“Father is enamored with his animals.”
Jennie startled at the voice. Then realized it was the Parrishes’ youngest son, Charles Winn. They always added his middle name when they spoke of him. Jennie was sure that pleased Elizabeth, as Winn was her maiden name.
Jennie had just moved Elizabeth’s wheeled chair to the solarium where she soaked in the sun. Van lounged on her lap, and the elderly woman stroked him absently while she spoke with her daughter-in-law, Charles Winn’s wife. Jennie pulled bedding, planned to bring in fresh water to the bedside for when Elizabeth tired and she’d be wheeled back inside. Jennie could never be in the room without taking a moment to gaze at the garden and must have been deep in thought, as she hadn’t heard Charles Winn come into the room. He stood close. Jennie stepped away to put more distance between them.
“Enamored is a good word,” Jennie said.
Charles Winn had his father’s good looks, long face with a wide smile, eyes that took you in and held you, thick well-trimmed hair. She imagined Josiah must have looked like his son when he was younger. She turned back to the view. Josiah walked with Norman and Samuel and a grandchild or two among the sheep, the black-and-white guard dogs lying to the sides, watching as Chen rang the bell again.
“What will you do for employment after my mother dies?”
“What?” His directness startled. His father was always truthful but never blunt. “My efforts are here in this moment, caring for your mother with the absolute hope and prayer that she’ll improve.”
“She has, actually, under your ministrations. But we all know—and she does as well—that these are her last months. Even Dr. Wells agrees.”
“I—I’m sorry, I don’t think of my time with your mother in that way.”
“Perhaps my father will keep you on now that Minnie’s up and married, though Chen should be able to care for him well enough.”
“Your father hardly needs tending, especially as long as he has his sheep to monitor. Have you seen the breeding records he keeps? He’s a man of science, your father.” She stepped away as Charles Winn had moved closer to her, their shoulders almost touching. “Could you pull that end of the sheet there? Thank you.” Jennie rolled the linen, held it at her breast. “Or perhaps you and Mrs. Parrish will come live with him.”
Charles Winn grunted at that. “We’ll soon be heading to Canyon City. Mining towns need attorneys, so I’ll be there.” He took a pipe from his vest pocket. “I wonder at any claims you might make upon my mother’s death.”
“Claims?” Jennie frowned. “Your parents have been a godsend to me. I only hope to return their kindness in some small form. But claims against your mother’s estate? No.” Did the family think she was a treasure hunter? She wondered if the attorney in the family knew of the huge debt she owed to his parents. Maybe that was why he’d broached the subject. “I’m here only as long as needed and I will repay all my debts.”
“Good. I wondered.” With that, he left the room.
With Elizabeth’s family visiting, the decision was made to send Jennie home for an entire two weeks.
“Here our Ladies Commission labors to . . . reduce long working hours for women,” Elizabeth said. “We insist their employers give . . . them ample rest time.” Breathing had grown more difficult for her. “Then we keep you . . . here night and day. You go. Henrietta and Annie . . . will do just fine looking after me, won’t you?” Jennie was tempted to finish her sentences to save her breath but did not, speech being a sign of commitment to living.
“Yes, Mother Parrish.” Henrietta took her hand and squeezed it. “I, myself, will relish the time with you.”
Annie Parrish smiled. “We can speak of babies,” she said, her due date approaching and her condition no longer concealed, now that hoops were going out of style and more slenderizing lines marked high fashion.
Before going home, Jennie stopped to see Ariyah, who knew all her secrets now: divorce, debt, destitution, and new determination to make a new life for Douglas and herself.
Her friend’s face glowed as she hugged Jennie and said the strawberry tea had worked this time.
“You’ve conceived!” Jennie squealed her delight.
“Just,” Ariyah said. “April 1870. Our baby will be born in the new decade.”
“I’ll start knitting booties this afternoon.”
Charles Winn’s question of what she’d do had stirred future thoughts in her as she rode the stage toward French Prairie. Her father had written that they considered moving to Salem to be nearer to the legislature and other legal work that claimed him there. But he would hate to leave his beloved farm.
Maybe I can keep the farm for them, Douglas and I together. She’d never worked the land, only her garden. Still, the thought comforted. It felt good to have a possible next step.
Annie Parrish’s baby was due in August. They planned to stay at the Parrish house until delivery, as Canyon City was still a miner’s boomtown with few midwives or doctors not competing with liquor. She’d asked Jennie to serve as midwife. Jennie considered midwifery as an occupation. The women were well-regarded, more than some physicians. She’d need to live in a city though, in order to support herself and Douglas. This time with the Parrishes had lent respectability to her status, but the reality was that Jennie was “damaged goods”—a “grass widow,” as divorced women were called—so getting employment even as a midwife might be difficult. And hopes for a second marriage weren’t wise. Other women sometimes acted as though she meant to steal their husbands when she nodded to them at church; and single men wanted their own children, not saddled with someone else’s child. The truth was, she didn’t relish the thought of raising someone else’s children either. Unlike caring for ill people, her mothering had never garnered compliments.
For now, as the stagecoach dropped her and her bag at the stop, she would think only of her son and of respite.
“Mama! Mama!” Douglas jumped down from the porch railing. She felt his solid body slam into her, nearly causing her to lose her balance. He’d seen her coming up the lane. There’d been an earlier rainfall, not amounting to much, but just enough to muddy up her shoes and make her watch her footsteps.
“Whoa, goodness, how you’ve grown.” At nearly six years of age, he had shot up, his head nearly to her shoulder. She held him at arm’s length, then reached to hold him. He wiggled free.
“Papa came to visit. He brought me a telescope of my very own. I’ll show you. Come, hurry, before he leaves.”
When it comes to family, nothing is ever really settled. There are pauses of forgiveness and healing, then falling back to that former place a family once thought they’d moved beyond.
After Charles deserted them, she had planned what she would say if she ever saw her husband again—like a lawyer, she’d ask pointed questions of how she might have been different to head off what happened. She’d ask after his health, where he’d been, what had he been doing? Or maybe she’d shout about his having left them in debt, taken everything from them, forced his son to sleep on the floor until she could sell the pearls. Or maybe, after shouts and tears, she’d tell him how great sadness fell upon her as she considered how he’d divorced her without ever giving her a chance, that wound nearly as deep as when Baby Ariyah died, the betrayal a bloodstain that never faded.
Here was reality, staring her in the face, and she was speechless.
“Jennie.” Charles’s eyes were black holes, the bachelor-button blue long sunk into darkness. A ragged beard scruffed his cheeks, his chin, covering up that cleft. His hand shook when he reached out to take hers, steadying himself with both hands holding tight. “I should not have come. But I am in desperate need.”
Her parents stood to the side, both with stiff shoulders.
She felt her stomach lurch. Did he think she had funds to give him, to help feed a habit that still drove him?
“Let’s talk outside.” He began to pull on her while Douglas returned, having scampered to his bed and ba
ck, holding the brass and glass. He shoved it between them.
“See, Mama? It’s as nice as yours, the one you lost.”
She’d told her son that lie, that she had lost it, when in fact Charles had taken it with him. She saw it was the same one that Douglas now held, that little ding in the brass having been put there when she’d accidentally banged it against a rail. The calla lily painting now chipped.
“Yes, it is.”
Douglas’s pushing forced Charles to release her hand. “Your mother and I need to speak.” Charles barked the words and Douglas cringed.
“Show me.” Jennie’s father intervened. “Let’s look at the potato field, see if there are any deer marauding out there.”
“No!” Douglas jerked from her father’s gentle hand.
“Go with your grandpa,” Charles told him. “Give me that thing before you drop it.” He grabbed the telescope and Douglas stumbled back.
“Stop it, Charles, please. You gave it to him. Don’t take it back.”
He ignored Jennie, grabbed her elbow, and dragged her out onto the porch, the telescope gripped in his other hand. Douglas screamed behind them. She could hear her parents offering comforting words, moving him out of sight.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need money. Buy this and I’ll be out of your hair. You’ll be done with me. I won’t darken your door again. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
His clothes hung on him. Cheekbones like jagged rocks jutted out, making the hollows under his eyes more pronounced.
“You’re ill. You should see a doctor.”
“You say. You’re working. You’ve got money, I know you do.” He shook the telescope at her. “What coins you have in exchange for me getting out of your life. For good.”
“I—I don’t have coins. What little I have goes to pay off our debt to the Parrish family and to provide for Douglas. My parents aren’t rich. None of us are rich, Charles. You’ll have to find another buyer for your telescope.” Her heart pounded as she saw his eyes narrow, his arm rise with the telescope glinting in the afternoon sun. He’s going to hit me.
In that moment she knew that she would do whatever it took to stay alive, to be there for her son. As he attempted to lower the brass onto her shoulder, she kicked him in the shin, then pushed his head down when he groaned to grab his leg. He dropped the telescope and Jennie picked it up, holding it to her breast. She could hardly speak. “You. Will. Leave. Now. Don’t ever come back. Get help, Charles. But do not come here. Ever. Again.”
Charles backed up, a sly grin his way of saving face.
“Papa!” Douglas sprang from inside the house. “Mama hurt you.”
“Go.” Jennie’s voice shook. “Let me deal with the aftermath, once again, of you.”
“I’ll drive you,” her father said as Douglas broke free and grabbed his father’s knees.
Please let him spurn Douglas, please.
“Douglas, your mama and grandpa don’t see how much I love you, boy. They don’t want me stayin’ around. Got to go now. You be good. Enjoy that telescope I gave you.”
The child sobbed, clinging to his father. Jennie pulled him away, kicking, screaming, while her father rushed Charles to the barn and the buggy. How long would it take them to harness the horse? Please let Charles stay in the barn until they can leave.
That prayer was answered.
She held her son against the wails of disappointment. When they saw the buggy depart, she let him go. He ran after the cloud of dust shielding his father. She knew her son wouldn’t return to her for comfort. And he didn’t.
18
Arrivals and Departures
After his father left, Douglas became a statue to his mother, impeding any effort she made to have their lives sing a shared song. He wasn’t interested in looking through the telescope. He never even picked it up. Her effort to engage him in conversation about Quilton or her praise for how he helped his grandfather brought on scowls. He sassed her parents; Jennie sat him in a chair. He kicked at the wall. Douglas missed three meals before snarling, “Sorry.” Jennie could not make him mean it.
Jennie had been visiting—and she realized she was indeed the visitor—when she suggested one afternoon that he clean Quilton’s cage sitting on the porch. “He doesn’t appear to like the meat you’ve given him. The flies do though. After you do that, we can go together to gather leaves and twigs for him if you like.” She watched him comply, grateful he had. When she checked a few minutes later, Douglas stood beside an empty cage, looked up at her, and said, “I set Quilton free.”
“But you loved that little rodent.” Jennie squatted so she could look into her son’s emerald eyes. The flounce of her skirts offered a soft hush. She touched his forehead, pushing back his dark curls.
Douglas shrugged. He’d gone from being distant to hurting himself, deepening his sadness.
“Quilton’s better on his own.” He stepped back so she couldn’t touch him.
“He’ll miss you. Maybe he’ll come back.”
“He wouldn’t stay. Papa didn’t stay.”
“Your father could have if he had been—”
“Welcome. You didn’t welcome him. Paw-Paw and Grandma didn’t either. He came all that way and brought me a new telescope and you all made him leave.”
“He was still here when I arrived, Douglas. They didn’t make him leave.”
“You did.”
She sighed, pushed herself up, and sank onto the wicker chair. She closed her eyes against the sun, not feeling any warmth. “I did ask him to leave after he . . . I was very sad to do that, Douglas, but his behavior—”
“He wanted to stay with us! He came back for me!”
She couldn’t tell him that his father had come back for money to feed his addiction. It wouldn’t matter. Douglas’s broken heart filtered the memory.
“Your father isn’t well. He was too sick to take care of you.”
“I could take care of him.”
And spend your life looking after him, hoping to earn a love that should be freely given from a father to a son. “Maybe when you see him again, when you’re older, you can suggest that.”
What did one say to the child of an addicted, tortured soul? “I hate to see you give up Quilton. Let’s put a bowl of milk out and see if he comes back.”
“I don’t want to hope for it.” He walked toward the barn where Jennie’s father readied the buggy that would take her to the stage and back to a place of guilty joy.
The newest Parrish baby arrived on a sultry August morning. Jennie served as midwife, though Dr. Wells was also called at Charles Winn’s insistence.
Annie held her newborn, a girl they named Winifred, and whispered to Jennie, who pulled slips over the down pillows, “Thank you for insisting Dr. Wells wash his hands before examining me. Goodness. I could smell Father Parrish’s Merino sheep on him the minute he came through the door. I nearly emitted.”
“The good news is that he listened, even though he had to tell us that he had ‘every intention of doing so without a nagging nurse to remind me.’”
Annie laughed at Jennie’s impersonation.
“What’s so funny?” Josiah entered the room to see his newest grandchild.
“Jennie does a perfect impression of our Dr. Wells,” Annie said before Jennie could shush her. It wasn’t polite to make fun of anyone, let alone a doctor.
“Does she?” He grinned at the women. “He told me Jennie did a fine job of assisting, so I hope you aren’t too hard on him. We old men stick together, you know.”
“I never think of you as old, Father Parrish,” Annie said.
“May I?” He asked to hold the baby, and Annie lifted her up into Jennie’s arms, the swaddling clothes hanging loose. Jennie placed the bundle in Josiah’s arms.
Something in the way he held the baby to his chest, the look of utter love he cast upon her, brought tears to Jennie’s eyes. She’d never have another child, never experience that joy again,
but she could see it was possible to spread love like the sun, warming any child. All children. Douglas might not be able to accept her love for him right now, but it was there for him, always.
“She’s beautiful.” Josiah’s deep voice was soft as a whip-poor-will’s.
“She is,” Annie agreed.
“When you’re able, Elizabeth will be so happy to see her latest grandchild.”
Annie nodded. “In a while.”
He handed the baby back to Jennie, who placed the infant in the cradle beside her mother’s bed.
“We’ll let her rest,” Jennie said. “And you too.”
Van, the little spaniel, trotted between Josiah and Jennie as they descended the stairs. Charles and Annie used an upstairs bedroom where Charles Winn had spent his growing-up years. Jennie had taken over Minnie’s room on the first floor to be closer to Elizabeth, should she call in the night.
“Van’s been following me around all morning like I needed herding.” Josiah nodded toward the little dog who ran ahead, then waited for them.
“It’s odd he’s left Elizabeth.”
“Maybe all the excitement of the new baby.”
But when they entered Elizabeth’s room, Jennie could tell that something had changed. Her patient’s breathing was more labored. Jennie checked her pulse. Weak. “I’ll get a plaster for her chest.”
She had prepared beef gall to molasses thickness and only needed to add mustard, pepper, and lobelia. Van jumped up onto the bed, rounded himself against Elizabeth’s rib cage.
“Maybe he wanted to herd me back here.” Josiah sat and took Elizabeth’s hand in his. “Upstairs, new life. Downstairs, new life too. Just one we don’t get to be a part of.”
“I believe . . . the plaster helps.” Elizabeth awoke with as good a color to her cheeks as Jennie had seen in weeks. Mid-August had come upon them “hot like johnnycake,” as Chen put it.
“Maybe we’ve turned a corner.” Jennie put her hand to Elizabeth’s forehead. Warm but not feverish. Summer heat rose to ceiling beams and beneath the chemise of every Salem woman.