Hester(73)
* * *
ON TUESDAY MORNING I deliver one dozen pair of gloves to Felicity, who holds each set up to the light as if she’s looking for a secret hidden there.
“How have you done it?” It’s as if she’s angry. “These are a marvel.”
The gloves are a part of me—they have my flesh and tiny bits of blood where the thimble did not stop the needle from piercing my skin. They have Nat, the colors he left on me. They have what I’ve seen in the Marine Society Hall, the flowers on my walks, even sprigs of hawthorn that I do not expect Felicity to recognize.
“I’m glad you’re pleased.” I struggle for a breath and hear my words come out as if through a long, tight reed. “I’ve worked very hard to please you, Mrs. Adams.”
With Felicity’s money in my pocket, I walk through town slowly. The wet heat drags me down, the lack of sleep has put me in a daze. I do not notice the rain clouds until I am up on High Street where the rope makers and cutters have their stores and shops. A clap of thunder shakes the sky, but I do not want to take refuge anywhere but home, where Nat can find me if he wants me. Where I can hide away if he does not.
I’m hurrying to stay ahead of the rain when the newspaper office door opens and Nat steps into the road without looking up. His face is dark gray, as if veiled. In his hand he clutches a sheaf of papers.
I freeze. I want to run to him. I want to cry out. I want to hide.
He heads east, walking away from me. He is moving as if he is treading through cold water, cold fury, something frigid and impenetrable.
It’s a thick, dark day now with storm clouds gathering from the east. I keep my eyes on Nat as he rounds the corner quickly, the dusty street kicking up behind him. I am distraught with all that I see on his face—all the days and nights that he has not come to me, or sent word, or left me some sign of his affection.
He’s suffering, but he’s kept himself away.
I take the shortcut past the graveyard and skirt the black iron fence that borders the north of the cemetery. Wind whips and my hair rises with it as if something is tugging at me. And then I see Nat. His back is to me and he is kicking at a tombstone, ripping his papers into shreds.
His jacket is off, and I can see faint streaks of blood at his shoulder again. His name leaves my lips in less than a whisper. For the first time in my life I see the color of my own words, and in them I see the story that he told me about the girl in the garden, the poisoned plants that I drew while he read, the mother who dies in childbirth.
Who is the deathly girl in his stories? Who is the girl who dies of love?
I understand now—it is me.
Salem, 1808
Infant by her side, daughter and son sleeping in their beds, Elizabeth Manning Hathorne watches her husband prepare for his long sea journey. The city has grown fat with cod and sugar back and forth to Africa and the West Indies, and this has made the Salem sea captains rich. Their wives walk past her in dresses finer than any she’s ever owned, and Elizabeth covets their silks for herself and her daughters.
“This trip will secure our future,” Nathaniel says when he embraces her in the morning.
Elizabeth knows her husband hopes to earn enough to build them a true home and restore his family name to the glory it once held in Salem.
She remembers when she wanted him desperately, so that they could be joined like a river to the earth. To be earth and river and wind—this was what she wanted.
She imagined herself a poet. Now she only wants the silks and a fine home in which to entertain her brothers.
* * *
When word comes that her husband has died at sea of yellow fever, Elizabeth Hathorne looks at the four-year-old boy who sleeps with his father’s cap on his pillow and she tells him to be brave.
“Your father had a great name, and now it is yours alone to carry,” she says.
But she is not brave. She puts on her widow’s weeds and moves back to her father’s house, and she lets little Nat run along the docks chasing ghosts and shadows until he, too, imagines himself a poet.
TWENTY-FOUR
East Meeting House is surrounded by well-wishers lining up to enter on the morning of Charlotte’s wedding. It’s only half past nine, but the benches are already full as I squeeze into a standing space where I’m pressed against a wall. Nat enters with his sister on his arm and walks to the family pew, looking neither left nor right, and I feel a stab of utter sorrow that he has not looked my way.
At ten o’clock the church bells ring and Mrs. Silas enters on the arm of a gentleman I do not know. She stares straight ahead as she makes her way to the front and takes her seat. The groom appears beside the minister. He’s tall, with a shock of red hair. His jaw is square, and instead of the nerves I expected, he’s smiling.
When Charlotte enters on the captain’s arm there’s a great rustle of dresses and shoes and small gasps from the ladies. I’ve made the dress and seen Charlotte in it, adjusted the bustle and created the length of netting that falls over her shoulders to her waist—and still, the sight of her makes my eyes mist. Charlotte is a kind girl, and I am glad that she has this radiant moment.
The ceremony is long, but I don’t hear it. I am watching Nat from behind, the way he keeps himself erect between his sister and his uncle Robert Manning.