1929 Book 2 - Elizabeth's Heart

by ML Gardner

  “I did believe you, I was just afraid to trust you.”

  “Afraid to trust me?!”

  “Well, you didn’t say anything to me, and I thought maybe you were going to leave and just decided at the last minute to bring me, to help you find your way.”

  I sighed heavily. “I didn’t need your help. David drew those maps to get off the grounds. And if I were going alone, I would have found somewhere else to stay besides here. That wouldn’t have been hard. I didn’t tell you until the last minute because I thought the other one was telling the doctor about us. I didn’t want to risk him finding out. I had to keep it from you,” I said. She nodded in understanding, hung her head in guilt. I sighed heavily and took her hand. “Elizabeth. If I were planning all along to escape alone, why would David pack me a woman’s pink shirt?” I saw a smile crack and then she let out a little laugh, no doubt recalling how silly I looked in it. She seemed to grapple for words and then settled with another apology.

  “I’m sorry.” She crawled over to me and sat on my lap, hugging me tightly. “Can you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s not your fault. I just really wasn’t prepared for that,” I said apologetically, shaking my head.

  “We don’t have to let it ruin the whole night,” she said, glancing at the bedroom door and back at me with a sly grin. She unbuttoned the first two buttons of her shirt and kissed me.

  The next day we woke at noon, or what I guessed was around noon, and warmed up the last of the food David had packed.

  “We’d better think about refilling before we head out tomorrow night,” I told her.

  “If we wait until my parents are doing chores in the barn this afternoon, we could sneak into my house and get what we need.”

  “That’s taking one hell of a chance,” I said.

  “It’ll be fine. Every afternoon they work together for a couple of hours. The barn is far enough away from the house that they won’t hear us if we go through the back door.”

  The idea made me more than nervous, but I couldn’t see an alternative. We needed supplies before we headed out the next day. I held my head with one hand, thinking, worrying.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I said, without raising my head. She looked up, surprised and then back down.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Just understand, it wasn’t you,” I tried to reassure her. “It’s not that I don’t want–”

  She nodded quickly, interrupting me. “I know.”

  “I was just so distracted with everything that happened.”

  “You don’t need to explain, Simon.”

  I felt like I did, and I continued to struggle and stammer for the next five minutes, trying to explain to her that my body’s sudden lack of cooperation had nothing to do with her. But I couldn’t explain what it really was without making her feel bad. I blamed it on being tired, raw nerves, guilt for the argument; I even tried, as embarrassing as it was, to tell her that my bowels had been in a horrible state from the poor diet of the last few days and that had prevented me from performing.

  But I couldn’t get the image out of my head, the scenario, rather, of being in the throes of passion and having the other one join us suddenly. To look down and not see Elizabeth’s eyes any longer, but to see the cold anger of the one who attacked me. That fear was enough to prevent anything from working properly.

  “We should head up to the house soon,” she said, cutting me off, changing the subject abruptly.

  We bundled up in all our layers again, and I picked out all the bits of debris from the black wool hat before handing it to her. We walked mostly in silence, keeping just inside the thin woods, and she kept her eyes on the ground ahead of her. I didn’t know if she was still upset over last night or nervous about going to her house again, possibly reawakening all the fears the surrounding farm held for her. I tried to make simple conversation that failed and mentioned things we should try to get a hold of, if we could, for the trip ahead.

  She stopped abruptly and I looked up. The house was visible in the distance. It looked neat and well cared for, and the whitewashed boards of the house gleamed against the dreary background of winter. There was a garden on one side, surrounded by an equally bright white picket fence with a white summer swing in front of barren rose trellises.

  “We’ll get a little closer, then wait for them to leave,” she said. We walked a few hundred feet more, and I sat against a tree trunk. Without words, Elizabeth sat between my legs and leaned against me.

  “Are you going to be okay coming here?” I asked as I wrapped my arms around her.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not worried?”

  “No. I have you,” she said, twisting her head to smile at me. I kissed her briefly and then I held her close against me while we watched the house, waiting for our moment.

  Finally, we saw them leave through the back door. I fought the instinct to duck. They didn’t notice us and walked toward the barn, closing the red door behind them. Elizabeth stood up and brushed off her pants, which were far too big for her. Loretta was a tall woman, so Elizabeth swam in her clothes like I swam in David’s.

  We crept nervously toward the house and made it to the back door undetected. We slipped inside, and Elizabeth went to work right away, filling the bag with things from the pantry and icebox.

  “We’ll get some things from the root cellar before we go,” she whispered. With the bag bursting, she turned to the stairs and I grabbed her arm.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going upstairs to get us some clothes that fit and another blanket,” she said. I looked around nervously and, deciding against being caught alone downstairs in this strange house, followed her upstairs.

  We went slowly, and I cringed with every creak of the old boards of the stairs. Elizabeth went on ahead more confidently.

  “They can’t hear us from the barn,” she told me over her shoulder. From the bathroom, she took a bar of soap, a towel, and a hairbrush. She stuffed it all into a bag that she took from the closet, and then she waved me on to follow her into a room. “This is my room,” she said as she closed the door quietly behind us.

  It was small and smelled musty from weeks of being closed up. There was a twin bed covered in an ancient quilt. The curtains covering the window at the head of the bed were long panels of light material, adding to the airy cleanliness of the room. She opened the drawer to a small white vanity and pulled a few things out, tossing them in the bag.

  “I’ll be right back,” she whispered and opened the door before I could ask where she was going.

  She came back with a few pieces of clothes. “These are my father’s, but I think they’ll fit better than those you’ve got,” she said, holding them out to me. She opened her closet door and dug through it, stuffing items in as she came across something she thought she would need. She held up a dress in front of her and paused casually, as if she were deciding what to wear to dinner. “I’m going to change,” she announced and I took a step to leave the room. She stepped inside the closet and closed the door. I could hear her bumping around in the dark, and it made me nervous. I moved to the window above the bed to keep watch.

  There was a small pen with pigs and a much larger one beyond that with cows as far as the eye could see. The corner of the red barn caught my eye, and I watched it intently. She emerged from the closet a few moments later in a long, cream-colored dress, flowing and feminine.

  “You really do look beautiful, but do you think that’s a good idea for traveling?” I asked her, unable to take my eyes off the low cut bodice and tight waist.

  “I’m not going to be traveling in it. I just wanted to make sure it still fit. You said you wanted to make it legal when we got there, so I thought I’d bring this.” She looked down over herself and back up at me for approval.

  “I think that’s a good idea. Bring it, definitely,” I said with a smile.

  “You didn’t change,” she said, pick
ing up the new clothes from the foot of the bed where I had tossed them.

  “I was keeping watch,” I said.

  “Simon, I told you, they won’t be back for a few hours. It’s okay.” She held out the clothes.

  I took them, and she walked to the window and moved the curtains to look out. “I always felt safe in this room. It was kind of my sanctuary.” She smiled over her shoulder and then grinned wider seeing me bare chested, mid-shirt change. She went back to staring at the garden and swing below the window.

  “This fits much better, thank you,” I said as I pulled up the pants and started in on the buttons of the shirt. I looked up, and she was there, hands over mine, stopping them.

  “When I feel safe, the other one doesn’t come out,” she said and pushed my hands away, working the buttons back down. “I know that’s what was bothering you last night,” she said, watching each button as she unfastened it.

  “Elizabeth, you can’t be serious.” I looked from her to the door and back.

  “Quite.” She smiled at me devilishly. She whispered in my ear and kissed my neck. “It’s alright, I won’t ruin it this time.”

  My body and mind were at war with each other and argued back and forth, allowing her time to find her way under my shirt, pushing it off my shoulders and distracting me from rational thinking with deep kisses and a playful tongue.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea–” I half-heartedly argued and then gasped as she found the waistband of my pants, popped the button and pulled down the zipper. They swooshed to the floor in a pile. She had been insistent the night before, but I could see today that she wasn’t taking no for an answer. As if to confirm that, her fingers dug into my arms and moved her kisses from my neck to my shoulder and along my chest. I closed my eyes and couldn’t find a voice to argue.

  I wasn’t worried about her father bursting in with a shotgun. If he did, I would die a happy man.

  I don’t know how much time passed or how we got there, but I found myself hovering over her on the twin bed, trying to get the top of her dress down and the bottom of it up, alternately. It snagged and slipped out of my grasp several times as I frantically tried to push it up to her waist.

  “Hurry, Simon,” she whispered, hugging my hip with her thighs.

  “I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” I said. Too overwhelmed to be graceful, I moved my hips around, prodded blindly, searching.

  “Wait!” she said, grabbing my face, one second before I found her.

  “Wait?!” I gasped, eyes wide open.

  “I hear something.” Her brow furrowed in concentrated listening. I hovered with gasping breaths, so close to heaven, writhing in agony. Then I heard her mother’s voice echo up the stairs.

  “Shit!” I jumped up and scrambled for my pants.

  “Wait, Simon. Just be quiet!” Elizabeth whispered, adjusting her dress. I froze with my pants hanging open around my waist. We listened as they argued back and forth about something they were looking for.

  “Maybe it’s upstairs,” her mother snapped. I heard three heavy thuds and my heart raced. I looked around and wondered if we could make the jump out the window without too much injury. The footsteps on the stairs stopped mid-way.

  “No, I remember bringing it down,” his deep voice called. After a moment, we heard the backdoor slam shut and breathed a sigh of relief. Elizabeth fell back on the bed and blew out her breath, moving loose strands of bedraggled hair out of her face.

  “We should get out of here,” I said while I threw on my clothes. She ignored me and held out her hand to me, wiggling her finger for me to come closer, holding an insinuating smile.

  I looked down and then shrugged helplessly. All traces of excitement were long gone, and there would be no getting it back with the fear of being caught. Her face dropped in disappointment and she stood up. She peeled off the dress and quickly changed into a warm shirt and riding pants. She stuffed the dress into her bag and nodded toward the door.

  “Let’s go then.”

  I opened my mouth to apologize, but she had turned her back and was opening the door slowly. She peeked out each way down the hall before tiptoeing out. Each step caused the stairs to creak and groan under our weight, no matter how slowly we went, and my heart pounded in my ears. By the time we reached the bottom, sweat had beaded up on my forehead. All I could think of was to run back to the cabin, grab our things and continue north to Canada.

  We rounded the corner into the kitchen, and Elizabeth stopped short with a gasp. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back against me when I saw him.

  “Daddy,” she breathed.

  An older man, salt and pepper haired, tall and work worn, turned slowly toward us. My heart stopped and, though my instinct was to grab Elizabeth and run, my feet were frozen to the floor. His eyes fell on her first then grazed over me and back to her.

  “Beth,” he whispered and held out his arms. She yanked free from my bruising grip, took several running steps toward him, and fell into his hug.

  “I missed you, Beth,” he said, tears in his eyes. “I never wanted you in that place. You have to know that,” his voice choked as he stroked her hair, hugging and rocking her. “It wasn’t me.”

  “I know, Daddy,” she said and turned toward me. “This is Simon, Daddy.” She held out her hand for me to come closer. I took a deep breath after holding it in from shock and took one tentative step forward.

  “Simon,” he acknowledged me with a forlorn smile. “Thank you for helping my Beth get out of that place,” he said, holding out his hand. I shook it awkwardly and told him he was welcome with a trembling voice. I didn’t know him and I certainly didn’t trust him.

  “You know you can’t stay here, Beth,” he said shakily, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “You have to get away, far away.”

  “I know, Daddy. Tonight we’re staying in the cabin, tomorrow we’re leaving for–”

  “Mexico,” I interrupted. “We’re headed for Mexico. I have some family there,” I said, praying he would believe me. He nodded and spoke to Elizabeth in a low concerned voice, and I tried to calculate how long it would take to get back to the cabin, gather our things, and get out of sight. Only a few hours of daylight. Then we can move under the cover of darkness, my mind raced.

  “We need to go,” I urged Elizabeth. I looked to her father. “I’ll take care of her,” I said with conviction.

  He nodded and looked back to his daughter with sadness. “Send me word somehow when you get where you’re going.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills, holding them out to me. “Here, take this. It might help,” he said. Then he pulled out a vintage pocket watch on a long chain. “And this.”

  “You won’t say anything to anyone, will you? That you saw us?” I asked. “Because they’ll take us back if you do.”

  He shook his head, and his face scrunched up as if in pain. “No. No, I would never send my Beth back to that place,” he said. “That’s a horrible place, Simon.”

  “Yeah. I was there,” I said sarcastically.

  He shook his head in pity. “For what, son? You’re not split, too, are you? I have medicine.” He gestured weakly to the cabinet with a look of charity on his face.

  “No, thank you. I’m not split. I, ah…”

  “He sees things, Daddy. Like a fortune teller. He can see stuff that is going to happen.”

  “You see everything? Or just some things?” he asked, fascinated.

  “Just some things, it’s nothing, really,” I said.

  “He saw us together outside the hospital, Daddy. It gave me so much strength to keep going.” She looked back at me with loving eyes. “I had hope and it kept the other one away.”

  “Really?” her father asked in complete awe.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “He saw other stuff, too, like the crash, and one of the orderlies would have died if he hadn’t listened to him and–”

  “Have you always been strange like that? Or was it after some medicine or shoc
k treatment they gave you, and it just came on?” he asked, intrigued. I ignored him, thinking, How ironic that two people with split personalities should think I was the strange one.

  “We should go,” I whispered.

  She hugged her father again, and he thanked me again, making me promise, again, to take good care of her. I nodded and stepped forward to take Elizabeth’s arm.

  “Let’s go,” I said softly, pulling her. She let go of her father’s neck long enough to grab onto mine and started crying. I moved her to the side of me, holding her by the waist and nodded my goodbye to her father. We slipped out the door and made our way quickly back to the cabin.

  As soon as we were inside, I started throwing our things together in the bag and tried to hide evidence that we had been there in the first place.

  “What are you doing, Simon?” she asked with a sniffle.

  “We’re leaving. Now.” I hurried around the cabin.

  An hour later, I sat beside her on the couch. She cried and I pleaded. “Elizabeth, we have to go.” She shook her head in defiance. “Someone knows now, Elizabeth. It’s not safe to stay. If he says anything–”

  “He won’t!” she yelled and I recoiled. “He hates my mother as much as I do! He won’t let me go back there.”

  “We can’t take that chance, sweetheart,” I said, insistently. She stared ahead of her with crossed arms, like a stubborn child. “Please.” I tried taking one of her hands, but she snapped it back, tucking it under her arm against her chest. I blew out my breath in frustration and leaned back on the couch. The thick black clouds of an impending storm loomed near, and I was torn between the risk of being found and the risk of leaving during a snow and ice storm. She pouted, her body folded up tightly with crossed arms and legs, and I knew there was no convincing her.

  I stood with a relenting sigh and opened the bag on the table, digging out food for dinner. She kept her back to me in silence, sniffling occasionally, and the ice rain began pelting the windows as our stew began to boil. I glanced at the small woodpile on the hearth.