Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison K. Pittman

  “What do you think?”

  In the middle of the clearing was a little house made of rough-hewn logs stacked snugly together. It was long rather than square, and the facing wall had both a small window and a narrow door hung on leather hinges. The roof was made of smooth planks laid from one end of the cabin to the other, forming a modest peak around a stone chimney that crawled up and out of one end wall. There was a small, fenced-in square of earth that had clearly been a garden.

  “What is this?”

  “Let's look.”

  He took her hand and led her across the soft grass of the clearing to the very door. A wooden latch held it closed, and John William grasped the protruding stake, dislodged it from the wall, and pulled the door open.

  It took a moment for Gloria's eyes to adjust to the darkness; the only light came from the little square window But soon it infused the cabin with enough light for her to see the details. A white plaster had been spread between each log, leaving no gaps. The wall at one end was dominated by a rock fireplace, the floor in front of it a semicircle of black.

  Gloria curled and uncurled her toes, expecting to feel the grit of hard-packed earth, but the coarseness beneath her feet was merely a layer of dirt on a rough wood floor. On the long side of the room, a large plank protruded perpendicularly from between two logs and was held up by yet another log at its end. A table. Two low benches were similarly engineered on either side. As her eyes further adjusted to the light, she saw that the wall opposite the fireplace extended only about three-quarters of the way across, creating more of a divider than an actual wall, leaving a doorway into what must be a second room.

  “This is the first house he built for her.”

  “Who?”

  “Edward. For Maureen. This was their first home. When they realized the main road to Middleton was going to run along the opposite end of their property, he built the new place so they'd be a little closer to town.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “Maureen showed me.”

  Gloria stepped farther into the little house, and John William followed her, allowing the door to hang open on its leather hinges.

  “It's so small,” she said.

  “Compared to what Maureen's living in now, yeah. But at the time, for them, it was enough.”

  “For them.”

  “For us.”

  Gloria had been gliding over the floor, but she stopped mid-step and stood in the center of this little house that seemed to be growing larger with every breath.

  “We need to start our own life, Gloria. If you're to be my wife, we can't just go on livin’ with Maureen.”

  “There's no stove.”

  “You don't cook.” He laughed and then added, gently, “I'll get us a little one to go just over here.” He took her elbow and turned her to look at the corner where the rock met the wood. “See? There's a hole cut in the roof for a stovepipe already She had one here.”

  “What about the babies?”

  “Just for this winter we'll keep their little beds in this main room. I'll build them something small that we can stash away during the day”

  “What about us?”

  “Come here,” he said. He'd been saying that all afternoon. Follow me. Walk this way. In truth, he'd been saying that since they'd left Silver Peak together, and she'd always obeyed. So when he once again took her arm—loosely, just above her wrist—there seemed no reason not to go along.

  He led her to the little doorway that divided the cabin into one small room and one smaller one and pulled her across the threshold into total darkness. There was no window here, nothing but the sweet scent of raw wood, the sharp scent of him, and the sound of his breath. And hers. The lack of orientation made her dizzy and she put her hand in front of her steady herself and found the stur-diness of his body to hold her up.

  “We'll need to steal a lamp,” she said, surprised at the thinness of her voice. “And dishes for the table.”

  “Of course.” His voice sounded closer. His breath in her hair.

  “And maybe a—”

  Her last suggestion was lost as his mouth covered hers, his lips soft against her own. She wondered for just a moment how he had landed the kiss so perfectly in such perfect darkness, but the thought was a fleeting one as she disengaged her hand from his and snaked it up around his neck. He brought his arms around her, pulling her fully to him.

  “Oh, Gloria.” He took his lips from hers to say her name, then trailed more kisses across her cheeks, dotting her nose before claiming her mouth again.

  She ran her fingers through the length of his hair, grazed her thumb against his misshapen ear and ached as he flinched against her touch.

  “Shh,” she said, bringing her fingers to his face and tracing— even in this utter darkness—every scar.

  He caught her hands in his and she felt his mouth against her palm—first one, then the other. Then she felt her face caught in the warmth of his work-hardened hands, his thumbs against her cheekbones, her ears nestled between his fingers. He kissed her again, releasing her. from his grip once their mouths were engaged. She felt one hand at the small of her back, the other caught in her hair. He moved her a few tiny steps back until she felt the log wall press against her.

  This was new, this feeling of melting, this sense of embrace. She'd never felt so powerless, left to the whim of her desire. Truth be told, she'd never felt desire. And that's what it was, that need to pull him closer. She wrapped her arms around his back, loving this feeling, enticed by this thrill. This was nothing like their first kiss. There was no audience, no glaring open light. Only the two of them.

  Together they shuffled one step, then two, and she felt something press against her calves, the coldness of her wet skirts sending a chill up her legs. The bed. Gloria's legs buckled underneath her until she was sitting on the wooden plank and then, further still, until she was lying on her back, trapped beneath the weight of John William above her.

  This, now, was familiar. This she knew. She'd been here countless times before. The only difference was that there was no money on the table, no sick and dying mother in the next room, no one else waiting outside the door.

  Soon the feel of his mouth on hers was too sweet, too intimate to bear, and she turned her face violently away She tried to remember the tricks she had used to make herself disappear. In the old days she used to imagine that she was actually standing in the corner, watching the whole thing. But she couldn't imagine herself away from this. This was MacGregan. This was John William, and that hand that groped her thigh was the same hand that had gently lifted her into a wagon and into another life. It was the same hand that unbuttoned her shoe, held her son, touched her hair. This was the same man who read Bible stories and prayed.

  And at the same time, he wasn't. The gentle nature of his earlier embraces was gone, replaced by an urgent intrusion she was all too familiar with. Every second under his touch brought her closer and closer to the woman Gloria thought she had left behind. But worse, it brought him closer to becoming just another man she would despise.

  She brought her palms up and braced them against his broad chest, pushing him away.

  “John,” she said.

  But he didn't hear, and Gloria found her body flushed with fear—adolescent and virginal—that threatened to crush her resolve.

  “John, please.”

  There was a moment when everything stopped. A rustle of movement and he was sitting up, his long legs draped over the edge of the bed. Gloria's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could just make out a familiar profile. John William with his head bowed, his fingers raking the hair from his face, his massive shoulders hunched as if in defeat or prayer or both.

  Tm so sorry Gloria. God, forgive me.”

  His penitence broke her heart. She stretched out her hand only to feel him brush against it as he headed for the thin triangle of gray light that marked the threshold to the front part of the house.

  “John," she spo
ke into the darkness, then followed him into the light.

  He was standing in the front doorway, filling it with his body, one hand on each side of the frame, his head hanging down. She brought her hands to his shoulders, urging him to turn and look at her.

  He didn't. She let her hands drop.

  “I have to know. Is that why you brought me here?”

  He spun on his heel and turned to her then, his face unreadable. “How can you think that?”

  “I'm sorry. I just…1 couldn't let you—”

  “I brought you here to show you that we can have a home. Together. A life together. I brought you here so you could see that you're no different than any other woman. Any other wife. That you could marry me and we'll have a little house. Just like—”

  “You had with Katherine?”

  John William charged at her, making the same big bear noise he made when he played with the children. He gathered her up in one massive embrace that lifted her off her feet and squeezed every possible protest out of her. He held her there, aloft, her arms pinned to her sides, her face floating just above his. For once he had to look up at her.

  “You make me crazy.” A comic growl underscored his words.

  “So I see. Put me down.”

  “Not until you hear me. Now yes, I loved Katherine. She was my wife. She was the only other woman I've ever loved.”

  “So how could you—”

  “Shh. You listen. Now, we've talked around this and danced around this enough. I'm a good man, Gloria. I'm a patient man, but I am a man and I cannot, will not wait longer for you.”

  “You don't have to—”

  “So we'll go, today, now, to Reverend Fuller. Just him. Just us.”

  It sounded perfect, simple. He offered so much and asked for so little. But even the little he asked seemed a world away from what she had to give.

  “John,” she said, her voice taking on the quality of a chastising parent, “put me down. Now.” When she felt her feet touch the ground, she took a step back, stood an arm's length away from him, letting him hold her hands so loosely that the slightest flinch would break them apart. “Tell me, John, would you want me if things were…different? I mean, if it weren't for Kate. If you just saw me one afternoon…”

  “I could ask you the same thing, couldn't I? But why waste our time on such questions?” He brought her fingers to his lips and grazed kisses along them. “We've waited long enough. I've waited long enough.”

  Gloria twisted her hands from his and began smoothing her hair away from her face, nervously tucking the strays behind her ears.

  “I can't today Not now” She turned her back to him and smoothed her skirt. “I have to get back to the babies. It's—”

  “It's all right.” He wrapped his arms around her and drew her back into his strength. She felt his chin rest on the top of her head, just for a moment, before he bent to touch his rough cheek to hers. “It's all right,” he said again, reassuring. “We won't do any-thin’ today. We'll wait till Sunday That's just five more days. But come Sunday we're goin’ to church, and we're talkin’ to Reverend Fuller and havin’ him marry us right there, right then.”

  John William planted a quick kiss on her cheek before releasing her entirely He walked through the open door, out into the afternoon sunlight, turned and stretched his hand across the threshold. Without hesitation, Gloria placed her hand in his. They walked in silence, hand in hand, until they reached the running stream. Once there, John William swooped Gloria up in his arms and was about to wade into the water when a distant sound, faint and unfamiliar, caught his attention.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked, gingerly setting Gloria down.

  “Was that Maureen?”

  Then the sound was unmistakable. It was Maureen's voice, raised in an anguished scream.

  “Stay here,” he said before leaving her and crossing the stream in two massive strides.

  “John, wait,” she called, but the urgency in Maureen's cries would not allow him to so much as look back. Frustrated, she gingerly made her way through the icy water, and once on the other side, picked up her boots and stockings and ran, barefoot, all the way back to the house.

  “I don't know what happened!" Tears streamed down Maureen's face as she handed baby Kate over to John William, whose arms were outstretched for her from the moment he passed through the gate. “All of a sudden she just started coughing, then wheezing and then…”

  John William took Kate into his arms, and her body seemed possessed by a stiffness that stretched her arms and legs. The longer he held her, though, the more she relaxed against him, and he was acutely aware of the shallowness of her breathing.

  “Maureen, what happened?” Gloria said just behind him.

  “I don't know! I don't know! I brought the babies out here with me when Icame out to finish up in the garden. They were just over there,” she gestured toward the quilt where Danny still lay, clutching his toes to his mouth, “and all of a sudden she was just screaming. And then she just—”

  “What's on her face?” John William asked, running his knuckle along Kate's soft cheek that was covered with some sort of sticky substance.

  “I was stirring molasses into my tea, and she reached for the spoon. I let her lick it. Oh, God," she brought her hands up to her face, “do you think that's what's made her sick?”

  John William studied his daughter's face, and then recoiled at what he saw. There were at least five of them that he could see— tiny mounds swelling, each with a nearly invisible prick in its center: one at the corner of her eye, one near an ear, one at the corner of her upper lip, two on her neck. Clutching Kate's gasping body close to him, he strode to the wooden overhang over the front door. One glance up confirmed his suspicions.

  Wasps. The nest wasn't large enough to have attracted attention before; it was fairly small and tucked away Maureen had followed him and stood now beside him, her hands still clasped to her mouth in disbelief. “Oh, John. 1 didn't know”

  He caught one of Kate's tiny hands between his thumb and forefinger and brought it to his lips, just as he had that cold rainy morning she was born. And, just as he had that morning, he worried she wouldn't live through the day. Each tiny breath grew shorter and shallower, and he longed to fill her with every breath he would take for the rest of his life if doing so would bring back her little smile. As it was, her face held an expressioh of faint surprise—wide-eyed and openmouthed—and the only sound was the tiny squeak that accompanied each labored gasp.

  “Ah, Katherine,” he whispered, hugging her close, “my beautiful, beautiful girl.” He closed his eyes, blocked out her desperate gaze, and prayed, “Lord, God my Father, don't take her from me. Father, you can heal her. Sweet Jesus, I beg you.

  He fell to his knees. Behind the veil of his closed eyes he saw her healthy and whole, newly born, nestled in her mother's arms. He felt a hand on his shoulder and heard Gloria begging him for a chance to hold her, but the mother in his vision had long black hair tied with a scrap of blue cloth and a thin, gaunt face.

  After a time, and God alone knew how long, the faint spasms of Kate's breathing ceased and she became perfectly still, her eyes still open and staring.

  John William lifted his face to heaven. “God, give me the strength to get through this.” He covered Kate's face with his palm, and when his hand was lifted her eyes were closed.

  “Gloria?” he said, looking up and around for the first time.

  “She's gone inside,” Maureen said. She was still standing on the porch. “Is Kate…?”

  “She's safe now. She's with her mother.”

  loria had never visited the low swelling hill along the southern edge of the Brewster's property, but she had seen Maureen up there often enough, kneeling beside the simple headstone that marked the grave of her husband. A, small picket fence formed the perimeter of the grave itself.

  Two days after Kates death, a small crowd gathered at the newly turned earth. A tiny white coffin sat beside the o
pen grave, its lid covered in a layer of roses from Josephine Logan's garden. The entire Logan family was there, each child scrubbed to perfection, their parents apologetic for their obvious health. Big Phil stood with a protective hand holding his wife close to his side. Adele Fuller was resplendent in a sweeping black crepe de chine dress; the veil suspended from her smart black velvet bonnet divided her perfect face into a series of diamonds. Reverend Fuller clutched his worn black Bible in one hand and with the other took Maureen's arm in a comforting gesture.

  John William stood apart from the crowd, his arms hanging straight down at his side. His face was covered with a three days’ beard, his hair loose and lank, every inch the image of a man mad with grief.

  All of this Gloria witnessed from the front porch of Maureen's home. She hadn't exchanged a single word with John William since their conversation in the tiny cabin. Baby Kate's body was laid out in Maureen's parlor while funeral arrangements were made, and during that time, Gloria barely left the room she shared with Maureen. John William hadn't stepped a foot inside the house. He'd been sleeping in the barn, washing at the pump, and as far as either of the two women could tell, not eating at all.

  Gloria held Danny close to her side, bouncing him gently He cooed and grasped at the loose tufts of hair that escaped the twist at the nape of her neck. She wore the dark brown skirt Mae made for her back in Silver Peak and a brown blouse sprigged with deep red poppies. As she dressed this morning, she had bemoaned the fact that she had no proper black dress to wear, although Maureen assured her that the brown would be fine. Now, though, she couldn't help notice the outline of Adele Fuller's perfect figure creating a stark silhouette against the autumn foliage and could only hope that her own outfit would help her blend in and disappear.

  John William looked up and their eyes met across the yard. He gave a barely discernible turn of his head, nodding toward the small crowd, and looked back at Gloria, clearly a directive for her to join them. But Gloria clutched Danny closer and held her ground. John William raised a single eyebrow, but still she did not move. Finally, he squared his shoulders, appeared to excuse himself to those standing around him, and made his way across the yard. He walked slowly and purposefully, and when he reached the porch he placed one foot on the bottom step, grasped the rail, and leaned in to speak quietly.