“I’m waiting for Ward,” Les said, squinting through the darkness at the road. When Alex didn’t comment, Les squared her shoulders. “Ward isn’t handsome and polished like Payton was, or worldly, but he has his good qualities.”
“I’m sure he does.” Until now Alex had forgotten that Les had accompanied her to the lecture in New Orleans where she first met Payton Mills. Slowly twisting her wedding ring around her finger, she remembered that night in New Orleans a lifetime ago. She had been well on her way toward spinsterhood, and beginning to accept that she would never find a man she wanted to marry. Then she had listened to Payton’s cultured voice and gazed into his fine dark eyes, and decided she could love him
“I’m twenty-five,” Les said in a low voice. “If I don’t marry Ward, I’ll end up a spinster.”
“You’ve had suitors,” Alex said uncomfortably.
Les fixed her gaze on the dark road. “They were Pa’s choices, not mine.” She fell silent for several minutes. “I thought Pa needed me.”
“I’m sure he did,” Alex murmured tactfully.
“Then why did he marry Lola?” Les asked angrily. “Why did he bring her here? Do you know what it was like living with her? She didn’t care about Pa.” Her face twisted, her outrage still fresh. “She slept through breakfast and often through lunch, and some days she didn’t even get dressed. Other days she went to town and didn’t come home until late. It wasn’t a month before everyone was talking about her. Pa didn’t need her! All she did was humiliate him.”
“Les… Father liked women. In his own way, he even liked us. There was a long gap between the death of your mother and Father’s marriage to Lola. He must have gotten lonely.”
“He had me!”
“He wanted a wife.” There was much about her father that Alex didn’t understand, but she did understand that Joe Roark had respected marriage and had genuinely grieved the loss of his three wives. That he had chosen to marry a fourth time hadn’t surprised her, only his choice did.
They sat in silence, listening for the sound of a gig coming along the road, until Les asked, “What is it like? Being married? I try to imagine it, but I can’t.”
“In what way do you mean?” Alex couldn’t recall having an intimate conversation with either of her sisters. Part of her wanted to encourage the fragile connection, but part shied away.
Les frowned and plucked at the folds of her skirt. “Did… Payton ever strike you when you disobeyed him?” she asked in a low voice.
Alex sat up straight and gripped the arms of her chair. “Does Ward strike you?” Staring, she watched Les unconsciously rub her left shoulder. “Les?”
“I’m just wondering if a husband might do that. If the wife did something to make him very angry, for instance.”
“Payton never struck me.” Payton’s weapon had been words, and he had wielded them with sharp precision. And oh how his words could wound. There had been times when Alex would almost have preferred a slap instead of the flow of criticism and sarcasm.
“Ward doesn’t mean to lose his temper,” Les explained, standing and moving to the porch rail. Her pale face disappeared in deep shadow. “But he gets so frustrated. For one thing, the store has lost business since his father died. And you don’t know how hard it is for a man like Ward to have to wait on people as if he were a menial. Last week the preacher’s wife dressed him down because she found mouse droppings in her sack of coffee beans. And he had to stand there and take it or risk having Mrs. Ledbetter move her business to the new store at the end of Main.”
“Did he strike you because he was angry at Mrs. Ledbetter?” Alex asked sharply.
“It’s just… you can’t imagine what it’s like to know you were destined for great things but find yourself trapped in a situation you can’t escape.”
“You’re wrong,” Alex said softly, touching the hard rubber rim that circled the wheels on her chair. “I know that feeling very well.”
“Oh.” Les whirled, distress pinching her face. “Of course you know. If anyone understands Ward’s anger and frustration, it’s you.”
Alex considered. Was she angry? Trapped was more accurate. She was trapped in this chair and in a life that had begun to shrink once she realized that every stair step was an insurmountable obstacle. She had stopped repaying social calls shortly after her period of deep mourning when she realized that Boston was a city of steps. Since she could not descend even her own porch without assistance, she had begun to restrict her outings. Consequently, the calls at her own door trickled nearly to a halt. Slowly her home was becoming her prison. There was justice in that, but also despair.
“I think I hear harness and wheels,” she said, desperate to escape. She rolled forward. “I’ll leave you some privacy.”