The previous winter had set itself down hard, the ground frozen to rock, the track crusted with ice, the wind beating all the moisture out of Ida’s skin and hair. Island winter wasn’t as cold as Boston winter, but it was damper and grayer, and it was that gray that froze Ida inside. There seemed little point in looking out the window at nothing but gray or walking into town to exchange one gray for another gray; there seemed little point in even stoking the fire if the cold was within her.
Ezra was now home in the sense that he wasn’t off island, but they were so seldom within the same four walls that Ida had already established the habits of a woman living alone, not bothering to clear her mending from the chair or put away the drying rack next to the fire only to put it back out again. When Ezra blew through the kitchen door in the middle of the day, Ida looked up in surprise. His eyes were alight in a way that Ida had already come to dislike intensely; where she might normally have greeted him with whatever false warmth she could muster she remained silent, wary.
He began to speak before he’d closed the door. “Mose and I are going to the Klondike!”
Ida had heard of the Klondike, the river in the Canadian Yukon Territory that was panning out gold. She waited for the rest—this she’d learned to do before responding—and if nothing else it gave her time to shed what Ezra called her withering tone and come up with something less . . . well, less withering.
“This fellow came into Duffy’s—he’s going and he wants Mose and me to go with him. So we’re going.”
“Why?”
“Why! To get rich. What’s the matter with you? You’ve heard talk of all the gold.”
“Yes. And I’ve heard talk of all the people who died getting there.”
“That was winter. We’re looking to go in another month, as soon as it thaws.”
“Canada doesn’t thaw.”
“Canada thaws, Ida.”
“And what about the two dozen lambs you have coming due? You left the ram in with the ewes all year last year. Lem says this means they’ll start dropping any day now and go straight through till May.”
“Well, listen to you, the little sheep farmer. Lem’ll help—just fix him a bed in the barn—”
“Ezra.”
“Ida.” He had a way of mimicking her inflection to the decibel, and Ida knew better than to take it as a compliment. “This is the answer to your dreams. You’ll be a wealthy woman again; you can sit around and paint all day and pay someone to cook and clean; you can go to Europe and see all those famous painters in Paris you keep talking about.”
Once. She’d mentioned it once, the Salon and the famous and soon-to-be-famous artists who were invited to show their work there, an invitation that meant everything—everything—to the would-be artist. To join Sargent or Cassatt or the person who would become the next Sargent or Cassatt . . . to be the person who would become the next Sargent or Cassatt . . .
Ida shook her mind free of Paris and tried again. “You don’t know you’ll find gold. You don’t know you’ll even live to get there.”
“Lord, I never knew a woman to argue so hard against being rich. Well, you can thank me when I get back from the Yukon.”
Ida tried again over dinner. In bed. In the morning. She talked about the farm—Ezra’s family farm—with a warmth she didn’t feel, with a panic she did feel. She questioned the man who had asked Ezra and Mose along. Who is he? How well do you know him? What if he takes your money and disappears?
Looking back, Ida could barely believe she’d pushed on for so long, but at some point—Ida could no longer remember exactly what point—she’d stopped arguing, which allowed Ezra to stop arguing and proceed with his plans unimpeded, until one day Ida had overheard Mose and Ezra in their own argument, Mose questioning the dangers and expense of the journey, the character of the man from Duffy’s, the probability of actually finding gold. Ezra responded as if he’d never heard such concerns before, first incredulously, then angrily, but the subject of the Klondike disappeared from his conversation.
Now Ida stood half in and half out of the closet, fingering the nuggets. Ezra and Mose had not gone to the Yukon; where then had this gold come from? And why did Ezra feel the need to hide it behind a wood panel in the closet? Not to hide it from thieves, since Ezra left his pocketbook on the bedside table and the door unbolted at night. Was he hiding it from Mose, the gold come out of some salvage job and Ezra didn’t want to fork over his partner’s share? Or perhaps he was hiding it from creditors—Henry Barstow had said there wasn’t as much money as there should be, and maybe here was some of that money.
Or maybe he was just hiding it from Ida.
Ida’s thoughts had stalled there when a violent knocking erupted below. She peered out the window: Ruth, beating on her door with her stick. Ida hurried down and got there before the wood splintered; Ruth fell into the house red-faced from exertion. Or ire.
“I’d like to know when you started locking doors!”
“The day I realized I didn’t have to leave it open for Ezra anymore.” In fact, Ida had started locking the door the day she’d watched from the oxcart as Ruth opened it and walked in.
“Yes. Well. That’s just about the very subject I’ve come to talk about.” She pushed through to the parlor stove and sat down. Ida gave some thought to not following, but she did discover a stirring of something that was half curiosity and half alarm. What was Ruth cooking up now? She joined Ruth at the stove.
“It’s almost a month and we still haven’t marked my nephew’s passing. Even those Barstows who never even did a proper funeral for their parents, even that Barstow fellow put a nice notice in the paper for his brother.”
“What notice?”
“‘Moses Judah Barstow, late of Vineyard Haven, always with us.’ I’ve waited on you this long but no more. I talked to the Reverend Beetle and the service is set for Friday at one o’clock. I’m here as a courtesy, asking your preference on hymns and any words you’d like spoken. You have no folk and not much I can see in the way of friends, but there are people on this island who want to pay their respects to a good man gone and they’ll have their chance Friday at one.” She threw it out as a challenge, as if Ida planned to argue some part of that sentence, but Ida didn’t. She could listen to Ruth’s plans as if from a distance, as if it had nothing to do with her.
“I have no preference on hymns. Or words.” She stood up. “Thank you for stopping by.”
Ruth blinked. “We’ll take the carriage. We’ll pick you up at quarter to.”
“I’d prefer to walk, thank you.” Ida could feel the stillness inside herself, the kind of stillness that felt like a solid wall, but apparently Ruth felt no wall.
“The carriage will stop here at quarter to,” she repeated.
Ida sat on the bed, upright, clothed in black, two hands behind her propping her up. After a time it occurred to her that her hands touched the very spot where Ezra used to lie; she swiveled sideways and smoothed the coverlet over what might have been Ezra. Had been Ezra. She let her hand lie there, attempting to feel some remnant of him, attempting to feel some remnant of anything. She heard the carriage come and go, pictured Ruth’s face set in an anger that turned to humiliation as she sat in church waiting for Ida to appear.
No. Ida didn’t want to humiliate anyone, especially an old woman who wanted only to mourn her nephew in the company of her friends. Ida pushed herself off the bed, collected her cloak and a purse stuffed with a handkerchief useful both for wiping tears and hiding their absence, and set off.
The pews were full. Ida considered sitting quietly at the back, but the point was that Ruth see her there, that everyone else see her there with Ruth and Hattie: the widow. And besides, she’d seen Henry Barstow seated at the back, near the door, as if reserving for himself the option of exiting before the end of the service. Ida walked along the length of the aisle, eyes straight ahead, collecting whispers in her wake like the rustle of a silk gown. Hattie slid over to allow Ida room, but not enough room; each time Hattie inhaled and exhaled Ida felt the ebb and flow of it in her own shoulder and hip. She unclasped her bag, removed her handkerchief, and touched it to dry eyes.
The organ erupted into a hymn Ida didn’t know. As it gasped its last the reverend stood and began a prayer Ida also didn’t know, spoke words that described an Ezra she didn’t know. The boy so full of life and laughter. The man so upright and strong and devoted to his family. The community leader responsible for a much-needed dredging of the harbor (for which he got well paid), the repair of the West Chop lighthouse (which guided him home), and the expansion of the Seamen’s Bethel (for which he provided the lumber at well over cost). By the time the reverend had reached the part about the Bethel, Hattie’s handkerchief was a wet, pulpy mass and her sniffing audible to the rafters. Ida opened her bag, jammed her handkerchief in and snapped it shut, the sound following Hattie’s sniffs skyward.
Ida had always thought of grief as love cast adrift, something that haunted the living heart once it lost its object; she was therefore unsurprised when she could feel none of it sitting in that church. She did feel a hollowness that might be called sadness, but it was a sadness over what she’d let slip away of herself in her years of grief, in her years with Ezra, and she didn’t know what to do with that.
Ida was brought out of her reverie as the service closed, as all island services closed, with a reading of Tennyson—May there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea—which could not by any stretch be said to apply to a man whose last breath had been choked out of him by frigid November sea water.
They stood or sat around Ruth’s parlor, the guests on their arrival stopping in front of Ida where she sat in the chair nearest the door, but it was as if she sat above her chair and looked down on them all.
“That he should have been on that steamer,” said Chester Luce, shaking his head at fate and moving on to Hattie, with whom it appeared he had a lot more to share.
“Condolences for your loss,” said George Amaral, who ran a lobster boat out of Creekville. His wife, Rose, who managed the Seamen’s Bethel, said, “Come by for a cup and a chat,” before she seemed to catch something in Ida’s face. “But only if you want to.”
“Come along, Rose,” her husband said.
Rose ignored him. “In fact, I’m trying to speak to all the island women about—”
“God’s breath, Rose, you’re not starting in with that voting rubbish at Ezra Pease’s funeral.”
“It’s important that we women unite,” Rose said, again ignoring him, but when her husband grabbed her arm she trailed away after him. “Do stop by,” Rose said, and gave Ida’s hand a squeeze, for which Ida felt briefly, unreasonably, grateful.
A plate of cake arrived; a cup of tea that Ida was forced to take up in her off hand, which caused her to spill it; she set both down and snatched up her purse, looking for that pristine handkerchief. When she finished dabbing at her skirt, she lifted her eyes and found Henry Barstow leaning against the doorjamb that led to the back porch. He knew. He alone of everyone in the room knew that her widow’s weeds were a sham, that she was playing a stage part and poorly.
Ida fanned her face and pressed a palm to her forehead, signaling to anyone watching her need of air; she stepped onto the porch, feeling the eyes at her back as Henry followed her through.
“Did Mose or Ezra ever talk to you about going to the Klondike after gold?”
A look of confusion washed across Henry’s face; not the subject he’d been expecting. “Ezra talked to me of the scheme,” Ida continued. “I tried to talk him out of it. Later I heard Mose doing the same, but Ezra wasn’t one to give up on an idea, especially a bad one. I got to wondering if they’d talked of it with you. Or better yet, if you’d found mention in those account books of a secret stash of gold.” She smiled as if indicating a jest, but Henry didn’t seem to follow. His smile went only halfway. But then again, they were at a funeral.
“No one talked to me of the Klondike. I found no mention of gold.”
“Everything all right out here?” Lem spoke from behind Ida.
“Everything’s all right,” Ida said. “I grew overheated and now I’m overtired. If you would make my apologies, I believe I’ll just slip quietly home.”
“Let me—” Henry began.
“I’ll take you home,” Lem interjected.
Ida held up a hand to each. “Please. I only need air and quiet. Say nothing unless asked; most won’t notice I’m gone.”
She plunged down the steps and over the lawn. She could never have dared such a thing in Boston, she thought, and then amended; she would never have dared. Why? Because there she’d cared about everyone and what they thought; here, no one.