The River Widow(65)

“Hello,” Adah said. “I’m Adah Branch. Could I bother you for a moment of your time? I’m a friend of Esther Heiser’s.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” Kate said after a short hesitation. She opened the screen door with her free hand as she hoisted the baby, who appeared to be nearly a year old, higher up on her hip. “Come in.”

“Thank you. I’m so sorry to bother you during your busy day.”

Adah followed the woman into a house strewn with toys and children’s books, with laundry stacked on the sofa and the smell of food mixed with the odor of diapers.

“I hope you don’t mind the mess. My three-year-old is taking a nap, so at least it’s quiet. But I wasn’t exactly expecting company,” Kate said as she set the baby down in front of a set of blocks on the rug-covered floor.

Adah grasped her hands together as she glanced about and fought off the urge to beg the woman for help. She had to remain composed and focused. “I’m so sorry to intrude, but I didn’t know of another way to contact you.”

Kate nodded. “Let’s sit for a spell.”

She led Adah into a dining room that opened to one side off the living room, where she could still watch the baby. She shoved aside books and baby burp rags and a sleeping cat on the round oak tabletop. As she slumped into a ladder-back chair, she pushed back her hair, which was falling down into her face in coils that reminded Adah of question marks.

With serious but open, kind eyes, Kate asked, “What can I do for you?”

Adah didn’t know of any other way around it except to begin. “This might seem an odd topic of conversation, but . . . I understand you were a friend of Betsy Branch’s.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“She was my husband’s first wife.”

Kate nodded. “I’m sorry about your loss, by the way. That flood was the devil’s making.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Adah paused, then, not wanting to waste any of Kate’s time, went straight to the point. “As you know, Esther is marrying into the family, and she and I have become . . . friends. Esther told me that Betsy corresponded with her mother through you and that you might still have some letters.”

“I see,” Kate said, then sat up straight in the chair. “Yes, I do have letters. I couldn’t just toss them out once Betsy died, and I didn’t want to pass them on to your . . . husband.”

Adah, struck by how well things were going, cocked her head. Did Kate Johnson know something about Lester that no one else did? “Why do you think Betsy wanted to receive letters from her mother here instead of at home?”

Shrugging, Kate glanced into the living room, where the baby was still at play. She looked back pensively. “I don’t know. I never asked. Betsy asked me for a favor, and I did it.”

“You weren’t curious?”

Kate shrugged again. “Sure I was, but Betsy became my friend mainly because I never pushed myself on her. She told me what she wanted to tell me, and that’s all.”

“What did she tell you?”

Kate’s face fell. “Why all these questions? Why all of this sudden interest in Betsy and her mother?”

Adah had to refocus. “After our farmhouse flooded, I found a box of letters from Betsy’s mother in the attic, and I’m saving them for Daisy. When I heard that you had others, I thought it would be nice if I could pass them all on to Daisy when she’s older. After all, now the girl has lost both parents . . .”

“I see,” Kate said. “Well . . . I find that a lovely sentiment.” She looked as if in deep thought. “I do think Betsy would’ve liked that; however, I have no idea as to the content of those letters.”

“What do you mean?”

After a long moment, Kate said, “Betsy wasn’t happy; that was easy to see. I have no idea if it had to do with Lester. I never probed, and I believe she was getting letters here because her mother was sending her money. That’s why she didn’t want her husband—your husband—to know about it. She read her mother’s letters here, then left them with me. I’ve held on to them, untouched.”

“So even after Betsy died, you never read them?”

“No, I did not. Those letters are private—sacred, even. I wrote to Betsy’s mother shortly after Betsy died, and my letter came back as not delivered. Later I learned that Doris died of a heart attack a day or so after hearing of her daughter’s demise. It’s a heartbreaking story, one I haven’t been able to forget.”

Adah observed Kate’s still-obvious grief in her glistening eyes. “You must have cared a lot about Betsy.”

Kate blinked. “I did.”

“And I care a lot about her daughter. Now I’m the only parent she has.”

“I see.” Kate sat for a few moments more, then slowly rose and left the room while Adah suffered through even more anticipation. Was she soon to be in possession of ammunition she could use against the Branches?

Kate reentered the room and set a bundle of letters tied together with a white ribbon on the table in front of Adah. “I’ll be glad to see these leave this house. They’ve haunted me, but I resisted the urge to read them. I have a feeling you won’t.”

Her eyes pooling with grateful tears, Adah looked up at the woman. “I will read them. I don’t want to lie to you about that.” Then Adah had to stick with her story, difficult as it was to lie to someone of Kate Johnson’s character. “I will read them to make sure what’s inside is suitable for Daisy to someday read.”