Mama’s half-hearted response to the tub surprise, choosing Mr. Hayes, Pearl staying behind—all of it sat thick, betrayal deepening after Tommy thought he’d been successful in moving past such negativity. Back at the shed it didn’t take long for Tommy to empty the two bottles of beer he’d secured in case of emergency. He’d kept to his vow not to drink whiskey, but instead of savoring small sips of beer like he promised himself he would, he chugged each bottle down. When there was no sign of Pearl returning, he put up a tiny fight against the urge to dig into his savings and go drinking at Churchill’s Saloon.
He’d had enough humiliation and it all felt fresh. The sorrow that had seeded when he began to recognize his father wasn’t coming was now in full sprout inside him. He deserved a drink for both his pain and for his good deed of sending payment to the family his father was indebted to.
He bounced some coins in his palm. Mama. The cottage. He shoved money into his pocket. If she was going to choose Mr. Hayes, well, she could wait a little longer for her beloved cottage. Tommy belonged to a club, and he was ready to drink and have some fun, like all the men who went there every single night.
He arrived at the saloon and peacocked in, shoulders back, owning his space and anything that came into arm’s reach. He’d had enough of being tentative.
“Beer! Get me a beer, barkeep! And you have one, too!” he said, feeling sure that he could control his behavior if he stayed away from hard booze. The barkeep pulled a face then poured a beer into a chilled mug for Tommy.
“You there!” Tommy gestured at a man at one of the tables beside the bar. “Have a beer on me! Drink up!”
The man’s face brightened and he mumbled a drunken thank you as he guzzled the last of the beer he already had.
All evening, Tommy was charming and fun, overdoing it by buying drinks for every fella through the door. He burned through his money, and the barkeep added hashmarks by Tommy’s name to keep track of his tab.
A finely dressed man slid behind the bar. Colt Churchill.
“Have a beer, Mr. Churchill!”
Colt raised a glass to Tommy and gave the barkeep permission to keep serving up beers, saying Tommy looked good for it.
Tommy raised his glass back. “I am good for it.” His tongue was fat with beer, slow to work right. “Ask the little family in San Diego for a recommendation on me being good for it!”
“Add another hashmark!” Tommy sucked it down.
A crew of men entered and Tommy made fast friends with them, trading stories of narrowly missing the police, singing drinking songs.
He became especially friendly with a man called Hamhock. “Oh, tipped the wagon the other day and tossed my brother clean off . . . Still won’t talk to me.”
Tommy slapped his back. “What? Little fun’s no good for your brother?”
Hamhock staggered into Tommy. “Jesus, he survived the crash. You’re alive, I says to him. Little wagon tip makes you appreciate your life all the more. Broken leg kept him from seeing it that way.”
“You should hear about my brother.”
“Didn’t appreciate my comment or the dumping he took,” Hamhock slurred.
Tommy was no longer really listening. “Never a minute of fun.” He chugged the half a beer he had left. Teasing about his brother felt rotten, only made Tommy want his brother to walk through those doors, years older than when he died. So he shut up about James and turned his thoughts elsewhere.
He and Hamhock kept at it, one upping each other with tales true and fantastic, and eventually found themselves falling off the stools, laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.
Hamhock swayed and bobbed his way out of the saloon and Tommy staggered to the faro game. But instead of playing, he yelled out who was cheating whom, exposing the coffin keeper’s trick in helping the bank by attaching thread to a chip to pull it in the direction that gave the bank a win.
When the dealer rushed at Tommy, he flipped the table, sending all the checks and cards flying. The spindly table legs broke off, and Tommy wobbled out of the saloon, where one foot caught on the other and he tumbled into the street.
Strong arms kept him upright. His rescuer grunted under Tommy’s weight while Tommy swung punches at him, unable to make hard contact or get his feet stable. Tommy pushed against the man and sent him tumbling into the road.
A policeman rode up in his rig.
Tommy waved at the officer, pulled the fella up and then leaned on him.
“You want to stuff that young man into my wagon? I’ll take him right to the courthouse.”
“I’ve got him, thank you, Officer.” The baritone was familiar. Tommy finally stumbled away from the man far enough to study his face.
“Mr. Hayes.” Tommy staggered back before catching his balance. “Jesus Christ. You.”
Mr. Hayes hooked Tommy under the arms.
“You know that jackass?”
Tommy and Mr. Hayes looked at each other, and Mr. Hayes said yes at the same time Tommy said no.
“If he’s your son, he can go with you. Otherwise dump him into the wagon, and I’ll bundle his wrists.”
Tommy finally stood still, even if swaying. Mr. Hayes put a hand on his shoulder. “You want to spend a night in jail?”
A chill rolled through Tommy. He shook his head, defeated.
“I’ll get my son home. Having a hard time of it lately.”
The policeman narrowed his gaze on them. “Best get him under control, then. Citizen groups are hot to lasso heathen men and wayward children. Cons and thieves. Hell, they might just drag me in one of these days if I don’t watch myself.”
Mr. Hayes latched his arm around Tommy’s waist. “Understood.”
The officer paused, staring at them.
“I’ll toss ya both in the clink if I see this mess again.”
Mr. Hayes doffed his hat. “Won’t see us again. On my honor.”
The wagon pulled away.
Tommy shrugged Mr. Hayes’s hand off.
“You need to stop, Tommy. Your mother needs you, and I know you understand that. But you can’t be pickled and—”
Tommy didn’t need a lecture. He brushed at Mr. Hayes’s shoulder. “You got some manure there.” He slurred and spittled as he talked.
“This way,” Mr. Hayes said, hands in pockets.
Tommy took one last glance at Mr. Hayes and beat a dusty path home, half stumbling, full-up with misery.
**
The journey home took longer than usual due to his mood, gait, and a fall at the side of the road where he suspected he may have napped for a bit before getting up and making his final way home. The walk, mixed with cold air, helped sober him. He entered the shed, expecting to see Pearl tucked into the bed in the loft. The fire was lit, Fern stretched beside it. At the washtub he scrubbed his face with oat soap and his teeth with a rag and peppermint water.
Could Pearl still be at Mama’s? He went back outside through the hedges. Lantern light shone from Mama’s kitchen. He knew tomorrow Mr. Hayes would tell her everything that happened, so he had to confide his side first.
Nervous to admit another round of bad behavior, he crept up the back stairs and peeked through the window. The lantern sat near the tub. If Mama was relaxing in the apology tub, perhaps she’d be open to hearing his reasons for drinking himself stupid and he could beg for forgiveness yet again.
He opened the door. “Mama!”
She turned.
Pearl.
She sank under the water up to her chin. “Tommy Arthur, you scared the wits clean out of me.”
“Sorry, Pearl.” The lantern light lit on Pearl’s face in the way he loved, creating a golden, angelic glow around her.
“I uh . . .”
“Ain’t never had a bath before,” she said, her hands culling the surface of the water. “Believe that?”
Tommy wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, trying not to stare, knowing she was naked under the dark water. “I should go.”
“No. Stay.”
He licked his lips. He should go.
She held up her hand, fingers spread. “Once read a letter written by Miss Simpson from Paradise, North Carolina, to Mr. Marks on Cornell Street, Des Moines. She described her pruny fingertips, puffy with swirls and whirls from bathing in fancy hotels as she waited for her family home to be built on some grand mountaintop.” She turned her hand back and forth. “Now I know what it means to be pruny.”
Tommy put his palm to hers, the sensation sending sparks through him. He met her gaze, his heartbeat calming just being near her. She’d been in the tub a while but still had dirt on her cheeks and near her lip.
“Why’re you in such a dark mood?” she asked.
Tommy blew out his air. “A misunderstanding.”
They stared at each other. “You have a mighty lot of misunderstandings, Tommy Arthur.”
Tommy went to the pie safe and took a cotton cloth from the drawer. He squatted and held the cloth up. “A smudge.” He brushed his fingers past his cheekbone to show her what he meant.
She cowered.
“All right? If I clean that spot?”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
He got closer and held the linen to her delicate cheek. “Sure it’s all right?”
She nodded.
He dipped the cloth in the water, wrung it out, and patted the spot between her nose and cheek, blotting away the dirt patches. “We do plenty of talking, Pearl, but I don’t even know your last name.” He shook his head, marveling at this fact, his lingering drunkenness making him slow to remember that she might not want to discuss family names.
“Riverside.”
“Riverside. That’s quite a name. Pearl Riverside of Des Moines? Of Dubuque?”
She closed her eyes as he dabbed at her skin and rewet and dabbed some more. “That’s what old Mrs. Fontell said ’fore she died and they released me from the orphanage and into the wild. Whole place shut down when she went into the ground. Me and the rest of the kids scattered like dust in the wind.”
“Pearl Riverside. I like that,” Tommy said, following the line of dirt along her cheekbone.
She smiled. Tommy dipped the rag again. The moon shifted into the window and cast its shine right through the glass, splashing over Pearl. Tommy inhaled at the sight.
“What?” she asked.
He put his attention on wetting and wringing out the cloth. He couldn’t really say what he thought, that word love had been forming in his sozzled mind and playing on his lips. He twisted the cloth until not one bit of dripping water gathered in the folds.
“Tell me,” she said.
He turned her face and dabbed at her other cheek. “The moonbeam’s falling on you as bright as a sunray. But . . .” His stomach flipped, and he dipped and wrung out the cloth. She kept his gaze, water droplets crowning her lashes.
“It’s like you’re lighting the moon, not the other way around.”
“Tommy.” She looked away, but not before he saw her smile widen. The kitchen was silent except for the crackling fire and the sound of water dripping when Tommy wrung the cloth. He traced the clean path he’d made on her skin, daubing her chin and every plane and valley of her fine face, taking as long as he possibly could to keep these moments from passing, half-wondering if they were real or alcohol-fueled dreams.
“Tilt your head.” He washed under her jawline, back toward her ear, and down her neck. He could barely keep from diving into the tub with her. He worked the rag over her collarbone, and his breath caught. Not only at the sight of her beauty, in response to his attraction, but he realized then the depths of what her presence did for him. She always accepted him as he was. No—she saw him as greater than he was at that moment, as though she intuited his past and believed in his future. He circled the cloth around her shoulder, and for the first time his eyes dropped to the waterline, searching for a view of the rest of her. The shadows obscured her beneath the water, but he wanted to see, wanted to touch her without the cloth between his fingers and her skin.
No.
He dropped the cloth in the water and put his back to the tub, sitting against it. The tin warmed him through his shirt.
Pearl touched the top of his head, water droplets working down to his scalp.
“Didn’t mean to be ungentlemanly, Pearl.”
She curled his hair around her fingers, sending thrills through him.
“You can touch me any way you want.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. What was she saying?
“Ain’t I pretty enough?”
Oh, how wrong that was. “’Course you are.”
She tapped the end of his nose with her forefinger.
“Not smart enough.”
“You’re brilliant. An uncut diamond.”
She shifted and started to rise out of the water, her shoulders coming into view, then her chest, her skin shimmering. “You can touch me. You can.”
He turned his back to the tub and knocked his head against it as he adjusted the crotch of his pants.
“No, Pearl.” Could he touch her? She wanted him to. What would be so bad if he just turned and touched her below the water, if he just kissed her a little bit? The thought excited him so much he couldn’t move.
The sound of the water shifting told him she’d sunk back into the tub. He exhaled.
“You’d be the first,” she said, twirling his hair through her fingers again, lighting him on fire.
“Your husband should be first.” Tommy rubbed his temples.
“Not what I meant.” She shifted again, sloshing water over the edge, drenching Tommy’s shoulders.
He looked over his shoulder. Pearl’s chin rested on her hands. Their connected gaze was almost too much for him to bear, the closeness like nothing he’d ever experienced.
“I mean you’d be the first not to touch me just because you wanted to.”
Tommy turned away. His insides turned cold. He brushed at his shirt as though he could flick away the water that had splattered over him. He’d known Pearl’s life had been hard. No parents, Rupert’s place. So alone. She was uneducated, unclean, and coarse, but the sweetness and optimism at her core like a miracle, had made him assume she’d managed to stave off anyone who pressed her, even if she got some bruising in the process. He looked back at her. “Oh, Pearl.”
She shrugged.
“It’s not right that it happened to you.”
“Not right doesn’t make it not so.”
He nodded, dazed. She was stunning but fragile, her long hair floating on the water surface. He was proud to be the one who didn’t, who wouldn’t press her to let him touch her. The one thing he’d done right that day. He dipped the cloth in the water again, wiping at her cheek. “Missed a spot.”
She leaned toward him, arms on the side of the tub, her forehead pressed to his. She cupped his cheek and brushed back his hair. He couldn’t breathe. “You ain’t missed a thing, Tommy Arthur. Not one thing.”
He clasped his hand over hers and gently put it back with her other. He wanted to scoop her up and lay her near the stove and warm her with his body.
He brushed his lips over hers then drew back. He couldn’t do this.
He handed her the cloth. “Get your legs and feet while you’re in there. Nothing like a first bath, I imagine,” he said.
“Right, so . . . I will.”
He exhaled and stood, unfolded the sheet that had been set aside for her to dry off and held it up so she could step into it without him seeing her. He wrapped her in it, her back to him. With his arms finally around her, with the sheet between them, he felt relief. He walked her toward the stove, keeping her tight against him.
He kissed the top of her head. She wormed one hand out of the sheet, laid her head back against him, and played with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Thank you, Tommy Arthur. You’re a great, great man. A good soul. No matter what else is wrong or going bad, you are good at your core. So very good.”
Tommy nearly fell over with the power of her faith in him. The strength of what she said scared him, making him unsure he could be who she thought he was. “Get dressed. You’ll catch pleurisy if you stand around in a wet sheet all night.”
Tommy left her there to dress while he headed back to the shed to stoke the fire. Trudging through the dormant garden, hands in his pockets, the crisp air stung his cheeks. He looked over his shoulder and saw Pearl in the window. He stopped, his heart kicking at the sight. He let what just happened in the kitchen settle into his body, good and sure. That girl, with her word collection and places she wanted to travel to, what she’d said about him, well, it was as though she reached right inside him and put that kitchen lantern on his heart, waking it up like a mother wakes her child, and the child realizes for the first time he’s alive.
She pulled her chemise over her head, her slight body shadowed, ethereal. He grabbed his chest, his heart beating against his hand.
Pearl.
She gave him hope that he really was the good man he always claimed to be. Perhaps Tommy didn’t need a mother. Perhaps all he needed was Pearl.