I was going to have a daughter, and her name would be Antonia.
As hard as it was to believe—and as unbelievable as it seemed even an instant before Anna placed my hand on her belly—my sister’s lack of desire for motherhood was the answer to my prayers.
Though I worried she would come to regret her choice, Anna made it perfectly clear that she had no intention of staying in Blue Hills to raise the baby, nor did she plan to raise the baby herself somewhere else. Although she didn’t state it outright, I sensed she was eager to resume being footloose and fancy-free, unencumbered by an infant.
By Antonia.
So what could I do but agree that Jon and I would be her parents? No other thought even entered my mind. For, if we turned her away, where would Anna go to deliver? Somewhere far from us again, I was sure, likely out of the country. And what would she do with Antonia after that? Continue on her merry way and leave the child to be raised by people who were strangers to us?
Unthinkable.
Once I had regained my senses and accepted that my prodigal sister had returned and was offering me the most precious of gifts, it was far too easy to squash any internal moral conflict. Nor did I dwell on her motive because the truth seemed very simple: Jon and I desperately wanted a child and could not have one; Anna was having a child and did not want one. Would we be able to love her and raise her as our own?
Yes, yes, yes.
My faith in the black dress had been restored. Not only had it forecast Anna’s and my reunion—just as it had forecast my life with Jon Ashton—but it had realized my vision of the baby as well. The only obstacle that remained was convincing Jon that it was his fate, too.
When he came home from the winery, Anna and I were waiting. At first, it was enough to introduce them and make chitchat while Jon stared at Anna with narrowed eyes, as though she were our enemy. I couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. He had seen firsthand how devastating her disappearance had been to my parents and me. While he had the luxury of distrusting her, I did not. I had no choice but to embrace her.
“Where do you live now?” he asked her, once he’d washed his hands for dinner and settled into his favorite wing chair in front of the sprawling stone fireplace. All the windows were open, letting in a soft breeze. Even still, the air felt tense, and it wasn’t merely the heat.
Anna perched on the sofa, her sandals kicked off and bare feet tucked beneath the wide skirt of her sundress. “I’m guessing by that you mean a street address,” she said, and Jon nodded. “Hmm, that may be a problem since there’s no street where I’m staying.”
No street? I thought, alarmed, and realized she hadn’t told me where she was living in Blue Hills. Perhaps at the Southern Hotel in Ste. Gen under an alias?
Jon tried another tack. “Where was your home before you turned up here?” he asked, and I had to give him points for persistence. “Did you ever put down stakes?”
“Put down stakes,” Anna repeated and eyed him curiously. “Are you asking if I ever worked in a circus or lived in a tent? Because I did that once or twice.”
Which, the circus or the tent? I thought but kept my mouth closed. It was like watching a tennis match, as I kept tabs on them by the pass-through to the kitchen. While they conversed, I pulled apart a head of lettuce to make a salad.
“I meant something more permanent, like a building with four walls and a roof where you received mail.”
“Ah, I see,” Anna said and tapped a finger to her chin. “That’s a tricky one to answer, really. The truth is I’ve been here, there, and everywhere. I made friends wherever I went who weren’t afraid to free themselves of all the things that tie us down.”
“Like a family, a job, and a home?” my husband said, disdain in his voice.
“Yes, those things precisely.” Anna seemed amused rather than offended.
“Jonathan,” I sighed his name and looked up from the tomato I chopped, so nervous that my hands shook and I narrowly missed cutting off the tip of my thumb.
“It’s okay, Evie,” Anna told me. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Jon leaned forward, shoving elbows on his knees. “So how did you get yourself into this situation?” he asked, jerking his chin at her. “Having a child when you’re unmarried.”
“Dear God.” I pricked my thumb with the knife, drawing blood.
Anna’s expression turned positively impish. “Oh, my, you can’t really be ignorant as to how that works? Should I have a chat with him about the birds and the bees, Evie?”
This time, I chided her. “Annabelle, please.”
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I know that it’s déclassé to get in my situation unless you’ve got a ring on your finger, but there are plenty of women who find themselves knocked up regardless. And somehow the world keeps spinning, and Hell never seems to freeze over.”
Jon frowned, growing quiet.
For goodness’ sake.
I cleared my throat and jumped in. “Were you in Europe during your travels?” I asked my sister, finding much safer footing. “Did you see Rome and London? Or any of the spots on Daddy’s globe that you used to point at and sigh?”
“I saw as much as I could take in,” she replied, and her face lit up exactly the way I remembered. “I always figured there was a lot beyond this dinky town, but it was more than I imagined. When I tired of England and France, I went to Africa and South America after that. I felt like an explorer, Evie, going places I’d never envisioned. The hardest part was figuring out where to head next. The choices are endless!”
Jon shook his head as he listened.
“You never could sit still,” I remarked, because it was clear that hadn’t changed.
“And why should I, when the world is full of such color and noise? It’s like Christmas every day.” Anna pressed her fingers beneath her chin. “There is life outside of Blue Hills, you know. People celebrating and dying, fighting wars, making love. Every city is bursting with streetcars and autos and voices, and a heartbeat that feels alive.” She planted palms on her belly, glancing down, her smile dissipating. “Coming back feels a little like dying. I’m still not used to the quiet.”
“And sometimes I believe it’s never quiet enough,” I said and roughly cut an onion, the pungent scent enough to draw tears. How odd it was to realize that my sister and I had grown up in the same house wanting such different things. What I craved was a family of my own and peace, not crowds and noise and wars.
“So what do you do for a living?” Jonathan spoke up again, still trying to figure out Anna, as if that could ever be done. “I can’t imagine what type of work lets you move around like a hobo.”
Anna shifted position, dropping her feet to the floor so she faced Jonathan head-on. “Do I have to be something?”
“Everyone is something,” he replied and glanced at me with an expression of complete puzzlement.
Anna snorted. “It’s no wonder you fit together so well, Evie. He’s very pragmatic, isn’t he?” She crossed her legs, not bothering to tug down her dress, its hem well above her knees. Even from across the room, I could see the challenge in her eyes.
The egg timer dinged, and I slipped on a padded mitt to remove my sausage rice casserole from the oven.
“Anna, would you help set the table?” I asked, hoping to avoid an argument between them. We had more important things to discuss beyond what Anna did or didn’t do for a living. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know besides.
She uncurled herself from the sofa and rose to her feet. She slipped on her shoes before joining me. “Do you remember how Grandmother Charlotte used to hover over us as we set the table? She’d bark if we put the napkins on the wrong side of the plate or the water goblet where the bread dish was supposed to be. I was terrified of mixing up the dessert and salad forks.”
“How could I forget?” I said, laughing. “She scared the living daylights out of me, too. But don’t worry. Jon and I aren’t so formal here. You may eat your salad with a spoon for all I care.”
“And I figured you liked formality,” she quipped with a sideways glance.
Maybe neither of us knows the other as well as she thinks, I nearly remarked but kept the thought to myself.
As I pointed out the cutlery drawer and the cabinet where I kept place mats and napkins, she brushed against me and leaned in to whisper, “I don’t think your husband likes me much.”
“He’s only just met you,” I whispered back. “I’ve known you most of your life, and these past four years I didn’t much care for you myself.”
“Evie!” Her face fell, and she clutched the place mats to her chest. “You don’t mean that, do you? I thought you understood better than anyone. The dress—”
“Yes, yes, I know.” She’d had a vision, and it was her destiny. I didn’t doubt either. But I still couldn’t grasp why she’d stayed out of touch. It seemed particularly callous and careless, and I didn’t want to believe that was who Anna was. Which is why I made myself tell her, “No matter what, I’ll always love you. You’re my sister. That can’t be undone.”
“Good,” she said and sighed deeply. “It would hurt the most to lose you. I could deal with everything else.”
I rubbed her arm, not trusting myself to add to the conversation.
“You’ve made this place so pretty,” she said, and I was relieved that she didn’t press me further about my feelings. “It’s even nicer than I remember. Mother and Daddy never did much to it when we were kids and then it got so run-down after we moved into the Victorian.”
“You’re right, the cottage was positively rotting by the time we married and decided it’s where we wanted to live. We’ve worked hard on it, haven’t we, Jon?”
My husband grunted an affirmative.
“Well, it’s very sweet,” Anna said and strolled toward the hand-hewn table made by our great-great-grandfather. She set down three place mats and napkins, one after the other. I put out the plates and glasses while Anna laid out the knives, forks, and spoons.
As we brought the food to the table, Jonathan settled down beside me and Anna across from us. We bowed our heads, and I said a quick grace, before I reached for Jon’s plate to begin serving him and then Anna. I served myself last, as my mother had done with our family her whole life. “I’ve rarely eaten a hot meal,” she had told me once, and I sympathized.
Except for the occasional requests to “pass the butter, please,” or “may I have the salt,” we ate in relative silence. Despite the lack of formality, it almost felt as if Grandma Charlotte reigned over the dinner table again, keeping a watchful eye on everyone’s manners and effectively shutting down any spontaneous conversation.
It wasn’t until I had poured the coffee to serve with dessert—leftover brownies that Bridget had made for my father and which he’d insisted we take after last Sunday’s supper—that anyone dared to broach the subject of Anna’s sudden reappearance.
It was Jonathan who spoke first. “So, Miss Evans—”
“Anna, please.”
“So,” he began again, “you pop in from nowhere like a rabbit from a hat, with the sole purpose of giving us your child to raise, just like that?”
Anna didn’t even flinch. “That about covers it, yes.”
I pushed a brownie around my plate after taking a small bite I had to force myself to swallow. My throat felt dry, and my stomach fluttered with anxious butterflies.
“You’ll stick around till you give birth and then you’ll take off again while we do the hard part?” Jon persisted.
Oh, Lord. I set down my fork and put my hands in my lap, my fingers clasped to keep them still.
“Ah, so giving birth isn’t the hard part? Silly me, I thought it was.” Anna’s chin ticked up defensively. “Especially after what Evie’s told me about your difficulties.” She turned toward me and added, “For which I’m incredibly sorry.”
My cheeks burned as I hadn’t imagined she’d let on to Jonathan that I’d confided something so private. I could not look at my husband in that moment, though I felt the weight of his gaze on me. Instead, I turned a pleading look on Anna.
“You’re my family,” she said pointedly, as if I needed reminding. I felt certain that, had she not been my sister, we would never have been friends. We had so little in common but our roots. “This child will have your blood in her veins, Evelyn. She may even resemble you, and I hope she has your brains so she won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made and have her own kin treat her like a leper.”
With that, Anna sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, leaving short pieces sticking up haphazardly.
I saw her again as a girl, rolling on the grass and staring up at the sky. It’s a boa constrictor, I could hear her saying, and I wondered suddenly about a daughter who saw the world through her eyes. Perhaps I could teach Antonia to be more careful and not to run away and break her mother’s heart.
“We will all have what we need,” my sister went on, as Jon shifted in his seat and I sat passively, as I dared not take sides. “You do want this, the both of you?”
“Of course we do,” I replied and glanced at Jon to be sure I hadn’t misspoken. I usually found comfort in his face, but all I saw in that instant was confusion. “I promise, Annabelle, that we’ll love her as our own. Won’t we, Jonathan?”
There was a heartbreaking pause before he jerked his chin and said, “We will.”
I fairly wept with relief, although Jon hardly appeared at ease with the situation. His hand clenched to a fist around his fork, and I hoped he wouldn’t stab the old table. “Forgive me if I’m still trying to make sense of this. But I’ll go along with whatever Evie wants. In my world, she’s what’s most important.”
He looked at me and the stony set of his jaw softened. Such tenderness showed in his face that I knew he meant what he’d said: he would give me the stars and the moon if he could.
“It is what I want,” I said to him, a catch in my voice, my heart near to bursting.
“Then it’s settled.” Anna wore the same self-satisfied smile I’d seen when the black dress had shown me the vision. “We’re all on board.”
“Do you have a plan?” Jon asked.
“Well, of course, we must do this quietly,” Anna said, “without anyone suspecting the baby isn’t Evie’s.”
I wondered if the dress could make us both invisible for a while. How else could we do it without someone finding out that Anna was home and that, while I was no longer pregnant, she was?
“If you stay in Blue Hills for the next five months or more, it’ll be impossible to keep you out of sight,” Jonathan stated, his concerns not appeased any more than mine. “Our house is small and just up the road from your father’s. There are people who come and go this way without warning, workers from the vineyard who’ve been around here for years. If just one person sees you, the news will be all over town within minutes.”
“And it’s not just about hiding you, Annabelle,” I dared to speak up. “What about my part? How are we supposed to convince everyone that I still carry a child?” The mere idea had me panicking already.
“Evie darling, you always did worry too much,” Anna cooed. “Who knows about your recent loss? Anyone besides the three of us?”
I shook my head. Jon and I hadn’t called Dr. Langston’s office when I miscarried most recently. So, as far as he and his staff knew—and my father as well—I was nearly three months along.
“That’s good, very good,” she assured me. “Then it shouldn’t be difficult to convince Daddy that you’re still carrying his grandchild.”
I shifted in my seat, not as confident in her plans as she. “In a few months, I would be showing and growing steadily bigger after that. How will I fool them then? By stuffing pillows inside my clothing?”
“At least only Jonathan will see you naked and know the truth,” my sister said, and Jon spit coffee back into his cup. “Father might as well be made of marble, he’s so reserved. It’s not like he’ll want to rub your belly. And everyone knows how modest you are, Evelyn, plus you’re hardly a social butterfly. You can play the recluse until you deliver. Tell everyone within earshot that you’re seeing a specialist in the city and plan to give birth up there.” Anna paused, fiddling with the beads around her neck. “It won’t take much to convince Daddy. He’ll see what he wants to see anyway. We’ll just have to find a prop for your belly, like they use in the movies.”
“And where can I buy such a thing?” I asked, because I wasn’t aware of any catalogs or shops that dealt with women faking pregnancy.
She casually set her elbows on the table, as Mother and Charlotte had scolded us so often for doing as kids. “Oh, Lord, Evie, you’re the most intelligent person I know. And, Jonathan, you fiddle with machinery, don’t you? Whatever it is, I’m sure you’re good with your hands,” she remarked, her smile tight. “I imagine you two can figure out something she can wear beneath her clothes, like padded under-things.”
“You want me to make padded under-things for Evie? Christ Almighty.” My husband pushed back from the table, the legs of his chair grating on the wooden floor. I thought he might walk out, but he came to stand behind me and set his hands firmly on my shoulders. “I get why you want to do this, angel, I really do. But it doesn’t seem decent.”
I reached up to touch him. “You’re wrong about that. It’s the only decent thing we can do.”
“Evie can go on bed rest for most of her pregnancy, and no one will be the wiser,” Anna said, a brittle edge to her voice. “If anyone gets nosy, Jon can run interference. It’ll only be for a few months, not years.”
It could work. The timing was right. If Anna was at least three or four months along, her baby would come by Christmas. No one would even blink if I were to “deliver” a little early, not with my history, something I’m certain the gossips in Blue Hills had made common knowledge since everyone in Dr. Langston’s office knew I’d miscarried twice.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said as much for Jon as for myself. “Any sacrifice will be worth it. Antonia is worth it.”
“Why did you say that?” Jon gave me a funny look. “Why did you call the child that name?” He walked slowly away from me, moving around the table, his gaze darting between me and Anna. “How can you even be sure the baby is a girl? You act like that’s a given, or are you both fortune-tellers, too?”
I fell mute, not sure of how to answer without spilling the beans about the dress.
“Call it intuition,” Anna coolly replied and met my eyes. “Sometimes women have a way of sensing these things.”
“It’s true,” I got out, despite the dryness of my mouth, because that wasn’t a fib.
And if not coming clean about the dress to my own husband was a sin, then the dress had made me a sinner long ago, well before Anna had appeared on our front porch this afternoon.
Jonathan stopped his pacing, long enough to look at me. “Evie,” he said my name like a plea. “This is crazy.”
“Please,” I begged. “I know it won’t be easy, but in the end, we’ll have a daughter.”
He shook his head. “If we slip up, we’ll look like fools. What if Ingrid or Bridget find out what we’re doing? They’re with your father at the Victorian much of the time. If either of them saw something, how would we explain? How could we keep it from Franklin?”
“My God, you worry more than my sister,” Anna snapped, her blue eyes darkening. “Don’t give Bridget and Ingrid a second thought. They’re on our side.”
“What do you mean?” my husband asked, and I wondered suddenly if they already knew.
“They’re good at keeping secrets. Almost as good as Evie,” my sister said, and I heard a threat in her voice. I prayed she wouldn’t say anything about the black dress now. Jonathan was upset enough.
My husband didn’t seem to know what to think. He sighed deeply, as though the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “I have to consider this. Alone,” he said and glanced at me. “So if you’ll excuse me, I need some fresh air, desperately.”
“It’ll be dark soon,” I said and rose from my seat. “Don’t be gone long.”
“I know my way well enough.”
“Jon?” I worried about him and how he was taking this. The last thing I ever wanted to do was run him out of the house.
“I’ll be fine.” He waved off my concern and went to the door.
I winced as the screened door slapped shut, and I sank down again, fatigued by the tension and the cyclonic spinning of emotions in my heart. I hated myself for putting him through this so soon after the miscarriage. It was a lot for him to digest at once. It was a lot for me as well.
“Antonia’s father, he’s married, Evie,” Anna said out of nowhere, and the fight went out of her eyes. I noticed the shadows below them as if she rarely slept through the night. “The man I thought I loved, who I thought loved me, was never mine to begin with.”
“You didn’t know?” I asked, shocked by her revelation.
“Not at first.” She crossed her arms, her posture defensive. “Not until it was too late. He already has children, and he doesn’t want to leave his wife.”
“Where is he?”
“An ocean apart from here,” Anna said, her plump lips pressed into a thin line. “I doubt he even misses me or wonders where I am. I was just another girl.”
“I’m sorry he hurt you,” I told her and crossed the room to crouch beside her. I stroked her arm as she stared at the wall, seeing someone or someplace that I couldn’t. “It isn’t easy to let go of someone you love, is it? No matter the reason.”
If she understood what I’d implied, she didn’t let on, and I didn’t rub it in.
“I just wish the dress had warned me about him, too.” She sighed.
“He gave you Antonia,” I said to console her. “She is worth everything, and I promise I’ll never let anyone harm her.”
A slim eyebrow lifted. “Or drive her mad or break her heart?”
“Not if I can help it.”
When I saw her tears, she turned away. “I should go,” she said hastily. “It’s getting late besides, and I’m tired. We’re all tired.”
“Anna?” She brushed off my hand, and I scrambled to stand. “Go?” I asked. “Go where?”
Because I had no idea where she’d even come from, or how she’d arrived at the house, or where her bags were if she had any. Although I was around back when she arrived so I saw no car and no suitcase, only her. I doubted anyone else knew Anna was here, and she had no friends left in Blue Hills to speak of. But perhaps I was wrong.
“You can stay with us,” I said. “In fact, I insist.”
“I don’t think your husband would appreciate it.” She slipped out of her chair and left the table. “Don’t fret about me, Evie. I have a place to live until Antonia comes, somewhere safe and very much out of sight.”
“What place?” I felt myself growing more impatient with her every second. Anna had always seemed to enjoy keeping secrets far more than I.
“I’ve been with Ingrid and Bridget these past few days while I worked up the courage to come here.” Anna tossed the words over her shoulder on her way to the door. “I don’t know what I would have done without them.”
Ah, so that explained her remark that the two were “on our side.”
“Why couldn’t you have trusted me?” I asked and followed as she scurried out to the porch. I felt as I did when we were teens and she slipped out at night, never sharing where she’d gone or what she’d done. “Why did you go to them first?”
I stood with hands on hips, waiting as she retrieved her hat from the glider and held it like a shield across her middle.
“I went there because I need Ingrid’s help,” she replied crisply, though her eyes weren’t on me but on the road ahead of the cottage. “I want her to deliver Antonia.”
“Ingrid?” I repeated, frozen in place.
I thought of the quiet, plainspoken woman who’d cared for my mother and who’d cooked for Daddy. For as long as I’d known her, she’d worn her long hair in a single braid down her back, and she’d smiled only rarely because of crooked teeth. She’d delivered other babies in Ste. Gen County, and the women in these parts trusted her. I did as well, and I liked her, too; but I envisioned driving up to St. Louis before the birth, renting an apartment near one of the large city hospitals, where no one knew us and Anna could take my name and use my identification for the paperwork.
For Anna to remain here until the baby came and deliver it at Ingrid’s tree house across the river didn’t sit well with me. What if something should go wrong? What if Anna required medical attention? If we had to call in Dr. Langston, everyone in town would know of our charade.
“Oh, Anna, no,” I said. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s too late,” she insisted, and her face closed off. I felt her withdraw to a place I wasn’t welcome. “I’ve made up my mind, and it can’t be changed. Ingrid has always been good to me, and I trust her completely,” she said as she leaned against the railing, looking off in the distance.
The sun had set beyond the trees, and the sky had turned deep shades of pink and purple. I may have enjoyed the beauty of the moment if not for the growing knot in my belly.
“All right,” I said, because I couldn’t fight her. “I won’t try to change your mind.”
But I don’t know if she even heard. She had her gaze fixed on the road, and she ignored me quite thoroughly.
I tried to imagine the sister I’d known living with Ingrid and Bridget halfway across the river, and I felt like crying. I wanted Anna with me so I could watch over her and make sure she didn’t do anything risky. Then I thought of the kindness Ingrid and her daughter had shown to Mother when she was ill, and I knew they would provide a safe cocoon for Annabelle, away from prying eyes and away from Daddy.
“Ah, there she is!” Anna waved her hat like a flag.
I saw a cloud of dust rise from the gravel, stirred up by the wheels of a wood-paneled station wagon that had seen better days. I knew just whose wagon that was. I had seen it parked at the rear of the Victorian so many times throughout my life.
As it approached, I heard the rattle of the engine growing louder and louder. I trailed my sister down the steps and toward the drive, where she stood and waited for the car to arrive. Gravel popped beneath the tires as it pulled up in front.
Anna opened the door, and I ducked my head to see the driver.
“Hello, Bridget,” I said.
“Hey there, Miss Evie,” replied my father’s young housekeeper. She took her hand off the steering wheel to push unruly copper curls from her forehead. The same freckles that she’d had as a kid were splashed from cheek to cheek. “Don’t worry about Miss Annabelle. Ma and I will watch over her as ever, and the babe, too, until she comes. And never fear. I won’t tell a soul, not as long as I live,” she added with a solemn nod.
“When will I see you again?” I asked as Anna slid onto the front seat.
“Don’t worry, miss, we’ll be in touch,” Bridget answered for my sister.
Then Anna closed the door, effectively shutting me out.
They drove away as I stared after them, and I felt uneasy to my toes, knowing that Anna and I weren’t the only ones keeping secrets.
When Jon returned from his walk, the pastel sky had washed out and the dark had settled in. I called to him from the glider, and he ambled over, plunking down beside me. He said nothing at first, just took my hand and laced my fingers through his, holding on tight.
I set my head on his shoulder, the glider creaking as he gently pushed it with his legs, rocking us to and fro. “We’re okay, aren’t we?” I asked, my heart noisily thumping.
“We’re okay,” he replied, and I felt him kiss my hair.
I pressed my cheek against his cotton shirt, breathing in his scent, and I closed my eyes, wanting nothing more in life than to grow old with him.
“Your sister isn’t like you at all, is she?”
“No,” I said. I had tried to tell him before in so many ways. “But she’s a part of me. She always will be.”
He stopped pushing the glider and sighed. “She wants something, you know. I’m thinking it’s money. She can’t have much to her name, not after your dad cut her out like he did. And when he’s gone, everything will be yours, Evie, the winery, the house, the land.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said when I itched to tell him, It isn’t that.
I’d realized early on what Anna had come back for, beyond Antonia and the vision. It wasn’t Daddy’s money, the vineyard, or the Victorian manse our great-grandfather had built. It wasn’t even me, her big sister, the only one who tried to understand.
What Annabelle wanted more than all of that was a deceptively plain black silk frock. I could see it in her eyes the moment she’d asked, “So you still have it?” And I swore to myself that she would not get it, not until I had what I wanted as well.