“I’ve been married.”
Nell knew that, but she didn’t tell him so.
“And I have a daughter—had, I mean. They were killed, both of them.”
“Typhoid,” Nell asked, remembering what her grandmother had said.
“No,” he replied. “I wish it had been. They were murdered.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Murdered?” Nell’s voice was so loud that the soda jerk looked up and stared at them. Nell realized that she and Wade were the only customers at the fountain, but still, she lowered her voice. “How awful.”
“Yes, it was. Terrifying. I’ll never get over it.”
“No, of course not.” Nell thought of what had happened to her, of James’s wife Emily, who had tried to poison her. No one was ever safe; she wasn’t ever safe. Nell was holding her spoon, and her hand began to tremble, and then the spoon clattered onto the floor.
“I shouldn’t have been so blunt. I’m sorry I startled you like that. I really don’t know how to talk about it. That’s why I hardly ever do.” Wade picked up the spoon and set it on the table. He motioned to the soda jerk for another.
“It’s just that…” Nell paused. Just that someone had tried to murder her, too? She couldn’t say that, couldn’t tell him that was another thing they had in common. “I guess I was just surprised. I’ve never known of anyone who was murdered.”
“I call it murder. The police didn’t. In fact, the young man didn’t even go to jail.” Wade reached for the discarded spoon and ran his finger along its handle. “Should I tell you about it? I don’t have to. I don’t want to shock you, but I just thought…” His voice trailed off, and he was silent as the boy put down a spoon next to Nell.
“Of course you should tell me, I mean, if you want to,” Nell said, after the soda jerk moved back behind the counter. She did not really care to hear it. The incident with Emily in Denver was still too painful. “I should think it’s very hard to talk about such a thing.”
“It is. I almost never do, but you seem, well, as you said, we’re already friends. I wanted you to know my life has been … different. I want you to know what you’re getting into if we’re to see each other.”
Nell played with the straw in her drink, studying it for a moment before she looked up. Wade was searching her face, and she knew he needed to talk. She understood that, because she needed to talk, too. She had kept the story of Emily and the poisoned cake to herself. She had never revealed the details of why she’d run off, even to her grandparents. She’d never been able to share the pain in her heart. “Tell me,” she said.
Wade nodded. He pushed aside his glass and leaned his arms on the table, clasping his hands together. He was a nice-looking man, not handsome, but solid. There was an air of trust about him.
“Abigail, my wife’s name was. Abby. It was what you’d call love at first sight. We met when I was in college. She wanted to be a teacher, like you, but we got married instead, and nobody hired married women to teach. And of course, I didn’t want her to work. I wanted her to stay home and raise our children. She wanted that, too.
“Abby was pretty, with violet eyes. I’d never known anybody with violet eyes. She loved children and animals—especially chickens. That’s why I kept them after she died. She named them, and she couldn’t watch when I slaughtered one. She cried when I chopped the head off of Topsy. That was her favorite chicken.” He smiled at the memory. “I couldn’t remember the names of the chickens after she died. That bothered me. I think Abby would have been disappointed.” He smiled at the thought.
“I love chickens, too,” Nell said. “And I name them.”
Wade looked at her a moment, approval on his face. “We wanted a family, but we hadn’t been lucky,” he continued. “Abby didn’t seem to be able to … you know. And then, almost when we’d given up, Margaret was born. She was a gift, as beautiful as her mother with those same eyes. I thought I was the luckiest man in the world. And I was. For five years.”
He stopped talking and stared at his hands, and Nell had to prompt him. “And then?” She asked, touching his knuckle with her finger.
“I remember that day. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could block it out. But it’s as clear in my mind as if it had happened this morning, and I suppose it always will be.” He looked up at Nell, who nodded for him to go on.
“There was a boy down the street. Boy! He was twenty-two! He was no more a boy than I was. His father worked for the mayor. The father was very powerful. He was one of those men who rise to power by knowing all the right people, flattering them, running errands for them. And then when they get to be in charge, they expect others to do the same for them. People in Kansas City kowtowed to him. The son was just like the father. The boy’s name was—is—Alfred Sterling, and he’d always been—what’s your word? Cultus. That described him. He drank too much. He’d sit out on his front stoop and swear at people when he was drunk. He got a girl in trouble. Everybody knew he was the father of her baby, but he denied it, and how do you prove it?” Wade looked up at Nell but didn’t expect her to answer.
Indeed, Nell thought, you always knew who the mother was, but how could you be sure about the father?
“Whenever Abby walked past him, he’d whistle and make lewd remarks. When I found out, I confronted him, but it didn’t do any good. In fact, his father said if I ever spoke to his son again, he’d get me fired. He knew the president of the bank where I worked, and he’d have done it. After that, Abby crossed the street to avoid Alfred.” Wade shook his head. “I should have beat him up. I could have, too. He was such a weakling. And I’m, well, I was pretty strong from all that farm work. My job at the bank wasn’t that important.” Wade gripped his hands so tightly that the knuckles turned white.
Nell reached out and put her hand over his, and he looked up and smiled at her.
“I should have done something. Maybe if I had…”
“You can’t worry about what didn’t happen,” she said, and then she remembered that James had used those very words after she beat off the masher.
Wade was silent a moment before he asked, “Are you sure you care to hear this?”
Nell wanted to say no, she didn’t. She was afraid the man had raped Abby, and she didn’t want to know about it, didn’t want to relive her own horror. An attack by a rapist shouldn’t be another thing she had in common with Wade. She knew he needed to talk about his wife’s death, however, just as she had needed to confess to her grandmother all that had happened in Denver—but couldn’t. She nodded, and turned away from Wade, because his face was drained of color and a little twisted. She sipped her soda, but the drink was gone, and her straw made noisy sounds as she sucked up air. She pushed the glass aside. “I do want to hear it,” she said.
“All right.” Wade sounded grateful. “Abby was on her way to meet me. On nice evenings, she and Margaret went to the trolley stop to wait for me, and the three of us walked home together. It was such a joy seeing them standing there. I always looked for them, even when I knew they couldn’t come. I remember being on the streetcar that day and looking out the window at the lilacs. They were fragrant. The white ones and the very dark Persian ones smell the sweetest.”
Nell nodded, remembering the Persian lilacs in Denver. She had been sitting under them stitching on her wedding dress when she’d looked up to see Emily.
“I thought that we should ask a neighbor for a start of one, and I would plant it beside our bedroom window so that we could wake up on spring mornings to that smell.” He paused and added, “I can’t stand the smell of lilacs now. I hate them. They bring back that day.
“I looked for them at the trolley stop, but they weren’t there, and I was disappointed. Margaret always jumped up and down when she saw me, and no matter how hard my day was, she brightened it.”
Wade leaned back in the chair. It was iron, and the arm was attached to the underside of the table so that the chair could swing back and forth. “I thought Margaret might not ha
ve awakened yet from her nap, or perhaps Abby had taken her to the greengrocer or the butcher shop. I wasn’t worried. I walked home by myself, not hurrying, because the day was nice. And then I saw a crowd of people gathered on our block. There was a police wagon and an ambulance. The minute I saw them, I knew something had happened to Abby or Margaret. I don’t know why I thought they were the victims, but I did. There was a vicious dog in our neighborhood, and I worried that maybe he had attacked one of them. Then I saw Alfred’s horseless carriage up on the curb. I knew it was his, because he was the only one in the neighborhood who had one. And I saw two white sheets on the ground.”
Wade swallowed and shook his head, then took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. When he didn’t go on, Nell whispered, “Your wife and your daughter?”
Wade nodded. “Both of them. I thought, why both? Why couldn’t one have been saved? Why did I have to lose both of them?” He paused. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this.”
“No, it’s all right.”
Wade gripped the handkerchief. “A police officer tried to stop me, said there’d been an accident and he didn’t want any gawkers muddling things up. But one of the neighbors told him I was the husband and father, and the officer said, ‘It’s a terrible thing, sir. Don’t look.’
“I waved him away. The crowd parted to let me get close to the bodies. I started to lift one of the sheets, but a woman took my hand and said, ‘Don’t.’ I shook her off and said I had to see, that I owed it to them, and I lifted the sheets, first one, then the other. I don’t know if I should have done it, because I’ll never get the images out of my mind. But I had to look. I couldn’t turn my back on them. They were my family, and I had to see them. I won’t describe what they looked like, but they were tore up something awful.” Wade groaned and touched his eyes with the handkerchief again.
“‘It was the Sterling boy,’ the woman told me. ‘I saw it. They were walking down the street. He was drunk, and he cussed them out, and when your wife ignored him, he got mad. He jumped in his car and followed them.’
“The police officer stepped in then and said, ‘Best we can tell, his foot slipped off the brake onto the gas pedal, and he hit them, slammed them into the ground and ran over them. Then he must have got confused, because he backed up over them, and they got caught on the underside, looks like, and they were dragged halfway down the block.’ Then he told me, ‘You can see the tire marks on them. Lookit there.’
“The neighbor woman told him to shut up, but the officer wouldn’t. I guess he knew who Alfred’s father was, because he said, ‘You can’t blame the boy, because he was drunk. It’s an awful pity, but the boy was drunk, so he wasn’t responsible.’”
“Not responsible?” Nell gasped.
A man sitting at the counter with a glass of soda water turned to stare at her. She hadn’t seen him come in, and she hadn’t been aware he was there.
“Did a jury agree?”
“It never got that far. He was charged with reckless driving. I think the judge was looking for a reason to dismiss the case. He was a friend of the Sterling family, had gotten his appointment because of old man Sterling. He said if Alfred was drunk, then it wasn’t his fault.”
“So he didn’t go to jail.”
Wade shook his head. “He was released and went out with his friends to celebrate. He was so drunk he ran into a tree.”
“And was killed?”
“No, but he’s blind. I see that as some sort of divine retribution. His father blamed me, of course, said if I hadn’t pushed the police to file charges, there wouldn’t have been a hearing and Alfred wouldn’t have been celebrating. He tried to get me fired, but it turned out my boss was not so easy to push around.”
“How despicable!” Then Nell asked, “Where is the boy now?”
“In an asylum. There was something twisted inside of him. He attacked his father and nearly killed him. That time he didn’t get off because he was drunk.”
She wanted to say it served him right, but instead, she asked, “How do you feel about that?”
Wade shook his head. “I don’t care. I hated him at first, but now I don’t care. Maybe the judge was right. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, maybe being told all his life that he could do whatever he wanted spoiled him as a human being. I don’t think about him much.”
“But you do think about Abigail and Margaret.”
“Yes, all the time. It’s different now, however. For a long time, it was as if they were with me every day. Something amusing would happen at work, and I’d think I’d have to remember it to tell Abby. Or I’d see a toy in a shop window and start to go inside to buy it for Margaret. Each time, I would remember they were dead, and it was like seeing their bodies all over again. But now I accept that they’re gone. I’ve put them in the past. A part of me is buried with them, but as for the rest of me, I’m still alive. I know it’s time to move along. That’s why, when I got the letter from your grandmother, I decided to call on you.”
“I’m glad,” Nell said, and she was. What had happened to Wade was awful, and it made Nell put her own problems in perspective. She hadn’t been raped or poisoned, and she hadn’t married James. And she, too, had a reason—a good one—to go on with her life.
Wade cleared his throat and looked sheepish. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t intended to open up like that, but I’m glad I did. I feel better.” He smiled at Nell. “You didn’t know you were in for all this when you accepted my offer of ice cream.” He glanced at the soda jerk, who was leaning against the counter, examining his nails. “I think we have outstayed our welcome.” Wade rose and said to the boy, “We’re just leaving.” He slipped a silver dollar onto the table, and Nell was reminded of how James used to tip her with silver dollars. But James had done it to impress her. Wade was making it up to the boy for staying so long.
How long had they been there? Nell wondered. Outside, the sky had turned a deep blue, and she thought it must be late. She did not want to be obvious and look around the drugstore for a clock, but she figured they had been sitting at the fountain for two hours, maybe more. Claire would be worried. “I must be getting home,” she said. “My roommate will wonder where I’ve got to. I left her at the butcher shop while I went on home, and now I’ve been gone for hours.”
“I shouldn’t have talked so much, but it just seemed I had to tell you. It’s pretty heavy stuff for a first date.”
So they had gone on a date, Nell thought. Well, why not. She hadn’t met any other men in Kansas City who interested her, and already she liked Wade. Maybe the age difference didn’t matter. Still, she wasn’t sure he’d be anything more than a pleasant acquaintance.
“I hope there will be another, and I promise to let you talk next time. What would you say if I asked you to have supper Saturday night at the Savoy?”
“I would say yes,” Nell replied, although she had no idea what the Savoy was. Later, as she thought about it, she realized that for the first time since she’d left Denver, she was looking forward to going out with a man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The Savoy!” Claire cried when Nell told her about her upcoming date with Wade. “Why, it’s terribly nice. He must be in the chips.”
Nell laughed. “He used to be the hired man on my grandparents’ farm.”
“Then he’s certainly come up in the world.”
“And he’s almost twenty years older than I am.”
“He doesn’t look it.” Claire had been sitting in the front room working on lesson plans for the fall term when Nell and Wade returned, and Nell had introduced them. “He looks like a pretty good catch to me.”
“I’m not sure he’ll be anything more than a friend. My grandmother approves of him. That’s not especially promising, is it?” Nell had liked Wade well enough, but there hadn’t been any sparks yet, at least not on her part.
“He didn’t look at you like a friend.”
“We’ll see,” Nell said.
Nell was awfully fon
d of Claire. The two had not been roommates in college, but they’d lived in the same dormitory and had often studied together. Claire was outgoing, and in the months Nell had lived with her, Claire had undertaken to heal Nell’s wounds. At first, Nell hadn’t wanted to go out. She was grieving over James and was content to sit on the porch in the warmth of the sun or curl up in bed under a pile of quilts. She spent weekends weeding the garden and cleaning the discarded chicken coop in the backyard. Then she’d bought four chickens.
Claire told Nell she was as broody as the chickens and took it upon herself to lighten her friend’s mood, and in time, thanks to Claire, Nell’s attitude had indeed improved. She’d begun to feel normal again, maybe not like the schoolgirl she had been when the two were young but comfortable, more sure of herself. She had not told Claire about what had happened to her in Denver, only that she had been engaged and that things had fallen apart. There had been someone in New Mexico Territory, too, she explained, but it hadn’t worked either.
Wade had shown up at the right time. Still, as Nell told Claire, she hadn’t felt a tug at her heart, at least not that first day. Did that really matter, however? Maybe she would grow to love him in time. After all, she’d spent only a few hours with him. If she didn’t fall in love, well, Claire was right. He was a good catch. And then she laughed to think that she’d gotten ahead of herself. It wasn’t as if Wade had proposed on the walk home.
“What should I wear to the Savoy?” Nell asked her roommate. Her best outfit was the white linen suit that she’d made in Denver, but it was too late in the year for linen. And the red dress she’d had in New Mexico was hopelessly out of fashion. She would have to buy something.
“You must wear my blue silk. It’s the nicest dress either of us has, and it will look ever so much better on you than on me, especially with your blue eyes,” Claire said. She added, “Your eyes really are an exceptional blue. I can’t imagine a man who wouldn’t notice.”
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