Weeping Angel

by Stef Ann Holm

  * * *

  Two weeks later, the bed Frank ordered arrived.

  If mattresses were hats, the Dream-Tide was the ten-gallon size. The bulk of the two pieces was more than Frank could handle, so he’d enlisted Cobb’s help dragging the pair upstairs to Amelia’s room after he’d assembled the birch frame.

  Halfway up the flight, Cobb said, “I reckon I’ll have to sleep in a bed soon myself.”

  “You trying to tell me something, Cobb?” Frank asked, easing his end over the top riser.

  “Miz Shelby and me have been sparking. I can’t understand it. One day she wouldn’t look twice at me. And now that I shave the bristles off my face and cut my hair, she likes me just fine.”

  “Goes to show you how fickle women are.”

  “I reckon.”

  Walking backward, Frank guided Cobb to the room. “Turn right.”

  Cobb maneuvered the springy mattress around the corner and down the hall. “I’ll be asking her to marry me, you know.”

  “I figured you would.”

  “I hope she’s half as nice a wife as Miz Brody.”

  “You never can tell.” Frank slid his corner onto the frame, butting the edge against the headboard. “The funny thing about rings—when they’re on a woman’s finger, it changes things.”

  The observation weighed on Frank. Things between him and Amelia should have been better, but the distance seemed to be growing. He’d been able to talk to Lloyd, and they’d worked out a deal that was acceptable to the girls, though the duration of their stay at the Palace was questionable—they all seemed destined for the altar.

  Sweet Sue and Rupert Teats had been spending time together at the livery. He’d shown her the stockyard, let her feed the chickens, and given her a ride on his big palomino. Ed Vining had taken Society Patricia to see his house under construction, and they’d had a picnic on the second-story framework.

  Four-Ace Arnette and One-Eye Otis squabbled in public more than anything. She called his restaurant a beanery and said if there was any other place in town to eat, he could bet she’d be picking up her fork there instead of dining off his sad menu every night. For all Arnette’s grumbling, and Otis’s snapping back, Frank had found the couple kissing behind the Chuckwagon yesterday afternoon.

  That left only Diamond Jill without a prospective beau. But lately, she and Pap O’Cleary had been appreciating each other’s humor.

  Pap had come to the Moon Rock last week hauling Lloyd Fairplay’s wheel of fortune game with him. Frank had traded Lloyd the girls for it. The bat-wing doors had squeaked open and Pap shoved the game inside, his stance hesitant. The black derby on his head put his eyes in a vague shadow. “Howdy, Frank.”

  “Pap.” Frank had left the bar while Pap strode toward it, rolling the monstrous wheel on its rollers. The two met in the middle of the floor. “I’m glad you were the one to bring it over.”

  “Yeah . . . well, Lloyd asked me to.”

  An awkward silence passed between them.

  Frank shifted his weight. “You like playing the organ at Lloyd’s?”

  “Do you like me there?”

  “No, Pap, I don’t. I liked it better when you were here.”

  Pap stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Me, too.”

  “You want to come back?”

  “You asking?”

  “Yes.”

  Pap gazed at his boot tips, then back at Frank. “I reckon I could.”

  “Start tonight?”

  “I suppose.”

  “You know,” Frank said, “you really beat the crap out of me.”

  Pap gave him a lopsided grin. “Never hit you in all the time I’ve known you.”

  “Hope to God you don’t ever have to again.”

  Shrugging, Pap said, “I still feel a stirring in my heart for Amelia, but I know any chance for us is gone. Guess there never really was a chance for us to begin with. Just promise me you’ll do right by her.”

  “I will, Pap. I swear.”

  So Pap had come back to the Moon Rock, bringing with him a new clientele—the gambler who liked to try his luck at the wheel. The girls were doing Lloyd’s place a good turn; his business picked up, but the excitement sent the temperance league out in full force. Their mission had lasted all of fifteen minutes before their husbands disbanded them, threatening to cut off their expense accounts if they continued to publicly display themselves in such a fashion.

  It seemed everyone had been able to sort through their affairs and put them in order. Everyone, that is, except Frank and Amelia. Though they lived in the same house, they were almost strangers. They saw each other only for lunch and a brief amount of time after. She’d thanked him for finding other employment for the girls, but that hadn’t put the bloom back in their marriage. The late hour he closed up didn’t help matters either. Amelia was already sleeping in her aunt’s room when he came home. No more nights spent in each other’s arms.

  If he thought she was using sex against him, he wouldn’t have allowed her to choose other quarters. But he sensed she was still hurt by the circumstances of their impetuous wedding and still having doubts about his feelings for her.

  “You need me to help you bring this old one to the attic, Frank?” Cobb motioned to the narrow bed that used to be Amelia’s before they were married.

  “No. I can manage it myself.”

  “Awright. Then I’ll be going now. Me and Miz Shelby are renting us a buggy for a ride. She don’t know it yet, but I don’t know how to drive a rig. Do you suppose she will? I’d hate to have to cancel a vittles picnic.”

  “I believe she does know how to handle reins, Cobb.”

  “Well, that’s a load off’n my mind.”

  Showing himself out, Cobb left the bedroom, and Frank wrestled with the old mattress. He hoisted the edge on his shoulder and climbed up the third-floor stairs to the attic.

  He’d only been in the room once—to store his box of sporting gear—and he’d been in too much of a hurry to take a good look at anything. The walls were stunted in the corners, and he had to duck his head if he didn’t want to hit the top beam above the door as he entered.

  A musty smell of old wood and the faint odor of spice invaded the space. He found several oranges with clove spikes stuck in them hanging from the rafters.

  Navigating a path through the trunks and crates, as well as furniture relics such as mirrors, lamp stands, and an easy chair with the stuffing popping out, he headed for the northern wall. Halfway there, he almost killed himself by tripping over a crate that protruded from underneath a fire screen. He let out an oath and dropped the mattress where he stood.

  Giving the crate a stiff kick, the lid jumped off under the aggression of his boot heel. An eddy of wood shavings flew over the sides onto the dusty floor.

  Frank wouldn’t have paid the books inside any attention if they hadn’t looked expensive as sin. Bending down on one knee, he extracted a volume. It was bound in English red silk cloth and stamped with genuine gold lettering. Tilting the book toward the tiny window, he read the inscription on the cover: The Legacy Collection.

  Thumbing through the marble-edged pages, he deduced the tome to be a large-printed edition of the Bible. With a glance at the crate, he estimated there were twenty-five blessed volumes.

  Why had she kept a box of valuable books when she could have sold them and used the money toward her mortgage?

  He didn’t like the answer he came up with: She still felt an attachment toward Jonas Pray.

  He couldn’t understand her rationale and saw no logic, if that were the truth. The bastard had jilted her in public, and yet, she’d kept the goods as a memento.

  The thought of her having any kind of lingering feelings for Pray ate at him.

  Creaks on the stairs brought Frank out of his musings, and he looked up to see Amelia holding on to the oak banister. The olive-colored percale waist she wore enhanced her fair coloring, making her more lovely than ever. “I thought I heard noises. What are
you doing up here?” she asked, walking toward him.

  His voice was fraught with possessiveness when he asked, “Why did you keep these?”

  Her gaze followed his hand to the crate of Bibles. “What was I supposed to do with them?”

  “You could have gotten rid of them.”

  “How?”

  “Sell them.”

  “To whom?”

  Frank frowned. “I don’t know. The mercantile.”

  “And have Dorothea Beamguard know I needed the money,” she countered, frowning herself. “I would have rather starved.”

  “I’m sure you would have.” He shoved the book back inside. “Were you keeping the Legacy Collection for sentimental reasons?”

  “Yes.”

  Her answer cut him to the quick, the confirmation a buzz in his ears.

  “For a long time, I did wish Jonas Pray would come back,” she explained, “even though he humiliated me before he left. He was the first . . . and only . . . man who ever told me he loved me. I suppose I thought that was reason enough to keep the Bibles.”

  Rising to his feet, he hoisted the mattress and moved it where he’d originally intended. “It’s not a good reason.”

  “But it’s the only one I have.”

  He felt the tension in the attic thicken, threatening to collapse the shingled roof above them.

  Amelia spoke softly. “We can’t continue this way, Frank. I’ve got to know how you feel. We’ve never talked about the future. We’ve never made plans about what we want to do with our lives . . . about having children. I think we should if we want to start fresh in this marriage.”

  He took in a deep breath. “Kids are a big responsibility. I don’t know if I can take the chance of failing one.”

  “Why would you say that? Parents make mistakes all the time, and they learn from them.”

  “But the wrong mistake can cost a life.”

  Amelia grew quiet a moment. “How did he drown, Frank? Why do you feel guilty about Harry’s death?”

  Bunching his hands into fists, Frank replied, “Because I should have been there, and I wasn’t.”

  “What happened? Tell me.”

  Frank couldn’t dismiss her gentle plea. “I was playing stickball in the yard on a hot day when Harry took off with a group of troublemakers I’d told him to stay away from. They snuck under the fence to find some water to swim in. The nuns were alerted, and I prayed to God to have them give me Harry’s whipping when they caught him. But later that night, I was summoned to the office and told my brother had died that afternoon in a sand and gravel pit that had been filled with water. Harry didn’t know how to swim, and he drowned with another boy who hadn’t been able to climb up the embankment either.” Frank went on, his voice a monotone of remembrance. “I couldn’t believe my brother was dead until the next day when the nuns took us into the chapel and forced us to walk by the open coffins. Harry was laid out in a suit he’d never owned, made to be an example of what would happen if an inmate took it upon himself to leave the grounds.”

  Her tear-smothered whisper washed over him. “It was an accident.”

  “I shouldn’t have been playing ball. I should have been with him.” Frank dipped his head slightly. “I should have told him I loved him, but it was something we never said out loud. We just knew.”

  Amelia went to him and touched his cheek. Her palm was warm next to his skin, and he inhaled sharply from the contact. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “It’s taken me years to reconcile that, but the hurt still stays.” His voice clogged with emotion, and he cleared his throat. “So, in regard to children, I’m afraid of what kind of father I’ll be, Amelia. I never had one to look up to. And the father I was to Harry wasn’t enough.”

  “You’re the best man I know. You’d be fine as a father.” She lowered her lashes. “I’m sorry I’ve made you feel that you wouldn’t be because you’ve never told me you love me. I understand now.” She held his gaze with hers. “You loved your brother, in the heart, where it counts. And he loved you. Just like I do.”

  Frank took her into his arms and rested his chin on her shoulder. Squeezing his eyes closed, he held her close. The sun waned through the tiny window and an orange dimness prevailed. He lifted his head, his large hands taking hold of her face. “I married you because I wanted to, Amelia. Don’t ever doubt that again.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I won’t.”

  He moved his mouth over hers. His kiss was slow and thorough. Amelia twined her arms around his neck and clung to him. Moving his hands over her back, he touched as much of her as he could. Their lips met, his tongue moving in and out of her mouth with deliberate leisure. He walked her across the room, all the while giving her slow, exploring kisses. With lips touching and legs entwined, he took her onto the mattress with him. He rolled with her until they were on their sides facing each other. Never leaving her mouth, he brought his hand to her modest collar. He fingered the tiny buttons and popped them free. Her shirtwaist separated, and he removed the garment with little effort. The rest of her clothing followed, and he shed his own.

  “I’ve missed you, Amelia.”

  “I missed you, too.”

  Kissing her satiny skin, he found her breast. Her hands sank into his hair as his tongue teased her with infinite slowness. The heel of his palm slipped to that part of her he knew needed to be consumed with arousal. He rubbed with a light pressure and friction, refusing to relent his sweet torture even when she clutched his back, her fingers kneading into him. A cry passed over her lips, and he felt her body begin to pulse warmly. Only then did he thrust into her, filling her powerfully. Tightness enveloped him, hot and sleek.

  His skin was damp with sweat, having fought to control his own desires. He wanted her to find release with him, so he orchestrated a rhythm as slow as one of the waltzes she played on the piano. He loved the feel of her, the hunger inside her when she arched to meet him. Repeatedly, he withdrew to nearly leaving, only to bury himself deeply. She writhed beneath him, her fingernails biting his flesh. Mindless, he responded to the grinding lift of her hips, moving faster and faster.

  The heat of her climax closed around him, and her breathing filled his ears. His tempo escalated and grew unchecked as he sought his own pleasure. When it came, he felt his muscles burn, and he let go of everything he’d been holding back.

  His mouth found hers, kissing her, worshiping her. In a hoarse and sated tone, he said, “I love being married to you. I love the flowers in the house. The tablecloths on the table. Your silly things in the bathroom. That crazy sponge you call a loofah. I love your scent on the bedcovers. The smell of the soap you use to wash my clothes. I love your smile and your gestures. I love when you say, ‘Well, I like that,’ but you really don’t.” He brushed a kiss over her lips, then nestled his face into the curve of her neck and whispered, “I love you, Amelia.”

  Epilogue

  December 1897

  Christmas Eve

  The residents of Weeping Angel packed the Christ Redeemer to witness the baptism of Cincinatus Marion Dodge, Jr. who’d come into the world three weeks early. Mother and baby were doing fine, but the father had had to be treated with Dr. White’s nerve remedy.

  The mayor stood before the members now, his hands still a little jittery, but pride beaming so brightly on his face, his countenance could have put a flame to shame. Mrs. Dodge sat in the front pew next to the godparents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Brody.

  Baby Dodge, who was bundled in blankets the same color as the snow falling peacefully outside, began to fuss. Narcissa tried to soothe him with a pacifier, but the length of Reverend Thorpe’s sermon and the water from the font had exhausted the baby’s tolerance. His mouth opened wide, and a wail came out so loud, the congregation laughed.

  “My boy’s got the makings of a great orator,” Mayor Dodge said proudly from the pulpit. “He’s got my lungs.”

  A new chorus of laughter erupted.

  “But to ge
t on with things since I know the Reverend wants to take back his services . . .” Dodge straightened his tie as the group settled down and the noise in the room died to only that of his son’s cries. The mayor’s brow arched, and he gave his wife a contemplative glance. She shook her head no, but he placed his right hand into the fold of his jacket and took on a Jeffersonian pose. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to . . .”

  Amelia smiled as Cincinatus’s words faded inside her mind. He went on, and not a soul stopped him. This was his day, and they all knew it.

  She studied the scene surrounding her as if the display were a picture on a Christmas card. Friends were near, the smell of pine boughs and hot, spicy wax filling the air in the church. Her gaze passed over the town’s piano teacher, Cobb Weatherwax, and his wife, Emmaline. Amelia had given him her New American as a wedding present when it had finally arrived. Cobb still couldn’t read music, but he’d bought a gramophone and records so he could listen to the notes, then play the pieces on the piano in order to teach them.

  The dancing girls didn’t stay long at the Palace. Sweet Sue and Rupert Teats were expanding the livery, as well as their family. Their first child was due in April. The four new Columbus Canopy Top Park Wagon surreys for hire were due as soon as the snow melted.

  Smiling fondly, Amelia viewed Arnette. She’d turned the Chuckwagon around with her talent for preparing French cuisine. No one minded the occasional cigarette ash dusting the top of their mouthwatering dinner, for One-Eye Otis’s bean and vinegar pies were still too fresh in everyone’s memory to complain. Not that Arnette would have allowed an unfavorable word to be spoken about her husband.

  Patricia and Ed Vining had gotten hitched, and she’d taken on a small job writing articles for the Weeping Angel Gazette. She’d sit on her wraparound porch in the warm weather and write about the town, and people, and the happenings.

  Amelia turned her head to see the newlyweds, Pap and Jill O’Cleary. Apparently love knew no height. After months of courtship, they’d finally given in to the differences in their statures and said I do.