In and out she pushed the needle in tiny precise stitches, quilting three layers of gauzey soft muslin with creamy thread. The blue thread that she bought at the store sat in her lap, waiting for its time and place. Elvie's friends sat around her, each working on her own stitching while they talked and laughed. "How is it that I always end up outnumbered by boys with a pile of mending next to me that's as big as I am?" Marta grumbled as she patched the knees of Jesse's trousers.
"As if you'd have it any other way," Darcy chided before letting out an exasperated huff. For years, Marta had been trying to teach her to knit, but Darcy didn't grow up learning domestic arts and crafts and wasn't particularly disposed to the task. The mangled pair of mittens in her hands had twice as many stitches pulled out of it as she put in. JoAnna chuckled giddily and wiggled in her seat, as if Darcy told a fantastically funny joke. For some reason that day, she was as restless and excited as a puppy. She could hardly concentrate on the embroidery hoop that she was careful to keep tight to her breast. Darcy's scrutiny of her friend was heavy in the air for a moment before she turned her attention to Elvie. "What's the blue for?" she asked gruffly, throwing her yarn to the side. Her knitting needles clattered against the floorboards and rolled away.
"The blue will have it's time," she answered evenly. "Jo needs to show me the stars before that happens." Jo wriggled in her seat again, practically squeaking with excitement.
"What are you up to?" Darcy demanded, making Jo giggle even more giddily. "That better not be what I think it is JoAnna Cooper!" the more petite of the two warned. She stalked across the room, her child sized boots stamping loudly as if they were the size of her personality's feet. "Damnit JoAnna! I told you to knock this shit off! Clairey can read now! Before it was just pretty flowers and she loved it, but now she knows what they say and asks me about it! The poor kid is going to get kicked out of school the first day she goes because she's gonna cuss the teacher out and not even know it!"
Jo giggled maniacally and Marta chuckled in her rocking chair to Elvie's right. Elvie set her fabric in her lap and leaned over. "What's going on?" she whispered, letting Jo and Darcy continue their squabbling.
Marta leaned in, the violet and sandalwood scent of the oil she used to try to manage her lofty mane of curls wrapping around Elvie like a hug. She hoped she would always remember the smell and who it belonged to. Roses would always make her think of JoAnna and sandalwood and violets would always feel safe like Marta's watchful eyes on her. She wished she had those cues for her mother. "JoAnna makes the most beautiful embroidery…but she likes to stitch dirty words in them. For some reason, it makes her so happy, especially when they're insulting Spot. She frames them and sneaks into Spot and Darcy's house to hang them."
Elvie chuckled. JoAnna and Spot acted like she and Doug did in their younger days, siblings whose favorite activity is driving each other nuts. "What does it say?"
Marta leaned around to sneak a peek at JoAnna's fabric and came back laughing heartily. "'Shove it up your ass, Conlon,' surrounded by fairies and pussy willow," she choked out between peels of laughter. "Its an excellent use of her not so very useful rich girl finishing school skills."
Their laughter was interrupted by a set of thick knuckles rapping on the door frame. That was Eli, not the dense taps of Spot's long pianist fingers, nor Fletchers that were so covered in calluses that the sound was dull and muffled. Eli's was loud even though he didn't tap hard, though the squeal from Jo didn't hurt Elvie's assessment. JoAnna jumped out of her seat and scampered across the floor, rushing past her husband. "Wwwe nnnnneed a few mmmminutes," he said cryptically. "Eh-eh-elvie, Ssssspot's g-g-g-gonna tt-t-take you for a wwwwwalk." Confused, she kept working, but heard his chuckle at the look on her face and came closer kneeling by her chair. Neither one of them could stand the constant interpreting for very long after those early days, and together they'd come up with a system that worked for them, at least for short simple communications. His rough, work worn left hand grasped her's and placed it on his jaw, just in front of his ear. "'Sokay. D-d-don't worry."
"I don't like surprises," she answered tightly. He took her hand, tapping the tips of her fingers to his temple, using her hand to sign, 'I know,' and then tapping it to his chin and making the back of her hand clap with his right hand before returning it to his jaw. "It's a good surprise?" He nodded. "No jumping out and yelling." He laughed again and used her hand to draw an x over his heart. He left and before she was really ready, Spot and Fletcher were telling her to come with them, but to leave her cane under her chair. They started to lead her by the hands through the room at such a fast pace that she couldn't count steps. She tripped over the rugs, but they held both of her arms and kept her from falling, though it did nothing to soothe her. "Stop!" she demanded once she was thoroughly lost and disoriented. She dug her heels in against the floorboards, trying to slow them down even if she couldn't stop them. "I don't like this! Let me go!" The panic that she knew so well was nipping at her heels, but she was determined not to let it take her. The men touching her meant her no harm, she knew that. "Please!" The squeal of desperations rose in her voice and finally Spot stopped.
"We's just going to the barn. Trout said he warned ya," Spot said.
She tried to yank her hands away, knowing that if they let her go, she could recover even though she was disoriented. "I can get to the barn myself… or at least I could have from where I was sitting!" she answered testily. "Give me my cane! I don't know where I am when you tow me around like that!"
Spot made a disgusted noise in his throat, but didn't release her, instead, his grip only tightened. "You are the most stubborn, thick headed piece of work I ever met in my life!" he griped. She yanked hard against him and he loosened his hand, but still refused to let her go. "You think I'd hurt ya? Or take ya somewhere's besides where I said I would?"
"That's not the point!" she answered, stamping her foot, accidentally right on his toes. He groaned and finally let go of her arm. "I don't know where I am, so no, I can't trust where I'm going. You took that away! You made me leave my cane and insisted on yanking me around like a dog on a lead! I don't want to go anywhere with you! I don't want a surprise!"
Fletcher let her go, but his callused hand rested on her back, rubbing steadily back and forth across her shoulder blades. The sensation, that she had begun to like under normal circumstances, was grating and harsh in the state she was in and she wanted to pull away. There was already too much to deal with, she couldn't deal with that strange tingling. "Jo asked us to bring you in as if you were blindfolded, but if we need to let up…"
"Don't you ever think of no one but you?" Spot demanded, interrupting Fletcher's apology. She froze. She would never admit it, and neither would he, but Spot was her favorite person at the Ranch. He was truthful, painfully so at times, and funny in his own dry, witty way, but that didn't make hearing the things about herself from him any easier. This though. This, he was just wrong about. He didn't know her at all. She'd given up any hope of a real life, a selfish life, when she was eleven years old and assumed the role of parent to her siblings. She gave them everything she had until there was nothing left for her. "Wipe that look offa ya face! Yeah, ya had a bum wrap in life, boo hoo. Who ain't? Alla us got our sob story, but we put each other first. You can cry in ya head about everything you gave up and sell yaself that crock of shit all ya want, but who put you there? Huh? You. Who kept you where you was? You."
"Spot!" Fletcher scolded, his hand leaving her back.
Spot's breath drew in as he prepared for his next tirade, but she put her hand up. She'd heard that before and she could cry from how much she missed Beth. The blind beauty from the Bronx had snapped something similar at her both the first time they met and the last time they were together. It was just the kick she needed to remind her of the kind of thinking that got her to where she was when she left New York. She refused to take that step back towards living alone in her apartment, being completely perfect, but only within her own tiny microcosm. So, she put her hand out, just one of them, and when Spot's elbow filled it, she dug the tips of her fingers in hard. "You get to decide how you walk and you will give me that same respect," she demanded. "My whole life is blindfolded…it loses the romance pretty quick."
He forced out a pained chuckle as he pried her fingers open. "Deal. But you gotta act surprised. I ain't seen Jo this excited since we was kids."
"Keep talking like that and people will think you actually like her," she teased.
Inside the barn, the excited breathing and hushed murmurs would have given them all away if she didn't already know that they were waiting for her. "Hands out," Spot directed. She reached her hands out and felt JoAnna guiding her forward until the satin soft slip of well sanded wood spread under her fingers. JoAnna gently guided her hand along until her fingers dipped into a smooth channel.
Following the groove, she could form a picture in her head. "Its…a lion?"
"Leo!" Jo squealed joyously, moving Elvie's fingers until they found a knot of leather shoelace. Fletcher had drilled holes in the boards and they'd strung and knotted the lacing so she could trace the actual pattern of the stars while Eli had taken pictures from one of Jo's books and used a heated rod to burn the pictures of the characters around the star patterns. Each knot was a star, connected to the others in the constellation, sticking out for her and each picture was sunk in behind it. Jo was prattling on about the names of the stars that made up Leo, but Elvie wasn't listening anymore. She moved in closer, her fingers devoured the pictures. She moved from board to board, suddenly understanding all the stories that were nothing more than that before. She leaned in, resting her cheek on the silky wood, and let out something that was a mix of laugh and sob. Hot tears poured down her face.
Spot's hand rested on her shoulder. "You ok?"
She stood back up, a smile stretching across her face. "Jo," she whispered, sniffling, "I see them." He hands couldn't stop. She had to "see" all of them. Every star, every path, every picture. She had to touch them all. "What is this one?"
"The big dipper," Jo answered eagerly. "Also known as Ursa Major, the great bear."
Elvie froze, tracing over the sunken drawing with her middle finger. "The bears have tails," she murmured, thinking back to Bays on their first night together and the story he told her. The bears with tails, but he didn't know why.
"It's fascinating isn't it?" Jo asked, her voice picking up speed as she began an oration. "The reigning theory is that…"
"No one cares, Jo," Spot blurted out boredly.
"I care," Elvie whispered, still unable to stop exploring. "Please tell me. I want to tell him why the bears have tails."
Marta's rough finger's brushed against her cheek before Jo could begin again, wiping away the tears that were still falling. "Whatsamattah, Elvie? Are these good tears or sad ones?"
When she first arrived, she had herself convinced that she missed the idea of Bays. She thought her guilt was was eating away at her, but that she'd have to get over him, there was no way he'd want her when she returned. But the more she was around the family at The Fletcher's, the more she understood the feelings that each of the couples had for each other even though each expressed them different ways, she began to realize how deeply she missed him and how much she really loved him. His absence was a cavern in her heart that she felt and grieved as much as she grieved her mother. "I think I need to go home," she answered. "I want to finish the blanket, because once I start working I won't have time to finish it, but after that, I want to go home. I miss him. I thought I needed to see the stars for him," she paused, realizing that what she was about to say sounded ungrateful. "The stars you all made me are wonderful, please don't get me wrong, now I can do what I want with the blanket, but I already knew what they looked like to him. He showed me the stars months and months ago and I was too silly and set in my ways to understand that I could see them through his eyes and that could be enough." JoAnna sniffled and shuffled her feet to muffle her sentimental tears in Eli's broad chest.
Marta's voice came out choked as well. "If you say it's time, then we'll get you to the train station whenever you're ready. You just let us know." She paused and Spot sniggered at her. Marta took a swat at him and he cried out in objection. "We'll miss you, though. You come back and see us whenever you want."
"Buncha saps," Spot gritted, but his voice broke at the last minute and Elvie laughed until the little life inside of her kicked and fluttered.
Two weeks later, Eli took her to the train station at her request. Fletcher had made a crate for her star charts to travel in and Marta had opened the seams in all of her dresses to give her a bit more room to grow. Eli pulled the horses to a stop, but sat still next to her on the bench. He'd been quiet, even for him, the whole drive. "I d-don't like you g-g-g-going on the t-t-t-t-t….t-t-tr-train alone." He finally said.
She chuckled. "I got here alone and I'm much better equipped for the train now. I'm sure I'll be all right. I'm a big girl." He grumbled out his displeasure and it made the last piece of business she needed to take care of before he left weigh on her mind. "Eli, what if me doesn't want me? What if he doesn't want her?"
He was silent a moment and she could almost feel his eyes drilling into her, aggravated at the thought. "Then you c-c-come back," he answered matter-of-factly. "C-come hhhhome."
She reached her hand out and he put it on the curve of his jaw. "If he doesn't want me, I guess I'll have deserved it. I'll see if Nina or Beth or even Mrs. Fredericks can find me a room to rent somewhere and he and I will have to find some way to both be in the baby's life. But…" she faltered. She knew what she wanted to say, what she felt she had to say, but it was still the hardest thing she'd ever said to anyone. "If he doesn't want either of us, I'd like to come back here." He nodded, thinking he was agreeing to her coming home. "Just till the baby comes. Darcy and Marta can help me." She slid her hand down his neck, over his shoulder and down his lame arm, picking it up and resting it on the swell of her belly. "If that happens I want her to stay here with you and JoAnna when I go back to New York again. I want her to be yours." He was silent and so still, as if he was thinking so hard that nothing else in his body worked.
"You….you…c-c-c-coo…." He grunted in frustration. Her request had him flummoxed.
"I could stay here, raise her alone with your help instead?" He nodded. "I could, but when I found out about her, I made her a promise. I wanted her to know what it was like to have a real family, with both parents loving each other and her. I came here because I was the one who couldn't give myself fully, but I might have made it so he can't be there with me. Spot's right, I'm terribly selfish." She put her hand over his on her stomach. "But you and JoAnna are always there for Rosie and always there for each other. She would be incredibly lucky to have you two as her parents. You don't get much more invested in your kids than threatening a blind woman for them." She grinned, but he didn't respond.
"Jo…."
"I didn't tell her," she assured him and he sighed in relief. "I didn't want to get her hopes up only to break her heart, but I didn't want you to think that I was rushing into giving the baby up. I've been trying to decide what to do for weeks. It's not a decision I could make heartbroken, I had to have a plan now. Will you take her if I need you to?" He didn't answer at first, but then his thick, weighty arms wrapped around her and pulled her into the wall of his chest. "Whoa," she grunted, patting his broad back awkwardly. He touched her hand to his chin, signing "thank you." She smiled sadly. "I should be thanking you. You just gave me peace. Now I know what to do, no matter what Bays does. Now, I can face him." She waited, but he didn't let her go. She patted his back again. "Come on, Big Guy, time to get me on a train." He sat up and sniffled, running his arm across his wet face like a child, still overcome with the incredible gift she just offered him. An hour later, the train pulled away from Elbert Station with Elvie on it, steaming eastbound.
A/N: Big news! I applied and was accepted to write on Radish Fiction! My original story "Choose to Live" is up on the app and updates every Friday! I'm like a real writer now! But don't worry, I'll still be around here finishing things up! I can't quit Newsies! Please check it out though! Every view and like boosts me up to get more visibility and every little bit helps!