Twisted River Read online

  “He wouldn’t.” Maggie looked down at her nails. “Two of the questions are determined by the requester. It’s only the third question that remains the same.”

  Tena’s anger flared again at the mention of their father’s favorite game, and she took another deep breath to calm her tone. It would never do to have an all-out brawl in front of everyone. “Maggie,” she said sweetly. “May I have your assistance with something inside, please?”

  Ten eyes swiveled towards her. Karl rested his own beer on his knee. “Feeling any better?”

  “Oh, much. I think soon I’ll be better even still.” She threw them all a broad smile to mask the pain crushing her chest. “We won’t be long, I promise.”

  Maggie stood, flattened her damp hair back, and pointed at Mr. Frye. “I’ll want your answer when I return.” Her finger swiveled in Damaris’s direction. “Yours too.” She pushed herself out of the chair.

  Tena ushered her sister through the back door, but Maggie continued into the kitchen. “Allow me one minute,” she told Tena. “I need some water, then I’ll help you.” There was a clinking of glasses, and the sink turned on.

  Tena wasted no time. Her nerves sizzled with anger from Reuben’s note and the last two months of living under the same roof as a sister who cared for nothing and no one but herself. Their earlier conversation seemed like a turning point, as though Maggie understood a fraction of the pain Tena bottled up inside, but had been simply more of the same old deception.

  Picking up the traveling case Tena left in the hallway, she slammed it against her sister as she emerged from the kitchen. Maggie barely managed to hold onto her full water glass as she shifted the case against her chest.

  She stared at Tena over the buckles. “What are you doing?”

  “Get out,” Tena spat. She pointed towards the front door. “You’re all packed. Take your things and be gone.”

  Maggie’s eyebrow quirked upward. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not deaf.” Tena slapped her hand against the case. “I told you to leave. Take your bag and go away. I can’t stand to share a house with you.”

  Maggie lowered the case and her water glass to the floor, knelt to throw open the latches, and drew in a breath when she saw that it was indeed full of her belongings. Her eyes lifted in shock. “What did I do?”

  “Reuben said—”

  “Listen, Tena, I know you have a soft spot for him,” Maggie said. “But even you know his propensity to exaggerate a situation. If he told you about our argument, it was only a simple disagreement.”

  “It was a pretty big row. I saw it.”

  Both girls jumped as Emil sauntered between them into the kitchen. Bending into the icebox, he snatched two beer bottles and an opener from the drawer and popped the caps onto the counter. He returned to prop a shoulder against the doorframe. “What’s the rumpus, ladies?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at the Schneiders’, not the other way around?” Tena asked.

  Maggie eyed his beer. “Don’t you feel you’ve had enough today?”

  “First,” Emil said, “Jakob and Terry are here because their uncle, whom they live with, is out of sorts. Secondly, these beers aren’t for me. They’re for my father, who is plenty old enough, and for Mr. Frye, who claims you tainted his first bottle.” He drew a swig and chuckled. “And now I’ve tainted his second.”

  “Emil!” Tena cried. “Either go outside or go to your room.”

  “My room?” Emil pressed further into the doorframe. “Thanks, Mum, but I’m not five. Regardless, I’m still going to listen behind the door.”

  Tena glared at him, then kicked Maggie’s traveling case. “Fine. Stay. I don’t have time to argue with you. Help me toss Maggie out on her rump.”

  “Harsh, Tee. What’d she do?”

  “Reuben’s moved out, and Maggie’s to blame.”

  Maggie closed the suitcase lid. “He did?”

  “Yes.” She handed Emil Reuben’s note. “I went to your room, and all of his things are gone.”

  “But why?” Maggie asked. “I know I haven’t been very polite to him. We may have quarreled once or twice, but I never told him to leave.”

  “You didn’t need to.” Tena pressed the back of her fingers to her forehead. “It’s all in the note. He said he was coming between us. ‘Blood before friendship,’ he said. You before him.” She drew a shaky breath, rereading Reuben’s words in her mind’s eye and struggling not to scream.

  Tena,

  Forgive me for what you’re about to read. I wish I could express my feelings in person, but we would quarrel, and I would fold like I always do. I can’t change my mind this time. Trust that I’m in the right this once.

  I cannot stay with the Kischs anymore. I’m becoming the wedge in your relationship with Maggie, and we both know there’s only room for one of us in your life. It should be her, not me. Blood before friendship.

  Forgive me for breaking my promise.

  Yours,

  Reuben

  Another wash of anger soaked through her mourning dress, pressing her towards the floor. Her eyes flashed, and she hoped they were the color of fire. “Whatever you said made him leave.” She bent to latch the traveling case and hefted it off the floor. Stalking to the front door, she opened it and tossed the case onto the front lawn. “I want you out now, Maggie.”

  Emil stood frozen in the kitchen doorway. “You can’t throw her out,” he said. “Where would she go tonight? To the poorhouse?”

  “Thank you,” Maggie whispered.

  Emil glared at her. “I didn’t say I agreed with you.” He pushed off the wall and walked to the back door, throwing it open with his standard playful grin. “Hey, Pops,” he called. “Still thirsty?” A minute later, he sidled back in sans beers, his glare refocusing on Maggie as he closed it behind him. “Does a week sound fair?”

  Maggie stood, leaning backwards rather awkwardly as she did so. “A week for what?”

  “Find a job, what else?” Emil retrieved Maggie’s case from the yard, setting it on the stairs behind Tena. He lowered his voice, his gaze softening like the brother he had always been to her. “Listen, Tee, I know you’re mad at her. I am too. But kicking her out when she has nowhere to go will only make you feel worse. St. Louis isn’t Fontaine. It isn’t as happy-go-lucky here. One street is kind and another might be overrun with gangs.”

  “Gangs?” Tena breathed.

  “Not near us,” he quickly amended, “But yes, they exist. Don’t make this a rushed decision. Give her a week to find a new place. Once she leaves, we’ll try to convince Reuben to come back.”

  Maggie propped a hand to either hip and strode towards them, some of her fire returning. “Why are you both so wrung out about him leaving? For pity’s sake, we’re adults. We can’t all live here forever anyway.”

  “You don’t understand,” Emil said.

  “Of course I do,” Maggie huffed. “I’ll admit it’s been close quarters with all of us under one roof, and I certainly didn’t want to be around him. But you’ll still see him whether I live here or not.”

  Emil shook his head, blazing blond locks flying. “I’ve known him since I was five. This is what Reuben does. He disappears. You go to another city to escape; he stays exactly where he is and hides all the same. After Mira died, we barely saw him. He sat in that cemetery and didn’t talk to anyone. He couldn’t. Then he met you, Maggie, and suddenly he seemed better. Then you moved away, his parents died, and Tena said he vanished for over a month. That, Maggie, is how he is. It’s what he does. He ferments in his turmoil like a dead rat on the cobblestones. You think that you alone wronged him, so why should the rest of us take it so personally? Except you’ve hurt everyone, Maggie. I have a little sister, and for all my jokes, I’m serious about protecting her. You are not the kind of woman I want her to become.”

  Maggie’s arms folded defensively. “What about when I arrived? Tena, you said we were sisters no matter what.” She eyed her suitcase then sho
ok her head. “All those times we were apart before, I know you missed me.”

  Tena had missed her. She yearned for her sister more than anything those months alone in Fontaine, hiding her relationship with Charles, caring for their ailing father, and engaging in screaming matches with their mother. The world fell down around her while Maggie rubbed elbows with the London aristocracy and seduced her charming footman, Derby. Tena cried far too often praying for Maggie’s return.

  She turned eyes stained with memory to lock onto her sister. “Did you know Reuben’s my dearest friend? It was you, of course. Blood over friendship, exactly as he said. Except that’s not how it is for either of us anymore, is it, Maggie?”

  “Tena—”

  “Let me finish!” she shouted, something much stronger than anger coursing through her, something that made even Emil step back from her reaction.

  “Were you aware that Reuben sent Mother flowers the day after Father died?” Tena asked, her voice eerily calm again.

  “No,” Maggie said. “I bet Mother hated it.”

  “She did.” Tena could recall the day the courier showed up at their door with a dozen lilac sprigs, so fragrant they filled the entryway with the most wonderful odor. Their mother threw them into the hearth without so much as a second glance, but even in their destruction, the scent was heavenly.

  “Or,” continued Tena, “did you know that at the Winchesters’ last Christmas party, while you were in London, Reuben never danced? He didn’t even ask anyone. Instead, he diverted Mother from the ballroom while I danced with Charles.” And whispered witty comments in my ear about the other insufferable men on my dance card, she thought before pressing on to the next thought, each memory coming quicker than the last. “He found Charles and I a secluded corner by the post office to meet in passing. He kept me going, kept me fighting to keep our secret. He listened to me blabber like an idiot when six months passed and you still sent no word. He said something must have happened to make you stay away. Reuben was the one I confided in about Charles, about you, about everything.”

  Tena lowered herself onto the staircase, her elbows on her knees and head cradled in her hands. “Did you know all that, Maggie?” she breathed. “No, of course you didn’t. Because you were never there. Now Reuben won’t be either.”

  Maggie sat beside her and didn’t answer. She probably still assumed Tena would do what she always did—be cross for a few days then forgive and forget. Only nothing was so easily forgiven anymore.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Emil said. He squatted before Tena and carefully removed her hands from her eyes. “We’re not going to breathe a word of this yet. Papa would overreact, and I am not nearly responsible enough to become man of the family when he has a heart attack. Instead, we’ll tell everyone the newspaper called Reuben out of town on emergency assignment.” He shifted his attention back to Maggie. “You will find another place to live within one week, else I will tell my parents every last snide remark you’ve made behind their backs, and they’ll know how you were responsible for driving their fourth son away.”

  “I don’t think your mother will toss me out even then. She said I was welcome as long as I liked.”

  Emil’s vision narrowed, not even a hint of his usual comedic manner lighting through. “Shall we try it?” He paced towards the back door.

  “No, wait!” Maggie jumped off the step and immediately swayed. She grabbed the banister to brace herself. “Blasted summer heat,” she growled. “I’m nauseous and lightheaded.”

  Tena rose to face her. “Don’t play ill, Maggie. You’re not seven trying to get out of lessons with Miss Beue.”

  Maggie clasped one hand to her stomach, the other still firmly on the banister. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she gasped. Sweat beaded her forehead and panic shimmered over her usually so perfectly determined features. “You can’t throw me out,” she cried again, pleading between her sister and Emil even from her doubled over state. “Don’t you know what I gave up for you? I’m here because you wanted me here. I gave up England for you.”

  Tena’s vision blurred, everything she was now forgetting everything she used to be. Charles had admired her reserved nature, that she loved her sister unwaveringly and forgave so easily. He agreed those were qualities any person should strive to acquire. It was why he had wanted to marry her. But right now admirable qualities were as far removed from her current emotional state as the Mississippi River was from the Thames.

  “What you gave up for me?” she exclaimed, her voice growing more frenzied with each syllable. “What about what I’ve given up for you?” She stepped forward with fingers clenched, one step shy of knocking her sister into the wall. “You didn’t lose anything! I waited for you to come home from London before Charles and I left England. He wanted to take an earlier passage, and I made him wait for you. You’re the reason he’s dead, and you’re the reason Reuben’s gone. That’s what I gave up, and I’ll never forgive you.”

  Tena raised a trembling hand, fully determined to slap the astonishment off her sister’s face, when Emil grabbed her wrists and hauled her up the stairs. “Let me go!” she screamed, wrenching against his grip and only hurting herself further. “I hate her! And I hate you! Let me go!”

  But Emil wouldn’t relent. He dragged her down the hall into the room he used to share with Reuben and occasionally with Friedrich, and kicked the door shut, blocking them into blessed silence. Releasing her, he backed himself against the door like an armed guard. “Sit,” he commanded.

  “I’m too upset to sit.” But one glance at the empty closet she had flung wide open searching for any remaining trace of Reuben, and she sank onto the bed as ordered.

  Emil sat beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders to direct her head onto his own. “Stay here tonight. Dream about something brilliant, for instance; how smashingly handsome I am.”

  Tena drew a deep breath then another and against her wants, expelled a laugh. “You’re smashingly ridiculous, is what you are. Perhaps I’ll dream about someone knocking you from your high horse.”

  “Dare not, woman! That would break my beauty.”

  Tena laughed into Emil’s chest, and he pulled away with a silly grin. “The fellow who makes you smile can’t be all bad, now can he?” He studied her serious face. “Stop your worrying. We’ll get him back. It’ll be better tomorrow.”

  “I know you don’t believe that, but thank you, Emil.”

  Emil nodded. “I love you, Tee. That’s what brothers are for.”

  She waited until he exited the room then, despite the hour barely having turned past five o’clock, she drew the curtains. She slid from her dress and corset in the near darkness and removed the combs from her hair, dropping everything to the floor in a heap. Then she slipped into bed, her cotton chemise too warm for a summer’s night beneath the covers. Even so, she drew the quilted spread up to her neck and closed her eyes, inhaling the familiar scent within the coverlet.

  Everyone has one scent that describes them, yet can never quite be described. Charles was the heady breath of autumn if autumn could have a scent. And Reuben’s was this—cigars and parchment and something unreadable—his own unique essence. To her, his was the scent of safety.

  She burrowed under the blankets to allow the aroma to surround her, almost as though he was laying beside her. With anyone else, she would feel too exposed. Not with him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, chest to chest, her heart beating where his belonged. “Why is your pulse racing?” he whispered. “What is there to be afraid of?”

  Tena closed her eyes, her cheek resting against his imaginary chest, so she could hold him to her heart the way she wanted to hold onto any of the pieces that were quickly slipping away.

  “Say you’re my friend whether Charles is here or not,” she begged him on May Day. “Tell me you can overlook what Maggie did. I want to hear that you’ll stay.” Her fingertips traced the mauve scrapes from his battle with Lloyd, painful reminders o
f how much he had endured. She never wanted him to feel that way again.

  On that day, her heart swelled with gratitude to a God who would save Reuben from certain death on Titanic, even when He had not saved Charles. They still had each other, and together they would heal.

  “I’m not leaving, Tena,” he told her then, molding his hand into hers. “That much I can always promise.”

  The cozy warmth of Reuben’s imaginary arms dissolved into the lukewarm sheets of Midwest July heat. “You still did,” she whispered. “You left just like Maggie and my father ...”

  Just like Charles.

  Palms pressed to her mouth, she stifled a scream into the pillow.

  NINE

  July 15, 1912 –

  One week later

  “Wake up.”

  Reuben’s chair swiveled, startling him from sleep. He slid off the seat onto the floor of the Mid-Mississippi with a groan. Stanley stared down at him. “Man, you can’t continue sleeping here. Smithson’s gonna find out and boot you outta a job.”

  “Blimey, you worry too much. Maybe he’ll assume I’m extremely dedicated and promote me.” Reuben hefted himself off the floor, pushing into his lower back until his spine cracked. A dull pain pulled at his neck and his cheek felt warm from where it had rested against the desktop. A week’s worth of sleeping at—or sometimes under—his desk meant he was worse for wear. He initially looked into some of the local boarding houses within walking distance of the newspaper, but they were all too expensive for his current savings. Any private boarders were too costly. Still, once he saved up enough money, he would find something. He simply needed to convince Smithson to promote him to a real beat and provide a raise along with it. At least the nearby bathhouse ensured his stench didn’t match the ugly sleeplessness which left his eyes sunken like the deceased he wrote about.

  Rubbing his eyes, Reuben leaned back in his chair. “Besides, I leave for a few hours in the evening to maintain appearances, and I’m always awake before Smithson is in.”