NORTH ASHEVILLE
OCTOBER 1923
The return trip to Asheville was silent. Lorna, lost deep in thought, barely noticed that Arthur was also distant. It was only when they arrived at her front door that she realized they hadn’t spoken a word since leaving Vivian’s cabin.
“I guess I haven’t been good company today,” she said.
Arthur made a face. “Nor have I. Guess all this talk about the past has got me thinking about some things.” He gave his head a shake. “But what we should be focused on is finding Gentry. What say I come by after work tomorrow, and we can start making plans.”
“I’m not going to work tomorrow.”
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Why not?”
“Arthur, I . . . it’s complicated.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “For me too. Can we sit a minute? I won’t stay long.”
She motioned toward a chair on the porch. The night was refreshingly cool. She collapsed into a rocker, moaning a little at the pleasure of just being still.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Arthur said. She could hear the smile in his voice.
“It does. I should offer to fetch us a drink or a plate of cookies, but I don’t think I can make my feet carry me to the kitchen.”
“Just sit. There’s something I’d like to tell you.” His voice lowered. “I’m afraid it doesn’t reflect well on me.”
The words both intrigued and relieved her. If Arthur had something terrible to hide, maybe he wouldn’t hold her secret shame against her when the whole truth came out. A flicker of hope stirred inside her.
“I have a brother,” Arthur said.
Lorna stared. This hardly seemed like a terrible secret. “That’s nice. I wish I had a sibling.”
“No, it’s . . . I have lots of brothers and sisters. My parents were . . . prolific.”
“Do they live around here?” Lorna was losing hope that Arthur’s secret was a dark one. She also realized how little she knew about his family. She’d always thought he was an orphan.
“I don’t know where most of them live.” He rubbed his hands on his pant legs. “My parents pretty much gave me away when I was just a youngster. That’s how I ended up here in Asheville with Reverend Swope. He was my caretaker—the closest thing to a parent I ever knew.”
Lorna set her rocker in motion and settled in to listen.
“But then, early last year, Rodney—Reverend Swope—got word that my parents were both dead and had left a much younger brother orphaned.” His hands scrubbed up and down his thighs. “So I went back to West Virginia and fetched Boyd home with me.”
Lorna frowned. She’d never seen this brother, but then she’d hardly seen Arthur in a long time. “Where is he now?” she asked. Maybe Arthur had sent him off to boarding school. That seemed like the sort of responsible thing he’d do.
Arthur hung his head. “That’s just it. He’s here. In Asheville.”
“I’d love to meet him. Any brother of yours is bound to be a good fellow.”
Arthur let out a sigh. He glanced at her, then back at the floorboards. “I hope you can one day. But right now he’s . . . staying at Oak Lodge.”
Lorna tried to think where Oak Lodge might be. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “I’m not sure where—”
“At Highland Hospital.”
She blanched. The last time she’d heard that hospital mentioned had been soon after her near drowning in the flood of 1916. Even as her body recovered from the effects of all those hours in the water, her mind couldn’t seem to catch up. She’d lain there in bed, feeling as if she were walking through deep sand every moment of every day. And some days, it just didn’t seem worth the effort. It was only when she heard the nurses whispering about a transfer to Highland Hospital that she’d managed to shake the languor. She’d forced herself to smile and interact, to appear interested in what was happening around her.
Anything to avoid being relegated to a mental hospital.
And, surprisingly, acting as though she were well made her feel that perhaps she was. Or could be. And she’d come around enough to stop the talk about a transfer. Enough to go back to the weaving room and to wake up each day prepared to set one foot in front of the other.
She’d fooled them all. She had perhaps even fooled herself. Hearing the name of the hospital now brought her rocker to an abrupt stop. “You mean . . . ?”
“He was addicted to alcohol. And maybe other things, too. I didn’t know it when I brought him home with me.” Arthur ran a hand through his hair. “I thought I could help—could be a family for him. But I was wrong. I tried for a year or so and then . . .” He turned anguished eyes on her. “I failed him.”
Lorna wanted to comfort Arthur, to tell him that he’d done the best he could, but she wasn’t sure how to do that. “I don’t know what to say,” she finally managed.
The look on Arthur’s face told her that was the wrong thing to say. “I just wanted you to know,” he mumbled. “I didn’t want you to find out some other way and think . . . Well. It doesn’t matter now.”
She was doing this all wrong. What was he afraid she’d think? That he was a bad person for getting his brother the help he needed? “What’s he like?” she asked.
Hope crept into Arthur’s expression. “He’s smart. And brave. Mostly because he’s had to be.” Arthur seemed to be thinking. “And he’s pretty funny, although that might’ve been the liquor.”
Lorna tried a small smile. “So, he’s a lot like you? Except for the drinking,” she added.
Arthur flushed. “I don’t know about that.” He looked at his feet. “He has a clubfoot, too.” His eyes came slowly up to meet hers.
“Guess that’s part of being brave,” she said. “Living with something that makes you different.”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes gone soft and wet. “Do you think I did the right thing? Putting him in the hospital when I couldn’t get him sober?”
Lorna shook her head. “I don’t know. But I do know that you’ve always put other people ahead of yourself.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I feel sure that whether it was the right thing or not, you did it for the right reason.”
“Thank you for that,” Arthur said. “It’s been hard knowing I couldn’t love him enough to fix whatever made him turn to liquor.”
They chatted a while longer, Arthur sharing stories of Boyd when he first arrived in Asheville, skipping over the difficult bits, she was sure. And they talked about their plans to find Gentry. But even as they talked, Lorna couldn’t help but compare Arthur’s secret to her own. His shame was in having to let someone else help his brother. Hers was in casting Gentry’s well-being aside for her own gain. She longed to bare her soul to Arthur, to get his absolution, she supposed. But if she told him her secret, would he wish she’d kept it? Would she? Better not to find out, she decided.
She stood, her feet and back protesting silently. “So we’ll begin our search for Gentry tomorrow?”
Arthur stood, as well. “I’ll be by after breakfast. Angus can manage the shop tomorrow.” He started down the steps. She noticed his limp was more pronounced after their long day. He turned at the road and looked back at her as though he were going to say something more. Instead, he lifted a hand in a friendly wave and walked away.
She watched him for a long time, wishing he’d look back again. He never did.