What Frees the Heart

by Karen A. Wyle

  He got a funny expression, halfway between a man pleased with himself for being clever and a boy caught in mischief. “Well, I was hoping we could find a way to let you see young Tom.”

  It felt like he’d lit a sparkler in Jenny’s chest. Maybe it looked like that too, because Doc laughed — the first time she’d seen him cheerful since Amanda Jane took the drug that killed her — and added, “I hadn’t got as far as figuring out how. I don’t imagine you’d want us to go strolling up to Mr. Finch’s shop.”

  Jenny shuddered at the thought. It’d been a long time since she had to lay with Finch, but she remembered his way of looking at a girl like he was stripping her in his mind and then drooling over her. She could just imagine how he’d look if she turned up. “Nossir, you got that right.”

  Doc fingered his chin. “We could go to my office, and I could ask someone — my friend Robert, perhaps — to take Tom a note. But Tom would have to say something to Mr. Finch before he could come away.”

  Doc and Jenny walked to Doc’s office and drew some stares, but not as many as Jenny had figured. When she asked Doc about it, he chuckled and said, “They probably assume you have some ailment that needs treating at my office, rather than out of my bag. Feel free to look as ill as you can.” Then he went sober again. “Though you’re looking less than your usual bonny self.”

  Once they got to the office, he settled her down with another cup of that special tea and stepped out to fetch his friend the pharmacist. Jenny’d seen him a time or two at Mamie’s, mostly just drinking at the bar while Doc did his exams upstairs. He took off his hat to her as he walked in and smiled in a regular, friendly way. “Good afternoon! I hear we have some conspiring to do.”

  The pharmacist sat in a chair, looking real at home, and Doc sat on the edge of his desk, saying, “As Miss Hayes’ physician, I’ve prescribed a meeting with young Tom Barlow to treat her quite understandable melancholy. Isn’t that right, Miss Hayes?”

  It’d been so long since Jenny’d heard her own last name that it fair startled her. It took a minute for her to get her wits back enough to answer. “Yessir, Mr. — I’m afraid I don’t know your name, mister.”

  He smiled at her again, wider this time, but still like a gentleman. “It’s Jones.” He leaned back in his chair, quite at ease. “I’m thinking it might be a good sight easier to get Tom over here than the two of you are thinking. Did either of you contemplate just telling Finch the truth? He’s not a bad sort, really.”

  Jenny’s mouth dropped open. “That’s not how Tom tells it.” Too late, she realized she shouldn’t tell on Tom that way. “But please don’t tell Finch I said that, or Tom neither.” Though she’d fess up to Tom sooner or later, maybe when he was feeling good and in a forgiving mood.

  * * * * *

  People had been drifting in and out of Finch’s shop since yesterday morning, with their different ways of gossiping — whispering, or pulling a long face, or practically rubbing their hands over having bad news to share. Finch grumbled between visits about getting no work done, but he seemed happy enough to listen.

  None of the folks coming in talked right to Tom, but he heard enough of what they said that he knew what happened. One of the girls at Mamie’s, the older one who seemed so sure of herself, had taken so much laudanum it killed her. Jenny must be awful shook by it. He didn’t know if she’d been friends with the dead girl, but she might’ve been, and for sure they knew each other. Maybe she’d even seen the body. . . . Tom had never seen Jenny cry, but somehow he could picture it.

  The pharmacist was next to come in. Tom hadn’t pictured him for one to enjoy chewing over a scandal, but he didn’t know the man to talk to, so he shouldn’t be surprised. Seemed like he was one of the whisperers, or almost. He pulled Finch aside and talked to him pretty low. But for some reason, both of them kept looking over at Tom. Was it because Finch knew, and maybe took pleasure in telling the other man, that Tom had been to Mamie’s? Well, he’d ignore it. Somebody in this shop would get some work done today.

  He was cutting out a boot upper when the two of them walked over. He had to look up then, but he didn’t see what he’d expected. Finch wasn’t smirking at him, nor winking at the pharmacist, nor looking anything but — was he actually looking sorry about what’d happened?

  Of course, he might’ve laid with the dead girl, back when he used to go to Mamie’s. Maybe Finch could have decent feelings about someone he’d known dying, even a soiled dove.

  Finch cleared his throat. “Mr. Jones here tells me that your gal from Mamie’s is over at Doc’s place. Seems she’s taken that other girl’s death pretty hard, and Doc thinks it’d do her good if you was to go and visit with her.” Then, when Tom was wondering if someone had somehow swapped Finch for an imposter, came the leer he’d been expecting. “Just visit, mind. You can go there to cheer her up, if you’ve a mind to, not to cheer yourself up.”

  Tom stood up as quick as he was able. “That’s mighty good of you, Mr. Finch. I’ll go and do that, with your leave.”

  The pharmacist clapped his hands together. “That’s all settled, then! I’ll walk with you. And Mr. Finch, thank you kindly for your consideration.”

  They walked on out the door, Tom blinking at the sunlight and still half believing he’d fallen asleep at the work table and was dreaming the whole thing. Once they got far enough from the shop to be out of earshot, he asked Jones, “How’s Jenny doing?”

  The man considered before answering. “I don’t know the young lady well, but I wouldn’t describe her as cheerful. I’d venture to say she’ll be very glad to see you.”

  As they got near Doc’s office, Jones said, “You go on in. Doc promised Mamie he’d stay near Jenny, but I’d guess he’ll interpret ‘near’ to mean something less than hovering right over the two of you.” He clapped Tom on the shoulder and gave him a little shove toward the door before going on his way.

  Tom hadn’t thought to look at himself in a shop window on the way over. He combed his fingers through his hair, not knowing whether he was tidying it or making it more of a mess, and wiped his hands on his trousers before slowly opening the door and sticking his head in. “Doc? Jenny?”

  “Come in, Tom!” Doc waved him inside. “I’m glad to see Mr. Finch let you leave the shop. It seems Robert was right.” He looked a lot less surprised than Tom felt.

  Tom had just started to look around for Jenny when Doc said, “She’s waiting for you in back. I’ll stay out front, taking care of any patients who stop by.” He gave Tom what was, for Doc, a pretty sharp look. “But I may need to pop into the back at any time to get equipment or supplies.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.” Meaning the warning, along with everything Doc was doing for Jenny today.

  He headed through the swinging door to the back room where Doc kept all sorts of stuff Tom didn’t know the name or use of, and did exams that needed the patient to lie down. That meant there was a sort of raised, padded cot against one wall. Jenny was sitting on it, swinging her feet like a little girl and looking all woman. But sadder’n he’d ever seen her, and so much like what he’d imagined earlier that it spooked him some.

  Tom held out his arms, and Jenny slid off the cot and walked into them without saying a word, laying her head on his chest and putting her arms around him. He held her close, then freed up one hand to stroke her hair, and she rested up against him, breathing slower, almost like she was falling asleep.

  She finally pulled away, looking almost shy. “I’d hoped you’d come. That you’d be able, and would want to.”

  “Course I did! Want to, that is. Never would’ve thought Finch’d let me, but come to think of it, I just might’ve come anyhow.”

  Jenny looked up at him with wide eyes for a minute before she moved back to the cot and patted it. “There’s no place else to sit.” She gave him a weak version of her usual come-here smile. “Course, we could do something else with it, but Doc could come in any time, and he’d prob’ly think he had to te
ll Mamie on us.”

  Tom tried to smile back. “Reckon so.” He lifted Jenny onto the cot, for the pleasure of feeling her waist, and then hoisted himself up alongside her.

  They just sat there for a few minutes. Finally Jenny said, “I’ve took laudanum before, when I burned my arm one time. I never thought nothing of it. But Mr. Jones says what Amanda Jane took didn’t come from him.”

  That might be the first time he’d actually heard the dead girl’s name since it happened, for all the talk about her. “That’s good to know. He’d have felt real bad otherwise.”

  More silence. Tom had just opened his mouth to ask how the other girls were taking it when Jenny said, “Tom, would you please — would you hold me some more?”

  He answered by pulling her against his side, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

  With a moment to think, he realized part of why he was so tongue-tied. He had something he really wanted to say, something big. He hadn’t known he was quite ready to say it until he walked in and saw Jenny, but now it was pushing everything else out of his head. Would he be taking advantage if he spoke his piece now, while she was feeling low and needed comforting? But if he didn’t, when would he get the chance?

  “Since I last —” He didn’t, right now, want to mention the parlor house. “Since I last saw you, my saddle business is picking up right nicely. I’m learning how to add silver to the trim, and word’s getting around.” He paused when she distracted him by snuggling up against him. He kissed the top of her head and went on. “I’m making more money from those cowboys than from all my hours at the shop. And with the two together . . .” His tongue felt swole up big enough to trip on. “I reckon I could support a wife, so long as she didn’t mind — as long as you wouldn’t mind living less fine than you do at Mamie’s.”

  Jenny had gone stiff in his arms when he said “wife.” That’s why he hurried up to say “you,” and waited for her to look at him wide-eyed again, or maybe snuggle closer. But instead, she shoved him away and jumped off the cot, facing him with her hands on her hips and her hair flying all round.

  “Tom Barlow, what are you saying? What are you thinking? Do you know how folk in town talk about us girls, and how they treat us?” She was just about spluttering. “Do you know where we’ve got to bury poor Amanda Jane? Not in the cemetery with the almighty virtuous Christian folk, no sir. They’re too good for her, even when they’re rotting in the ground! No, we’ve got to bury her outside it, so people can walk on her grave and feel proud of how right with the Lord they are.” She was so out of breath from shouting — and God knows what Doc, and anyone out there with him, was making of this — that she had to stop and pant. “I don’t care a damn about how fine I live, but I won’t live among people who think I’m dirt! At least at Mamie’s, we look out for each other and care about each other, even if we quarrel sometimes!”

  Now that was a fine way to act, when he was offering to give her a decent life, not to mention promising to love, honor, and keep her for the rest of their lives! “Are you telling me you’d rather stay at Mamie’s than get married?” Than marry me?

  For some reason, even though that’s what she’d been saying — or wasn’t it? — his words got her to stop ranting and speak softer. “That’s not it, exactly. And Tom, I’m sorry. It’s a real bad time for me to hear this. It’s awful sweet of you to think of me that way. And — and I reckon we could get on together, if it weren’t for everything else. I like you real well. I’ve never liked any man so much.”

  That was more like it. It was a start, at least —

  “But — I’ve been thinking about something altogether different.”

  What in blazes could she mean? “Something different like what?”

  Now she was acting nervous. “I haven’t done nothing about it, not even talked to any of the other girls. But I was thinking I might want to go to traveling with another girl, like Sophie and Bessie who come to Mamie’s a few months back. They go from house to house, or set up by themselves, and don’t stay nowhere no longer’n they like to.”

  Tom had been keeping his temper pretty well, he figured, but this was just too much. “So rather’n marry me, you’d rather go be a whore someplace else?”

  Jenny flinched like he’d slapped her. She blinked hard, maybe keeping tears back, staring at him. Right away he was sorry. It’d been a true enough word, but it wasn’t kind of him to say it to her face. Even if she was talking crazy.

  And to top it all, Doc came in, looking all apologetic, and said, “I’m afraid I’ve got to be getting Jenny back soon. You’d better say your goodbyes for now.” He looked from Jenny to Tom, and his voice went low, almost like a preacher might — a preacher less given to shouting than the one they had. “Mamie had a reason for letting Jenny come out like this, and I’ll feel I haven’t justified her confidence if I take her home lower in spirits than she set out. I’ll give you a little more time to put things right.”

  Doc went out front again, and the two of them looked at each other like kids caught putting horse harness on the cows. Tom slid down from the cot and took both Jenny’s hands in his. “How’d this all get so tangled up, when what I came here to do was help you on a hard day — when all I want to do from now on is take care of you?”

  Jenny sighed deep enough to make her chest reach halfway across to him, which he felt bad about noticing just now. “Maybe it wouldn’t be no better, traveling around and still — doing what I do. But if people I don’t hardly know despise me, maybe it’d hurt less than if I’ve been living down the road from them for years. And maybe we could get folks here to see me different, if we was to marry — but that’s not what Mamie says. . . . I just don’t know.”

  Was it Mamie who was spoiling his chances? No time to ask more about it, with Doc coming back any minute. Fair desperate to have Jenny something the better for his coming, he moved closer, slow enough for her to stop him. When she didn’t, he put his arms around her one more time. It took a couple of minutes, with Tom all the time waiting to hear Doc at the door, but she finally hugged him back.

  Was there anything more he could say or do, to make his coming here less of a mistake?

  When an idea came to him, he hadn’t time to puzzle over whether it was a good one. “Will you let me come with you to the funeral?”

  * * * * *

  Of all the things Jenny thought Tom might say just then, he’d hit on one she’d never have dreamed. Tom wanted to be there, standing with Mamie and her girls for all the town to see, honoring a painted lady? She pulled back and stared at him. “What would your folks say?”

  Tom looked like he’d be shuffling his feet, if he had two of them. “Ma knows about you — about how I feel about you. I told her. And I don’t care who else knows. If we was to marry like I want, they’d all know soon enough.”

  How would the other girls feel about a customer being in the middle of them when they were crying and carrying on? And what would Mamie say? “I’ll have to ask Mamie, and then the other girls if she says it’s all right. The funeral’s tomorrow morning, an hour after sunup — I’ll try to let you know by then, somehow.”

  Tom stood up straight with his chin out and his mouth set stubborn. “I’ll show up, anyhow, and stand back a ways. If you haven’t had a chance to send word, you beckon me closer or wave me off.”

  As flabbergasted as she was, Jenny hadn’t noticed Doc come in. He might’ve been standing there a while, for all she knew. Now he cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, but it’s time.”

  Jenny reached out and grabbed Tom’s hands, squeezing them tight. “Thank you. Whatever happens. I — I appreciate it, plenty.”

  Tom pulled her close one more time and kissed her on the lips, real gentle. “I’ll do what Mamie and the other girls say. But I want to be there. I want to be there for you.”

  Jenny almost started crying, but she was plumb determined not to let folks gawk at her crying in the street. Tom let go, and Doc took her arm and led her
out of the office and back toward Mamie’s. He didn’t say anything the first few steps, but then asked, “Did I hear correctly just now? Has Tom asked to come to poor Amanda Jane’s funeral?”

  Jenny felt something warm glowing somewhere in her chest. Pride, it was, pride that a man she liked thought enough of her to stand up in front of everyone, showing that what she was didn’t matter enough to keep him away. “Yessir, he did. But you may have heard, I’ll have to ask Mamie and the others.”

  “It’s a very good thought, and I’m ashamed I didn’t have it first. I’d like to be there as well, if I may.”

  That was too much for her to handle without tears coming. She wiped them away as quick as she could. “That’s awful good of you, Doc. Whatever Mamie and the girls say about Tom, I reckon they’d be fine with you coming, and grateful too.”

  They were almost to Mamie’s. Doc said kind of quick, “That’s a fine young man. I hope the two of you can work things out somehow.”

  Jenny stopped and faced Doc head on. “Can you really see some kind of way we could be together, with everyone knowing what I am, and the way folks in town look down on us — to the point where we’ve got to bury Amanda Jane where we do?”

  Doc stuck his lip out like he did when he was thinking. She’d never tell him how it made him look like a boy about seven. “I’ll have to ponder that question. If I have any bright ideas, I’ll make sure to share them with you.”

  He wouldn’t, of course. Have such ideas, that is. There was no point in her hoping.

  So she’d best try not to hope.

  Chapter 22

  Mamie sat behind her desk and listened to Jenny with her painted eyebrows halfway to the ceiling. When Jenny finished, she picked up a pen and rolled it around in her fingers, humming a little, before she said, “It’s good you came to me first. But you know, I believe I want to see what the girls have to say before I make up my mind.”