Her mother waved her hand. “If this is about you not wanting to desert your…friend…” She glanced at her husband and sighed. “Well, what’s one more mouth to feed, right, Cornelius?”
“Right.”
Kate blinked. She hadn’t expected that. So her mother had learned something from the disaster after all.
Should she accept the offer? It was tempting. Really tempting. Warm water at the turn of a faucet. A soft bed with warm covers. Clothes that didn’t reek of smoke and sweat. As much food as she wanted—food that wasn’t beans and stew. Lord, she had never appreciated the luxuries of her previous life as much as right now.
And she didn’t want it just for herself. Her parents were proposing the same to Giuliana, who deserved the best life had to offer. They could live here, together.
She tried to imagine what life in the mansion would be like but couldn’t. Living through the disaster might have changed her parents a little, but they would never change completely. No matter how hard Kate tried, she couldn’t picture her mother sitting down to share her meals with a mere maid. Neither could she imagine cuddling up to Giuliana at night with her parents under the same roof. No. If she wanted more than a few stolen moments, she needed to leave.
“I really appreciate the offer…” She looked from one parent to the other. “I do. But…”
“But you still won’t stay.” The lines on her father’s forehead deepened. “Is the newspaper providing board and lodging?”
“Um…not exactly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? They either are or they aren’t.”
“They aren’t.” She forced herself to hold his gaze. “I’m thinking about renting—”
“Can you even afford a decent place from a photographer’s salary?” her father asked.
Kate licked her lips. Now they were getting closer to the point that would make him explode. “That’s why Giuliana and I are thinking about sharing a place once she finds work. We could share the costs, and the rent for a cabin is really not that high.”
“Cabin? You don’t mean the cabins they described in those notices, do you?”
The muscles in Kate’s belly twisted. “Yes, I do.”
In less than a second, her father’s face turned the color of a pomegranate. He jumped up and towered over her. “Over my dead body!”
“But, Father—”
“No!” He thumped his fist against his thigh as if barely holding himself back from slapping her instead. “I won’t allow it.”
Her mother jumped up too, gripped Kate’s shoulders, and shook her. “Be reasonable, Kathryn. There are rats in the park—huge beasts! You saw them. And there’s ash in the food. That’s no life.”
“I told you I’m not going to stay in the park for much longer, Mother. Just until the cabins are ready.”
“I saw the notice. Those shacks are tiny. Practically an outhouse. How’s that any better than sleeping in the park?”
“This isn’t about how large my home will be or about the ash in my food. It’s about independence. Can’t you understand that? Not even a little?” Kate looked from her mother to her father, hoping to detect just a hint of understanding in their eyes but finding none.
“Independence won’t fill your belly. It won’t save your reputation.” Her mother shook her again and sent a pleading gaze at her husband. “Say something, Cornelius. Stop this madness.”
Kate turned toward her father too. Usually, he was the more indulgent of her parents and the one more likely to take her side.
But now his face looked carved from stone. No understanding softened the planes of his reddened face. “No daughter of mine will live in such a shack like a beggar woman! This is where I draw the line, and that’s my final word.”
A tremor ran through Kate. If she said what was on the tip of her tongue, her life would change forever.
But that’s what you want, don’t you?
She drew a deep breath and thought of Giuliana. “Fine. If you insist, then I’m no longer your daughter.”
Her mother gasped and swayed, her grip on Kate’s shoulders tightening almost painfully. “You can’t do that!”
“Me? This is your doing, not mine. You have a choice. I don’t. Don’t you understand? I need to be my own person. I want to have my own home—not my parents’ or my husband’s. My own.” Kate thumped her chest with one hand.
“No,” her mother said. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand you young women at all. Don’t you think of what people will say if we let you live in such a horrible place?”
A long-suppressed spark of anger ignited inside of Kate. She freed herself of her mother’s grip. “Can’t you forget about your precious reputation even for a second? Isn’t what I want more important than what people might think? You lost one child to the cruelty of life. Do you really want to lose the other to your own vanity?”
Her father stared at her, his lips a tight line beneath his mustache. Tears gleamed in her mother’s eyes. Neither of them said a thing.
Kate looked at them for a second longer. As the silence grew too painful, she whirled around and marched to the door. Her steps echoed through the almost-empty room.
“Kate!”
“Kathryn!”
Not daring to hope, she paused in the doorway and looked back.
Her parents glanced at each other, and then her father took one step toward her. “Wait. I…we…” His shoulders dropped. “If you need anything, let us know.”
Her pride wanted to reject his offer, but she sensed that this time, it was about more than just money. It was his way of telling her he still wanted her to be his daughter. She nodded. “Thank you.”
The room behind her was silent as she walked out, into a future of her own making.
* * *
Giuliana peeked at her pendant watch for the twentieth time. It had been one and a half hours since Kate had left with her parents. Driving to Pacific Heights and back couldn’t take that long.
With every minute that went by, the voice in the back of her mind got louder, telling her that Kate wouldn’t return.
Stupidizza! Of course she will be back,
she firmly told herself
. She even left her camera behind.
She had to trust Kate. After all, Kate had jumped off the ferry for her when she could have gone to Belvedere with her parents.
Giuliana rubbed her thumb over the golden watch that had once belonged to Kate before slipping it back into the pouch at her waist. She pretended to study Mrs. Kohler’s book so the other women would leave her alone while she was keeping an eye on the edge of camp. But there was no sign of the familiar automobile.
Finally, she closed the book with a thump and stared at the cover without really seeing it. Maybe it was better this way. Her life would be less complicated if she forgot about Kate and the intense connection they had made. She could still marry a man, have children, and lead a normal life.
But she couldn’t fool herself. If she wanted a man, she could have married Calogero. She didn’t want a man. She wanted Kate.
“Did I forget to tell you that you actually have to open the book to read it?”
Giuliana’s head jerked up.
Kate stood in front of her, looking tired, a little sad, and entirely wonderful.
Giuliana put the book down and flew at her without caring what the other refugees would think.
Kate caught her and held her close. “Are you all right? You’re trembling.”
“You came back.” Giuliana pulled her closer in a futile attempt to merge their bodies.
“Of course.” Kate moved back a little so she could study Giuliana but still held on to her shoulders. Tiny lines formed between her brows. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No, I…I worried. You were away very long.”
“I left the automobile with my parents, so I had to walk all the way.”
“Oh.” How stupid. Giuliana hadn’t thought of that. She peeked left and right to make sure no one could overhear their conversation. “I would understand. Your parents…they can give you things. A house with a roof. A soft bed. An automobile to take you everywhere. Water that comes out of the faucet. Pretty dresses…”
Was it selfish of her to wish Kate would forgo all that luxury to live in a tiny one-room cabin with her?
“You’re right,” Kate said.
Giuliana’s heart seemed to skip a beat and then began to hammer triple-time. Kate agreed with her? Did that mean…?
“My parents can offer me a lot of things. But that’s just it—they are things. Nice things, for sure, but just things. They can’t replace what’s really important.” Kate gazed into Giuliana’s eyes with a tenderness that nearly made her cry. “We might not have warm water or a soft bed, but we have each other,” she whispered into Giuliana’s ear.
Giuliana nearly kissed her then and there. A groan rose up her chest. She wrapped her arms more tightly around Kate and pulled her close. “T’amu,” she whispered in Kate’s ear.
Kate’s hands stilled on her back. “What does that mean?”
“I will tell you when we are alone.” They were lucky that emotional displays weren’t that unusual in the refugee camp right now, so nobody seemed to think anything of two women clinging to each other, but she didn’t want to share that special moment with anyone else.
“That could be some time,” Kate said.
“We have a lot of time, no?”
A soft smile spread over Kate’s face. “All the time in the world.”
CHAPTER 23
Washington Square
San Francisco, California
August 17, 1906
“Have you seen my tripod?” Kate called from the front of the cabin.
Giuliana shook her head at her. You would think it would be impossible to lose anything in a cabin that measured just fourteen by eighteen feet, but Kate somehow managed to at least once a week. Life without a maid had been an adjustment for her, and Giuliana really appreciated that Kate had never once acted as if Giuliana still held that role.
Not that Giuliana would have had the time to clean up after Kate. Training to become a nurse kept her busy. Her work with Lucy didn’t pay much, but it was a good feeling to have money of her own and to be able to support her family.
Grinning, Giuliana picked up the tripod that was leaning against the back wall and held it up.
“Oh. Thank you.” Kate crossed the cabin, took the tripod from her, and gave her a quick thank-you peck.
At least it started out that way. But as soon as their lips touched, they got lost in each other. Giuliana wrapped her arms around Kate’s shoulders and hung on as Kate teased her mouth open. Their tongues touched, stroked, caressed. A shudder went through her, and her knees turned into boneless oysters that couldn’t keep her upright. Breathless, she pulled back. “Kate.” The name came out on a moan, and not even Giuliana was sure what she was begging for—did she want Kate to stop or to continue?
“We must go,” Giuliana said as her ability to talk returned. If they didn’t leave now, they would never make it to the top of the hill in time to photograph the cable car that Emma, the
Call’
s only female journalist, was supposed to report on.
“Hey, you were the one who wouldn’t let me out of bed earlier.”
A blush heated Giuliana’s cheeks.
Living in such a tiny cabin was a blessing in disguise at times. With a washstand, a dresser, a small table with two chairs, and Kate’s workbench all crowded into the one room, there was no space for two separate beds. At least that’s what they told their occasional visitor, and no one had questioned them sharing a bed so far.
Kate grinned, her cheeks a little flushed too. Then her gaze fell on the pendant watch hanging around Giuliana’s neck. “Darn. We really need to hurry. Emma will have my head if I don’t get the photograph of her riding the first cable car up Nob Hill. Where’s my coat?”
Laughing, Giuliana handed it to her and pulled her out of the cabin, the carrying case and the tripod in tow.
* * *
Kate stood on top of the blackened pile of rubble that had once been her home and peered down at the city. All around her, from Van Ness Avenue to the ferry building and from the slopes of Russian Hill to the Mission District, a wasteland of ruins stretched in every direction.
Emma Gardner, the reporter she was sometimes paired with for assignments, had told her that more than five hundred blocks—three quarters of the city—had been destroyed.
For a moment, the same wave of despair rushed through her that she had felt months ago, when she’d first seen the extent of the destruction.
But then the sounds of hammers, saws, and shouted orders drifted from where workers were clearing the street and repairing the gutted Fairmont Hotel. Kate had heard that a female architect had been hired to oversee the hotel’s reconstruction and make sure that it would be ready for a grand reopening on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake.
And it wasn’t just the Fairmont. The cacophony of reconstruction reverberated all over the city. San Francisco was rising from the ashes.
“Kate!” Giuliana rushed up the street toward her. “Quick! It is coming!”
Finally! The moment she’d been waiting for was here. Quickly, she opened the battered carrying case at her feet, pulled out the camera, and scrambled down from the pile of debris.
A rumble started beneath ground, for a moment throwing her back in time to the morning of the earthquake. But she knew it was just the thick cable running underground.
She peered to the right, and there it was: the first cable car running on California Street since that fateful day four months ago. People were hanging from its poles, cheering and waving. Emma leaned out of the cable car, grinning proudly as if she were the one responsible for repairing the tracks.
Kate pressed the shutter just as the cable car reached the top of the hill. Grinning, she lowered the camera and waved at Emma. Without having to see the negative first, she knew she’d captured it perfectly.
“Did you get it?” Giuliana asked.
Kate closed the camera and put it back in its case. “Yes.”
“Magnificu! I found something else for you to make a picture.” Giuliana’s dark eyes shone.
Kate laughed. “You’re almost as bad as me, always looking for the perfect motif. So, what is it?”
Giuliana took the carrying case from her, reached for Kate’s arm with her free hand, and pulled her across the street. “This.”