The Orchard House

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  It hadn’t softened until I’d returned. Until I’d taken off my blinders and seen with new eyes how the actions of sixteen years ago—not only Will and Victoria’s actions, but mine—had molded each of us today. And each of us was a different person now because of it.

  I thought of Will’s seeming commitment to counseling and change, then of his words, filled with regret that night we’d met at Main Streets. I was certain that, deep down, he was not proud of who he’d become.

  What version did I want to be, moving forward?

  Jo March came to mind. In her character, Louisa outlined her own struggle to be that “better” version. The more patient version, the kinder, sweet-mouthed version. Had either Jo or Louisa ever reached their ideal self? Had Johanna? Would I?

  I realized then that Marjorie was still talking. “There was one line in one of the poems, though, that stuck out to me. The first poem, actually. Johanna talks about a boat with the words Trust Me written on its side. She’s drowning, sucked under but struggling for the surface.”

  “Yes, I remember.” It was the first poem Victoria and I had read together. Not until I’d gone to church with Mom and Dad this past Sunday, when I heard a passage about a storm at sea and a disciple foundering and a sturdy hand coming to save him did I connect the poem to a possible reference to a Bible story.

  “When I read it, I remembered an object from my childhood. A wooden boat at Grandma Lou’s house. She never spoke of it, but after she passed, my father kept it, said he remembered playing with it as a boy. I’d like to show it to you if you have the time.”

  I didn’t really see how a child’s boat could connect us to Johanna, but Marjorie had given us so much already, I couldn’t refuse her. “Yeah, sure. That’d be great. When’s a good time for you to meet up?”

  The next afternoon, I greeted Marjorie as she stepped out of her car in front of Orchard House. She helped her seven-year-old granddaughter, Trudy, from the car, then looked at the old gabled home, dear to so many near and far. She sighed. “It’s been too long.”

  I noticed the package she held in her hands—a rather bulky thing wrapped in what looked like several plastic bags. But she didn’t offer to show me, and so I led her around to the entrance.

  Victoria herself led the tour that Marjorie and her granddaughter were on while I waited, soaking up the sun on the steps of Bronson Alcott’s school.

  “Hey, stranger. Penny for your thoughts.”

  I squinted up at Luke, rake in hand, surprised by how my stomach did a slight flip-flop at his presence. “Hey, yourself. I’m afraid my thoughts might not be worth even that much.”

  He sat beside me, and I moved over a smidge. Still, his leg pressed along mine and I found it stirred something new and foreign within me. “Why don’t you try me?”

  I lifted my chin in a challenge. “Okay, then. I was thinking about men. And they weren’t all good thoughts.”

  He laid his rake on the side of the stairs. “I’m not sure I’m up for defending my kind, but this could definitely be interesting. What about men were you thinking exactly?”

  I shrugged. “I was thinking about Louisa Alcott and her father. I read a lot of her journals and letters these past few days, and it’s got me thinking. It wasn’t fair how things were, how they sometimes still are.”

  He didn’t comment, and so I continued.

  “Bronson Alcott was free to chase his dreams and try out his ideals, even though his family often suffered for it. Louisa felt a deep sorrow for her mother’s plight. How she worked long days, took care of a home, and still had trouble making ends meet. In many ways, Louisa bore the responsibility for them. But she also accepted her father fully and even seemed to admire him.”

  Luke nodded. “Some speculate that that responsibility was self-inflicted. If she had wanted to, she could have gone off on her own and gotten married, chased her own dr—”

  “Did you hear what you just said? She could have gotten married. As if that is the be-all and end-all of being a woman.” I knew my words were bitter, and yet my own dubious love history, not to mention Victoria’s plight, had left me so. And deep down, I wanted answers. Assurances. I wanted someone to make sense of all I was feeling.

  Why I thought that job should fall to Luke, I couldn’t quite fathom.

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all.” I’d never seen him angry, but I thought this was probably the closest I’d get. “I’m saying she could have done that if she wanted. Maybe she could have lived on her own as well—didn’t she, in Boston, for a time? And yes, perhaps she felt it her duty to support her family and help them, but is that such a bad thing?”

  “No, of course not. But it seems like the press of it was forever upon her. As if she felt guilty about a great many things—her responsibility to her family, her temper, her inability to make money before Little Women was published . . .”

  “And you think all of that could have been solved by Bronson giving up his own ideals and getting a regular, honest job.”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “What is it that makes a man worthy, Taylor?”

  I thought of Will, of what had made me fall in love with him, of what had made me despise him these last few weeks. I thought of Kevin, how on the surface there was no reason for me not to give my heart to him. But in the end, much like Jo with Laurie, I couldn’t. “I thought it was the putting aside of oneself for the sake of those he loves.”

  “And so in your estimation, Bronson falls short.”

  I nodded.

  “Yet if he denied the very thing that made him who he was—his passions and interests, his beliefs—he would have been lying to himself and those around him, wouldn’t you say?”

  I shrugged.

  “What is really troubling you?”

  Unexpected tears pricked the backs of my eyelids. Somewhere, I caught a whiff of a freshly budding lilac bush, and the reminiscence of childhood stirred within me.

  I was thirty-seven years old. I had accomplished my dreams in becoming an author. Even being back home, building a relationship with my sister and parents, it all felt right. And yet very wrong.

  “I suppose, being back here has in some ways brought me full circle. But I still feel like I’m missing something, though I haven’t a clue what it could be.”

  I couldn’t accept that it could be a man. I’d had Kevin. That hadn’t satisfied. Somehow I knew that this man beside me—wonderful as he seemed—wouldn’t satisfy either. I was helping Mom through chemo. I was helping my sister gain her feet and independence. I was doing my job by writing my next story. I’d even taught a group of students about writing in a town that many would consider the heart of American literature. I was doing my best in all that I could, trying to make up for lost years, for the guilt I felt pressing on my chest. I wondered why it had chosen to make an appearance now, instead of in California. What was going on?

  We were quiet for a long moment before Luke spoke. “You know, I can’t pretend to have all the answers, but I believe that sometimes God puts that feeling in our hearts to make room for something better.”

  “Better than . . . ?”

  “Better than what we think should satisfy us. Better than belonging to the temporary things.”

  I closed my eyes. I could accept this sort of talk from Mom. Had written it off as the crutch she needed to beat cancer. But now Luke? What was it about the spiritual that seemed to be drawing everyone around me?

  He tapped my leg with the back of his hand. “I better get back to work. If you ever want to talk, though, you know where to find me.”

  “Sure. Thanks, Luke.”

  He left, and not three minutes later, Marjorie and Trudy exited Orchard House, Victoria behind them. Trudy clutched her grandmother’s hand and bounced up and down in excitement. I couldn’t help but think how amazing it was that generation after generation of this family was sharing this special place, this special family—no matter how flawed they were in real life—that had inspired
the fictional March family.

  I stood.

  “That was a real treat, wasn’t it, Trudy?” Marjorie looked to the little girl at the height of her waist, and she nodded and smiled, revealing a half-grown-in adult front tooth.

  “I’m glad you could come down for it,” Victoria said.

  Marjorie took her package out from beneath her arm. “I’m not sure if now might be a good time to show you this . . .”

  “Of course.” Victoria gestured to Bronson’s school, took out her key, and unlocked the door. Once we were all inside, I shivered—though whether it was from the chill in the large building or from the prospect of what Marjorie wanted to show us, I couldn’t be certain.

  We huddled around the light of one of the larger windows as Marjorie unwrapped her package. What she withdrew was rather unimpressive at first sight. The wood was worn and chipped. I could imagine some toddler hands dropping it one too many times, though the bulk of the object must have made it hard for small hands to hold.

  When Marjorie held it out, I opened my arms.

  I was surprised by the weight of it, which immediately set it apart not as a toy, but as a model of some sort. I tilted it to look at the writing on the side.

  Carved deep into the belly of the ship were two clear words. TRUST ME.

  I blinked, looked first at Marjorie, then at Victoria. “Just like the poem.”

  “‘A sailless boat drifted by, “Trust me” on its side.’” Marjorie’s eyes were clear as if she knew more than I could see in that moment, as if she patiently waited for the connection, but I didn’t know what she wanted me to gain from the two words.

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember the rest. I’ll have to read it again.”

  Victoria stepped forward. “Do you know what this meant to her, Marjorie?”

  “Not exactly, I’m afraid. Grandma Lou didn’t seem to know either. But she knew it was dear to her mother. I suppose a woman has a right to a secret or two in her lifetime.”

  “I suppose so,” I mumbled, though I would have much rather had a neatly wrapped mystery than an unfinished one.

  Victoria patted my arm. “We can write a story for her, remember?”

  Why didn’t that make me feel better?

  “One thing I do know is what was kept in here.” Marjorie took the boat from me and wiggled something on its side that I hadn’t seen before. The top half of the boat flipped up, revealing a compartment inside not much bigger than a pencil case with a ring and an old paper.

  Marjorie lifted it out carefully. “This ring has been here as long as I can remember. There’s no way to know for certain, but I think it belonged to John, then to Johanna, for it’s mentioned in John’s letter home and even in Louisa’s Hospital Sketches.”

  Victoria stepped forward. “And in a letter between Louisa and Johanna, Johanna thanked Louisa for returning the ring to their family after her brother’s death.”

  Marjorie nodded. “And here’s another letter. One she originally sent, it looks like. Though I can’t be sure how it found its way back into the hands of my family.”

  Victoria took the letter and the ring. “Sometimes letters were returned after the death of those they were sent to. More often, though, they were burned.”

  Victoria tested the weight of the ring in her hand. “It must have meant something to Johanna for her to have kept it here.”

  “If you girls want it for a bit, if you have an interest, that is, I’d be fine with you taking a look.”

  I studied the ancient-looking letter, for some reason frightened of what it held. What if Johanna hadn’t learned to deal with the circumstances life brought her? What if she’d gone through life alone, ridiculed, running from gossip, never finding a place to belong? What if the letter didn’t contain the answers we sought? Victoria and I could write her a happy ending. A fictitious one. One that we could count on because it was one we had control of.

  Maybe, in some ways, that was better than what this letter held.

  “We’d be honored,” I heard Victoria say.

  I smiled politely, feeling suddenly disconnected from the women in the room. As if I wanted to break free from the responsibility that family brought. Was this how Louisa felt? That she loved her family, sought belonging, and at the same time longed to be free of it?

  In some ways, it was easier living three thousand miles away. Where any emotional attachments were as far away as the Atlantic is from the Pacific. Where I could more easily claim the notion that liberty was indeed far better than love. Than belonging.

  It was easier, but it wasn’t living. And as fulfilling as writing stories was, that wasn’t all there was to living, either. In fact, I was wondering if, in some ways, my writing had taken the place of any actual living I’d done the past sixteen years. Yes, it was valuable and worthy, but too often I’d used it as a substitute for real life. A place to escape. No rejection. No constantly evaluating my worth. Comfortable, yes. But probably not healthy.

  We bade goodbye to Marjorie and Trudy and stood near Lexington Road looking after their car. When they were out of sight, Victoria turned to me, the pieces of the boat still in her hands, the letter and ring inside.

  “You want to take a look together?”

  “I’m scared we’ll be disappointed or that it will mess with the story I have in my head. I guess that makes me a wimp, huh?”

  She smiled, put an arm around me. “I’m not depending on Johanna for answers to my life, Taylor. Not anymore. Or Louisa, even.” She sighed. “I used to think I wasn’t enough to matter, that I needed someone to intervene in my life. And maybe I still do, but I think it has to be someone greater. Greater than me. Greater than you. Greater than Johanna and greater than Louisa.”

  “Greater than me, huh? I don’t know. That’s a tall order.”

  She poked me for the joke, made to disguise the sudden heaviness of our conversation.

  Really, though, I wanted to ask what she meant. But I didn’t. I suddenly felt drained, as if I didn’t know up from down or right from left anymore. As if I couldn’t count on anything for certain.

  “I talked to Will this morning. He sounds . . . good. He wants me to come home.”

  I could not make decisions for her, but this seemed beyond comprehensible. “Don’t you think—?”

  “I want to give him one more chance. I think the counseling is really helping. Despite everything, I want this to work. I want us to work.”

  I could think of a million reasons this was a bad idea, but in the end it wasn’t my decision. And I loved her enough to let her go. “I understand,” I whispered.

  She looked down at the boat in her hands, then back up at me. “I need this, Taylor.” She glanced at Johanna’s letter again, then to me, and I couldn’t tell if she meant she needed to go back to her husband or she needed to continue her journey with Johanna. Maybe on her own this time. Without me.

  I didn’t ask. I’d run away all those years ago, seeking escape. Now, when I wanted nothing more than to cling to my sister, I knew what I really had to do was release her.

  Maybe that was part of the belonging. Not clutching so tight to those we held precious that they would break beneath our grip, but releasing them to fly free—trusting they would come back.

  Maybe that’s what the Bennetts had done for me all those years ago, only I hadn’t recognized it until now.

  I didn’t know what it meant for me or for my story. Our story. My deadline. Victoria and Maddie and Caden’s lives. My newfound relationship with my best friend and sister.

  But I knew that if I held it all too tight, I risked shattering what I valued.

  I looked at the boat, the words TRUST ME directly in my line of vision, and I nodded, gave Victoria a hug.

  I didn’t know whom I was trusting. Or why. Or what the outcome would be in this giving over of control and making myself vulnerable. But I did feel like I hadn’t been led to this place, to this journey, by mistake. And I couldn’t ignore the feeling that m
aybe, just maybe, there was more to come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I made my fortune out of my seeming misfortunes.

  ~ LMA

  Johanna

  LOUISA’S INTERVIEW had Nathan’s magazines flying off every street corner in Philadelphia and beyond. Her one stipulation was that I be the one given credit for the article. At first, Nathan took none too kindly to this, but after talking it over with Mr. Saucier, he agreed.

  To celebrate, Mr. Saucier even took us out to dinner. Our neighbor Mrs. Heinrich watched Cora for us. If Miss Saucier had stayed home, it would have been a perfect night, for Nathan’s eyes were shining again, and despite the obvious attentions Miss Saucier gave him, for once he didn’t seem to have eyes for any besides me.

  The next two months were a beautiful season of enjoying our success. For a time, it seemed I had my old Nathan back. We took Cora for long evening walks and together brainstormed future article ideas. Nathan even talked to me a bit about his parentless childhood, how it meant much to him to be a family now with me and our little daughter.

  When he suggested we approach Louisa again, this time to pay her for a short story, I couldn’t help feeling we imposed on my friend. I did not wish her to think I wanted her friendship only for my husband’s success. I suggested he write her himself, which he did.

  He came home one day and flung down a letter postmarked from Concord. “I hope you’re happy,” he said and stomped off to his study. I looked at my daughter, now three and a half years old, observing her father. She could be willful, and I already saw some of Nathan’s temperament in her. However, for the most part, he did not take an active role in her upbringing. I couldn’t help but think of Mr. Alcott. For all his faults and the pressure he might have put on his daughters, particularly Louisa, to perfect themselves, at least he was active in the lives of his girls. If we’d had a boy, I wondered, would Nathan have been around more, made more of an effort?