Emile Mercadier’s end came without warning. In January he developed a cough; in the first week of February he decided not to get out of bed one morning; and by the end of the month he was breathing fast and shallow, his heart fluttering, and his eyes vaguely focused on the wall. His mind wandered, and as Kathleen bathed his forehead he lost his sense of her, thinking back to his first wife, Josephine. Marie spelled her in the afternoons to let Kathleen have some quiet, though Kathleen never asked for it, and indeed when left to herself walked to Marie’s cabin to fix dinner and watch Josephine. “I don’t need crying time,” she told Marie. “What with my first husband and everything else we lost in the war, I cried myself out years ago. I am plenty acquainted with grief.”
Flynn had sense enough not to complain about Marie’s time with her father, though she knew he was eager to marry. And why not? Surely it wasn’t too vain to think of herself as something of a catch. She could cook, she had a way with children, she could do his reading for him when necessary, perhaps even teach him to read. And you couldn’t fault the man for ambition, despite his evil moods and quick temper. It wasn’t an impossible partnership.
She found herself alone with her father in the late afternoon of his death, Kathleen away sleeping, and a soft crackle of sleet on the roof. The room always seemed cold to her, no matter how she stoked the fire, but Emile didn’t complain.
“Cherie,” he said. His voice was scratchy. He had been lapsing into French a great deal lately, and Marie was disheartened to realize that she could no longer speak it well.
“I’m here,” she said.
“J’ai peur.”
Marie stood up and walked fast into the front room. No one there. She opened the door. She could see into the front room of Mrs. Smith’s cabin next door, where Jenny the maid sat at her darning. There was a stick lying next to Marie’s feet; she tossed it at Jenny’s window, startling her out of her chair. She waved Jenny out to her door.
“Please,” she called. “I need you to run down to my house and bring Mrs. Mercadier. I need her.”
Something in Marie’s voice made Jenny run without asking questions. Marie walked rapidly back to her father’s bedside and took his hand again.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I am here.”
“If the man from the Evening Post…” he said. But then he seemed to lose his train of thought and gazed at the ceiling. After a minute, he repeated, “J’ai peur.”
Marie didn’t know what to say. Don’t be afraid? Why not be afraid? “I’m here,” she said, feeling inadequate. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Je n’ai peur pour moi,” he said. “Pour toi.”
She felt a sudden chill. Who was supposed to be comforting whom here? She had nothing to say and didn’t want to ask why he was afraid for her and not for himself.
There was a rustle behind her; Kathleen had been found. Marie tried to stand but felt Kathleen’s hand on her shoulder.
“Stay,” Kathleen said. “He’s been your father longer than my husband. Stay where you are.”
So she sat, Kathleen standing behind her, and watched. Her father’s lips moved a little but no sound came out. “Are you all right for this?” Kathleen murmured. “I think we’ve reached the end.”
Marie didn’t answer but stayed where she was. Emile either did not hear or was unable to respond; his breath continued to rasp. Marie felt a tightness in her chest and realized that she had been holding her breath for several seconds. It felt good to let it out.
Then his breathing stopped, and all was silent.
Marie felt oddly disappointed. No final blessing, no words of wisdom, just breathe, and breathe, and then stop. Was that the sum of a man? Apparently so.
The next several days were a blur of grieving, comforting, food, and decisions. With Turner away, the eulogy fell to John Wesley Wickman, who did a good job, though mild and halting. The tent Mr. Wilkinson had erected to shield his exhumation of Lysander Smith from prying eyes took up the front part of the cemetery, so Emile was buried toward the back, near the woods. Her father had always feared the forest, so it seemed wrong to have him back there. But so it was.
Afterward came the parade of condolences, all sincere enough, she supposed, although her own feelings were too numb to register them much of the time. There seemed to be an expectation that she should do something now. But what to do, and how to do it, were never mentioned. And Flynn was always close by. He had muttered some condolences to her on the day her father died and stood in the crowd during the burial, but other than that he was silent about the wound, planting and clearing instead of talking. The ways of men. But every morning her woodbox was full, without a word spoken, and she appreciated Flynn’s silent attention. Nor did Dathan call on her, appropriately enough. But one evening she stepped out of her back door to fetch firewood and found a hot bowl on her chopping block, wrapped in a cloth. It was a thick stew of some sort, ground corn and squash and some sort of wild meat, and she could tell that the corn had been hand ground in a mortar, not milled between stones. It was bland and rather gamy, but filling. She had heard tales of Dathan’s Indian wife but had never seen her; she washed the empty bowl the next day and set it on the chopping block, and in the morning it was gone. That night it returned, refilled.
After a month Flynn brought up the unspoken subject. “I guess you’ve put me off long enough,” he said, whittling a stick in her yard as they said farewell for the evening. “Or ain’t you going to marry me after all?”
“No,” said Marie. “I’ll marry you.”
“All right, then. I’ll go see the priest.”
“Do we have to bring in the priest?”
Flynn shot her an angry look. “You may not care about the Mother Church, but I do,” he said. “You should have sent for a priest back when your papa was passing. A man in his extreme moment needs all the comfort he can get.”
Marie held her tongue. “All right, go talk to the priest.”
A few days later he was back. “He’ll marry us any time,” he said. “But we have to make confession first. And I want to finish my fence. Won’t take me more than another couple of days.”
On a surprisingly cold April day, he fetched her in his wagon, and they took the long ride to Fredericktown. Despite the chill, the redbud was in bloom, and its splashes of lavender brightened the dull gray-brown of the hillsides where the trees had not yet come into leaf. Marie could not help remembering the times she and Turner had ridden out in the wagon together, how filled she was with passion and curiosity and wonder, wonder at their mutual audacity and at her own, amazed at herself that she could be so fearless or reckless or whatever it was, and filled with the excitement of the forbidden. This trip felt nothing like that. She felt as though she was giving in, though giving in to what she did not know. The need to be normal, perhaps. The need to have a father—a real father—for Josephine. Then, she had ridden out in the wagon with the thrill of a girl; now, she was riding out to marry with the sobriety of an adult. She glanced at Flynn from time to time; he was a decent enough man, she guessed, the hardest-working man in the county, as he liked to say. She would have to learn how to talk to him.
When they reached the rectory, Flynn stepped down and tied up the horse. “You wait,” he said. “I’ll tell him we’re here.”
He walked to the door, knocked, and went inside. In a moment he was back at the wagon. “In here,” he said, helping her down from the wagon. “I’m to go first.”
The church was a drafty brick building with a dim interior. Marie sat in a back pew while Flynn walked to the confessional nearest the rectory door. When she was a child in the Icarian colonies, she used to accompany her mother to confession once in a while, although her father had declared himself secular and refused to go; she had even made it through to her own first communion, and a few more, at thirteen. But after her mother’s death, she had given it up. She hoped she could remember the ritual.
After several minutes Flynn emerged. He walked to her and laid his hand on her arm; Marie realized to her surprise that this was the first time he had touched her since before her father died.
“Father Tucker is his name,” he said. “He’s all right.”
Marie found her way to the confessional and sat on the bench. “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It has been many years since my last confession,” she said. At least she remembered that much.
“How many years, my child?” The priest’s voice was gentle. Through the screen she could see the outline of a round face with a mop of white hair on top.
“Many. A dozen? Fifteen, perhaps?”
“Oh, my! This may take a while. But that’s all right. I have all the time we need.”
She went into it, the adultery, the child out of wedlock. The lying that she had to do to accomplish the adultery. The loss of faith in God. She felt as if she would never reach the end of her sins. But eventually she did, or at least reached the end of her recollections. Then finally came the absolution, and she stepped back out into the light.
Flynn was outside, watering the horse with a bucket. “We’re supposed to go into the rectory,” he said. “He’ll marry us there.”
“Not in the church?”
He shook his head. “Ain’t neither of us what you’d call faithful members here. He comes along the railroad now and then and says mass. I give him what coppers I have. But the rectory parlor is what we get.”
They waited inside while the priest’s housekeeper found some witnesses. “You’re a child of Daybreak, then?” the priest said to her while they stood.
“Yes.”
“But across the river, you’ll be in my house,” Flynn said vehemently. “Ain’t no voting every week on everything.”
Father Tucker noticed the consternation on Marie’s face at the sudden force in Flynn’s tone. He took her hand.
“Marriage is a solemn covenant, my dear,” he said. “As Jesus is the head of the church, the husband is the head of the home. You must be prepared to accept your husband’s admonitions and bear his reproofs with a cheerful heart. Can you do that?”
There seemed to be nothing for Marie to say but, “Yes, Father.”
“And, my son, you must approach marriage with a loving heart. There is no room in a Christian marriage for resentment over old things. Can you look forward, and not behind, and give your wife guidance openly and lovingly?”
“Sure, Father. Sure I can.”
Then the housekeeper showed up with a couple of old men in tow, and they lined up in the parlor, and within five minutes it was done.
They spoke little on the ride back. Marie’s thoughts circled again and again around how she had gotten to this moment—first scandalized, then alone, and now married to man she still barely knew. Had she ever let her reason rule her? Hardly. She might claim that she was marrying Flynn for the home and for Josephine, but she didn’t believe it herself. She certainly didn’t feel rational. She felt a sudden loss of confidence in her imagined adult decision and turned away from Flynn to hide the tears that were streaking her cheeks.
“No crying,” Flynn said. “I’ll have no weepy wife in my home. Crying women make me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Marie said, wiping her face with her coat sleeve.
She had sent Josephine and Angus to stay with Kathleen for the night, so the cabin was dark and silent when they arrived. Flynn dropped the rails in one section of his fence and led the wagon through. “There ain’t a finer fence in the county,” he said, pride in his voice. “Mule high, hog tight, and bull strong. My herd comes in next week, maybe the week after that.”
“And who will tend your herd while you’re off working on the railroad?”
Flynn’s reply was quick and fierce. “My son and my wife, and her daughter, that’s who. Unless you think you’re too fine for cattle farming.”
“Of course not,” she said. She regretted that her question had sounded querulous. She hadn’t meant to start the night on the wrong foot. “But I don’t know anything about cattle, I’ll warn you that.”
“What’s to know?” They eat grass. In the summer we make hay and in the winter we feed it to them. They drink from the river, and in the fall we drive them to a siding on this railroad I am building and sell them to whoever gives us the most.”
He helped her down from the wagon and went to put the horse in the barn while Marie stepped inside.
So this was to be her home. She lit the lantern hanging inside the door. Flynn could certainly use a woman’s touch. The floor needed sweeping, the makeshift window was covered with grease and cobwebs, and ashes had spilled out of the hearth, blackening the planks on its border. It was a wonder he hadn’t burned the place down by now. Marie reminded herself to bring in flowers from the fields whenever they were in bloom, the place was so dark and colorless.
Marie found some cornmeal and salt pork in canisters. It was getting dark; no time to gather greens. Hoecake and salt pork would have to do for their wedding meal. She would have been glad to have some of Dathan’s Indian stew right now. There were forks and plates on a shelf, not necessarily clean, but cleanish enough to use. She wiped them with a towel and set them on the table, and as she did, she saw a tin of lard on the shelf as well. That might come in handy later on. She scooped out a thick fingerful and wiped it into a teacup, which she placed on a table beside the bed in the other room.
It seemed like Flynn had been gone a long time. When he finally came in from the barn, his hair and skin were wet; Marie realized with a pleased start that he had bathed in the river.
They ate as they had ridden, in long swaths of silence broken by bursts of awkward conversation, the night ahead weighing on them. “That was good. Thank you,” Flynn said, pushing his plate away.
“I’ll do better once I’ve sorted out what you have,” Marie said.
“I don’t doubt that a bit. I ain’t been much of a cook or an eater, as you can imagine. Be good for Angus to have some honest food.”
They both knew it was time. Marie stacked their plates in Flynn’s washing pan and went into the bedroom.
Her trunk had been placed on the floor at one end of the room. She opened it; her nightdress was on top, right where she had placed it. She put it on and lay on top of the covers. The room was cold; she reminded herself to bring in a bed warmer tomorrow night. With a quick gesture, she dipped the lard out of the teacup and inserted it into herself.
She cleared her throat. “You can come in now,” she said.
Flynn entered, carrying the lantern. He looked at her as she lay on the bed. “You’re a pretty thing,” he said. “I ain’t no beauty, I’ll admit to that. But you got me, for whatever that’s worth.”
He took off his shirt. He was lean and strong, and his body was scarred. Marie could not stop looking at him.
“I’m a brute, ain’t I?” he said. She didn’t answer. “I know I ain’t the kind of fine-thinking man you deserve. You wanted Horace Greeley, and you got a Irish railroad navvy.”
“You’re a good man,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper. “You’re not just a railroad navvy.”
“That is the goddam truth,” he said hoarsely. “I am a man, and a proud man at that. Wouldn’t matter what I am, though. ’Cause you got me now, and I got you. Ain’t that right?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s right.”
He dropped his pants and climbed on top of her. With both hands he pulled her nightdress over her head.
She wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready for him. But he was already nose to nose with her, and she was glad she had greased herself, for he was right there before she knew it, before she had a chance to say ‘wait.’ He gripped her shoulders.
“Don’t you holler now,” he said.
No, she wasn’t going to holler. And maybe he was just a dumb Mick with no manners and no idea of how to treat a woman. But she had done this of her own free will, she had married Michael Flynn for better or for worse, and there was no repining. Everyone in Daybreak thought she was mad to marry this man, this illiterate oaf. Everyone in Daybreak could go to hell. Michael Flynn could go to hell, rutting her like a brindle bull in springtime. No one was going to get her tears from now on, not even herself. She would holler for no one and nothing. And as he labored above her with his eyes closed and a look of vacant concentration on his face, Marie felt a strange sense of freedom. So she had thrown her life away; she had done it her own damn self.