Carry the World

by Susan Fanetti

  There was no sampler for Bluebird. Her mother had sickened and died before she could stitch one.

  The floor creaked, and Jonah stepped into the room. He glanced at the samplers and turned his attention to Ada.

  “I got some things to say, Ada.” His tone was solemn.

  “Alright.” Anxiety hurried her heart, but she held back any dizziness.

  “If you’re up to it, let’s go sit on the porch.” He held out his hand, and she went to him and took it. Walking with characteristic concern for her balance, he led her through the house to the porch.

  They sat on the old rockers and looked out at the spring night. Ada waited for him to say what he had to say.

  He stared out toward the woods as he began. “I ain’t good at this—talkin’, I mean. ‘Specially about this. So let me spin it out.”

  She nodded.

  “I love my wife. Grace. I’ve loved her ever’ day since I met her. When she passed ...” He shook his head and went quiet. When he spoke again, he’d moved on. “But she stayed with me even after she died. I felt her ever’ day, still with me. I even saw her. She stayed in the house, but she was always here.”

  He cast an abashed glance her way sidelong, but Ada didn’t judge him. Her heart ached, for his loss, and hers, and for the thing that it seemed he meant to stop before it could start. But she didn’t judge him for seeing his dead wife. She understood what it was to cling to what you needed, even after it was gone.

  Fixing his attention again on the dark woods, he continued. “I know ‘twas my head conjurin’ her. I ain’t crazy. But it kept me goin’, feelin’ like she was here with me, watchin’ over the way I raised up the babies she give me. Havin’ her with me kept me openin’ my eyes ever’ mornin’.”

  He turned, and his eyes met hers. “I ain’t seen her in weeks. In the winter, she started comin’ and goin’, bein’ away a few days at a time, even if I called out for her. But she always came back. Then she jus’ stopped, a few weeks back.”

  Ada’s heart split open. He was telling her not only that he didn’t want her, but that her being here had taken something crucial from his life. For these weeks, she’d been sleeping in his wife’s bed, wearing his wife’s clothes. She’d taken up his wife’s space. Pushed her out of her place.

  She’d misread every moment of the tension between them these past few weeks.

  “I’m sorry.” What else could she say?

  He shook his head. “No, darlin’. Don’t be sorry. I’m sayin’ I kept Grace with me long as I needed her. When I didn’t need her no more, I let her go. That’s what I figured out. I think that’s you. You made me see I could go on without her.”

  He paused, and Ada opened her mouth to speak, though she wasn’t sure what she’d say. His meaning, or her grasp of it, seemed to shift with every sentence. She didn’t understand what he was saying about her, about them, and she was afraid to guess.

  Before she could force a sound from her throat, he put up his hand. “I know you had a good love, too, and your grievin’ is still with you. You called out for him a lot when you was sick. George, his name is, right?”

  She bobbed her head slowly, wary of vertigo and full of its emotional equivalent.

  “I understand, and I ain’t sayin’ I need you replacin’ Grace. You’re too good for this life I got, anyways. You got all those folks who need you and love you. You b’long down the mountain where the people is.”

  “Jonah, I don’t understand.”

  He chuckled lightly. Ada tried to remember if she’d heard him laugh before—or ever, with real humor. “No, I reckon you don’t. I don’t ken much of my own mind on this myself. I jus’—I got feelins for you, and they’s all twisted up and confusin’. If I act improper with you, like earlier, I don’t mean to. I jus’—sometimes, I want ...” He sighed and stopped. The songs of night creatures swallowed up the unfinished sentence, and he didn’t add another.

  Ada focused hard and tried to parse out all those befuddling words. Was he saying he wanted her? She thought so. But so much of what he’d said complicated that idea. Was he saying that he wanted her but didn’t think he deserved her? That was ridiculous. Was he saying he wanted her but didn’t think she was ready to set aside her widowhood? That was reasonable, but not at all his decision. Was he saying he wanted her but didn’t think she’d give up her life below to live in this isolated corner of the mountain, with no friends but him and the children, and little contact with the rest of the world? That was both reasonable and likely true. She loved this cabin, and Bluebird and Elijah. She thought she could easily fall in love with Jonah and might already have. But she could not give up her life and hide away up here.

  He hated strangers and any notion of a bigger world. She did not. She didn’t want to hide from that world. She wanted to help heal it.

  And her parents were down below.

  “You didn’t act improperly earlier, Jonah. I have feelings for you, too. You’re important to me. And the children, too. So much more than I can say.”

  He faced her again. “Could you live here with us?” Hope lifted his words.

  But Ada shook her head, slowly. “I don’t think so. Not isolated like this.” Never had so few words hurt so badly to say.

  With a halfhearted nod, he looked back to the black. “I know. This ain’t no place for somebody like you. You got too much t’offer. I’m real sorry I acted outta turn today. It won’t happen again.”

  Starting that night, Jonah stopped sleeping in bed with her. He slept on the floor in the front room, and Ada didn’t protest, though she lay sleepless and lonely until deep in the night, each night. He kept a gentlemanly distance from her all the time, but he continued on with his devoted care as she completed her recovery.

  Just more than a week later, Doc Dollens finally cleared Ada for the ride down the mountain and offered to escort her and Henrietta home.

  Jonah presented her with the clothes she’d been wearing the day she’d been hurt, all except her camisole. They were clean and mended, and showed hardly any sign at all of the trouble that had befallen her.

  Bluebird wailed unconsolably when she said her goodbyes. Elijah blinked back stoic tears. Ada chewed on her lip and held her own tears off, too.

  When Jonah offered to help her into the saddle, she took his offer gladly, and felt a melancholy pulse of thwarted hope when his hand lingered on her leg.

  “May I still visit, on my rounds?”

  He squeezed her leg, and looked up at her with his dark, sad eyes. “We’ll be countin’ the days.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The way was long, and the new trail was unfamiliar. It took nearly twice as long to come down the mountain as it had the last time she’d descended. By the time she and Doc Dollens reached her parents’ gate, Ada had come to understand very clearly that she was not quite at full health yet. She was sore and exhausted. Her head pounded, and that cruel vertigo pulsed at the base of her skull, threatening to unleash its fury at the slightest wrong move.

  They pulled up before the barn. Doc Dollens dismounted, but Ada wasn’t sure she could manage it. The thought of swinging off the saddle and dropping down from Henrietta’s tall back seemed some distance past what she was capable of.

  The doctor was more than twice her age; he had delivered her and been the only doctor she’d ever known. But he seemed unaffected by the rigors of their journey. He came to Henrietta’s side and lifted his arms. “Easy now, Ada. Let me help.”

  Grateful, she leaned carefully over, closing her eyes against the swing of the world, and let the doctor bring her to the ground.

  “Ada Lee!” her father called as she steadied her feet beneath her. Holding the doctor’s arm, she turned toward the house. Her father was hurrying, in his lurching, painful trot. Her mother stood in the doorway, her arms outstretched and her face wrenched with tears.

  “Hey, Daddy,” she said and let herself be wound up in her father’s arms.

  “Oh, Ada, oh baby. We was so
worried!” There were tears in his tone, but she knew he wouldn’t let them loose.

  “I’m sorry. I’m alright.”

  He unclenched and leaned back to squint hard at her. “You look alright. But pale. Doc, she’s pale.”

  “I’m tired, Daddy.”

  “It was a long ride, Zeke. Ada should rest now. But she’s gettin’ strong. She’s alright.”

  Her father let her go and turned to the doctor. He held out his hand. “I can’t thank you enough, Doc. I know we owe you—”

  “We’ll work somethin’ out.” Doc Dollens cut him off as he shook hands. “Don’t worry ‘bout that now. Get your girl inside and set her down.” He smiled at Ada. “Y’alright?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Doc.” She followed a sudden impulse and kissed his cheek.

  He seemed a bit flustered, but managed a smile. “You’re a fine woman, Ada Donovan. Well, g’day.”

  The doctor mounted up and turned to the gate. Ada and her father stood for a moment and watched as he rode toward the road.

  “Let’s get you inside, Ada Lee.”

  “I need to tend to Hen.”

  “I’ll get her in in a bit. F’now, she can rest a spell as she is. Come see your momma.” He squeezed his arm around her, and Ada relented. They headed to the house, where her mother waited, her arms still stretched wide.

  “Momma.” Ada went into those arms.

  “Oh, Ada Lee! Ada Lee! We missed you so!” Her mother had no qualms about crying, and tears streamed from her clouded eyes. She put her hands on Ada’s face, tracing every inch with her fingertips, moving into her hairline. In that way, she found the scar, and gasped as her fingers traced its full length. It no longer hurt, but Ada winced anyway. She didn’t want them to know how badly injured she’d really been.

  “Oh, my baby. Oh, your poor head.”

  Tears welled in Ada’s throat. She swallowed them down. “I’m all healed up, Momma. I’m alright.”

  “I knowed that job was dangerous. What’d I say?”

  “Let’s get her inside, Bess. She had a long ride.” Her father offered his arm for her mother to take and led her into the house. He reached back for Ada’s hand and drew her in as well.

  Everything looked the same. How strange, for something so momentous to have happened, and everything else in the world had gone on just the same. She’d had a similar feeling when she was in teachers’ school and away in Lexington for long stretches of time, but this, though it had been only a few weeks, was doubly intense. She almost felt as if she had died in that storm and been reborn at the top of the mountain, while the life of the woman she’d been had gone on down here without her.

  Her father set her in his chair and led her mother to hers. He pulled up a smaller chair from the side of the room and sat between them, closer to her mother, so they could both look on Ada from the same vantage.

  She could see an interrogation coming, and she would answer all their questions, but first she wanted answers to her own. “How’ve you been? Did I see the field planted?” It should have been—Chancey had been planning to help them do it as soon as he got his own crop in, just after she’d gone up the mountain on a rainy, grey, chilly spring day. But that had been weeks ago. They’d needed her to help them get it going and keep it tended. Normally, her few days off from her route had been spent helping her parents here; they couldn’t manage well without her.

  She’d wanted them to let the field go fallow this year, let her wages support them wholly, but her father wasn’t yet ready to admit he was too old to farm, and he didn’t want to rely on the daughter he yet hoped would find another good man and make an attempt at a life on her own again.

  “You did. Chancey’s been helpin’ out, and Mort Edwards and his boys, too. And we had a few men come by lookin’ to trade some work for a place to put they head and some bread for they bellies. One man stayed around near a week, helped me out plenty.”

  Her parents had always been kind to wandering men, and had always been treated well by them in return. She was glad there had been help for them. “And Momma? How’ve you been?”

  Her mother smiled and reached out her hands, though she was too far away to touch her. Ada would have left her seat and come closer, but she was afraid to tempt the vertigo.

  “I’m good as ever I am,” her mother said as she set her empty hands in her lap again. “We missed you so, Ada Lee. You sure you’re feelin’ good?”

  “I am. I was hurt, but I was in good care, and I’m well again.”

  “The doc said you was with one of your liberry folks?” her father asked.

  She chose her words carefully, unsure how her parents would react to know she’d been with a widower and his children. “Yes. A family up in a high holler. They found me and nursed me.” The thought of Jonah’s tender care came to life, and she closed her eyes so she could see him clearly.

  “Well, we owe them ever’thing, then,” her mother said.

  Yes, she did.

  Ada and her parents spent the day quietly. Her father wouldn’t allow her to give him any help with his afternoon chores, but he and her mother were both thrilled to have her back in the kitchen. Her mother sat at the table with her, and together they made a nice supper of beef hash and cornbread.

  Her mother stirred the cornbread batter, and Ada could tell that her thoughts were mixing up into words while she did.

  “You don’t have to take up that job again, Ada Lee. We’ll find a way without it. We always find a way.”

  “I like my job, Momma. I’m helping people.”

  “You almost died doin’ it.”

  Ada thought about how to rebut that statement without lying to her mother, but she was too slow.

  “I knew it. You was gone too long for it to be anythin’ but deadly. A whole month, Ada Lee. More’n that. It took you a whole month to get back home. Y’almost died.”

  “I didn’t die, Momma. I’m well. Completely recovered.”

  “What happened? Tell me how I almost lost you.”

  “I don’t remember that day, except I remember leaving home in the morning. I only know what people told me, and they only know what they put together from when I was found. The storm was bad. I got caught in a mudslide and hit my head on something. That’s what you felt, the scar from that. I lost consciousness. Henrietta went for help, and I was rescued.”

  “Who rescued you?”

  “One of my families on my route. Hen went to their house, and they went looking for me.”

  “That’s what you said. What I’m askin’ is who. Who do we owe for our little girl’s life?”

  Jonah lived closed enough to Red Fern Holler to use it as his trading place. Only a few hours’ walk from his cabin. Ada’s mother had grown up in Red Fern Holler. She’d come down the mountain long ago, and they’d gone back up for visits only once a year or so until Ada’s Granny Dee had died, and then not again. Nearly two decades had passed since her mother had been to her birthplace.

  What did she know of the Walker family? It couldn’t be much, not as it was now. Jonah’s whole family had been alive back then. He hadn’t been married yet. Ada didn’t know how old he was, but there was grey in his stubble between shaves, and strands of grey mixed in with his hair’s dark blend of gold and brown. Faint lines on his face, at his eyes and between his eyebrows. In his thirties, she thought. He’d have been a young man somewhere in his teens when Granny Dee died eighteen years ago.

  She wasn’t entirely sure why such caution seemed necessary, but she wanted to keep Jonah and the children for herself.

  “The Walkers.”

  Her mother frowned. Ada could see her stretching her mind back, trying to remember. “I don’t think I know the Walkers ... ‘less it’s Paul and Dolly Walker, way up above Red Fern Holler. That the family you mean?”

  She didn’t know Jonah’s parents’ names, but ‘way up above Red Fern Holler’ described Cable’s Holler. “Yes.”

  Her mother nodded. “They come down to the churc
h for near ever’ service. Had a couple children, as I recollect. I remember a gangly boy was the oldest. And a little girl, I think.” She shook her head and felt on the table for the baking tin. “That was before Momma Dee died, though. They must be all growed up now, with families of they own.”

  She poured the batter into the tin, and Ada used the opportunity to change the subject before the questions got more complicated. “I’ll put this in the oven. Then I need to stir up the meat.”

  Ada wondered if she’d ever met Jonah or his family in those days. She imagined him as a gangly boy, tall and full of angles, and smiled. Had he been naturally quiet and shy? Or had life’s sorrow pulled him so far into himself?

  “You’re goin’ back to that job, ain’t you?” her mother asked as Ada closed the oven door.

  “I am. I’m going to ask Chancey to drive me in tomorrow or the next day. I need to collect my wages, and I want Mrs. Pitts to know I’m ready to pick up my route again before she gives it to someone else.” She was immeasurably grateful that she hadn’t been let go during this time, but eventually, Mrs. Pitts would have no choice. Ada couldn’t tarry.

  “I don’t like it.” Her mother sighed. “But if it makes you happy ...”

  “It does, Momma. It’s good work, and I love doing it.”

  “The money helps, it’s true.”

  The money more than helped. Ada knew better than either of her parents how necessary her wages were. “As long as I’m in town, I thought I’d pick up a few things. But I’ve been away awhile, and I don’t want to miss anything. Will you help me make a list?”

  That night, after she read to her mother from The Mill on the Floss, and shared a lingering goodnight with her relieved, grateful parents, Ada closed herself in her small bedroom. She stood in the middle of the threadbare rug and considered the space. The same room she’d had all her life. The same bed, the same bureau and mirror, the same chifforobe, the same bookcase, the same books. The lamps were the only fairly new additions; they’d had no electricity when she was growing up.