of course, Sarah didn’t think Mrs. Milton and her pasty were really their father, but she agreed with Annie. “We can’t turn them away when they’ve come at their own risk and against the governor’s restriction.”
After the raid in October, no one in North Elba had stepped a foot near their farm. When any neighbor had lost a child to illness, a father to unexpected tragedy, a mother in childbirth, or the like, they’d attended churchyard funerals, otherwise leaving the family alone to grieve. Sarah couldn’t imagine herself dropping by anyone’s home—friend or stranger—with funeral offerings as these southerners did. And yet she was deeply touched by the practice.
Her father was gone. He would not drive through New Charlestown in a fire-drawn buggy, but that didn’t mean his spirit hadn’t sparked in people.
Sarah stood from the settee with Annie hooked to her elbow. Arm in arm, they went to the front door to meet the Jamisons. After them was Mr. Reedling, who ran the sawmill. He brought a small cured ham. The Smiths, brother and sister, arrived next, apologizing that their parents would not come as they were a slave-owning family and did not agree with the abolitionist agenda; however, their mother had thought it right to send a little currant bread from her oven.
By the time Alice and Siby returned with baskets of vittles from Mrs. Fisher and black friends in households across town, they’d already amassed enough food to feed an army: funeral biscuits, meat pie, currant bread, two jugs of apple cider, corn pie, a purse of roasted pecans, three mourning wreaths, and a jar of pickled beets. The girls had stood by the door all afternoon, receiving and thanking the townsfolk for their sympathies as if they were lifelong residents. Freddy left their side only once, to bring coats, scarves, and mittens. Gypsy joined them, lying across the threshold, half inside, half out. Siby stoked the fire, and it never diminished in its blaze.
The grief that had hardened to bitterness in her brothers was purified like boiled water in Sarah. Her father’s death wasn’t an end to his mission but the beginning of something greater.
People were capable of more love and benevolence than they realized. The collective public voice did not always represent the individual heart. Yes, there were terrible men doing terrible deeds to one another. Men in this very town who abused others based on the color of their skin. There were prideful men who thought their marrow was made of more golden stuff than others’. Her father had proven to them all: when a beating heart stopped, there was no black or white, only blood-red. The flesh was equal. It was the character of a man that made him better or worse.
These kindly strangers were evidence that while Sarah’s family had lost nearly everything at Harpers Ferry, the good would rise as unstoppably as a river after a storm.
Eden
NEW CHARLESTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA
AUGUST 2014
The smell of coffee percolating awoke Eden early. She dressed and came down to find Denny sitting alone at the marble kitchen island. He faced the windows where the doll rested, so it appeared from afar as if they were locked in an anxious staring contest.
She cleared her throat.
At the sound, he flinched and his coffee sloshed over the side, full to the brim. Jittery. She wondered how many cups he’d drunk. That couldn’t be his first.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, though it was the earliest she’d been out of bed in months. “How long have you been up?”
“Never went to sleep.” He wiped up the spill with a paper towel. “Can’t turn my head off. Night owl.”
Of course. He usually played Mother Mayhem’s Café until closing, at midnight. They’d said their good nights at ten P.M. But something in his tone said there was more to it. Why wasn’t he still sleeping now, then?
Eden nodded. “There’s a mini TV set in the—” She hesitated over what to call the not-to-be nursery. “The other room. We can move that into yours so you can at least veg out on M*A*S*H reruns.”
“Grrreat, just what I want—‘Suicide Is Painless’ as my lullaby.”
She hadn’t known that was the name of the theme song.
Denny started to sing, “The game of life is hard to play…”
She waved her hand. “Okay. Not M*A*S*H. Watch Gilligan’s Island. That’s got a happier beat.”
She poured coffee into a mug.
“Your dog walker, Cleo, came over,” he said.
“Did she?” Eden was impressed by Cleo’s young professionalism. “Nice girl. A little strange. I think she’s lonely over there.”
Denny nodded. “I got that impression.”
“A chatterbox, too. Bossy as all get-out. But I appreciate her capitalist spirit. She doesn’t have siblings. No parents to speak of. Lives with her widowed grandfather. I haven’t met him, but our real estate agent mentioned he’s a banker—Mr. Bronner of Bronner Bank.” She tapped her mug with a fingernail.
She was as bad as Cleo, jabbering on like she knew the child better than she did. Or maybe that was just it—she wanted to know her better. She swallowed down the feeling with her black coffee.
Denny stared at the frothy brown ring staining the inside of his cup. “That’s horrible.”
“It sure is. You aren’t a very good barista.” She winced at the heartburn beginning to gurgle.
“I mean about Cleo.”
Eden thought it sad and unfortunate, but “horrible” seemed overly dramatic. She shrugged. “The only granddaughter of a wealthy banker? She could have it worse. Others do.”
“Our father died, but we still had each other and Mother. We still had people who gave a shit.”
His profanity was disproportional to the conversation and made her wonder again what was really going on. She was about to insist he fess up to what was bothering him when he asked, “So how long have you and Jack been trying to have a kid?”
The question fell like a punch and sent her flying back. She set her mug on the marble with a clink.
“My apologies, Miss Brown,” said Freddy. “I spoke out of turn.” His boots marched out of the room.
“Please don’t cry,” begged Alice, on the verge of weeping herself. She came to Annie’s side, where she knelt to collect the doll. “You were supposed to help,” she told it, then sat the doll on the chaise beside Annie as if waiting for a spell to initiate or be broken.
Priscilla did not release Sarah. In fact, her grip strengthened.
“Sorrow will wear a person down to the grave,” said Siby. “I’ve got black tea, hoecakes, and apple butter to keep your spirits hardy.”
“Thank you,” replied Priscilla. “Just the tea for now.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed out nine times. How could that be? It seemed hours ago that Sarah had risen from bed. Days gone by since she’d been in the barn with Freddy. Weeks since they’d ridden the train from New York, and before that, so long past that it reflected a different life altogether.
The execution was to be at noon. Her father would be standing beneath the same dreary, cold sky for the next three hours. And after that…no more. There was nothing she could do. The powerlessness was unbearable.
Alice opened a book of cross-stitch patterns: fern fountains and wheat sheaths, tulips and twig ladders, feather stitching and tiny eyelets.
“Color threads are better for French hand sewing but difficult to come by nowadays. Ma’s got strong hair with more yellow than mine. I like using that for close relations. We’ve sewn wedding veils and baby bonnets, cuffs and collars, toys and samples—everything for near about everyone! Ma says I have gifted hands.” She splayed them before Annie. “And now—now we’re going to make Kerry Pippin’s dress.” She flipped through the designs until she came to the one of distinction. “Here.” She held the sample with both hands, staring so earnestly at the drawing that it appeared as if she were trying to see through it. “Apple blossoms. Love and new life.”
“Heady, unconventional love, by some interpretations,” whispered Annie. “Preference, too.”
Alice smiled and nodded in staccato beats. “Just the flowers. The fruits speak temptation.” She gave Annie a wary glare.
Annie fingered the edge of the muslin frock the doll wore. “I can help, if you like. Something to pass the time.”
“You and Sarah have the most beautiful chestnut hair. Might you lend us some from your brushes?” Alice bounced on the seat cushion until Priscilla patted her knee. Then she covered her mouth with a hand and commenced humming “O Tannenbaum.” The sound filled up the room so that there seemed to be nothing else.
“I have a little dark thread left on my spool,” said Priscilla. “Why don’t you fetch that and the frames, dear.”
Alice stopped humming. “But it’s not nearly enough for the outline.”
“I don’t mind,” Sarah offered. Her hair was thick and her brush notoriously full. “You can use my hair.”
At home, their mother often sewed initials into handkerchiefs and other garments with strands that fell away during her nightly one hundred strokes. Father had liked his socks darned with it. He claimed it kept his toes warmer and was more durable.
Alice rose clapping. She governed her gait to exit the parlor, then raced up the staircase.
Siby came from the kitchen with the tea tray. “Miss Prissy, snowdrops pushed up through Ma’s garden.” She poured their cups steaming full. “Thought maybe Miss Alice like to press a bunch for her fairy code talk while I’s down helping with Clyde and Hannah this afternoon.”
Priscilla nodded. “That might work well for all.”
“I reckoned.” Siby nudged the cup closer to Sarah’s hand.
The brew’s warmth gave way to malty chicory, and she drank it to the last drop without care for etiquette. As Siby had promised, the heat spread through her, thawing the iceberg of hysteria. Her stomach growled, appetite roused. She hadn’t the corset on to bind her belly from the grumblings. She put a palm to it like a hand over a crying child’s mouth, but that did little to quell the demand.
“This past harvest made the tastiest apple butter I ever crocked. Best orchard for a hundred miles be right in our backyard.” Siby busied herself, brushing unseen dust from the chaise with her apron. “Tastiest on hoecakes fresh outta the fry pan, like they is now.”
Sarah’s stomach groaned audibly again. The flesh betraying the spirit.
“Maybe I ought to have a little something.”
“Teensy bite, maybe so,” said Siby.
Sarah looked to Annie, whose visage had returned to the fire.
“I’ll look after her,” whispered Priscilla from behind her cup.
Before Sarah could argue, Siby was helping her off the settee.
In the kitchen, Freddy stood by the stove, a crock of apple butter in one hand and his mouth full. He choked down what he was chewing when she entered, composed himself, and nodded civilly.
A stack of round cakes, tall as a yellow top hat, stood with a fork run through the center to keep it stable. Siby forked a flap onto a plate, then nodded to the butter in Freddy’s hand.
“You going to share that with company or gobble it all yourself?”
“Yes, of course—I mean, no—I mean…” He held out the crock to her, then set it down on the stove, picked it up, and set it down again on the oak kitchen table.
It was the first fluster Sarah had ever seen in him. Color rose to his cheeks.
Siby lifted an eyebrow high. She set Sarah’s plate on the table. “I get you a fresh spoon for the jam,” she said, patting Sarah’s arm on her way to the pantry.
Freddy ran a hand through his dark hair and shifted uneasily. Sarah felt bad about her earlier outburst. She’d been angry at herself and heartsick at the turn of events. Freddy had just happened to be the easiest target. It was an unfair attack and more reflected her inner turmoil than anything she could articulate. She wished she could explain that to him.
The grandfather clock tolled ten. Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. Our life is but a vapour that appeareth for a time, and then gone: her father often quoted this verse. Inspired by it, Sarah had painted a picture using watered-down berry juice—too little left on the bush to make a deeper hue. She saw time that way. Sweeps of muted blue, scented with seasons past.
“I’m sorry, Freddy,” she said. “I shouldn’t have spoken as I did earlier.”
He took a step closer just as Siby returned waving a wooden teaspoon.
“All we gots. Used up the silver last night, and I haven’t a chance to polish ’em clean.” Instead of handing it to Sarah, she stuck it straight in the crock, then looked to Freddy. “What? I got seven jars in the cellar. You ain’t got to look so displeasured. I’ll go git another if you’re hankering.”
“No, I…” Freddy began, but she’d already started back to the pantry.
He turned to Sarah, his neck straining against his cravat. “Miss Brown, please don’t apologize. I really oughtn’t have said what I did. Today is an onerous one for you. I only want to be of service.”
His voice was tender, and Sarah found herself moved.
Alice poked her head through the kitchen door. “The bad fairies have stolen my sewing thimble!”
Sarah thought she spoke in jest, but her face was distraught.
“Mister George just asked me to put these up.” Siby held an armful of black drapes, bereavement coverings for the windows. She set the new crock of apple butter on the table. “Come along, Miss Alice. We’ll find that thimble. Fairies like hiding in the window nooks.”
“I understand if you’d prefer to be alone, Miss Brown,” said Freddy with a bow.
“I would not, in fact. And ‘Miss Brown’ was always better suited to Annie. I’m simply Sarah.”
She ought not be so bold with a man, she thought, but propriety seemed a trifling statute given the events of the day, the night before, and the gravity of her father’s work left to the living. She’d sworn to him that she’d carry on, and so she would. She’d do more than any of his children, more than all of his sons, more than a woman was expected or allowed. She would be her own new creation and paint the way for others to follow.
—
SARAH HELD her breath through each of the twelve chimes of noon, until the room swayed slightly for lack of air. She took that to be the physical sign of her father’s passing. Annie cried quietly into one of Priscilla’s handkerchiefs. Freddy stood tall with his head hung in reverence. Priscilla said a prayer.
The hearth fire sputtered on a mossy patch. The cleaved log hadn’t been seasoned long enough for a quiet, steady burn. The flames licked ghoulishly, calling to mind stories of the burning bush, fiery furnaces, and her father’s many biblical references to spirits ablaze.
How did a soul journey from earth to heaven? she wondered. Like in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, could it be sidetracked to visit family and friends before going on? Given her father’s standing as a prophet, she imagined God might allow him to drive up in Elijah’s borrowed chariot. It would be something he’d do, if she still had faith in such things.
A loud knock at the door caused them to jump. George wouldn’t have knocked at his own home, and Siby would’ve come through the kitchen; so whoever this was, he was not familial.
Freddy opened the door cautiously, then smiled. “Mr. and Mrs. Niles.”
“The bells rang out. Seems the deed is done,” said Mr. Niles.
“We’ve brought funeral biscuits for the Brown women,” said Mrs. Niles. “Being as we’re the only Scots together in town, I wasn’t about to abandon tradition, no matter the soil beneath our feet.” She gently handed over a parcel. “Just because this isn’t a typical passing doesn’t make it less mournful. The Spectator ran an article about Captain Brown. Leaving behind young daughters and a wife and losing practically all his sons in this dreadful business.”
Annie threaded her arm through Sarah’s and leaned into her. Sarah leaned back. It was easier to sit up straight as one link.
“We won’t be staying,” continued Mrs. Niles. “We left Ruthie at home, keeping after the little ones. She sends her condolences, too.”
“I’ll be sure to pass them along.” Before Freddy could close the door, a woman called out, “Frederick!”
Freddy gave Sarah a sympathetic smile, as if to say, Our neighbors mean well. Bear with us. Or at least that was Sarah’s interpretation.
“Mrs. Milton.”
“I see the Nileses have beaten me to your doorstep.” Mrs. Milton spoke robustly. “And the Jamisons are coming down the side street. I won’t be taking up a minute of your time, but I had a meat pie I thought I’d bring over. No doubt your mother has Siby preparing sustenance, but extra never hurts.” She placed a round pastry atop the biscuit package in Freddy’s arm. “I suspected Mildred Niles baked up her cinnamon teacakes, so I made a savory.”
“Thank you.” Freddy readjusted the pie.
“Tell your parents they’re good people for helping the Browns like they are. Real good people…” Her voice trailed off.
Priscilla rose and took the gifts from him. Freddy didn’t bother closing the door. “Here come the Jamisons with their two young ones.”
“Bringing a cider jug and a spruce wreath, too. Can’t fault them for kindness,” said Priscilla.
“What should we do?”
She looked to Sarah and Annie, then back to him. “We’ll have to burn twice the wood to keep warm if we have the door open the whole day.” She pulled the collar of her dress up under her chin.
It was true. The windowpanes had fogged, then frosted in a snap. The fire had drawn back on itself from the draft, and Annie’s fingers on Sarah’s arm had chilled.
“Mrs. Brown plans to immediately return to New York with Captain Brown for a wake and funeral,” explained Priscilla, “so as considerate as these gifts are…”
“Should I turn them away?” asked Freddy.
“No,” said Annie. Her eyes were tearful wide, and Sarah knew what she was thinking: Hebrews 13. Turning a stranger away might be turning away their father, come to them in angel form.
Of course, Sarah didn’t think Mrs. Milton and her pasty were really their father, but she agreed with Annie. “We can’t turn them away when they’ve come at their own risk and against the governor’s restriction.”
After the raid in October, no one in North Elba had stepped a foot near their farm. When any neighbor had lost a child to illness, a father to unexpected tragedy, a mother in childbirth, or the like, they’d attended churchyard funerals, otherwise leaving the family alone to grieve. Sarah couldn’t imagine herself dropping by anyone’s home—friend or stranger—with funeral offerings as these southerners did. And yet she was deeply touched by the practice.
Her father was gone. He would not drive through New Charlestown in a fire-drawn buggy, but that didn’t mean his spirit hadn’t sparked in people.
Sarah stood from the settee with Annie hooked to her elbow. Arm in arm, they went to the front door to meet the Jamisons. After them was Mr. Reedling, who ran the sawmill. He brought a small cured ham. The Smiths, brother and sister, arrived next, apologizing that their parents would not come as they were a slave-owning family and did not agree with the abolitionist agenda; however, their mother had thought it right to send a little currant bread from her oven.
By the time Alice and Siby returned with baskets of vittles from Mrs. Fisher and black friends in households across town, they’d already amassed enough food to feed an army: funeral biscuits, meat pie, currant bread, two jugs of apple cider, corn pie, a purse of roasted pecans, three mourning wreaths, and a jar of pickled beets. The girls had stood by the door all afternoon, receiving and thanking the townsfolk for their sympathies as if they were lifelong residents. Freddy left their side only once, to bring coats, scarves, and mittens. Gypsy joined them, lying across the threshold, half inside, half out. Siby stoked the fire, and it never diminished in its blaze.
The grief that had hardened to bitterness in her brothers was purified like boiled water in Sarah. Her father’s death wasn’t an end to his mission but the beginning of something greater.
People were capable of more love and benevolence than they realized. The collective public voice did not always represent the individual heart. Yes, there were terrible men doing terrible deeds to one another. Men in this very town who abused others based on the color of their skin. There were prideful men who thought their marrow was made of more golden stuff than others’. Her father had proven to them all: when a beating heart stopped, there was no black or white, only blood-red. The flesh was equal. It was the character of a man that made him better or worse.
These kindly strangers were evidence that while Sarah’s family had lost nearly everything at Harpers Ferry, the good would rise as unstoppably as a river after a storm.
Eden
NEW CHARLESTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA
AUGUST 2014
The smell of coffee percolating awoke Eden early. She dressed and came down to find Denny sitting alone at the marble kitchen island. He faced the windows where the doll rested, so it appeared from afar as if they were locked in an anxious staring contest.
She cleared her throat.
At the sound, he flinched and his coffee sloshed over the side, full to the brim. Jittery. She wondered how many cups he’d drunk. That couldn’t be his first.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, though it was the earliest she’d been out of bed in months. “How long have you been up?”
“Never went to sleep.” He wiped up the spill with a paper towel. “Can’t turn my head off. Night owl.”
Of course. He usually played Mother Mayhem’s Café until closing, at midnight. They’d said their good nights at ten P.M. But something in his tone said there was more to it. Why wasn’t he still sleeping now, then?
Eden nodded. “There’s a mini TV set in the—” She hesitated over what to call the not-to-be nursery. “The other room. We can move that into yours so you can at least veg out on M*A*S*H reruns.”
“Grrreat, just what I want—‘Suicide Is Painless’ as my lullaby.”
She hadn’t known that was the name of the theme song.
Denny started to sing, “The game of life is hard to play…”
She waved her hand. “Okay. Not M*A*S*H. Watch Gilligan’s Island. That’s got a happier beat.”
She poured coffee into a mug.
“Your dog walker, Cleo, came over,” he said.
“Did she?” Eden was impressed by Cleo’s young professionalism. “Nice girl. A little strange. I think she’s lonely over there.”
Denny nodded. “I got that impression.”
“A chatterbox, too. Bossy as all get-out. But I appreciate her capitalist spirit. She doesn’t have siblings. No parents to speak of. Lives with her widowed grandfather. I haven’t met him, but our real estate agent mentioned he’s a banker—Mr. Bronner of Bronner Bank.” She tapped her mug with a fingernail.
She was as bad as Cleo, jabbering on like she knew the child better than she did. Or maybe that was just it—she wanted to know her better. She swallowed down the feeling with her black coffee.
Denny stared at the frothy brown ring staining the inside of his cup. “That’s horrible.”
“It sure is. You aren’t a very good barista.” She winced at the heartburn beginning to gurgle.
“I mean about Cleo.”
Eden thought it sad and unfortunate, but “horrible” seemed overly dramatic. She shrugged. “The only granddaughter of a wealthy banker? She could have it worse. Others do.”
“Our father died, but we still had each other and Mother. We still had people who gave a shit.”
His profanity was disproportional to the conversation and made her wonder again what was really going on. She was about to insist he fess up to what was bothering him when he asked, “So how long have you and Jack been trying to have a kid?”
The question fell like a punch and sent her flying back. She set her mug on the marble with a clink.
