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I thread my fingers through his. “No. I’m glad.”
Catherine’s eyes widen as our hands link, but she doesn’t say anything, instead turning on her heel and leading us upstairs with her back rigid and eyes straight ahead.
My legs are heavy, and if it weren’t for John beside me I don’t know that I could make it. Catherine cracks open the door, and we all peer inside, breaths held.
Father doesn’t get up when we come in, his back to us, hunched over the bed. “It’s a miracle,” he whispers, tears choking his words. “My God, it’s a miracle.” Slowly, he turns to us. Dark bags line his eyes, his thinning black hair greasy and unkempt, but he’s smiling. I’ve never seen my father smile so broadly, so honestly. “The fever is broken.”
And that’s when he moves to the side and we see her: Mother, propped up on her pillows, her eyes drowsy but open, her color pale but no longer splotchy with fever.
Everything else is forgotten. Catherine and I fly to either side of the bed, burying our heads in her neck, kissing her and smoothing her hair. All the little things I never thought I’d do again. All the things that I feared would be robbed from me forever.
A smile curves her thin lips. “My darling girls,” she murmurs.
Delirium washes through me, a sensation so alien that I hardly know what to do with myself. Mother’s still here. She’s still here and the fever has broken. Was it the herbs? The desperate pleas and wishes I cried into the tisane? Mother’s quiet fortitude winning out over the illness? Or was it simple luck? It doesn’t matter. I take up her hand in my own, pressing it against my cheek.
“Careful,” Father warns, hovering over us. “She’s still weak.”
I’ve never seen Father so concerned, so...so present, and I find myself unable to do anything other than nod, and slowly get up with Catherine.
There will be time later, Mother’s eyes seem to assure me.
Reluctantly, I throw one last glance over my shoulder as John gently guides me from the room. Oh, how I pray she is right.
* * *
Time slows down to nothing. A day passes, I think, maybe it’s two. Catherine and I take turns sitting with Mother, making sure that she has everything she needs, watching out the sides of our eyes with cautious optimism as she continues to grow stronger and stronger. John comes and goes under the pretense of stopping on his way to town, but I see him bringing Ada baskets of food so that she won’t have to brave the snow to go to the market, and in the early morning hours I hear him outside helping Joe bring in firewood.
I stand at the window, watching a scarlet cardinal and his drab mate as they flit among the naked winter branches. Every time that I hear a noise upstairs, I jump, ready to fly to Mother’s bedside and find that she’s relapsed into fever. Mary Preston said that if Mother somehow recovered it would be because of her will and nature’s course. But how can I be certain that she won’t relapse? What if Mother’s will fades after all, or nature’s course takes a cruel turn? We should bring her somewhere warmer, somewhere with better doctors and all the conveniences of a city that she might need.
“Lydia.” John comes up behind me at the window where I’m chewing my nails ragged. He gently lowers my hands. “Whatever you’re worrying about, stop it. If anything needs to be done, I’ll take care of it.”
My first reaction is to shrug him off, to insist that I can manage myself. But his warm hand hovering at my waist reminds me that I don’t have to anymore. I give him a weak smile. “I don’t know what we ever did to deserve you.”
John pushes my hair behind my ear, then lets his hand linger along the line of my jaw. His gaze warms me to my core, temporarily banishing the dark clouds of the last few months. “Oh,” he says with a glimmer in his eye, “you didn’t think my services came free of charge, did you? My bill will be arriving at the end of the month. Cash would be preferable but I suppose I could make do with services rendered.”
My smile spreads. “Oh? And what kind of services would be acceptable?”
He tilts his head to the side in consideration, then meets my eye with a wicked grin. “A gentleman doesn’t like to say.”
I can’t stop the giggle that bubbles up in my throat, but just as fast I push it down again. Mother is upstairs, still ill. How can I laugh right now?
John catches my chin in his hand. “Did you know, you have the most charming little dimple when you smile?” He touches one finger to my cheek. “Right here.”
“Mother used to say that’s how she knew when I wanted something. My dimple would come out.” My voice catches on that tender word, and without saying anything, John pulls me into his embrace.
His arms tighten around me and I close my heavy eyelids. How good it feels to lean into him, to not have to say anything, to know that he shares the dizzying waves of concern and joy that crash over me in turn.
The door slams in the front hall, followed by raised voices. I stiffen in John’s embrace, and a moment later I find out just how far and fast my heart can drop.
Cyrus stands in the doorway, Ada skidding to a halt behind him. “He wouldn’t wait, miss! I tried to stop him—”
Cyrus’s eyes are bloodshot and he sways on his feet as he barrels into the room, bumping into a table and nearly knocking off a vase. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees John and me. “Jesus have mercy.”
I feel like a guilty child, caught sneaking sweets from the kitchen. But John’s grip on my waist only tightens when I move to take a step back.
“Well this is a fine welcome for your betrothed,” Cyrus slurs. “Made the bloody journey in the snow all the way from Boston to find you in the arms of... Who is this fellow anyway? Knowing the Montrose family it’s probably some long lost brother.” I shrink away from his leering face. He looks to Ada with a sloppy grin and she steps back.
“Cyrus—” I start, but John swiftly moves me behind him with a firm hand.