After Alice Fell(31)

He holds on to the knob and plants a foot to the frame. His whisper is like a whistle of air. “The Bad Ones took it.”

She pries his fingers and marches him down the hall.

“Mama’s in a snit.”

“Mama is not in a snit.”

Clomps up the stairs. Thuds across his room.

Where is the locket? I want her locket, with the intricate pen-and-inks: Alice on the left, me on the right. I am already losing her image, the vital ebb and flow of her smiles and pouts. How she shook her hand at me for attention and stamped a foot if I didn’t give it. I want to touch the warmth of her skin, which was rough on the back of her hands from the sun and soft as a whisper at the nape of her neck. I want to brush her hair, then plait it and pin it with wildflowers. I want to snap at her for not helping in the house and then make Indian pudding to soothe her hurt.

But it’s her still, dead body I see.

I glance to the trunk and the lining of sea-blue silk patterned with carriages and tall ships. It sags in the middle of the lid and is loose along the bottom. Where’s the locket? Maybe. Just maybe. The lining tears easily. I tug it from the glue and rip along the stitches. Run my palm over the rough wood, then pick at the corners of puckered fabric and the brads that won’t give.

I turn to the mending basket by the mantel. Dig out my etui. I grab for the scissors, shaking them from their case, and slice through the silk—for the locket could have fallen in a seam, couldn’t it? Wedged itself in a corner or under the bottom casing?

There’s nothing but lint and a split wood button. I sit back. Stare at the fabric strips and the yaw of the trunk. I hurl the scissors; they smack against the bed stand and slide to the floor.

“What’s all this?” Cathy stands in the doorway. I didn’t hear her descend. She closes the door. Snick. Soft and calm. Crosses her hands at her waist and settles her shoulders. Her eyes stop on the trunk, on me, on the window glass and the swing of the willow branches outside. She kneels, taking my hand. Doesn’t look at me, just caresses the top of my hand with her thumb. Her fingers are dimpled and soft. She swallows, squeezing my hand too tight before returning to the caress. “It’s all put to rest now,” she says. “Haven’t we put this to rest?”

“I can’t.” My words strangle then, and I can’t stop shaking. I press my palms to my face. I won’t cry. It does nothing.

She hooks my hand, takes it up again in hers, then pulls me to her and rubs soft circles on the back of my neck. “It’s only us now. We are a small family; we must look out for each other.”

She is alone, Lydia wrote, and does not wish to join her family in Ohio. This wretched war! It marks us all. She weeps and sits often with us, and we feel Paul close at hand when we gather thus.

“I know what it’s like to lose people.” With a raise of her eyebrow, she smiles and stands, smoothing down her skirt and picking lint from the folds. “Let us be like real sisters.”

But then she seems to realize she’s been too forward. She steps back and bites the inside of her cheek before rummaging in the skirt pocket to pull out an envelope.

“You have a letter. It came earlier, but you and Toby were so adamant about the trunk . . .”

Mrs. Abbott is written in neat letters, overthought like a schoolchild, with a dollop of ink wiped from the final T.

I unseal the flap and remove a note written on rough paper.

Mrs. Abbott,

If you could met at the Trademan’s Inn, on 3rd St, H’boro Monday 730am—I would be most aprecitive.

Respectfull, Kitty Swain

—Pls respnd 5 Fayette if you can’t. I am a friend.

I push my fingers to my breastbone, blow out a thin breath, fold the note back to the envelope and into the pocket of my skirt.

“What is it?” Cathy asks.

“Nothing. Just a note from an old acquaintance. A nurse I knew in Baltimore. She’s in Harrowboro.” I swallow, then continue to lie. “She’s asked me to visit.”

“Oh. Well. A friend.”

“Yes. Could I take the buggy? Next Monday?”

Cathy picks the scissors up and sets them to a pillow. “It’s my calling day.”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll take the coach.”

She nods and taps her fingers to her thigh. “Where do you know her from?”

“Baltimore.” But I am afraid I’ve stumbled on the word. “Her name is Maddie Leavitt.”

“Well.” Cathy steps close and runs her hands down my arms. “There you are. You must see your Maddie Leavitt, then.”





Chapter Thirteen


There’s a rumble of men’s voices in the back garden, a cough, the acrid curl of pipe smoke. I shift the curtain. Elias’s pointing at the mounds and ruins of the glass house, then he jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the boathouse. The other man’s back is to me, but there’s something familiar in the way he stands so still, in the brown canvas trousers crusted on the bottom with dirt. He wipes his neck with a bare hand and points to the boathouse. Something familiar. But then he and Elias amble away out of my sight line.

A knock comes on the door, tentative, as if the owner of it is worried he’ll wake me.

I pull a shawl from the wardrobe. “Who is it?”

“It’s only me.”