Chapter 27

Craning his head inside the kitchen, Kid could see Lou's turned figure before the stove. From the way she stood and moved, he could tell she was still upset for what had happened today. After a few minutes he decided to announce his presence, so he approached and stopped beside her. "Hey," he called, using their greeting from their Pony Express days.

Lou did not say a word, just stretched her lips in a strange neutral expression, and kept stirring the soup she was making. Kid did not try to speak, just remained there, waiting and watching her. He knew that Lou could not be rushed, and when she was ready to talk, she would. Louise filled a spoon with some of the soup from the pot, blew on it, and brought it to her lips to taste it. "It needs salt," she muttered, and her eyes scanned the kitchen table and countertops to spot the salt cellar, and when she did not see it, she nervously started slamming the cabinet drawers and doors open and closed. "Where the hell is the salt?" she cried loudly, sounding almost desperate and on the verge of tears.

"Lou, calm down!" Kid stopped her hectic motions by taking her hands in his. "It's here," he said, grabbing the salt cellar from a shelf.

With a serious expression Louise took the salt from him, and added a pinch to the soup. "Honey," Kid started, breaking his promise to keep quiet, but Lou was too nervous to stand impassive. "You need to take it easy. Nothing's happened."

"Nothing?" Lou exclaimed, turning her anxious eyes to him. "I ran her over, Kid! I was supposed to smooth things between us, and I ran her over! I couldn't have done it worse even if I'd planned it beforehand!"

"Ari's fine, Lou," Kid said what he had already repeated to her too many times. "Apart from the scare, she's just sprained her ankle, that's all. A few days' rest and she'll be as good as new."

Lou sighed. "You know, this is just what Mrs. Giles needed to confirm I'm her least favorite person in the world."

"It was an accident, honey. How can you think Ari can take this any other way? I'm sure she knows you feel bad about the whole thing." Kid paused, and stroking her shoulder affectionately, he added, "Please don't worry about this. One day I'm sure we'll be able to laugh at this matter."

"Yeah, can't you see how hard I'm laughing?" Lou replied sarcastically, and at Kid's unhappy expression she averted her eyes and kept quiet. She was still upset and shaken by the whole incident to find Kid's words comforting. When she had seen Mrs. Giles lying on the ground, Lou had almost fainted on the spot. Thankfully, nothing too serious had happened to the woman, and the doctor had confirmed Ari had only hurt her ankle. Lou had told Mrs. Giles over and over again how sorry she was, and even though the woman had assured her weakly that everything was fine, Lou could not help but think that this new episode would add up to the woman's already poor opinion of her.

Lou removed the pot from the stove and ladled some soup onto a bowl. "Are we going to eat dinner yet?" asked Kid.

Louise shook her head. "Not yet. I'm taking this to Mrs. Giles, and see if she needs something else."

Kid smiled and gave her a peck on the check. "You're an angel, Lou. She'll love you for that."

"Sure," she replied with evident sarcasm as she placed the bowl of soup and a plate with cheese and bread on a tray. "She'll even kiss my feet for leaving her busted for a few days."

"Oh Lou…" Kid shook his head at her stubbornness, and just as she was going to walk out, he asked, "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, this is something I need to do on my own," Louise replied categorically.

Ari's hut was at the entrance of the property, and Lou slowly made her way through the yard. The sun hung low on the horizon, and the air felt cold and crisp, but her aggravation for the day's events prevented Lou from feeling anything. Holding the tray with one hand, Lou knocked on the door, and opened it a crack. She saw the housekeeper sitting in a rocking chair next to the fireplace, her bandaged leg stretched and resting on some cushions. Ari lifted her eyes from the framed photograph in her hands when she heard the knocks. "May I come in, Mrs. Giles?"

Ari just nodded, and Louise slid inside. "I've brought you some dinner. I'm sure it ain't as nice as your cooking, but I've tried my best… this time," Lou explained sheepishly as she left the tray on the table next to Ari.

"Thanks," Mrs. Giles replied in a dull voice. "You shouldn't have bothered."

"This is the least I can do," Lou replied honestly. "It's my fault you're hurt, and you can't cook when you can't stand as the doctor told you."

"It was an accident, and thanks for the food."

"Do you need anything else?" Lou asked.

Mrs. Giles eyed the smoking soup, and added, "A spoon… there are a few in the first drawer."

"Sure," Lou promptly said, and walked to the sideboard Ari was pointing at, and besides the spoon, she also took a napkin, and poured a glass of water for the woman.

"Thanks," Ari said again. "Can I bother you again? Could you possibly put this photograph with the others, Ma'am?"

Lou took the framed picture from her, and noticed a table at the opposite end of the hut where Ari's bed was. The table was full of framed photographs like the housekeeper had pointed out. As Lou made her way to the table, she dared to have a look at the photograph in her hands. It showed two young children, a boy and a girl.

Ari had noticed where Lou's gaze was, and all of the sudden, she said, "Those are my grandchildren when they were still quite young."

Lou stopped and turned her eyes to the woman. "They're cute," she remarked warily. She remembered what Ari had said about her personal matters being private, and after what had happened today, the last thing Louise wanted was to stoke the fire between her and Mrs. Giles.

"They're now in their teens," Ari continued as she kept eating her soup. "I haven't seen them in years."

Lou could not restrain her curiosity this time, and asked, "Why?"

"Their mother keeps them from me," Ari explained. "They're all I have left in this life, and I don't even know where they are."

"I… I'm sorry," Lou sincerely, feeling moved by the sadness she heard in the woman's voice.

"My son was a good man," Ari continued, almost talking to herself while she kept feeding herself the soup. "He was the best son a mother could wish for, and a wonderful father for his babies. Meeting and falling in love with Caroline was his ruin, bless him. He was always a clever and hard-working man. He first started working at the bank here, you know, like an errand boy; with time he got a position as a simple cashier, and in a few years he became the director's assistant and best man. He earned good money, and it was then he met Caroline. She was visiting a relative of hers here, and my son fell hard for her, unfortunately."

Ari paused to have a sip of water, and then continued, "They got married, and Caroline talked him into leaving his job at the bank and moving to the east. There in Boston he was a stranger, so he had to work hard to make his way in the city. He had several jobs at the same time, worked from dawn to dusk, but he just wanted his family to have a comfortable life. His apparent happiness and success suddenly broke and turned out to be a disguise of a reality he was not aware of. One day he discovered his 'wonderful' wife, the love of his life, was having a love affair with another man… had been cheating him for years." Ari stopped to let out a sigh, and fight the tears. "The man was a lawyer and a thief, and when my son wanted to divorce Caroline, those two vultures turned against my son viciously, and wounded him where it hurt most. Caroline and her man took the children with them, and fled nobody knows where, taking all the money my son had worked so hard for. Even though he tried everything, he couldn't find his children, or where their mother had taken them. So my son ended up alone, without a penny, just in a lonely house that brought him too many bitter memories. When he came back to me, he was a broken man. He was nothing like the man I knew he'd been. And I guess he was not strong enough to overcome all his problems. One week later I found him in his room, hanging by the neck with his own belt."

"Oh my God!" Lou exclaimed, horrified by the whole story. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock, and she realized then why Mrs. Giles had such a bad opinion of her. What her son had gone through with his wife had understandably made Ari think women were greedy, selfish creatures that only wanted to obtain some gain from marriage. And naturally her own story with Kid did not show her in a good light. "That's…. that's… that must've been so horrible for you. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Giles."

"After that, I tried everything to continue the search for my grandchildren, but that was a defeated battle since the beginning. I was told they had gone to Europe, but I just don't know," Ari muttered. "Life's so ungrateful"

Lou stared at Ari, unable to say a word, because whatever she said would be inappropriate. What Ari had told her was so huge that nothing she could utter would mean anything to the woman. When the housekeeper kept quiet too, Louise placed the photograph next to the other ones on the table. She then threw a casual look at them, and understood these were Ari's treasured memories and past. The photographs showed different people who Lou could guess were Mrs. Giles' parents, husband, and other relatives. Suddenly, Lou's attention got drawn to a picture in which there was a group of children, four of them, one of whom was a baby, resting on the only girl's lap. Louise stared at every face in the portrait, and the more she looked, the more intrigued and astonished she got. After scrutinizing the framed photograph for a few seconds, Lou grabbed it and walked back to the woman.

"Mrs. Giles?" she called urgently, pulling the photograph before her eyes.

The housekeeper calmly took the picture, and smiled sadly. "That's my son when he was barely thirteen with my best friend's kids," she explained, not noticing Lou's flabbergasted expression. "Unfortunately, they're gone from my life too."

"Da… Dana?" Lou whispered.

"Excuse me?" Ari asked, not catching what Louise had uttered.

"Is it you, Dana?" Louise repeated the same name again, this time more clearly.

A look of surprise passed over the woman's face. "Nobody has called me that in a very long time. Who… who are you?"

"I'm her!" Lou exclaimed, pointing energetically at one of the children in the photograph. "That girl is me, and these are my siblings!"

"Louise…" Ari breathed, completely bewildered by what she was hearing. "Oh my God, Louise! It's you! And you remember!"

"Of course I remember. I was eight when we had to leave."

"Come closer, please," Ari asked in a trembling voice. "Let me have a look at you."

Louise smiled as she took a few steps closer and sat down on the chair across from the woman. Ari's request could sound quite senseless, considering that she had landed in Fort Kearney almost two weeks ago, and Ari had the chance to lay eyes on her every day. Yet, it was true that it was different, and the way the woman was looking at Louise felt as if she was seeing her for the first time, and Lou also was experiencing the same feeling.

"Oh Louise, you've grown into such a beautiful woman!" Ari exclaimed. "You were always a very pretty girl, and I always kept telling your ma how lucky she was for having you, and how I wished I had a little girl just like you." Lou smiled and blushed at the compliment, and suddenly, Ari remembered what the young woman had told her the first day they had met. "What happened to your ma, child?"

"She passed away two years after we went," Lou whispered sadly. "She got very sick, and she knew she was gonna die. Then my siblings and I were sent to an orphanage in St. Joseph."

Ari shook her head. "Poor Mary, and you poor children," the woman muttered. "If I had known you had lost your mother, I'd…"

"Dana," Lou cut her off, "you couldn't have done anything. Three mouths to feed would've been too much for you."

"But at least I could have made sure you weren't or felt alone," Ari murmured morosely. After pausing for a second, she asked, "And your brother and sister?"

"Theresa's happily married, but Jeremiah died last year. Somebody stabbed him to death, but justice hasn't caught the culprit yet, I'm afraid."

"Oh Louise," Ari exclaimed reaching out for Lou's hand and squeezing it comfortingly. "You haven't had an easy life, my girl."

Louise shrugged her shoulders. "Life's never easy. Losing Ma and Jeremiah have been the worst two moments I had to go through," Lou muttered, reflecting that the third most horrid episode had been when she had believed Kid had died in war. Yet, she did not voice the thought to the woman. It was true that her existence had been full of grimness and heartache, but she was learning not to linger on those, and let the past go. "Apart from that, it's been hard work to reach where I am, but I have to say I'm proud of standing here. I've made many mistakes, and life hasn't made things easy, but in the long run I guess everything has a sense."

Ari nodded, trying to believe what the young woman was saying, but actually, she did not see much sense in many of the things that she had to undergo. The thought threatened her high mood, so she revved from that direction. "Did you ever hear about your father?"

Louise bobbed her head up and down. "He found us years later. It's a long story, but well, the bottom line is that he ain't with us anymore."

"I can't say I'm sorry," Ari remarked spitefully. "A good woman like your mother didn't deserve a rotten soul like him. The only good thing he gave her was you children." Lou kept quiet; she could not contradict what the woman was saying. "I still remember the day your mother found out what his business dealings really were. It was true you were well-provided, but what he had in money and properties from all those shady businesses of his was unbelievable."

"I guess the army took over all his patrimony," Lou muttered.

"You guess?"

Lou shrugged her shoulders. "That's what I figured out. I never gave that much thought."

"The least he could have done was to make sure he left his children enough to live a careless life… after all he put you through. I'd have expected a clever man like him would have considered keeping money safe and free from suspicion. But I guess he just cared about himself."

"I don't know if my father thought that much about us, but even if he had left us his money, I wouldn't have touched a cent."

Ari smiled. "You're a proud woman, huh?"

"I guess I am," Lou muttered, and as she lowered her eyes, they fell on the old photograph still on her lap that had caused her re-acquaintance with Dana.

Ari kept looking at the young woman before her with a stunned expression. "It's incredible you're here after so many years!" she exclaimed. "I've thought about you and your mother a lot in all this time as it had been in another life. I thought everything good I had enjoyed at some point was lost forever."

At Ari's words Lou focused her eyes on the thirteen-year-old boy next to her in the photograph. "I'm really sorry about Tommy," she whispered, touching the boy's printed face with her index finger. "He was a good friend… I remember he made me laugh a lot."

"And I secretly hoped that when you two grew up, you two would end up married… my son and my best friend's lovely girl," Ari said, and Louise lifted her eyes back to her. "Life really has mysterious ways," the woman continued. "You didn't marry my Tommy, but it turns out your husband is like a son to me, so in a way life has granted me my wish."

Lou kept thoughtful for a while. "You know what they say. Watch out what you wish for because it might come true."

Ari understood what Lou was telling her at once. "What happened between you and your husband, Louise? He was hurting real bad. When he opened up to me and told me his story, it was years after your break-up, and he was crying like a baby." Louise shifted in her seat uncomfortably. Ari's words brought up her demons once again. Fidgeting nervously, she pressed her hand against her forehead and then ran her fingers through her short hair several times. "Honey, Kid's a very good man."

"I… I know," Lou replied in a trembling voice.

"But he ain't perfect," Ari continued, almost repeating what Rachel had said weeks ago. "You know, he might fail like all human beings, but he ain't your pa."

"I know he isn't."

"I can hardly imagine how many nasty things you had to witness between your parents as a young girl. All those memories are inside you, and it's understandable your childhood has influenced the woman you are at present. But, Louise, your husband adores you. Anybody can tell by just seeing the way he looks at you. Don't spoil what you have trying to prove he's like your father. History doesn't always have to repeat itself, and all men ain't the same."

Lou kept thoughtful for a while, considering what Ari was saying. As she mused on it for the first time, she wondered whether there might be some truth there. Could it be that her fear for a marriage that mirrored her parents' had made her push Kid away? Had she purposefully struck the first blow, expecting he would hurt her? Memories of her childhood were still fresh in her mind, and she clearly recalled her father asking her ma to forgive him too many times, but he had always proved he did not deserve that forgiveness. Maybe those recollections had hardened her heart in such a degree that she had retaliated herself against the person who deserved her scorn least, her husband.

Louise sighed. "Maybe I'm just the kind of woman who shouldn't even consider marriage to begin with."

"Honey, don't torture yourself like that," Ari admonished her lightly. "We human beings are so complex, and sometimes we need to stop and think why we act the way we do. It may be obvious, but most of the time it isn't." She paused and took her hand among hers. "Louise, from what I've seen lately, I think you're a nice lady, and you can be a wonderful wife to your husband. I know you love him. Otherwise, you wouldn't have endured so stoically what I've put you through in these weeks."

"You did it on purpose," Lou remarked, not really surprised, and in a strange way amused.

"Well, you didn't make it too difficult," Ari joked. "I'm not proud, but well, I'm not perfect either. I have to say in my defense that you were gradually gaining ground with me. This soup you made was quite good actually."

Lou could not help but chuckle. "Thanks, Dana. I'm so happy to have found you."

"Me too, honey. You can't imagine how much this means to me."