The Work and the Glory (153 page)

With that he plunged down the ladder and walked swiftly out of the barn.

* * *

Dinner was a painful experience. Caroline spoke pleasantly to the children, but didn’t even so much as look at Joshua. Will answered when asked a question directly, but spoke in monosyllables and monotones. Olivia seemed puzzled, but even at nine years of age, she was aware that this was not the time for her usual chatter and, for the most part, ate quietly and kept shooting sidelong glances at her brother.

Joshua had wanted to talk with his wife when he came back into the house, to tell her how it had gone with Will, but she had been at the table, preparing dinner. She had heard him come up behind her—there was no question of that—but she did not turn around or acknowledge his presence, and he had finally left and gone back to the freight yard.

After the dishes were done, Caroline read to the two children for almost an hour, twice as long as she usually did, while Joshua stayed bent over the books from the business, pretending to concentrate. The sun went down, and as twilight came the room darkened to the point that it became difficult to see. “Would you like me to light a lamp?” he finally asked.

Caroline stood, pulling Olivia up to stand beside her. “Not for us. We’re going upstairs. I’m going to tell the children stories for a time.”

There was not a murmur of protest from either Will or Olivia, something unheard of when it was still not even seven o’clock. They seemed glad to escape his presence as they trooped up the stairs.

For a long moment Joshua stared at the empty stairwell, his emotions churning. He expected hurt. He expected anger. But this? He shoved his chair back with a jerk. This was how Jessica had been. Withdrawing into her shell. Fighting back by not fighting. Was that what it had come to again? And what would tomorrow bring? The bitter invective? Words hurled like lances? He felt sick and angry and hurt and frustrated all at once. Only now did he realize how much those battles had drained him.

And that had been with Jessica. He knew now he had loved Jessica Roundy. In his own limited way. But Caroline! The pain tore at him. Caroline consumed him. The one thing he wanted most was to make her happy, to see her smile, to hear her laugh, and know it was because of him.

And now there was no laughter, no smiles, not even angry words. He could cope with those. Try and reason with her. At least be talking. But this ice-block approach . . . He blew out his breath in a quick explosion of disgust. The anger was starting to win out inside him now. He swore softly to himself. He
had
changed. He was shamed by the past, and he had vowed it would not be repeated. Didn’t that count for anything? She wouldn’t even listen to him, wouldn’t even give him a chance to try to explain.

He stood abruptly, slamming the ledger book shut. Well, he wasn’t going to sit here moping like a kicked hound dog, waiting for her to throw him a condescending glance. He started for the coatrack, making up his mind. He’d see hell freeze over before he stood still for another round of this.

Suddenly the longing for whiskey was as sharp as a stab in the side with a forked stick. He stopped, as though struck. His mind was already in the saloon. Go to Clinton Roundy’s and get a bottle of whiskey! Let that fix things.

He looked at his hands. They were visibly shaking. He stared at them. It had been over five years since he had gone to the bottle to escape. Five years! 

He turned and walked slowly in the half darkness back to the chair and dropped into it heavily. He sat back, staring at nothing, waiting for the darkness to envelop him.

* * *

It was past nine o’clock when Caroline came down the stairs. After the children had finally gone to sleep, she had gone into the bedroom where she and Joshua slept. For a long time she lay there on the bed, wondering if he would come up. She knew she had hurt him terribly, and for a time she had fought feelings of gladness. She wanted revenge. Longed for it. The hurt he had dealt her was so deep, so vast, that she wanted a price exacted in return. But then the more rational part of Caroline’s mind finally began to speak. It was a whisper at first, but it wouldn’t go away. It had taken almost an hour for her to sort through the thoughts, decide what to say, then rehearse it over and over in her mind, playing off against his every possible answer.

Now she came softly down the stairs. She was only half-surprised that the house was dark. Upstairs she had listened carefully and had heard no sound. Now there was a momentary stab of fear that he had slipped out without her hearing, but then she saw the darkness of his shape by the table where she had left him.

She stopped on the last stair. She saw his head come up. Her pulse quickened. Now that the moment had arrived, she nearly lost her courage. But she knew that if she turned around now, a knot in the line would be tied that might never be undone.

“Joshua?”

He straightened.

She sighed softly, feeling the pain rising up again. “The women in town have tried to tell me all about the past. I want you to know I haven’t listened. I won’t listen. I won’t learn what happened between you and Jessica from gossip, from some petty little person eager to dump trash onto my doorstep.”

She could feel his eyes on her in the darkness. “But I keep asking myself,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper now, “are there two Joshua Steeds?”

A great sadness began to overwhelm her, and she fought the choked feeling that was starting in her chest. “Most of the time I see this man I met in Savannah. He’s handsome, charming, wonderful with my children.” There was a long pause, then more quietly, “I was even finding myself starting to love him, down deep, in a way I didn’t think was going to be possible again.”

She heard his soft intake of breath, but she hurried on, afraid if she stopped now it would not ever come out. “But from time to time, that Joshua suddenly disappears. He goes behind this great wall. I call to him, but there’s no answer. And then I—” She bit her lip. This was far more difficult than it had been when she was doing it in her mind. “And then I see another man. Just a shadow. It’s someone I’ve never met. Someone I’m not sure I ever want to meet.”

She sat down on the step, suddenly finding that standing required too much effort. She hugged her legs, staring across the room at the dark shape. “I can’t make you tell me what’s back there, Joshua. You can show me all of it or part of it. I won’t know if you’re being completely honest with me or not. But I know this—if there is ever to be anything between us besides sharing the same bed and raising our children, you are going to have to take me behind that wall and show me there’s nothing there to be frightened of. Because right now, I am very frightened.”

For several long moments she sat there. There was no movement, no sound. Shaking her head, feeling the burning behind her eyes, she stood abruptly, turned, and ran up the stairs.

* * *

Caroline’s first awareness was that it was still dark outside the window. And yet she sensed it was morning. Perhaps five o’clock or even six. She turned over lazily, not wanting to come up out of the deep sleep she had been lost in. Through the haze, she remembered the fitful hours she had spent before she finally slipped into the depths. Then suddenly she remembered what had happened before she came upstairs to bed, and lifted her head. The bed beside her was empty. She fell back. The disappointment was so sharp she could taste it.

She rose up slightly again, trying to hear if he had simply gotten up without waking her. Early mornings were not Caroline’s thing, and often he would be up and dressed and downstairs working on this project or that before she finally rose. But there was no sound now. The house was silent.

And then as she lay back down, her heart jumped. There was a shape at the other window, blotting out half of the faint light coming in from outside. She sat up with a jerk. “Joshua?”

He was already turned, watching her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She let her breath out, feeling her pulse pounding. “How long have you been there?”

There was a long pause; then, “Most of the night.”

“Why didn’t you come to bed?” And then, even as she said it, she realized what a foolish question it was. She slid over a little and patted the bed beside her. “Come sit with me.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then he came over and sat down. She reached out in the darkness and found his hand. He took a quick breath, then let it out again. She felt the tension in him, but at the same time she also felt in herself a great burst of elation. She squeezed his hand. “I’m listening, Joshua.”

He began slowly. Surprisingly, he didn’t start with Jessica. He started with his family. And gradually it all came out. Sometimes it was in a rush of words, punctuated with anger and disgust. Sometimes he stammered, his voice heavy with shame. Much of the time he spoke quietly, without outward emotion.

He didn’t say much about the specifics of his family—his brothers and sisters and so on. That was not his purpose. But the other all came out—the relationship between a stubborn father and a proud, rebellious son; the terrible rainy night when he had come within a hair’s breadth of killing his father; the flight into oblivion; working the great keelboats up and down the Ohio; coming to Independence and starting the freight business; Jessica; the poker games.

It took more out of Caroline than she had expected. When he talked about his obsession with Lydia McBride, she was surprised at how sharply the jealousy rose inside her. She felt strangely proud of her own ability to bear children when he spoke of Jessica’s miscarriages and what they had done to their marriage. And she felt herself recoil in horror as he told of those final days with Jessica.

He spared himself no details. He made no attempt to soften his role in what happened. She had asked to see it all, that he hold nothing back. Evidently in the night hours he had decided to give her what she asked for. But many of the things he told her about filled her with revulsion and a great sense of abhorrence. It was all she could do to stop from jerking her hand away and screaming at him to get away from her, to stay back and never touch her again.

But then something else began to stir in her. Joshua was not a warm and emotional man. He was a very private person, locking up his feelings behind stoic masculinity. As he talked on, however, she began to feel the depths of his pain, the power of his remorse, what it had cost him to tell her all of this. And she was strangely touched.

He stopped. The room was filled with the heaviness of the silence. She didn’t want to respond, not now. She wanted time to think, to choose her words with great care. But she knew he was waiting. He had laid himself bare, left himself terribly vulnerable. Now he needed to know if it had been for nothing. When she didn’t say anything for a moment, he started to withdraw his hand. She held on, locking her fingers around his tightly. 

He took another breath, then very slowly he finally turned to her. “Caroline, I can’t go back and change the past. I’d have done it a thousand times if that was possible.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“If you—” He took a quick breath. “If you decide you can’t live with what I’ve done, I’ll understand.”

That required an answer, and she was at a loss for words. Could she live with those horrible images in her mind? Would they rise up to haunt her every time he reached out and touched her? She pulled his hand to her and took it with both of hers now. “Joshua,” she began, slowly, realizing how important these next few moments could be for them. “I am glad that you have told me. I will be honest with you. What you have done fills me with horror. It’s like we have been talking about another man, a man called Joshua Steed whom I’ve never met, never seen.”

“And whom you won’t see ever again,” he said with great fervency.

She nodded. “I want to believe that. I want to believe that very badly. If I couldn’t . . .” She didn’t finish.

She took a deep breath, then let it out in a long, soft sigh. “I don’t know if I can ever put these terrible images from my mind, Joshua. I don’t know if I can promise you that nothing will change in our relationship.” He started to speak, but she went on quickly. “But now it’s out and we can deal with it. And that is less terrifying than not knowing, not having you fully.”

She pulled him down to lie beside her. “You must be exhausted.”

He nodded, not looking at her. She could feel his body, through the covers, still rigid and filled with tension. She reached out and laid one hand on his face, then gently turned it until he was looking at her. “Thank you for coming up, Joshua. I was afraid I had lost, that you weren’t ever going to tell me.”

One hand came up and he laid it over hers, keeping it on his face. “Caroline, I have . . .” This still wasn’t easy for him. “I love you and the children.”

“I know,” she said. And then it hit her with sudden clarity. That was true! There was no question about that. She knew that Joshua Steed loved her more deeply and cared for her more deeply than Donovan Mendenhall had, and that had been a great deal. And Joshua loved her children intensely. She felt a great sense of wonder and gratitude. And a sudden hope.

“If I ever lose you,” he started, his voice deep and husky, “I—”

She moved her hand down across his face, putting her fingers over his lips and stopping him. “You’re not going to lose me,” she whispered. She took his hands and brought them over to her stomach, let him feel the roundness beneath the covers. “This child needs a father.” Her voice caught. “I want that father to be you.”