A/N: So it's clear, Abigail and Henry are both pretty terribly damaged, both because of the mine accident and because they are in crisis about how they've generally lived their lives. Their motivations and thoughts are not necessarily coherent, healthy, or objectively correct.
Chapter 32 – Late November 1916 – All this life has taught me is how to lose women
It was Henry's bad luck that the sound of a car was still so distinctive in this working-class town, and even more so that eleven-month-old children tended not to sleep through the night. Even so, he could chalk it up only to his poor judgment that he had chosen to roll slowly over the crunching gravel, leading immediately to the opposite of his intended effect. His stiff leg proved the final nail in his coffin, providing Elizabeth with more than enough time to catch him up, despite the added encumbrance of a baby stroller.
"Henry! You're back!"
He winced into the night air. After days without conversation directed at him, the sound of another voice felt harsh and conspicuous, almost accusatory. He had cause, of course, to feel as though he had been caught red-handed, given that he was furtively creeping back into town in the middle of the night after a trip to an undisclosed location, though he bristled to think he owed anyone a detailed description of his whereabouts. He'd told Mike he would be gone for a week or so but would call if there was any change, and his dutiful and advantageously timorous employee had made no further inquiries as to the purpose of his absence. That, Henry felt, was the extent of his obligations in the matter.
"Yes," he said, trying valiantly to smile through his exhaustion. "If you'll excuse me, though, Elizabeth, it's been a very long drive…" With a cursory tip of his hat, he attempted to run up his front steps, but was once again reminded that the ability to run had eluded him for the past several years.
"Did you see her?"
Elizabeth was now just a few feet from him, the wheels of the baby carriage kicking up a small cloud of dust as she came to a hard stop, still panting. There was still just enough moonlight for him to discern the eagerness in her face – a determination that cared for neither his evasive tactics nor his desperation to climb into a bed, a bath, or both.
"I'd really prefer to talk about this after some sleep," he tried again.
"Henry, please, I just – I need to know."
The only sounds in the darkness now were their hesitant breaths and the helpless fussing of little Jack inside his stroller. Henry stared sympathetically down at the boy, confused and uncomfortable, unable to situate himself satisfactorily in this disorienting world.
"Her birthday is next month," Elizabeth said. It was a desperate statement, tinged with some intangible hope that something like that could still matter.
"Yes. I know," he said softly.
"Do you think she'll ever come back?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to tell you, Elizabeth. I can't in good conscience tell you that she's alright, and I'm not convinced she wants to be, not yet. Sometimes you feel like that guilt, you know… that it's all you have. That letting go of it means you've let those people go too. You're afraid to smile because someone might think you've forgotten."
Elizabeth nodded, her eyes glossy with sorrow. "You can never forget though."
"No," Henry said, his chest wrenching. "Never."
A questioning cry rose mercifully from the stroller, sparing Henry the fruition of his threatening tears. "Sounds like the little man wants to get on with it," he said, jerking one corner of his mouth up tiredly. "Night, Elizabeth."
"Henry?" she called once more as he finally made his way to his door. "Tomorrow though?'
"Tomorrow. You have my word."
ooo
And he kept his word. Over the course of a restless night spent in every dark corner of his mind, Henry had come to the realization that he had been playing pretend with himself, imagining that he was the only one who cared what happened to Abigail. It was a selfish impulse – a way to keep her. But seeing Elizabeth, frantic and sleepless, had reminded him she was experiencing loss and pain for her friend as well.
At recess time the next day he went up the schoolhouse and told her roughly what had happened. (It was true, perhaps, that he had chosen that time deliberately in order to have an excuse for escape and distraction; he couldn't be expected to become a saint overnight.) Elizabeth did emerge victorious in convincing him to give her the address for the Moreland house, after several hems and haws and cautions on his end that she be delicate and thoughtful if she decided to write.
Once he had managed to choke out the details of his visit and return to the office, he seized on a quiet moment to lean back in his chair and clear his head. Hickam had gone out to the field to check on things, having wisely restricted his questioning of Henry to whether he'd had a "pleasant drive home" despite the worry on his face being as baldly obvious as ever. This particular expression made Mike an ideal companion for poker, but a less welcome occupant of the desk opposite him for several hours of the day, so Henry was glad of the respite on this particular afternoon.
It did not last long.
"Mr. Gowen?"
Henry opened his eyes, the start of a scowl itching underneath the week-old mustache he had yet to bother with. He halted the worst of it once he caught sight of the bright face above him.
"Robert," he greeted flatly. "Excuse me. Good afternoon."
"Are you alright, Mr. Gowen?" the boy asked, scrunching up one side of his face. Henry sighed at the familiar inquiry, though as far as looks of concern went he rather preferred this more perplexed one to the soft tilting one from which he had just been granted reprieve.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine, thank you. Just didn't sleep well."
"Was it a dream?" Robert asked with a sudden excitement. "I can interpret them, you know. I could tell you about yours if you want."
"Well, I appreciate that, but mine are… pretty straightforward," he said, half-grimace and half-smile.
"Oh," Robert said, clearly disappointed. "Well, I've got your mail. There's lots built up from when you were gone."
"I see, thank you." Grunting against his leg, Henry drew himself up to standing, digging into his pockets while Robert deposited small stacks from his bag onto a clear corner of the desk. "Now then, I'll owe you for a little over a week," he said, his tongue sticking out with the small effort of fishing around for change. Robert shuffled around uncomfortably as Henry counted out the coins and bills in his hands.
"Mr. Gowen?"
"I've got it, just a minute."
"No, it's not that. I was wondering…" He paused and Henry looked up at him, waiting for words to come out.
When none did, he prompted, "What is it, son?"
"Well, I wanted to ask you something, but I think you'll probably get mad."
Henry stopped and eyed the boy in front of him, who looked about ready to burst from either terror or curiosity or both. He jangled the coins in his hands for a moment as he tried to ascertain what the question might be and whether he would, in fact, get mad.
"Has there been some accident or trouble in the office while I was gone?"
"Oh no, nothing like that, sir. It's just…" Robert shifted again, biting his lip. "Well, I thought you might know how to get a girl to like you."
Henry nearly burst out laughing.
"Young man, that is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and not one I have solved."
Robert deflated at this response. Henry had no choice but to take pity on the poor soul. Taking advantage of his temporary facial hair, he pushed down a smirk.
"Alright, I'll bite. I can try to help, but first I'm curious: what made you ask me for girl advice?"
The boy looked so guilty Henry thought he was about to throw his hands out to be cuffed.
"I know I wasn't supposed to, but I heard that letter Mayor Stanton wrote. About the mine and why she left. And a lot of people in town are saying that…" Robert stopped, reddening even further.
Henry nodded to spare him the need to continue. "I have an idea what they're saying. But you know, Robert," he said gently, "what Mayor Stanton did or didn't do and with whom is not really appropriate for a twelve-year-old to be speculating about – "
"I'm thirteen, sir."
"I'll beg your pardon then, but there's plenty of thirty and forty-year-olds around here I wish would shut their mouths about it just the same."
"I'm not trying to say anything bad, Mr. Gowen, honest. I think Mayor Stanton's one of the best ladies in Hope Valley, which is exactly why it made me think. I figure if someone like Mayor Stanton had done something like that, it must have been for someone she thought was really important."
The innocent candor and logic of it caught Henry so off-guard he couldn't even respond. He had no idea what he thought of this statement given that he'd barely confronted everything Abigail had said in Saskatchewan, and frankly had barely confronted the seven years before that. He also did not want to let loose on the boy the way he had Bouchard and the Coulters. That wouldn't be quite fair, and Robert was really asking about his own problems anyway; it was Henry who had made him explain the reasoning.
"Well," Henry started, though he still had no train of thought to follow this initial word. "I suppose… I mean, I see why…" he tried again. "Robert, even if it were true, that doesn't make it a good thing. There's rules about marriage - "
"But the girl I like isn't married, sir," Robert rushed to correct him. "We go to school together."
The bristling that had begun in Henry's chest softened.
"Ah. Well, that is different," he said, a small smile playing on his lips. "Come. Sit down and tell me about this young lady."
ooo
The week had another unexpected young lady in store for Henry, it seemed. A couple days later, having relieved Robert of his duties now that he was no longer avoiding the mercantile, he received a letter from one Rebecca Stanton.
Ned had handed it to him discreetly, furrowing his brow. Henry had looked up at his friend with hesitant eyes, as though the shopkeeper could tell him whether the contents were likely to make the letter catch fire in his hand. Ned shrugged back. Henry debated for a moment whether he wanted to be alone for this, but ended up ripping the envelope open at the counter.
Skimming quickly over the words, he exhaled. "It's alright," he told Ned. "Nothing concerning." Ned, he noticed, exhaled as well.
Henry decided to take the letter over to the saloon, predicting he might need a drink in hand to read it more closely. When he'd settled with his whiskey and supper, he pulled the envelope out again, his eyes turning over the delicately angled writing.
Dear Mr. Gowen,
I hope this letter finds you as untroubled as circumstances allow. My grandmother has told me you were kind enough to make a visit out to her home to see my mother. I expect it did little to reassure or cheer you, though Mom will not tell Granny Moreland what transpired and it is not my intent to pry. I only want to thank you for coming to talk with her, regardless of how the conversation may have gone.
As you saw, my mother has not been well since discovering what she feels is her role in her husband and son's deaths. She has told my grandmother only what she can muster in small doses over the weeks she has been home, and my grandmother in turn has shared only parts of these confidences with me and even less with Cody. While we all understand her regret over her actions, we remain unable to pierce the certainty she has built up in her head and heart that she was the cause of the accident and must mercilessly bear its weight. It is difficult for me to see how cruel she is being to herself when she is always so forgiving of others' pasts. Where would we either of us be, Mr. Gowen, without her kindness?
When we rode together that Christmas, you told me of your own regrets, already so publicly treaded. But your very actions that day, as well as your kind words and the friendly manner in which we spent those hours, show plainly that you have found a well of strength that enabled you to emerge, if not entirely at peace, with at least some notion that forgiveness and renewal are not forever lost to you.
The darkness to which my mother has succumbed is probably familiar to you then, as it is to me, because it is what I remember in myself during those terrible days following my hospitalization: a despair that made me believe I could not physically go on. It was only when something drove me forward that I could remember I possessed the strength I needed. If you'll forgive me for imposing even further on the boundaries of propriety in our limited acquaintance, I believe my mother was that something for you. And so now, though I may invest too much of my hope in affairs of which I admittedly know little, the devotion I have witnessed makes me believe that you will be that for her.
You remember me as a child, no doubt, but in the intervening years I have become a woman, and have therefore become more intimately acquainted with a woman's heart. You are clearly dear to my mother, and she to you. I would like to think that – despite whatever confrontations, regrets, or tragedies have cast shadows on that complicated affection – your faith in her still means something. Even if I am wrong, I want you to know that I remain forever grateful for everything you have done for us.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Gowen.
"Out of the mouths of babes," Henry sighed to himself.
"So they say."
Henry turned at the voice, tucking the letter instinctively closer to his chest. "Oh, Bouchard. Good evening."
"Good evening, Henry. Mind if I join you?" Lucas asked, his hands already on the back of the second chair. Henry was not quite in the mood for company, but he imagined he owed Lucas for his outburst last time they'd met, nor did he find it good form to deny the saloon owner a seat in his own establishment. He gestured with a welcoming hand toward the other seat.
"Giving more shrift to the wisdom of youth these days then?" he inquired with a smirk, catching the bartender's attention for his own drink.
"It's possible I've underestimated them," he conceded with a frown, tucking Becky's letter into his jacket and ignoring Lucas' needling. He'd already apologized once. "The Wolf boy gave me a run for my money the other day as well. But then, I remember him when he was yea high with Mary shouting after him. I'm always surprised to find he's grown now. All of the children have since their– since I first came here."
"They have a way of doing that," Lucas smiled. He drew a pack of cards from his pocket and raised a brow. "Couple of rounds?"
Grateful for the distraction, Henry quickly agreed.
ooo
When the town council decided to appoint a new interim mayor, Henry did not dissent. He was a practical man first and foremost, and this was a practical decision. He couldn't help noticing that the others looked almost relieved when he cast his vote, as though they had expected a fight. It was true that the town council meetings could rile him up more than most other things. There would always be an offhand comment about her absence, or someone peering at his face just a little too long after she was mentioned.
"Everyone in favor of appointing Leland Coulter to the mayorship of Hope Valley, on an interim basis?"
A chorus of ayes circled the table, Henry's among them. He and Lee had since recovered from his outburst, but not before Henry had offered his deepest apologies to Rosemary with the café's fanciest-looking torte and let her regale him with stories of her time playing The Scorned Woman in the hit play The Scorned Woman.
"Anyone opposed?" Bill asked. This was met with silence.
Finally, "Any abstentions?" Bill looked to Lee, who dutifully raised his hand.
"Abstained."
"The measure passes. Congratulations, Lee."
Henry joined into the applause, shaking Lee's hand across the table while others patted the new mayor on the back. No sooner had the noise of the congratulations begun to die down than he heard that familiar small-town murmur, a little pest of a noise off to his right.
"Not a moment too soon," it said.
Henry turned his head slowly, and sensed the others drawing in their breaths.
His voice dripped with a practiced contempt. "Something you want to say, Mr. Sewell?"
Mr. Sewell had enough sense to look embarrassed for being overheard, though that hardly made up for his lack of sense in saying it.
"I'll leave it be," the man grunted. "We've done our business for the day, Mr. Gowen."
"That's exactly right, so we've got nothing but time. Please, tell us what fate it is you think we've escaped."
There weren't too many men left in Hope Valley that went back longer than Henry did, but Albert Sewell was one of them. A rough-and-ready homesteader whose kids were grown and wife since passed, he bothered with the town council only to preserve his own interests. Henry had never paid him much mind until recently, when his grumblings at the council meetings had become increasingly ornery.
"Well, fine, Gowen, let's shoot straight. That woman's tainted the reputation of this town with her sins and murdered its sons besides. It's no wonder she skipped out on the mayorship when she couldn't even stick to her sacred vows."
"That's enough," Bill stood. Henry and Sewell stood too.
"You don't know anything about it, Sewell. You want to blame someone, blame me. I'm the one who ran that mine. I'm the one who made the calls."
"I don't need your permission to place my blame. This is on your head too, Gowen. Neither of you was ever worth a damn as mayor. You or your Jezebel."
Henry's fist flew, sending the old man back against a bookcase. The others jumped up from the table with gasps or screams, some throwing hands over their mouth.
"Henry!"
"Spare me, Bill, I know what I'm in for. But I've had to sit here for the past three months listening to everybody's silence including ours. I don't know what the hell you people want. If it's blood, she already gave it to you. It's running underneath your feet, from the mine to the cemetery. The rest of it, she poured into this town. Everyone here has prospered because of that woman's tenacity and grace. Abigail was never silent when it came to forgiveness. If you were here, she spoke up for you, because you were family. So I'll be damned if I'm going to stand here any longer and not speak up for her."
The color ran from his cheeks and he gripped the chair to steady himself. Ned made a move toward him but he shook his head. The others – Lee, Ned, Elizabeth, Kevin Townsend, Bedelia Haverhill, and Graham Cardinal – had slowly collected themselves when they saw that the altercation would go no further. Some looked ashamed; Elizabeth looked determined.
"I'm with you, Henry. Thank you for reminding us what Hope Valley is about."
Henry nodded. Across the room, holding a bleeding Sewell, Bill sighed.
"Do you want to press charges?"
"For what?" Sewell spat, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "You've forgotten how a man settles an argument?"
Bill sneered, pushing the man in front of him. "Just go. We're adjourned."
Graham and Mrs. Haverhill followed closely behind Sewell, offering hasty partings to Henry that were neither scornful nor sympathetic. They just wanted to get out, and Henry knew the feeling, but he didn't trust himself to move just yet. Kevin was newer to town and Henry imagined the young blacksmith with the handsome features had his own concerns that didn't involve some decade-old affair between old folks, but he pressed a kind hand to Henry's shoulder just the same. This left Henry with Lee, Ned, Elizabeth, and Bill Avery staring at him like the still-smoldering remains of a house fire.
"Well," Lee broke the silence. "That's kind of fun when you're not on the other end of it."
Bill nodded. "He's had it coming for a while. I'd've done it myself if I could."
Henry grumbled the support away. "Doesn't mean I'm proud of doing it."
Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Didn't say I wasn't proud of doing it."
The room fell quiet again. No one was about to pretend he'd made his rabid defense out of some general community kinship. If they didn't know his feelings directly, they'd all been here for the past six years at least, watching the elaborate dance. They also knew him well enough to know he'd done his public speaking on it for the afternoon. Ned tilted his head toward the door and Henry nodded.
"Apologies for the disruption in any event," he said, figuring it was what he ought to say.
Back down in the street, Ned pretended not to be keeping watch over him and Henry pretended not to notice Ned pretending.
"How's the hand?" Ned asked casually.
"Honestly? Feels good," he admitted, indulging himself in the gratifying throbbing of his knuckles. He waited a beat. "I'd ask you to not to tell Florence, but it'll make its rounds either way."
Ned smiled. "I'd be surprised if she doesn't say something the moment I walk in. Sometimes I swear that woman has psychic powers!"
The laughter in the other man's voice made him turn, temporarily distracted from his own self-absorbed thoughts. He watched as the corners of Ned's mouth quirked up, the lines around his eyes framing a very specific twinkle that Henry didn't recall ever seeing there before. Henry smiled, wordlessly slapping his friend on the back with his stinging hand.
