Caden looked at his mom, who nodded. Without hesitation, he ran out the back door.
A stout, pretty older woman breezed into the room, holding her hand ahead of her. “I’m so glad you’re here! Now which one of you is Taylor?”
I extended my hand to her. “So nice to meet you. Thank you for inviting us into your home.”
“The pleasure is entirely mine. I absolutely love your books. This tickles me silly to have you here.” I introduced her to Victoria, and we chatted for several minutes about which books of mine were her favorite. I thanked her for her enthusiasm as she led us to a quaint breakfast nook off the kitchen, a pleasant smell coming from the oven. From there, we could see the kids playing outside.
“I made chicken salad, spinach and artichoke dip, and tea. If that doesn’t suit, I can whip up just about anything quick.”
“This is perfect,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
She gestured to our seats, and I saw a stack of books next to my plate with a Sharpie on top. I smirked at Marjorie, who merely shrugged and said, “Just a subtle hint. I have a lunch meeting with Taylor Bennett, but I was hoping Casey Hood might make a brief appearance as well.”
I grinned and happily sat down to sign Marjorie’s copies, noting the well-thumbed pages on a few of them. As we all chatted over our sandwiches and tea, I noticed how Marjorie laughed with her two daughters as they told stories of their children. Their merriment filled the room, and I tried not to wonder if this could be Mom, Victoria, and me if I hadn’t left all those years ago. If we had a chance of this being us still.
I looked at Victoria, a genuine smile on her face as she watched the trio. She caught my gaze and her smile widened. No, our relationship would never be Amber and Nicole’s. And my relationship with Mom would never be like the one Marjorie had with her daughters. We had something different.
But that didn’t make it any less special.
Maybe I was finally beginning to accept that.
Amber cleared our plates, and Marjorie poured more tea and settled into her chair. “Now what you’ve come for, right? I hope you don’t mind that I invited the girls. They don’t know this story and I thought this would be a good time for us to all share in it together.”
“We don’t mind at all,” I said. “We’re grateful for anything you can tell us.”
She leaned back, seemed to enjoy the suspense she created with the pause. “Grandma Lou was quite a storyteller herself. She said she used to sit at the knee of her own grandmother Johanna, that those were some of her fondest memories. She sought to re-create that with me, her oldest granddaughter.”
A slight shiver ran up my spine. We knew from the ancestry research we’d done that Cora was Johanna’s daughter. But it was still neat to be speaking with someone connected with the woman we’d been trying to figure out, the woman who knew Louisa May Alcott, the woman who had written poems that had caused us to have more questions. Would Marjorie be able to answer them?
“Grandma Lou told me a lot about her own life, but as I got older, she began to tell me about her grandmother. Your Johanna Bancroft.”
Amber’s infant began to fuss, and she fixed a pacifier in his mouth, propped him up on her shoulder, and jiggled him a bit until his cries turned to a contented sort of vibrating that faded as he fell asleep.
Marjorie confirmed what we already knew—that Johanna had come to know Louisa through Marjorie’s three-times-great-uncle, John Suhre. That Louisa had taken care of John while at the Union Hotel Hospital, that she had guided him into eternity and went on to write about it in her popular memoir Hospital Sketches.
Johanna had indeed agreed to come under employment for the Alcotts. In many ways, by that time, Louisa had become the breadwinner of the family, earning income and helping to make financial decisions that had to do with her parents and two sisters.
Nicole shook her head. “So was this before or after she wrote Little Women? And you said two sisters. Beth had already died?”
Victoria answered this time. “This was in 1865, after the war. The first part of Little Women was published at the end of 1868. Louisa’s sister Elizabeth died in 1858. Although Little Women was set during the Civil War, Louisa fashioned the March sisters after her and her own sisters, only she made them much younger than they would have been during the war.” She gave a guilty grin. “Sorry. I get a little excited about this stuff.”
Nicole laughed. “No need to apologize. It’s all fascinating to me. I just get a little tripped up with history sometimes.”
“You know what’s funny about basing fiction partly on real life and partly on imagination?” Marjorie continued. “You almost never know which is which. But as you probably realize, Louisa did write in her journals and letters who had inspired all the characters in Little Women, including Laurie.”
“Her European friend, Laddie; and her childhood friend, Alf,” Victoria said.
Marjorie nodded. “She said Alf was the sober half and Laddie the ‘gay whirligig half.’ And we can’t much argue with that since it’s in her own words. But my grandma Lou was adamant that she had another inspiration in writing Laurie—and not only Laurie, but Professor Bhaer and John Pratt and every other honorable man Louisa wrote.”
I cocked my head to the side.
“Why, Johanna’s brother John Suhre, of course. Louisa’s prince of patients.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “I can see that being true. Often when I write a character, it may not be someone inspired from just one or two people; it may be a mix of people I’ve known—or even fictional characters I’ve met in a story. Who knows what inspires us, how our brains work. John did seem to make quite an impression on Louisa. It only makes sense she would carry that with her—not only in her memories, but in her writing as well.”
“That’s right,” Marjorie said. “So Louisa couldn’t have written Little Women without the inspiration of her own family, but Grandma Lou also seemed certain that the Suhre family was part of that inspiration, including Johanna.”
I didn’t want to express my doubts. Who wouldn’t wish that a great classic such as Little Women was partly inspired by one’s family? But Louisa had written nearly nothing of Johanna in her letters and journals. Seemed to me if Johanna was that important to her, she would have written more about her or more to her. Unless of course, those were some of the papers Louisa had destroyed after her mother died . . .
“There are two stories Grandma Lou insisted had to do with Johanna—one being Meg’s jam story.”
I scrunched up my face. “You mean when John Brooke brings a friend home for dinner and newly married Meg and her kitchen are a mess?”
Marjorie smiled. “The very same thing happened to Johanna. Only the outcome for her wasn’t quite so happy.”
I thought of Johanna Bancroft’s poems. “She had some trouble with her husband, didn’t she?”
Marjorie sobered, as it seemed did Victoria and Maddie. “She did. Nathan wasn’t quite as understanding as fictional John about the jam incident. That’s when Louisa tried to encourage her friend to leave the marriage. But back then wives didn’t just up and leave their husbands.”
Victoria seemed to shrink within herself, and I got the impression she felt like the target of our conversation, though in fact, it had nothing to do with her.
Well, nothing and everything all at once.
“What was the other story?” Maddie asked.
Marjorie put her hands on the table. “This is the part I think is the most fascinating. For as long as I can remember, Grandma Lou told me about a story Louisa had written titled Fair Rosamond. She wrote it before Little Women, and Grandma insisted it was a story Louisa finished with Johanna in mind. It was about being tied up in an unhealthy marriage.” She licked her lips before continuing. “When I grew older, I searched for it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.”
Victoria folded one leg beneath her, suddenly animated. “Because it hadn’t been published yet,” she whispered, turn
ing to me. “No one knew about it. Remember we went to camp at Orchard House the summer it was published? Only it was released under a different title: A Long Fatal Love Chase. A story way too edgy for a post–Civil War readership, but perfect for readers of our generation.”
“You certainly know your stuff, young lady.” Marjorie smiled. “I have to admit, I sometimes wondered if Grandma Lou suffered from dementia more than I realized. Or if Johanna had told a fabricated story after Louisa had made it big with Little Women. It was hard to believe our family history could have involved Louisa Alcott to such an extent. And I doubted. But after A Long Fatal Love Chase was published, there was no questioning that Grandma had her wits about her—and that she was telling the truth. It was the long-lost story I’d heard about but that we didn’t have a copy of. She was telling the truth. About everything.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did your grandmother ever tell you what happened—between Johanna and Nathan or between Johanna and Louisa?”
“You must understand that this isn’t a part of our family history I’m proud of—Nathan and Johanna. I wish I could say all of my ancestors shared loving marriages filled with faith and peace to pass on to their descendants.”
“We understand,” I said, and Victoria nodded.
“As I said, back then you couldn’t simply up and divorce your husband. Louisa attempted to persuade my great-great-grandmother, but Johanna couldn’t bring herself to do it.”
I slumped in my seat. I hadn’t admitted it, even to myself, but I’d hoped that Johanna’s story would somehow help Victoria, give her the courage to complete what she must. But how would this help?
“So she stayed married to Nathan. Married to the abuse.” I couldn’t keep the sadness from reaching the edge of my words. I had hoped for good things. Better things for this woman who had poured her heart out in poems.
“No, not quite.”
My head lifted.
“What do you mean?” Victoria asked.
“Nathan died in 1872. Grandma Lou’s mother, Cora, was only three years old. Some sort of horrible accident at home.”
The room was quiet. If everyone was thinking what I was thinking, which I would have bet they were, we were thinking that Johanna was not only an abused woman, but a murderer. Could we fault her? How much pain had she taken? Did she feel she needed to protect her child? Had she simply snapped?
A long, fatal love chase.
Victoria knew the story better than I did, but with fatal being in the title, someone must have died in the end. Perhaps this was one of Louisa’s “blood and thunder” tales, one of Jo March’s sensational stories, that she was not overly proud of.
“Everyone else thought what you thought, too. That she killed him.” Marjorie’s voice was quieter than it had been.
I remembered the words of the poem, the one on marriage, that Victoria had said she understood. Now they seemed to make sense, to point to a time when all called Johanna guilty.
Years and tears . . . and
the wood in which I stood,
and understood, to be our love,
cracked and chipped . . .
I heard the words inside my head
of the crowds and what they said.
And then I saw myself
toppling upon our love
that you chipped and kicked
and left me hanging
like the witch
I never was.
“She didn’t do it,” I whispered.
Marjorie’s face blanched. “Grandma Lou and I never thought so either. They never did find enough evidence to convict her, but she lived the remainder of her days beneath the bitter gossip of the town. People called her all sorts of things. A murderer, a heathen, a witch—”
“But she wasn’t.” Victoria’s voice was forceful, loud. As if she must prove this thing.
“How are you so sure?”
I opened Johanna’s book of poems, flipped to the one titled “Till Death Do Us Part upon the Marriage Block” and handed it to Marjorie. All three of Johanna’s descendants read it.
When they were done, Nicole rubbed her arms with her hands. Marjorie shook her head. “It certainly seems as if she wrote openly about her struggles. And yes, that she was innocent.”
“But this was not given as a testimony of her innocence. It was given as a gift to Louisa, one the world wouldn’t see until now. There’s no reason for us to think she would lie.”
“The words are steeped in honesty,” Victoria agreed. “I can feel her through them.”
“Still sad to think she had to live with that stigma for the rest of her life. I wonder how she survived. Or if she and Louisa stayed in touch.”
“Grandma didn’t know. Though she was always very insistent that Johanna had a strong faith—that she clung to God when this world disappointed her, which it seemed to do a lot.”
“It must have been hard being a single mother, especially way back then.”
Marjorie nodded. “She took in a lot of sewing. Louisa helped her publish some of her poems. But her most lucrative endeavor was a jelly business, of all things.” She laughed. “Turned that most unfortunate incident with Nathan into a profitable business. Cora married well and happily and gave birth to my grandma Lou.”
It seemed like a happy ending, so why did I not feel satisfied?
Marjorie lifted Johanna’s book of poems. “I suppose you need to be taking this back with you?”
I looked at Victoria. Marjorie had given us so much. I would totally be okay with her keeping the little book for a time, but I wasn’t the director of Orchard House.
Victoria glanced toward me before speaking. “Why don’t you keep it for a couple days? Honestly, we should have handed it over already. A few more days won’t hurt.”
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“No, this is your family history. You should be a part of it.”
Marjorie inched out her hand to Victoria. “Thank you, dear. Thank you to both of you. I hope something I’ve said has helped. What you shared with us . . . well, it feels like in some ways Johanna’s been vindicated after all these years.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
After we said our goodbyes and piled back into the car, a quiet came over us, even Caden, who seemed tuckered out with all the playing he had done. He fell asleep within ten minutes.
Victoria leaned her head back, looked out the window to the budding trees alongside the highway. “I think we did something good today.”
I smiled. “I think so.”
She sighed. “And yet I still feel like there’s something missing. I still feel there’s a piece of her we don’t know.”
I wondered if Victoria was looking for her answers in Johanna’s story as well.
“I’m sure there’s quite a bit we don’t know,” I said. “But I think we have enough to start a really great story.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A few tears wrung from a man are better than a gallon of the feminine “briny,” I think, because harder to get and usually the genuine article.
~ LMA
Taylor
ANOTHER WEEK TURNED where I didn’t make plans to return to California. Then two. Maddie had even joked that if I was still around in the fall, maybe I could run the annual 5K to benefit Orchard House with her and her mom.
The fall.
By then, decisions would have to be made. My book would be turned in; Kevin’s things would be long out of my condo. What did the future hold?
Victoria and Will went to another counseling session. I knew they talked once a day. I couldn’t say I was crazy about either of these things, though I wasn’t sure why.
Shouldn’t I want my sister’s marriage to mend? For her family to be whole? For victory—beauty—to come out of the ugly?
At the same time, a part of me felt that Will was beyond trust, ever. That you only got one shot at certain things, and calling your wife unspeakable names and hurling her beloved classics a
t her was that one shot. Yes, forgiveness was necessary. If anyone had learned that, it was me over the past month. But there was forgiving, and there was foolishness. And right now I felt Victoria was too near the line.
I spent the days writing and keeping Mom company. We even made cookies one Tuesday afternoon—something we’d never done together, just the two of us. The next day, my phone rang. Marjorie’s name appeared on my screen. We hadn’t made a plan of when she would return Johanna’s book to us. I figured she must be calling to tell us she’d read it through.
“Hello?”
“Taylor, it’s Marjorie. I wanted to let you know I’ve finished.”
“What did you think?”
“Definitely . . . insightful. Sad as well. I have to admit, I’ve never been one for poetry—for reading into it all and deciphering what it means, but it seems that hers is fairly straightforward. I wish it wasn’t so plain what she was thinking at times.”
I nodded, though she couldn’t see. “She suffered, that was for certain.”
“And yet, in some ways, I felt the Johanna who wrote these poems didn’t line up with the one Grandma Lou told me about. That troubled me.”
I opened my mouth to answer but thought better of it. It could be easy for me to throw out pat answers, but this wasn’t my family. Johanna felt real to me and Victoria, but perhaps not as real as to Marjorie, a woman who had sat at her grandmother’s knee hearing a firsthand account of her. Still, what grandchild knew her grandmother fully? By the time a second generation came along, time and age had often weathered a softer, gentler version of a woman. Perhaps this was the version Marjorie’s grandma Lou had known. Perhaps Johanna’s poetry reflected the younger. Neither could be discounted, but perhaps both together would give us the true measure of the woman.
I thought of how I’d changed over the years and even over the past couple of weeks. As a child I’d been shy and unsure. When I’d run away, betrayal had twisted me into a hardened version of myself—one that clung to the wrongs done to me and the rights I deserved, even if I told myself not to dwell on the past. Nevertheless, it was there, festering beneath the weight of my supposed indifference.
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