Chapter 23 – May 1910 – All we could think to do was run
The next supply run was scheduled for the end of the week. In what seemed at that time to be an uncharacteristically generous move, Henry had permitted Peter to spend an additional day out in Cape Fullerton. This meant he would be away for Sunday service, but he promised his mother that he and Billy McConnell would find a church on their way back. Abigail hugged him for an extra long time the morning before he left, and was pleasantly surprised to feel him tighten his arms around her just as eagerly.
Since her confrontation with Henry, she had barely left the house, spending most of the hours that Noah wasn't there in bed motionless or sleeping. She had dragged herself to the mercantile once, and to the weekly swap so that she would have her chores and dinners done, but most other activity held little appeal for her. She needed all of her energy for the evenings, trying to make normal conversation through dinner until she and Noah retreated to their respective books, her husband never noticing that her pages took several minutes to turn.
On Sunday morning, she finished pressing Noah's shirt and began to reach for one for Peter when she remembered he wasn't there. This was how it would always be one day. Just the two of them. She cast a thoughtful glance across the living room from the shadowed corner where she did her ironing, but she didn't know what she was looking for.
It was strange to walk to church without Peter. A couple of the other women asked where he was, and she proudly told them he had gone exploring, trusted by the company to extend his business trip. There were a couple of snide comments made at the company's expense and how stingy they were with their trust – comments that she couldn't rightly say she had not implicitly fueled. As usual, Henry did not attend the service, meaning that no muzzle was placed on them in this conversation until the large wooden doors rose up ahead, reminding them that they ought, at least temporarily, to turn the other cheek.
Through the ceremony Abigail focused on Reverend Anderson's intonations, comforting herself with the familiar rhythms of psalms and responses. She knelt before the transubstantiated host and pressed herself to Noah's shoulder, squeezing his hand when it had been released from prayer.
The congregation soon flooded back out into the day, the sun signaling for Abigail an hour passed – an hour closer to Peter's return. She and Noah joined the other families on the walk back, chatting and smiling with the rest. The topic of discussion soon turned to the humidity that had thickened the air over the last couple of days, men and women alike fanning at the layers of their fine Sunday clothes. They did not come across Henry on the road, though she hadn't yet stopped looking for him.
The Millers had invited everyone over that afternoon to celebrate Morgan Rose's birthday. Though they had no small children to bring along, Laurel and Adam insisted that the Stantons were not to be left out, and Abigail and Noah obliged, more than happy for the distraction. They laughed with the others as Rosaleen and Paul Jr. ran underfoot trying to find hiding places before Robert Wolf (who was peeking through his fingers anyway) had finished counting to ten. The adults meanwhile discussed the Valentines, who had headed back toward Vancouver and Emily's family yesterday morning, but had been so heart-wrenchingly generous as to gift a few desserts for Morgan Rose's party before they departed.
"I'll miss them and the café terribly," Carla was saying. "Virgil's butter cookies were little Ephraim's favorite."
The senior Ephraim scoffed. "Maybe Gowen should've had some more butter cookies."
"Maybe Gowen should've had a woman," Joe said with a wink. The wives rushed to cover up his words with exasperated cries, looking around for whether any of the children had heard. Cat gave her laughing husband a whack on the ear.
Molly's curious stare suddenly landed on her. "What happened when you talked to him anyway, Abigail? We only barely heard the loud parts."
Abigail stiffened. She hadn't yet told Noah about the meeting. With the tension between them leading them mostly into safe silences, and the heaviness and uncertainty she'd been feeling ever since seeing Henry, she hadn't brought up the other man's name at all.
"Abigail?" her husband questioned from beside her. Through the lashes of her averted gaze, she saw Molly throw a wide-eyed look at Florence, recognition dawning on the redhead that this was new information for the other Stanton.
The silence was shorter than it felt, but she knew Noah was more upset than he would let on. Answering in as nonchalant a voice as she could muster, Abigail said, "I went to see Gowen in his office the day he closed the café. I was trying to get him to listen to the Valentines' ideas for improving the business."
"I see," Noah said, keeping his darkening eyes and now-raised brows fixed on his drink. "And who was doing the yelling?"
"The yelling was sort of… mutual." (Joe snickered at this, earning him another swat. Her husband did not join in the amusement.) "Anyway," Abigail continued, "there's nothing much to share. He more or less told me that it wasn't any of my business."
"Sounds about right," Patrick said.
"It was to be expected," Florence tutted. "A man like Mr. Gowen doesn't like his decisions challenged. But that's certainly no excuse for him to behave so boorishly." Across from his wife, Paul pursed his lips. When Florence noticed, her cheeks turned pink. "Of course, it was improper to approach him in his office. A tad impulsive, I'd say."
Marta screwed her face up in disagreement. "It's his place of business and this was business. I see nothing improper about that," she noted in Abigail's defense.
They were spared a debate over the propriety of Abigail's involvement in company business when Laurel announced that high tea had been served. Conversation turned to other topics more suitable for the children, though most of the time was spent trying to force them to sit and eat more of the meal before escaping into the yard with their tarts and cakes. For the stop in public judgment, Abigail was again thankful, though this child-focused activity left her and Noah with little to do but sit beside each other in silence and offer polite laughter at the appropriate times.
When it was time to go, they thanked Adam and Laurel for the lovely time, keeping their smiles intact. But as soon as they began to walk home, Noah's mood dropped. Away from the liveliness of the rest of the world, she felt them shift back again, hot and uncomfortable and ever more stifled.
"So… this happened last week."
"Yes," she said simply. But Noah waited, letting his silence force her explanation. She sighed. "I didn't want to upset you with it and put you in a bad position at work."
Noah nodded, but didn't respond.
"So what do you think?" she prompted, unnerved by this uncharacteristic restraint.
"I think he's an ass," Noah said. He did not raise his voice or laugh like he would have in saying the same about Joe or Ephraim. No, it was entirely neutral, the sharing of a simple fact.
The resignation of this reaction surprised her, despite muttered comments Noah had been making for the past several months. It saddened her as well. Confused as she may have been by Henry's motives or feelings, criticism of him still elicited a protective instinct in her. "He's just… complicated," she argued, shaking her head.
"Abigail, he yelled at you."
"It's fine, Noah, I'm fine. Let's not talk about this now."
They arrived at their house and she followed him through the door. The familiarity of home did little to comfort them, empty and quiet as it had been these past few days. She continued in toward the table, but Noah made no attempt to settle in for the evening, and instead shuffled around by the door. Abigail looked back at him, uncertain.
"Noah?"
Her husband was looking out the window, his face slouched with weariness. "Still some sun left. Thinking I'll take that painting back down by the field, try to finish it up." He tilted his head toward the half-painted canvas, left untouched for so many months. She watched as he pulled out a case of brushes from the bureau in the living room, swiping at a thin layer of dust that had accumulated on its cover. A small bit of hope sparked in her, that constant outline of a memory that she kept trying to fill in.
"I'll come with you," she said. "Read the paper." She grabbed the notebook she'd been using off the shelf, stuffing it into her little satchel. She was swinging it over her head, about to reach for the newspaper, when her husband raised a hand.
"Actually… if it's alright with you, I'd like to just go myself."
"Is something wrong?"
"No. I don't know."
For some reason, this continued reticence began to exasperate her more than if he had attacked her outright. "Well, what is it?" she prodded. He hated that she had gone to the mining office. That he had had to hear about it in front of his men. That she had done anything that might make a spectacle of them. She knew exactly what was bothering him, but she wanted to hear him say it.
"It's nothing. I just want to spend some time with my own head is all."
"Alright. Fine. I guess I'll just stay back here then."
"Abigail, come on, would you give me a break?"
"No, of course you're right," she said, bristling. "Why would we want to spend time together during the only week we've had alone?"
"God damn it, Abigail!"
Noah threw his hands wide, flinging the case across the room in an explosion of fury. It burst open as it crashed to the floor, brushes scattering across the wood to hide underneath chairs and seek refuge in dark corners. There would be a dent in her bureau now, she thought bitterly, like the marks in Henry's office.
"This is why I wanted to go!" Noah was shouting, red-faced. "Before I lost my temper!"
She hadn't realized how much she'd wanted this fight… how insidiously she'd been provoking him into it. Her resentment had been boiling for a week, a month, a year, and now it had reached its limit, spilling over their perfect picture.
"Well, let's hear it then!" she shouted. "Tell me how I've embarrassed you today, Noah. What did I not react to properly today?"
"That's exactly the damn problem, Abigail, I don't know what you're gonna react to! One minute you're climbing all over me, telling me you miss me, the next you're acting like I'm a monster. You get upset when I say I might want to leave town, then you're begging to get out of here for date nights or day trips or whatever other thing you've come up with. You're swearing at your friends about some woman you barely know, ready to wage a war over the café… I can't even keep up with you anymore!"
"Can't or won't, Noah? You don't even try! It's like you can't fathom that I could think anything or want anything that I didn't want when I was eighteen years old. You treat everything I do or say as though it's ridiculous no matter what it is, so why should it make any difference to me how I behave?"
"Well that certainly explains a lot," Noah sneered. He began to turn away, but Abigail was far from done.
"Is that it? You think you can leave it like that?" she goaded him, the challenge echoing across the two halves of her life. "Come on, Peter isn't here. Let's have an honest conversation for once!"
Scarlet rage ran up his neck. His face widened and flared. "Oh, you want to be honest? After your secret meeting with Gowen and whatever other scenes you've been making? Now you want to be honest?" he boomed. "Fine. Let's be honest. Let's be honest about Peter, and how you have never accepted him going into the mines – "
"I've never accepted it? All I've done is accept it!"
"No, you haven't! No, you haven't, Abigail, because you want him to be a child forever. But you can't even take care of him."
A seething fire overtook her. "Can't?" she repeated,her voice biting with every loss she had ever suffered. "Did you say I can't take care of my son?"
"You know what I mean. You're so preoccupied with these imaginary slights - "
"No. NO!" she cut him off, stabbing an accusing finger into the space between them. "I am not going to hear my faults this time. Not about Peter. I'm not the one who puts him in danger every day. I'm not the one who never listened to what he wanted. All I did, was forget to iron a shirt." Her teeth gritted together and she shook her head in disgust. "But that's all I'm supposed to do around here, isn't it? Cook and clean and take care of everyone else. Sit here and keep quiet for everyone else. Well, I'm tired of it, Noah! What about what I want?" she yelled.
"And what is that, Abigail?" he asked, large hands flinging helplessly to his sides. "What is it that you want? Please tell me, because I sure as hell can't figure it out!"
"What I want is –"
But she couldn't say it.
"I want – " she stumbled.
Even though everything about Noah's expectant expression seemed ready to fight her, ready to mock anything she said… even though only one word was screaming across the whole of her being… she just. couldn't. say it.
"Well?"
Her throat constricted. "I want some air," she finally said, shoving past him. She hadn't needed to; he didn't stop her. Nothing stopped her as she continued out the door, hurrying forward into the freedom of the evening air and the baptism of its newly falling rain.
ooo
It would have been another lie to say that she didn't know where she was going. Though she could not have pinpointed a moment of conscious decision or described a single step she took over the next fifteen minutes, she had always known she was going to the cabin.
Tears streamed down her face as she slid down the quickly muddying hill, across from the house she knew to be his. Temporary boards had been nailed to the side where repairs were needed, and fresh bare soil stretched across the garden beds at the front. Coming closer, she saw that the windows were dark, but still she kept going. She had finally come to where she needed to be, where she wanted to be, and she couldn't go back now.
"Henry?" she called, rapping on the door. "Henry!" The cry felt as though it were being pulled from her lungs, his name being unleashed from a cage inside of her.
When he didn't come, she moved with eager steps to peer inside the nearest window. Her bag still hung across her body, where it had been when she rushed from the house, and its buckle scraped against the glass as she tried to make out the shapes inside. Inside the dark front room there was sparse furniture, one chair and a table only large enough for his drink. No fire was lit, though he wouldn't need it tonight. Above the mantle was a landscape painting of some other forest-shrouded escape like this one, and underneath it, at the end of a mostly empty shelf, was a hand-stitched toy soldier.
The sight of her gift made her pound again on the window, calling his name once more, choking in her layers under the hot damp air. But the minutes continued to pass by without answer. Her fist slid down the glass and she pressed her head to it, gasping for breath. She couldn't go into town and do this at his house or his office. There was too much at stake still, too much uncertainty. She couldn't stay here, where the Harpers or anyone else could find her. They might even have heard her already. The only other place to try where no one might be today was the mine.
The rain made her hair cling to her cheeks, bringing little relief as she rushed through the sticky and darkening night to reach the expanse of dirt that surrounded the mine. Looking around to make sure she was alone, she climbed the few steps to the small shack that Henry used for his onsite office and knocked at the door, shaking the frame around it.
But he wasn't there either. It was foolish to have hoped he might be.
Where would she go now? Frantic, without any plan, she ran around to the back of the office, seeking shelter under an overhang that would shield her from the rain and keep her out of sight from the road. The confession she had finally been ready to make was still tangled up inside of her, dancing at the edge of her tongue. She couldn't keep her silence for one more minute, could not deny herself one more want. With a fevered intensity, she clawed at her bag, pulling out the notebook of her thoughts which her husband had so easily dismissed, and began to write.
Dear Henry,
The first time I held your hand was at the dinner table. It seems incredible now, when I know your every expression so well, to think of a time when you were unfamiliar to me. I could never have imagined in that moment, when your palm settled into mine, how often I would seek out the touch I felt for the first time that day. How often I would dream of it, ache for it… what I would be willing to give up for it.
My husband asked me today what I want. He says he can't make sense of me. I think he's right. I think you've been able to understand more of me in one year than he has in twenty. If he truly knew the woman I have become, he'd be able to see you painted across every thought that enters my mind. He'd see the way my eyes drift away to look for you on any path we walk. He'd see that the only thing I want is you.
I put you in a terrible position that day in the church, and I regret that. But I can't regret what I did. I have prayed for the strength to excise you from my heart, but God forgive me, I can't bring myself to find the will.
Please don't tell me not to say this. To continue to deny it is a suffering I cannot bear for one more day. If you don't share these feelings, I'll understand, and I hope you'll grant me the dignity and protection of your discretion. But if you do…
I'll come to you, Henry. Just say the word.
The words poured from her like a dream, an uncontrolled avalanche covering the page until she had spilled the last drop of her heart and nearly fallen to her knees from the lost weight of it. She was unburdened. She was free.
She held the book up near her chest to protect all its still-bleeding revelations, the wind whipping stray droplets toward her despite the cover of the eave. Squinting to each side through the veils of rain, she tried to gauge the best route back to the office. But as she stood to make her way around to the door, she heard the sounds, unmistakable. The wet clip-clop of a horse's steps, the wheels of a cart trudging a groove through its slick path…
And her son's voice.
She gasped and threw herself back against the wall. Her heart pounded, meaning nothing against the clamor of the storm.
"Okay, okay, you were right!" Peter was saying, the words nearly carried away with the downpour.
"Just had to stay an extra day, didn't you, Stanton?" another boy laughed. Billy. "Now we got the heat and the rain."
"It was worth it," Peter answered. "Why don't you grab some of the picks while I open up the shed. We can do a handoff."
"Oh, good, maybe it'll only take us one hour to unload everything then! If I don't go flying down the hill every time, that is."
"Alright, I'll do the hill since it was my idea. Happy?"
"Not as happy as you, but I'll take it!"
On the other side of the office, she heard one of them splash through the mud, running to the shed that she knew was at the bottom of the hill. Cautiously she came around to the corner. She remained hidden behind several barrels and the chaos of the storm, but from here she could see Peter, releasing small pieces of the tarp that covered the supplies.
As she watched, Peter pulled heavy tools from the cart, one or two in each fist. Then, for some reason, he stopped and hung his arms over the sides. He tilted his face up to the purple-tinged sky and let the rain fall onto his contented smile, his thoughts a million miles away.
And in the crease of his face and the shimmer of his eyes, she saw her entire heart. She felt the tracks he had made across her life from the miraculous moment he was born all the way down to this minute, when his happiness was a treasure for which she would have waged a war.
And she knew she could never, ever hurt him.
She took the book from her chest and eased it shut, letting her head hang there until she could gather the courage to say goodbye. Then she put it away, closing it up in her bag. She wiped the tears and rain and hair from her cheek. Finally, when her son had disappeared behind the hill, she let her heavy steps take her home.
