May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel

by Peter Troy

  And he passed those days with more purpose than he’d ever had before. The world, somehow, bigger now. When he wasn’t with her. And tinier too. In those moments when it was just them to pass smiles and curtseys and bows and such. Whole entire conversations like Momma and Daddy used to have. Packed tight into whatever words could be fit into those stolen moments. And him deciding it was time to be a better man. The kind of man a woman like Mary might someday get to lookin’ on the way Momma looked on Daddy. Who wasn’t ever gonna be as refined as Momma. Just like he wasn’t gonna be with Mary. But still. Maybe. With such a reason to hope. With Mary. Elegance to outshine the ugliness. Like it wasn’t such a difficult thing at all.

  MARY

  SEPTEMBER 1862

  Mary’s so happy spendin’ lunch with Micah that all the busyness at the store, all of Juss’s talkin’ ’bout this officer or that, all the gals teasin’, all the everything that was wearin’ her down at the start of the summer, is now all wrapped up in a bundle so small she doesn’t even notice it’s there most days. Instead it’s like she’s hearin’ music in her head most all the time, hummin’ along to it whether she’s hangin’ sheets or stitchin’ dresses or just lyin’ still in bed. That music’s got her so caught up that she doesn’t even notice that the job Micah’s been workin’ on is gettin’ close to done as summer starts windin’ down.

  Then one day the overseer walks over to where the gals are workin’ and says that startin’ Monday they gonna be doin’ their washin’ in the pool over there, where the first levee is all built and ready to go. It’s only then that Mary looks over and sees the second one lookin’ almost exactly like the first, and she knows that they’re just about done altogether. The ladies are all sad that day, and some of them cry when they go over to eat lunch with the men. Mary doesn’t cry ’cause the music’s still playin’ some, just not as loud as before. Somehow she got to thinkin’ that mornin’, after the overseer came by, that even if she wasn’t gonna see much of Micah, or anything at all, that somehow it’d mean something just to know he was there. That she wasn’t an island after all. And that was way more than just something. It was a glory just to feel this way, what Gertie told her was the kinda love a man and a woman, if they lucky, feel fo’ each otha.

  But neither of them has much to say when they eat lunch that day. When she stands up and says she best be gettin’ Miss Juss, he stands up too and reaches for his hat, diggin’ around inside it. He looks at the overseer and at the men and the gals, and then takes Mary by the shoulders and kisses her. And the music’s playin’ so loud again that she hardly notices when he takes her hand and puts a little piece of paper inside it. It’s only when she’s walkin’ up to the hospital that she gets to realizin’ what she’s got right there in her hand.

  She never told him about knowin’ how to read and write, and he never said nothin’ about it either. It’s about as deep a secret for her as the time with Mista Grant, only she knows she can’t get in no trouble for the time with Mista Grant now. But readin’ and writin’s a different story altogether—and she starts to thinkin’ about what might happen if the overseer seen the piece of paper and is maybe chasin’ after her—and how she and Micah gonna get sold off a thousand miles from each other … and then they’d go and put Mista and Misses Kittredge and Miss Randall in prison … and maybe even Miss Juss too for bein’ the ones that let her get all that learnin’ … and she looks back and sees the overseer just as concerned with his lunch as ever, and there’s Micah standin’ with his hat off, watchin’ her, smilin’. And all that worry is gone now. There’s just the tingle left runnin’ within her, and the memory of his kiss.

  Juss is talkin’ the whole walk home, about the usual things, this officer and that, this or that nurse who told her not to get too friendly with the patients, and such. And it’s all so much the same sorta thing walkin’ back home, that Mary drifts into her own thoughts, off’rin’ the occasional mmm-hmmm, by way of keepin’ up. But her mind drifts elsewhere, back to Carolina, and the overseer Mista Grant, the man who she’s worryin’ might make Micah not want to be her man once he knows about what happened ’fore she and Gertie run off. And the heat of the day … the worryin’ about the paper in her sleeve … and the memories of all those years past … set her to driftin’ more than walkin’ … dreamin’ one of those nightmares all over again …

  You see Mista Grant’s whiskered face, feelin his grip take holda your arms again, pullin you into the empty stable pen. He smells of sweat an foul breath an you can almost feel the pain of bein thrown down on the stable floor, the back of your head smackin against a wooden plank buried under a thin layer of hay still wet with horse pee. An it’s like he’s on toppa you again, tearin at your clothes an rubbin his rough, sweaty face up against yours, down your neck an along your body, stripped almost naked the way he tore your dress. There’s the pain of violent thrusts an his animal groans an there you are tryin to offer up your sufferin to Jesus, the way Gertie always told you to. But you can see the Devil’s face in his eyes, ’til, sudden as it all begun, it’s over, an he lets out a deep, poisoned breath. He lays on toppa you for a few seconds more, an you can feel the weight of him squeezin the air from your lungs. With a sudden jerk he pushes himself up, standin over you, fixin his clothes, then laughin as he walks off.

  An there you are, standin up when you feel like you can move again, then seein the puddle of blood on the stable floor an feelin that it’s comin from you, from ’tween your legs. You sweepin straw to cover up the puddle when your head goes faint an your legs buckle, an you on the floor now with your face in the blood puddle, every breath you let out makin tiny ripples ’cross the toppa it … driftin … floatin … tryin to figure out what just happened an’ how you gonna get in all kindsa trouble now …

  You all right, Mary? Juss asks, as they’re steppin’ up to the house.

  And Mary can’t answer her, takin’ hold of her arm instead and leanin’ her head against Juss’s shoulder. Juss walks her through the front door and yells at Bessie to get her some water. And then it’s into Mary’s room, where she sips the water and lays down on her bed, with Juss sittin’ beside her for as long as she can stay ’til the Misses assures her Mary’s all right now, and it’s time to get to her lessons.

  No work in the shop for you today, the Misses says, leavin’ Mary to lay there for the rest of the afternoon.

  She’s layin’ there with just those memories, ’til she remembers the slip of paper Micah gave her, takes it from her sleeve now and can tell right off that there’s handwritin’ on it. She panics for a moment, thinkin’ that he knows her secret, ’til she realizes that he’s the one that done the writin’, and if anything it’s him who’s riskin’ everything, practically trustin’ her with his life. That calms her a little, and she unfolds the paper altogether and reads the words written in a thick black carpenter’s pencil:

  You are the sun to me after a night three thousand days long

  And that’s it right then. Like she’s melted right there in her tiny room, knowin’ there’s such a man in this world, who could write such a thing. To her. And she knows she’ll never be an island again.

  MARCELLA

  NEW YORK

  NOVEMBER 1, 1862

  It was nearly as impossible to distinguish the gray uniforms from the blue as it was to see evidence of a soul having once occupied the bodies laid in patternless rows. Limbs were intermingled and thrust outward from their torsos in unnatural forms, bent awkwardly at the elbows and knees in ways they would never be when still animate. It was an unfettered introduction to the horrors of this war, and she was only glad that Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine had not accompanied her to the gallery after all. The title below the framed photograph read, “The Sunken Road, Antietam.” Mr. Brady does love his gore, Marcella thought.

  Brady’s pictures were gruesome and compelling, just as advertised. But she had found herself more impressed with the work of a man who seemed to be an afterthought in the exhibition. Moving sl
owly down the row, she took in each picture for several minutes before proceeding. Near the end of the display wall, she stopped completely and backed up a fair distance from yet another image of Mr. McOwen’s—several sturdy-looking men standing beside a cannon. The collection of these dozen photographs was entitled “Men of the Irish Brigade.” Actual living soldiers, how original, she thought.

  But aside from the obvious distinction between McOwen’s work and nearly all of Brady’s pictures, she saw something captured in their faces that was quite different from the usual Brady portraits with the customary puffed-out chests and stern gazes. McOwen had managed to elicit an element from within his subjects that was more revealing of who they genuinely were. Unlike the collection of corpses or anonymous infantrymen Brady’s pictures coldly displayed, these photographs told stories of men become soldiers, men who had left lives and families behind, men compelled to act, but wanting nothing so much as the chance to return to those lives and families when the work was finally done, men who were a family in and of themselves. And as Marcella stared at them, engulfed in everything their two-dimensional faces said, a pair of high-society matrons approached and walked directly up to the photograph, apparently unaware that they were blocking her view. Oh by all means, yes, please do, she thought.

  “Oh, well look at this,” one of the ladies said to her companion. “This is classic Brady. Just look at the brutishness of the men. They are so magnificently … common, so … vile. I suppose the Irish are good at fighting at least, and Brady just captures that disdain they have for decent society.”

  “Yes, only Brady could do that,” her friend declared. “Oh, look at this one with the beard … those eyes, so dark and menacing. It’s deliciously terrifying.”

  Deliciously terrifying? Like, say … your hat?

  Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine were not there to restrain Marcella from engaging in the games she often liked to play on occasions such as these. It was not so much that she liked to play them, but rather that, despite the calming, civilizing influence Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine had on Marcella, she still needed such episodes as a release that would enable her to remain calm and civilized at all other times. And after more than a year of working in the army hospital, where some of the battered men from the war struggled to put their lives back together, she had grown even more intolerant of boorish women such as these.

  “Oh what a beautiful McOwen!” Marcella said, stepping forward into the ladies’ conversation as if they were old acquaintances. “He just captures their inherent brutishness. So vile, are they not? So common. And yet … positively delicious!”

  The ladies did their instant appraisal of Marcella as such women always did. Their eyes started on her hat, took in her olive-toned face and dark eyes surrounded by menacing cheekbones that, minus a smile, gave way too readily to something appearing to be a scowl, still, undeniably pretty in a nonclassical way. They noticed the jewelry, of course, then continued all the way down the dress, perhaps noticing her lack of a corset, and on to the tips of her shoes and back up again, before a glance at each other to confirm whether they were in the presence of someone who merited their attention or not. It was all expertly done in a matter of two or three seconds, and then the ladies turned back to Marcella and nodded. Oh thank heavens, I’ve passed inspection!

  “Yes, I was just saying …” The first lady paused as if Marcella’s statements had actually just registered with her now. She looked down at the nameplate beneath the photo, but remarkably, deliciously one might say, she did not miss another beat. “Yes … McOwen, I’ve heard some very good things about him.”

  “Yes, he’s quite a talent,” the second replied. “I’ve seen several of his shows. Quite a visceral quality to his work. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, quite,” the first agreed.

  “Visceral, yes … quite,” Marcella agreed enthusiastically. “Although … I believe …” She turned the page of her program and looked down at it—“yes, that’s what it says here. ‘Ethan McOwen, a veteran of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment and official photographer of the valiant Irish Brigade, makes his debut with this evening’s opening.’ ”

  “Ohhh … yes, that’s right,” the second lady corrected. “I was thinking of that other Irishman … you know … Mac something or Oh something …”

  “Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean,” Marcella interjected. “They’re impossible to distinguish. But it’s nice to see that at least one or two of them have something meaningful to contribute to society.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” the first woman agreed.

  “I hear they make competent enough servants,” Marcella added. “Though Pa-pah would never hire any of them. Said he’d hire a Negro first if it came to that. But thankfully there are enough Chinese and respectable-enough peasants to fill out a decent staff.”

  She laughed loudly, tapping each of the ladies on the arm with her program, and they became uncomfortable, though it was doubtful if either of them could say why. They nodded and excused themselves, but Marcella grabbed each of them by an arm and leaned in closely as if to confide a great secret to them.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” she whispered, “but this McOwen has taken some pictures of the Negroes, too. Runaway slaves. They’re along the back row way over there … if you can sneak over, I highly recommend it. Positively, deliciously vile. Such visceral brutishness.”

  She lifted her eyebrows and nodded her head several times for effect, and the ladies looked at her awkwardly before practically dashing back to their husbands gathered in the corner drinking brandy. Marcella watched them all the way, then nodded and winked, pointing to the back row of pictures again when they arrived safely. Finally they turned completely away from her. Thanks for the chat, Marcella thought, and chuckled to herself in triumph.

  “That McOwen, he is something, isn’t he?” came a voice from over her shoulder, as she stood in her triumph.

  She looked to her left and saw a man leaning on a cane and smiling at her.

  “Oh yes, he is a talent,” she answered.

  He was dressed in a black suit, and his hair was thick and covered half of his ears. There was a hint of a beard—perhaps two or three days’ worth of whiskers, the blackness of which accentuated his blue eyes—and he leaned enough on the cane he held in his left hand to reveal that it wasn’t simply for show. Overall, he didn’t seem a comfortable fit with most of the other men here.

  “Oh, most definitely a remarkable talent,” he continued. “Better than Brady certainly. Don’t you agree?”

  “He is very good,” she replied. “Are you familiar with him?”

  “This evening is the first time I’ve seen his work on display. I find him far superior to Brady.”

  Is that a brogue underneath I hear? she thought. Could this be a taste of my own medicine, perhaps?

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she played along. “There’s only one Brady.”

  “Yes, but he lacks McOwen’s sort of … visceral quality, no?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she replied.

  “No … I believe there’s a certain deliciously vile element in his work, that’s nowhere to be found in Brady’s. None of that brutishness, that disdain for decent society, y’know.”

  Confirmed.

  “Frankly, I find McOwen’s work to be somewhat primitive,” she said, holding back her smile as much as she could. “Certainly Brady is an artist, but McOwen? Perhaps someday.”

  “Well … perhaps you’re right. But he’s quite good … for an Irishman, of course. It’s good to know there are one or two of ’em with something to contribute to society.”

  “Oh, I quite agree. For an Irishman, he is surprisingly … competent.”

  He laughed and extended his hand to her. She gave him hers, and he bowed and raised her gloved hand to his lips.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss …?”

  “Arroyo. Marcella Arroyo.” She spoke with a heavy accent on purpose and amused h
erself with the perplexed look it produced in response.

  “Miss … Ah-ro-go?”

  “Arroyo. Marcella Arroyo.”

  “Miss Ah-ro-yo,” he said, appearing to be proud of himself.

  She pulled her hand back politely and responded without the accent this time. “And you must be Mr. McOwen?”

  He laughed easily and replied, “Yes. Most certainly no Mathew Brady, but surprisingly competent all the same … Ethan McOwen.”

  He looked closely into her eyes, the way a painter does his subject, and she felt for a brief moment as if she had lost a little of the comfortable advantage she generally held with men. This one didn’t seem to underestimate her from the very start, or to be threatened.

  “Of course Mr. Brady isn’t here this evenin’,” he said. “He’s set up shop in Washington, where all the important folks are these days. So you’ll hafta settle for th’imitation.” He smiled with easy self-deprecation. Then he glanced just over her shoulder and his eyes opened wide.

  “Here they are,” he said pointing to a man with one arm escorting a young lady. “Violet, I’m sure I have you t’thank for draggin’m out here.”

  He kissed the young lady and shook the man’s hand.

  “Are you kiddin’,” Violet said. “He’s been talkin’ ’bout nothin’ else the whole week. He thinks he’s the celebrity. He’da worn his regimental cap if he had it his way.”