A Lantern in the Window

by Bobby Hutchinson

  "I thought you could do with some more hot water,” he said matter of factly. "Pull your feet back and I'll pour it in.”

  She’d never felt as exposed in her life. She could feel her whole upper body flushing as she curled her legs up and he slowly poured the steaming water into the tub.

  “Thank you," she said weakly, waiting for him to go back into the other room.

  But he stayed, looking down at her with such raw, kindling passion in his dark eyes that her heart began to hammer against her ribs and her breath caught in her throat. Slowly, daringly, she let her arms fall into the water, leaving her pink-tipped breasts exposed to his view.

  "I thought maybe you’d let me wash your back," he said, and now there was no coolness in his voice. Indeed, its rough warmth seemed to stroke over Annie's bare skin, leaving a tingling trail of anticipation in its wake.

  She gave a tremulous nod, and deliberately, never taking his eyes from her, he rolled his sleeves up past the elbow and knelt on the braided rug.

  Noah lathered the cloth. He started slowly, at her neck, where tendrils of curly red hair were escaping the untidy bun on the top of her head. Her skin was gold-tinged in the candlelight, the back of her neck as fragile as a flower stalk.

  Damn it all. He’d struggled with himself, trying to resist her these past weeks. He didn’t want to desire her the way he did; he didn’t want the thought of her to haunt him every waking moment. She wasn't the woman he loved, but he was forced to admit she was a woman he desired, a woman who intrigued and amused him with her quick-witted remarks, her contagious giggle, her endless energy and enthusiasm.

  Why couldn't she have been older, colder, fatter, less appealing? Why couldn’t she be more like the stolid person he’d envisioned when he wrote that confounded advertisement and mailed it to the paper?

  He drew the washrag down, his eyes registering the slender curve of shoulder, waist, hip, his body reacting with fierce need, against his will, to the look and smell and feel of her.

  She smelled of soap and of some other essence that was singularly her own, that he’d come to recognize, a musky, warm odor that inflamed his senses.

  “Ohhh, that feels so good, Noah. Do it again, please.”

  He was trembling as he rinsed the cloth, soaped it again, and resumed the long, sensual stroking. This time, his hand slid around to cup her small breast, and the nipple rose hard against his palm.

  He groaned and lost whatever battle he was fighting.

  "Annie.” The word was wrung out of him, low and tortured.

  He slid his hands under her arms, and in one smooth motion lifted her dripping from the tub. She made a small, startled sound and he gave her a rueful grin.

  "I do believe you’re quite clean enough,” he said with a catch in his voice, snatching up the towel from a nearby chair and wrapping her in it, blotting her dry, loosening it to dab gently at a shoulder, a narrow hip, a long stretch of thigh.

  He scooped her up and laid her on the bed. It was cool in the room, and he covered her naked form with the quilt until his own clothes were off and he could slide under the sheets.

  The first contact with her warm, damp nakedness made him shudder. He gathered her close, wrapping his arms and legs around her, drunk with the feeling of skin against skin. He took her head in his hands and held it, kissing her lips and the long line of her throat, taking first one nipple and then the next into his mouth, moving down the satiny, narrow ribcage, nipping at prominent hipbones until at last his mouth found her center.

  “Noah!” There was both shock and pleasure in her protest.

  When she overcame shyness and relaxed, her body began to move instinctively, in a rhythm impossible for him to mistake. The small, desperate sounds she was making were more than he could bear. He slid up and in one long, steady motion, he entered her, half mad with wanting, but mindful that he mustn’t hurt her.

  Long, careful moments later, she exploded beneath him in a paroxysm of delight, and he muffled her cries with his mouth, delight taking hold of him until he lost all control.

  His seed spilled and spilled, and he was too far beyond thought to pull away. She fell asleep in his arms and didn’t wake when he gently untangled himself and got up to blow out the candle.

  When he lay down beside her again, he made certain her bare shoulders were well covered, but he moved until there was the usual distance between them so that no part of her warm body was near enough to touch him.

  * * *

  In the darkness, she awakened from a dream, knowing that she was falling in love with Noah.

  His lovemaking had changed her, and she knew that her perceptions of herself were forever altered. Her body had depths and needs she'd never suspected, and in her heart was amazement and tenderness, gratitude to the husband who’d taught her these mysterious truths about herself.

  But instead of lying warm in his embrace, she was facing his back. She slid one tentative arm up and around him, snuggling close and curling herself like a spoon to fit his sleeping shape.

  He wasn’t asleep. His body stiffened in her embrace, and after a moment he carefully lifted her arm and moved as far away as the bed would allow.

  Annie’s body stiffened with hurt. She swallowed, her face and body burning with humiliation. She stared into the darkness, fighting the tears that threatened.

  It hurt. It hurt more than she would have believed possible, this constant, quiet rejection of her love. It told her more plainly than any words that Noah might succumb to the desires of his body—he’d even make very certain she, too, enjoyed the marriage bed—but anything beyond that coupling was not allowed between them.

  Companionship, laughter, conversation, the elements she instinctively knew constituted deep and abiding love, those were things Noah was unwilling to share with her. Those were the things he’d shared with his Molly, and he guarded them jealously.

  It felt to Annie as though the ghost woman of that first marriage even shared the bed now, lying between herself and Noah.

  With one silent gesture, he’d made it clear that the wall he maintained around himself and his deepest feelings was firmly in place, and that although his body might succumb to Annie, his heart would belong always to Molly.

  Was this, too, something that she’d get used to as time passed? As the slow, dark minutes of that night dragged into hours, and the beginnings of a new day drew closer, she could only pray that it might be so.

  Chapter Six

  It snowed again the following day, and it wasn’t until early May that the mud began to dry and the first faint tinge of green appeared on the prairie.

  Noah had gone to mend fences right after breakfast one sunny morning, and Annie, still unable to bake a loaf of bread that resembled anything but a rock, made up her mind once and for all that they’d just have to learn to live on biscuits forevermore.

  She’d just taken a batch of popovers from the oven when Jake’s frantic barking announced visitors.

  "Hello, neighbor.” Gladys Hopkins greeted Annie with a warm handshake and a wide smile, handing her a loaf of fresh bread as high as a haystack and a jar of dark red preserves.

  "Set the dough last night, baked it first thing. That’s some wild strawberry jam to go with. This here's my daughter Rose. She’s been just dying to meet your little sister. She’s been at me every day to come over, but we had to wait for the weather. Now where is that sister of yours? Feeling better than when she first arrived, I hope?”

  "Bets is very well, thanks, Gladys. Pleased to meet you. Rose.” Annie smiled at the plump little girl whose golden hair hung in careful ringlets down her back.

  Annie was uncomfortably aware that neither Rose nor Gladys knew as yet that her sister was deaf.

  "Bets is having a game of checkers with Mr. Ferguson. I’ll get her.” Annie, feeling flustered and more than a little apprehensive, hurried into Zachary’s bedroom and signed to her sister and the old man that they had company. Neither was particularly pleased at the news—Bets
y’s face became anxious at the ordeal of meeting strangers, and Zachary scowled and slumped dejectedly into the pillows at this interruption.

  Bets and Zachary had become the best of companions in the past weeks. By now there was a powerful bond between the young girl whose ears didn’t work and the old man who’d lost the ability to speak.

  Taking Bets’s hand, Annie led her out and introduced her, adding an explanation of Bets’s handicap as matter-of-factly as she could.

  "She’s—she’s deef and dumb?” Gladys’s eyes seemed almost to be popping out of her head as she studied Bets. "I never had the foggiest idea she was deef and dumb.”

  "Deaf,” Annie corrected firmly. "But she’s certainly not dumb. Bets talks, but she does it with her hands. She’ll be glad to show Rose how.”

  Rose was half hidden behind her mother's skirts, peering out at Bets as though expecting her to suddenly foam at the mouth or grow horns.

  The violent hammering of Zachary’s cane on the floor made them all jump, and Annie realized how seldom he’d banged it recently.

  Bets felt the vibration, picked up her skirt, and flew in to see what he wanted. Annie knew the girl was relieved to escape the scrutiny of the Hopkins women.

  Gladys whispered, "Ain’t you scared he'll hammer her with that thing?”

  Annie laughed and shook her head. "Those two are thick as thieves,” she assured Gladys. "See, Bets has taught Mr. Ferguson to sign, and it's made the world of difference to him. He can let us know what he wants now, and he’s much happier. Bets is awfully fond of him. He’s like a grandpa to her. Come and sit and have some coffee, won’t you?”

  Annie sliced Gladys’s bread, envious of the yeasty loaf. She put out some of her own popovers and set the butter crock and the preserves on the table.

  Rose, with a dejected expression, slumped down across the table from the women, obviously prepared to be bored to death.

  “Rose, would you be kind enough to take this bread and some coffee in to Mr. Ferguson?” Annie spread jam on a thick slice and thrust the plate and cup at the girl before she could refuse. "And then ask Bets to show you her cat. There’s a new litter of kittens out in the shed, too. She’ll take you to see them.”

  “But—but how can I ask her anything if she can’t—” Rose’s voice trailed off at a look from her mother.

  "She can read a lot of what you say on your lips,” Annie reassured her gently. "Just try.”

  Rose reluctantly did as she was asked. In a moment, she and Bets went silently out to the shed where the kittens were, and just as Annie hoped, it wasn’t long before the two girls had brought the entire litter of kittens inside and were giggling together at their antics. Bets showed Rose her sign for cats, and slowly the two began to communicate.

  Gladys watched them and then turned to Annie with a shamefaced expression. “You must excuse us dearie. We don’t mean no offense. It's just we ain’t never seen a deaf and—a deef young'un before,” she amended hastily. "How did she come to be that way?"

  Annie explained, and in the process revealed a great deal of her and Betsy’s background.

  In turn Gladys told of coming in a covered wagon to Canada from Minnesota with her husband, Harold, where she was pregnant with Rose. Some of the light weny out of her blue eyes and tears welled up when she confided that she’d lost three babies in succession after Rose was born.

  "Looks like she'll be our only one,” she said with a sigh. "It’s a shame. My Harold would have liked a big family.” She took a sip of her coffee and lathered her own preserves on one of Annie’s biscuits, lowering her voice so Rose wouldn’t hear.

  “Easy for men to want more, ain’t it? They don't go through it all. Why, I remember Noah sayin’ hi wanted a dozen more babies when Jeremy was born and the look on poor Molly’s face—”

  She stopped suddenly, and her already rosy face turned magenta. “Oh, my. I am sorry. Me and my big mouth.” She rammed the entire biscuit in and chewed ferociously, as if to prevent any further in discretion.

  Noah wanted a dozen more babies.

  Annie felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach. She thought of the nights when he made love to her—nearly ever night, now—and of how careful he was to pull away from her body so that there’d be no babies.

  Only that once had he ever lost control.

  To hide the pain that she knew was mirrored on her face, she got up and shoved more wood into the stove and filled their cups again with fresh coffee, coming to a decision.

  Better the ghost you know.

  When she sat down, she leaned across and put her chapped hand on Gladys’s arm. "Gladys, I need a favor. I need you to tell me about Molly, please. Noah won’t so much as say her name, and I need to know what kind of woman she was.” She gestured at the room. "Every single thing here is hers. It feels like I’m living with a spirit I never even met."

  Gladys looked uncertain. “Oh, I don’t know. You sure it won’t bother you none, hearin’ about Noah's first wife?"

  Doing the best acting job of her life, Annie shook her head vehemently and plastered on a smile. “Of course not. How silly. What did she look like?”

  Gladys looked over her shoulder as if expecting Molly to materialize. Then she leaned forward in a confiding manner, resting her elbows on the table, her voice little more than a whisper. "Well, let’s see. Molly was lots shorter than you are, and she—” Gladys made a motion that indicated Molly had possessed a good-sized bosom, narrow waist, and shapely hips. “She was real womanly,” Gladys said discreetly.

  Annie crossed her arms over her own meager bosom. Even though every single syllable Gladys uttered was a knife in her heart, she nodded encouragement and fixed the smile on her lips.

  "She had pale, smooth hair, sorta like flax, long and braided up around her head like a crown. She had these dark blue eyes, and oh, my, she was so sweet. Gentle and sort of quiet. She had a real nice way with her, did Molly. And she could turn her hand to anything. Why, her piecrust was the best I’ve ever eaten.”

  The eulogy went on and on, and Annie died by degrees, her smile feeling more and more like a grimace.

  "How—how did Noah meet her, Gladys?”

  "Oh, they lived in the Hat, her and her papa. Molly’s father was a fine man, a preacher. When his wife died back east, he came out west here to the prairies. Molly was just seventeen. He set up the first church in Medicine Hat. Poor man, he died last year himself. It was his heart, but folks believe it was losing his daughter and grandson the way he did.” She shook her head. “It hit us all right hard when he passed away. He was well liked by all that knew him.”

  Annie thought of her own drunken father and shivered.

  It didn’t seem fair at all. It was as if the fates were playing a joke on her, sending her here to be Noah’s second wife.

  If Annie had set her mind to imagining her own exact opposite, she supposed that Molly would have been that image. And guess who any man in his right mind would choose, given a choice? she thought bitterly.

  No wonder Noah loved Molly still, with no room left over in his heart for Annie.

  Chapter Seven

  By mid-June, summer had come to the prairies.

  One afternoon Annie looked at Bets and saw that she was blooming like one of the wild roses she’d just picked and put in a jar on the table. The good food and clean air had done exactly what Annie had prayed they would. The cough that had plagued Bets for more than two years was gone, and her painfully thin body was showing the first timid signs of a bosom and hips.

  It was a busy time on the farm. Calves were being born, Noah was finishing the last of the spring planting, the early lettuce and radishes Annie had planted in the garden at the back of the house were up, and the kitchen door stood open to catch the fragrant evening breeze.

  Annie drew in deep draughts of the warm, fresh air and prayed that she wouldn’t throw up again.

  "What is wrong with you?” Bets’s hands flew, her brow furrowed with worry over her big sister.
"Everyday, sick, sick, all the time. Maybe you go to see doctor, yes? I worry over you,” she added plaintively, wrapping her arms around Annie. "I love you,” she added, pulling away enough so Annie could see the sign.

  “I love you too.” Annie returned the hug, fighting against the nausea that made her stomach churn. She was in the midst of making supper, and she'd had to run to the shed twice in the past hour.

  It was a time of new beginnings, and for the past week, Annie had been fairly certain she was pregnant.

  It had taken her a while to figure out what was wrong with her. What had confused her was that Elinora had written that the natural order of such things was to be sick in the morning and miss her monthly.

  Instead, Annie had been fine every morning and miserably sick in the afternoons. Her monthly came for a day and went away, came for another and went away, in fits and starts.

  She was going to have to tell Noah. Her hands knotted into fists. How would he react when he found out?

  The thought of telling him weighed heavily on her. Not that she feared his temper, although she knew he had one. She’d seen him furiously angry at times, when a renegade wolf killed one of the best milk cows, and when the Medicine Hat Times reported some new insanity the politicians had decreed law.

  She’d also witnessed the gentleness in him, with a sick newborn calf, and always with her sister. From the very first, he’d made a real effort to learn Bets’s sign language. And with his father, Noah was unfailingly thoughtful and kind.

  Annie knew also the depths of his passion and the intensity of his loving; not once had he taken her without thought of her pleasure. Indeed, he’d taught her to want him, to need as terribly as he that physical joining.