Twisted River Read online

  She silently screamed as a sharp kick jabbed in response. Her wedding band dug into the flesh of her swollen finger, and she longed to wash the metal down the sink or chuck it into the rushing river. In Mr. Frye’s effort to maintain a peaceful household, he wouldn’t dare confront her over its absence.

  She pressed a hand to her forehead as, in a daze, she made her way back to the living room. Isa lay curled up asleep on the sofa, right where Maggie left her prior to Henry’s egg rampage. She cradled the child into her arms, already breathless from the effort before she reached the stairs. When the front knocker sounded, she whispered a curse Molly could not possibly hear from her bedroom, then shuffled to the door and threw up the latch.

  “Mrs. Kisch?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes at the visage of Elsa upon the threshold. A ragged breath escaped as Maggie adjusted Isa’s thirty-five pounds across her middle. She assumed the older woman hoped to talk sense into her, to convince her to return home and make nice with Tena, none of which she would consider. Yet seeing the face of the woman who had only showered her with kindness made Maggie’s guard falter.

  Worry etched into the age lines already embedded in Elsa’s brow. “Oh my child, hand her to me before you drop on the stoop. Take this instead.” She swept through the doorway and stole Isa from Maggie’s arms in exchange for the basket she was carrying. With tender movements, Elsa kissed the little girl’s brow and managed herself up the stairs, pausing against the railing for support.

  “Do not fret,” she called back. “I will put this little one to bed and join you in the kitchen. Fix us up a pot—whatever you have will do.”

  Ten minutes later, the two women sat across from each other at the small kitchen table, empty cups waiting while tea steeped in the kettle on the stove. Elsa clutched Maggie’s hand across the table and extended her a generous smile. “It brings my heart such joy to see you well. We have missed you at home.”

  Maggie focused on the puckered skin around the woman’s knuckles. Elsa’s hands were worn from years of effort, weathered from household labor and caring for her children—from the strain of menial chores Maggie’s mother never fussed over.

  She had overheard Beatrix Archer talking to Mrs. Winchester one day two summers past. “Heaven knows why my husband amuses Tena by allowing her to cook,” Beatrix said. “Ladies have no use for such domestic tasks. Why would God give us servants if not to use them?” As a result of such simple thinking, her eldest daughter couldn’t even manage the simplest tasks now without defeat.

  Maggie refocused on her visitor. “You must understand I’m married now. I cannot simply move back into your home.”

  Elsa’s fingers squeezed around hers. “Of course Mr. Kisch and I understand that. Your place is with your new family.” She tapped a finger against Maggie’s ring. “May I ask how you are faring? Raising three children with another on the way ... it would be an adjustment for any woman.”

  How have I fared? Maggie thought. To be truthful ...?

  In honesty, every day was more of the same torture. Wake up. Squeeze into increasingly tight clothes. Dress the children. Grow larger seemingly within hours. Send Henry and Molly to school with a poor breakfast in their bellies. Begin story time with Isa. Stop to change Isa’s diaper because she still refused to use the toilet regularly. Continue reading. Stop reading to change Isa’s soiled diaper again. Want to smack the smile off that little girl’s face for laughing at the “smelly poo poo.” Finally finish reading in time for lunch. Eat lunch as inadequately prepared as breakfast. Somehow Isa finds peaches in her hair. Want to slap Isa for giggling while Maggie toweled the mess away. Change the child into fresh clothes for a walk in the park. Open the door to smell that Isa’s soiled herself again. Silently question how so small a person could contain such a large amount of excrement.

  Finally arrive at the park only to be inquired upon by every other nanny and mother who knew the Fryes. Politely decline their many obligatory invitations to tea and ignore their gossipy whispers. Return home for tea alone while Isa napped. Henry and Molly return from school, both filthy. Scold Henry. Grind her teeth through another horrid dinner. Scold Henry. Pry buttons out of Isa’s mouth that she found heaven knew where. Scold Henry. Tuck the children into bed. Get called back because she forgot to kiss Molly’s doll goodnight, because Isa threw her bear on the floor, because Molly saw a weird shadow, because Isa threw her bear at Molly and hit her in the eye. Finally collapse on her own mattress, screaming into her pillow and wondering if she should smother herself with it. Sleep. Wake at one a.m. Go back to sleep. Wake up at three a.m. Go back to sleep. Wake up at four-thirty and claim sleep as futile.

  Repeat it all again.

  One might ask where Mr. Frye was throughout this nightmare? Well, that was a question long withstanding.

  Before they married, she thought they had developed an understanding. That between Charles’s funeral and their wedding day, there were a few shared moments which lumped together added up to a sort of mutual respect. However, since that first night, Hugo had all but disappeared. He departed early in the morning to take photographs, returned for dinner, then retired into his study to do what heaven only knew until after Maggie dropped into bed exhausted. Some nights she was still awake when he nudged the bedroom door open. He would pad quietly across the room in an attempt to be considerate, thinking her asleep. She laid in the dark and watched his faint silhouette move about until it dropped to the trundle bed below her. Minutes later, soft breathing and the occasional snore would emerge, and she envied him for his ability to rest so easily when she could not.

  She had never wanted children and now here she was raising three with another on the way and no one to help her. As her stomach increased in size, her mental fortitude slowly decreased until, by the birth in January, she might not even recognize herself.

  “Maggie?” Elsa repeated. “Has it been difficult? Motherhood?”

  She forced a smile. “Nothing I can’t manage through.” Shifting from her chair, she lifted the silver teapot from the shelf and filled it with dark tea from the kettle. Carefully, she returned to the table and palmed the lid to pour both cups.

  Elsa shifted in her chair and stood, crossing to the counter to root through the basket she brought. She listed each item out, announcing their existence as though Maggie were unable to identify them for herself.

  “Salt and bread, of course—the traditional housewarming gift—then there’s potatoes and beans and these apples were picked from our neighbor’s tree. Only one nearby and the best for cobbler. I have a recipe if you desire it.”

  “Thank you,” Maggie managed even as her guilt threatened to swell over. It was a generous housewarming gift, one she didn’t deserve after ignoring the Kischs ever since the wedding. She hadn’t even posted a note of gratitude after Karl blessed her and Hugo with a ten dollar note at the ceremony. She focused on the ripples in her tea, each altering the somber woman reflected there. “How is Tena?”

  “Tena?” Surprise laced Elsa’s expression which was no wonder. Even Maggie hadn’t planned to mention her sister. She assumed the conversation would steer in that direction eventually, but while she thought of Tena daily, she stopped herself just short of contact. Her sister created the chasm between them; it was her responsibility to fill it in.

  But when Maggie saw herself in the murky liquid of her cup, Tena’s features stared back. The curve of her eyes, the flow of her hair, the rise of cheekbones and the dead stare they both wore so often since Titanic … Maggie blinked and her sister blinked back.

  “I miss her,” she whispered, watching as her reflection mouthed the same words in return.

  “Oh, my dear…” Elsa waddled back to her chair, fingertips tightening against Maggie’s shoulder. “She too misses you. You are her sister. Whatever may have been done, you must remember that.”

  “Family is not always forever. Tena believes I ruined her life, and she hates me for it. Just as my mother hated my father for ruining he
rs.”

  “Tena’s life is not ruined, dear. Her life is different than she planned, than we all planned. Not ruined though. In time, she will see it too.”

  “How long? It’s been months … she will never forgive me, exactly as she said.” Maggie swallowed her tea in four massive gulps rather than see her reflection any longer.

  “She is not cross with you, dear.” Elsa talked over Maggie as she started to refute. “She is not. Tena is angry with the world, with Charles, and with God. She has lost control of her life. Even in our house full of those who face the same losses, she feels alone without Charles. She is afraid to surrender that feeling.”

  “Why?” Maggie asked. “Why would anyone want to live that way? I hate that our father is gone. What good would it do for me to be consumed by it?”

  The faintest of smiles tugged Elsa’s lips, the expression of a mother who understood grief all too well. “For protection. Tena is afraid to lose you.”

  “Lose me? She tossed me out! She pushed me away!”

  Elsa shook her head. “That’s not how she sees it though. You must understand how Tena cares for you more than anyone else in this life. Except she has recently lost the only person she loved more than you. And this only weeks after your father passed and days after your mother sent you both away. Those were events out of her control, yes, but she felt the weight of them all the same.” Elsa lowered herself into her chair. “When we are grieving, it is often impossible to see past it. We cannot think rationally because we do not wish to. To feel anything except despair would be a betrayal to the ones we lost.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to die too. Not right away. She won’t lose me yet.”

  “There are many ways we can lose someone, dear. Death is but one. Tena assumes in one fashion or another, you too will abandon her again. So instead of waiting for the inevitable, she chose to let you go. It is far easier to say goodbye if you are the one doing the leaving.”

  Needing an excuse to busy her shaking fingers—whether from anger or hurt she couldn’t tell—Maggie poured herself another cup of tea and neatly avoided eye contact with the surface. The steam rose off the liquid in tiny waves. “You may not believe this, Mrs. Kisch, but fear is one emotion I understand. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding attachments for that very reason.”

  “So you see, Maggie, give her space and give her time. You are her dearest friend. Soon she will remember it.”

  “I wish Father were here.” Maggie couldn’t form more words around her father without breaking down, and her pride wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t blubber so Elsa could use her emotional turmoil as leverage. Yet inside she was sobbing on the floor. Once she thought that if only she never met Reuben all her problems would have been solved—no baby, no marriage, no difficult choices. Except now she understood that it wasn’t meeting Reuben which sent her off the proverbial cliff; it was losing her father. If her father were alive when Charles asked her to join them in America, she would never have left him, not even at the request of her sister. It was one reason why she refused to ask the secret of her mother; there wasn’t a truth in the world she would allow to tarnish Laurence Archer’s memory.

  As though in response, a visible rippling of unborn limbs passed across her abdomen as though to say, “Give up what might have been. What would your father say about this life?”

  What could he say, the man who always stifled his own wishes for his wife’s, who allowed her to use him, who in his only act of defiance sent Maggie to London, hundreds of miles from home? He saved her from an unwanted marriage only for her to end up married to a petite, poor, standard package of a man with his fiery hair and opposite air of impassivity. What a laughing stock she would be if she brought Mr. Frye back to Fontaine.

  “I worry, Mrs. Kisch, that I’ll never live up to what my father believed to be in me.” She laid her palm down on the table and pointed at her wedding ring. “Did you know I was engaged once before? For only a few days before it all fell apart.” She shrugged. “It was my fault. I ruined it. I destroyed everything he wanted. I didn’t love him, but I think I might have still been happier than I am now.” Her hand felt for the little foot pressing outward from her stomach, possibly the only remaining remnant of Reuben’s love for her. Outside the window, the navy sky enveloped the stains of the setting sun. “Yes,” she repeated. “If I chose him, we might have all been happier.”

  “But if you didn’t love him, in the end you could never have been truly happy.” Elsa spoke slowly, carefully, tasting her next words before she said them. Her eyes followed the baby’s fervent movements. “Besides, my dear, you married Mr. Frye. There must be something there for you to have chosen him in the end.”

  Maggie smoothed her hands over the stretched fabric. “I was with child. Sometimes there’s no other reason than that.”

  A gentle cough drew both their eyes to the doorway and blood rushed to Maggie’s face. She leapt from her seat, nearly toppling the teapot before Elsa slapped a swift hand to steady it. “Why Mr. Frye!” she exclaimed. “Forgive us women chattering. Have you been waiting long?”

  “Not very.” A camera case lodged under each arm and a satchel slung over his shoulder, Hugo’s figure filled the kitchen doorway. Per the usual, his hair was untidy and dirt lined his trouser cuffs despite Maggie having laundered them only days ago. His knuckles clenched white around the cases, as pale as his expression. An unspoken hurt sagged the wrinkles around his eyes, and she knew he heard every word of their conversation.

  But truly, what did he have to be wounded over? He knew this was purely business from the beginning, a fact he reinforced by his complete lack of association with her ever since.

  Elsa pushed up from her chair. She bent to buss Maggie’s cheek. “Have a lovely evening, dear. Do stop in for a visit sometime.”

  “Certainly,” Maggie said, knowing full well she wouldn’t do anything of the sort without Tena’s prompting. “Thank you for coming.”

  Hugo stepped into the kitchen. “Do you need an escort home?”

  “Goodness no, dear, the trolley stop is none too far. I will manage.” With a gentle pat to his cheek, Elsa shuffled past into the hallway. A moment later the front door closed.

  Collecting the empty teacups and pot, Maggie set them in the sink to wash. The sound of running water neatly masked any need to speak, and she jumped when Hugo appeared at her elbow with a towel. “Mind if I dry?”

  She sank the tea kettle into the water, sliding a cloth around its inner rim. “You must have loads of work to finish.”

  “It can wait.”

  “How can that be?” she asked. Water dribbled off the kettle she held, streaking toward both wrists. Hugo quickly took it before her sleeves soaked.

  “Slow week.” He buffed the kettle and set it on the counter.

  “A slow week when you’ve recorded more hours than any other? Where’s Damaris?” Maggie propped a wet hand to her hip with brows raised.

  Damaris used Saturday dinners as an invitation to belittle Maggie at every turn whether her brother’s back was turned or not. Ever the coward, Hugo ignored the situation and instead addressed Maggie only in regard to the children. Rather than engage in an all-out row, she sat silently, inwardly seething and deeply resenting the fluttering in her abdomen.

  Yet tonight he was alone.

  Hugo mumbled something completely incoherent and folded the towel. “You’re right. I should work.”

  “Too late, Mr. Frye.” Maggie latched onto the sleeve of his jacket and jerked him back into the room. “What snipe did your sister give about me this time? I’ve heard them all now, I think.”

  “I need to change my jacket.” He tugged against her grip where a damp patch had expanded around her fingers.

  “You need to not change the topic.” Maggie twisted her wrist to draw nearer. “Why must you insist that Damaris, the she-devil of St. Louis, can do no wrong, but when she condemns me for sins not even committed, you can’t manage one word in m
y defense? Am I not even worth one word?”

  Hugo carefully met her gaze. “Yes.”

  “Bully, you managed one word. My, you’re well on the path to surpassing your words towards me in a single day! How do I know? Because I counted.”

  “You counted?”

  Maggie’s hands fell to her sides. Hot tears pricked her eyelids, but there would be no victory in him seeing her cry. “Of course I counted,” she whispered fiercely. “Every word you said and especially the ones you didn’t.”

  A sharp rap at the kitchen door jolted them both. Hugo lunged for the knob, his fingers struggling to tame his hair before he opened it. Spinning on her heel, Maggie toppled from her poor center of gravity and barely saved herself before landing on the floor. Tears sprung anew and she pressed the heel of her palms to her eyes, tears working past despite her efforts. Three months ago she was the queen of telling someone off; she could banter with the best of them, loud and long and without remorse. Now she was a bumbling mess. She rooted herself before the stove, distress streaking her cheeks, and for the twentieth time that day lamented her childbearing emotions.

  Behind her, Hugo greeted Mrs. Kincade, the elderly neighbor she had heard about but never bothered to visit and didn’t desire to initiate pleasantries now.

  “Caught this one prying up the paving stones again,” she grumbled. “Little beggar hid ’em and won’t fess where.” There was the sound of shuffled footsteps followed by Hugo’s stern, “Henry, again?”

  “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” Henry mumbled. “Had to get away from her.”

  A deep silence issued where Maggie felt all eyes boring into her back. She fetched a utility knife and a potato from the counter and began chopping. She had planned to serve Elsa’s housewarming dinner, but to retrieve it she would need to succumb to small talk.