After three years of marriage to Jon, my faith in the magic of the black dress had been shaken. The last vision it had shown me still hadn’t come to pass. Regardless, every time I closed my eyes, I saw that vision again: Anna with short hair, looking on as I held a baby in my arms, my child. I kept waiting for that moment when my life would be filled with such unimaginable bliss. But, so far, I had only known loss.
I miscarried just after Christmas when we were still newlyweds, and I wondered if it was my fault for being on my feet too much. Although Dr. Langston, the kindly town doctor who could’ve passed for my grandfather, promised I should have no problem getting pregnant again and carrying to term. He had found nothing wrong with me physically except a tipped uterus, which he insisted did not make bearing a child impossible, and he suggested stress might have played a part in things.
That wasn’t hard for me to believe, as I had so much more to do than teach my fifth-grade class and care for my new husband.
My mother had been sinking deeper and deeper into depression, and my father had hired a local woman named Ingrid Dittmer and her daughter, Bridget, to look after Mother when I couldn’t. I knew them both well enough, as Ingrid had cooked and cleaned for our family on and off for years. When I’d first met them—after Grandma Charlotte had passed—I was a child of eight, and Bridget was five, exactly Anna’s age. Ingrid would bring Bridget over and the two girls would play together, making me feel like a third wheel; although I’d occasionally tried to worm my way into their games.
“You be the princess, and I’ll be the queen,” Anna would instruct the redheaded Bridget, who’d nod, gladly doing anything that Anna requested.
“I want to play, too,” I’d say, and my sister would sigh and look me over.
“All right, Evelyn Alice, you can be the wicked witch,” Anna would tell me, and I would scowl because I saw no reason why I couldn’t be a queen or a princess, too.
“Why do you always want me to be bad?” I’d ask, and she would smile ever so sweetly.
“Because I should imagine it’s very tiring always being so good, isn’t it?”
In the end, I would leave the two to play alone until dusk fell and Mother called us for dinner, and Ingrid packed Bridget into the car and drove off.
I was never sure exactly when Ingrid was widowed. I’d once heard that her husband had died in Korea. Some in town whispered that she’d never been married at all. For as long as I’d known her anyway, she’d raised Bridget single-handedly in their cottage on stilts halfway across the river on tiny Mosquito Island, accessible only by boat. They had a wood-paneled station wagon they drove to and from the docks where they tied up their skiff.
Occasionally, if Ingrid’s arthritis acted up, Bridget came across without her; but typically, they arrived together. Bridget did much of the vigorous housework and the cooking, while Ingrid tended to my mother. She was good with women and children, and knew enough of herbal remedies and midwifery to have a devoted following in Blue Hills, including Helen von Hagen, most of whose brood she’d delivered.
On Sundays, when Ingrid and Bridget were not there, I stayed with Mother, feeding her, bathing her, and talking to her even when she would sit and stare at the wall, seeing—and probably hearing—nothing in particular. I had wished then as I’d wished so often that Beatrice Evans had more spunk in her, “more McGillis,” like Anna and Grandma Charlotte. Perhaps she would have weathered Anna’s absence better, soldiering on rather than lying down and giving up. If I could have done anything to bring her out of it, I would have. Begging and crying had no effect.
“Her spirit started slipping away the day that Annabelle left,” I told Jon, and I meant it. I didn’t like to think she loved me any less than she did Anna, but it was hard not to believe it. Else, I figured, she would have tried harder to stick around.
As ghastly as it might sound, it was almost a relief when Mother died in her sleep in mid-winter. I think my father felt the same, though it was not something we ever talked about. What Daddy didn’t tell anyone but me was that he’d found an empty bottle of sherry and a near-empty bottle of her pain pills at her bedside. “She didn’t want to stay, Evie,” he told me, shadows dark beneath his eyes. “Not even for us. It just hurt too much.”
When I’d tearfully reached for his hand, holding it tightly as my mother’s casket was lowered into her place in our family plot, he’d uttered dully in my ear, “This is her fault.”
By “her,” I realized whom he meant, and it wasn’t Beatrice Morgan Evans, his wife through twenty-seven years and mother of his two children.
I wondered if Anna had any inkling of how much she’d damaged those she’d left behind. I wondered, too, if she ever thought about us, cared enough to try to find out how we were, even if she didn’t have the nerve to speak to us or show her face in Blue Hills again.
Whatever sorrow she’d carved into my heart had begun scarring over with resentment. Rather than see my younger sister as rebellious and free-spirited, I’d begun to paint her as a self-centered dreamer who’d abandoned us for greener pastures, leaving me to patch together all the pieces of her shattered relationships.
“You’re a strong woman, Evelyn, far stronger than I ever gave you credit for,” my father told me as I stood in the kitchen with him while I played hostess to the friends and neighbors who appeared at the house for food and drink following Mother’s interment. I noticed the number of guests who came to pay their respects was far smaller than the hundreds who’d RSVP’d to Anna’s wedding. And, of course, we didn’t hear a word from the Cummings clan, who’d been too hard-hearted even to mail a note of condolence. Despite their disfavor toward my family, it would have been nice for them to acknowledge us in our grief.
When everyone had gone, and I’d put away as many casseroles and molded salads as the tiny icebox could hold, my father asked Jon and me to sit with him for a moment in his den. He lit his pipe and settled into the worn leather club chair. Then, without further ado, he proposed that we move out of the cozy house that my great-grandfather Herman Morgan had built just up the graveled road, where we’d been residing since our wedding, and come live with him in the Victorian.
“Oh, Daddy, I don’t know,” came out of my mouth before I had a chance to think, and Jon likewise murmured, “That’s very generous of you, sir, but that would make for some very close quarters.”
Much as I loved my father and desperately wanted to please him, I knew this was something we couldn’t do. Jon and I both wanted to start our life together without prying eyes, something that would’ve been impossible inside the Victorian, where we would be constantly tiptoeing around my grieving father and the ghost of my sister.
“We’ll always be near,” I answered as Jon nodded in agreement. “We won’t ever go farther than the cottage, I promise.”
I knew that one of my father’s greatest fears was that Jon and I would pick up and relocate somewhere miles away from him, leaving him squarely alone. He appeared to accept our decision good-naturedly and, in fact, condoned our need for privacy.
“Newlyweds should have space to themselves,” he agreed, although I figured there was a motive behind his quick capitulation, and there was. “You’ll be giving me grandchildren soon, I hope. It would be wonderful to hear the sound of laughter again and the pitter-patter of little feet.”
“We’re trying, sir,” Jon replied as I blushed.
My father didn’t know about the loss of our first child. It had happened so early in the pregnancy that Jon and I hadn’t told anyone. “We will try again soon,” I promised my husband when we left the Victorian and walked hand in hand up the graveled road to our home.
And we did try, often and joyously. We loved each other fiercely, and we weren’t shy about it when we were in private.
By the fall of our second year as man and wife, I had quit my teaching job to work at the winery, helping my father with the bookkeeping. I didn’t mind the change, because it kept me near Jonathan. He’d long since left his position as a mechanic repairing engines on riverboats and barges. Just after our honeymoon, as it were, my father had discussed with Jon the possibility of his becoming part of the family business. Jon had taken him up on it instantly, sealing the deal with a handshake.
Daddy had seemed sincerely grateful.
My excitement for the new direction our lives had taken made it vaguely easier to accept the heartache I seemed to rack up, one after the other. Besides, I had plenty to be grateful for, namely my father’s acceptance of Jon into the fold and the fact that my husband would no longer come home smelling of the river. Not that I minded what he had done for a living—it was honest work, and he was good at it—but breathing the odors of mud and fish on his skin and his clothes reminded me too much of the day that Anna had left Blue Hills and the dress had nearly drowned me.
At first, I feared that Jon would hate working with my father; but they seemed to get on well enough. Jon was good with his hands, good at fixing anything mechanical, and Daddy had put him in charge of updating the machinery at the winery. My husband had even suggested using newfangled refrigerated stainless-steel fermentation tanks. “I’ve read research that says it’s much safer, sir, and shouldn’t affect the taste,” I heard him tell my father one day when I was in the office, updating the books.
Once my dad learned that Archibald Cummings was still using wooden vats for fermenting, he agreed, and as word spread about the Morgan winery modernizing, other area vineyards scrambled to follow suit.
After that, I think Daddy would’ve done anything Jon wanted him to do. It seemed a match made in heaven and nearly had my father forgetting that Jon and I couldn’t seem to produce him an heir.
“You’re all I have left, Evie,” he frequently reminded me, which only served to increase my anxiety. I wanted so badly to have a child while my father was still living, to give him hope for the future; to give us all hope.
But by the end of that year, I had miscarried for a second time, and I feared that having babies might be something I wasn’t equipped for. Even Dr. Langston changed his tune. “Some women just can’t seem to go full-term, Miss Evelyn,” he informed me. “Their bodies reject the fetus for reasons we may never fully understand. I’m sorry to say that may be the case with you.”
While I heard him, I didn’t listen.
Amidst the summer of our third married year, I knew I was again with child. It had been nearly two months since my last monthly flow, and I had the same morning nausea I’d had twice before. When I saw Dr. Langston, he took a blood sample and solemnly suggested I not get my hopes up. When his nurse phoned two days after to confirm that I was pregnant, I already knew it for a fact. By then, I had missed two periods, and I felt confident enough that I would not lose this child that I told my father.
“Evelyn, sweetheart, that’s the best news I’ve had since your mom and I were blessed with you,” he said and hugged me so tightly I thought he might never let go.
Jon and I did ask him to keep mum until another few months had gone by, just to be on the safe side. Daddy crossed his heart and said he would.
Each night as I lay my head on my pillow, I put my hands on the slope of my belly and prayed that everything would be okay; that I would bear the sweet babe that I saw in my vision. Since I wasn’t teaching school, I could rest more and put up my feet, and I made sure to sit comfortably when I was working on the accounts at the winery. I ate well and napped often, and I was feeling fairly confident that I’d reach a full trimester when it happened again.
The cramps awoke me before sunrise one morning in early June, and I doubled over in bed, clutching my stomach and groaning through my gritted teeth. It felt like the worst menstrual pain I’d ever experienced.
Jon opened his eyes and reached out for me.
“Evie, my God, what’s wrong?” he asked, as I rolled into a fetal position and rocked myself, desperate to protect this tiny being within me, hoping the pain would stop. The earlier miscarriages had not been so vicious, mostly hurting my soul; this one hurt my body as well, enough that something inside me understood it would be the last.
“It’s happening,” I whispered, and Jon knew precisely what I meant.
“Towels,” he said, thinking aloud, and then he vanished to the linen closet.
I felt the gush of blood between my legs, clots of it, wetting my underwear and my nightgown. The cramps stabbed at my lower abdomen, one after the other until they blurred together in an ache that wouldn’t cease. If hours passed, I didn’t know it. I could only stay curled up tight, moaning, while Jon hovered, as unsure of what to do as each time before.
“Should I call the doctor?” he had asked at some point, gently nudging a fresh towel between my thighs. From the corner of my tear-filled eyes, I could see him frantically pulling on pants and a shirt. “We could meet him at his office. I could carry you to the truck.”
But all I could do was sob, because I knew it was too late.
He crouched beside me, holding me awkwardly, pressing his cheek to my hair. “Not again,” he whispered. “It isn’t fair, Evie angel. Damn it, but this isn’t right when we want it so badly.”
It seemed forever and a day before I could bear to unfurl my tired body and get up. But when the worst had passed, when the cramps softened up and the blood became spotty, I dragged myself from bed and ran warm water in the claw-foot bathtub while Jon changed the linens. As I cleaned myself up in the tub and ignored the pink stain that ran down the drain, I tried not to consider what Jon would do with the sheets and towels too bloodied to clean; I tried not to think about anything.
I put on a fresh nightgown and sat on the sofa, my knees pulled to my chest, waiting for Jon to come back, hating the sight of dawn beyond the windows. The sky looked as pink as the watery blood I’d scrubbed from my thighs.
Somehow, I fell asleep on the couch and woke to the sunlight.
Even walking into the bathroom and standing to splash my face caused my whole being to ache. Every part of me felt torn apart, inside and out.
Jon wanted to call Dr. Langston to come and examine me, but I implored him not to ring the office. If I didn’t feel my normal self in a few days, I would gladly let him drive me into town for an examination. But I had gone through this twice already.
I didn’t need any medication but a little time and space.
Besides, I didn’t want anyone to know what had transpired, not yet, especially not my father. When he had remarked the other night after dinner how amazing it was that he could have a grandchild by Christmas, his eyes had lit up in a way I had not seen since Anna’s engagement to Davis Cummings. How could I tell him now that it wouldn’t happen? How could I take that away?
All I could think was that the dress had deceived me.
Where was the healthy baby I’d held in my arms and what about my sister’s words that I was meant to be a mother? Why would it show me something so beautiful when the truth was so cruel?
“We’ll be all right,” Jon kept assuring me, and I would nod each time, the gesture meaningless.
After fibbing to my father that I’d caught a bad summer cold, I stayed away from the winery until I was sure the blood—and my tears—had ceased to flow. I’d heard the expression “death warmed over” before, but now I understood all too clearly how it felt. No matter how often Jon assured me that none of the blame for what happened was mine—“maybe fate has another hand to deal us, Evie”—I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with me that my body couldn’t keep a baby alive inside it.
It wasn’t till the next week that I finally got out of bed and dressed.
Jon kissed me gently before he left for work. “Evie sweet, you’re looking pinker in the cheeks,” he said and rubbed my shoulder. “Maybe you’ll want to get outside today, sit on the porch for a while before it’s too hot. And keep your chin up, okay? No matter what old Doc Langston has said in the past, he doesn’t know everything. Hell, he’s older than the dirt around here. I think he’s wrong about this.”
“Do you really?”
“I do.” He sounded so certain, far more than I could even pretend to be.
I bit my lip, not sure anymore what I believed. I was still too numb to see past that morning. All I wanted was to get through it and this afternoon and this evening and the morning that followed. No longer would I look ahead, expecting so much and receiving so little in return.
Despite the gray beneath my eyes, my cheeks had regained a pinch of color, and my body ached less. I instinctively pressed my hands to my belly, which felt smaller already; although my breasts still seemed swollen. I had loved being pregnant, even the morning sickness, because it reminded me of the child I carried. How could I go through life never knowing that feeling again?
Jon was right. Moving around a bit would probably be better than moping. I put on a T-shirt and a pair of denim cut-offs with the top button open, deciding I would work in the garden. It definitely needed weeding, and the sunlight might shake me out of my doldrums.
For a while, I simply sat on the back porch steps, my cotton gloves on and my spade in hand. My gaze took in everything around me: the towering oaks and maples, the wooded copse to one side and a small hill on the other that nearly obscured the running rows of grapevines. We had dug a small plot for vegetables and another for perennials so I would always have something growing, at least most of the year-round.
I was so proud of our little house and so glad we’d declined to move into the Victorian with Daddy. The cottage had been in shambles three years before when we’d asked my parents if we could reside in it. No one had lived there since my own family when I was a child, before Joseph Morgan had died and we’d moved into the Victorian with Charlotte.
Jon and I had labored deep into the night once the workday was done and from morning until dusk on weekends in order to remove the dirt and dust. We’d replaced rotted floorboards and bad window frames, scraped off faded wallpaper, and added fresh paint, even patched up the roof, until we had turned the place into a real home, a nest where we could escape from the rest of the world.
It was rare when a visitor came down the gravel road to see us, so I wasn’t concerned about leaving the house to spend the morning weeding the back garden. When I finally tired of kneeling and bending, I retired my trowel, removed my canvas gloves, brushed off my knees, and brought the broom out to sweep the front porch. That was how I found the woman in the pink dress and floppy hat sitting on my wicker glider. Dappled sunlight flickered through the gingerbread trim on the underside of the eaves, painting the air with flashes of gold and creating a haze around her silhouette. She looked ethereal.
“Hello,” I said and set aside the broom. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes, actually, I’m hoping that you can,” she said and rose from the cushions. Relieved of her weight, the glider swayed and creaked. And carried on the breeze, a sweet and unforgettable scent that teased my nose: lily of the valley.
I didn’t recognize her at first, not until she removed her hat and set it on the glider. The dark hair was cut so short she looked boyish; yet even beneath the billowy sundress, I could tell that her body had ripened so she was less a girl and more a woman.
“Dear God, it can’t be,” I whispered, sure that I was seeing a ghost.
“Come now, Evie,” she said and smiled at me. “Is that any way to greet your baby sister?”