Depending on You

by Melissa Jagears

  And with that, they were out the door. Before Leah could shake her head and get back to work, Celia barged in.

  “I’m sorry I said I couldn’t help you with the holiday rush.” She shed her coat and grabbed an apron. “I only said that because I didn’t want to, but I’ve felt guilty all day. So I’ll help, whether I want to or not.”

  “Celia.” She stayed the young lady with a hand around her arm. “You don’t have to work. I only asked if you wanted some hours.”

  “You wouldn’t have asked unless you needed someone.” Celia pulled away.

  “True, but—”

  “What do you want me to do first?” Celia unbuttoned a shirt cuff, readying to roll up her sleeve.

  Leah stopped her. “Honey, you shouldn’t feel guilty about what happened to me anymore. If you don’t want to help—”

  “It’s not about that.” Celia stepped back, continuing to roll up her sleeve. “Not that I don’t still feel guilty about what happened to you because of me—but rather, I feel guilty because I’m not doing anything good with my time.” The young woman huffed, grabbed a basket of wet laundry, and headed into the back room.

  Another gust of wind brought Ava through the front door.

  Goodness, was everyone going to visit today? Leah shivered against the new bout of cold air. “What brings y—”

  “Why aren’t you living with Papa?”

  Leah’s palms grew sweaty despite the fact she’d just shivered seconds ago. She ought to tell Ava that was none of her business, but could she truly defend her decision? In a way her daughter would accept?

  Ava stopped at the counter and clasped it. “How can you give me advice about my marriage when you’re not trying to save your own?”

  Save? Did it need saving? Of course it did.

  “Mama, wasn’t it you who told me at my wedding that no matter how I feel, from one day to the next, I should remind myself that I love my husband and base what I do next on that?”

  Leah’s shoulders tightened. “Yes, but going to prison for helping your boss swindle people in order to hide a gambling debt is a far piece different than not picking up your socks.”

  “That’s not what you meant that day.” Ava leaned forward. “You weren’t talking about silly irritations.”

  “I was including them.”

  Celia marched back in. “Is there more to hang?”

  Before Leah could point to the second basket, Celia found it and headed back to where Corinne had mounted an ingenious tiered clothesline in the backroom for whenever the weather was nasty.

  The second Celia was out of the room, Ava leaned even closer. “Papa messed up horrifically, there’s no arguing that. But everyone’s flawed, Mama. You can’t turn your back on your vows because your husband messes up hugely any more than you can if he messes up slightly. It’s all part of the ‘for better and worse and good times and bad,’ right?”

  Leah closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She’d not argue with her daughter. Ava had always been her father’s girl.

  Though when had her daughter become so sure of everything? Hadn’t she just talked Ava out of an exaggerated sense of doom last week?

  “Papa needs your forgiveness. Just like me. Just like Celia.” Ava gestured toward the back of the laundry. “Look what your forgiveness has done for her. She’s become responsible, wanting to live up to what you see in her. Imagine what Papa could become if you forgave him as freely as you have her—and maybe even more so because it’ll be hard for you to do.”

  Opening her eyes, Leah couldn’t help releasing a sigh at what her daughter couldn’t understand. “Celia didn’t hurt me.”

  “Of course she did.” Ava pointed at her mother’s eyebrow. “Your scars, the limp. It was more her doing than Papa’s.”

  “She didn’t mean to.”

  “Neither did Papa.”

  “He was older, wiser—”

  “Mama…”

  She had to look away to keep from tearing up. Why was it a hundred times more difficult to forgive him than anyone else involved in the accident that had caused her scars?

  She’d forgiven Celia the moment she’d regained consciousness, so why had she held onto her resentment toward Bryant for more than half a year? Though one thing was certain. She couldn’t just force herself to forgive because someone told her to.

  Steeling herself, she turned to face her daughter, just as the front door slammed behind Ava.

  Cold flooded her body.

  What if her relationship with Ava grew strained over this? What if Ava would no longer want her help if Bryant left and she remained behind?

  But she couldn’t throw herself back into his arms and act as if everything was all right.

  She turned back to the linens she’d started soaking. For the next two hours with Celia working beside her, she tried to keep her focus on getting things done, but all she could think about was how avoiding Celia wouldn’t have helped either of them. So, though it might feel better to ignore Bryant, she just couldn’t continue doing so if she was going to be an adult about this.

  An hour before closing, Leah stopped Celia from grabbing another bag of laundry. “Why don’t you head home?”

  The young lady’s eyebrows scrunched as she took a quick glance at the wall clock.

  “Actually, it’s me who needs to go home.” Her voice shook saying that out loud, but thankfully the girl wouldn’t know why.

  “All right.” Celia untied her apron and hung it up. “I’ll come in tomorrow after chores.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  After Celia left, Leah flipped over the sign and slumped onto the bench near the counter.

  God…

  She closed her eyes. It’d been so long since she’d prayed. She didn’t deserve to be heard, and yet, how did she have any hope to do what Ava wanted—no, what she ought to do, without His help?

  The problem is I don’t want to do this. I don’t feel like it at all.

  After a few more minutes, realizing she had no words worth praying, she headed up to pack what little she had in the laundry’s upstairs apartment.

  Once she’d finished, she forged out into the cold. Within minutes, she found herself thankful for the freezing temperature despite how it sharpened the pain in her hip, for it forced her forward. The hope of sitting in front of the living room’s fireplace was something her legs were willing to limp toward.

  At the front door, she opted not to knock and turned the knob.

  In the green chair—his chair—Bryant was slumped against the headrest, his shirt open at the collar, his jacket off.

  It was hard to swallow. He was still so handsome, and she…wasn’t.

  His head rolled to the side, and his gaze swept over her, almost as if he wasn’t seeing her, then landed at the bags near her feet. He pushed himself up from the chair with a start.

  She put out a hand. “Things haven’t changed between us. I’m only here because of Ava. I’m taking the guest room.”

  He took one more hesitant step, then stopped. “Because of Ava?”

  “If I ignore her wishes, I could end up losing what I have with her. So I’m here for Christmas.”

  “Only Christmas?”

  She shrugged, as if saying what she would say next was easy. “And afterward.”

  He stood quite stiff. “I couldn’t find a job, and I looked all day.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  Though he still stood upright, he appeared to lose an inch or two. “As I said before, I haven’t much choice. I’ll have to look for work elsewhere, and I want you to come—”

  “No.” Her head shook of its own accord.

  “Leah—”

  She picked up her bags and walked past him. “My hip hurts too much to stand here and argue the obvious. I won’t leave.”

  “Then how are we going to survive?”

  The break in his voice halted her steps, but she didn’t turn. His inflection made it clear he wasn’t only talk
ing about finances.

  Her breathing grew shallow. “How can I trust you’ll do better for me elsewhere when you failed me here, when we had everything we needed?” She turned to look at him. “You left me with an empty bank account. You left me alone. I can’t blindly follow you again. I’ve got the laundry. That’ll be enough.”

  “But the banker said—”

  “He’s just waiting for you to tell him you have no objections to me running the laundry. He’ll write up a contract as soon as you do.”

  “And if I’m not fine with that?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you leave me unable to provide for myself.”

  Returning home to him wasn’t going at all like Ava had likely hoped.

  “That’s just it, Leah.” Bryant took a step forward, his hands out in front of him as if begging for a hot meal. “I want to provide for you.”

  “But you didn’t.” The bitterness in her voice made her inhale sharply—yet, what she’d said was the truth.

  He lowered his hands to his sides, his mossy green eyes dulling. “What if the laundry isn’t enough?” His voice had dropped to just above a whisper. “I heard Corinne had to give it up because she couldn’t keep up with it. What if that happens to you? With your injuries—”

  “There’s no guarantee you can sustain me either. We were doing fine before last year. We had plenty of money. We were comfortable. We had a grandchild on the way, and yet, you gambled it all away. You chose greed over our family’s good name.”

  “You’re right, I did. And then I tried to cover it up with one mistake after another. But I didn’t go along with McGill just for my own welfare. I did it because I so desperately didn’t want to fail you. Or rather, to admit just how badly I had.”

  “Which means you must realize how difficult it is for me to believe you can fix this now. Surely you have to understand how I feel.”

  “I don’t blame you for how you feel at all.” His posture sunk another inch. “If Oliver did to Ava what I did to you, I’d be hard-pressed not to thrash him. I’d only be able to keep from doing so for Ava and Lenora’s sake.”

  “Good, then you can see why we can’t leave.” Her voice choked. “For Ava and Lenora’s sake.”

  Turning, she scurried toward the guest room before she broke down in tears or he attempted to fold her up in his arms.

  The thought of his embrace shot a cold, hard zing through her heart. However, a zing mattered little when her heart had been shattered into so many pieces it might never be put back together.

  Chapter Five

  “As much as I wish I could, Bryant, it wouldn’t look good to hire someone connected to the mess you were involved in.”

  “It’s just cutting meat, Martin.” Bryant forced himself not to lean across the butcher’s counter and shake him a little. “You don’t have to have me up front. I can stay in the back.”

  Martin shrugged and let out a shaky breath. “I don’t think it’d be good for business.”

  “What about cleaning up after hours?”

  “Jack Boatman does that, and his mother depends on the money.”

  Bryant made himself breathe before replying. “I understand. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  Bryant turned and walked out as nonchalantly as he could. He wouldn’t beg…yet.

  Nolan and Jacob had projects he could help with, but neither man had enough money to pay him. Nolan had offered him and Leah a room if things got bad. He hadn’t bothered to tell his friend the bunkhouse would suffice since he’d be alone.

  Slogging through the slush on the boardwalk, he kept from looking toward the laundry. He hadn’t found employment, and that’s all Leah would be interested in.

  He scanned the street lined with stores decorated with frosty windowpanes and evergreen wreaths. Was there a shop owner left in this town who hadn’t turned him down flat yet? If his wife didn’t trust him, how could he expect anyone else to?

  Across the way, Harold Seitz, the father of one of Ava’s friends, left the mercantile.

  Bryant raised a hand in greeting, but Harold quickly looked to his feet as he walked down the road. Bryant tilted his head toward the sky. As hard as it was having friends refuse him employment, being ignored was worse.

  Especially by his wife. Last night, he’d had a hard time sleeping after Leah had turned her back on him—the very woman who used to insist they stay up into the wee hours to be sure neither of them went to bed angry.

  And last night, she’d gone to bed angry.

  He blew out a breath and started walking again. Thankfully he’d had no idea how badly he’d hurt Leah when he’d been carted off to prison. Otherwise, he might have done exactly what Jacob had been afraid he’d do. When his friend had left him this past spring, he’d paid the jailer extra to keep watch on him.

  Before last year, he’d have said he’d never kill himself, but after a few months behind bars, his friend had been right—the shame had nearly overwhelmed him. The only thing that had kept him from such a desperate act was his wife. She needed him. She was waiting for him.

  The sudden rush of warmth behind his eyes forced himself to hold his breath to keep tears from falling in public.

  God loved him. Ava loved him. He had Lenora. But Leah…he’d never thought her love would grow cold. He had to face the fact that she’d finally realized he wasn’t the perfect man she used to tell everyone he was.

  He clenched his fists and moved down the street, scanning each window for a help wanted sign. Maybe he could find employment with someone who had no idea who he was. Who didn’t know him? Everyone was a friend, an acquaintance, a former coworker…a milliner.

  Since when did Armelle have a millinery?

  Across the way, a window was filled with women’s hats of every color, shape, and size. If he got employed making ladies hats, he’d be the butt of every joke from now until the end of his life. But maybe something needed cleaned or repaired. Bracing himself, he strode over.

  The woman behind the counter had ruddy cheeks and dark hair laced with silver—he’d never seen her before.

  He released a long exhale.

  The lady turned, and her eyes lit. “I bet by the look of you, you’ve got yourself a gorgeous lady at home in need of a pretty bonnet. Is it her birthday? Anniversary?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not why I’m here.” He tugged on his tie. “I’m looking for work.”

  “Oh, are you a hatter? Do you work with fur? I could definitely add a men’s line—”

  “Uh…” The way her eyes kept lighting up made it hard not to give her what she wanted. “I was hoping maybe you needed someone to clean or repair things. I could tie bows if that’s all you had for me to do though.”

  She chuckled. “That’d not take you but a few hours. But if you’re desperate enough to do women’s work, why not check at the laundry? The other day, I was talking to the owner, a Mrs. Whitsett, about how her new contract with the railroad was going to swamp her.”

  The milliner might as well have punched him in the gut. Leah needed help? And she didn’t tell him?

  If he called no more attention to himself, maybe this woman wouldn’t recognize him the next time she saw him. “Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and left the shop.

  After waiting for a wagon to roll by on the slushy road, Bryant crossed over to the laundry. He might receive a chilly reception, but it couldn’t be any frostier than it was outside.

  The door’s bell announced his presence, and his wife came in from the back with a stilted smile. Was that because her scarring kept her smile from looking natural, or had she sensed it’d be him standing here?

  No need to beat about the bush. “I’ve asked everybody. And as I thought, no one will hire me.”

  She stayed where she was. “Maybe you should consider doing something you’d rather not? Laundry’s not my favorite thing to do, but that’s what’s available.”

  He nodded and took off his jac
ket. “You’re right, that’s what’s available.” He rolled up his sleeves, moved to the closest tub filled with wet clothing, and pulled out a shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know. Is this ready to scrub or wring?”

  She folded her arms. “You expect to do laundry for me?”

  “I need work.”

  “I can’t hire you.”

  He swallowed against the hurt, and kept his gaze fixed on the wet shirt in his hands. “You don’t have to pay me.” Somehow his voice had come out rougher than hers.

  “So you’re not leaving town?”

  Was there a touch of hope in that question? Though he would do almost anything to bolster any positive emotion toward him, he had to shake his head. “I need to make money at some point. After Christmas—”

  “What about Ava and the baby?”

  He chanced a look at her, despite knowing her eyes were likely shooting daggers. “Just like Jennie, we can come back and visit on occasion.”

  “You mean you can visit on occasion.”

  He held his tongue and turned back to the washtub. He couldn’t dwell on their impasse—or the possibility that he’d ruined their marriage beyond repair. He held up the shirt. “Scrub?”

  When she didn’t so much as nod or shake her head, he looked around for a washboard. She likely thought he had no idea what to do, but he’d worked in the prison laundry every week. He set the board in the water against the tub and examined the shirt, noting the dirt on the sleeve. He rubbed the cloth against the corrugated metal, waiting for Leah to tell him he was doing it wrong.

  But after a few minutes, she walked off, grabbed a washing dolly, then began agitating a washtub full of clothes with it.

  Minutes ticked by in silence, then an hour. After emptying the washtub, he ran a hand through his hair. She still kept her back toward him. Would she not give him any instruction? They used to work so well together. One of his happiest memories was the week they’d repainted their house, talking and laughing the entire time, groaning each night as they dropped into bed, cuddling up despite their protesting muscles.