Chapter 27

WHEN I SAW THAT HOUSE ON THE RIDGE, its patched roof and drooping eaves, I felt like a revenant haunting my own past. I had returned, but not from the dead. Rather, I’d returned from life—a real, honest-to-God life—to a place that seemed dead. I slowed down and glanced behind me, considering the options if I were to run in the opposite direction. Toomey, on the other hand, stepped up the pace as though eager to see his wife and children.

No one waited on the porch. This was to be no sentimental homecoming. As we walked through the front door, I could hear the usual noise in the kitchen, smell the beans warming on the stove and the freshly baked bread cooling on the table.

Toomey took my bag out of my hands. “I’ll run this upstairs. You go through and say something to your mother.” He started up the stairs, and then paused on the third step. “Be gentle with her, Willemina. She’s been hurtin’.”

Stomach roiling, I made my way to the back of the house. Mother stood at the stove before a steaming pot, her back to me. I hovered in the doorway to get my bearings. Her brown hair was tidy, her dress clean, but she looked thinner and more stooped than when I’d last seen her. The twins sat under the kitchen table, playing with toy soldiers. Freddy and Hal were much bigger now, past the stage of soiled diapers and baby drool. They were nearly four years old and exploding with noise and energy. So absorbed were they in their war game they didn’t notice me standing only a few feet away. I looked past them to the bassinet standing near the table.

The baby. I’d forgotten the thing that started all my troubles. I had no idea when it had been born.

At that moment one of the twins, I think it was Freddy, mimicked the sound of a cannon explosion. He did it so authentically that the baby set to crying. My mother wiped her hands on her apron and, after scolding Freddy in a soft hiss, walked over to the bassinet to make soothing noises. That was when she saw me standing there. She started so violently I thought she might scare the baby into another screaming fit.

“Willemina!” Her face paled. “I didn’t hear you come in. Is your—Is Gabriel with you?”

She’d been about to call Gabriel my father.

“He’s taking my bag to the attic,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. “What on earth happened to your head?”

My hand went to the bruise on my temple. In the mirror that morning, I’d noticed it darkening to purple. “It’s nothing.”

She looked at me a long time, as though uncertain whether to launch into scolding or take me in her arms. She did neither, waving me toward the bassinet instead. “Well, come and meet your sister.”

Sister? I hadn’t imagined sturdy old Toomey would sire anything so delicate as a girl. As I crossed the kitchen toward the bassinet, the twins frowned at me as though I were a stranger. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them for staring.

The baby was red-faced from crying but otherwise free of deformity. She had quite a thatch of dark Toomey hair on top of her head, but I decided not to hold that against her. She stopped fussing when she saw me, her eyes widening at the sight of a strange face.

“When was she born?” I asked.

“December twenty-sixth,” replied Mother. “We named her Christabel, what with her being born so soon after Christmas.”

“Little Christabel,” I murmured, reaching down to her tiny hand. How could I not smile when she wrapped all five fingers around my own?

“We’ve been worried about you, Willie.” Mother still looked down at the baby.

“You needn’t have. I was fine. Toomey told me you were getting the money I sent.”

“And it was appreciated, but we’d rather have had you with us, safe and sound.”

“I suppose my labor was worth more to you than the money?”

She sighed. “You’re here a few minutes and already spoiling for a fight, I see.” The baby began to cry again. Mother stroked her cheek and then lifted the blanket to check her diaper. “Well, it’s going to have to wait. We’ll not discuss this in front of the children.”

So I helped set the table, my heart sinking as I took the plates out of the cupboard and arranged them along with cups and cutlery. It was odd to do such mundane work, and yet at the same time it felt as though I’d never left. How long would it take me to forget the person I had become at the seminary? How many settings of the table before Miss McClure’s triumphs and perils faded to a ghostly memory?

I dreaded another supper eaten in deafening—and damning—silence, but my brothers made things lively. They practically wriggled with delight to see their father. After pelting him with questions, they told tales of the adventures he’d missed while away. They did not speak to me, still shy of my other-worldliness, but that didn’t stop them from staring.

After supper was cleared away and Christabel was settled once more into her bassinet, Toomey took the boys to their bedroom and I dried the dishes that Mother washed.

She didn’t turn to look at me. When I risked a glance out of the corner of my eye, I saw her stiff shoulders and tight mouth curved downward. I dried and dried, waiting for her to speak. Waiting for her to say the words that would stoke the flame of my anger.

But Mother did not speak. And I wasn’t about to open my mouth first.

So when I’d dried the last dish and placed it on the table, I threw the rag down next to it and went to my room.

• • •

The stalemate continued for days. I did my chores in silence and then retreated to the attic to avoid Toomey’s drooping face and Mother’s coldness.

After supper I’d crawl into bed and dream of the river, my mind flashing with images of the doctor’s face, pale and streaming with water. In these dreams I had him by the throat, pushing him deeper and deeper into the river. Invariably, I woke up with a start, heart pounding and body soaked in sweat. For the rest of the night, I’d toss and turn, wondering how my dream self remembered what my waking mind couldn’t.

The days crawled by. Rain drummed on the roof each night, making the attic air heavy and damp. But I refused to go downstairs unless absolutely necessary, for the twins paced the house like caged animals while Toomey stared out the window. The longer it rained, the more the house felt like an asylum for the mentally unfit.

Finally, even the sun grew tired of the gloom and decided to blast the clouds and rain away. On the first dry morning, Toomey took the boys outside, and Mother perked up enough to actually speak to me.

“Gabriel will be turning the earth for spring planting this morning. He’s already milked the cows, but you’ll need to feed and water all the animals.”

Tempting as it was to throw a fit over such a blunt request, I actually was pleased to get out of the house. It had been years since I tended the livestock, and Papa never countenanced too much rough work for his girl. But I was so eager to breathe some fresh air that I tied on my bonnet and marched out to the barn without a word of protest.

The cows were more curious than I remembered, nuzzling me with slimy noses and blowing their sour cud breath in my face. Their rolling eyes and long tongues were monstrous, and they nearly knocked me over when they mistook me for a scratching post. The chickens were small but raised a racket of clucks and squawks. My heart nearly rose to my throat when they descended upon me, for I feared they’d peck me to death as I spread the feed. By comparison, the pigs were downright gentle and merely grunted appreciatively as the slop splashed into their trough. Their muddy beds raised an unholy stench, however, and it nearly gagged me.

At least none of the animals talked back or poked fun at my clothes.

By the time every creature was fed, I was filthy and damp with perspiration. The flies were taking notice. So I washed the sweat away with trough water and climbed the ladder to the barn loft. The air was fresh and the hay smelled sweet—a perfect spot for a nap. I fluffed up some hay and settled down where I had a view out to the orchard.

Just as my eyelids were growing heavy, I heard it.

Purring.

I sat up and began to root around in the hay. A few paces away in the corner of the loft, I found a skinny cat with six kittens pounding away at her belly as they nursed. The poor mama looked exhausted and didn’t even mew in protest when I stroked her handsome head. I leaned in to get a closer look at the kittens. Plump little bodies and wide-open eyes. They’d be weaned before long. When one detached for a moment, I reached in and gently lifted it to my chest. I swear the mama cat looked relieved.

Before long I had three kittens in my lap. I took turns bringing each to my face and breathing in their smell of sweet hay and clean fur. Their deep, rumbling purrs brought a warm tingle to my belly. I leaned back and let them crawl all over me until they curled up together and fell asleep on my chest. Their warmth soaked into my very bones.

In my drowsy contentment, I imagined Eli’s arms around me, his hands tangled in my hair. No one had touched me since that day at the river when he pulled my body from the water. It occurred to me that before the night we’d embraced under my window, no one had held me for years. Once Papa died, Mother’s arms were busy with Toomey, and soon thereafter, the twins.

It was enough to make me wonder—how long could one live without the warmth of human touch?