by Sara Dahmen
Marching past a stunned Tom Fawcett, I stride into the street before I say anything else obstinate, and let my breath out again in one agonized, light-headed whoosh as I hit the edge of First Street.
“Let him have it, did you?”
I look up, winded. Seven faces peer out of the doorway of the Rusty Nail, and Horeb is grinning wider than any of them.
“What?”
“We could hear you clear across the street and then some, Marie!” Toot calls. “Good for you, but maybe a little hot-headed at the first?”
If I was flushed before, I must certainly be now. “Well, all of it is true.”
“No one is denying that, but you watch your next steps, you hear?” Horeb shouts. “Don’t be too overly hasty to make things more difficult for yourself.”
For once, his advice is sound, and I nod briefly before stumbling home. Difficult? For some reason, my life has felt never so clearly staked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
23 December 1867
With Christmas looming, and a flurry of new orders from people hoping to have gifts, repairs, or who have simply heard of all I did for the Army, I’m busier than I’ve ever been. It is a good thing, for many reasons. There is little time to think of the quiet in the shop during the holidays, or how it will be my first Christmas alone.
Berit and Walter have not yet told me about any dinner plans for Christmas, though I make myself scarce at the Salomon house in hopes I will be able to ignore my unrequited attachment to Thaddeus. He is surlier than ever since our quarrel, so when I slip over to drop off the copper kettles for their wrought handles to be attached, I do so in the lateness of the hour, hoping to avoid any discussion, or even be around Thaddeus’s frostiness longer than needed.
There is no luck with me tonight, as he is still in the forge. I drop the copper on the bench and jerk my chin at them.
“Handles for these.”
He steps over and inspects the bottom seam of the largest piece. “It’s good work.”
For some reason defiance trips over itself, and I cannot help but retort. “Good enough considering a woman did it?”
His eyebrows go up. “You’re a smith. Everyone knows that now.”
It might be the stress of facing the holidays alone or the relief of finally being free of debt, or the worry of moving my shop to Berit’s house if she will let me. But the words spill out on their own.
“Of course. A smith. That’s me, now,” I say. “It doesn’t bear thinking that I am more than that. A woman, for instance. An orphan. A … a strange, unmatched … unwanted …” The rest of the words disappear and I spin to the door, tugging the caramel cloak around my shoulders.
But his voice is calm, coming out of the darkness of the forge, and it stops me for a moment.
“I have always seen you as a woman as well as a tinsmith, Marya.”
“That is very well, Thaddeus.”
“Tadeusz. As my family calls me.”
I close my eyes against the familiarity. “Tadeusz.” Family, am I? I have no wish to be his sister, or even his friend. It is not enough.
He continues, lowly and slowly. “If it is true that you wish to be … as you said the other day. Well. I suppose I cannot tell you who to love.”
“You can’t.”
“And romance does not come easy.”
“No, it seems I …” I turn back to stare at him, though I can only see the bare outline of his right side, where it gleams orange and peach with coal glow.
Has he ever tried to romance me?
“What did you say?”
He is silent. I’ve pressed my luck.
One time he thought to romance me—is that what he hints? It is something to hold to. I press a hand to my stomach against the feeling of a lost appetite, and go for the latch once more.
“Święty piekło! Holy hell!” His cuss is over my shoulder as he pushes his wide palm on the door, blocking and towering over me all at once. His height and size are no longer frightening or intimidating. It is all I want, but how can I find the words for him? I know the sighs and the deep kisses along the dance floor and understand what I hope to have from him. But now faced in the dim dark with the man himself? Well, that is something new.
“I don’t know what to say, Marya,” he admits quietly. “I’m no good when it comes to fancy words or gestures. And Danny had me thinking you wouldn’t wish to share your life with anyone. And before that … Well. Danny wished to marry you.”
“Well, as you said—I want to be a tradesman.”
“So be what you are,” he says bluntly. “But suppose you married someone who might even prefer you to work in the shop?”
The darkness of the forge feels crowded, half-blind, fuzzy. My vision goes dim and soft with the shock of his suggestion. The hope is almost as choking as any sadness.
“Is there such a choice?” I ask, facing him fully, allowing the dare and the wish to believe. “If there is, tell me, because then I’d marry after all.”
Please.
Let me be enough. Let him want me.
Let him understand me.
He is quiet again for a long moment, but I can hear his breathing, unsteady and deep in his chest.
“When Danny said you would not marry him, I was happy about it,” he finally admits. “But when he mentioned you did not wish any marriage at all, I was angry.” His voice is low and careful, as the statements are romantic in their own right and not his usual.
“You’re always angry, Tadeusz.”
“Well. Tak. Yes. Look, I wanted to marry you. So now. Tak, I am asking.”
“Oh. Good. Yes.”
My head swirls with the agreement. I am suddenly light, full of feathers, and yet my feet dig into the hard-pressed dirt of the smithy.
It is happening.
I had not even an inkling it was possible, and now, suddenly, just like that, I am to be wedded. Perhaps this, then, is love. If not, then it is wonderful friendship and affection, which is perhaps better, as Father once said. Perhaps it will grow to something even deeper. I simply know I do not question this arrangement at all. I want him and what he offers in all his soot and fire and surliness.
His left arm curls around me without warning, the right ripping the cloak away from my shoulders and tossing it onto the anvil before he tangles all his fingers in the folds of my skirt, where it bunches around my hip.
“Yes, Marya?”
“If it is you who is asking. Though I have many questions and worries,” I say, pushing up to his body the way I have wanted. “But yes, mój najdroższy, my dearest, I’ll marry you.” The endearment slips. It does not feel like a lie, and is a release. A joyful, surreal one.
“I would expect some fretfulness on your side of it,” he says, pulling me even tighter, so our hip bones bump and our heartbeats intermingle. “But not more than small worries, I should hope. Especially since you call me your dearest.”
“Affection doesn’t solve everything,” I echo him, but I’m smiling now, feeling free and excitable. I cannot believe I have revealed myself to him, and he isn’t turning away. Some women might faint with the extraordinary exposing of affection, but instead I am fluttering with something like desire.
“No, miłość.” He returns a deeper beloved sentiment and fills my heart. “But it goes a long way, however silly. I know you wish to talk over many things. In a moment.”
He bends down to kiss me, and it is by far the best kiss I know. It is hot and fiery and delicious. My fingers inch along his elbows and dance across his wrists. His arms are bulky and overlarge, tough with muscle and strength. I smell the charcoal on his beard, the ash on his clothes, and bend up to him without restraint. There is a swirl in my mind, blinding me against the darkness of the room, allowing me to brace into his mouth.
As there is no customer to come this late, and Walter and Berit do not think to chaperone us, we have no interruptions. It is the longest kiss I’ve ever received, and Thaddeus seems to have no plans to sto
p soon. Miłość, he says. His love.
“Mój Boże. My God.” He breathes once to the side of my mouth before pressing his lips back to mine. His beard is softer than I expect. I run my hand up the side of his cheek and jaw, tracing his ear and grasping his neck. My arms grab at him, shuffling along the hard, rounded muscles of his shoulders. His hands spread along my waist and hip, digging into the thick flannel as if he might physically attach me to him. The strength of his body and the satisfaction of his acceptance is more than I hoped for when I imagined his embrace and his affection. I want to hear it again, to know that he did not jest.
“So, then, you mean it?” I ask, as he pauses the kiss once more. “We’re to marry? What of children?” Apprehension bubbles up. Marriage comes with pregnancy, all that goes with it. Plus, I am no hand with little ones, same as the kitchen. Even as I ask it, the thought of holding Thaddeus’s babes strikes as manageable.
“What of them?” He does the unthinkable and bends to press a kiss to my neck and then my shoulders through the cloth, sending tingles and shivers down my body. “Of course I’d like some. As many as we might.”
As he says so, he wraps me tighter into the circle of his arms, and I feel his desire and his need, surprising and delightful all at once. I ought to make more of his passion for me. In fact, the idea of doing so is both wild and feasible, but I push it away, trying to maintain some semblance of the barter.
“Tadeusz, if I am a smith, how will I care for babes?” I ask. It draws him up from another kiss, though he does not release me. I can feel him considering. It is nice to not worry for once, and to let him do the thinking. I press my cheek into the buttons of his shirt, smelling the sweat and coal and heat of him.
“You’ll be a mother, of course,” he finally says. “But Berit can help. She’ll enjoy it. And she’d be their grandmother,” he says into my half-protest. “If it comes to it, we’ll pay a housekeeper. With both of us working, we won’t be hard-pressed to hire one.”
The notion of both husband and wife working astounds me. Is he really suggesting it?
It is not usual. It is unexpected.
“And where will I work?”
I feel him shrug. The coal is dying in the forge, and the blood-orange light is lower.
“We can build onto the forge. I’ll knock a wall and make a place for your tinsmithing next to mine. And then we can add to the living quarters here.”
He says it like it is so practical, so obvious. He speaks of our marriage bed simply and without frills, and of our work together as if it is the only way. It works, of course, now that he says it. And it adds another layer of acceptance of me, of my trade, and my existence. It means he cares for me for what and who I am, including my failings and my talents.
That I will be both tinsmith and wife is intoxicating, and I throw my arms about him, pulling him down to kiss him with fervor, allowing myself to melt. I know how his legs are hard, and his hands are overly strong, and his back is a maze of planked muscle. The nape of his neck has skin as smooth and soft as a child’s. I wonder what else is allowed now in the plundering of our kisses. I remember hands on hands and under clothes, casting strange shadows in the wagon firelight, or against muted curtains of cloth. Couplings and tumblings wiggle across my mind. Will that be me?
My hands go up, tugging on the corners of his flannel shirt, wondering what his stomach feels like and the strength of his broad body. He stops me, pressing his forehead to mine as he breathes deeply through his nose.
“I know what comes after too much of this,” he says. “Men will talk and brag after too much liquor and I’ve heard my fair share. But first, you know we should marry.”
“When?” I ask, slipping my arms around his waist, keeping a firm grasp on what has seemed so unlikely. He is to be mine. I think I am happy, know I am happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long while. For once, I have received good news. I cannot absorb it. It’s all impossibly wonderful.
“Tomorrow. No Oświadczyny engagement. We’re not in the Old Country. There’s no point in dragging out some long wait, and I’m not going to waste time courting you like Danny did.”
“Very well.”
He straightens. “All right?”
“Yes,” I nod against his chest. “I want to marry you. But we should tell your father.”
“Berit will be beyond herself,” he says, and there is amusement in his voice. “But, before we go through. Again.” He comes down from his height to kiss me more, to take my air and crush me to him. I know Thaddeus is often frustrated, and angry, and sometimes he can temper it with tenderness. But I did not ever think that it all might translate to passion for me.
When we next pause, I gulp, but decide to tell him all. “I am glad for this match, Tadeusz. I have wished to be with you for a long time.”
He stills as I speak, and his eyes lock with mine. As I finish, he smiles: a wide, brilliant grin that lights his face and shows flat, strong teeth. “Well, then. I might start to romance you by saying you are a good-looking woman, Marya,” he says, almost jovial now, before pulling me up for more embraces.
I try to kiss him as heartily again, so he can feel how I am so thrilled to make this match and to join with his life. It is another long kiss, and when he pulls away, it is slowly and reluctantly.
He opens the door before us, his hand firmly on my waist, and we go through to where Walter and Berit sit companionably on the hard, wooden chairs by the hearth. Walter’s pipe is clenched in his mouth in the small curve on his lower teeth, as his hands are busy holding a skein of yarn. Berit has him helping her with womanly work more and more, but he seems content with it.
“Father. Mother.”
I did not know he was going to give Berit such a title. Her head snaps up, surprised, and then a wide smile stretches across her cheekbones as she sees us, and her eyes glint merrily. Walter grunts and turns too, and his own eyes immediately settle to Thaddeus’s hand encasing my waist, firmly and tightly.
“Co to jest? What is this?” Walter hides a smile under his beard.
Thaddeus shifts, sheepish, perhaps, or uncomfortable. I expect he does not like to explain our little romance, for all his gentle words with me. Perhaps he is irritated that his father forces him to speak what must be obvious.
But I when I tilt back my head, he looks calm. He meets my glance and half-smiles—a rare thing yet, but something filled with satisfaction. And when he tells Walter we are to be wed, and his father speaks teasingly of coming children, Thaddeus actually throws back his head and laughs. It is a boom and a roar all at once, and I laugh, too. I do not think I have ever seen him fully laugh, and I hope I can make him do so often.
CHAPTER FORTY
27 December 1867
Thaddeus and I wed in a brief and simple ceremony with the priest and Walter and Berit as witnesses at St. Aloysius. Elaine Warren, Sadie, and Tim the farrier were there as well. In the days after it, I think of my wedding often. It is crystalline and acute in my mind. I tingle when I recall how proudly Thaddeus spoke his vows, and how strongly he gripped my hands, his eyes intent and sincere on mine under the traditional Polish cap and a tight-fitting long coat of our heritage. I think I smiled the entire time with my hair in Mother’s ribbons and a tall kerchief. Father Jonathon was good enough not to ask me to stop grinning.
Though I am married, the rhythm of my life is still the same. There is still work and math and the sugary customer service.
I take a moment to stop and stare at the completed work. The piles of curving tin and bended copper glisten against the candles, catching the yellow and orange and white of the light and throwing it back into my eyes.
I truly am a smith. It is still hard to realize. But it is true in so many ways.
“Marya,” Thaddeus’s voice shoots out of the dark from the crack in the door, and though I know it’s him, he still surprises me. “I thought I said at dinner to not stay up so late.”
“How far into the night is it?” I ask as he shoves ope
n the door and latches it behind him.
“Long enough. How much more do you have?” He surveys the work.
“Just a bit. I’d like to finish David Fawcett’s order.”
He stands quietly, looking and likely calculating.
“I’ll help now, too.”
My eyebrows go up. “Really?”
“I haven’t forgotten how to use soft metals.” He flexes his fingers. “Though my hands may need some reminding. It won’t take much. What is needed?”
I don’t bother to walk him through the use of the machines so late in the night, and instead enlist him to solder the pieces as I finish them. He is slower than I expect, though perhaps that is because he is out of practice. We are mostly silent, save for the sift and shift of our feet and the mutter of reminders as we pass. Still, it is the most wonderful experience I’ve had in the shop since Father took ill. I find myself even more pleased for the future, when we will share our shops and our trade side by side. He was a good choice. The right choice.
“I’ll get lanterns in. Finish that one, and then come to bed,” Thaddeus says, suddenly standing and brushing past. He is casual, and I do not settle on his words until I hear the scraping of bedposts and wood against one another. Setting down the canteen, I hurry toward the living quarters. Thaddeus is combining two of the small beds so that it becomes a larger one. He stands and puts his hands at his sides, cocking his head and considering.
“It’s not perfect, but it’ll do,” he puts calmly, then glances over at me. “Did you put out the rest of the lights?”
He means to sleep with me here tonight, I realize, instead of the loft over Berit and Walter, and fluttering excitement wraps around my head at the idea of all the privacy. Yearning sizzles in my blood.
“I did. Except this. We can leave it lit for bed, if you wish,” I tell him, feeling brazen.
He turns around, and his grey eyes go stormy. “I’d grab you up now if I wasn’t so blackened,” he says, and the heat behind the words reminds me of his forge.
I shake my head at his excuse and approach him. “Do you think I care? Besides, I’ve on my own work apron. You didn’t marry a lady with fine dresses.”
