The Mapmaker's Children (29 page)

N
EW
C
HARLESTOWN
, W
EST
V
IRGINIA
A
UGUST
2014

“H
ello?” Jack had answered, and the sound of his voice had broken Eden's last defensive stronghold. She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Too much to say. Too much unsaid. Her heart ping-ponged from spleen to gullet like a pinball game.

“Jack.” She coughed.

He went straight in: “Eden, I promise you…”

“Jack, please.” She needed him just to listen. “I've been at Dr. Wyatt's office. He's the town veterinarian,” she explained, and the rest tumbled out hot and fast. “It's Cricket. He's not a puppy, like we thought. Dr. Wyatt says by his teeth, he's probably four or five years old. And he's sick, Jack. They took an X-ray and found a mass the size of a grapefruit in his belly. It's monstrous! Lymphoma—cancer.” She stopped to catch her breath and sobbed instead. “He's dying. Dr. Wyatt gave me a bottle of steroids to make him comfortable until the end. But I've been on steroids. They're
not
comfortable!” And then her voice turned off like a blown flame, and she cried silently in the dark of the house.

She'd never allowed herself to cry like that. Ever. Not when they lost their unborn babies. Not when she was going through fertility procedures that made her sweat, grimace, and go white as a bedsheet. She'd held herself steady and occasionally allowed herself stifled sobs of regret or hormone-induced hysteria. Even when she saw Pauline's text and cried into her pillow—they'd been angry, driven tears. Now she wept like she had as a child, raw and vulnerable, uncorked until she was emptied.

“I can be home in half an hour,” said Jack. “Do you want me to come?”

“Please,” she whimpered. “Come home. We need you.”

Exactly twenty-three minutes later, just before midnight, he arrived. She'd sat on the couch with Cricket asleep by her side, watching the neon numbers on the digital clock blink away each minute. Gone. Gone. Gone. Each moment lost.

The screen door opened and clapped at his back, and she had never been more grateful for the sound.

“Eden,” he called into the darkness.

Not seeing her, he started to call again, but she was up and straight into his arms, squeezing the “Ee” out of him. God, she'd missed him. In one night and at the risk of losing him entirely, she'd missed him so much more than he'd ever know.

She pulled back so that their faces aligned. The hollows of his eyes were eggplant dark. She knew hers were, too.

“I shouldn't have thrown you out like that. You deserved to at least tell me your side. You deserve
more
…” The word seemed to catapult her into another racking round.

He held her close, her face leaving a watermark on his shirt like an image from the Shroud of Turin. He should've been furious with her. She'd thrown him out exposed and without listening to a single word; grown adults didn't behave like that to each other. People who loved each other didn't act with such disregard. But he only held her closer and let her be just as she was.

“Since the moment I met you, I've loved no one else. I couldn't,” he said into the crown of her head. “I've never needed anyone but you. You are enough.
More
than enough, Eden. I'll do whatever you need me to do for you to feel complete. Pauline is everything I never want you to be. Lonely, heartbroken, and desperately searching for happiness. I shouldn't have met up with her for coffee. I shouldn't have taken her and her daughter out for dessert. She was just an old friend who knew me when I still had a family.” He sighed. “A boy with parents, I mean…I was afraid you'd take it wrong if I mentioned it. I should have told you from the start.”

“I wouldn't have listened. I
haven't
been listening for years. I've had baby on the brain.” She had to take responsibility, too.

A tear wormed its way down her cheek, and he thumbed it away.

“If you want a baby, we'll get a baby. By hook or by crook! If you want to return to the PR agency, I'm your biggest advocate. If you want to leave New Charlestown, we'll go back to the city, too. Whatever you want.”

He was freely giving her everything she'd schemed for herself. Only now, a panic rose up.

“I don't want to leave. I want us to stay here.” She pulled out of his embrace and looked at Cricket on the couch. “I want him to be buried in the backyard, close by, when it's time. We won't leave him.”

Jack pulled her back with a nod. When she spoke, her breath ricocheted off his throat and returned warm.

“I never looked into the faces of the babies we lost. I never made them dinner or sang them a good-night lullaby or held them when they were sick. I never heard their voices or saw their eyes light up at a sunny day. I never mothered them, truly, even if I carried them inside me. In his way, Cricket let me be his mother. Is that weird to say?”

He shook his head.

“We got this amazing little gift, and I don't want to give him back.” At that, her body collapsed inward like a broken teacup.

He let her cry without offering trite condolences. She'd been the recipient of the gamut of them when her father died, each a hollow bell of no solace. From the pillow-embroidered reflections—
Better to have loved and lost
—to the biblical—
You must be strong through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
—they did little but force the sufferer into a position of gratitude:
Thank you so, so much for your kindness
. When all you felt was…loss. Deep, unrelenting loss. That kind of despair frightened people. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances feared it was catching like a virus, so they'd put on sterile gloves to hand out the
Our thoughts are with you
when really their thoughts were sprinting away as fast as possible. It was too painful to recognize: mortality.

Jack understood, though. He'd lived through the same when his mom and dad had died. Pauline had known his parents. How could Eden blame him for seeking out their memories? Even to the extent of cake balls. She had Denny, but Jack had no siblings to share a
Remember when
with.

She held him. “I don't want to go back to how things were,” she whispered.

“We won't,” he promised. “We'll make a change.”

She buried her nose into his chest. Breathing in that only-Jack smell.

“I want to leave Aqua Systems,” he said suddenly.

She leaned back to face him, shocked but not angry. Before she could formulate a question, he answered.

“This isn't the life for us. I want to be with you. Where you're happy, so am I.”

She furrowed her brow, but a smile threatened her mouth.

“Only how will we afford the house and the fertility bills? Everything's on credit cards. One of us has to have a stable income.”

“I believe you are on your way to illustrious fortune, Mrs. CricKet BisKet.”

Mrs
. Yes, she thought,
Mrs
. works much better.

He went on to tell her that he'd been contemplating his resignation for months. He'd researched agricultural companies he admired in the D.C. metro area, particularly his father's former employer, Cropland Geni-Corp. He'd e-mailed the vice president regarding his father's old formulas, sitting patiently in a bank security box. It had gotten his foot in the door. The VP had replied that CGC's president wanted Jack to come to the office to discuss the prospect of the formulas being reinstated and the research continued with an ultimate goal: unveiling a new line of products establishing their company as a leader in eco-friendly innovation. This, of course, was contingent on the right man spearheading the project. The right man holding the patents. Jack.

He'd thought it best to tell Eden after the meeting—wait until the ink was dry on the contract. He hadn't wanted to get her hopes up only to disappoint her. However, he now realized that he wanted and needed her by his side for this journey—as a partner, not a passenger.

Eden was dazzled all over again by this man and his ambition. This was the Jack she'd met all those years ago at the agency. The confident man she believed in and admired. She'd been a weight to his life over the past many years, but no more. They'd be allies and help each other
achieve more than they'd ever dreamed of. She saw their future clearly, bright and unblemished as a perigee moon.

The kitchen clock chimed, and Cricket awoke at the sound. Seeing them, he wigwagged his tail, his shaggy shadow mimicking the motion on the wall. It was Sunday, and the Anderson family was exactly where it ought to be. Together. And Eden slept.

NEW CHARLESTOWN POST

Decorah, Iowa, May 15, 1863

Dear Freddy
,

I can't tell you how regretful I am for my many months without communication. Regretful that I have kept you in worry; regretful of this war; and most regretful of this blasted Iowa! I mourned every line of your previous letter. Immediately upon receiving it, I was removed from Mr. Sanborn's school and sent west with my family—to Decorah! We have been confined here all winter
.

I learned there is a worse fate than death. Being buried alive. The snow piled higher than our windowpanes so that we couldn't tell if it was day or night. Not that it mattered. Whatever the hour, the cold kept Annie, Mother, Ellen, and me bunched together in bed like a mass grave from the battlefront. Sometimes I'd wake and think little Ellen dead beside me, her body so small and chilled. It was a monstrous season that nearly turned us into beasts with it. The cramped quarters had us either bickering or mute
.

Only Salmon ventured out, in bear fur and rawhide lacings. Though his family's home was less than a mile from ours, it would take him half the day to traverse. We didn't see my sister-in-law Abbie in all those months but were told she lost a child she hadn't known she'd been carrying. The ground was too firm for burial, but they couldn't put the dead out in the snow. Wolves would catch the scent. So they kept the thing in the cellar. Imagine! The only merciful act of this wretched Decorah is that it froze the lost baby and kept it from decomposing. Though when they unwrapped it for interment, the sight of its bodily shell removed of spirit distressed Abbie to a state of irreparable fragility. Salmon has worried himself into a whooping cough over her—and for good reason. This land would split a mountain if the rock dared open itself to a teardrop
.

At home, I imagine our farm's strawberry plants bursting with blossoms. My throat aches at the thought of their fruits. We've been eating canned applesauce for months. It was the main staple put to pantry by our
kin, the Days, who greeted us upon arrival, then vanished into the drifts. I'll retch if I'm forced to take one more spoonful. Blasted gruel. I yearn for the crisp snap of fresh garden harvest, but we are adrift in eternal winter
.

My only gladness comes in knowing that the dolls accomplished what we hoped! Thank you for giving me that gift of knowledge, Freddy, and I'm grateful that our friends were able to bring your uncensored words safely to my doorstep. I pray these reach you in equal keeping
.

Is there any happy report from New Charlestown? I've imagined it so often I've nearly convinced myself of hope's reality: that Alice has awoken from her injury with a smile; that the Fishers have been returned to their homestead; that your father and mother are reunited; that the Hills gather round the table eating Siby's wheel of corn bread heaped with fresh butter. That the warring has reached cessation during our dreadful hibernation and, therefore, some good has come from it. These thoughts bring me comfort, even if they are a fable of my own creation
.

Mother and Annie have finally given over to reason. We will not last another season like this. A cousin has come from California. He speaks of a place called Red Bluff, which, he assures us, has yearlong sunshine and temperateness. We are making arrangements to move westward
.

Eternally yours
,

Sarah

P.S. In a land apart, I anxiously await further news from our trusted friends. While my paints and pigments are packed in the wagon, as soon as we are settled in California, I will be at our services once more. Please send word again when it is safe
.

Fort Hall, Idaho, June 20, 1864

Dear Freddy
,

We survived the Oregon Trail only by God's mercy—and the United States Cavalry. I have never been so exultant to see rifled men on horseback. Better than a host of angels. Blasphemous as that may be
.

Between Topeka and the Idaho border, we spotted a Rebel party approaching at haste. We made all possible speed. At Soda Springs, we collided with a company of Morrisites. Having seceded from the Mormons, the group was under the protection of the Union troops. We explained that we were the John Brown family and feared that slave-loving Rebels were after us for blood. The soldiers took up their weapons and dispatched the posse straightaway!

They will accompany us into the Sacramento Valley from Fort Hall, and we are forever grateful. Salmon, Abbie, and little Ellen suffer from coughs that will not abate. Mother is drawn and frightfully thin. Annie has gone back into a similar hollow of despair as witnessed in Boston. And I—I no doubt look as wildly desperate as I feel
.

Our military escorts have informed us of the war's progress: General Sherman's advance on Atlanta. Grant's campaigns in Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. While I am bolstered by Yankee success, my heart is grieved to know that bedlam is near you, Freddy
.

Mother says in times like these, we must put our hands together and pray fervently. I understand the compulsion and agree in principle. However, the fact remains that knitted hands did little to stop Father's execution. I couldn't bear if something happened to you. So I write boldly in the hopes that this letter reaches you, even if you are unable to reply
.

Please, take all precaution in your work with Mr. S. If not for the good of your young wife, your mother, and your stricken sister—for the good of New Charlestown, which will need men of leadership when this awful war is done
.

I yearn for better days when we walked the Bluff together, the sound of the wind through the forest canopy, and the smell of wet ferns. I sometimes wonder if I didn't dream that place and time. Did I—did we?

Eternally yours
,

Sarah