Carla Kelly (2 page)

She forced herself to breathe steadily and slowly, as the doctor recommended. All she could do then was what she had done through that horrible summer on the Double Tipi, even when she had so foolishly thought, at first, that Heavenly Father wasn't listening.

“Father, this is hard,” she prayed, barely moving her lips. “Comfort me, Jesus,” she whispered. “Paul too.”

The house was quiet. As she lay there in complete misery, she gradually relaxed. Her eyes began to close. She thought she heard singing from far away, low but reassuring, a passable baritone.

“Dear Evalina, sweet Evalina, my love for thee will never, never die.”

Julia thought she was prepared for her first long look. For a month, she had avoided looking in the mirror, not ready to face a ruin. It was amazing how she could avoid looking in the bathroom mirror. The floor-length mirror in her bedroom was easy to ignore, since she had tilted it down and pushed it away with her foot. The scars on her chest were mostly covered because she had always been a modest dresser. She just hadn't been ready to stare into a mirror.

Her greatest relief came the day in late October when Doctor Evans unwound the bandage holding her arm to her side and lifted it from the sling. On his approval, she cautiously flexed her arm.

“Be wary, Julia,” he told her. “If it happens once, a dislocation can happen easier the next time, and this was a bad one. Your doctor in Wyoming did some rough and ready work, but I can't fault him at all. Still, it was a tough dislocation.”

She even managed a joke. “You should see Doc McKeel with livestock.”

“Talented fellow.”

Julia took a deep breath. “What about my scars?”

He had trouble meeting her eyes and took a long moment, as though considering what she wanted to hear.

Just the truth, doctor
, she thought, her eyes on his. “Tell me.”

“They're yours to keep,” he said at last. “They'll fade more, but that's all.”

She nodded. “My hair?”

He smiled. “Coming in curly, my dear. That happens sometimes. Maybe you'll start a trend.”

“Unlikely,” she replied, thinking of her lovely long hair, so easy to sweep up into an elegant pompadour. “I look like someone's little brother.”

Drat if he didn't keep smiling.
That's what happens when your doctor is also your uncle
, Julia thought sourly.

Decidedly unprofessional, he kissed her cheek. “Jules, you'll do. I'm happy to report that you are completely sound and just have to get used to a few scars.” He shook his finger at her, but his eyes were kind. “What's this about not going to church all these weeks? Time to get outside, Jules. That's my prescription.”

He was right; she knew it. After Uncle Evans left, Julia went to the window, looking down with a half smile. She sat in her window seat, enjoying the new freedom of pulling her knees to her chin and wrapping both arms around her legs, now that the sling was gone.

Her smile left as she watched two neighbor girls across the street. They were returning from the stake academy, their hats wide and fashionable—just the kind that Paul always said scared horses—and their hair abundant underneath. She fingered her little curls, supremely dissatisfied.

“Now or never, Julia,” she said as she stood up and pulled her mirror away from the wall. Still not looking, she tipped up the glass and stepped back. She knew what she looked like, but there was something so honest about a mirror, which reflected what others—Paul, in particular—would see.

She couldn't help her gasp.
When did I get so thin?
she thought, then reminded herself how Mama had been coaxing her to eat.

That was nothing compared with her hair, growing in wildly curly. Her eyes wide and shocked, she thought of when she was five and determined to follow her older brothers everywhere, even though they called her the Wild Woman of Borneo. Now she was exactly that.

Her curls paled into nothing when she saw her neck, with its red crisscross of scars from that burning branch. She stared, then slowly unbuttoned her shirtwaist, letting it fall to the floor. She undid her chemise and removed it.

A sob escaped as she scrutinized her left breast, where, after her shoulder, the branch had struck the hardest before it glanced off her rib cage. Her other breast was completely normal, which made the scarred one even more grotesque to her horrified eyes. She raised her left arm, careful not to move quickly. Her shoulder felt tight, but there was no real pain. She turned sideways, watching the burns continue their webbed way toward her back.

Grim, Julia faced the mirror again, looking at herself. She pulled on her chemise and picked up her shirtwaist, buttoning it slowly, her eyes on the scars on her neck, but her mind on the scars below. Only Paul would see those after they were married. If they married. There, she had thought the unthinkable.

I can't do this to you
, she thought,
not when you have been through so much. I can't. After all the sorrow and regret of Katherine, you deserve better
than scars and silly hair.

Julia sat down at her desk and waited for her mind to settle. When she was calm, she pulled out a sheet of stationery. She dabbed at the tears, blowing the stationery until it dried. She picked up her fountain pen, took a deep breath, and started to write.

She knew from experience how long it took a letter to get from Salt Lake City to Gun Barrel, Wyoming, but she also knew how long it could sit in the post office until someone from the Double Tipi took the time to ride so far for mail. She didn't really expect an answer; she had made herself perfectly plain that it was best he forget about her. With all his worry over finding his scattered stock, dealing with a complicated fall roundup, building another house, and preparing for winter, she was just one more aggravation. She would understand if he didn't reply.

A week after she had mailed the letter to Paul, Julia managed church for the first time since her return to Salt Lake. Mama had found a perfectly darling bonnet at Auerbach's that helped her spirits, even if it did nothing to hide her mass of little curls. A new dress, a lovely deep green, had been a pleasure to pull over her head, even if she had to ask Papa to bore another hole in the belt to make up for the weight she had lost. Her friends and neighbors seemed glad to see her. No one had stared, and not even the little boys giggled.

She would have felt more at peace, but there was Ezra Quayle, her former fiancé, with his new wife, obviously in the later stages of pregnancy. Her own heart parched, Julia watched as he kept his arm so protectively around her and wondered why he had not been so demonstrative when he was engaged to her and not that little snip from Murray.

The thought came to her after the sacrament that quite possibly Ezra had been just as relieved to quit their engagement as she was, but was too much of a gentleman to do so. This idea earned a wry smile from her.
We would never in a thousand years have suited each other
, Julia thought.

Papa had a meeting after church, so she walked home arm in arm with Mama, almost content.

Almost.

She had managed that first Sunday meeting. She was almost cured of standing in the parlor and facing northeast, toward Wyoming. Now she had to stop staring at her scars in the mirror each night before pulling up her nightgown. Maybe this was a good time to visit her brothers in St. George, she pondered a week later, after she had indulged in her nightly tears, prayed for Paul, and got up off her knees.

Tonight's reading in the Book of Mormon had been especially difficult. She had been reading steadily and was now on her second visit to Mosiah. She had thought about avoiding chapter eighteen, but she knew if she was ever going to be content, she had to read it. She could try not to remind herself about “mourning with those that mourn, and comforting those that stand in need of comfort,” even if it had been the verse that brought Paul to her last Christmas after Iris died and she needed him even more than she knew. Better just read it, get it over with, and remember that people read it every day without remorse or the wish—almost overwhelming some days—that Paul would come now, when her need was even greater.

“It's been two weeks, almost three now. He must have seen the sense in what you wrote,” Julia whispered to herself that night. “You know it's what you want.”

She turned onto her side, curling up in the little ball that she couldn't seem to avoid, after that harrowing time in the cut bank. She wondered if Blue Corn had showed up yet in the tack shed, signaling winter in Wyoming. She thought about the men eating out of cans again and turned her face into the pillow.

In all the time since her return, she had not cooked anything. Mama had found another copy of the
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
to tempt her and had bought more measuring cups and spoons. Maybe a visit to St. George
would
help.

I have my memories
, she told herself.
That will do
. She closed her eyes to force sleep, but all that did was burn Paul's image in her mind: Paul sitting so straight on Chief; Paul's brown eyes, infinitely more interesting that her blue ones, even if they could bore a hole through someone he didn't like; Paul's black hair, enviably straight, with just a hint of reddish brown; his elegant handlebar moustache he had probably cultivated years ago to make him look older, but which served as a pleasant contrast to high cheekbones. Most of all, she thought of the little wrinkles around his eyes, the wrinkles of a man who spent his working days outdoors, facing into Wyoming wind and sun. Funny how they softened when he smiled at her. And who would have ever suspected that thin, slightly turned down lips were attractive? Probably only all her Scots ancestors. From somewhere in paradise, they must be enjoying every minute of Paul Otto.

Stop it, Julia
, she told herself wearily.
Just turn over and go to sleep
. She wanted to turn over, but her shoulder still hurt too much.
Please let this pass
, she thought.

She opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling, imagining Paul's hands on her head this time, hearing his blessing beside the river. Only then could she let go of the terror and sleep as the reality of that desperate blessing continued to give her peace.

Julia woke up late. She put her hands behind her head—she enjoyed doing that again, without so much pain—and let the day come peacefully. A slight smile on her face, she listened to Papa whistling in the bathroom as he shaved. Mama must already be downstairs, because the smell of bacon drifted up to her room. She sniffed appreciatively, surprised that her mouth was watering. Maybe she would get up the nerve soon to make cecils in tomato sauce for her father. He had asked for them several times but stopped because his request made her cry.

A few minutes later, she heard Papa's usual knock on her door and knew he was passing by on his way downstairs. She smiled again at his “Up you get, Julie Jules,” a mainstay from her childhood.

Julia sat up in bed. It was time for Mama to take the broom from the closet and tap on the kitchen ceiling, always the signal for her and Iris to get out of bed and hurry downstairs. With a sudden pang, she remembered her brothers groaning in the next bedroom—long unoccupied now—and dragging themselves downstairs.
I do need to see them
, she thought, getting out of bed.

Mama didn't bang on the ceiling. Julia got up anyway, hurrying through the usual bathroom rituals and putting on her robe, the one that mercifully tied at the neck and hid nearly everything. She was looking under her bed for her slippers when she heard someone taking the stairs two at a time. She stood up, frowning, and wondered what had happened belowstairs to upset the usual routine.

Julia gasped when her door banged open and Paul Otto stood there. Her hand to her mouth, she stared at him.

His eyes started at her head, which made him smile. She felt her breath coming in little pants, her eyes on his as they traveled the length of her. In complete silence, he came closer to her. She saw how poorly he was dressed and knew he hadn't had a moment to think about new clothes. Everything he owned had burned up in the fire. He had at least a two-day growth of beard, and his hair was long around his ears. She wondered what the other passengers on the Overland Express must have thought about sharing their railroad car with a Wild Man from Borneo.

She held her breath when he slowly undid her robe and let it drop from her shoulders. She tried to cover her nightgown front with her hands, but he gently lowered them to her sides and unbuttoned her nightgown. As she watched, transfixed, he carefully pulled the fabric back from her scarred shoulder.

He spoke then, and his voice sounded rusty, as though he were the one just waking up and not her. “My love, did you honestly think I would love you less?”

With a sob, Julia threw herself into his arms. He laughed and staggered, then plopped down with her on the bed. She didn't even try to stop him from kissing her then, because that would have been pointless. It would have been equally pointless not to kiss him back, because she had never wanted to kiss someone so much in her life as Paul Otto.