Early June 1890 Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs is gorged with color, heritage plants brought across the plains wrapped in petticoats or newspapers as settlers opened the West: Fragrant violet lilacs; brilliant orange Oriental poppies; ruffled German iris dense with purple, white, and yellow blossoms; and multi-layered peonies in pinks and crimsons and soft whites. The mercury tops eighty by day and dips no lower than fifty at night.

Mary Agnes is glad she packed a white dress, all the women in Colorado Springs wear white in June. She adjusts her straw hat and follows a map as she gets to know the city, laid out in a neat grid bounded by North Cascade to the west, North Wasatch to the east, San Rafael to the north by the new college, and East Fountain to the south. Most of the businesses, butchers and grocers, milliners and druggists, are found on North Tejon and North Nevada between East Pike’s Peak and East Bijou.

“What makes Colorado Springs different from Denver?” Mary Agnes asks the newsagent when she picks up her newspaper.

“You can thank General William Palmer for that.”

“And he is?”

“Far-sighted,” the newsagent says. “Creating a family town, schools, hospitals, churches.”

Not my church, she thinks. Colorado Springs is bursting with churches: First United Methodist Church, Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopalian, even a group of Quakers—but no home for her. She walked the streets up and down not thinking that a city of any size would not have a Catholic church. But no, although there are plans for one in the next year. In the meantime, Mary Agnes cannot bring herself to attend services at any other house of worship, it would be close to blasphemy. At least, grossly irreverent.

“Near ten thousand souls here now,” the newsagent says. “Good for business!”

“Until next week,” Mary Agnes says. “I’ll be back for next week’s edition.”

Dear Helen—

Life at a boardinghouse is never dull!

We have settled into a routine here at The Colorado Springs Inn (never assume to use the washroom at 6 a.m. when the schoolteacher gets up or at any time between 2 and 4 p.m. when the misses Smith bathe. I will tell you more about the misses Smith later in this letter).

Our neighbor on the second floor, Mr. French—who isn’t French at all, but German as it turns out—speaks three languages: German, English, Dutch, having grown up in New Guinea with his missionary parents, a reference he works into every conversation. Tilly, our landlady, and Miss Huizenga (she’s the schoolteacher) converse almost exclusively in Dutch, with Mr. French joining in, particularly when Tilly’s brother Pieter visits for Sunday dinner. He works at a ranch not far from here, as handsome as they come, although I shouldn’t comment on that now, should I? The sisters Smith, both short and stocky, turn up their noses as soon as any of the other boarders begin to speak in any language other than English and raise their voices to an ear-splitting level, talking ceaselessly about gardens they visited while in Coventry.

“That again?!” Tom whispers to me every time they bring up Coventry. “I’ve never been there,” he says, “but I feel as I have been. Many times over!”

“‘The roses!’” I always mimic, holding my hand out as if I’m smelling a rose.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he always says, as he plucks the imaginary rose from the air and offers it to me. You should hear him, Helen! Ever since my lessons with my tutor, I have tried consciously to tame my brogue, unless it serves me. But it’s hopeless with Tom, you could cut his brogue with a kitchen knife and have knifefuls left to spare.

Have I mentioned how noisy it is at mealtime? And who can forget to mention the portly college instructor who lives on the first floor, who isn’t hesitant to correct anyone on, well, anything? He sits in the parlor reading in the evenings, so it is impossible to avoid him or his comments after supper. I am plumb worn out with talking most days. You, however, would probably talk them all under the table!

Tom and I have our own secret code and take turns covering our mouths as we listen to the circus around us. We often laugh late into the night mimicking the others. Once, the professor banged on the ceiling with his cane when we were laughing too loud, which just set us to laughing even more.

It is beautiful here, Helen. I walk every day in the clear mountain air. You must visit us sometime as we aim to stay here. Tom is doing as well as can be expected.

Send my regards to Aunt Margaret.

Until next week,

Mary A.

P.S. Any gentleman callers????

P.P.S. Please send a crucifix. I have enclosed one dollar to cover cost and postage.

“I’VE COME FOR MORE POWDERS,” Mary Agnes says to the druggist one hot late June afternoon. Even with the fine mountain air, hearty food at Tilly’s, and a daily constitutional around Acacia Place, Tom is losing weight. His breath, tight and ragged, keeps him up at night, which means Mary Agnes tosses and turns most of the night. Not that she says anything, she doesn’t. She wishes she could afford different powders, ones to cover dark circles under her eyes.

“Roger’s Tonic Powders, please, Mr. Walker,” she says to the druggist. “I do believe they’re helping.” She counts out twenty-five cents and hands the coins to Walker. Anything to help Tom ease into sleep and sleep soundly. Mary Agnes doesn’t know if she believes the powders are helping or if she just wants to believe it.

“Have you tried Ardle’s Potion yet?” Mr. Walker says, holding up a blue and yellow box. “Can’t keep it in stock, said to be even more potent than Roger’s.”

“How much for Ardle’s?”

“Another twenty-five cents. You can mix the two. Your husband will sleep soundly, mark my words.”

Armed with two packages, and minus fifty cents, Mary Agnes puts her hopes in the unknown. Anything will be better than hearing Tom gasping for breath at night.

She gazes at the shop windows at Hibbard’s Department Store and stops for a cold lemonade at Pickford’s Fountain before she walks the three short blocks home. She’s grown fond of lemonade here in Colorado Springs and makes it a habit to stop at the fountain when she’s out on errands. It’s five cents of bliss, the way the ice-cold lemonade slides down her parched throat.

As she sits on a high leather stool at the counter, she assesses herself in the large mirror behind. She looks hale and fit. Unlike Tom. He is sleeping in past breakfast most mornings now and she doesn’t have the heart to wake him after he finally succumbs to sleep. I never thought it would be like this. The last few days he hasn’t been hungry at supper either. That leaves just one meal a day, at least it’s the main meal, which Mary Agnes makes sure he finishes. She coaxes him with her eyes and touches his arm to goad him along. Bite by bite. He can’t live on sleeping potions alone.

A lazy fan rotates overhead from the embossed tin ceiling, its whirr like a kitten’s purr. Mary Agnes remembers Tom the Cat from the Rutherford’s. Blocking out any recollections of Doria, she thinks how far she’s come since that first day as a housemaid. In the past few years, she’s learned to keep house and cook. And have even more of a mind of her own—if that could be possible, she laughs—and the confidence to say it aloud.

Mary Agnes checks her pocket watch. She cannot linger. When Tilly sprained her ankle in the kitchen yesterday, Mary Agnes offered to bake two pies for today’s supper as a favor to Tilly. It’s the least she can do. As long as Tom doesn’t need her.

When Mary Agnes returns to the boardinghouse, a package is waiting for her. She checks the return address: Chicago. The crucifix! She opens the wrapping and holds the cross tight to her chest as she mounts the stairs to their room. Pushing the door ajar, she sees Tom is still asleep, so she leaves the crucifix on the bedside table and tiptoes from their room back down to the kitchen.

Supper tonight will be cold slices of roast, boiled potatoes, and cranberry aspic. And pie. She borrows one of Tilly’s aprons and takes to cutting rhubarb, their entrails falling into a pail. She deftly slices the firm fruit, places it in a deep bowl, and coats the fruit with a tablespoon of flour and a cup of sugar. She tosses it together until the rhubarb is covered with the crumbly mixture and sets to making crusts. Her gram’s secret was to double the pie crust recipe to make it thick and add a quarter cup of fresh cream to the rhubarb mix before baking, if cream could be found. Cream is plentiful in Colorado Springs, so Mary Agnes sets a quarter cup out on the counter to reach room temperature.

Mary Agnes hums while she works, songs her granddad used to sing, although she’s heard you’re hexed if you sing a sea shanty off the water. Well, there’s no salt water for a thousand miles, so I don’t think I’m in any danger of hexing.

She opens the lip of the oven door to slide the pies in to bake. While she waits—pies don’t bake themselves, like Cook used to say—she tidies up the kitchen, singing now, this one, one of her granddad’s favorites, Whiskey in the Jar. She wipes her forehead with her sleeve and laughs to herself. I’ve just gotten the crucifix and I’m singing about whiskey.

She sets the tables in the dining room, careful to follow Tilly’s example (the Dutch are very precise, she has learned). By now, the pies are out to cool.

Will Tom eat any of it?

She nicks a piece of crust and licks her fingers before getting to the rest of supper. Pulling her now long-again auburn hair high on her head, she secures it in a knot. She realizes for the first time in a long time, I’m not hungry! She wonders if Tommy is still hungry, or any of her other brothers. Have they come to America yet? Will I know? Sean is sure to find me.

Later that night, Mary Agnes shakes her husband awake. Is he breathing? His nighttime breathing is always heavily labored, but just now, she thought he stopped breathing at all.

“I’m fine, Mary A.”

Mary Agnes begs to differ, but she holds her tongue. “Roll over, then.” She reaches for a glass of water and hands it to Tom. His hand trembles.

“You’re my angel.” He offers a weak smile.

How I love this man. “A good helpmate, maybe.”

“Not maybe. I couldn’t take my eyes off you when you first walked into St. Mel’s.” He coughs deeply, bringing up red sputum.

“Enough of that now. It was me not being able to take my eyes off you. I almost had to go to confession right then and there.”

“We’re quite the pair.”

“That we are.”

Mary Agnes rubs Tom’s shoulder and traces a three-inch gash there. She has never asked about it before. But if time is getting scarce, she needs to know everything about him before it’s too late to ask.

“How—?”

“Silly, really. I was climbing an old oak in the yard and fell. My shoulder grazed the fence.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven, maybe eight. You say you were fishing by then.”

“Aye, I was.” Her eyes well up. Granda. Gram.

Tom touches Mary Agnes’s shoulder.

“Ah . . .” she says. “Like we were saying. Best looking couple in all of Chicago.”

“Or Colorado Springs,” he says. “Or anywhere.”

“Don’t go getting your pride so swelled up you’d be lying,” she laughs. “I’ll settle for Colorado Springs.”

“I’m thinking we should stay here, Mary A.”

“Do you?”

“And, when the time comes . . .”

Mary Agnes bristles, a chill up her back. “That’s a conversation for when we’re seventy or eighty, Tom. Not today.”

No, not today, she thinks. Or tomorrow. Or—please Jesus Mary and Joseph—not anytime soon. I’m not even eighteen, much too young to be a widow.