Bittersweet

by Nevada Barr

  SUNRISE BURNED OUTSIDE THE BEDROOM CURTAINS, THROWING A patch of figured gold across the coverlet; a single stripe of hard blue sky divided the drapes. Awake at first light, Sarah blinked vaguely at the ceiling. The calm mask of sleep evaporated as she remembered where she was. She pushed the heavy woolen blankets aside and they folded in a wave, looking as though there were still someone under them.

  Her back was still from shoulder to hip. Easing her legs over the edge of the mattress, she sat up slowly, pulling herself upright with the bedpost like an old woman. Using the headboard as a crutch, she stood. Fever flushed her cheeks and burned bright behind her eyes. The schoolteacher’s borrowed nightdress trailed out after her, disappearing into the tangle of sheets and bedclothes. She pulled it free and inched it off over her head.

  Pantalets, black stockings, and homemade bandages of soft, clean fabric swathed her from hip to shoulder, leaving only her chest and arms naked to the cold. Gingerly, Sarah felt her breasts, wincing from the touch of her own fingers. Milk leaked from her swollen nipples, and her skin was stretched taut.

  As the sun climbed, a narrow bar of sunshine striped the floor; she stepped into it, shivering and rubbing her bare arms. Wind rattled the window glass and the curtains parted slightly with the draft. The early-April sun was as cold and ungiving as the light of January. Sarah hugged herself and looked around. All her outergarments were soaking in a tub of cold water in the kitchen. After a minute’s hesitation she took down one of Imogene’s skirts and dropped it over her head. By rolling the waistband until it bunched thick around her middle, she managed to get the hem clear of the floor. Blood was seeping through the bandages on her back. She dressed quickly, oblivious of the pain, checking over her shoulder every few moments to see that Imogene still slept on her pallet of blankets before the fireplace in the living room. Sarah pinned up the sleeves of Imogene’s shirtwaist to free her hands, but she couldn’t manage the buttons up the back. She put on the jacket the teacher had worn to the meeting the night before. Having dressed, she picked up her shoes and tiptoed from the bedroom.

  Sam’s coat hung on the high peg by the front door. It was a struggle to unhook it and lift it down, and afterward she rested for a moment on the chair that Imogene had used as a doorstop. Leaning forward to keep her injured back from touching the chair back, she watched the sleeping form before the hearth, starting whenever Imogene stirred or made a sound. Then, quietly, Sarah moved the chair and let herself out. The hinges had bent when Sam kicked in the door, and it wouldn’t stay closed. Silently, Sarah wrestled with it until tears of pain and frustration formed in her clear eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Imogene, you can’t know I’ve gone yet,” she whispered to herself.

  After a while she gave up and crept away. The main street was empty. Though the sun had scarcely cleared the trees in the east, the men who worked the mines were already underground. Without looking right or left, Sarah hurried in the direction of the Ebbitt farm.

  Weather had taken its toll on the hard-packed roadway, and at the outskirts of town Sarah stumbled and fell. She struggled to her feet and, rolling the skirt back up to where she could walk unhampered, glanced anxiously back toward the houses. Smoke came from chimneys, and children were beginning to stir out of doors. Across from the school, one of the Beard children, a little girl, barefoot and coatless despite the cold, darted out from the house to gather an armload of kindling from the woodpile. Sarah turned and ran.

  Before she reached the Ebbitt farm, two wagons had passed her. Neither had offered her a ride. She had not raised her eyes until they were gone, but her cheeks had colored a deeper hue and the feeling of their eyes on her back had stooped her shoulders as much as the pain of the lashing. Off and on, she cried to herself. Her eyes and nostrils were red-rimmed where the wind and tears chapped her skin, and her split lip was dry and cracked, too dry even to bleed.

  The farm was quiet—no smoke from the chimneys, no movement at the windows. Sarah crossed the field and stood on the stile. Her knees shook and she sat for a moment on the top step, the barn sheltering her from the wind, and watched the house. The wind died, and in the sudden stillness she heard Sam calling to his plowhorse. Made bold by the knowledge he was already in the field, she climbed down and, keeping the barn between herself and Sam, crossed to the kitchen door. Her hand was on the latch when she stopped, arrested by the sight of a loose chain. The dog’s tether lay across the yard like a snake dormant with the cold. The hook that clipped it to his collar was broken and the dog was nowhere to be seen. Hand on the door handle, ready to bolt inside, Sarah looked for him. Both of the barn doors were closed. Underneath the woodshed, the pile of old blankets the dog slept on was empty. With a sigh of relief she opened the door.

  Lips pulled back and hackles rising, Sam’s dog waited for her inside the house. Sarah gasped and jerked the door shut again. She backed away as quietly as she could and quickly ran to the front door. A clicking of claws on a wooden floor warned her that the dog had gotten there before her.

  She gazed up at the windows. “Matthew,” she called uncertainly. She pressed her palms to her temples to cool them, and walked around the house, holding her head and calling her son’s name, looking up at the blank upstairs windows—the bedroom, the dressing room, the nursery. “Matthew! Matthew!” Back at the front door, she fell to her knees and rested her cheek against the wood. “Please, dog. I’ve got to get my baby. Please.” She pleaded, her lips pressed near the latch. The dog paced inside, growling. Sarah pulled herself to her feet and opened the door a crack. The pacing stopped and dull yellow eyes turned on her. The growling deepened, grew sharper. “I’m going to open the door real slow. Good dog. Shhh. Shhh. Don’t you be afraid. It’s just me. Sarah. Hush now.” Slowly she pushed open the door. Forelegs stiff, hindquarters coiled near the floor, the dog waited. “I’m going to be coming in now. Hush. Good boy. Hush.”

  She stepped over the sill and he lunged. Instinctively, Sarah threw up her arm to protect her face as the dog’s body hurtled into her, smashing her against he wall. She screamed as her flayed back hit the wood. Strong jaws closed on her arm. His teeth caught in the fabric and he worried the frail girl like a troublesome bone. With a tearing sound the sleeve let go, and they both staggered back. The animal scrabbled on the wood for an instant, found his feet, and flew at her face. Shrieking, Sarah retreated through the half-open door. He threw himself at the opening, spittle flecking his muzzle. She slammed the heavy door, catching his head in the jamb. With an angry howl he shoved ahead, his powerful chest forcing the door out, his teeth slashing at her hands and wrists. But she held tight to the handle.

  Sobbing, Sarah leaned back, her eyes closed to shut out the black gums and yellowed teeth with their streamers of saliva. With all her strength she pulled, holding him pinioned in the door. In a frenzy the dog wrenched his head sideways to get at her wrists. As he turned, he exposed the underside of his throat to the door’s edge. It closed another inch, and Sarah jerked back with a frightened cry. The oak squeezed the dog’s windpipe, and with a choking sound he stopped growling and writhed frantically, his nails scratching loudly on the floor.

  Eyes shut tight, head thrown back, Sarah held on and cried. For a long time she pulled, her sobs drowning out the struggles of the animal. Minutes passed, and finally there was only the sound of her own whimpering. At last she looked. The dog’s head was wedged crosswise in the door, his dull eyes wide and bulging, his tongue lolling between his teeth. He looked as terrifying in death as he had in life. Sarah let go of the door and he slid silently to the floor. She screamed and ran.

  When she had recovered her courage in the warm comfort of the barn, she returned to the kitchen. Refusing to look at the inert form crowding the front door, she climbed the stairs. She pulled herself along with the handrail and stopped to rest once before she reached the top. Despite the cold, sweat curled the tendrils of hair at her temples and throat.

  The nursery was empty, the crib made up as she had left it
the afternoon before. Several of the dresser drawers gaped open, their contents in disarray. Matthew’s diapers and gowns were gone. Sarah stared around the small room as though the baby might somehow have hidden himself in a corner or under a chair.

  “Matthew, it’s Momma.”

  On unsteady legs she groped her way down the windowless hall, her hand trailing along the wall for support. The bedroom door was open and she slumped in the archway. Beside her, on the washstand, an inch of water still stood in the pitcher. She drank thirstily, the wide brim spilling it over her face and neck.

  The room was as it had been, with one exception: everything of hers was gone. There was no pillow on her side of the bed, the few things she had brought from home were off the walls and the dresser, none of her clothes hung in the closet, the drawers had been emptied of her stockings and underthings; even her hairbrush had been taken from the night table. A bachelor’s room, rough and unkempt. It looked just as it had the first night she had come there, a bride.

  Sarah rushed from the room and down the stairs. She tripped and fell the last two steps into the living room. Picking herself up, she pulled her skirt high and ran again.

  Sam was on the far side of the field, walking in the furrow behind the plow. Brown earth turned from the blade, folding back, dark and rich. Birds wheeled behind, eyes sharp for worms and grubs in the new-plowed soil. He was coming toward the farm buildings, looking directly at Sarah over the horse’s rump. He gave no sign that he saw her. Able to run no farther, she stopped and waited. She rubbed her eyes and pressed her hands to her chest to still her rapid breathing. The plow pulled the land under its blade until there was less than fifteen feet between them, and still Sam gave no indication that he was aware of her.

  “Sam!” she cried, and a gull, circling overhead, cried in raucous answer. Reaching the boundary of the field, Sam heaved on the plow handles and worked the lines. The horse turned and pulled back the other way. Sarah ran after him. “Sam!” She was no more than three yards from him, but he didn’t turn or seem to hear her call. She stumbled out across the furrows to walk beside him, keeping up as best she could. “Sam, you’ve got to hear me. Please, Sam, you’ve got to talk to me. I want to come home. Please, I want to come home. I want my baby, Sam. Let me come back.”

  He clucked to the horse and called out, “Steady there,” as it shied at a weed tumbling before the wind.

  “Sam!” Sarah screamed. “Where’s my baby? Where’s Matthew?” He plodded on, his eyes fixed on the trees at the end of the field. “Where is he?” Frantic, she threw herself at him, her thin hands clawing, her small fists glancing harmlessly off his round chest and beefy shoulders. The stone of his face broke and he flung her off.

  “You’re an unnatural woman. You’ve got no child.” He picked the reins out of the dirt and called to the horse.

  Sarah lay where she had fallen, the wind blowing her hair out over the ground like winter wheat. Twice more, Sam’s plow passed her before she dragged herself to her feet and limped back to the road. Sam never looked at her.

  It was nearly midday when Sarah reached the Tolstonadge home. She turned off the road and came slowly up the drive. Inside, Lizbeth was laughing and Mam was visible through the kitchen window. The porch door slammed behind her and there was a murmuring within, followed by silence. Sarah turned the knob. The door was locked.

  There were no more tears; she leaned wearily against the familiar wood of home and rested. Behind the door, someone started to speak and was hushed.

  “Mam?” Sarah said softly.

  No answer came. Sarah turned from the thin comfort of the porch and, looking back every few yards, returned to the road.

  Mam Tolstonadge overtook her before she’d gone half a mile. Pulling her to the side of the road where a thicket sheltered them from the wind, she hugged her and cried over her. “Sam’s been over,” Mam said, “and your pa says you’re an Ebbitt now if you’re anything, and we’re not to interfere by so much as talking to you. Emmanuel hasn’t the right to lose another child to me, husband or not, so I came after you.”

  “My baby, Mam.”

  “Sam took him this morning, long before sunup. I don’t know where he’s got him. Sam said as how he’d found you and Imogene like the letter had said. But I don’t believe he’s got the sense he was born with. That man! He sees just as far as the end of his nose and makes the rest up to suit himself.” Sarah’s knees gave way. Mam caught her to her breast and held her close. “Hon, Sam’s bound to give him back to me. Lord knows, he can’t care for him alone, nor go paying some woman. I’ll take care of him like he was my own till you get Sam turned around and go home.”

  “There’s no turning him, Mam. He’s set.”

  “Maybe not,” Mam said comfortingly, but above her daughter’s bent head, her eyes were bleak. “Here,” she said after a while, setting Sarah away from her. “I got ways of doing things your pa don’t know nothing about. If you need anything, you just leave a note by Mrs. Thomas’s and I’ll get it. I’m not losing another child to that man’s mulishness.” Margaret held her close again, her wide, pillowed frame supporting Sarah easily. “You’re burning up, Sare. You’d best get yourself back to the schoolteacher’s quick like a bunny and get in out of the wind. She oughtn’t have let you go out, hot as you are.”

  Sarah held on to her mother, her face buried in the soft bosom. Gently, Margaret put her arms from her neck. “I’ve got to go. Walter’s home and he’ll be wondering where I’m off to and go telling his pa. I got to go now. I’ve been gone longer than’s smart already.” She kissed Sarah and left her. “You get yourself to Imogene’s now,” she called over her shoulder.

  Calliope was bustling with people and wagons when Sarah reached the edge of town. A band of boys had collected in front of the Beards’ house and played at hitting a fist-sized rock with sticks, whooping and swooping at it as though they were mounted on swift ponies. A wagon lumbered down the middle of the street and another, its team unhitched, awaited repairs in front of the blacksmith’s shop.

  Sarah stood by the side of the road, the weight of her outsized garments and the wind bearing her down until it seemed she would fall. She looked from the boys at their game to Imogene’s door, to the wagon driver with his children on the seat beside him. The town was too full of eyes. Losing her courage, she crawled on her hands and knees up the dirt embankment and into the underbrush until she was out of sight.

  It was after sunset when she ventured from her hiding place. A cloud cover had blown in, obscuring the early stars and warming the evening. She had secreted herself less than a quarter-mile from the school buildings, and although she was stiff from the cold and confused with fever, she was there in a few minutes. Imogene had the door open and was out on the steps at the first sound of her tread.

  Sarah stopped at the foot of the walk, a dark shape swaying in the last light. Imogene ran to her, arms outstretched, ready to catch her if she fell.

  “Don’t touch me!” Sarah croaked. “Please, God, don’t touch me!” Her frightened eyes darted to the windows of the neighboring houses, but they were all closely draped to keep out the night air. Imogene dropped her arms as though she had been struck, and abruptly returned to the house, leaving Sarah to follow unaided.

  The place was a jumble of crates and boxes. Some were half-filled, piled on top of others already sealed and labeled. A trunk took up the middle of the floor, its lid propped open. Sarah’s clothes, dry but for the seams, hung from a line stretched from the mantel to the peg by the door. The desk was covered with old letters sorted into untidy stacks.

  Imogene threaded her way through the confusion and poked up the fire. The door shut softly and Imogene put the poker away. When she turned to Sarah, the anger and hurt were gone from her face. “I’ve been so worried. I woke up and you were gone.”

  Sarah hadn’t come into the room, but stood with her back to the door. “You’re packing,” she said. “You’re leaving. You’re going to leave me.” With
startling energy, she grabbed things from the trunk and hurled them to the floor. She pulled the boxes of letters from the desk and dumped them over. “You sneaked all the boxes in. You were getting everything ready to go when I wasn’t here.” She laughed as tears poured down her cheeks, and collapsed in the mess she had made. Imogene fell to her knees and tried to gather the young woman into her arms, but Sarah flailed at her. “You’re leaving me!” she cried. “You’re going away.”

  “No, my dear. No. Not now, not ever.” Sarah wouldn’t be comforted, but continued to cry.

  Imogene left her and ran into the bedroom. She jerked a hatbox from the closet shelf and reached behind it to pull out a metal box the size of a book. She ran her hand down the length of the shelf, dislodging some half-dozen boxes and a lamp chimney that shattered when it hit the floor. Finally her fingers found what they were looking for: a small key on a nail driven into the back of the closet. Haste making her fumble, she unlocked the box and hurried back into the other room. Sarah still lay amid the clothing and papers.

  Imogene knelt in front of her and spilled the contents of the box onto the floor between them. Coins rolled off under the chairs. The cat, perched on the mantel, roused herself to chase one but it settled quickly and she lost interest. Bills tumbled out in a heap. Imogene picked up a fistful and pressed them into Sarah’s hand, folding the narrow fingers around them. “The money left from the sale of my house. Take it.” She pushed another handful of money into the pocket of Sarah’s coat. “Everything I have is yours.” She unpinned the silver brooch that closed the collar of her dress and pinned it on Sarah’s bodice. “Everything. I won’t ever leave you.” Sarah stopped crying, her interest caught like a child’s. “I would never hurt you,” Imogene said. “I love you. You needn’t earn it or even deserve it, it’s just there. No matter what you do, it won’t change. If I never saw you for a hundred years. It just is.”

  “Like air?”