Page 14

Chicago

They marked off each day on a desk diary, like prisoners counting down their sentences: Emily waiting to be freed of her promise to Annie, Annie waiting to be freed of the physical demands of her pregnancy.

By the turn of the year, as winter held the city in its icy grip, the end was in sight.

But as Emily left for work, rushing because she was late as usual, she slipped on a patch of black ice and fell awkwardly down the front steps.

The pain was so sharp and intense it took her breath away.

She felt dizzy and nauseated, her vision blurring as a heavily pregnant Annie appeared at the top of the steps, about to rush to Emily’s assistance.

“No, Annie! Ice.” She managed to get the words out before a blackness descended and she passed out.

“Six weeks’ rest” was the doctor’s prognosis when she came round on Annie’s chaise.

“Ligament damage to your ankle. You need to keep your foot elevated as much as possible. Time and rest are what you need now. And salt for those steps. You’re lucky it was you who took the tumble, and not your sister. ”

Annie’s face was as pale as Emily’s. “It doesn’t bear thinking about, Doctor.”

Time dragged ever more slowly.

The following week, Henry wrote to say he’d secured the plot and was gathering timber for the house.

Emily read his note to Annie. “?‘It’s a real beauty, Em. Plenty of water from an underground spring, and fertile prairie as far as you can see. I’m helping out on a farm just outside Liberal, a town close to the Oklahoma state line.

Beyond that, Texas and the settler towns of Dalhart and Amarillo.

I’m being paid in lumber and have a good stack already to build our home when the weather improves.

The snowstorms here are like nothing I’ve ever seen!

I miss you. I hope all is going well with Annie.

’?” Emily’s heart ached as much as her ankle.

She longed to be with Henry. Every day that she wasn’t left her feeling increasingly resentful toward Annie.

“It sounds like an awful lot of hard work,” Annie said.

Emily smiled. “Henry will be in his element. It’s what he’s always wanted—hard physical work.”

“Yes, but it isn’t what you’ve always wanted, is it?

” Annie closed the book she was half reading.

“I’m sorry, but I still think you’re making a huge mistake, Emily.

You hate the cold. You’ll be miserable in the winters.

” Her face softened a little as she reached for Emily’s hand.

“Write to Henry. Tell him you’ve changed your mind, before it’s too late. He’ll understand.”

“But I haven’t changed my mind, Annie. As soon as your baby arrives, I’m going to Kansas.”

They’d reached a fork in the road, pulled in different directions. Emily wondered if they would ever travel the same path again.

A dull cramp in her stomach and a throbbing ache in her ankle sent her to bed early with a hot water bottle.

—

Emily woke just after midnight. Excruciating cramps in her stomach took her breath away as she felt a rush of warmth between her legs. She turned on the lamp and pulled back the bedsheets. Her cries brought Annie rushing to her.

It was all over by the time the doctor arrived.

There was nothing she could have done, he said. One of life’s unfathomable mysteries. Nature’s way. There would be others, he said.

“Did you know?” Annie asked as she sat with Emily.

Emily shook her head. “Not for definite. I’d missed a couple of periods but thought I was just late. There were no other indications. Nothing at all.”

How could she not have known? Women talked about instinct and signs all the time. A feeling, a hunch, in tune with their bodies. She’d been oblivious. Now, she was numb.

The bedsheets were washed, the mattress scrubbed and turned, sweet tea administered for the shock.

Within an hour, every physical trace of the child Emily hadn’t known she was carrying had been erased.

And yet it lingered in the aftershocks that came in deep waves as she curled her knees to her chest and held herself tight.

When she eventually slept, she dreamed of a little girl carried aloft on Henry’s shoulders, both of them laughing as he walked through a field of corn bathed in gold.

She woke at first light and lay perfectly still. She felt lifeless. Colorless. Empty. She was the still air at the center of a cyclone, destructive winds whirling around her. She was neither a mother nor childless, forever suspended in some twilight place.

Another month passed.

Emily’s ankle healed, the cramps stopped, but the crack in her heart remained.