“Thank you, Karin, and it’s nice to see you again, too.”
Karin rushed over and took Katherine in her arms. “Oh, Katherine, I didn’t mean it to sound that way,” said Karin, looking shamefaced for a moment. “Of course I’m glad to see you.” Practicality taking over, she added, “You’re my sister, aren’t you?”
“Last time I heard, I was.”
Karin laughed. “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, so it can’t be all bad. Now, do be serious Katherine. You know I have your best interest at heart. I want what is best for you…honestly, Katherine, I just don’t understand why you came back,” she paused and pulled off her white gloves, “without Alex I mean.”
Karin had been pacing the floor in the parlor, passing back and forth in front of the cheval mirror, when she suddenly took notice of herself and paused dramatically to wet her finger and smooth it over her eyebrow, then wet it again, going at the other one. She turned her head this way and that, fluttering her lashes a time or two and moistened her lips. Eventually, she looked satisfied with herself. “You know I heard some women talking the other day, and I don’t mean to imply anything at all, but one of the women just happened to mention the daughter of a friend of hers who had, only a few months before, mind you, up and run off with a hurdy-gurdy player and then come home p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t.”
There was a lengthy pause. The sisters stared at each other in the mirror. “You aren’t going to have a baby, are you?”
“No, and even if I was, I wouldn’t be coming home in shame. You seem to forget I
was
married, Karin.”
“Well of course you were,” Karin said, looking at Katherine intently, “but people around here don’t know that for certain, and you know how they like to talk. But of course if you aren’t,
you know what
, they won’t have anything to talk about, will they?” She giggled happily. “Isn’t it strange how things work out? You were always the one who never had a beau. Just think…if you hadn’t married Alex, I wouldn’t be here now helping you through this time of trial.” Giving Katherine a vague look, Karin’s expression was one of amazement. “What a surprise this is!” she said. “And here I always thought you were so much more intelligent than me.”
“It only shows when she’s doing sensible things…like matching socks,” Fanny said, coming into the room with a feather duster, going after the table and mirror next to Karin, stirring up a cloud of dust that drove Karin to the front porch in a coughing fit.
That night Karin came into Katherine’s room. Katherine was sitting in the chair next to the window trying to thread a needle in the poor light. Karin insisted that she put the needle and thread away so they could talk. Katherine told her about the mistake Alex made, beginning by saying, “Things aren’t always what they seem…”
When she finished, Karin said, “You mean to tell me…?”
“Alex thought he was asking for you. He wrote my name by mistake. It was you he meant to ask for, not me.”
Karin looked pleased for a moment, then she frowned. Popping up out of the chair, she said, “Oh posh! I don’t think Alex knew what he wanted. If he planned on asking for me, it was out of habit. Alex and I were finished long before that. Besides, I was never
that
serious about Alex. Back then I was young and foolish, I didn’t know what I wanted. I fancied myself in love with him because he was the best man around at the time. I’ve grown up a lot, Katherine. Will has helped me see things better. Alex was my childhood beau, nothing more.”
Katherine noticed Karin seemed a little preoccupied, and felt it was because of the news she had just given her, in spite of how well Karin seemed to be taking it. But when Katherine mentioned this, Karin jumped to her feet and pressed her opened palm flat against her chest, as if for emphasis. “Oh, it’s not that way at all. If I am preoccupied, as you say, then it must be because it’s so very hard for me to think of Alex at all.” Her face lit up and she said, “I’m in love with Will, Katherine. I mean really and truly in love. He’s such a wonderful man, and he understands me. I think it’s because he’s older. He’s so understanding and kind. He doesn’t mind my spending at all. He says I was born to be surrounded by beautiful things.”
They talked on for some time. It was clear to Katherine that Karin’s new love was clearly a man of substance. When Katherine asked what he did, Karin said, “He’s a very busy man. He has all kinds of investments and land. He even owns several ships…and a building in New York! Can you imagine that? He is such an intelligent man, a good businessman…everyone in Waco knows him. He’s very much a leader there. He even knows the governor.”
“Have you seen any of his holdings, met any of the people who work for him?”
“Heavens no. That sort of thing doesn’t interest me at all.”
“Does he ever discuss his business with you?”
“Whatever for?”
“Don’t you want to know what it is that he does, exactly?”
“My dear sister, I am perfectly happy just to share what he has. What do I care about boring things like banking and finance and interest rates? He buys me lovely things and says all I have to do is look beautiful. Honestly, Katherine, why would I want to do anything else?”
Maybe Karin had a point there. Even as she said it, Katherine knew she wouldn’t be content to live like that for a minute.
“Karin,” she said, “don’t you ever feel the need to use your
mind
?”
“I use my mind, Katherine. What do you take me for, a cabbage head? I just use my mind in a
social
way,” she said, and that was that.
Karin spent two nights, leaving the following morning when Will came after her. Katherine remembered meeting Will, but at the time she hadn’t paid much attention to him. Seeing a very distinguished gray-haired man climb out of a coach driven by a uniformed driver and pulled by four matched chestnuts, Katherine’s immediate reaction was that Karin had done exactly as she said she would do. She had her a rich man. Whether or not they married remained to be seen. “Take a look at that coach and those horses,” Fanny said, coming up behind them.
“He must be rich, but he’s awfully old for you, isn’t he?”
“How old is too old, Fanny? I love him and he treats me like a queen. I’d rather have that than youth.”
Katherine stared in amazement at her sister. Who would’ve thought it? Karin sounded downright sensible. Katherine felt a thrill of happiness and hugged Karin, giving her a kiss on her cheek, happy that they had been given this time together, that they had been able to confide in each other, happy to see that things were going so well for Karin. For in truth, Katherine had never seen her look happier. “That’s what’s important,” she said, going out to the porch with Karin to greet Will. Katherine saw immediately that Will was every bit as nice and attentive as Karin said he was.
Watching the two of them drive off, Katherine thought she had never seen Karin as relaxed and confident around a man as she was around Will. She mulled that over for a minute, then turned and went back into the house to roast the Java coffee in the oven. There were mattresses to be aired, corn to be boiled into hominy, grease to be rendered by frying potato peelings in it, and a hole in the henhouse that had to be patched. And those were just the morning chores.
The next few months passed quickly and quietly, each day very much like the one before, so that it was easy to feel life had become a bit monotonous. Often she would find herself waking up in the morning and asking herself, “Is this today or yesterday?” For the days did seem to blend, one into the other, until it was difficult to distinguish what unexciting event had happened on which uneventful day.
All in all, Katherine couldn’t exactly say she was gloriously happy, yet she was content and satisfied with the way work at the farm was progressing. Hiram, the new hand had set up housekeeping in the old Crenshaw place a mile or so down the road. Honest as the day is long, he worked, as Fanny said, “Hard enough for two men.” The rains had been good that spring and the corn was as tall as the eaves on the house, and now that July was here, it had turned hot and dry, perfect weather for the corn to mature.
She tried not to think of Alex, but so many memories of him were tied to her home: the creek where he’d taught her about blood bait, the tree where he always tied his horse, the initials he’d carved on the tree next to the barn, the hole he’d shot through the smokehouse door.
It would have been so much easier it I had never married him, never felt what it was like to lie in his arms, to become intoxicated from his nearness.
She was a woman in love; a woman with natural desires; a woman without a man. No excuses could explain that away, no amount of work could compensate for it. She missed Alex. She missed being around him. She missed the way she felt around him, the things he did to her, the things he taught her at night when they were alone. She told herself she was behaving shamelessly, that there were names for women like her, but nothing seemed to help. Whenever Karin and Will came over, Katherine would find herself despondent for days after they left. How happy she was that Karin had found what she had always been looking for, that she and Will seemed so happy. How happy she could have been if she were still with Alex. Once the sadness began to ease, she would tell herself to make the most of what she had.
Be content with what you have, Katherine, stop dreaming about what might have been, what could have been.
And as always, whenever she told herself this she wondered if leaving him had been the right thing to do.
Of course she had no answer for that. She mentioned that to Fanny one afternoon when they were both scrubbing down the churn and milk pails, putting them in the sun to dry. “I’d say it was simple enough to answer,” Fanny had said. “Ask yourself if you’re happier now than you were then. If you are, then you did the right thing. If you’re not…well, that’s for you to decide.”
Whenever she remembered Fanny’s words the pain of missing him would return. No, she wasn’t happier without Alex. If she didn’t force herself to work to the point of exhaustion she would have found herself crying more than she already was. As it was now, nights were the hardest for her. That was when the memory of him was the strongest.
One good point had come out of everything, and that was at least the slate had been wiped clean. There were no more lies between them. She hadn’t heard from Alex and had no way of knowing how he felt about her leaving, but deep in her heart, she felt he missed her—if only a little.
I know Alex had grown to care for me, I know it.
And then she would ask herself,
If you knew it, why did you leave?
“Do you think I should have forgiven Alex before I left?” she asked Fanny.
“Forgiveness isn’t the same thing as going to the Farmer’s Market. You don’t plop a basket on your arm and go happily along, selecting the things that look good to you, passing over the things that don’t. You either forgive, or you don’t. If you believed the things he said, why couldn’t you forgive him? He’s your husband, the man you say you love. And yet you can’t forgive him? I’ve seen you forgive friends who wronged you. And Karin too, more times than I could count. Why is it so much easier to forgive friends or family, or even strangers than the man you love?”
“I don’t know.”
“I had an uncle once. He was a man of the cloth. He told me that forgiveness when it was given was like a miracle, making everything whole, complete, and new again.”
Hearing it laid out like that—like the squares of a quilt, it did seem simple indeed—nothing more than a matter of forgiveness. Funny thing about forgiveness—talking about it and doing it were two horses of different colors.
She considered her options. She could have waited to see how things would go between herself and Alex. Immediately she ruled that one out. There comes a time when you know it’s time to quit, and that time had come. Staying would have made her bitter, and that would ruin both of their lives. She still had options: She could write him.
No, you made your move, Katherine. The next move is up to Alex
. Besides, what could she say now? I’ve decided to forgive you? He would laugh all the way from California at that one.
You could also admit that you might be a little to blame here as well.
She didn’t like the sound of that one, so she dismissed it. Only that didn’t work. Time after time, it kept coming back to haunt her.
You could also admit that you might be a little to blame here as well.
She didn’t want to be accountable. She didn’t want to think of herself as being at fault. You knew, Katherine. Deep down in your heart of hearts you knew there was something rotten in Denmark when that letter came from Alex asking you to marry him. You knew, but you wanted him so much you smothered the spark of doubt. That makes you a little accountable for some of your misery too, doesn’t it?
Katherine didn’t want to think about that right now. But in spite of it all, a flickering light was beginning to glow dimly within her, a light which, telling her what was right, was also showing her where she had been wrong. The light wasn’t strong enough to draw her undivided attention, but it did bewilder and add to her confusion. Like a candle in the sun, it went unnoticed in the light of day, but it came to her at night when she lay between sleep and consciousness, a shadowy torment which robbed her of sleep and good feelings.
It could be said that Katherine Mackinnon was beginning to realize that the most essential element of growth lies in human choice. It had been her choice, and her choice only, to leave Alex and therefore be unhappy, just as it could be her choice to continue this unhappiness by muffling herself in a cocoon of denial until the day she died. In other words, she had come to the end of a road. She would have to choose whether she wanted to turn around and backtrack a bit until she came to another road, or if she wanted to just sit there until she started to rust.
Or, as Fanny said, “Just because you burned your finger is no reason to put out the fire and freeze your arse.”
Fanny always had a wonderful way of putting things that went right to the heart of the matter. What Fanny had said struck Katherine so funny that as solemn as she was feeling, she had collapsed in a fit of laughter.