Papa had gone very still. “How does a man do such a thing?”
“That poor child,” Mama said. “I didn’t think it could get any worse than what we already knew.”
“With all the missing pieces, everything makes more sense.” I explained to them what she’d come to understand about her feelings for Flynn and ultimately for me. “She’s worried about whether she can be the kind of wife I need.”
“I can understand her concerns,” Mama said. “Do you share them?”
I shook my head. “No. I know what I feel. I now know enough to understand why she’s kept herself guarded. I feel deep inside that she and I are supposed to be together. God made me to love her. Just for her. All my trials and hardships and just the way I am make me the right man for her.”
Mama
closed the book on her lap and set it next to her. “I can remember stepping off the train that very first day I arrived here in Emerson Pass with no idea what was to come. It was pure desperation that had brought me all the way out here. I was terrified to step off the train but knew I had to. What waited for me here was my destiny. When I met all of you and your father, I knew I’d been made specifically for the purpose of loving you all. Giving you children a mother and Alexander a partner. Everything that had come before, all the lessons and challenges and my distinct personality, had prepared me for this.” She gestured around the room.
“Yes, that’s how I feel about Louisa.” My eyes pricked. I should never have doubted that Mama would understand. Even if no one else did. I glanced over at Papa. “What about you? Do you understand?”
Papa pressed his fingers together, making a pyramid. “I trust your heart. If she’s the one you want and you believe she will make you happy, then you have my blessing.”
“But you’re worried?” I asked. “I can see that you are.”
“Ida was a troubled woman,” Papa said, referring to my birth mother. “I know the kind of grief an unhappy marriage brings.”
“This isn’t the same,” I said. “I know this with every part of me.”
“Well, then, you have my support,” Papa said. “We will do whatever it is you need.”
“Thank you. Both of you. I know it’s a leap of faith.”
“Isn’t love always a leap of faith?” Mama asked. “Step off the train, dear one. Your life awaits.”
10
Louisa
* * *
After telling Theo my secret, I tossed and turned for hours until I finally fell into a fitful sleep. I woke later than usual with an aching head and sore eyes. Why had I told Theo such a private, buried truth? We’d been caught up in each other in a surprising familiarity that had come from nowhere, and in such a rush I’d lost all sense of propriety.
I rolled to my side. Morning sun sneaked in through the space between the curtains. I should get up and check on Mother, but my limbs were too heavy to move. I would stay just another moment, I decided. Think through what to do next.
I’d not told Theo the details of what had happened to me. I didn’t want him to ever know just how bad it had been, or he might never be able to look at me without thinking of the violence I’d endured.
For years, I’d not remembered the details. Even now, they came only in chunks like photographs that flashed before my eyes.
I’d been sound asleep when Pa yanked me from my bed on the floor. Get dressed, he said to me. I did so, shivering in the frigid room as I tugged my one dress over my head. When I had my old boots on, he hauled me outside. We’d walked through the woods. Snow covered the ground, but the night was clear. Stars twinkled in the sky. I wanted to take warmth from them but I was cold. We’d stopped in front of a house with a sunken roof. Pa shoved me inside to a room with a fireplace. Warm, I’d thought. Then a man with a handlebar mustache had risen out of a chair. The man’s eyes were slitted and cruel like a snake’s. They discussed money. A price for me. For the body of a nine-year-old little girl. Then Pa had left. I stood in the bare room hugging myself.
That’s when the holes in my recollection began. During it all, I’d transferred myself outside to look at the stars. My own mind had saved myself from remembering the details.
When it was over, I ran out of the house and into the dark. I knew these woods. I’d spent so many hours in them, searching for food. Tonight, though, I was above the earth, watching myself run. Was I only a shadow? I might be dead. Had the man with the snake eyes killed me? A ghost. A spirit roaming the woods. Nothing could hurt me. No one would ever touch me again because I was air.
I tripped and fell. Pain shot through my hand. I covered it with my other and felt the sticky blood. I’d cut my palm on a sharp rock buried in the snow.
No, I was still here. The mercy of death had not come.
I collapsed in the snow. For the first time, I became aware of the searing pain between my legs. No, no, I wouldn’t go back home. Not to Pa and his games. What if this was a new game? One that would repeat again and again? I sobbed, curled up like a potato bug. I’d stay here with the stars and the snow that could numb all the hurt. I would die here, and God would lift me up and bring me home to him. A calmness overtook me. I stopped crying and closed my eyes. Come get me. I’m so very tired.
God had other plans for me. He sent Miss Cooper to me instead. Her voice, soft and gentle, whispered in my ear. You must get up, Louisa. You must fight.
I got up, aching, and made my way through the woods to our shack. Pa wasn’t there when I returned, but a fire in the woodstove had been lit. I brought in snow and melted it in a pan. When it was hot, I took off my clothes and scrubbed between my legs and thighs. I didn’t have another dress, so I put it back on as well as a pair of stockings I’d washed in the creek water the day before. My stomach rumbled with hunger. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d eaten. Where was the money he’d gotten for me? Was it here in the shack? I searched, even though I knew it was futile. He’d have taken it to buy drink.