The nature of fragile th.., p.5
The Nature of Fragile Things, page 5
“Then what is wrong?”
He is looking at me with those eyes that still nearly take my breath away.
“Your supper is cold.”
“It’s easy enough to warm up, isn’t it?”
I stand to take our plates. Martin bends down to retrieve a newspaper from the satchel he placed by his chair leg.
Martin works as he eats, and I wonder if this is how he was with Candace the night before he left for a spell on the road, absorbed in his preparations. How did Candace sit through a meal like this one with their daughter already in bed and the scraping of tines on plates, the scratching of Martin’s pencil, and the rustling of a newspaper being the only sounds at the dinner table?
After five minutes of watching him work and eat, I break the silence.
“The pork tastes good, I trust?”
He looks up briefly, chewing a bite. “It does.”
His tone is sincere, but the next second he is back to his work.
I hesitate only a moment. “May I ask you a question?”
“What is it?”
“It’s about Candace. If you don’t mind.”
I thought he might glance up at the mention of his first wife’s name, but he does not. “Yes?”
“Was it . . . was it hard for her when you were out on the road so much? Was this kind of life one that she got used to rather quickly?”
He looks up. “This wasn’t the kind of life we had.”
“No?”
“I didn’t work for an insurance company in Los Angeles. I worked at a riding club.”
“A riding club? Do you mean . . . with horses?”
His gaze is back on his work. “Yes.”
He doesn’t seem the barnyard type. Not at all. “Were you raised around horses?”
Martin answers without looking at me. “No. I worked as a ranch hand in Colorado when I was younger. I met a man while I was traveling west who saw I needed someone to teach me a skill. I stayed at his ranch for a few years, learning to ride and care for horses, break them, and herd cattle with them.”
“Oh. And then . . . then how did you come to California?”
“When that man died, he left me a little money in his will, and I decided to come out to the West Coast. I got a job at a riding club in Los Angeles where highbrow families send their daughters to learn to ride.”
“And that’s where you met Candace.”
“Yes.”
“But then how did you switch to working for a life insurance company?”
He pauses and I wonder if he is annoyed I am asking so many questions. But then he answers me. “One of the men who brought his children to the club for lessons sold insurance. He liked to talk, especially when he was doing well at his job. I knew I didn’t want to work in a stable the rest of my life, so I listened.”
“And now you sell insurance, too?”
“I assess risk for potential clients.”
“Oh.”
“I must get back to work here.”
We eat the rest of our supper in silence.
When Martin is finished, he stands and thanks me for the meal. “Good night.” He gathers his papers and leaves the room.
I watch him cross the foyer, enter the library, and close the door. I catch the merest whiff of women’s cologne on him as he walks past me. It is so faint I question whether I detected it at all after he is gone.
* * *
• • •
I awaken the next day before daybreak. While the house is still quiet, I dress and make my way downstairs. I find it easier to strike the match and put my hand inside the stove to light it. I prepare the coffee and set about making cinnamon scones. As I’m rolling out the dough, I’m joined by Kat, inexplicably dressed in her old, too-tight pink dress. She quietly helps me cut the dough into triangles and then place them onto a baking sheet. I soft-boil some eggs and fry a rasher of bacon. I ask Kat if she’d like to set the small table there in the kitchen by the back garden window, and she does so without a word.
I am just pulling the baking tray out of the oven a few minutes before seven when Martin appears in the kitchen, shaved, dressed, and clearly ready to be off. He is wearing a heather gray suit that he looks particularly striking in.
Martin sets down his satchel, grabs a coffee cup, and reaches for the drip pot.
“You have time to eat something before you go, don’t you?” I ask.
“You can wrap up one of your biscuits for me.” He takes a gulp of coffee.
“They are scones, and if that’s all you want, I can do that.”
“I need to be on my way.” He sets his cup down and reaches into his suit pocket, pulling out a few dollar bills. He places them on the countertop. “Here’s some money if you need anything while I am gone.”
Martin takes another swallow of coffee.
“I’m off,” he says. “It will take a little while to get to the automobile and then out of the city. Even on a Sunday.”
I follow him into the foyer and Kat trails behind me. “And if I should need to reach you, is there an office or person I should ring up who will know where you are?”
He is shrugging on his coat. “We don’t check in with the office when we’re out.”
“But what if something should happen?”
“Like what?”
I blink back my surprise. “What if . . . what if Kat should get sick or the house catches fire or I fall and break my leg?”
Martin smiles easily. “I am confident in your abilities to see to any circumstance, Sophie. And what could I do from miles away if any of those events should occur?” He turns to get his hat off its hook on the hall tree, setting it on his head as he reaches for a packed valise on the floor. “I should be home in four days, maybe five. Be a good girl, Kat.”
He doesn’t seem to notice Kat is wearing one of her old dresses, or he doesn’t care. Or maybe he believes I am better suited to getting Kat to relinquish the dress and therefore it is better if he says nothing.
Martin turns to me. If we were a normal husband and wife, he’d lean in at this moment to kiss me good-bye. But we are not a normal husband and wife.
He looks eager to go, as though he is about to embark on an adventure that he is keen to begin. Perhaps this is another way he deals with his losses: by looking to the open road and the beckoning horizon as an escape from the reminders of all that has been taken from him.
“Have a good trip,” I tell him.
Martin opens the front door and steps out into the cool mist of a quiet Sunday morning.
6
March 30, 1905
Dearest Mam,
You’re surely wondering about the return address on the envelope that brought this letter to you. I have married a man who lives in San Francisco. His name is Martin Hocking and he’s the one pictured with me in the enclosed photograph. Martin is a widower with a little girl named Katharine. She’s five years old and we call her Kat. I hope to send a photograph of her to you sometime soon.
It truly doesn’t matter how I met Martin; I will just say that our paths crossed at the right time for both of us. I know you thought I could begin a new life for myself in New York, and I appreciate so very much everything you did to get me to America, but I couldn’t stay in Manhattan any longer, for many reasons. It was no place where you’d want me to be, Mam, and all that you truly wanted for me, I now have. Martin makes a good living, he has a beautiful house here in the city, and I lack nothing. I even have my own bedroom, which is what I wanted, and he did not object. I think he still grieves his first wife’s passing. He doesn’t talk much about her, and I’m glad he doesn’t. He travels most days for his job; he works for an insurance company.
I wouldn’t say that Martin and I are good friends yet, but I think we could be someday. What Martin and I do have in common, aside from old wounds, is our wanting to provide a good home for sweet Kat. She has taken the death of her mother so very hard. The wee thing doesn’t speak more than a word or two. I can see the pain of her loss in the way she looks at me, at everything. It is my hope that in time, the ache of her grief will lessen and she will want to again hear her own voice.
Kat and I find things to do while Martin’s away and when it’s not cold and rainy. There are many parks here, and a library and shops. The ocean is nearby and I can always get fresh fish. Occasionally the earth trembles here in San Francisco. There was a shuddering just a few days ago that lasted only seconds, and yet alarmed me greatly. But Martin assured me it is the nature of the earth to correct itself from time to time. This is how it does it. I will get used to the quaking, he said. Everyone who lives in San Francisco does. I’m sure he is right.
There is a lady who lives across the street with a baby. I have seen her coming in and out of her house and I hope to meet her soon. The other people who live on our street are older and are cordial enough when we pass one another on walks. They seem a bit wary of me and I mentioned this to Martin. He said people here are wary of all immigrants. We live not too far from Chinatown, which I don’t visit, but when we are downtown I see the way some people glower at the Chinese men with their long braids trailing down their backs.
I think I can be happy here in San Francisco and I don’t want you to worry. Martin is a rather private person but it’s possible that in time affection may grow between us, and as you know, I am in no hurry. If you hear from Mason, please tell him I do not hold it against him that he left me in New York like he did. It was hard after he left, but I’m happy now being Kat’s mother, especially since she will likely be the only child I will ever be a mother to.
Give my love to the brothers and their wives and all the wee ones. I miss you and think of you often and I’m so very glad you let me take Da’s old word book with me. I know how much you loved it. Every morning I peek inside and choose a word for the day. Today I chose the word renaissance. It means to be reborn. That’s how I feel, Mam. I finally feel like I’ve been given a chance to start over.
I’ve often wished I could turn back time and do things differently, but maybe it’s better to start anew than to go back in time and hope you have the courage and wisdom to make different choices.
Please be happy for me, Mam . . .
Kat and I return from posting my overdue letter to my mother—one that I’d rewritten half a dozen times—just as a steady rain begins to fall. That we had to venture out under threat of showers was because I had no postage stamps and Martin keeps the desk in the library locked. I know this because I have tried its drawer pulls before—not to pry but because the days are long when Martin is away and there was a day when I thought Kat and I might pay a visit to Mrs. Lewis, since she made it clear to me she wants us to, but I didn’t know how to find her place again. I had hoped to come across her address in Martin’s papers, but the desk was locked. On another day I’d wanted to use one of Martin’s fountain pens, as mine had run out of ink, and the desk was locked. At the time, I’d sat back in the chair wondering why Martin felt the need to lock every drawer in the desk when he was away. If he keeps money inside I could see where he might secure that one drawer, but all of them? It seems he doesn’t want the contents of the desk safe as much as he wants them secret. What could he have in the drawers besides files for his job, ledgers maybe, a bank book or two?
I had asked him about the desk when he was home again, told him I’d needed to use a fountain pen while he was gone because I had no ink for mine, but instead of seeing it as a problem of access he told me I didn’t need approval from him for every little purchase. If I needed ink, he trusted me to use the money he gave me to go to the stationer’s to buy whatever kind of ink I wanted.
Today when I realized I needed a stamp to at last post the letter to Mam, I again tried the desk, on the off chance there were stamps inside and he had left it unlocked. He hadn’t, and Kat and I ambled down to the post office under the grayest of gray skies.
I suppose Martin’s wanting to have his desk all to himself is just how some men are with their desks. I wouldn’t know. Da didn’t have one.
In any case, we are back from our postal mission and are taking off our wraps when I notice a small envelope that was dropped through our mail slot and is now resting on the entry rug. Kat actually sees it first. She is at last wearing her new clothes after my telling her I would make dresses for her dolls from her old, too-small frocks. She bends to pick up the envelope and the crinolines under her skirt sound like they’re whispering, What’s this?
“Why don’t you open it up, love, and we’ll see who it’s from.” I hang up our capes and watch as Kat carefully opens the letter, sealed with just a bit of wax and a monogrammed letter E. She unfolds the single sheet of paper inside and hands it to me. At the top of the paper is the name Elizabeth Reynolds in embossed ink that shimmers like bronze. I read the note aloud.
“My dear Mrs. Hocking, If you are receiving guests, Timmy and I would very much like to stop by this afternoon at half past two to welcome you to the neighborhood. We shan’t stay long! If it’s an inopportune time, just send a note over to the house directly across the street from you and we will look to schedule another day. Cordially yours, Libby Reynolds.”
I look down at Kat. “Are we receiving guests?” I ask her, unable to rein in the smile breaking across my face. Finally meeting the woman across the street after living in this house for nearly a month is too delightful a thought.
Kat just blinks up at me.
“We’re going to have company, love!”
For the next hour I go from room to room making sure there are no cobwebs, no dull tabletops, no dusty surfaces. I have little to do all day but keep house and entertain Kat, so the house is clean, but I scurry about the rooms with a feather duster anyway. A few minutes before half past, I put a kettle on low, hoping Mrs. Libby Reynolds can be persuaded to stay for tea, and then I straighten Kat’s hair ribbons and smooth back the hair from my face.
I am thinking we probably shouldn’t hover at the door. I turn to Kat. “How about we look at some books while we wait for the lady across the street, hmm?”
We settle in the sitting room with our books and wait. Kat, like me, keeps an alert ear for steps on the stoop. The bell rings and I force myself to rise slowly like a lady who is receiving guests. Kat gets to her feet, too.
“Ready?” I ask her, and she nods.
We head to the door and I open it wide. The skies have cleared a bit and the street and every leaf on every tree are glistening.
The woman from across the street is standing there in a beautiful pea green shirtwaist with cream trim, with her little boy resting on one hip. In her other hand she holds a plate with a linen napkin over the top. Her eyes widen slightly, as if she’s surprised Kat and I are at home.
“Hello,” I say in the most cultured way I can muster, but I sound just like I always do.
She seems to recover from whatever it is that surprised her.
“Hello, I’m Libby Reynolds,” she says cheerfully. “And this is Timmy. We’ve been wanting to welcome you and your husband to the neighborhood, and here I finally send a note to you and the weather nearly kept us from meeting. I’m so glad the rain stopped.”
She’s a bit shorter than me, rounder, with honey blond hair, full lips, and wide straight teeth. Her little boy looks to be a year or so.
“And I’m Sophie Hocking. Please, won’t you come in?”
“If it’s not an inconvenience?” she says politely.
“Not at all.”
She steps inside and I close the door.
“How strange and wonderful it is to still see Mrs. Kincheloe’s furnishings!” Libby says, looking all around the foyer at the hall tree, the chandelier, the Oriental rug at our feet, the little table by the stairs where I put the day’s mail.
“Mrs. Kincheloe?” I say.
“The doctor’s wife. This was her house.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” I lead us into the sitting room. “Won’t you have a seat?” I gesture to one of the sofas. Libby sits down and positions her son on her lap. I sit across from them in an armchair and Kat retreats to her book on the floor by the hearth.
“From your accent I would guess you’re not from around here,” Libby says congenially.
“No. I’m from Ireland originally. The North.”
“And this is your little girl?” She nods to Kat, seated on the rug near my feet.
“Um. Yes. This is Kat.”
“Kat?” Libby grins.
“It’s short for Katharine.”
Libby looks down at Kat. “What a pretty thing you are. And how old are you, Kat?”
Kat stares at the woman for a moment and gazes up at me.
“She’ll be six in June,” I say quickly.
Libby raises her head slowly, understanding, it seems, that something is a bit amiss with Kat. “Well,” she continues. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you. You and I are the only young mothers on the block! I was sad to hear Dr. Kincheloe had taken that fancy job in Argentina. His wife, Margaret, was a dear, always willing to take in Timmy if Chester had a nighttime function that I was suddenly expected to attend. My husband’s the assistant headmaster of a private academy and they’re always putting on plays and concerts. And I’ll miss those two little Kincheloe boys, too. Timmy loved watching them run and play. It was quite a nice surprise to see you and your husband moving in and that you have a little girl. Is she your only one?”
“Y-yes,” I answer clumsily.
“And where did you move from? Somewhere else here in the city?”
Again, I stumble over my answer. “Ah, well . . . My . . . my husband had been working in Los Angeles and then . . . ah, he came up here to begin a new job.”
