The Listening Sky (32 page)

“She wasn’t at the store this afternoon. Stella and I looked for her.”

“Colin hasn’t been here either.” Maude lifted a roasting pan from the oven. “Maybe they’ve gone off somewhere. Better light
the new lamp, Polly.”

“Herb says it’s a Rochester harp lamp. He got it at the store today.” Polly was proud of everything Herb did, no matter how
small. “He hung it so it’d be right over the table. See? Ya can pull it down to light it, then push it up to where ya want
it. They had ‘em in a hotel where I worked in Laramie. It was a grand place.” Polly lit the lamp. “Ain’t it pretty, Jane?
Herb says we’ll get us one when we get our own house.”

The yellow pool of light flooded the table and spread out into the kitchen. Jane looked at the happy faces smiling back at
her. The two women, the child, and Sunday were the best friends she’d ever had. She would miss them.

Determined to maintain her composure, she blinked her eyes to keep them dry, and forced her lips to smile.

Darkness was falling when T.C. hurried down the street to his house. He had taken the first bath in Mrs. Brackey’s not-yet-opened
tonsorial parlor. She had insisted that he try out the new tub, and then she had shaved him in the new chair. He told himself
that it was a well-deserved luxury.

He was eager to see Jane and spend some time with her. He had no intention of consummating his marriage this night, or any
night, until she was completely well and wanted to be with him in the same way he wanted to be with her. He was not a rutting
moose, he told himself. She would sleep in his bed; he would hold her in his arms even if he suffered the torture of the damned
all night long. There would be no animal joining of his body to hers. It was important that they start this part of their
union right.

He thought of crossing over to the cookhouse to see if Colin was there with Bill. His friend had made himself scarce for most
of the day. He had merely grunted when told to get Sunday and bring her to supper because Mrs. Henderson was planning something
special.

Evenings were getting downright cold, T.C. thought now, his mind forging ahead to winter. He hoped to have the surgery out
of the house before too long. An addition to the hotel was being prepared for it. He expected to hear any day from the new
doctor Rowe had located.

He would set up a small pot-bellied stove in his office and one in the bedroom he’d share with Jane. For as long as there
were other people in the house, the bedroom would be their only private place. They would spend their evenings there as well
as nights. He wanted to know what she thought about everything. She loved books as he did. He had no doubt that she would
teach at the schoolhouse this winter. Then in the spring they would go to the ranch and build the home where they would raise
tall, strong boys and small, sweet, courageous girls like their mother.

He could hardly wait to tell her about it.

Jane heard him coming down the hall and steeled herself for the meeting. She stood with the table between her and the kitchen
door and was grateful that she was not alone when he appeared in the doorway, his hands, shoulder high, clutching each side
of the frame. Although his dark face showed no expression, his silver eyes seemed to see only her, to pin her to the floor
where she stood.

“Are you all right, Jane?”

“I’m… ” Her first attempt to speak produced a croaking, gurgling sound. She tried again. “I’m fine. Just fine.”

He smiled, and her heart leaped. He was breathtakingly handsome when he smiled.

“You look rested. Headache gone?”

“Most of it.”

“Look at the new lamp Herb put up,” Polly said breathlessly.

“It’s a dandy,” T.C. said, still looking at Jane.

An awkward silence followed. Jane seemed rooted to the spot. T.C. didn’t come any farther into the room.

“Supper will be ready in just a little bit,” Maude said. “Herb went to look for Colin.” The door at the front of the house
slammed shut as she finished speaking. “That’s probably them.”

T.C. moved out of the doorway and into the kitchen. Herb’s eyes found Polly first, then Jane.

“Miss Jane! Ya feelin’ better?”

“Much better, thank you.”

“That Mrs. Miller at the rooming house said Sunday’d gone to bed. Said she wasn’t feelin’ good. I never found Colin. Wasn’t
in the saloon, or at the cookshack. His horse is in the livery so he’s ‘round somewhere.”

“I just betcha Sunday ain’t sick. I bet her and Colin had a spat,” Polly said. “It’s what I’d’a done if I didn’t want to come
face Herb in front of folks.”

“You may be right.” T.C. had moved over close to Jane. Stella was on her other side. “Colin has been like a bear with a sore
tail all day.”

“Ya smell good, Mr. Kilkenny.”

“You like that, puddin’?” T.C. grinned and rubbed the top of Stella’s head with his long fingers. “I had a shave at the new
barber shop.”

“Is it… toilet water?”

“It’s Bay Rum.” T.C. laughed and bent down so that Stella could press her nose to his cheek.

“I like it better’n rosewater.”

“You may grow up to be a lady barber.”

“I’m goin’ to be a teacher, like Aunty Jane.” Stella leaned against Jane, and Jane put her hand on the side of the child’s
head and hugged her close.

Maude turned back to the stove. She almost wept at the kindness these people had shown to her and to Stella. The child would
have a good life here—if she could stay.

They waited a half-hour for Colin, and when he failed to come, they sat down to roasted duck with rice stuffing, mashed potatoes
and cream gravy. Maude was an excellent cook. She insisted on waiting on the table by herself, cutting the hot bread, pouring
the tea, giving milk to Polly and Stella.

Jane did her best to do justice to the meal. Maude had worked all day, and not for the world did Jane want her friend to know
that each bite stuck in her throat. T.C. knew how nervous she was and kept a string of chatter going to cover for her. One
time, beneath the table, he reached into her lap and squeezed her hand. The thoughtful gesture made her want to weep.

The candle on the wedding cake was lit. Stella could hardly contain her excitement. Jane and T.C. were to blow it out together.
Jane could muster up only a small breath of air, but T.C. let go with one powerful puff that extinguished the flame. Jane,
urged by Maude, cut the first piece and placed it on T.C.’s plate.

“Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride!” Polly and Maude cried in unison.

T.C. turned to the red-faced woman by his side and placed a quick kiss on her lips.

By the time the meal was over, Jane, knowing what lay ahead, felt sick to her stomach. Her nerves were frayed, her hands shook,
her eyes darted from the wall to the stove to the table but never to T.C. A hundred disjointed thoughts swirled through her
mind. When Maude and Polly began to clear the table she got up to help.

“Not tonight, Mrs. Kilkenny,” Maude said sternly. “This is your weddin’ day.”

“Oh, but you and Polly have worked all day, while I—”

“She’s right, sweetheart. This is a special day. You can make it up to Maude and Polly later.” T.C. took her hand and led
her to the door.

Jane wished that he hadn’t called her
that.
He would remember later and hate himself for it. She wanted to dig in her heels and refuse to leave the safety of the kitchen,
but breathing deeply, to steady her nerves, she walked along beside him. In the near-darkness of the hall, he turned her to
him with his hands on her shoulders.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I’m not going to demand that we consummate our marriage tonight. I can see that you
think that. Don’t be nervous, sweetheart. When we come together as man and wife it will be because we
both
want it to happen.” Holding her chin firmly in his hand, he bent his head and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

“I know nothing of men… or that,” she said in a breathless whisper.

“I don’t expect you to. Jane, I need to talk—”

“—I know.”

“Come to the surgery. There are things in Doc’s desk I want to show you.”

“Wait.” Pride stiffened her backbone and she pulled away. “I must talk to you first. But there’s something I need to get from…
your room.” She went quickly to the bedroom and in the dark felt for her valise and her mother’s picture she had placed on
the top. Hugging it to her, she closed her eyes for a second or two, then backed out of the room.

T.C. had gone into the surgery and lit the lamp. Jane entered and closed the door behind her. He was standing beside the waist-high
table.

“If this is going to be painful for you—”

“It is, but it must be done.” She placed her mother’s picture face up on the table. “This is my mother. I was born on her
sixteenth birthday.”

T.C. picked up the painting. It was of a young girl no older than Polly.

“She was pretty. You look a great deal like her. Do you remember her?”

“Faintly.”

Head up. Shoulders back Don’t cower.
Jane repeated the admonitions to herself as she had done a thousand times over the years since she had learned who she was.

She was about to reveal something she had never told before—to anyone. Even as a small child she had not shared her secret
with the one or two girls that she considered friends. The stories that circulated throughout the school, the city of Denver,
and, as she was told, the entire territory had made the revelation impossible.

She looked into T.C.’s face, recording every feature in her mind so she could call each one to memory again in the years ahead.
She had the strength to tell him only because she loved him so much and wanted to spare him. He was so close she had to tilt
her head to meet his eyes. And she must look him in the face when the testing was over. Seeing the hatred there would make
it easier for her to leave.

“Please sit down.”

He took the chair at Doc’s desk and swiveled around to face her. She plunged into the story, determined to get it over.

“Your solicitor wrote, I’m sure, that I was raised in a Methodist orphanage. The trustees and the headmistress preferred to
call it a boarding school, but in fact it was a home for children who had no other place to go.”

T.C. nodded.

“My mother died when I was very young. I lived with my mother’s friend, Alice Medlow, for a year or two before I was taken
to the orphanage. This picture was the only thing I was allowed to keep. Aunt Alice brought it to me on the first of the only
two visits she was allowed to make.”

“Why didn’t they allow her to visit?” T.C. thought questions would help Jane tell her story because at times her voice was
almost breathless.

“I think, now, they wanted to tear me away from anything having to do with my mother.” Jane walked around the table, clasping
and unclasping her hands. “Most of the children knew about their parents and talked about them. Mrs. Gillis ran the school
with an iron hand; each time I asked about my parents, she cut me off. I knew nothing of them until I was about ten years
old.”

T.C. wanted to break in but was afraid she would stop talking.

“Some children talked of the homes they once had had. A few had come to Denver in a wagon train. Others had been children
of settlers… who had been burned out during Indian raids. All I had was a picture, and some wouldn’t even -believe it was
my mother. I had one other memory that I never talked about. It was of a big man with black hair, a black beard and light
eyes who came in the night, wrapped me in a blanket, took me to the orphanage and left me without ever speaking a word.

“One day I pried this wooden back off the picture frame.” She turned the picture over. “I found two letters. One was written
to my mother by… the man who fathered me, who was, I suspect, the one who took me from Aunt Alice. The other was to me from
Aunt Alice, telling about my mother and how… I happened to be born a bastard. She had put it there, hoping that someday I
would read it.”

“Jane, this isn’t necessary—”

“I think it is. Please don’t say anything.” She turned from him, unable to bear the pity in his eyes now, and the hatred that
would follow. She straightened her shoulders anew and continued.

“I took the letters to Mrs. Gillis and asked her to tell me what they meant. I was probably not even Stella’s age at the time.
She told me in no uncertain terms who and what I was. From that day on, I’ve lived in constant fear of being found out. When
I was a child she threatened to tell the entire school if I misbehaved. For years I would cower in the corner afraid of being
hated by the others. When I was older, I developed a backbone, of sorts, and stood up to Mrs. Gillis, telling her not to threaten
me again.

“I was expected to stay at the orphanage and work for the rest of my life to atone for the blood that ran in my veins.” She
added the last bitterly. “I’m tired of the shadow that has hung over me. I read the letters again on my sixteenth birthday
and have not read them since.” She handed him the picture. “Take off the back and read them.”

“No.” He took the picture from her hand and placed it back on the table. “It doesn’t matter to me who your parents were.”

“It matters to me.” She held out the picture. “Someone in this town knows. Someone plans to tell the story to humiliate me
when the time is right, in the meanwhile tormenting me with the awareness that they know.”

“I don’t want to do this, Jane.”

“You must.” She was calm now. Her eyes pleaded with him. “I can’t bear to go through this again.”

Fear of what he would find made T.C.’s fingers tremble as he pried the wooden back off the frame with his pocketknife. Next
to the back of the canvas he found two envelopes addressed with faded ink.

“Read the one addressed to Jenny Lou Love first.”

Jane turned her back as soon as he picked up the letter and slipped the paper from the envelope. The silence in the room was
deafening. Jane clenched her hands into fists and closed her eyes tightly as time stood still.

T.C. read the letter quickly. It was written in bold script, the words plainly visible. A few lines in the middle of the one-page
letter stood out from the others.