Forsaking All Others (16 page)

That’s when it all became clear, the reason for her sunnier disposition of late. The half-hidden smile. The generosity. The lightness in her step. She knew he was coming; she’d invited him here. She had told Tillman, knowing Rachel would never betray my confidence.

Looking more catlike than usual, she ripped a wing off the nearly meatless bird and was nibbling at the bone when I caught her eye. Her lips, shining with fat, curled into a thin ribbon of a grin, and I could almost feel the soft-pawed stab in my back.

How had I not felt this before? This friendship, this hospitality—nothing more than a tortuous game, like I was bait dangling in her grip. She’d reunited Nathan with his first love, his first wife. Surely there would be some reward attached. A scrap he could throw her. Just enough to release her from the piteous charity of her sister Saints. Enough to give her a hand into heaven.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” she said as if lifting my thoughts from my mind and setting them on the table like so many mashed turnips.

“My sister roasts a fine bird.” Nathan moved his chair away from the table and patted his full, flat stomach.

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t Sister Rachel,” Evangeline said. “She’s never been one to do a lot in the kitchen. Marion is the real cook in that household.”

“Mama’s a good cook,” Lottie said. She lolled back against me, her little foot listlessly kicking against my shin.

“Oh, she was known to burn a biscuit in her day,” Nathan said. “In the early days, I mean.”

“That’s why I was glad to have Kimana,” I said. “Without her we might have starved in a house full of food.”

Nathan joined me in a warm, chuckling laughter, and even Melissa managed a small smile.

“Yes,” Evangeline said, seeing no humor in my statement, “but you could hardly marry Kimana, now could you? She’s a savage.”

I tensed, sitting up straight beneath Lottie’s weight. I could see nothing but Kimana’s soft brown eyes, her wide, peaceful face. I felt the pillowlike softness of her embrace and heard her halting speech in prayer. Such faith she had—such a pure understanding of God.

“Don’t you speak of her that way,” I said, reaching around Lottie to pound my fist on the table. “She is a part of our family. Like a mother to me.”

Nathan reached his hand out and laid it on my arm. It was the first he’d touched me since our kiss, and I surprised myself at the smug pleasure I took from Evangeline’s watchful gaze.

“I don’t think Sister Evangeline meant any harm.”

“Besides,” Melissa said, her voice pointed in its purpose, “Papa’s already married to Auntie Amanda.”

Nothing compared to the soundlessness that followed. All our bits of laughter and conversation disappeared, like a candle snuffed out by a puff of spite.

“And to your mother,” Nathan said after what seemed like far too long. He touched me still but now moved his hand to intertwine his fingers in mine, and I would not give Evangeline the satisfaction of pulling away.

Lottie twisted in my lap. “Are you going to be the new baby’s mama?”

Nathan’s grip tightened as I looked at him, but it was Melissa who spoke.

“Don’t be stupid. Of course she isn’t. Amanda will be that baby’s mama, just like Mama is ours.”

“That’s too many mamas,” Lottie said, the last word stretched out in a yawn. Maybe, under other circumstances, we might have laughed, but not that night. It was the first I’d heard of a new child, and I hadn’t been gone for much more than a month. She must have known before I left, or at least suspected.

“You didn’t tell me,” I said, untangling myself from Nathan’s grip, thus shifting Lottie.

“She wasn’t sure.”

“And she’s sure now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, isn’t that nice?” Evangeline’s attempt at joy did nothing to rejuvenate the mood.

“Kimana says in summer.” By now both Lottie’s voice and body were heavy with sleep.

Nathan stood, stretched, then bent to take her out of my arms. “Do you have a room for the girls upstairs? Because I think this one is tuckered out.”

“I’m not tired,” Melissa said.

“Good. Then you can help your mother and Auntie Evangeline with the dishes.”

“No need,” Evangeline said, and I hated that she’d taken my opportunity to win my daughter’s favor. “She can go into the parlor and help make up the beds. A nice soft pallet on the floor, just like when we were on the trail.” She clasped her hands. “Won’t that be fun?”

I stopped stacking the plates. “In the parlor?”

“Where else?”

“I assumed they’d sleep with me. In my room.”

“The parlor’s warmer,” Evangeline said. “Don’t you want your daughters to be warm?”

“They’d be warm with me.”

We might have bickered on like that all evening had Nathan not taken control. “The parlor will be fine. Like an adventure.” He hoisted Lottie higher on his shoulder. “Just like the Saints on the trail.”

Neither of the girls exhibited as much excitement for this manufactured adventure as did Nathan and Evangeline, but I chalked that up to their fatigue. At least on Lottie’s part. Melissa seemed nothing but relieved.

Left alone in the kitchen, Evangeline and I worked together in silence. Out of the girls’ sight, I finally unwrapped my bandaged hand and began scraping plates and submerging dishes in the tub filled with water that had been warming on the stove all through dinner. The chicken carcass was set in a pot to be boiled down the next day for stock. I held my tongue lest I should unleash my temper, and might have been content to do so for the remainder of the night had Evangeline not sidled up beside me with a dishcloth to say, “Isn’t this nice?”

“How could you?” I seethed, returning a newly clean plate to its place on the shelf.

Her eyes popped open as wide as they could, and I wanted to use the dish in my hand to smack the innocent look from her face.

“I—I thought you would be happy to see your family again. You said you missed the girls.”

“You had no right.” I returned to my task. “None at all, to bring him here.”

“You forget. This is
my
home. Brother Brigham says so.”

“I don’t forget, Evangeline. You remind me every day.”

“And I was rather enjoying our time together. As friends, you know. It’s nice to have another woman to talk to.”

I ignored the bait, focusing on dredging up every last fork from the bottom of the basin. “I told you I needed some time away, to adjust to having another woman around.”

“But how long?” Her attempt at ignorance grated. “You weren’t leaving for good?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. And it’s not your affair.”

“But this is my—”

She stopped short, and I turned to see Nathan in the doorway. “The girls are tucked in—and tuckered out. Lottie’s asleep already, but Melissa’s got a little fight left in her.”

“You look tired too,” Evangeline said with a presumed intimacy that churned my supper. She offered to take him upstairs to show him the clean linens, but he declined.

“You ladies finish up down here. I’ll be fine.”

We did finish up, working in silent tandem at first, until Evangeline could no longer hold her tongue and picked right up from before our interruption.

“I’ll have who I like as a guest in my house.”

“Of course you will.” I folded my dish towel and draped it over the back of a chair to dry. “And I am grateful to you. It was very kind of you to take me in—all of us.”

I walked out of the kitchen and into the parlor, now dark, save for the bit of light glowing from the fire in the stove. Nathan had built it up, using far more wood than Evangeline would have ever allowed.

“I love your daughters.” Although I hadn’t heard her footsteps, I knew she’d followed me here. “If I never have the chance to have children, I wouldn’t mind. I’d be happy to think of yours as my own.”

Despite the warmth of the room, I shivered.

She leaned forward until I felt the heat of her breath on my neck. “Heavenly Father has a plan, I think. To bring us all together.”

I turned and gripped her shoulders in an attempt to be reassuring. “God always has a plan, but it’s not often the plan we would choose for ourselves. We can’t always know exactly what he would have us do.”

“That’s why he gave us the prophet. To speak for him.”

I was undecided for a moment whether to use my grip to shake her or to fold her to me in the type of embrace she’d never have from anyone else. After all, I’d loved her once—truly as a sister. Tonight, though, it became clear to me that she’d never returned that love. Not really. I was both the woman who had taken Nathan away and the woman who might somehow give him back. “Would you mind giving me just a few moments alone with them? It’s been such a long time, and since I didn’t get to share a story with them, I’d like to just have a few moments of prayer.”

“Of course.”

Melissa and Lottie were flat on their backs on a soft bed of quilts on the floor. I let go of Evangeline and dropped to my knees between them, laying one hand on each small, beating heart. That was enough at first, just to feel their life, the same as I’d felt them within me. The last child I carried would have been a year old now. While my heart took on the familiar ache it always did when I thought of my son, I marveled at that moment in God’s wisdom. I had one child safely delivered to an eternity with Jesus; I had two more under my touch who would never learn the truth unless I delivered them from these lies.

“Almighty God—” I whispered his name, calling down his presence—“I give these girls to you, and I dedicate my life to making a home where they can truly know you. Take me where you will. I will be his wife as long as you bid me, but I will be their mother forever. Surely, Lord, you would have me raise them in a home that honors you. Give me that home.”

Lottie remained motionless under my touch, slumbering through my prayer, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Melissa staring straight at me.

“You have a home, Mama.”

It was my right hand that rested upon her, and I brought it up to stroke her face, grateful that she could not escape my touch. “I know I do, sweetie. And I miss it.”

“Then come back.”

“I will.” I felt God himself making that promise through me.

“Tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “No. You see, I have another home, with my parents back in Iowa. I ran away from them, too.”

“To marry Papa?”

“Yes. They’re angry with me, just like you are. I think I need to visit them for a while.”

Her little brow furrowed. “Why don’t you write them a letter?”

“I’ve tried. You may not understand, but it’s best this way. We’ll only be separated for a little while; I promise. I won’t let you be apart from me the way I’ve been apart from my mother. I promise. Now, tell me, have you been reading your Bible?”

She shook her head. “Papa doesn’t let us.”

I somehow managed to keep my smile. “Have you been saying your prayers?”

“Every night. And going to church meetings. And Papa reads to us from the holy book.”

“He’s a wonderful father.” Evangeline was back, padding her way in stocking feet to the bed she’d made on the sofa.

“Yes, he is,” I acknowledged, but I would not entice her into further conversation. Bending low, I kissed Lottie’s soft, warm cheek before leaning over Melissa to whisper, “I love you very much.”

“I know.” She whispered too.

Sensing her consent, I kissed her forehead, smoothed the few strands of blonde away, and kissed it again. I didn’t utter so much as a good night to Evangeline.

I left the room and went to the stairway, holding tightly to the banister in the dark, knowing Nathan was up there, somewhere. I didn’t know until I rounded the corner at the top and saw faint light coming from the room across the hall that he was planning to make my bed his own.

I might have turned around right then, gone back to some small patch of parlor floor, or even ducked into the brothers’ room had my door not opened to reveal him bathed in candlelight.

“I heard you on the stairs.” He opened the door wider and stepped aside as if to usher me in.

I brought my steps right to him and stopped. “That’s my room.”

“Where else would I be?”

I pointed back down the hall. “There are others.”

“None that I wanted.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me across the threshold, thus ending further discussion. The room grew unbearably small and close with him in it. Somehow he’d managed to position himself between me and the door, his shoulders seemingly broader than the frame. Light filled the space around us—more light than I ever remembered having within these walls. My shadow cast across him, and I realized the source of that light came from behind me. From the window, in fact. From the three candles burning bright against the glass.

Very clearly I recalled the moment Colonel Brandon had pressed those three stubs of candle into my hands.
“If there’s ever a time when you don’t feel safe, put these candles in the window.”
I knew better than to think soldiers from the United States Army were stationed at the corner, but Colonel Brandon was not a man to speak lightly nor to go back on what he had spoken. How long had Nathan been up here? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? Certainly not long enough to alert the United States Army.

I went to the window and, seeing nothing, snuffed out two of the candles.

“Evangeline is so thrifty,” I said. “Why burn three candles when one will do.”

I regretted my decision almost the minute I turned back. In this soft, single light, Nathan looked more angel than enemy.

“Look at you,” he said, his voice full of appreciation.

“You haven’t looked at me in months.” The bitterness in my tone surprised me.

“That’s not true. You’ll always be my first wife. My first love.”

“But not your only.”

“Amanda will never be what you are to me. She and I will never have what you and I had in our early days. You remember those early days, don’t you, Mil?”

Mil.
It was Nathan’s special endearment, a name used only by him. More sacred than the secret name I’d been given at my endowment—the name he believed he would call to bring me from my death into eternity with him.