The Shape of Mercy (21 page)

But news comes regardless
.

Goody Trumball came by the cottage with a crock of pea soup for Papa—it was very good—and told us Bridget Bishop will be the first to be tried in the new court.

I am not of a mood for stories or diaries today. Bridget Bishop was found guilty
.

She is to be hanged
.

She is a very odd woman and I am a bit afraid of her, but odd does not mean evil. John Peter came by the cottage with this dreadful report. He said if Goody Bishop had confessed to witchcraft they would have let her live and simply driven her from the Village. But she would not, and so they believe she is a witch who refuses to confess instead of an innocent who will not lie to the court to save herself
.

I am bewildered
.

John Peter stayed and talked with Papa for a while and brought him ledgers and letter requests from Salem Town so that he can work. He cut firewood for the stove and mucked out the barn
.

I think Papa likes John Peter. I am glad of that
.

It is good to be glad of something today.

Bridget Bishop is dead
.

I did not go to her execution as Papa needed me home with him. I would not have gone were he well. But though I did not go, I saw Goody Bishop’s swinging body in my mind all afternoon and no amount of hard work or prayer or story hatching would chase it away
.

Who thought of such a horrid way to take a life? To snatch away one’s very breath as the mind and body are wrenched away from each other
.

Papa consoled me in a whisper that it is far less dreadful to hang than to burn
.

But you are dead either way.

Papa’s illness lingers. I have been too occupied with his care and maintaining the cottage to write. Always before, Papa has fought off the disease that wracks his lungs, but it is different this time. It is like a monster with talons. Papa coughs up bright crimson blood. He
is at war with the monster, and I fear he will not win. He grows weaker by the day
.

John Peter has taken over the care of the animals in the barn while I tend to Papa
.

I finally let him read some of my stories
.

He told me they were wonderful and that I should be writing books
.

I laughed. He did not.

Papa is so weak and frail. I pray every day that God will reach down from Heaven and heal him, but a little voice inside me says God is reaching out for Papa in a different way—to embrace him into His bosom
.

I am afraid of what my life will be like without him. He is too weak to speak, yet he asks me every day if I have written to Samuel to alert my cousin of his illness. I do not wish to write the letter and so have a part in bringing about what I dread
.

Goody Trumball helped me shell peas today. Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Goode, and three others have all been sentenced to die.

I
think I knew several weeks into the transcription that Mercy’s father would not live to see his daughters execution.

Abigail told me without really telling me.

She didn’t outright say that Mercy’s father, Eli Hayworth, was already dead when Mercy met the knotted rope. But when I transcribed the June entries—when I realized, as Mercy had, that her father was
dying—I remembered the quizzical look Abigail gave me weeks earlier when I mentioned it was perhaps a blessing Mercy’s mother had succumbed to the pox years ago, because it had no doubt been hard enough on Eli to watch Mercy climb the gallows.

Abigail knew Eli Hayworth had already died of whatever had been eating away at his lungs by the time Mercy was hanged. That explained her puzzled look at my comment. But she hadn’t corrected me. Like everything else about Mercy, Abigail wanted me to discover this detail as I read the diary, as her story unfurled around me.

Still, I found myself disheartened when I finished the June entries and knew beyond all doubt that Mercy’s father was dying.

She was going to be alone.

She was about to face, alone, an inquisition as undeserved as any. As Mercy prepared herself for her fathers passing, all she knew was that she would soon be alone. She thought it was only grief and loneliness that awaited her.

That seemed terribly unfair as I saved the document and powered down the computer for the day. Mercy thought the worst thing that could happen was that her father would leave her.

I’d grown envious of Mercy’s relationship with her father. They seemed so in sync with each other. It was inconceivable to me that Mercy could have hidden anything about herself from Eli Hayworth, or that she would have wanted to. Mercy’s bond with her father seemed the kind shared by kindred minds. The kind that makes someone look at a parent and child and say, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” or, “They’re peas in a pod, those two.”

Or “like father like son.”

I pushed myself away from the diary, moody and contemplative. Abigail and I had eaten early, a light Florentine omelet that was very good, but it was after seven and I was hungry again. All I had in my dorm room was a package of stale Oreos—stale because Clarissa had
gotten into them and hadn’t bothered to seal up the package after her rampage. I wondered if Esperanza had left out any of the oatmeal cookies she’d made earlier in the day. I wanted one for the ride home.

I stepped out of the library and into the tiled entry, intent on heading to the kitchen, but the sitting room doors were open across from me, and I could see a fire blazing in the fireplace on the far wall. Surprised, I tiptoed in, fully expecting to see Abigail sipping a cup of tea and at last enjoying a room that needed to be enjoyed.

But it was Esperanza I found kneeling by the hearth, feeding handtorn scraps of paper into the snapping flames.

She looked up at me. “Are you leaving? Do you want me to turn on the porch light for you?” She started to get up.

“No. I know where the light switch is. I was just … I was wondering where Abigail was.”

“Do you need something?”

“No. I just saw the fire and thought she was in here.”

Esperanza turned back to her task. She thrust a handful of torn paper into the blaze. “She’s upstairs, on the phone.”

“Oh.”

“If you must speak to her, I can interrupt, but I’d rather not if I don’t have to. It’s a long-distance call. She didn’t want to be disturbed.”

My eyes flew instinctively to the photograph of Dorothea and her baby. “You don’t have to disturb her,” I said.

“Good,” Esperanza said, “because I really don’t want to.” Then she added to herself, “Not when she’s talking to
him.”

I don’t think she realized I’d heard her.

“Is it Graham?” I asked

Esperanza swiveled her head to face me. “What do you know about Graham?” Her dark eyebrows crinkled to curious angles.

“Um. Not much.”

“Has she told you about him?” Esperanza looked dubious. No, more accusatory. I shouldn’t have said anything.

I felt my face color. “No, not exactly.”

“What you mean, not exactly?”

I decided tell the truth. I am not a very good liar. “I’ve only guessed at who he is.”

Esperanza blinked at me and waited.

“She mentioned to me once that she has just one living relative, a man in Maine.” I continued. “That’s Graham, isn’t it?”

Esperanza looked away. “We should not be discussing this.”

“Why not?” I took a step toward her.

“Because I work for her and so do you. She may not pay all your bills, but she pays mine.” Esperanza tossed the rest of the paper shreds into the fire and stood as the flames welcomed them greedily.

“Why is no one allowed to talk about him?” I asked as gently as I could.

Esperanza waited a moment before answering. “Because that’s the way Abigail wants it. If it makes her happy not to talk about it, then fine with me. She hasn’t had much happiness.”

I knew this already about Abigail. I knew she had lived a thwarted life, and I itched to know what had happened to her. I wanted to know what she had chosen, I think, deep down, I wanted to avoid making the same mistakes.

“What happened between her and the man she wishes she’d married?” I asked. “Do you know?”

Esperanza exhaled deeply, watching me as she contemplated my question. She might have shared at least part of the answer had we not at that moment heard footfalls on the carpeted stairs beyond the sitting room.

Abigail.

Esperanza said nothing. Neither did I.

We waited in silence as Abigail closed the distance between us and then stepped into the sitting room. I turned to face her.

“All done for the evening, Lauren?” She looked tired. Pale.

“Yes.”

“And you are finished with those papers, Esperanza?”

“Sí.
They are all burned.”

“Thank you, Esperanza. I’ll take my sherry now. Then you may go home.”

Esperanza left the room, and Abigail nodded toward the fireplace and the smoldering scraps of paper.

“Someone might try to steal my identity,” she said.

“Okay.”

Abigail grinned wryly. “I’m only kidding, Lauren. My shredder is broken.”

A weak smile formed on my lips.

Abigail turned to lead me out of the room. “Who’d want to steal this life?” she quipped.

My tepid smile vanished.

Abigail walked me to the front door. As I stood on the threshold, I saw Esperanza carry a tiny bell-shaped glass on a tray into the library. The liquid inside the glass was a bronzy autumn color. Esperanza’s eyes met mine just before she disappeared into the library with Abigail’s sherry.

Abigail and I said good-bye. As I walked to my car in the circular drive, I thought about waiting for Esperanza to come out. Her car was parked just ahead of mine. Perhaps she could tell me in a few short sentences what had happened between Abigail and the man she loved.

But Abigail chose that day to stand at the door and wave to me as I left. There was nothing I could do except drive away and wave back.

It wasn’t until hours later, when I was in bed, listening for Clarissa’s footfalls down the hall, that I realized Mercy couldn’t have been completely alone when her destiny became clear. Not completely alone.

John Peter had to be there.

Raul’s face filled my mind as John Peter’s name rushed to the forefront of my thoughts.

John Peter was there.

I have been too busy and distressed to write. Goody Trumball brings us meals, though Papa cannot eat but a bite or two. John Peter still comes every afternoon to care for the animals and muck out the barn. Today he stayed to weed the garden and tend to my apple trees
.

Papa asked me in a whisper to read him the story I wrote about a ship that sailed to the end of the world and found that it was really the beginning
.

I read it to him twice.

John Peter came to take care of the animals and brought us the latest news from the Village. Five women were hanged. Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Goode, and three others. Their bodies were thrown off Gallows Hill among the rocks. They were not even buried. Papa took my hand and asked me, if the same fate should fall to Rev. Burroughs, that I attend the execution and pray it would go quickly for his friend. He said it as if he would not be waiting at home for me afterward
.

Then he asked me to burn his letter
.

I asked him why, but he would not answer
.

Papa is with the angels. With Mama and Thomas
.

He was borne away to Heaven as I slept at his side, and I did not hear him leave. When I gave in to exhaustion sometime in the middle of the night, he was with me. When I woke up at dawn, he was gone
.

John Peter found me stretched out over my papa’s frail body as I cried. He stayed with me until I was able to ride back with him to his mother’s house. Then he and Goodman Trumball attended to my father’s body. I do not remember being at his house. I remember a summer rain began to fall as I rode with John Peter on his horse. I remember laying my head against the wide expanse of his back and that his muscles moved beneath my cheek as he led his horse through the rain. I remember sitting in a chair and someone drying my wet hands with a soft cloth. It might have been John Peter who did that. I think his mother brought me a cup of cider
.

I do not remember anything else of that day
.

Papa was buried the same evening. An angry sun came out after the rain and set the earth to steaming. He could not stay above ground
.

I do not remember that, either
.

I have written to my cousin Samuel, but he is at sea. I do not know how long it will be before he learns my papa is dead. Papa told me before he died that Samuel must come with his new bride to live at the cottage so I will not be alone. It is not proper for an unmarried girl to live alone. But I do not wish to share the cottage with anyone else, not even Samuel. Not yet. I only want to grieve in solitude
.