Lizzie kicked in time with the clock on the mantel. ‘You’ve sinned, Emma.’
What was sin, exactly? ‘No, I haven’t. Samuel and I . . .’
Lizzie kicked faster. ‘I’m going to tell Father you were giving yourself away before you’re allowed to.’
I pulled tight on her legs. ‘Stop it, Lizzie!’
We glared. Then Lizzie said, ‘Are you really going to marry him?’
‘Yes. And I can’t wait.’
‘For what?’
‘To get out of this house, to get away from you all.’ My voice rising from the pit of my stomach.
Lizzie’s cheeks ballooned, reddened. ‘You’ll never leave if you don’t get married.’
I took her wrist and held it tight.
She tugged, tried to escape my grip. ‘Don’t you think you can go live without me. You’re breaking your promise to Mother. You’re selfish, Emma.’
It hurt. ‘Don’t you dare say that.’
Lizzie ripped free. ‘I’m telling Father.’
I boiled, slapped her across the face. ‘Don’t you even try. It’s not yours to tell.’
Lizzie cried. ‘I’m telling everyone. Then no one will want to marry you.’
To be shamed by your sister. I lost control of the situation, lost control of Lizzie. All that freedom was slipping away. Father couldn’t find out. I was afraid of what would happen if he did. I sobbed that night, my body ached. I thought of Samuel, of growing old beside someone, our knotted limbs, the places we could go. Then I thought of family, things that could be lost. It was my experience that life doesn’t let you have both. I had seen it with Mother, her joy of having two daughters bounce around together, her heart full of love and safety, only to have one of her girls die when the universe had decided Mother had had too much of a good thing. Her family destroyed. Best be cautious.
When I told Samuel it was over, I could barely get the words off my tongue. I listened to him whimper, as if something twisted from his heart, was killing him, and everything in my body felt as if it were being dragged out of me, set alight. We kissed one last time, blood pulsing underneath flesh, and Samuel left me. When I told Father the engagement was off, he said, ‘What happened? I tried to give you a good one.’ He shook his head, a dismissal. The way that made me feel: defective.
I thought of Lizzie, thought of Samuel. I knew I had made the wrong decision.
EIGHT
BENJAMIN
3 August 1892
THE TRAIN PULLED into Fall River, smoked the platform with thick steam, made women’s skirts billow, reveal the tops of their boots, their stockings. My leg had stopped bleeding but it was difficult to move, like there was a steel rod under my skin. Passengers stood, stretched and cracked their bodies, gave me their camphor smell. I stood too, pressed my head against the window, felt the burn of the sun into my forehead along the top of my head, made my head lice critter. I gave myself a scratch. I saw John standing underneath a large white platform sign, realised that he had no luggage. His family visit was going to be quick. He nodded at men in top hats as they walked by. I heaved myself down the aisle and stepped off the train, went over to John.
‘Enjoy your trip?’ A smile so wide it made me want to punch him.
‘It was cramped,’ I said.
‘Ah well, we’re here now. Let’s move on.’
Off he strode and I took after him. We got out of the station and onto a wide bluestone street. The loud sounds of horse-car drivers calling, ‘Take you up to Main Street, take you all the way.’ There was a deep silver clang of tram bells, of a baby cry-hollering like a sick animal, mewing for its mother, of shopkeepers sweeping their storefronts, bushy moustaches swallowing their faces. It was too much noise for me. ‘Will we be here long?’
‘Have patience.’
We began walking up the street, my leg thump-dragging behind me and John said, ‘We ought to get that looked at before you do anything.’
Delays. They were no good. ‘I’m alright.’
‘Nonsense. It’s part of the payment, isn’t it?’
I had no say in the matter. We walked on, were smacked in the face with a stench pumping from factories and cotton mills. John led me through street after street of close housing adjoined to shops, our shoes echoing like small hammers on the sidewalk, and soon we came to a white storefront with a chipped enamel doorframe, peeled black letters V T SUR E N, a mutt-coloured cat curled in the shop window.
‘Where are we?’
John swifted his head along the street, on a lookout, and said, ‘I know a surgeon who can help you. Just keep to yourself.’
We went inside, a doorbell chime, and John told me to sit on a leather-covered stool by the wall. Antiseptic smells stung, a wet fur smell surrounded me. John disappeared down a hallway and I wondered how he knew this surgeon. My leg started on its bleeding again. Time passed and John returned with a doctor.
‘This here’s your patient,’ John said.
The doctor wore a leather apron, leather waders, pushed his glasses up his nose when he came close to me, coughed into his hand. ‘I see.’ He came at me, bird-dived towards my leg and poked. ‘I can clean this, sew you back up. What do you say?’
John grinned and the doctor grinned and another cat came lurking from the hallway, wrapped itself around the doctor’s legs. A cat cannot be trusted.
‘So be it,’ I said. I’d never been stitched up before, had always let my body do its will.
‘Well now. You get fixed and I’ll be waiting around.’ John thwacked my back, hit my ribs hard. The doctor led me down the hall into a bare-bone room. ‘Sit there,’ he said, pointed to a daybed. ‘Remove your trousers.’
I did that, exposed bruises and scars, my chicken knees. The gash on my leg had opened me up good and I wanted to put my finger inside to see how far down I could go. The doctor went over to a bench, fished around some amber glass jars along the wall. There was a large wooden table in the middle of the room, tiny drops of blood on it, and from somewhere I heard the rattle of a cage. The doctor got a jar, then got his medical kit and brought both over to me. Inside was a large brass syringe, long, sharp objects that looked like thin chisels, a pair of heavy scissors, tweezers. He took out the scissors and the tweezers, lifted the amber jar, said, ‘Right then, I’m going to pour this on you. It’s a type of acid. It’ll sting but it’ll do wonders.’
I took a quick glance out the door, saw a black cat limp past. The lid came off the bottle and liquid poured onto me. My leg twitched like I had fire ants marching. I gave a howl and somewhere in the back of the building, another howl rose, met mine.
‘That should do it,’ he said. ‘Now for the stitch-up.’ He came at me like a fisherman, a little hook and catgut line, threaded my leg together, pulled through skin tags. My head, thick and hot, made me want to fall into deep sleep. I closed my eyes and later John was shaking me awake. ‘Right now?’
I wiped spittle from my mouth. ‘It’s over?’