The Endless Forest
Page 211
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“Even after the blizzard let up, I couldn’t make myself go out. I found a crock of bacon grease and a few crackers, and I melted snow to drink. So I stayed another night and then the next day when I was going to give up and go on home I heard my da’s sleigh bells. I ran right out in the middle of the road, and I scared him bad so that at first all he could do was yell at me and ask what was I thinking, being so careless and what was I doing all the way on this side of the village.
“To this day I don’t know how much I told him, or what he understood. Didn’t matter anyhow, because not five minutes later we were in the middle of the village and people were running from all directions shouting at us to stop, stop, something terrible had happened. And that’s when we heard Ma had died on Hidden Wolf and that Cookie was missing. That’s what people said, and that’s what they believed, that Cookie was missing and nothing more.
“Da and me, we never talked about it, after that. Why I was at the Steinmeissen place all alone, or what happened to Cookie, or how Ma had wandered off to die on the mountain. I don’t think he even thought about it, he was so broke up about Ma and Cookie. Levi came back and he was so upset, I was afraid to talk to him for fear he’d run off and kill Jemima and then they’d hang him.
“If I had known Da was going to end up marrying Jemima, I would have made myself tell him. But I didn’t. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be if I had obeyed Cookie and stayed behind that evening. I wouldn’t have slept so deep, and Ma couldn’t have wandered off, and Jemima couldn’t have got my da to marry her, and all the trouble later about the orchard would never have happened. They might still be alive today, both my folks. I am sorry to say that no matter how hard I looked at it, I couldn’t find a way to save Cookie. There wasn’t anything I could have done. When she and Jemima got within striking distance of each other, it was like fire and gunpowder. Something was going to happen.
“That morning after Cookie died, when I woke up and found Ma gone, I knew right then. I knew that if Ma was dead, it would be my fault. And so she was, and so it is.”
Martha held Daniel’s hand tight, and her gaze cast downward. If she concentrated, she might be able to clear her mind and find some way to think clearly. Some way to rid herself of the images Callie had put there, of blowing snow and dark water and of Jemima, standing on the old bridge looking down at the water closing over Cookie.
For all those years Martha had a different image, one she had never told Callie about, though she had testified to it in front of the village. Mrs. Wilde, underdressed for the weather, her hair flowing loose down her back, walking up the mountain on the morning of that same blizzard. Standing at the kitchen window Martha had seen it all very clearly. The woman in a dress the color of dried blood, bent forward a little as she walked into the wind and first gusts of snow. Her skin already translucent, as if she were melting away into the weather.
She tried. She asked again and again. Ma, Mrs. Wilde’s got out somehow; let me take her home. Ma, there’s something wrong with Mrs. Wilde. Ma, let me go get Cookie.
Her mother’s answer she remembered clearly, and the tone: firm, cool, inflexible.
That’s her concern and none of ours.
Knowing that Cookie was dead, Jemima had said that.
Now Martha looked at the woman who had borne and raised her, sitting wrapped in blankets on the hottest of July afternoons. Her face composed, even blank. The idea came to Martha that the spark that animated her mother for all her life was already gone, and the woman who sat there was somebody else entirely.
Callie was sitting down again. Levi put his hand on her shoulder, leaned over and asked her something. She shook her head. Then Ethan came to her and crouched in front of her and took her hands. He talked for at least a minute, in a hushed voice. The kind of voice you might hear someone use in a church or a sickroom. Again Callie shook her head.
Martha wondered if it was her own turn now to go and comfort Callie. To tell her that she wasn’t responsible, that she wasn’t to blame. To say, I don’t mind that you kept all that to yourself all these years, that you didn’t speak up back then. I’m happy that you made that decision for yourself without asking me what I wanted. But those were things she couldn’t say. She might have said something closer to the truth of what she was feeling: Look at all the pain and trouble we might have been spared if you had told somebody what you saw.
Jim Bookman was saying, “Mrs. Focht, do you wish to respond?”
Jemima raised her head as if the sound of his voice had called her up out of a daydream. “What?”
“Do you wish to respond? Tell your own story?”
“My story.” The idea seemed to amuse her. “Of course, I’ll tell you my story.”
Chapter LXIX
“First before I start, John Mayfair has drawn up a last will and testament and I’ve signed it. The little bit I have in the world—and it is just a very little bit—I am leaving to my boy. To Nicholas. I have asked my daughter Martha and her husband to act as guardians until the boy reaches his majority, but I have named Susanna as the person who should take over his upbringing. She has agreed that she will take him in and raise him here at Lake in the Clouds.
“You can tell yourself I am doing this because I want to keep Nicholas away from Callie just to make her mad, but the fact is I don’t want the boy raised by somebody who hates me. If that causes Callie pain, why, that’s an added bonus and nothing more.
“To this day I don’t know how much I told him, or what he understood. Didn’t matter anyhow, because not five minutes later we were in the middle of the village and people were running from all directions shouting at us to stop, stop, something terrible had happened. And that’s when we heard Ma had died on Hidden Wolf and that Cookie was missing. That’s what people said, and that’s what they believed, that Cookie was missing and nothing more.
“Da and me, we never talked about it, after that. Why I was at the Steinmeissen place all alone, or what happened to Cookie, or how Ma had wandered off to die on the mountain. I don’t think he even thought about it, he was so broke up about Ma and Cookie. Levi came back and he was so upset, I was afraid to talk to him for fear he’d run off and kill Jemima and then they’d hang him.
“If I had known Da was going to end up marrying Jemima, I would have made myself tell him. But I didn’t. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be if I had obeyed Cookie and stayed behind that evening. I wouldn’t have slept so deep, and Ma couldn’t have wandered off, and Jemima couldn’t have got my da to marry her, and all the trouble later about the orchard would never have happened. They might still be alive today, both my folks. I am sorry to say that no matter how hard I looked at it, I couldn’t find a way to save Cookie. There wasn’t anything I could have done. When she and Jemima got within striking distance of each other, it was like fire and gunpowder. Something was going to happen.
“That morning after Cookie died, when I woke up and found Ma gone, I knew right then. I knew that if Ma was dead, it would be my fault. And so she was, and so it is.”
Martha held Daniel’s hand tight, and her gaze cast downward. If she concentrated, she might be able to clear her mind and find some way to think clearly. Some way to rid herself of the images Callie had put there, of blowing snow and dark water and of Jemima, standing on the old bridge looking down at the water closing over Cookie.
For all those years Martha had a different image, one she had never told Callie about, though she had testified to it in front of the village. Mrs. Wilde, underdressed for the weather, her hair flowing loose down her back, walking up the mountain on the morning of that same blizzard. Standing at the kitchen window Martha had seen it all very clearly. The woman in a dress the color of dried blood, bent forward a little as she walked into the wind and first gusts of snow. Her skin already translucent, as if she were melting away into the weather.
She tried. She asked again and again. Ma, Mrs. Wilde’s got out somehow; let me take her home. Ma, there’s something wrong with Mrs. Wilde. Ma, let me go get Cookie.
Her mother’s answer she remembered clearly, and the tone: firm, cool, inflexible.
That’s her concern and none of ours.
Knowing that Cookie was dead, Jemima had said that.
Now Martha looked at the woman who had borne and raised her, sitting wrapped in blankets on the hottest of July afternoons. Her face composed, even blank. The idea came to Martha that the spark that animated her mother for all her life was already gone, and the woman who sat there was somebody else entirely.
Callie was sitting down again. Levi put his hand on her shoulder, leaned over and asked her something. She shook her head. Then Ethan came to her and crouched in front of her and took her hands. He talked for at least a minute, in a hushed voice. The kind of voice you might hear someone use in a church or a sickroom. Again Callie shook her head.
Martha wondered if it was her own turn now to go and comfort Callie. To tell her that she wasn’t responsible, that she wasn’t to blame. To say, I don’t mind that you kept all that to yourself all these years, that you didn’t speak up back then. I’m happy that you made that decision for yourself without asking me what I wanted. But those were things she couldn’t say. She might have said something closer to the truth of what she was feeling: Look at all the pain and trouble we might have been spared if you had told somebody what you saw.
Jim Bookman was saying, “Mrs. Focht, do you wish to respond?”
Jemima raised her head as if the sound of his voice had called her up out of a daydream. “What?”
“Do you wish to respond? Tell your own story?”
“My story.” The idea seemed to amuse her. “Of course, I’ll tell you my story.”
Chapter LXIX
“First before I start, John Mayfair has drawn up a last will and testament and I’ve signed it. The little bit I have in the world—and it is just a very little bit—I am leaving to my boy. To Nicholas. I have asked my daughter Martha and her husband to act as guardians until the boy reaches his majority, but I have named Susanna as the person who should take over his upbringing. She has agreed that she will take him in and raise him here at Lake in the Clouds.
“You can tell yourself I am doing this because I want to keep Nicholas away from Callie just to make her mad, but the fact is I don’t want the boy raised by somebody who hates me. If that causes Callie pain, why, that’s an added bonus and nothing more.
