7
LI
I wokethe morning after Fiona left town as desolate as I’d ever been. I’d tossed and turned all night and finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. The sound of a neighboring rooster woke me just after sunrise. I lay on my side watching the light seep between the curtains and decided I felt about a hundred years old. The idea of existing without Fiona by my side day in and day out was nearly unbearable.
I finally dragged myself out of bed to put coffee on for Grandmother and make a little breakfast. She was still sleeping and would start in the kitchen if I didn’t have something ready before she woke. I’d told her when she moved in here with me that she would not be expected to cook and clean for me. She’d done enough of that in the twenty years we were with the Barnes family.
Grandmother had worked in the kitchen at the big house until last summer when I had my house finished. Lizzie and I had to convince her that it was time to retire. She didn’t speak to me for weeks after I finally got her to agree. Now, however, she seemed to have embraced her new lifestyle, sleeping later, allowing me to cook for her, and spending hours reading on the porch.
I’d just finished boiling eggs and cutting thick slices of bread when Grandmother came in with a letter in her hand. “This is for you to send for me if you go into town,” she said.
A quick glance at the address told me it was to my sister. “I’ll be in later this morning. I have three lessons to teach at the schoolhouse, and then I’m going over to the church for choir practice.” Usually Fiona and I led the choir together, but I would have to do it alone today. “Is there anything else you need?”
“I could use a new library book. I’m finished with the one you brought me last week.”
“I’ll drop in and get you one,” I said. “Any requests?”
“Whatever Josephine tells you to get is fine with me.”
I set a plate of eggs and toast on the table in front of her and then joined her with my own breakfast. We ate without speaking, both in our own thoughts. The Wu family was not like the Barneses, always talking over one another and teasing one another without mercy. When I’d been with them, I was one of the family, subject to the same arrows as the rest of them. I loved every second of it.
I asked about breakfast and if she’d like another cup of coffee, everything as normal as could be. Only it wasn’t. Fiona was on her way halfway around the world to begin what would be an exciting life.
In juxtaposition to my sad mood, the weather was unusually warm. I went through the rest of the day in a fog—lessons, church choir, post office. By the time I arrived home, it was nearly time for dinner. When I walked into the cottage, the scent of freshly baked biscuits and a savory stew greeted me.
Grandmother had already set out a small kitchen table for two. “I could have made something for us,” I said.
“Nonsense. I’m full of energy, and you’ve been working.” She gestured for me to sit and then poured me a glass of water from the pitcher. “Lizzie came by earlier. She told me you were asked to join Fiona in Paris.” She sat across from me and looked at me with an unflinching gaze.
I lifted my fork and held it aloft, wondering what to say. “Yes, but as you can imagine, I couldn’t possibly accept.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to leave you here alone,” I said.
“Was that really the reason?” Grandmother looked across the table at me, steam from her stew curling around her face.
“What other reason would there be? She has the opportunity to study in Paris. Who was I to keep her here simply to play music? The church choir will still be here when she gets back.”
“I could have stayed back in my old room at the house. What’s the real reason you didn’t want to go with her? That you gave up the chance of a lifetime?”
I poked my fork into one of the creamy potatoes. “It would have been wrong of me to go. She doesn’t need me, Grandmother. In fact, I make things worse for her.”
“How so?”
“I put her in danger. A man like me with a girl like her? You know why it doesn’t add up to a joyful life for her.”
“Is it so impossible?” Grandmother asked. “For you to make her happy? Lizzie says she loves you.”
“How does Lizzie know that?” I sat forward, alarmed.
“She simply knows,” Grandmother said. “The way women do. The same way I know you love Fiona but have decided to torture yourself by sending her away.”
I closed my eyes as a dart of pain took my breath away. “I do love her. But to love her well means I cannot have her. I must stay away from her and let her find the right type of man to spend her life with. Even if she thinks all would be well, soon enough she would know the truth. Our marriage would lead to discontent. Soon, she would learn to resent me for ruining her life. Or, God forbid, something could happen to her because of me. It’s bad enough that we perform together as we do. There are dangerous men who do not want us together.”
“Not here.”
Those two words hung between us in the air until I answered. “Here too. It’s there, in the underbelly of a place. Even Emerson Pass.” I’d lied about what happened the other night to my grandmother, saying I’d run into a door at the club. She would worry and fret, and I couldn’t have that.
I thought of Lord Barnes and his wife. They were the finest of people. However, they would not want their precious Fiona with the likes of me. Even they would see that love between us would not work. “Do her parents know?”
“Lizzie says they do not. It may not have occurred to them. They see you as an older brother, a protector.”
“That’s just it. I’m not. I’m what she needs protection from.”
“I do not agree.” Grandmother buttered a piece of the thick wheat bread with precise and deliberate strokes of the knife. “But if you’re not willing to fight for her, then perhaps you don’t deserve her after all.”
I wanted to retort with my reasons for staying away from her and for letting her go—that it was my expression of love for her. Letting her go was fighting for her. However, I kept it all inside. For what good would it do to reiterate that which Grandmother would never understand? She saw me as weak. As unwilling to fight. How could she not? After the life she’d lived, the sacrifices she’d made to keep us safe after the men in her life had dragged her across the world for a misguided dream.
That was just it, though. She’d had to suffer because of her husband and son’s quest for gold. I would not do the same to Fiona. As much as I wanted her for myself, it was better for her to marry a man who would not be beaten up outside her brother’s club and left to die. I could only love her from afar. The sooner I accepted this, the better.
Ah, but you can’t, my heart whispered in silent reprimand.