Smoke River Family

“Up all night,” Sam murmured. “Babies come slow.” He moved the coffee cup away from the doctor’s hand and tiptoed into the kitchen.

Winifred stared at Nathaniel Dougherty. She could not tell him what she had come all the way from St. Louis to say. Not while he was this tired.

In a few moments, Sam slid a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her, motioned for her to eat, then laid one long finger across his lips to signal silence. She nodded, picked up her fork and quietly devoured the perfectly cooked eggs.

She studied the plate of toast at her elbow and lifted a slice to her mouth but could not bring herself to take a single bite. The crunching sound might wake him.

He slept on, his breathing guttural, his chest rising and falling. Winifred drank her coffee in silence and watched him. Her throat felt tight each time she swallowed.

A faint wail floated from the floor above and suddenly the doctor jerked awake and bolted for the stairway.

Sam shot into the dining room and shook his head at the empty chair. “I feed baby. Doctor must sleep.” On silent black slippers he padded up the stairs after the doctor.

Winifred couldn’t help smiling at the houseboy’s retreating back. Sam was obviously devoted to Dr. Dougherty. Perhaps he had also been devoted to Cissy. As for the doctor...

Well, she had to admit she had been prepared not to like Nathaniel Dougherty. But since breakfast, a tiny niggle of doubt had lodged in her brain.

“Missy like read book?”

Sam’s voice brought her bolt upright, and her coffee cup clanked onto the saucer.

The houseboy’s black eyes snapped with delight. “Baby sleep. Doctor sleep. Maybe you read book? We have library.”

“Why, yes.” She needed something to do with herself until she could speak with Rosemarie’s father. A book was just the answer.

“You come see book room,” Sam invited. “Fine books. You come. Bring coffee.”

Winifred followed him through the wide entry hall and past a set of sliding pocket doors into a large parlor lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Sam swept one arm in an expansive circle. “Here many fine books. You choose.”

But she had spied the dark cherrywood grand piano in the corner and her breath stopped. Cissy’s piano! She had forgotten how beautiful the instrument was, the wood polished to a gleaming burgundy color, the upholstered bench carved to match the ornate piano legs. It looked untouched, as if Cissy had just finished playing and left the room only a moment before. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Doctor’s favorite books here, lady’s books there.” Sam pointed to the shelf behind the piano.

Cissy’s music books. Mostly familiar worn volumes—Brahms. Mozart. Beethoven. The corners of some pages were turned down. The ache in her heart flared into rage. How could she? How had she dared?

Winifred set the cup and saucer on a side table and began to thumb through the Brahms as Sam glided away. Yes, the waltzes, the intermezzos they both loved, all arranged for four hands.

Abruptly she slapped the volume shut. Oh, Cissy. Cissy.

She couldn’t look at the music any longer. Instead she moved to the doctor’s book collection and ran her hand over the leather-bound volumes. She selected a volume of Wordsworth. Next to it, Milton’s Paradise Lost caught her eye. “How prophetic,” she murmured. A stab of bitterness knifed through her.

We had it all, Cissy, everything we had dreamed of. And you threw it away for this man. Why?

She fled into the hallway. “Sam?” she called. “I am going out for a walk.”

She heard no answer, but it didn’t matter. She opened the front door and the heat hit her like a fist. Just as she was about to give up the idea, Sam appeared with a wide-brimmed straw hat in one hand. Cissy’s hat. A wide pink ribbon banded the crown, and her heart caught. Winifred never wore pink. The Chinese man offered it without a word.

She tied it beneath her chin and stepped out onto the porch, then resolutely marched down the front steps, past the hospital and on down the tree-lined street toward town.

It wasn’t much of a main street. A single mercantile with bushel baskets of apples and squash out in front; the Smoke River sheriff’s office; a scruffy-looking barber shop; Uncle Charlie’s bakery, with a large, many-paned window through which she glimpsed a glass case of cakes and cookies.

Next door to the bakery hung a sign with large block letters printed in royal blue: Verena Forester, Dressmaker. A handsome challis morning dress was displayed in the window, and she hesitated. But no. She did not plan to be here long enough to warrant adding to her wardrobe.

By the time she reached the Smoke River Hotel, she was wilting and dizzy from the heat. A young man with a silver badge on his plaid shirt glanced at her as she passed, then doubled back and fell into step beside her.

“You all right, ma’am? Look kinda, well, peaked. I thought maybe you’d—”

“I am quite all right. Just a bit... Is it always this hot here in the summer?”

“Usually much worse. Oh, ’scuse me, ma’am.” He tipped his hat. “I’m Sandy Boggs, the deputy sheriff. Sheriff’s at the hospital with his wife. Had twins this morning. Kin I escort you some place?”

She nodded. “A place with cold lemonade, perhaps?”

“That’d be right here, ma’am. Restaurant’s next to the hotel.” He tipped his hat again and strode off down the street.

Inside the restaurant Winifred sank down at a table and fanned herself with Cissy’s hat. Without even asking, the waitress brought a large glass of cold water and plunked it at her elbow.

“Must be from somewheres else, I’d guess,” the plump woman said. “Otherwise you’d be used to it. The heat, I mean.”

“St. Louis,” Winifred volunteered. “Would you have any lemonade?”

“Got gallons of it, ma’am. ’Spect we’ll need to make another batch or two before noon. Never been this hot in August.” The woman whipped a pad and pencil from her checked apron pocket. “You want anything else?”

Oh, yes. She wanted a great deal. “No, thank you. Wait! Where is the cemetery?”

“The graveyard, ya mean? Top of the hill.” She gestured a thick arm in the opposite direction from the doctor’s house.

Winifred drank two glasses of excellent cold lemonade, then donned her hat and started up the other hill. Thank goodness she hadn’t laced her corset tight this morning. She didn’t fancy fainting twice in Dr. Dougherty’s entrance hall.

At the top of the rise she spied a neatly fenced area with leafy green trees and chiseled headstones. A spreading oak shaded the area, and she sank down on the thick grass beneath it to catch her breath.

At the sight of the mound of fresh dirt indicating a recent burial, she closed her eyes tight and began to cry. She thought she would be over these bouts of weeping she’d fought this past month; perhaps she would never get over Cissy’s death.

Maybe not, but now there was Rosemarie. And, she acknowledged, swiping tears off her cheeks, Rosemarie was the reason she had come.

Chapter Three

A handful of yellow roses lay on top of Cissy’s grave. Winifred’s heart squeezed at the sight. Dr. Dougherty must have paid an early morning visit after delivering the sheriff’s twins. She swallowed a hiccupped sob. Even in death, her sister was fortunate.

She still resented Nathaniel Dougherty’s sweeping Cissy off to this rough, uncivilized place, but a small part of her ached at the man’s obvious sorrow. She knew how devastating it was to lose someone you loved; it must be doubly so if you had pledged to share your life with that person.

She sank down beside the grave site and struggled to compose her thoughts. You knew I would come, didn’t you, Cissy? Was your husband so crushed by your loss that he could not tell me of your death until after the funeral?

She yanked up shoots of the green grass poking up from the earth beside her and crushed them in her palm. I would have come, Cissy. You know I would.

She removed the straw hat and bowed her head. The angle of the sun shifted and she felt its rays warm her shoulders and then burn slowly through the light muslin shirtwaist she wore. She did not care. She rolled the sleeves up to her elbows and stayed where she was beside her sister’s grave.

She tried to stop feeling, stop thinking. Instead, she steadily shredded the grass under her hand and stared at those yellow roses. They were beginning to wilt in the sunshine.

Suddenly a chill swept through her. How strange loss could be. When Mama was killed, Papa straightened his shoulders and went back to his desk at the bank. He had provided for Cissy and herself, sent them to private schools and later to the music conservatory. They had maids and cooks and tutors, but the hole in their hearts yawned like a chasm. Papa bore it best. He never wept, as she and Cissy had.

Remembering those black days, she turned her face up to the sun and lost track of time.

* * *

“Ah, glad you back, missy. Doctor go see boy who have chicken spots.”

“You mean chicken pox?”

“Ah. ‘Pox,’” he pronounced carefully. “Learn new English word. Make stew for your supper. Tonight I play fan-tan with friend Ming Cha. You stay here with baby?”

“Me? But I know noth—”

“Not hard, missy. I show.”

Sam demonstrated how to heat the nippled bottle of milk and sprinkle some on her wrist to check the temperature, and then, with a wide grin that showed his elusive dimple, he was gone.

Oh, well. How hard could it be to feed a month-old baby?

Besides, she must learn these things if she wanted to bring her plan to fruition.

She dawdled over her stew and the fluffy dumpling Sam had added, listening for Rosemarie’s hungry cry from upstairs and praying desperately for the doctor’s return.

But Dr. Dougherty did not return. When Rosemarie’s faint wail rose, Winifred heated the milk as Sam had shown her and flew up the stairs to feed her precious niece. By the time she opened the door to the doctor’s bedroom where the baby lay in the ruffled wicker bassinet, Rosemarie had worked up to quite a lusty yell.

“There, there, little one,” Winifred crooned. She set the warmed milk on the book-cluttered nightstand and lifted the child into her arms. A sopping wet diaper plastered itself against the front of her shirtwaist and instantly she held the baby away from her. Oh, dear. She would have to exchange the wet garment for a dry one; but how, exactly, did one accomplish this? Sam had left no instructions concerning wet diapers.

She riffled through the handsome walnut chest of drawers until she found clean diapers, then laid Rosemarie on the doctor’s bed and studied how the safety pins were arranged. Rosemarie screamed and grew red in the face, and Winifred began to perspire.

She unpinned the soaked garment, prodded the ceramic chamber pot out from under the bassinet with her foot and dropped in the diaper. It landed with a splat and Winifred heaved a sigh of relief. Then she pinned the dry garment onto the now-squirming infant, praying she would not prick the soft skin. Then she stuck the rubber nipple into Rosemarie’s open mouth.

Instant silence. Thank the Lord! The blue-green eyes popped open and gazed into Winifred’s face as the level of milk in the bottle steadily diminished. The baby sucked greedily while she hovered over her, mesmerized by the whole process. Perhaps it wasn’t that difficult to care for an infant.

Long before the bottle was empty, Rosemarie fell asleep. Winifred cuddled her against one shoulder and settled into the rocking chair by the window. Not difficult at all, she mused. In fact, she felt exactly like she did after a successful concert—tired and proud and happy.

* * *

Zane stepped quietly into his bedroom and stopped short. Winifred sat in the rocker, asleep, with a slumbering Rosemarie nestled against her shoulder. Very gently he lifted his daughter into his arms, felt her diaper—dry—and laid her in the bassinet beside his bed. Then he stood staring down at Celeste’s sister.

How different this woman was from his wife. Celeste had been petite, golden-blonde and frail-looking. Winifred had dark hair. And whereas Celeste had been slim to the point of boyishness, Winifred’s breasts under the white shirtwaist were lushly curved.

She slept quietly, her breath pulling softly in and out without a hint of the asthma that had plagued Celeste in the summer months. His wife had been pretty, extremely pretty; but Winifred’s bone structure approached real beauty. He could not help wondering how far the differences between the two sisters went. Was Winifred—? He caught himself. He wouldn’t allow his mind to go there. He recognized that he was desperately unhappy. Lonely. Hungry, even. Not for physical release but for emotional comfort. And, yes, he supposed, some plain old body hunger was involved. It amazed him that his spirit could feel so broken and his physical self could still feel normal. Or almost normal.

Since Celeste’s death he hadn’t felt a twinge of interest in food or riding or swimming or reading or any of the things that had sustained him through the long, dry months of her pregnancy. He supposed he would come back to life eventually; for the time being, it was a blessing to feel nothing.

He reached out and touched Winifred’s wrist and she jerked upright with a little cry. “Oh, it’s you.”

Zane surprised himself with a chuckle. “Who were you expecting?”

She surged out of the rocker. “The baby! Where is—?”

“Sleeping,” Zane replied.

She took a single step forward and her knees gave way. Zane snagged one arm around her shoulder to steady her. “Easy, there. Foot go to sleep?”

“What? Oh, no, I...” She swerved toward the bassinet. “I feel somewhat unsteady, and my head is pounding like it does when I have a migraine.”

Zane tightened his grip and steered her through the doorway and down the short hallway to the guest bedroom. Her skin was hot. Even through the shirtwaist he could feel she was over-warm. He shot a glance to her flushed face.

“Winifred, undress and get into bed. I’ll bring up something to cool you down.”

When he returned, she was stretched out under the top sheet, her eyes shut. “What’s wrong with me? Am I ill?”

“You’re sun-sick. Got a bad sunburn on your face and arms. Here, drink this.” He leaned over, slipped his arm behind her to raise her shoulders and held a glass to her lips.

“What is it?”

“Water, mostly. You’re dehydrated. What did you do today to get this sunburned?”

She sipped obligingly, then grasped the glass with both hands and gulped down four huge swallows. “I went to visit Cissy’s grave. I must have sat there for longer than I thought.”

Zane said nothing. Her next statement drove the breath from his lungs.

“I saw your roses. It was a lovely gesture.”

“What roses?”

“The yellow ones you left on her grave.”

“But I did not—”

Even in the semidarkness he could see her eyes widen. She finished the water. “Then who did?”

He set the glass aside and slid her shoulders down onto the pillow. “I have something for your sunburn.” Carefully he unrolled the three napkins he’d soaked in water and witch hazel; one he laid directly over her face and with the other two he wrapped her forearms. “I’m afraid you’re going to hurt some tomorrow. Your skin is pretty badly burned.”

“It was worth it,” she said on a sigh. “I said goodbye to Cissy.”

Zane flinched. He still couldn’t face seeing Celeste’s grave. Maybe he never would.

“Nathan—”

“Zane,” he corrected. “It’s been Zane ever since I was ten years old and my baby sister couldn’t say ‘Nathaniel.’”

“Zane, then. If you didn’t leave the roses, then who did?”

“Damned if I know,” he muttered.

“You haven’t visited her grave, have you?” Even muffled under the wet napkin, her voice sounded accusing.

“No, I have not.”

“Why?”

He lifted the cloth from one of her slim forearms and swung it in the air, then settled it again. “I don’t know why. Well, yes, I do know.”

He swung the other napkin to cool it. “I— As long as I don’t see her grave, she’s not really gone.”

Winifred pulled the cloth from her face and stared up at him. “But you saw her buried!”

Zane took the napkin from her hand and turned away to flap it in the air. “Yes, I know that I was there, or at least my body was there. Much of it I don’t remember.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “I felt that way when our mother died. Cissy was probably too young to remember much, but for years afterward it was as if I had dreamed it, the funeral, and Papa weeping. There are still parts I don’t recall clearly.”

Zane folded the cooled cloth and laid it across her forehead. Her hair was loose, he noted, spread out on the pillow in a tumble of dark waves. It smelled faintly of cloves. Carnations, he guessed. Celeste’s hair had smelled like some kind of mousse.

“Nath—Zane—you must visit Cissy’s grave. I think it would help.”

He choked back a harsh laugh. Help? Nothing would help. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“No,” he said at last.

She held his gaze, the blue-green eyes he knew so well unblinking. Celeste had never challenged him like this. He found he didn’t like it.

“No,” he said again. “You have more guts than I do, Winifred. And while I take exception to your bluntness, I envy you your courage.”

By the time Winifred had thought up a proper retort, she heard the door to her bedroom close behind him.

* * *

In the morning, Winifred found the skin of her face and arms stiff and so parched her cheeks and arms stung. And her nose... She could not bear to look at it in the mirror over the yellow-painted chest in the bedroom. Gingerly she drew on a soft paisley skirt and shirtwaist, braided her hair and descended the stairs. She’d overslept. And, oh, how she needed a cup of Sam’s coffee!

But Sam was not in the kitchen. And the saucepan she’d used to heat the baby’s bottle still sat on the stove.

The back door swung open and Zane tramped in, a load of firewood stacked along one arm. “Morning,” he said. “Sam’s not going to be with us for a few more hours.”

“It isn’t chicken pox, is it?”

“Hardly. Too much hard cider at Uncle Charlie’s last night.” He dumped the wood into the wood box and bent to stir up the coals in the stove. “I’ll make the coffee this morning.”

The doorbell clanged.

“Damn that thing.” Zane clunked a hefty piece of oak into the firebox and went to answer it.

Voices drifted from the entrance hall, a man’s deep baritone and a child’s trilling chatter. Winifred laid out plates and silverware on the dining table and tried not to listen.

“How’d she get up into the tree, Colonel?” Zane’s voice.

“How does she get anywhere, Doc? She climbs or crawls. Some days I think she can fly.”

She heard Zane’s chuckle, then, “All right, Miss Manette, let’s have a look at your arm.”

“It hurts,” the child said.

“I bet it does. Nevertheless, let me feel along the bone and see if you can make a fist. Ah, good. What were you doing up in the apple tree, hmm?”

“Looking for worms.”

“Worms? Anyone ever tell you there’s plenty of worms in the ground?”

“Not the right kind of worms,” the girl insisted.

“Colonel, did she hit her head when she fell?”

“Don’t know. Knocked the wind out of her, though,” the man said.

“Might have a concussion,” Zane said quietly. “Manette, does your head hurt?”

Silence. Apparently she was shaking her head.

“Now I want you to watch my finger.”

More silence. Winifred set two cups down on the china saucers, taking care not to make any noise.

“Now, you look right into my eyes, all right?” Zane again.

“Your eyes are all shiny, Dr. Dee. And they’re gray, just like Maman’s.”

“So they are. My mama’s eyes were gray, too. Give me your wrist, now. That’s it. No, don’t jerk it away. I want to feel your pulse.”

“What’s a pulse?”

“A pulse is your heart beating. It goes tha-lump, tha-lump. Here, you can feel mine.”

“Yours is real loud!” Manette exclaimed.

“And yours is as normal as apple pie,” Zane said.

Winifred had to smile. Zane was wonderful with the child.

“She’s just fine, Colonel,” Zane said. “Try to keep her out of the orchard from now on.”

“Thanks, Zane. Jeanne will be in town tomorrow with a blackberry pie for you.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Zane protested.

The man laughed. “Jeanne will never believe that.”

The front door shut and Zane reappeared in the kitchen. “Spirited little tyke,” he said with a smile. “Likes bugs and worms and everything else that crawls. Drives her father wild.”

“And her mother?”

“Jeanne’s used to it. Mothers get that way after a while. I know mine did.”

“Did you like bugs?”

“No. I liked horses and swimming. And books.” He grabbed the coffeepot. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“What about your baby sister? Did she like bugs?”

Zane looked purposefully at the handle of the coffeepot, then stared past her shoulder out the kitchen window. “Maggie died when she was five. Scarlet fever. That’s when I decided to become a doctor.”

Winifred could have bitten off her tongue. To lighten the pall that had fallen, she opened her mouth and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I will scramble you some eggs this morning.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “You can cook?”

“Well, not much. Growing up, we always had a cook. But I wager that eggs are easy to scramble.”

“Celeste couldn’t cook a damn thing,” he said quietly. And then he smiled.

It was the first real smile she’d ever seen on his face. For some reason it made her so happy she wanted to do something extra nice. Sam seemed to scramble eggs with no apparent effort; they must be easy to fix. She decided to make lots of them.

While Zane made coffee, Winifred found an iron frying pan and four eggs. She shooed Zane out of the kitchen and set to work. She heated the pan over the hottest part of the stove, cracked all four eggs into it at once and smashed them together with a fork.

They congealed instantly into rubbery globs that looked nothing like the creamy golden eggs Sam had set before her.

Apprehensively she scooped the mess out onto Zane’s plate and set it before him. He sat looking at it for a long minute, gulped a swallow of coffee and looked up into her eyes.

“You can’t cook a damn thing, either, can you?” he said softly.

And then he smiled again.

Chapter Four

Zane didn’t want to hurt Winifred’s feelings about the plate of hard, dry scrambled eggs she’d served him. But when Sam staggered into the kitchen full of apologies for sleeping late, Zane left him in charge of Rosemarie and walked down to make hospital rounds, check on Sarah Rose’s grandson and his chicken pox, then ended up, as he’d planned, at the Smoke River Hotel dining room.

“Scrambled eggs, please, Rita.”

“Sure, Doc. Just come from the hospital, didja? How’s the sheriff’s new twins?”

“Maddie and the babies are doing well. Can’t say the same for the sheriff, though. Seems he’s been at the hospital the last twenty-four hours. Can’t seem to take his eyes off his twin sons.”

A wide grin split the waitress’s round face. “Don’t blame him, Doc. Our Johnny’s never been a father before. New babies take some gettin’ used to.”

A plate of perfectly scrambled eggs appeared within minutes, and after he doused them liberally with catsup, he dug in. Rita hung at his elbow with the coffeepot.

“Guess you heard Johnny’s been studyin’ those law books Miss Maddie gave him. Gonna run for judge next election.”

“When will that be?” Zane bit a half circle into his toast. Jericho Silver—Johnny, as Rita called him—was a good man. Honest. Intelligent. Hardworking. He’d make an excellent judge.