CHAPTER 36
Through the tangled limbs, the sky formed a canopy of blue stained glass. How could she have forgotten? How could color astonish her so? Emily lived in shadow and she knew it. Her back to the sun, she leaned into the great old sycamore tree, cradling herself in the split of its trunk. She fingered the bark in the crevice where the tree took two equal directions toward the light. She turned her cheek to one side and stared at the curling gray bark. She pulled a piece away, like a child picking at a scab on a partly healed gash. Under it curled another dark piece, and another. But under that, there was no more peeling, only a glimpse of the pale meat of the tree, like skin of whatever color the instant before it bleeds. Above the wound, a single green leaf grew from the hard trunk. Not a branch, but one solitary leaf.
A bunting’s rapid song came clear to her, the distant bark of a dog, and the sound of wagon wheels on the road. She surveyed the scene around her, the hills, with their magnitude of greens and the earthy, new-planted fields. Clearly this green and these woods and the birds had gone on without her, gone on without Charles and her father, without Will or Hammond, gone on in spite of the war. They would go on without her, too, when she was gone. Emily withdrew her fingers from the tree and walked into the field.
Small, and bluer by far than the sky, a feather lay at Emily’s feet among the clover and the milkweed in the ungrazed pasture. The cows had been in the back fields for weeks, and the buntings had come and gone in their migratory passing. Entranced, Emily had watched as a multitude of small birds rose and fell, wave on wave, like hovering blue jewels, cresting and plummeting, cascading over the fields. Their iridescence flashed and glimmered in the sunlight. She picked up the feather and brushed it against her cheek.
Holding the blue feather, Emily felt the intensity of all she could never know, what had been done and not done, and by whom, all of it buried in various graves. Her life hung over her like a wavering mirage of summer. Emily closed her eyes and leaned against the fence. A slight rustling made her blink. In front of her a lone blue bunting darted up. It mounted the air, then dove into the clover, up and down, seen, then not seen. Emily held out her hand. She yearned after this bird. She was a pillar of yearning in a field of green clover. The bird darted and swooped, a brilliance of unreachable, impossible blue in the sunlight; then he was gone. Still holding the single blue feather, Emily lowered her hand.
* * *
The length of wood was rough to Lambert’s touch, much like his own hands. He laid down the saw and righted the plank. The board would come smooth with sanding. Not so with his hands, no matter how much fat he rubbed into his skin. Rough hands were not a thing Lambert had ever cared about before, but now he thought of Emily, how soft the skin beneath her simple dress must be, how many years he had in age beyond her. In his hands, this board would become as smooth as he imagined her to be.
Lambert took a plane and a sanding block from a low shelf in the shed. He stretched his back, one hand on his lower spine as he returned to the stack of evenly cut boards. Laying one across the sawhorses, he took a few strokes, then paused to readjust the balance. Satisfied, Lambert addressed the board again, following the grain of the wood in firm, long strokes. This walnut would make a fine new cupboard.
When the sun was overhead, Lambert sat against the shady side of the barn and took out the cornbread and bacon Asa had wrapped in a clean handkerchief. Brushing crumbs from his breeches leg, he leaned back dozing in the warm spring air.
A great bellow from the south field woke Lambert, brought him to his feet in an instinctive sprint. He could see the bull, its horns trapped between two poles of the fence, its massive head jerking, its body braced with its powerful legs. He sprang over the fence, loping toward the enraged animal, visually assessing both danger and damage. His concern was for the bull. The fence could be mended. There seemed to be no injury, but the bull had yet to come to the same conclusion. It bellowed frantically, pulling against the fence pole. Asa had heard the ruckus and came running from the other end of the fence, ax in hand.
“You just back off now, Lambert. I got this one.”
The ax hovered in the air for a second and then sliced into the pole near the head of the frantic beast. The pole bent and split. The great animal lumbered backward, caught its balance, and charged at nothing, its hot breath smoking in the air. The brothers chuckled as the bull halted in confusion.
“Well, Lambert, reckon that’s what love’ll do for you,” said Asa. “Eh, boy! We’ll have to move him over to the other corral till that heifer’s out of heat.”
Asa slapped Lambert on the shoulder, chuckling, and strode back toward the barn. Lambert studied the bewildered bull, laughed, and spoke to the air.
“Well,” Lambert said to himself, “what are you waiting for?”
* * *
Great fork loads of hay dropped over Benjamin’s shoulder from the loft to the mounting wagonload below. The scent of earth emanated from the hay as it fell through shafts of sunlight, shifting from fodder to gold, back to fodder again. The sun outlined Benjamin’s face, his warm features intensified, his white froth of hair haloed in the golden light.
Across the open field, Benjamin spotted a man approaching on horseback. The man’s body adjusted easily to the horse’s gait so that his movement suited that of the animal. Benjamin wiped the sweat from his brow and leaned against the fork, watching, anxiety consuming him, as it did every day now since the Union scouts had appeared and Lucian had gone silent. Below him, in the yard, Benjamin heard the laughter of the children, Aimee and Rosa Claire, playing ring-around-the-rosy with Lonso, who threaded in and out between them. Ginny’s laughter, now returned, rang out with the mirth of the children.
Presently, the man’s form grew familiar. Benjamin relaxed and readjusted his grip on the fork. Below him, the dust of the hay still eddied in the light. Benjamin wiped his forehead again and pocketed his handkerchief. He resumed his task, though his fear for Lucian felt like the empty space below him. By the time Benjamin dropped the last fork of hay into the wagon, the rider and his horse had entered the yard. It was Mr. Lambert.
* * *
At the porch steps, Lambert removed his hat and peered up at Emily, working at her churn. He cleared his throat and propped his work boot on the lower step.
“Mr. Lambert.” Emily’s voice was cordial. “Would you care to come up and have a seat?”
Lambert settled on the edge of a cane chair next to hers. He twirled his hat in his hands, appeared uncertain what to do with it, then laid it on the floor.
“Nice day,” he said, looking around.
“Yes,” Emily said. She waited. He cleared his throat. “Well, Mr. Lambert,” she said, “what brings you here mid-afternoon on a workday?”
Lambert twisted his rough hands. “Well, Miss Emily, here it is. I have some things to say to you, but there’s some other things I need to say first, so I guess that’s where I should start.” He hesitated. “I was there that night, you see.”
Emily looked puzzled. Then her face blanched. She rose, reaching out to the back of the chair for support. She took a few halting steps and stood at the edge of the porch, her back to Lambert.
“I didn’t think you’d know that,” he said. “I don’t reckon Adeline would have ever talked about that night. But I was there. I was coming on foot toward town. On my way to Jenkins Saloon to fetch Logan Mackey’s boy home for his ma. If I’d been a mite earlier—well, no use talking like that. I wasn’t. Nothing changes what’s already done. It troubles me something awful. But I’m off the target now.” Lambert pressed his open hands against his thighs.
“Well, here’s the point, or thereabouts. I helped Adeline load Hammond in the wagon. He was like a baby. I laid him down comfortable as I could, as if that mattered—and I guess somehow it did. She wouldn’t let me help her after that. Sent me off to try to keep the sheriff alive.”
Lambert rubbed at the worn knee of his breeches.
“Point is, Emily, I don’t need as much imagination as another man might to put myself into your mind and heart. I know that can’t be done. But anyhow, maybe something akin.”
He rose and took a step toward her, where she gripped the porch railing.
“Strange way to go about this, Emily. Maybe I am a bit strange, or so folks think—some folks, leastways. Here I am more than twenty-three years your senior. By rights, you should still be a girl, and I could be your father. But you’ve had a share of hell not many folks could walk through. Though this war is making lots of them do just that. I reckon that makes the difference in our age not count for much.”
Lambert walked to the railing. His hand was close but not touching hers.
“My brother, Asa, and me been living together all these years, taking care of one another, not that he needed it, but I needed to care for something and he was there. Never courted, either one of us. I don’t guess I’m courting now.” Lambert half turned. “I’m just asking you to marry me.”
Emily considered his face, the weathered lines somehow softening it. She studied the kindness in his hazel eyes. Very slightly, she nodded. Lambert laid his coarse palm against her cheek. She turned her head in his hand and kissed his palm, then raised her lips to his. He held her to him, rocking. She leaned back, a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes.
* * *
When Lambert departed, kissing her hands, the part in her hair, her lips, Emily wandered through the last of the day, thinking. Lambert would not take away her suffering. She knew that. But that he had been witness to her anguish gave her peculiar comfort. There was no need to explain herself, no need to tell her story, or to hide it. Lambert’s story lay alongside hers, wove itself into hers without fixing it. With him, she was simply whoever she was. There was nothing different he wanted.
She would sleep on this, hold it through the night, like the pillow in her arms. Tomorrow, she and Ginny would turn her least worn dress inside out, spruce it as they could, and Lambert would come for her.
* * *
They were married by Jason Trumble, in the parsonage of the newly come pastor of Grace Methodist Church. The day was warm, with a cool breeze that forestalled the coming heat of summer. Asa served as witness for Lambert. The pastor’s wife, Nellie Anne, stood up for Emily. The children were at home with Ginny. No one else was present.
How different, Emily thought. How utterly different, in her simple cotton dress, trimmed with salvaged scraps from three other dresses that had succumbed to various rips and tears over years of wear. She felt authentic, beyond pretension now, with a simplicity that fit.
Lambert stood beside her, tall, lanky, his long beard newly cropped, his butternut frock coat hanging loose on his frame. He wrapped an arm around Emily’s shoulders, his other hand, warm and damp, cupping hers. She felt his gaze on her and smiled. His face was as steady as his hands.
When they returned from the parsonage, Ginny brought the children out to greet them. Lambert was not a stranger, but somehow both children sensed that today was different. While Rosa Claire flew to them both with arms outstretched, Lonso hid his face in Ginny’s skirts. When Ginny knelt to give him encouragement, he began to cry and buried his face in her neck.
“Shush now, baby,” Ginny crooned. “Ain’t everyday a little boy gets a new pappy.” She patted his back and smiled up at Lambert, who lifted Rosa Claire high in the air and settled her giggling on his shoulders. He bent toward Emily, into whose arms the little girl dropped in abandon, then immediately held out her hands to Lambert for another ride. As Rosa Claire played, Ginny shifted just enough for Lonso to see. He peeked over her shoulder.
“You want to go ride on your new pappy’s shoulder?” Ginny’s voice in the boy’s ear was a half-whisper. She transferred him to her knee and jiggled him as she spoke.
Lambert knelt with Rosa Claire perched on his shoulder, his other arm widespread toward the boy. “It’s all right, Lonso,” he said. “It’s just me coming by again. Only difference is this time, I’m not leaving.”
The boy disentangled himself from Ginny’s neck and squatted beside her. He stared up at his mother, who was peeking ’round at him from behind this man. She winked at the child, waving and crooking her finger. Dodging Lambert’s outstretched arm, Lonso ran to her. Emily wound her fingers into his soft curls, holding him close. From her vantage point on Lambert’s shoulder, Rosa Claire dissolved into laughter and twisted back and forth, her hands over his forehead. Lonso let go of Emily’s skirt and stood in front of Lambert, solemnly studying him.
“Well, Lonso, what do you think now?” Lambert studied the boy in return. Giggling, Rosa Claire hid her face behind Lambert’s head and Lonso slipped into his embrace.
Lambert pulled Rosa Claire’s hands from over his eye and spotted Aimee watching at the edge of the little gathering. “You, too, honey,” he said, and she came and stood beside Emily, still just watching. Rosa Claire jumped down from his shoulder and the two girls ran off, hand in hand, whispering and giggling.
On the sideboard, a wedding supper awaited the new family. Ginny and Jessie had spent the afternoon making it something festive. The meal was not lavish, given the war and the blockades, but generous and homey: a slow-cooked stew of beef and onions; green tomato pie with potato crust, minus the called-for lemon zest; layers of sliced turnips and potatoes baked with cheese; Indian bread; and rice pudding with molasses, flavored with a bit of brandy and the carefully hoarded nutmeg. Amidst repeated compliments to the cooks, who smiled as they had not done of late, Lambert did most of the talking. Emily concentrated on the children’s manners. Asa, a naturally quiet man, had a gentle way with children, and Emily noted them looking to him often for approval. He was aware of their curiosity and smiled at them, or winked and made little faces. Asa would make a fine uncle.
After supper, Ginny took the children to wash up and ready themselves for bed. The three adults sat by the fire. When the children came down for good-night hugs, neither was shy with Lambert or Asa. The adults rose to watch the children back up the stairs, catching blown kisses from the landing. No one sat again. Asa wished them well and said good night, going home to live, for the first time, alone.
“You got anything else for me, Miss Emily?” Ginny said, descending the stairs. “Jessie done cleaned the table.”
“No, Ginny. You go on home and get some rest. Jessie, too. Anything still to do tonight will be still to do in the morning. Not a single dirty pan has ever run away from home that I know of.”
Like sisters, the two women embraced, holding each other. Ginny stroked Emily’s back, then pushed away and ducked her head. Emily watched her go. When she turned to Lambert, he folded her in his arms. They stood beside the fire, rocking slightly, both of them soaking in the presence of the other.
“Lambert, I—” Emily spoke into the fabric of his shirt.
“Shh, now, love.” He stroked the back of her head and spoke into the air above her netted hair. “I have something to tell you.”
How kind and knowing his face is, Emily thought. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek in the palms of her hands. In the firelight, his eyes were dark pools, moist and vulnerable. Vulnerability stirred her always, beyond the scope of language. She trailed her fingers over his lips, across his undefended lids. She embraced the square turn of his bearded jaw in her hand and he pressed his lips into her palm.
“Emily, I—” Lambert paused. “I have loved you for a long time. Seems like I’ve been loving you all my life. I hardly remember not loving you. But by the time you were grown, I was already old. You were so young. I watched you from a ways off. At church. In town sometimes. At gatherings. I saw how sad you were. And shy. I saw you on the edges of a dance one night. I had it in my mind to speak to you when I saw Charles come sit beside you.”
Emily felt the memory, the strangeness to think that Lambert had been aware, had seen. She remembered his solemn face in the crowd.
“I knew you would be his. And I loved you without any hope you would ever be mine. I made up my mind I would stay ’round the edges of your life. I vowed never to interfere. And someday when I was truly old and you had aged yourself, when we both got so old it wouldn’t matter anymore, I told myself that I would find a way before I died to tell you, to make you know how dear you were to me. I’m not so good with words, but this love in me for you has held my life together, rooted me, made my life have meaning, even in your absence.”
Raising herself to meet him, Emily pulled his lips down to meet her own. She lay her cheek against his chest, where she could feel his heart.
“I never did let myself think on a night like this,” he said. “I’m so sorry for your pain, Emily. Terribly so. I would give you up all over again if I could spare you that. I reckon your suffering has broken all through me, and I hate to think that it is how you finally came to me. But, God forgive me, I’m grateful to have you mine.” As Lambert rocked her, his tears fell warm on her forehead. Emily rose on her toes and kissed the dampness of his cheeks.
“Oh, Lambert,” she said, “I never suspected.”
“And you never would have, apart from—” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
“I am sorry, too, Lambert, for everything that has come and gone. I’m glad I never knew and grateful that you spared me. But I am with you now, whatever the case, and that is all I need.”
They stood in the firelight, neither knowing more to say. Lambert bent and without releasing her hand, shoveled the ashes to bank the fire. Still holding hands, together they slid the fire screen into place. Lambert led her toward the stair.
* * *
Emily woke early. The air was clear and fresh. She stretched. Her body felt alive, fulfilled. Lambert had already risen, dressed, and was standing next to the bed, adjusting his suspenders.
“Good morning.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep, Emme.” He had given her this endearment, along with his name. Emme Lambert. She rolled the easy sound of it in the roof of her mouth.
“I’ll get up and start the fire,” she said.
“Ginny’s way ahead of you, Mrs. Lambert. She’s bustling around down there already. I saw the light from her lamp as she came across the yard earlier.”
“How long have you been up?”
“Not long—but long enough. I’ve been watching you sleep.”
Emily smiled, stretched again.
“You are beautiful, Emme. I don’t know how to speak of how I feel. To know that you are here beside me.” He stroked the curve of her cheek, where a slight scar remained. “I love you, Emme. I will never harm you if I know.”
As he slipped his arms under her, she covered his mouth with her fingertips.
“Go on now,” she said, kicking at the covers. Then aware of her nakedness, she recovered herself, fumbling for her nightdress.
Lambert watched, his face tender. He laughed and retrieved it from the floor, tossing it lightly over her face.
“I’ll see you at breakfast,” he said.
Emily listened to his lopsided steps descending the stair, one boot on, the other still dangling by the laces in his hand. She burrowed back into the covers, hugging the nightdress against her. She dared not think in comparisons.