The farm belonged to Amelie, her cousin—her half cousin, really, who was just sixty-five but had given up her midwifery practice. These days she never left home; she hadn’t come to Sophie’s wedding, and wouldn’t have come to Anna’s, if there had been one. Amelie had withdrawn from the world, it was that simple, and more than that: she kept her reasons to herself.
At the garden gate Anna stopped a minute to look and take comfort in the fact that nothing changed here. A small barn in good repair, a pasture where sheep and a donkey and a very old horse grazed, and the small cottage surrounded by a garden where chickens scuffled and scoured the earth. The herbs that grew along the walkway—mint, comfrey, sage, thyme, tansy, pennyroyal, blue cohosh, mugwort, verbena, rue—rioted on the very edge of anarchy, which was true of the whole garden. Abundance was the word that came to mind.
“Beauregard,” she said, surprised to see Amelie’s old dog sleeping in his usual spot. She always went away thinking he’d be gone before she returned, but here he was. His eyes were milky with cataracts but his tail thumped at the sound of her voice. She crouched down to rub the crown of his head, and he flopped over onto his back to offer his belly instead.
“Doesn’t matter how old he gets,” said a familiar voice from the far side of the garden. “He demands his toll. Anna Savard, look at you.”
Anna got up and wound her way through the garden beds—cabbage, squash, carrots, cucumbers, parsnips, beans, peas, turnips—until she reached Amelie, who got up from her weeding and held out both arms.
“Beauregard ain’t the only one whose toll has to be paid. Come here and give me my due.”
Her arms were thin but she hugged Anna with all her strength. Then she stepped back and caught up her hands to squeeze them. Her hazel eyes were damp with tears, but if Anna were to point this out, she would deny it.
“Don’t you look more like Birdie every day, bless her sweet soul. Come on now, these weeds ain’t going nowhere. They’ll wait on me but I’ll bet you’re in a hurry.”
At that moment Anna would have gladly forgotten everything and everyone else just to spend the afternoon working in the garden with Amelie. It was Amelie who had delivered her, far away from this tidy farm, on the very edge of the endless forest. Anna promised herself that before the summer was out she would come for a whole day, and bring Jack with her. Jack should hear Amelie’s stories from Amelie herself.
“Sophie and Cap were here right before they sailed,” Amelie was saying over her shoulder. “I hope you won’t be mad that they told me your news. And don’t start apologizing, I know how busy you are.”
“I should apologize,” Anna said.
“But don’t. Come in the kitchen, I’ve got cake.”
Anna followed the winding path to the back of the house, lined with bushes in flower and alive with bees and hummingbirds. As a little girl she had always thought of this house as she did of the cottages in fairy tales, full of secret cabinets and hidden stairs and most of all, stories. It was an odd structure, out of kilter at every corner, an old lady plagued by arthritis but cheerful, nonetheless. Front and kitchen doors and every window stood open to the breeze because as old-fashioned as the house and Amelie herself might seem, she was keen on new inventions and had screens installed everywhere, bought from a man in Chicago and shipped at great expense. And worth every penny, she said when people asked; she would have paid more for fresh air without the flies and mosquitoes that plagued man and beast on a farm.
While Amelie went about her business, Anna took the chance to study her cousin: the river of hair, iron and silver and black, in a long braid down her back, her clothes flowing and old-fashioned, worn soft and faded. In comparison her complexion was far younger than her years, supple and smooth, still unlined. She was the daughter and granddaughter of slaves and slave holders, of Mohawk and Seminole, and all those bloodlines had come together to a color that had entranced Anna as a very young child. It still reminded her of burning sugar, caramel on the verge of something even deeper. She remembered, vaguely, tasting the skin of Amelie’s arm, and coming away with simple salt on the tongue where she had expected sugar.
Amelie disappeared into the pantry, raising her voice to be heard above the noise she was making, shifting through baskets and bins.
“Tell me about your Jack.”
“First tell me your news.”
Amelie always had news of her sister, who lived in Boston and had raised a family of ten children who had, in turn, produced eighteen children of their own, and of her brother Henry who was still working as an engineer on the railroads though he was almost seventy.
“Can’t slow him down. Takes after Da that way.”
Her head appeared around the corner of the pantry. “Stop stalling now and tell me.”
So Anna put together the story of Jack Mezzanotte while Amelie gathered what she needed, mashed boiled ginger root, sorted through dried peppermint leaves, and put both to steep.
“Mezzanotte, you say. Do his people keep bees, in Jersey somewhere?”
“Yes,” Anna said. “I should have realized you’d recognize the name.”