The Marriage Bed (27 page)

"She's dead," Neil said, his eyes wide and glazed. "I thought she was just sleeping. And I touched her. Touched that big pimple on her cheek with the hair in it. And she didn't move. She just kept smiling."

His voice was without expression, as if he was in a trance. Spencer tugged on Livyy's sleeve. She turned, shaking her head at him, but then saw the boy and crouched beside him.

"What's wrong, honey?" she asked him, cradling his cheeks. "Are, you sick?" She raised her gaze to Spencer, her eyes filled with fear.

"She's dead," he said again. "There was blood. A lot of blood."

"Who?" Livvy asked him, crossing herself and saying a quick prayer. "Who's dead?"

"Miss Zephin," Neil said, looking around and fastening his gaze on Charlie. "I better tell her pa."

Spencer picked up the boy as if he were a small child. Neil lay stiffly in his arms. His eyes must have been seeing the scene over and over, for he suddenly shut them tight.

Remy and Bess had made their way through the crowd of celebrators only to find their nephew in Spencer's arms.

"What's the matter with the boy?" Remy asked as Bess reached out and felt his forehead in typical motherly fashion.

"Something's happened to Emma Zephin," Spencer said, unsure how accurate Neil's assessment might be. "Better tell Charlie. I'll take Liv and Neil home."

Livvy looked at him questioningly. Was she wondering if he'd heard a word she'd said?

"We'll be at Sacotte Farm, waiting to hear," he said.

It was a night for misery, all around.

"Hard to believe," Remy said, shaking his head. They were all gathered in the kitchen at Sacotte Farm hovering over mugs of now-cold coffee and going over all the details of Emma Zephin's death.

"Suicide," Olivia kept saying, shaking her head and crossing herself. "And all laid out in the wagon like she didn't want to be any trouble. What could have made her do a thing like that?"

Spencer thought of the look on Emma's face as the glasses of lemonade came tumbling down the stairs. What was it Makeridge had called her? A walrus?

"I don't know," he said softly. Life itself had been an embarrassment for Emma. He didn't see that death should be, as well.

"Charlie said she apologized in the letter for being so hard on the eyes," Remy said. "Said that she'd tried, over the years, to be good and kind and helpful, but that in the end none of those things seemed to count for anything."

"But why
now
?" Olivia pressed. "She looked the same her whole life. Why
now
was that so bad?"

"It's not what you're thinking," Bess said, getting up to get some fresh hot coffee.

"Maybe not," Livvy said. "But if things had gone differently with Mr. Makeridge . . ."

"What exactly are you thinking, Olivia?" Spencer asked. He was weighing whether to tell her what Emma had overheard and how it was that Makeridge's face had come to look like a horse's balls, all black and blue and swollen.

"That she saw Waylon Makeridge as her last chance," Livvy said. "And that he . . . well, he thought that I . . . not that I . . ."

"Put it out of your mind," Spencer said. "It's not your fault that the man found you more attractive than Emma Zephin. Hell, any woman in Door County's more attractive than Emma, God rest her soul. Not that you aren't . . . " He threw up his hands. "They don't come prettier than you."

"But that's not the point," Livvy said. "What difference does it make how pretty Emma was? Did she deserve to die because she was ugly? Look at Charlie. Emma didn't get that face in a box of Cracker Jack. But Wilma married Charlie even if his face could stop a clock. And nobody said he was too ugly to live."

"Nobody said that about Emma, either," Remy said. "Excepting Emma."

"But they did," Bess argued, taking Livvy's side. "By not courting her or marrying her. A woman is on earth for one thing. To bring children into the world. That's what God put her here for, and anyone who stops her—''

Livvy rose abruptly from the table, sloshing the coffee over the rims of several of the cups onto the wooden surface.

"That was thoughtless of me," Bess said, rising and putting her arms around her sister-in-law. "I guess I was just . . ."

Spencer took a deep breath and swallowed hard before interrupting. "No, Bess. It was thoughtless of me. The fact that Livvy and I haven't had any children yet was my fault, not Liv s.

Livvy turned to stare at him, and he realized he'd made some terrible mistake. He just didn't know what it was. She shook her head at him, but he'd let the horse out of the barn and it was too late to shut the door.

"Just how was it your fault?" Remy asked him. Spencer thought if Remy gripped the cup any tighter the handle would crumble in his hands.

Livvy pleaded silently with him. Here he was ready and willing to own up to what he'd done, and her eyes were begging him not to do it.

She bit her bottom lip and looked at the floor. Dear Lord! She was ashamed of her innocence.

"Spencer? I asked you a question."

The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass her. Her innocence was her most precious quality. And he'd trampled it and sullied it and if he wasn't careful, he'd hang it out to dry.

"I stopped praying," he said, watching Livvy for any sign of approval or, better still, forgiveness. "But I can't tell you, Remy, how hard I'm praying now."

Chapter Twenty

"But the way she looked," Neil said again, causing his cousin Philip to cover his eyes and groan. "Her face wasn't all pinched or nothing."

Olivia smoothed back his hair and wet down the cowlick that she thought might look irreverent at the funeral. "Are you all ready to go?" she asked him, her voice gentle and encouraging.

He looked around the kitchen, his heart pounding so hard she could see it through his shirt, his breathing uneven. "Isn't Uncle Spencer coming?" he asked. "He promised, and I thought . . ."

Livvy knew exactly what he thought. He had no doubt begun to believe that the promises his Uncle Spencer made were ones that he could always count on. And as important as any of the promises themselves were, it was even more important that he could believe them, depend on them. Now, in the kitchen at Sacotte Farm, he clearly wasn't so sure.

Livvy, of course, had been there herself. Had hoped and been disappointed and foolishly hoped again.

But if his faith had to be crushed, she wasn't going to be the one running the thresher over his dreams. "I suspect he'll meet us there," she said, bending her knees slightly so that she could look him fully in the eyes.

"But he told me he'd go with me," Neil said, not bothering to hide the fear in his voice.

He'd admitted this morning that the last funeral he'd been to had been his mother's, and he wasn't looking forward to this one. What if, he'd asked, he closed his eyes and saw Miss Zephin again, like kept happening to him?

"I hear his wagon," Remy said, pulling back the curtains to make sure. "I don't believe you saw this much of him when you were living at home, Liv," he added, watching as she checked her hair one more time in the mirror.

"Do you think they'll fix her hair nice?" Neil asked. "So that she looks pretty?"

"Miss Zephin look pretty?" Louisa said with a laugh. "God can't make an American Beauty rose out of an old stinkweed, for heaven's sake."

"Louisa! It's not like you to be so uncharitable. People's words and actions count far more than their looks, don't you think?" Livvy asked, trying to set a good example.

"Well, he keeps talking about how good she looked," Louisa whined. "Everybody know she was ugly as sin, so how come she looked better when she was . . . you know . . ."

Bess bustled into the kitchen with her hand in her waistband. "Will you look at that, Liv?" she said, holding the skirt away from her body. "Why, I must've lost a good ten pounds, don't you think?"

"I can see it in your face," Liv agreed, despite the look Neil gave her that implied she might be exaggerating more than just a little. "That skirt better not fall down in church!"

"You want my suspenders, my pretty?" Remy asked, pretending to unbutton them for her.

"Why did she look so nice, Aunt Liv?" Neil asked again. No doubt he just couldn't get the picture of Emma Zephin off the insides of his eyelids.

"Because she was with her maker, I suppose," Livvy said for want of a better answer. "And so she wasn't lonely anymore."

"I say hallelujah that her suffering is over," Bess said as she once again checked the distance between her round belly and the band of her skirt. "She's with God and she knows eternal peace."

"Yes," Philip said, apparently considering what he was being told. "But she killed herself. Isn't that a sin?"

"Anyone home?" Spencer's voice boomed from the porch.

Livvy watched the tension ease out of her nephew's shoulders at the mere sound of Spencer's voice. It was as if just the man's voice from a distance, or his smell when they worked up close, or the sight of him just coming into view, was able to put all their nephew's thoughts in order and helped the world make sense to him.

"In here," Neil yelled, scooting around Olivia and rushing to greet his uncle.

"You all right?" Spencer asked him, bending so that they were nearly eye to eye. "You sleep all right?"

"I touched her," he said, and tears sprang into his eyes. "I thought she was asleep, I swear it! I never would've done it if I knew she was dead."

"No, son," Spencer said softly, his big hand cradling the back of Neil's head and hugging him to his belly. "I know you wouldn't."

"I don't want to go," he said, though the words got muffled against his uncle's shirt.

"Well, I don't suppose anyone really wants to go to a funeral. And unless your aunt disagrees, you don't have to go." He continued to stroke the boy's head as he spoke. "But there's something about saying good-bye—there, with God watching and everyone gathered around for the same purpose as you . . ."

Neil's gaze took in Livvy and he seemed to come to some decision. "I'll go," he said, trying to pull away and end the discussion.

But her husband held him fast and spoke in a dreamy voice aimed more at himself than anyone else in the room. "It's best to say your good-byes and get them over with and move on. Sometimes you wait too long and then they stick in your throat until they choke you. And you aren't really living yourself anymore, and it takes more will than you think you have, to get it done."

"But I heard you that day," Neil said. "In the cemetery. You told them good-bye."

Livvy couldn't swallow. Truly she couldn't. Panic gripped her throat and lungs, and she spun on her heel so quickly that she caught her hip on the door frame as she rushed back into the kitchen.

He'd told them good-bye. Kirsten and the children were finally at rest for him. She gulped for air and felt the relief flood her chest.

Behind her the swinging door opened, and she didn't have to turn to know it was Spencer that had come after her.

"It'll all work out," she heard Remy say from the parlor where no doubt everyone stood staring in her direction. "Let's head on out to the wagons. I'm sure Aunt Liv and Uncle Spence'll be out here in just a minute."

"It
will
work out, Liv," Spencer said, coming up behind her until she could feel the heat of him against her back.

"It's too late," she said. Though there was more she wanted to add, it was all she could manage before running from the room, grabbing her hat from the peg by the door, and scrambling into the wagon like her tail was on fire. She settled down next to Neil and kept her eyes on the horizon as Spencer followed her at some distance and took a seat on the other side of the boy, then released the brake and turned the horse in a circle toward town.

It's too late.
That's what she'd told him the night before, and that's what she'd told him again. It amazed her that he could even think she could forgive him. How could he stand there and tell her it would all work out? Now that his pain was over, did he expect her simply to forget about her own?

"You have Josie tight?" she asked, turning around to check Louisa and the baby, her gaze skimming the top of Neil's head and carefully avoiding Spencer's eyes, though she felt him studying her.

"Of course I have her," Louisa snapped.

The wagon came to a halt. Spencer handed the reins to Neil without saying a word, then shifted in his seat until he was facing his niece.

"I've been patient with you. I've made allowances for you. I know up till now you haven't had it so good. But now that you've got your Aunt Liv, and you've had enough time to see the kind of woman she is, your time's up. You understand me?"

Louisa glared at him but said nothing.

"I asked you a question," he said, making it clear they weren't going anywhere until she answered him.

"Spencer, leave the child alone," Livvy said softly, while Remy pulled his wagon up next to theirs and asked if anything was wrong.

"Miss Louisa?" Spencer asked, not giving an inch.

"I understand," Louisa bit out. Livvy closed her eyes against the hateful stare the child gave first her and then Spencer.

"Nothing's wrong," Spencer told Remy, taking the reins back from Neil and continuing along as if nothing had happened.

Livvy reached back and rubbed Louisa's leg gently, trying to say with her hand what Louisa's deaf ears refused to hear.
I'm here. Let me love you. I'm here.

To her complete surprise, she felt Louisa grasp her hand and squeeze it, not just with one hand, but with both, like a lifeline she was afraid to let loose.

Livvy knew if she turned around to look at the girl the moment would be gone, the spell broken. And so she sat, her body twisted, her hand aching, but her heart full in a way she had never known.

When the tears fell, she did nothing to hide them.

"I'm sure Miss Zephin's happy now," Neil said, patting her leg. "You don't have to cry."

Spencer turned and studied her face.
She's holding my hand!
she wanted to shout. But all she could do was study the tips of her shoes and let Louisa cling to her almost as hard as she was clinging back.