“Well, be that as it may,” Mama said, “we have exciting news. Jo’s acquaintance, Phillip Baker, is coming to stay with us for the holidays.”
“The one who wrote to you about Walter?” Fiona asked.
“The same,” I said. “How did you remember?”
Fiona shrugged. “I remember everything about my family. Anyway, it wasn’t like I could ever forget that day.” Her eyes glistened. “I shouldn’t like to ever see you that way again, Jo.”
I held out my hand to her. “Come here, sweet sister.” She sat on the arm of my chair and I patted her knee. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll never give my heart to anyone else. I’m the spinster of the family.”
Phillip
The train chugged up a slope so steep I was certain we would not stay on the tracks. Across from me, a baby in her mother’s arms cried. To distract myself from my fears of falling into the abyss below me, I pulled out the letter from Josephine. I breathed in the faint smell of her perfume that lingered on the paper. My imagination? Perhaps. Regardless, this one was to me, unlike the stack I’d read too many times to remember. Letters that were not written to me. By a girl who didn’t belong to me.
It’s a terrible thing to hate a dead man.
Yet I knew him for who he truly was. When I’d known him as a child in the orphanage, I’d recognized immediately how he used his charm to get what he wanted. Even the nuns fell for his act. When he ran away at age twelve, I genuinely think their hearts were broken. Women, even ones sworn to love Jesus, couldn’t help but fall for Walter Green.
Hope lurked inside me, goading me into this fool’s errand. After cheating death a second time by recovering from the Spanish flu, I would not rest easy until I came west and told Josephine the truth about the man to whom she’d pledged her eternal love. If not for me, I knew she would love a ghost, possibly forever. Josephine Barnes was a loyal woman. Nothing would deter her unless she understood what kind of man he really was under all that golden-haired, blue-eyed charm. I couldn’t bear the thought of a woman like her spending the rest of her life remembering a man who never really existed. Walter Green was not the man she thought he was. I was the only one left alive to tell her the truth.
He hadn’t loved her. There were other women who wrote to him. All who believed he would marry them when he returned from the war. All targeted for their wealth. Playing the odds, he’d said to me one time. The more he had waiting, the more likely he would marry into money. Those were to secure his future. Countless dalliances with nurses were just for fun.
Yes, I wanted her to know the truth. But it wasn’t for purely altruistic reasons. I wanted her for myself. As I’d convalesced after the flu, I’d read the letters she’d sent to Walter hundreds of times. I’d stared at her photog
raph until I memorized every detail of her pretty face. The stories of her close family and the beautiful mountains where she lived had moved me more than they should have. In truth, I’d fallen in love with her. Was I lonely? Yes. I’d been lonely all my life. This was something else entirely. In addition to my yearning for a family and my romantic nature, I had this odd sensation of a deep connection between the two of us. The idea of fate, even soul mates, had crossed my mind. Was there a reason beyond mortal comprehension that I’d been the one who ended up with the box of her correspondence?
Could I pinpoint the exact moment I decided to write to her and ask if I might come to visit? Not really. It was more of a gradual thing, an expansion in my mind of what might be possible. Even though I knew her affection toward me was unlikely, I had to try. A man like me didn’t win a rich, beautiful girl like her. I was poor and uneducated. My only skills were those of a cabinetmaker. Yet I had hope. I’d escaped the war and then the flu. I had to take a chance.
I glanced down at the letter, reading it one more time.
Dear Phillip,
My family and I would very much like you to come for a visit. Whether you decide to stay permanently in Emerson Pass or not, we’d be honored if you’d spend the holidays with us.
I hope you won’t find my large and somewhat obnoxious family too overwhelming. I’ve asked them all to be on their best behavior, but that’s not a guarantee. You’ll bunk with my twin brothers. They also served in the war. I’m sure you’ll all become fast friends.
Papa and my brothers will be happy to help you find employment if you decide to stay.
I shall look forward to meeting you soon.
Sincerely,
Josephine Barnes
I folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then traced the letters of my name, written by her hand.
Walter, I thought, you lucky, conniving bastard. He’d held that hand in his own.
The train had made it to the top of the peak. I looked out the window to snow that sparkled under the sun. Josephine hadn’t exaggerated about the piercing blue hue of the sky.
The baby stopped crying. Her mother, a pretty blonde woman wearing a gray traveling suit and matching hat, apologized to me for the noise. “The altitude hurts her ears.”
“No need to apologize, ma’am. We were all babies once.”
She peered back at me with obvious curiosity. “Do you know someone in Emerson Pass? Most people who head our way either live there or are visiting family or friends.”
“I’m visiting the Barnes family.”
Her face lit up with a bright smile. “The Barneses. They’re very close friends of mine. I’m Martha Neal. I was the second schoolteacher in Emerson Pass, but now I’m married to the town doctor. He was an outsider who moved to town to take over the practice of our last doctor and somehow managed to make me his wife.” She indicated the baby with a dip of her chin. “This one is named Quinn, after our first teacher in Emerson Pass, who is now married to Alexander Barnes. But you know all that, I suppose?”