The Bride's House (46 page)

“Your mother told me about him,” Joe said. “And about the baby.”

“My mother told you! She had no right!”

“She knew that. She said it was an awful betrayal and that you might never forgive her. Then she told me she wished someone had betrayed her like that. If that had happened to her, your mom said, her life would have been so much richer. I’m not sure what she was talking about.” He shook his head, then grew serious again. “Your mother said that no matter how wrong it was of her to tell me, she wanted to give me a chance.”

“A chance?”

“To marry you anyway.”

“Even though the baby’s not yours?”

Joe nodded.

“And you’d still marry me?” What Joe said didn’t make sense. “Why?”

“Because I’ve never loved anybody but you, and your mother said you felt the same about me.” Joe sat down beside her and took her hands. “When she told me, I, well, I have to say I didn’t take it very well. I was hurt. But I thought it over, and I don’t want to give you up. I got to thinking that you have to deal with the surprises in your life, with the things you don’t plan, and make the best of them. You know, like the note Peggy put on your car. I hadn’t planned to ask you to marry me that night, but that note made it seem like just the right time. And it was.” He smiled and added, “Peggy told me later on what she’d done, as if that meant our engagement didn’t count.” He grew serious again. “I figured the baby was just a bonus. Somebody has to give that kid a home. You’re its mother. And I’d sure like the chance to be its father.”

“But don’t you want—” Susan stopped when Joe put his hand over her mouth. Then he brushed the back of his hand across her cheek.

“From now on, this is my child, too. Someday, maybe you’ll want to tell it about its father, but we don’t have to talk about that now.” He stroked her cheek. “Let’s talk about the wedding instead. So how about us getting married next week?”

“I’d like that.”

“Good going.”

*   *   *

Joe left Susan at the Bride’s House just as Bert Joy pulled up. “Your mama called me to do some work,” he said.

“I think maybe she wants you to paper over the wall in the study.”

“Oh, that again. Okay, then.” He followed Susan into the house, where Pearl waited with a roll of wallpaper in her hands. “What’ve you got there?”

“Wallpaper. You’ve done this before, Bert,” she said. “I want you to put that strongbox back inside the wall and paper it over.”

“Why don’t you folks just get a safe-deposit box?”

“Tradition,” Pearl told him.

Bert headed for the study, and Pearl turned to Susan. “You’re looking a little better.” She searched her daughter’s face.

“A lot better. Joe and I are getting married next week, as soon as Father arrives.” Susan closed her eyes, and tears seeped from under her lids. “It’s going to be all right.”

They heard Bert whistling in the next room, and Pearl said, “I think maybe there’s something you might want to add to that box then, before it goes back into its hiding place, something you might want your own daughter to discover one day.”

“You think the baby’s going to be a girl?”

“There’s a fifty percent chance,” her mother replied.

Susan laughed for the first time in a long while. “There’s nothing for me to add. I threw away the note I wrote to Joe.”

Pearl removed a paper from the pocket of her apron. It was wrinkled, and she ironed it with her hand. “It’s up to you.”

Her eyes clouded, Susan stared at the paper. “This is a house of secrets. I suppose one more won’t hurt. Maybe one day, I will tell my child—my daughter—about her father.”

“And right the wrongs of the past?” her mother asked.

“Were they wrongs? Or were they only secrets?” Susan pondered that for a moment with no answer. Then she picked up the note, went into the study, and laid it inside the strongbox, adding her story to those of her mother and her grandmother. Placing the note there gave her a continuity with the two women who had shared both her shame and her joy.

Bert Joy tapped the box into place, then he cut a square of wallpaper and swiped it with paste, fitting it over the box so neatly that the women had to look closely to see the patch. “Okay, then,” Bert said to himself as he picked up his tools.

Susan walked him to the door and watched him get into his truck. She stayed on the porch, staring out at the mountains, which were obscured by clouds. Sealing up her secret with those of her mother and grandmother was a way of putting the past behind her. Now, she could think about the future, a future with Joe Bullock and her baby—
their
baby. The clouds drifted away then, and a ray of sun penetrated, touching the tower of the Bride’s House—her house, hers and Joe’s, because no matter where their lives took them, this would be their home, this house that had sheltered three generations of women of her family, this house where she would be married.

She breathed in the cold mountain air, catching the scent of the wet pines, and although she knew it was late for their blooming, Susan thought she could smell Nealie’s lilacs, too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There really is a Bride’s House. It may not be as magnificent as the one I wrote about in
The Bride’s House,
but it is an elegant place, one of the finest homes in Georgetown, Colorado, when lumberman Charles Bullock built it in 1881. But when I entered it 125 years later, the house was a derelict, its paint scoured off by the wind and snow, old cars parked in the yard. The inside had been stripped of its charm, the parlors and foyer turned into a single room, a part of an old house propped up against one side to serve as a bedroom. Raccoons lived in the tower.

My husband, Bob, and I toured the house one summer afternoon in 2007 with preservation architects Kathy Hoeft and Gary Long, who saw beyond the grime and destruction to what the original house had been—and could be again. When he glimpsed the walnut staircase, Gary raised his arms and exclaimed, “It’s a bride’s house!” At that moment, Bob decided to buy the place. I decided to write a book about it.

I am grateful to so many people who undertook the three-year challenge of returning the Bullock House to its nineteenth-century splendor. Thanks to Don Buckley for entrusting us with his family home. Kathy Hoeft lovingly restored the house’s Victorian integrity while meeting our own needs. Dave Grasso and Ann Sill oversaw the rebirth of the Bullock House, working with two dozen other craftsmen, including Art Boscamp, Mark Ackerman, Patrick McKendry, and Gene Rakosnik. Elaine St. Louis selected the colors and decorated the interior, giving the house warmth and personality. Landscapers Bryan Lee and Jennifer Klaetsch replaced weeds and junked cars with a Victorian lawn and garden. You people are artists, and your work will stand for another 125 years.

While I knew that restoration of our Bride’s House would take years to complete, I expected
The Bride’s House
to go much faster. No such luck! The book, too, took three years, and I would have dropped the project if it hadn’t been for the literary craftsmen who are my lifeline—Danielle Egan-Miller and Joanna MacKenzie, my loyal and supportive agents at Browne & Miller Literary Associates, who talked me through draft after draft, and Jen Enderlin, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, whose unerring instincts always make my work better. Buff Rutherford shared a lifetime of Georgetown stories, including the ones about the tire and the snake. Happy trails, Buff. Bruce Harlow answered a barrage of questions about the Air Force, Korea, and the 1950s, and Arnie Grossman gave unwavering support, as he always does. Thanks to both of you for fifty years of friendship.

My love to Bob, for embarking with me on this remarkable venture, and to our children, Dana, Kendal, and Lloyd, and our grandson, Forrest. The Bride’s House, whether you like it or not, is your legacy.

ALSO BY SANDRA DALLAS

Whiter Than Snow

Prayers for Sale

Tallgrass

New Mercies

The Chili Queen

Alice’s Tulips

The Diary of Mattie Spenser

The Persian Pickle Club

Buster Midnight’s Café

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE BRIDE
’
S HOUSE
. Copyright © 2011 by Sandra Dallas. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

ISBN 978-0-312-60016-7

First Edition: May 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7751-7

First St. Martin’s Press eBook Edition: April 2011

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