Twisted River Read online

  And there it was—searing pain as a tiny foot collided with her prying hand. Her baby was alive. She slumped back against the pillows as the movement subsided, and a small laugh passed through her lips.

  “Oh, wonderful, you have awoken. I’m drawing back the curtains, your husband’s wishes be forgotten.”

  Maggie winced as the room flooded with morning light, revealing Mrs. Kincade’s irritated form. She set a bowl of steaming water on the writing desk and positioned herself at the foot of the bed. The blankets had been completely stripped away, leaving Maggie in only a damp, now translucent nightgown and modesty every bit compromised.

  “Let’s have a look shall we?” Mrs. Kincade said.

  Maggie kicked out as the unsightly woman moved to raise her nightgown, “Why-are-you-here?” she managed to snap. “Where-is-Mr.-Frye?” The trundle bed was currently hidden away from sight and Hugo’s personal effects vacant from their usual nightly location atop the dresser. Had he sent for the neighbor and left? How did he even know she was in labor when she hadn’t whispered a word? Heavens, had she said something in her sleep?

  “Downstairs with the sister,” Mrs. Kincade explained. “He borrowed my auto to retrieve her for you. She asked that I help you out, seeing as I did this for Emma too.”

  A hiss whistled past Maggie’s lips with another fierce ache to her abdomen. Hugo invited Damaris? That witch would summon Emma’s former midwife and assign her to oversee the delivery. Maggie pinched her eyes closed and breathed through another labor pain.

  “Get out,” she spat when her muscles finally loosened. “I’ll not have the woman who touched Emma do the same for me. I’d rather bear this child forever.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mrs. Frye. ’Sides, I already checked you twice while you were out cold.”

  “How dare you.” Maggie pressed her knees together, but in the same breath strained against further tightening around her middle and complied to the woman’s examination.

  “Well, I’d say we’re nearly there, thank the Lord.” Mrs. Kincade lowered Maggie’s gown and wiped her hands on her apron. Maggie didn’t want to think about what exactly would need wiping away while she gritted her teeth through the continued wave of discomfort.

  She snapped towards the pile of discarded bedding. “Toss one of those over me,” Maggie ordered, “then fetch Mr. Frye.”

  Stooping for the goldenrod quilt—fabric much too heavy in the already stifling room—Mrs. Kincade dropped it on Maggie’s chest and yanked the door open. “Calm down or you’ll overwork yourself and hurt the baby.” She leaned into the hallway. “She’s callin’ for you.”

  “I heard.”

  Maggie drew the quilt over herself as Hugo hurried in, legitimate worry wrinkling his forehead more so than the pajama pants beneath his dressing gown. She jerked back when he reached for the damp hair plastered against her forehead. “Leave it.”

  All three children peered around the doorway. “Is it time for presents?” Isa asked.

  Molly took in her stepmother’s face scrunched with pain, and her innocent eyes grew round as dinner plates. “Daddy, is Miss Margaret ill?”

  Mrs. Kincade ran over and nudged the door closed against their pleas. “Go downstairs with your aunt, children. Your stepmother is fine.”

  “But—” Henry cried, but the door had already swung closed. Mrs. Kincade twisted the lock. “Hey! Dad!” He extended a final futile bang on the door then stomped down the stairs. The patter of his sisters’ feet followed.

  Maggie breathed through the contraction as much as to breathe through the mess of emotions playing through her head. This wasn’t how her first child’s birth should be. She needed family nearby—real family, not one she had contracted. Her father more than any other. She longed to be seven again, dancing around his study while he read stories she never fully listened to at the time. She would sit for them now. She would curl up on the sofa beside him, rest her head against his shoulder, and listen to his soothing voice forever. He could hold her baby and laugh at how its little nose and perfect brow were an exact match to his.

  Maggie turned to Hugo. “Send for Tena. When this is over, I need her forgiveness.”

  “I already went for Tena hours ago.”

  “Oh.”

  Of course. Tena wouldn’t come. That was it. Maggie had stayed away too long and lost her sister for good. This was her fault as always. How could she have hoped to raise a baby without her sister? In the midst of her most terrible pain, she managed to feel even worse.

  “Why so sad?” Hugo asked. “Tena’s caring for the children. It was she who convinced me to retrieve Mrs. Kincade against my better judgment.”

  The midwife gave a mighty roll of her eyes and stepped behind Hugo, forcing him forward until his knees hit the bed. “We’re a family,” he continued, “unusual though we are, and we should begin acting like one. That family includes your sister.” He reached up to scratch his temple, cheeks tinged with embarrassment. “For what it’s worth, I told Tena you sent for her. But I don’t regret the lie. I would have told her anything to get her here.”

  “Tena’s here? Not Damaris?”

  Hugo smiled gently. “Of course not Damaris. Wouldn’t you think I know you better than that?”

  Maggie shook her head in amazement. Tena was here, caring for her sister’s stepchildren although she never met them, all because Hugo knew his wife better than she knew herself. Her passive partner finally found his voice, and he had found it for her.

  Her stomach tightened, and through the haze, she heard the midwife say, “We’re nearly there. Mr. Frye, out of the room.”

  Maggie lashed out for Hugo’s wrist. “Don’t leave,” she breathed. “Please. I need you too.”

  He appeared suddenly terrified. “You want me to stay? But I’ve never done this before.”

  “Are you mental? Where’d you think the other three came from? Father Christmas?”

  “I was always out there. She never let me watch.”

  “You’re not watching. You’re standing here next to me, reminding me to breathe, holding my hand, and oh my word, it hurts.” Every muscle strained as the pain intensified, and a sob escaped unbidden. She had no idea it would feel like this. Those women who claimed the experience didn’t hurt so much if you simply breathed through it? They were out of their minds.

  Mrs. Kincade shoved a wet cloth into Hugo’s free hand, water dripping across the floorboards. “If you’re going to stay, for heaven’s sake, be useful. Wipe her brow.”

  He did as he was told, eyes always on Maggie’s face while he watched her labor a child who wasn’t his. The first time he had ever seen someone give birth, and she wasn’t even his real wife.

  Another contraction squeezed her insides then another until it seemed she would tear apart and the agony would never end. Her nails left crescent moon marks on his hand. A dull throb sliced across her forehead.

  “Breathe, Miss Margaret, don’t forget.”

  She exhaled in a burst, the ache across her skull easing. “I can’t do this,” she gasped.

  Without asking, he set the damp cloth in the basin and knelt to where his face was level with hers. Ever so gently, he smoothed back the matted hair from her face and whispered, “You can do this.” His fingers gripped hers. “I will help you do this.”

  Through the next moments, whether they were but minutes or hours, Hugo never left Maggie’s side. Before today, he had never seen this version of her—a fragile woman coated in sweat and crying for relief. She didn’t feel strong or independent or alluring. Her body was out of control and her mind had forgotten every piece of herself. Something had broken, and try as she might, within the confines of such terrible pain she couldn’t remember who she was or what she should be.

  With a final strain, a cry erupted into the room, that first sound a newborn babe emits to stretch its lungs.

  “You have a ruddy-faced little daughter!” Mrs. Kincade declared. She lifted the slight pink body all covered in me
ss. Those tiny fingers reached for something they didn’t even know, so frightened to be out in the unknown. The midwife wiped the infant’s face, gave a firm swat to her behind and back in turn, then laid the baby atop the quilt still draped across her mother’s chest. Maggie shifted her free arm around the tiny body, encouraging warmth after being pulled into this cold cruel world. The child snuggled up, her cry bold and determined.

  This miniature being shouldn’t belong to her, Maggie decided. Surely fate made a mistake and would demand its ransom returned. There could not possibly be a book which listed her name underneath “competent women sanctioned for motherhood.”

  Hugo eased himself up onto the bed beside them, his eyes unable to leave this new incredible life. This child wasn’t of his making; she would never look like him or share a drop of his blood. But sitting there on that bright and beautiful Christmas morning in nineteen hundred and twelve, watching his wife cradle their newborn daughter, heaven help her if Maggie didn’t recognize how much he loved that little girl.

  With something almost resembling a smile, Mrs. Kincade retrieved the now cooled water bowl and carried it towards the door. “I’ll give you a minute with her. It’ll provide me time to fetch some more water and clean linens.”

  The door closed and Maggie’s eyes locked with Hugo’s to find his emotion matched her own.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she rasped. “Thank you.”

  “I promised I would be home in time.” He squeezed her hand, gently circling his thumb across her knuckles while his sights ventured somewhere far outside themselves. “Tena said I shouldn’t tell you this, but for months I’ve been afraid of what I would feel right now. I never thought I could love someone who didn’t even belong to me.” He ran the side of his free hand down the baby’s smooth cheek to the corner of her tiny lips where she turned to gum at his fingers. A whimper escaped, and Hugo’s eyes welled with tears. He didn’t bother to brush them away. “I marvel now at how wrong I was.”

  How could Maggie not forgive him for the same sins she herself was guilty of? She recalled now that first cool September day when the gentle butterfly wings inside her belly first turned to distinguishable kicks. Without her father or a legitimate husband to share it with, the concept that she had a person attacking her insides became a sudden disturbing reality, and she couldn’t acknowledge it for the beauty that it was. She could only feel the movement inside her and curse what a crime it was that this child existed, what an injustice to be borne of Maggie’s worst mistakes.

  You are not a mistake, she thought now as she smoothed back her daughter’s dark curls. How could anyone so lovely ever be a mistake?

  Lashes fluttered as tiny eyelids eased apart. Round brown eyes stared out with such devotion and such ignorance as only a child could master. This baby didn’t know the truth of who her mother was or the fiery temptress she once had been. She didn’t know the lies her mother told, the people hurt, or the deals made on the path to becoming Mrs. Frye. This child loved Maggie unconditionally. She was the only person alive who did.

  Maggie released Hugo’s hand so she could offer their daughter into his arms. He cradled the child with nothing short of reverence. “Her name should be Abigail,” she said. “It means ‘My father is joyful.’”

  “Abigail,” Hugo agreed. He eased his lips to the baby’s miniature brow. “Abigail Lorraine Frye. Now there’s an American name if ever there was one.” He laughed, and it was a sound more lovely than all the chimes of the world playing in harmony. “Abbie, my girl, your father could not be more joyful at your existence.”

  Claim your happiness, my little girl, Laurence Archer wrote in his final letter. Love will find you one day.

  Don’t worry, Father, Maggie thought. Love has already found me. It’s this. It’s her.

  THIRTY

  march 23, 1913 –

  three months later

  Tena stayed on with the Fryes for thirteen weeks after Abigail was born, as much to assist Maggie with the new baby as to realign their sisterhood. Henry temporarily moved onto a pallet in the girls’ room without fuss—or not much anyway—leaving Tena his bed while a cradle was assembled in the master bedroom. Hugo was careful to store the trundle bed before leaving the room each morning; it wouldn’t do any good if they aroused suspicion. Even after so many months, they still hadn’t spoken of Hugo’s trip to Utah. He had offered to stay for the remainder of their contract; what good would it do to question the reason?

  Twice each week brought visits from Winnie and Elsa. Winnie would play with the children in the living room while the older women chatted over tea and Elsa fawned over Abigail. She may not have been blood; however, a more loving substitute grandmother there could never be.

  But today it was only the two sisters alone in the kitchen, Maggie slicing cherries while Tena cuddled Abigail against her shoulder. “Have you talked to Reuben lately?” she asked.

  Tena traced Abigail’s dark curls with her thumb. “Not since Christmas. I’ve been here helping you. When would I have the time?”

  “I thought he might have rang. Perhaps one day while I was napping.” Juicy cherry flesh splattered between her fingers. She scraped it into the bowl and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “Not that I recall. Why do you ask?”

  “You mentioned how he worried at Christmas. I assumed he would call before now.”

  In her sleep, Abigail whimpered, and Tena rubbed her back with a gentle sway. “Mrs. Kisch keeps him updated. I’m certain he feels visiting would only be a nuisance.”

  “I suppose.” Maggie raised her hand to tuck a stray lock of hair back into her untamed coif and heard a sharp click behind her. She spun in her chair and tender muscles tugged along her side, a lingering reminder that three months ago she was round as a hot air balloon. Centered inside the doorway, Hugo stared into his black Brownie positioned against his stomach. She hadn’t even noticed him steal it from the kitchen counter after breakfast.

  Maggie frowned. “You’ve chosen this, of all times, to photograph me? My appearance resembles a wrecked barge on the Thames.”

  “I wouldn’t know what that looks like.” Hugo peered up through his lashes and flipped the lever on the little box. The shutter clicked open then closed again as it captured another frame. “Walter Persons has been making decent enough change with his works. We could use the money.”

  She sliced through another cherry and flicked the pit onto the pile. “You are not pedaling pictures of me.”

  “Yet. You wait; I’ll convince you.”

  “Fair warning: If you continue to address me with such cheek, Mr. Frye, I’ll ship you and Damaris off to California. You can both live with your sisters.”

  “I hope that’s a promise and not a threat. Damaris would hold you in the highest regard.” He swiped the cherry from her hand and popped it into his mouth. “Although the good Lord knows how I would miss changing diapers.”

  A slow smile met her lips. “Good. Why don’t you carry Abigail upstairs and make a memory? She’s soiled herself so much today I wish I hadn’t bothered to dress her.”

  With a sweet, albeit sarcastic, smile, he stole the infant from Tena. He pressed a soft kiss to Abigail’s forehead before planting her against his chest. “Don’t you worry, Abbie girl. Daddy will take care of you. Woah!” he exclaimed as three children plowed through the door nearly bowling their father over. “Bacon and beans, where are you rushing to?”

  Molly reached for Abigail. “Isa and I want to play tea party with the baby.”

  “But I want to take her outside,” Henry whined. “This house is too prissy. Can’t we have another boy?”

  Hugo flushed as red as his hair. “Maybe your schoolmates could stop by one day instead.”

  “Ugh, not the same.” Henry stomped his feet and muttered about unfairness all the way out into the backyard.

  With a shake of his head, Hugo ushered his daughters towards the door. “Come help me with the baby, little ladies, and then we’l
l see what we might accomplish with that tea party.” He crooked his chin back at Maggie. “Worry not, Mrs. Frye. I’ll ensure all tea is drunk and diapers changed before I hop on the next train west.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes and shooed him away with her knife. She sliced through another cherry and deposited the pieces into the bowl before glancing once more at the doorway. “He’s incorrigible sometimes.”

  With the scrape of chair legs against floorboards, Tena rounded the table and threw her arms around her sister’s shoulders. “I’m so pleased you finally found your Charles, sister dear. Father would be so proud.” She kissed Maggie’s temple. “I am too.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to compare him with Charles. He certainly doesn’t squeeze my heart or flutter my innards. But he loves Abigail so I suppose that’s enough for me.”

  “I still envy you Maggie, and that’s a way I thought I’d never feel.”

  “Oh, Tena, don’t envy me. Happiness isn’t always so simple as it seems.” Tena wanted Maggie to have a happy ending as terribly as she wanted one for herself. But what was the use in assuring her of something that simply wasn’t? Endings nearly by definition were never happy. She couldn’t fade into someone with too much heart and lose the solid-shouldered realist she prided herself in.

  Maggie worried that her behavior during Abigail’s birth had shifted—nay, complicated—the dynamic of her partnership with Mr. Frye. Out of her mind with pain, she had said things she couldn’t fully remember afterwards and didn’t fully understand. He stayed beside her and she was grateful, but now weeks later she wondered if it hadn’t been an awful mistake. They needed to remember what this marriage was and what it was not. She couldn’t have him developing true affection for her, not when they still had so many years left together. Not when she had the looming problem of Abigail’s paternity to worry about.

  Tena still hadn’t asked about Abigail’s stature—slight, but not nearly enough so for any sane person to believe she was conceived in early June. Or how Maggie’s blue-grey eyes and Hugo’s green could never result in such a solid brown. Tena was either completely ignorant of such facts—unlikely—or choosing to play her hand as such. No, without solid proof, she would rather play the silent fool than chance another rift with her sister or her closest friend.