The River Widow(41)

Adah read through the stack and then put each letter back exactly the way she’d found them.

It appeared as if Betsy had been enduring the kind of treatment that Adah had, that she hadn’t confided completely in anyone—people rarely talked about mistreatment or unhappiness—and Adah hadn’t, either. But if Lester had been abusive to Adah, why not toward his first wife, too? Why wouldn’t his fists have made contact with more than one woman’s flesh? But had he become so enraged he had actually killed her?

Her mind was a labyrinth of questions.

Then Adah remembered back to the night of the flood, something she rarely did now, and her ribs ached as she relived Lester’s hitting her in the face and kicking her sides. How long might the assault have gone on? She couldn’t say. It had always taken Les a long time to simmer down. And then it dawned clear. Yes, Lester had been capable of killing her: he’d killed his first wife.

So did that let her off the hook? An eye for an eye? A life for a life? Was she less a murderer because Lester had been one? Was it less a killing because he might have killed Adah, too?

She wasn’t sure, but she was suddenly able to breathe again, to pull life into her body again in a way she hadn’t done since the night of the flood. This new information about Betsy Branch, while both terrifying and horrifying, was also a gift, one delivered by the most unlikely of messengers, an unusual man named Jack Darby.

Adah eased off her tight-fitting wedding band, a thin gold circle. Not once had she removed it since the flood. It had survived along with her, and it would’ve seemed odd to others if she had already stopped wearing her dead husband’s ring. But now . . . The ring warmed in her hand, and she set it on the bedside table.

During the first year of her marriage to Lester, Adah had missed her period and after a few weeks had told Les she thought she was expecting. Her husband had slapped his hand on the table, not in anger but in happiness, and said, “It’ll be a boy this time.” He’d been thrilled for a few brief days, but when Adah began to bleed heavily and concluded that she’d miscarried, his mood had transformed. He’d hit her hard the first time a few days later, and a pattern had started to develop. Anything that disappointed Lester ended in his curled fist. The last thing she had wanted was a baby in the mix.

Once, she’d overheard Jessamine, who had been an expert in herbs, tell a woman how to make a homespun spermicide to prevent pregnancy. Adah had remembered the recipe and followed that advice for the remainder of the marriage, even though her apparent barrenness had angered Lester further and driven an even bigger wedge between her and all the Branches.

Her wedding ring seemed to glare at her now with one knowing eye. She would have to wear it around others for appearance’s sake. But no way would she ever again wear that ring to bed.





Chapter Fourteen

The following day, Adah returned to Jack Darby’s house on the way back from delivering clean laundry to one customer and picking up a load of dirty laundry from another. She set her laundry basket on his porch, went in search of him, and found him grooming a horse in the barn, where two stables flanked the front section.

He looked up at her, surprise on his face, and stopped what he had been doing.

“Don’t take the letter,” she said, standing in the broad, open sunlit doorway. Adah had thought about suggesting Jack take the letter to a lawyer in another city, but she’d decided it would be asking too much.

He gazed at her with one eyebrow lowered, and she had the feeling she always had around him, that she was transparent. With the prismed sunlight and soft hum of the land, they were on their own. But frankness was foreign to her, so it took her a while to form her words.

“I’m giving up,” she finally said as explanation, “at least for now. I’ll never give up entirely, but I don’t have a way out at the moment.”

And then the most profound sense of failure came over her. Over the course of the night, she’d decided she had no choice but to stay put and look after Daisy, protecting her as much as possible from the Branches until she was old enough to leave on her own. Even though she knew with some certainty that the family was capable of covering up a murder, she also felt something of relief about her safety. The Branches weren’t stupid enough to think that another accidental death on their farm would not be looked at with suspicion.

Adah was safe, or at least safer. She could stay on for Daisy. At least her purpose was clear. The events of recent months had revealed a grand picture of the enormity of nature and human life. Yet also how any one life was so small and short and ultimately . . . meaningless in the larger view of things. But even one small life could mean something over the course of its existence—a tiny breath in time. Adah had ended one life, but maybe she could save another. The idea that she had to stay with the Branches was dreadful, but it was the truth.

Jack registered what came over her, and he simply watched her for another long moment, but she found she didn’t mind his scrutiny. She had put her faith in this man with her letter; he knew what she wanted, and if he saw through her even more so now, she did not care.

He turned back to face the horse. “Does that mean you’re staying on?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I have Daisy to think about.”

She watched his smooth movements from behind and could see by the way Jack ran his hands over the mare that he loved these animals. His touch was easy but sure, and the way he handled the mare was like one would caress a child.