The Great Alone (66 page)

“I should have told you. I see that now. I shouldn’t have kept it from you, but it was easier to pretend that you already knew, so I kept silent. And that was wrong. It’s just that I loved you so much and I was so afraid of losing you. I don’t blame you for being angry. You had every right to be. I deserved every bit of it and more. Please give me a chance to make it up to you for all the wrong I’ve done,” she begged. “Let me try to show you how sorry I am. Please, Gabe, I want you to come home.”

“Home to what? You?” His lip curled in a sneer.

“It is your home.” In her heart Nadia knew she had destroyed whatever love he’d had for her. She would never be the reason he returned. Her only hope was to appeal to his sense of ownership. If he came back, maybe in time, by showing him complete devotion, she’d be able to earn his respect and some of the affection she’d once known from him.

“Get out! Get out of my sight!” He took a threatening step toward her.

Instinctively, Nadia backed up and felt the door behind her. “I will do whatever you want,” she murmured, bowing her head and blinking rapidly at the hot tears that stung her eyes.

She left his office and turned up the street, keeping her head down so others couldn’t see her face beneath the concealing brim of her bonnet. She felt faint and breathed in deeply to drive away the sensation. Now that Gabe didn’t want her, there was only one place she could go. Nadia set out for her parents’ home.

When she found the front door locked against her, she had to fight tears again. She knocked loudly and waited, then tried again. The third time she finally heard footsteps approaching the door. Her younger sister opened it.

“You should be in school.” Nadia would have preferred that Eva wasn’t present when she talked to her father.

“Papa wanted me to stay home and take care of Mama.” Eva cocked her head to the side and stared at her intently. “What happened to your face?”

Nadia hesitated, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit to Eva that her husband had beaten her. “I fell.” She moved past her into the house. “Where is Papa?”

“In the parlor.”

Again she faltered. It wasn’t going to be easy to admit to her father that her marriage had failed—that she was at fault. She touched one of the sore bruises on her heavily powdered face, knowing how angry he’d be when he saw how Gabe had abused her, and knowing she must convince him that she had deserved it.

Eva followed her into the parlor. Lev sat slumped in an armchair beside the fireplace, staring vacantly at the smoldering log. Most of the swelling was gone from his face, and the bruises had changed color. Nadia paused, waiting for him to notice her, but he seemed completely unaware of her presence.

“When he isn’t with Mama, he always sits there like that,” Eva told her.

“Why don’t you go check on Mama. I want to speak to him privately.” There was no need to lower her voice. Her father appeared totally oblivious of them.

“She doesn’t like to have me in the room. She doesn’t want me to look at her. Why is she like that, Nadia?”

“Not now, Eva, please,” she begged, so near the breaking point. Sheer nerve was the only thing that kept her going.

“Everybody says that,” her sister murmured, dragging her feet as she left the parlor.

Slowly Nadia crossed the room to her father’s chair. She stood beside it for several seconds, but his blank gaze never wavered from the nearly dead fire. “Hello, Papa.”

He stirred vaguely, as if rousing himself from a great distance. He looked at her, but his expression was empty of recognition. She fell to her knees beside the chair and clutched his arm, feeling for a minute like a child again.

“Nadia.” Lightly he stroked her cheek, running his fingers over a faint purpling bruise. “My baby.”

“I had to come, Papa.”

Suddenly he crumpled and buried his face in his hands, his whole body heaving with sobs. “What have I done?” he murmured over and over. At first Nadia thought he was referring to her tragic plight. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t, Papa.” She couldn’t let him blame himself for the failure of her marriage or for the beating she’d endured. He couldn’t have known Gabe would do this to her.

“It is.” He lifted his head, tears streaming down his cheeks, and clasped his hands tightly together. “We shouldn’t have stayed here. We should have left with the others. None of this would have happened. Your mother would be—” He broke down, sobbing loudly.

Stunned, Nadia realized that he hadn’t noticed her bruises at all. He was too overwrought with his own grief and guilt. “Don’t cry, Papa,” she begged.

He made a concerted effort to control himself, drawing in a deep sniffling breath and wiping the tears off his cheeks. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his thighs and bowed his head, clasping his hands together in a prayerlike attitude.

“I know you wish to comfort me, but my conscience allows me no peace.” He shut his eyes, squeezing them tightly. “A man’s first responsibility is to his family—his wife and children. But I put my duty to my father before them. I put all of you in jeopardy by staying in this place, and look what has happened. Your mama never said it, but I know she wanted to leave here. Now—” He choked up again.

Seeing how tortured he was with guilt, Nadia couldn’t add to it. It would only bring more pain to tell him what had happened with Gabe.

“Papa, you mustn’t do this to yourself. I’m sure Mama doesn’t blame you for what happened.”

“Have you seen her today?”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

The shake of his head seemed to indicate utter defeat. “I don’t know what to do. I have tried. I asked Father Herman to come see her, but she wouldn’t pray with him. She wouldn’t even kiss the cross. I cannot work. She becomes terrified if I leave the house. I—”

“Papa.” Eva came to the doorway. “I took Mama the broth, but she won’t eat it.”

“She must eat.” As her father started to push out of his chair, Nadia checked his movement with a restraining hand on his arm.

“I will go to her.” She stood up, fighting her own weakness that came from lack of food.

He showed a mixture of gratitude and apprehension as she backed away from his chair and turned and walked from the room. Nadia smelled the chicken broth before she reached her parents’ bedroom, and her stomach contracted with hunger pangs.

As she entered the bedroom, she looked first at the bowl of rich broth that sat on the table next to the bed. She was conscious of the extra saliva in her mouth and absently moistened her lips while keeping them pressed together. With an effort, she forced her gaze away from the soup to her mother.

A little shock went through her when she saw the drastic change in her mother. Her eyes appeared sunken and darkly hollowed from lack of sleep. Her yellowing gray hair that she had always worn neatly braided in a coronet was snarled and bushed in a hundred different directions. Her once strong and dexterous hands trembled noticeably as she nervously plucked at the bed covers as if wishing to draw them higher.

“Mama?” To Nadia, she looked like some crazy woman.

Fear lurked in her white-ringed eyes as Aila Tarakanova stared at her. “Where is Lev?” she murmured, then grew panicked. “Where is Lev Vasilivich? Lev!”

“Papa is resting,” Nadia tried to explain, but she couldn’t make herself heard above her mother’s frantic screams. Despite Nadia’s attempts to restrain her, she clambered from the bed, clawing and shrieking. Nadia was too sore and weak to stop her as she ran to the door.

At that moment, the door opened and her mother ran straight into her father’s arms. He held her, crooning softly to reassure her while Nadia stood helplessly by. He led her back to the bed and tucked the covers around her as one would with a child.

“I am sorry, Papa,” she murmured lamely. “I couldn’t stop her.”

“It is all right.” But he looked haggard and drawn as he sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the soup bowl to begin spoon-feeding her mother, freshly stirring up the delicious aroma.

“Please, Papa, let me do it,” Nadia offered quickly. “You must rest.”

He hesitated, then set the bowl down, and affectionately patted the nervously plucking hand. “Nadia will stay with you, Aila, but I will be in the next room. I will not leave you, I promise.”

Although agitated by his departure, her mother seemed to accept that he was close by. Nadia removed her outer garments and laid them across the foot of the bed, then took his place on the edge. Her hand shook slightly as she cupped the bowl in the palm of her hand and breathed in the mouthwatering aroma. Dutifully she fed her mother the first spoonful, but at the next her mother turned her head away in refusal.

“Is it too hot?” Nadia intended to take only a small sip of the broth in the spoon to test its temperature, but it tasted much too delicious and she took it all. “It isn’t too hot, Mama. It’s just right. Here, try another spoonful.” But her mother kept her head averted. “Please, Mama. We will share. You take some, then I will,” Nadia coaxed.

When her mother refused the spoon again, Nadia let the broth trickle into her own mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so good to her before. She didn’t have to fake the smacking of her lips nor the relishing sounds she made.

“It is so good, Mama. Just taste it.” She tried to force a small spoonful into her mouth, but her lips were pressed so tightly together. Some of the precious broth ran down her mother’s chin. Nadia swallowed that spoonful of broth as well.

Before she knew it, she had consumed all but two spoonfuls of it. She rationalized away the vague feeling of guilt by telling herself that her mother wouldn’t have eaten it. For the first time in three days she had food in her stomach.

“Let me brush your hair, Mama,” Nadia offered. Doing her mother’s hair was a task obviously beyond her father and sister’s skill, or she was certain they would never have let it get in such a state. “A person always feels better when they look nice.” But the minute she tried to touch her mother’s hair, she shrank from her and cowered in the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you, Mama. I just want to fix your hair.”

“No.” Her mother sobbed and started screaming again, then pressed her hands on her head as if protecting it.

Nadia tried to quiet her, but nothing she said made any difference. As her father came charging into the room again, she turned to him in confusion. “I only wanted to brush her hair.”

It took him several minutes to calm her down before he could explain to Nadia. “She will let no one touch her hair. I think …
they
were fascinated by its light color. Three days ago I caught her trying to cut it all off with the scissors. We have had to take everything sharp away from her.”

Nadia stared at her mother lying in the bed and clutching the Holy Bible that her father had finally given her to quiet her sobbing cries.

“She should not be upset any more. I think it’s best that you leave now,” he said. “You can come visit her another day. Perhaps by then she will be better.”

He sat down on the bed and stroked Aila’s arm, crooning to her in a low, soothing tone. Nadia wanted to scream at him to look at her—to see the bruises beneath her powder mask, to hear her confess that her husband didn’t want her any more—but he was oblivious of her. Moving numbly, she collected her coat, gloves, and bonnet from the foot of the bed and left the room.

There was nowhere for her to go except back to her own house. She noticed the damp chill in the house when she entered and discovered the fire had gone out in the fireplace. After she got the logs burning again, Nadia sat in the rocking chair beside it, where she had so often sat and watched Gabe as he worked at the table.

The loneliness closed in on her. She hugged her arms tightly around her waist, suddenly very frightened of being alone for the rest of her life. She didn’t care how badly Gabe might treat her as long as he came back. After all, she’d brought all this on herself by not telling him the truth. Even though she hadn’t deliberately set out to trick him, she had. How could she blame him for reacting the way he had?

The door opened and Gabe walked in. Relief leaped through her. She clutched the arms of her chair, afraid to move, afraid to speak in case he hadn’t come to stay.

“What are you doing here?” He glared at her.

“Where else would I go?” She couldn’t admit that her father’s house was virtually closed to her. “I am your wife. This is where I belong.”

For a long moment he said nothing. She held her breath, afraid he might turn around and leave. Instead he kicked the door shut. She jumped at the loud bang it made. “Fix me something to eat.”

“We have no food or I would gladly fix you a meal.”

He hesitated, then reached in his pocket and threw a few coins at her. “Go buy some and be quick about it—before I trade you to some soldier.”

CHAPTER XXXVII

The Double Eagle saloon was jammed with blue-coated soldiers from the town’s garrison, their raucous voices drowning out the tinny music from a piano. Smoke layered the room, creating a blue-gray haze, and spittoons dotted the floor, occasionally hit by the streams of yellow tobacco juice spat in their direction.

Dan Kelly stood with his back to the bar, one elbow resting on the counter to support some of his weight while he stared glumly at the front windows. Frost rimmed all but the centers of the panes, and the room’s heat steamed over the rest of the glass, blocking out the sight of the snowflakes that drifted outside the saloon. Winter had come, covering the mountains with a blanket of snow and hiding that elusive gold strike from him for another season.