Vows (42 page)

 
"And what about your studies? Charles told me you're going to give them up to have babies, right after you told me that you don't want babies yet. That's not right, Emily. And I don't want babies either, not any sooner than you do. For a while I want it to be you and me, running around in that big house in our underwear. I don't know how we'll manage that, seeing as how all this desire will be cropping up all the time, but we can try. Emily…" This time he inveighed more tenderly. "I love you. I don't want to lose you."

 
Folded like an N she sat in his arms and allowed herself to be convinced, let his cold nose nuzzle her warm cheek and his welcome lips bias her own. She forgot her imminent wedding. She forgot the cold. She forgot to object. She opened her mouth and kissed him back—an inadvisable, ample kiss leading to nothing but further confusion, yet she partook of him with the relish of one soon to be denied. He tasted as she remembered, smelled and felt alarmingly familiar—a tempting combination of wet and soft, pliable and hard. As his tongue slewed hers, nerve bursts of heat warmed her deepest parts. Her head listed, swayed, but the kiss remained unbroken as she freed a trapped hand and rested it on his face. His cheek was warm, bristled yet with a night's growth; his jaw hard; his collar warm and furry. Tipped back, his head pressed the shed wall, and she slipped her hand there to pillow it from the hard, icy surface.

 
With tongues dancing, they wooed disaster, letting their feelings build. His hands shifted-one to a slim shoulder, one to a round buttock, where her heavy coat hem gave way to lighter cotton. It slipped between the two garments … glove over nightgown … thick over thin … leather over cotton … drawing patterns on her firm flesh while he pretended the hand was bare. When their heartbeats and breathing grew taxed, they ended a kiss out of common frustration.

 
"Oh, Emily…" He whispered, tortured.

 
"Why didn't you ask me earlier?" she despaired, closing her eyes.

 
"Because I didn't know until I kissed you."

 
"Then why didn't you kiss me earlier?"

 
"You know the reasons—Charles, Tarsy … even Julia. I thought I was through with women for a long, long time. I was afraid of being hurt again. Now this hurt even worse. Emily, please … you have to marry me." He lifted his face but she avoided further kisses.

 
"Thomas … please, the answer is still no."

 
"But why?"

 
Heartsore, she looked into his eyes and decided to tell him the truth, and in telling to remind herself as well. "I'm going to tell you something that I trust you'll never repeat. I'm telling you because it seems the only fair thing to do." She drew a shaky breath and began. "The morning after I went to your house I walked into our kitchen and found my father kissing Fannie. I mean,
really kissing
. You can't guess what it was like, Tom. I felt … sick and betrayed … and angrier than I ever remember being. For myself, and for my brother, but mostly for Mother, who doesn't deserve all the unhappiness and pain that life is throwing at her right now. It isn't enough that she's in constant pain and dying at such a young age. Her husband is carrying on right under her nose! Right under her own roof!

 
"It made me take a second look at myself, at what I was doing to Charles."

 
"But your father is—"

 
"I won't be like him, Tom, I won't! Charles is a fine and admirable person who doesn't deserve to be deceived by his fiancée and his best friend. Just listen to that—h
is fiancée and his best friend.
That's what we are, you know. When we're together we tend to forget that."

 
"So you're marrying Charles to atone for your father's sins? Is that what you're saying?"

 
It sounded too much like the truth, and she had no reply.

 
"What about how we feel?" Tom insisted.

 
"What I feel might very well be panic, which I think every bride feels at the last minute before getting married. But I can't cope with one more crisis right now. The past three days have been terrible. When I walk into Mother's room, I feel guilty. When I look at Charles, I feel guilty. I see you and I feel confused, Papa and Fannie make me so disgusted I can scarcely tolerate being in the same house with them. What I crave is peace and I think I'll have that with Charles, I'm going to marry him and move into his house and start living my own life. That's what I'm going to do."

 
"You're going to disregard what you feel for me? What we feel for each other?"

 
"
Emileee?
"
It was Fannie calling from the house.

 
Behind the shed, Tom and Emily tensed, holding their breaths.

 
"
Emily, are you all right out there?
"

 
"Don't answer her." Tom gripped Emily's wrists, holding her still while their hearts clamored.

 
"I have to go in," she whispered, straining to rise.

 
"Wait!"

 
"Let me up! She's coming!"

 
Fannie's voice came again through the crisp morning.
"
Emily?
"

 
Emily raised her voice and called, "I'm fine. I'll be in in a minute!" Struggling to rise, gracelessly disentangling themselves, Emily half fell off Tom's lap. Her ankles and one wrist sank into the icy snow. It fell into her slipper tops in cold, wet clumps. It climbed her cuffs and chilled her wrists. It clung to the bottom of Tom's jacket and burned a frigid ring where it melted on his hindside. Embroiled in emotions, neither of them noticed. He gripped her wrist, straining to hold her while she strained to flee.

 
"Don't do it, Emily."

 
"I have to."

 
"Then don't expect me to stand there and witness it! I'll be damned if I will, whether I told Charles I would or not!"

 
"I have to go in."

 
"
You're so damn blind!
"

 
"Let me go … please."

 
"Emily…"

 
"Goodbye, Thomas."

 
She ran as if a prairie fire were at her heels.

* * *

Josephine Walcott lay at death's door, but she wasn't dead yet. Quite the contrary. During the last twenty-four hours her condition had undergone a peculiar turn-about. She had coughed less, felt stronger, and her perceptions had grown uncommonly keen—as she'd heard was often the case during one's last hours—keen enough to ascertain that something was radically wrong in this house.

 
Emily had grown icy and brusque with Fannie and Edwin. Edwin walked as if on cinders. And Charles hadn't come to announce his own wedding plans. Most peculiar, yet understandable in light of recent outbursts that had filtered up from below.

 
Josephine awakened well before dawn on the day preceding Emily's wedding and listened to the sounds of the family coming to life. Doors opening and closing, stove lids chiming, the pump gurgling, bacon frying, muffled voices.

 
From below came the sound of Fannie, speaking quietly to Edwin.

 
Then Edwin's deeper reply.

 
Then Fannie again, outside, calling Emily's name worriedly. Twice. Three times.

 
What on earth?

 
The fire roared up the stovepipe as if from too much draft, the back door slammed shut, and Edwin inquired, "Emily, are you all right?"

 
Emily's voice, brusque and rude, came up clearly from below: "Don't set breakfast for me. I'll eat with Mother," followed by her slippered steps pounding up the stairs at breakneck pace.

 
Fifteen minutes later she appeared with Josephine's breakfast tray, brought it in, and closed the door that during the day had remained steadfastly open until two days ago when Emily had peremptorily begun closing it.

 
"Good morning, Mother."

 
Josephine caught Emily's hand as it deposited the tray on the bed. She gave her daughter a smile and reached up to lay her knuckles against Emily's red cheek.

 
"Are you ill?" Josephine inquired in a whisper.

 
"Ill? No, I'm … I'm fine."

 
"I heard Fannie calling you. Your cheek is cold."

 
"I was outside. It's only ten degrees this morning."

 
"And so red."

 
Emily busied herself with the breakfast trappings, avoiding Josephine's eyes. "Oatmeal and bacon and eggs this morning. Here, let me pull your pillow up. I hope you're hungry again. It's so heartening to see you eat like you did yesterday." She rambled on—superfluous chatter clearly amplifying her edginess. Her hands flew nervously from one thing to the next—sugar, cream, salt, pepper—superabundant efficiency further underscoring her jumpiness. "I thought I'd clean your room today and wash your hair. I think we can manage it with some oilcloth over the edge of the mattress while you lie across the bed—would you like that? And press your favorite bed jacket and my own blue dress. And, of course, I've got to wash my hair, too, and pack my things to take to Charles's house, and—"

 
"Emily, what's wrong?"

 
"Wrong?" Emily's wide eyes contained a hint of terror.

 
"You needn't protect me from everything," Josephine whispered. "I'm still very much alive and I want to be part of this family again."

 
Josephine watched her daughter struggle with some hidden turmoil. For a moment she thought Emily would relent and confide, but in the end Emily shot to her feet, turning away, hiding any secrets her eyes might divulge. "Oh, Mother, you've never stopped being a part of my family, you know that. But please don't worry about me. It's nothing."

 
Yet Emily scarcely ate any breakfast, and when Edwin stepped in before leaving for the livery barn she coldly snubbed him, turning to the bureau and fussing with things on its top, offering not even her usual good-bye.

 
Soon after Edwin left Fannie appeared, offering to clean the room, but Emily alooftly informed her that she'd do it herself and that she'd also take care of getting her mother ready for tomorrow. The tension in the room was palpable as Fannie looked across the foot of the bed at Emily, then resignedly turned toward the door.

 
"Fannie!" Emily snapped.

 
"Yes?" Fannie turned back.

 
"It won't be necessary for you to prepare a wedding feast, in case you were thinking about it. When the service is over Charles and I will be going directly to his house."

 
Emily spent the day as she'd spent the preceding one, lavishing time on her mother, doing all the chores she'd outlined for the day. But as it progressed her busyness came to contain an almost frenetic quality. Distressed, Josephine observed and worried.

 
It was late in the afternoon before the hair washing began. It turned out to be an awkward process, but by its very awkwardness and the reversal of their roles, it brought mother and daughter closer than they had been in years.

 
When Josephine was again sitting, with the pillows bolstering her back, Emily combed her hair slowly and said, "It won't take long to dry."

 
"No, it won't…" Josephine said sadly, "not anymore."

 
The words went straight to Emily's heart. Less than a year ago Mother's hair had been dark, thick, and glossy, her greatest asset, her pride. Now it lay in thin strings, faded to the color of beeswax, with her pink skull showing in spots. Josephine herself had lopped the hair off at collar length to make its care easier during her illness. Her semi-baldness seemed a final insult to the deteriorating body of the once-robust woman.

 
Josephine sensed Emily's sadness and lifted her eyes to find her daughter indeed forlorn.

 
"Emily, dear, listen to me." She took Emily's hand in both of hers and held it, comb and all, while speaking in a whisper to keep from coughing. "It doesn't matter what my hair looks like now. It doesn't matter that your father sleeps on a spare cot, and that he must see me looking more and more like an old dried apple. None of it matters. What matters is that your father and I have lived together for twenty-two years without ever losing the immense respect we hold for one another."

 
With downcast eyes Emily stared at her mother's withered hand, the fingers too thin to show a mark where her wedding band had been.

 
"You've been very troubled the last few days, and I believe I know what's brought it on. I appreciate your loyalty, but perhaps it's been misplaced." Josephine's thumb brushed across Emily's bare ring finger. "I am sick, Emily, but I'm not blind or deaf. I've seen your sudden aversion to your father and Fannie, and I've heard things … through the floor. Things that my ears were not meant to hear, perhaps," With a sigh Josephine fell silent, studying her daughter's dejected expression.