hat's the house?” Gloria asked. “Must be,” John William replied. “Mrs. Brewster said the place was about three miles north of town. She said it had a house, garden, single slant-roof barn.” His voice filled with promise as he listed each attribute.
Just behind the house, if she stood up in the wagon and craned her neck, she saw a blanket of green.
“Wheat,” John William said. “Acres and acres of it.”
“The house looks big,” Gloria said. “Did she have a lot of children?”
“None.”
“Then why the large house?”
“1 don't know Maybe they—”
“And look at the door. It's beautiful!”
John William chuckled. “Yeah, you sure see that comin'.”
It was painted a bright blue and, next to the sky, was the bluest thing Gloria had ever seen. She couldn't imagine anything more inviting, until the door opened and Maureen Brewster walked onto her porch, smiled and waved.
“That's her?” Gloria said.
“That's Mrs. Brewster.”
“She looks nice.”
“She is. I think you'll like her.”
“Why?” Gloria asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Because deep down inside, you're nice, too.”
The kitchen was perfect. A large eight-paned window looked out to the company path. Just underneath it, a hand pump drew well water into a galvanized sink. Tiers of shelves stocked with an orderly assortment of spice tins and pretty blue crockery adorned the wall on both sides of the window. The workspace counter rounded the corner of the room, creating a convenient L-shaped surface. A length of calico hung from its edge, and Gloria felt an overwhelming urge to take a peek underneath it. A crystal vase full of fresh flowers sat in the middle of a round table; the cuts in the glass cast a pattern of rainbows on the glossy wooden surface. “It's beautiful,” Gloria said, her voice little more than a breath. She carried Danny across her shoulder.
“Thank you,” Maureen said. “We've been very happy here.”
“Why would you ever leave?”
“Now, Gloria,” John William said, his voice chastising.
“No, no," Maureen said. “Believe me, it's not an easy choice. But I can't work the place alone, and my sister and her husband have a place for me back in St. Louis, so…” Her voice trailed off in sigh accompanied by a shrug and a shake of her head.
“Yes, well,” John William spoke into the awkward moment. He held Kate, the baby's back against his broad chest, and the little girl pointed a soggy finger toward the flowers on the table. She emitted a gurgly gleeful sound, and every adult in the room welcomed the distraction.
“Yes, aren't they pretty?” Maureen said. “They're violets. Here.”
Maureen reached into the vase and pulled out a purple stem. She ran it lightly across the little girl's face before placing it in the waiting chubby fist. Kate immediately put the flower into her mouth, made a face, and pulled it out again.
“She's always hungry,” Gloria said.
“Can't imagine where she gets that from,” John William said, smiling.
Gloria shot him a face that equaled Kate's in its sour displeasure.
Maureen laughed and said, “Let me show you the rest of the house. This, of course, is the kitchen. I'll bet you're glad to see a proper stove again.”
“Why?” Gloria asked.
“She's not much of a cook,” John William said.
“I see." Maureen pulled back the material that skirted the countertops revealing shelves full of clean, empty jars. “Just about ready to put up what's in the garden. And there's a creek in the south corner of the property with some wonderful blackberry bushes. Makes the best jam you've ever had.”
“1 can't make jam,” Gloria said.
“Of course not, of course not. We'll divide up the job. You can pick the berries, I'll make the jam.”
“I've—”
“Never picked berries?” John William interrupted, smiling.
“Now you stop.” Maureen gave John William a slight slap on the arm. “Everybody's picked berries.”
I haven't, Gloria thought.
Maureen led them into the parlor adjoining the kitchen. An imposing fireplace dominated one wall. A line of dainty figurines graced its mantle, as did a cheerful ticking clock and a sepia-toned daguerreotype of a much more somber Maureen with her hand resting on the shoulder of a serious-looking man.
“We had that made last spring,” Maureen said, running a finger along the gilded frame. “Just about three months before he died.”
“He was very handsome,” Gloria said, though most of his face was obscured by his heavy whiskers. She glanced over at John William and the full beard that months of growth had produced. She secretly wished he'd shave.
“These are stones taken from the Umatilla,” Maureen said, stooping slightly to stroke the hearth. “And my husband made all the furniture himself.”
A long cushioned high-backed bench sat against the wall adjacent to the fireplace. Two chairs of a similar style created an inviting view of the flames. Gloria ran her hand along the back of a chair. Someone had sanded the wood to silk. The third wall housed a window that looked out to the garden. Underneath the window was a wicker basket full of mending and a willow rocking chair.
“You thoroughly capture the morning sunlight there,” Maureen said, pointing to the chair. “It's perfect light for sewing.”
“I don't sew,” Gloria said. Danny was beginning to fuss a little, so she repositioned him.
“Well, I can see well need to have a long talk about just what it is exactly that you can do. Now, let me show you the bedroom.”
Gloria opened her mouth for a smart remark, but the look on John William's blushing traumatized face stopped her.
There were two bedrooms. Their combined space took up nearly half of the square footage of the house. The first was the room Maureen Brewster shared with her beloved Ed. A large bed took up most of the room, the thick mattress nestled between ornate head and footboards. It was covered with a cheerful quilt and piled high with pillows. On either side were two small tables, one of which had a kerosene lamp and a well-worn Bible. A curtain ran the length of one wall, concealing a series of hooks on which Maureen hung her other clothing. A large chest of drawers stood against the wall opposite the bed, and next to it sat a washstand.
“Ill probably leave the bed,” Maureen said. “Leave all of the furniture for that matter. If there's one thing we learned on the journey here, furniture's not suited to travel.”
Neither John William nor Gloria spoke. There was an overwhelming sense of true, lasting love in this room, and when they did happen to glance at each other, their expressions mirrored a mixture of humility and shame before they quickly looked away
The second bedroom was bare, though not empty It contained the furnishings of its function, but there was no sense of life in it. Much smaller than the first room, it had a narrow bed tucked into a corner and a large wooden trunk on the opposite wall.
“The bed's actually fixed to the wall,” Maureen said, pulling back a corner of the quilt to demonstrate. “Ed figured it would be easy enough to just put a railing around the two open sides. That way when we didn't need a crib any more, we'd just have a bed. We kept the rocker in here for a while.
Something happened to her voice as she spoke. It was as if Gloria and John William had left the room and she was left talking to the ones who lived, or should have lived, in the house with her.
“You never had any children?” Gloria asked. She'd been carrying Danny this whole time, and now she clutched him a little closer.
“Gloria, don't—”
“Ed and I married late in life,” Maureen said. “I was thirty-two, he was almost forty. We wanted children, prayed for them. I figured if God could give a miracle to Sarah—”
“She's the one who laughed,” Gloria said.
“Yes, she did,” Maureen said. “But I wouldn't have. Every day, from the day we married until the day he died, I prayed that God would send us a child. I guess He just didn't see fit.”
“You would have been a wonderful mother,” Gloria said. “I can tell.”
“Thank you, child. And who knows? I'm only fifty. Maybe I'm still just too young.”
There was a ripple of laugher.
“Course I'd have to find me a husband first.”
There was another ripple of laughter, but this one distinctly thinner.
“Mrs. Brewster?”
“Please call me Maureen.”
“Maureen, then. I need to feed the babies. May I go somewhere and sit down?”
“Of course, dear. Go on into the parlor. Sit in the rocker. That's what it was made for, you know Never been used to nurse a babe…” Her voice started to drift again.
“Maureen," John William said, “I'd like to take a look at the property, if you don't mind. The barn, crops.”
“Certainly I've had a few neighbors over to help, just to keep the place up, you know. Ed has—we have—I have everything you could need as far as tools and equipment. Livestock, you'll see.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“No, no, son. You just go on. I'll just take this little one,” she took Kate out of his arms, “and talk with Gloria. She can tell me all your secrets." Maureen delivered this comment with a jaunty wink, and John William seemed amused by Gloria's shocked expression.
“She might at that,” he said. He walked toward the doorway of the tiny bedroom, but before leaving he turned and said, “You know, they say confession is good for the soul.”
Nothing, Gloria thought, had ever felt as good as sitting in the willow rocker, staring out at a budding garden while feeling the rhythmic tug of a baby at her breast. She was nursing Kate who, as usual, had been too impatient to wait for Danny, who lay on a blanket near the hearth, contentedly mouthing a silver spoon. Maureen was in the kitchen putting a pot of leftover stew on the stove to heat and sliding a pan of bread into the oven. The faintest aromas were just beginning to drift through the house.
This could be a home, Gloria thought. This could be my home.
Maureen came into the room, wiping her hands on her apron. She settled her tiny frame into the chair to the right of where Gloria was sitting.
“Well, I must say,” she said, “1 feel like a regular lady of leisure sitting down in the middle of the day. There's plenty I should be doing, but 1 think it would be nice to sit and chat for a while.”
“Yes," Gloria said, a bit uncomfortable. Chat meant questions and questions meant lies, and though she had known Maureen only for a matter of hours, she knew she could never bring herself to lie to this woman.
“Your children are beautiful,” Maureen said, looking wistfully at Danny, who was now engrossed in shifting his spoon carefully from one hand to another.
“Thank you,” Gloria said. She dislodged Kate, now sated, and closed her blouse. She brought Kate to a sitting position on her lap and began rubbing and patting her back.
“Twins,” Maureen mused. “What a blessing.”
“Mm-hmm." Gloria focused intently on a tiny spot on the back of Kate's neck. A single little freckle. She'd never noticed it before.
“1 have cousins who were twins, but they were both boys. Not identical, but they did favor each other.”
“Really”
Since they left Silver Peak, babies in tow, Gloria had heard this same conversation countless times. Every family they encountered—at supply stops, river crossings, well-traveled roads—had something to say about the “twins.” People commented on how much they looked alike, how very different they looked, their own twin siblings, cousins, children. They sang little rhymes, made dire predictions, quoted superstition, and through it all, Gloria and John William shielded the truth with silent nods and mumbled appreciation for the stories.
Maureen was still speaking, a cheerful friendly patter, but Gloria hadn't heard a word. Somewhere in the middle of hearing the exploits of Maureen's adventurous twin cousins, Gloria looked at her and said, “They're not twins.”
“What?”
“Danny and Kate. They're not twins. They're not brother and sister at all.”
Maureen didn't look as surprised as Gloria thought she would.
“John William and I, we're not—”
“It's all right, child.”
Maureen got up from the chair and sat on the floor at Gloria's feet. She put a comforting hand on Gloria's knee.
“This is John William's daughter,” Gloria said, handing Kate down to Maureen's lap. Maureen held the little girl close, and Gloria got up from the chair, gathered Danny and settled in to nurse him.
“And this is…Danny is my son.”
“Gloria, darling, you don't need to tell me—”
“Please. Please let me.”
She locked her gaze with Maureen's, and even though the older woman nodded a smiling consent, the words just wouldn't come. So she looked into the earnest contented eyes of her son and let the words flow out of her.
“I was born in California.
And then it was so easy Her mother, the men, the migration from one mining camp to another. She told stories that should have racked her body with sobs, but the steady suckling of her son kept her grounded. Kept her still. She placed her thumb in Danny's soft palm and gathered strength from his grip.
“After Mother died…”
Her own legacy. Her migration. Dubious fame and tainted fortune. And pregnancy.
“I still don't know why I went to Jewell…”
She could have stayed in Virginia City, had an abortion, given it away But she'd worked for Jewell before, felt a connection.
“She reminded me of a mother,” Gloria said. “Not my mother, but a mother. She always took care of us girls.”
Maureen sat, still and soft at Gloria's feet. She said nothing except the occasional, “Poor child.”
“And then I met John William.”
Silver Peak. The birth, her death, the deal. Leaving. All of it, every mile, every hardship, every test of patience and fortitude. Everything that led up to this moment, this conversation, this… smile.
It was the first time Gloria chanced to look at Maureen's face, and she was shocked to see the wide smile that infused the older woman's face with unblemished youth.
“I think you may be the strongest woman I've ever met,” Maureen said.
Gloria squirmed under the admiration in her voice. Danny had fallen asleep, his warm milky mouth was slack, and she felt the tiny puffs of his breath against her bare skin. She shifted him gently, just enough to close her blouse.
“I just wanted my baby to have a father,” Gloria said. “I always wanted a father. Dreamed of having one. I used to wait for him to show up and take me away from my mother and… everything.”
“Child, child.” Maureen reached up to clasp Gloria's hand. “Don't you know that you have a Father?”
“No, I don't.”
“But you do, Gloria.”
“You mean God?” Gloria gave a scoffing laugh. “A lot of good He's done for me.”
“Can't you see how He has taken care of you? Guided you?”
“Taken care of me? Weren't you listening?” Gloria's voice was rising. She dislodged herself from Maureen's grasp and stood up, laying the sleeping Danny back on the folded quilt on the floor. “Why would anyone who loved me want me to have that kind of life?”
“Just because that's the life you had doesn't mean that's the life He wanted for you,” Maureen said, her voice gentle.
“And what does He want for me?”
“For you to have peace. And joy”
“Well, He certainly never gave it to me, did He?”
“Didn't He?” Maureen remained sitting on the floor. A drowsy Kate listlessly chewed on her finger. “I listened to your story. Watched you as you spoke. And your face changed, your voice changed when you talked about leaving that life.”
“I haven't left that life/' Gloria said. “It's all I know. It's what I am.”
“But it doesn't give you peace, now does it? Not like you feel here.”
“The peace I feel now is for my son,” Gloria said. “All that matters is that he'll be cared for when I leave. When he doesn't need me anymore.”
“And just when is that? When does a child stop needing its mother?”
Kate was now fully asleep, and Maureen laid her gently on the blanket next to Danny She rose and stood next to Gloria, who was looking out the window, past the garden to where John William could be seen walking in the field.
“When it has a father,” Gloria said. Her throat was raw with the threat of tears. “A real, live father on earth, not some spirit in the sky who just watches while you live your life scared and hungry and torn. A father who will pick him up and read him stories and sing him songs. A father with big strong arms to hold him so he can curl up in his lap when there are storms. A father with a deep voice who can tell her that he loves her, that everything will be all right. That she's safe.”
Gloria began to shake, then. She clutched her arms to herself and willed her body to stop, closed her eyes to stop the tears, but the cleansing relief prevailed, fortified by the two small arms wrapped around her, a curly soft head resting on her back. They stood there, together, until their synchronized breathing brought a stillness to Gloria's body, even though tears continued to stream down her face.
“He's an excellent man, you know,” Gloria said.
“He seems so.”
“He's not perfect.”
“Nobody is.”
“But he's so gentle with the babies. Sometimes I think he loves Danny as much as he loves his own child.”
“I talked with him for a long time yesterday,” Maureen said. “Danny is his child.”
“I didn't love Kate at first, you know.”
“That's understandable.”
“Maybe because I knew I was taking another woman's place. Maybe he could love Danny because he didn't have to worry about filling anyone else's shoes.”
“Neither do you, Gloria." Maureen turned Gloria around, her two small hands firmly gripping Gloria's arms. “Can't you see? It doesn't matter what you've been or how you've lived.
Look at what you have now. What God has given you. A son. How can you consider walking away from a gift like that?”
“How can I stay?” Gloria said.
“What are you afraid of?”
“I'm afraid of him.”
“Who?”
“John William,” Gloria said. “I'm afraid of disappointing him. Not being what he needs me to be. We had a deal, you know. I'd take care of his child, he'd take care of mine. But I can't help but feel like he got the losing end of the stick.”
Maureen laughed. Slight, at first, but then she reared her head back and let loose with deep, glee-filled noise.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Child,” Maureen said, “you really don't see, do you?”
“See what?”
“You are a beautiful woman.”
“I hate that.”
“You hate it because of how others have seen you. But let me tell you,” she brought a hand up to caress Gloria's cheek, “I'm talking about the beauty I see on the inside of you. The way you love your children. The way you admire John William. The way you open up to me.”
“I've never met anyone like you before,” Gloria said.
“You're being given a chance at a new life, Gloria. Don't dwell on the old one, and don't go back.”
“But I don't know how to do any of this new life.”
“I'll teach you.”
“But you're leaving.”
“I'll stay.”
Gloria could tell that Maureen hadn't considered staying until that moment. And when the realization hit both women, they burst into smiles and fell into each other's arms.
“You'll really stay?” Gloria said. “You'll take care of the children?”
“No, I'll take care of you. For now. Until you can take care of yourself.”
Just then the door opened and John William's heavy steps entered the kitchen.
“Smells wonderful in here,” he called out. He crossed the room to take a peek at the children, then glanced up to look at Gloria. “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine,” Gloria said, hastily wiping the last of her tears.
“You're sure?” he asked.
“I'm sure.”.
“We've been talking,” Maureen said. “Gloria and I had a long talk. She told me everything.”
The weight of that word landed in the middle of the room. John William took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.
“So you know,” he said, “that we're not—”
“I know,"Maureen said, “that we are all in a state of flux right now, and maybe we better take a deep breath before doing anything hasty”
“So you're not going to sell?”
“Oh, I'm going to sell. And it looks like I'm going to sell to you. I'm just not going to leave.”
Gloria beamed silently at her side while the news sank into John William. His face registered shock at first, then acceptance, then a mysterious amusement.
“So, shall we discuss this over dinner?” Maureen said, all business.
“Yes,” Glpria said. “I'm starved.”
They walked together into the kitchen. Maureen directed Gloria to the cupboard that held the dishes; John William pumped water from the faucet to wash his hands; Maureen busied herself dishing the stew into bowls and slicing the bread. When they sat around the little round table, John William bowed his head to say a blessing.
“Oh, come now,” Maureen said. “Let's do this right.
At her bidding, the three joined hands, and John William's deep voice filled the room. He thanked God for the food, the friendship, the family gathered in this place. Gloria felt his calloused fingers gripping her right hand, while her left enveloped the diminutive hand of Maureen. She wondered briefly which held more power, before the room echoed with “Amen,” and she bit into her first meal in her new home.