What Once We Loved (54 page)

“Don't see nothing funny,” Jessie scowled.

Ruth wiped her hands on the towel. Such a serious child. Ruth remembered her own mother had once used that phrase to describe her. She folded the linen, laid it on the table, then walked out. She lifted her rolled whip, held it at her side.

She didn't recognize him, a lone man. The horse pulled the buggy by, made a wide circle so it faced the way he had come in, stopping close to where Ruth stood. The horse snorted, breathed hard. It had a line of white froth at its chest, worked into lather on such a drizzle-threatened afternoon.

Ruth stepped off the stoop and watched as a white-haired man with a French-style beard lifted his hat from his head. Her stomach lurched a warning. She didn't know why.

“You don't recognize me, do you, dear Ruth?” she heard him say above the throbbing screams rising from inside her head.

She pitched back as though struck, gripping the whip.

Zane clucked his tongue.

“So you've come,” she breathed. She reached for the door latch behind her, pulled it shut.

“Oh, don't shut off our dear daughter. I'm sure she's anxious to see her father after all this time.”

“Leave her be. This is between you and me.”

Her side ached, her heart pounded. She felt sweat dribble under her shirt, the whip handle slippery in her wet palms. If he took one step out, made one move toward Jessie, she would kill him.

“Where are all your friends, dear Ruth? Have they left you alone at last? Surely there's an unfortunate man somewhere, waiting for your…freedom?”

At least he had only her as an audience. There were no others to fuel this performance. If only they all stayed away, she could handle this. She had a plan. Everything felt spinning and hot. She had to get clear. Have courage.

“You knew I'd come,” he said. “To claim my due. Half if you divorce me; half if you refuse. Not surprised? So. You know. But I neglected to have my solicitor tell you this: What you decide is of no matter. I'll have you Ruth Randolph. And I will have our child.”

“Not Jessie,” she seethed. “No court will give her to you. Not here. Not in California. Never.”

“Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie. You always did put your hopes high in things like justice, law. It was your brother's doing, trusting that laws could bring you what you wished.”

“They put you away where you belonged,” she said.

He winced. “Where I belonged. For simply attempting to help my wife, my poor exhausted wife who couldn't take care of her son.” He clucked his tongue. “For that I spent five years in prison.”

“You killed him,” Ruth hissed.

“You helped,” he charged.

She couldn't let him control her. Could she rattle the horse so it took off with him? No. That would only prolong this. Could she step inside and get her pistol quickly enough? Could she kill him here while her daughter cowered inside? What was he saying? He looked frenzied, his eyes glazed almost.

“And she will be of good use. Every wounded father needs a loving daughter to assist him, especially when her mother is determined to divorce.”

He'd force Jessie to…serve him?

Zane pulled the blanket covering his leg back then, revealing a wooden peg.

It startled her, the wooden limb. It was now. She had to act now. She lifted the whip and struck at him, the cracker splitting open the boiled shirt he wore. A dark stained formed at his chest. She'd drawn blood. She snapped the whip back and struck again, aiming for his throat. She would go to prison with his death. It was a price worth paying to protect her child.

This time, he grabbed the end of the whip with his gloved hands. He yanked it and her with it, his other hand pinching into her neck. He was strong as a mad jack. “The time has come, Ruth,” he whispered into her ear as he seized her to him, his arm across her throat. “You first, and then my Jessie.” She struggled, fury ripping at her arms. He laughed. He'd released the whip, but she was too close to him to gouge his eyes; he held her too tight. “Do you know how long I've imagined this? You, fighting and then speechless. All mine. Soon to be still.” Then in an eye blink, he extended her at arm's length, raised a cane, and struck the side of her head. The blow, like an old tree felled, took her into darkness.

Tipton stood in the stateroom of the
Sea Gull
a one-stack vessel sailing her home, her child cradled in her arms. “Oh, Baby, it's all right now. We're going back.” She heard the steam whistle, felt the thud of the ship against the dock, the loud thump of the gangway let down. The smell of flotsam and fish mingled but didn't make her ill as it had before. Nothing would make her ill again, she decided. After what she'd been through, she'd discovered that about herself: She was as sturdy as a horse. She was also prone to impulse, self-indulgence, and vagaries. Nehemiah had been right about that, among other things.

She laid the baby down on the narrow bed, changed its napkin. She wished she'd taken the women's quilt with her when she'd left those
months before, to wrap her child in; but she was taking nothing with her then, nothing from her past. And yet she'd taken everything with her, because memory insisted.

“Oh, Baby,” she said. She still called her Baby. She just didn't want to name her by herself. “Baby, Baby. Your mama packed too many things for her journey. I should have remembered to throw things aside, just as we had to back on the trail.” She remembered how pleased she'd been that her mother had saved her wedding dress and the heavy family trunk. The mules might have died trying to drag all those things across the desert, and yet Adora had risked that for a dress. Tipton had been proud ofthat—the very items her brother had been enraged to discover had endured both the journey and his arson. She shivered. She didn't know if he'd be silenced by her threats or if his wounds would only embolden him more. What would he tell their mother?

As a mother herself now, she vowed to do a better job, make better choices for what she saved from her past for her daughter, how she'd help her child thrive. “I only hope your father can forgive me,” she said. Dealing with Charles would be bearable if she didn't have to do it alone; making good choices for Baby would be easier if she had help. If she accepted help. Like Suzanne, she was beginning to see that being a strong and independent woman didn't mean she had to do it alone. It meant allowing God to guide her life and being responsible to follow.

She could do it without Nehemiah though. If she had to. She wouldn't drift away again. For Baby's sake. For her sake, too.

After two days and a night's journey, the
Sea Gull
docked in Crescent City on a spring morning. It had only been two weeks since she had sent the letter to Nehemiah, telling him where she was, inviting him to come to Suzanne's. Each day since, she'd waited, hopeful. She didn't deserve his forgiveness—she knew that. But if she could only see him, convince him that she would be forever a worthy student, forever put her whims and notions aside, then she would spend her life a dutiful wife, one to make him proud. She'd make him forget whatever rumors Charles might spread.

Nehemiahs silence was her answer. She could have honored that, but she was hopeful, if nothing more. And she wanted Baby to at least see where she'd first begun. She'd show her Nehemiahs cabin, the beach that Tipton loved. And then they'd go away. Esther and Suzanne had given her enough money for the journey and to begin again. Maybe at Mazy's place, or maybe Elizabeth would open her arms and teach Tip-ton about making bread.

She walked down the gangplank, grateful that she had only the small carpetbag to carry. She could manage that and Baby, too.

Nehemiah was not here. Well, how could he be? He hadn't known she'd come back. She'd asked him to come to get them.

She bent to pick up her carpeted bag.

Perhaps
, she thought, gazing around once more, hoping to see the familiar red beard of her husband. Perhaps she should go visit her mother. They would have something in common now, the raising of a child. No. Not with Charles there. And while she loved her mother, she truly did, she did not want to be a mother like her. Was that disloyal? No. She was required to make choices. Love did not mean agreement, only acceptance. She wondered if mothers everywhere vowed to be better mothers than they'd had? She couldn't imagine Mazy praying for that. Elizabeth was the best of mothers. Even someone as inexperienced as Tipton could see that. This baby wouldn't be enough to fix her family relationships, but it would change them. A baby always did that.

She looked around. “What is, just is, Baby,” she said, sighing. “This is the beach I liked to walk on.” Perhaps she could stay here in this coast city. It would be a good place to raise a child, the rocks of the coast a good view. Something about the ocean humbled a soul, reminded that people were small beings, and yet each was significant to God. It would give Nehemiah time to know his daughter. If they lived nearby. Tipton was certain that while he might not forgive her, he would fall profoundly in love with his child.

A man stood a distance down the wharf, talking to another. Her
stomach tightened. It wasn't Nehemiah, as far as she could tell. She squinted. She needed glasses. A reminder always of her vagaries. Maybe with them, she could draw again. Fashion little picture stories for her child. She might just join the Crescentonian Club, a theater group. “Whimsical can be entertaining,” she told Baby, “if we just don't let it get out of control.”

She'd take a room for the night. Look for Chita in the morning, then make one more effort to meet her husband. Life would not end if she did not. She was strong as an ox, the doctor had said. It made her smile and think of of Cicero who had died on the trail, then come back to life.

“If you were a boy, I'd name you Cicero, Baby,” she said to the roll of blankets in her arms. “But I'm holding out for Huldah, the wife of the wardrobe keeper. She was the wise one.”

She kept her head high as she walked, glad for the feel of earth beneath her feet. The sky held horsetail clouds, wispy and wild with a hint of morning pink. A carriage rolled by,
cbp-clopping.
She stepped out of the way.

She heard someone shout her name.

“Mrs. Kossuth,” her husband said, jumping down from the carriage, a bag in his hand.

“Tipton, for you,” she said, her heart in her throat. “Meet your daughter.”

He dropped the bag, lifted the bundle from her arms. She tried not to wear the disappointment of his not reaching to hold her first. She had no right to expect it.

“I love her more than I ever thought possible,” Tipton said.

“She looks just like you,” he said, his voice husky.

“Does she?” She smiled. “You, too, I think. That fuzz of red hair—”

“She has your eyes. Blue as the sea.”

“My mother used to say they were the color of Lake Michigan in October,” Tipton said. “A somber, murky blue, I think she meant.”

“I dont agree with your mother much,” he said. He looked at her now, full in the face. “What did you name her?”

“I didn't. Not really I call her Baby. Ever since I knew I'd keep her, maybe even before I admitted to myself that I was even… with child.” She felt her ears grow hot. He turned back to his daughter, smiled and cooed into the infant's face. “You…you have a valise,” Tipton said. “Were you leaving?”

“To find you,” he said then, turning back. “I thought when you left it was to be alone. When Chita told me—”

“I knew she would! She—”

“I was sure you'd go to your mother's, to tell her. If Chita had kept silent, I don't know what I would have done, Tipton. Become a…a blue opal, cracked open.” He held the baby in the crook of his elbow, reached for Tipton's hands. “It was my fault, my pressing you, not listening, believing I could teach you, guide you into someone who fit what I thought a wife should be. What I thought would be good for you to be. Not unlike your mother in that way, I guess. When I realized you were…carrying my child, I thought it was the change you were going through. I looked for you. I did. Then I knew you didn't want to be found.”

“But I wrote to you. Charles… he s threatening terrible things that could hurt you and—”

“You were safe with Suzanne. I know you might have needed me, but I…I hoped instead you'd want me. An old man's thinking. You asked for help, and I wasn't there. Can you forgive me?”

“I'm the one needing forgiveness. I didn't need to come back, Nehemiah. I wanted to. Not just for our baby, but for myself. And to show you that I could be something I never thought I could be with you—within reach.”

He wrapped his arms around her then and kissed her. It was not the chaste kiss of the man she'd married but the warm and passionate embrace of the man she'd grown to love. She'd just had to learn to love who she was too.

He released her. “We must always speak of whatever troubles us, Tipton. Risk whatever the answer might be, or the silence will destroy us.

“I know that now,” she said.

“Lets go home.” His eyes sought her luggage, his eyebrow raised in question.

“There's just the one bag,” she said. “I've learned to travel lighter.”

Mazy's definition of a virgin, of a woman being complete unto herself, was insufficient, Tipton thought as she stepped into the carriage surrounded by her family. A woman need never be alone if she accepted God's grace. And no one became complete until they could give themselves away.