Nevada Barr - Bittersweet

Imogene finished her whiskey and turned from the window. She gathered up Sarah’s paintings, twenty-five or thirty in all, shredded them into the washbasin, and put a match to them. The paper curled and blackened, the flames leaping as high as the mirror. As quickly, it died away to nothing and Imogene scraped the ashes into the chamber pot.

Deep in a drunken sleep, Sarah did not stir.

Mam’s letter turned up the following morning when Imogene took the washbasin downstairs to clean it. Sarah was hung over, but Imogene made her sit up while they read the letter together. Finished, Imogene set it aside and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Margaret ought to have known better than to say what she did,” Imogene said. “Sometimes when people love you and you leave them, even when it isn’t your fault, they say and do spiteful things without meaning to. I think your mam was just missing you very much and her hurting made her mean. It may not even be true.”

“He doesn’t remember me,” Sarah said dully. “I guess it made me crazy for a little while. I’m okay if I don’t think about it. I’ll be careful.”

Imogene hugged her, her cheek pressed against the tangled hair. She held her, thinking. Mam’s letter stared up from the mess of blankets.

“We won’t let Matthew forget,” Imogene said suddenly. She lifted Sarah from her shoulder. “We will write every day. You write a letter to Matthew every day and at the end of every week I’ll post them.”

Sarah’s eyes brightened for a moment, then dimmed. “Matthew’s a baby.”

“Mam will read them to him. He’ll not understand much, but you’ll always be there with him. He’ll know he has a mother and when he’s older he’ll know you always thought of him, always loved him. I’ll help. We’ll start today.” She got ink and paper. “Sit up.” Pillows were pushed behind her and covers tucked around her until Sarah appeared upright and stable. Imogene spread the paper over a book and dipped her pen. “Dear Matthew?”

Sarah bit her underlip and then began, “My Dear Son Matthew…”

It was a short letter, filled with warmth and caring. When it was finished, Sarah signed her name, a shaky, spidery hand under Imogene’s sure black strokes.

The parlor chair and the washbasin were ruined. Imogene overruled Lutie’s protests and they were added to her bill. She replaced the broken looking glass herself, smuggling in the new one wrapped in a shawl, rather than face the same odd looks occasioned by the chair and the burnt basin. An hour’s scrubbing had gotten the worst of the soot off the ceiling above the washstand where the paintings had been burned.

Evelynne Bone, who had seen the paint-smeared chair and the charred basin, gossiped of it. One evening she made the mistake of cornering McMurphy while he waited in the parlor for his lesson. She told him what she had seen. “It smacks of necromancy,” she whispered with satisfaction. For her pains, the old miner told her she might put it in her pocket and ride on it; he didn’t know what “neck-romancing” was, but he’d bet the old bat had never had any herself.

Two days later, Imogene came home from school at an unaccustomed hour to collect some books she had forgotten. Evelynne Bone was rummaging through the top drawer of the dresser in their room. The old woman scuttled out, snapping a whispered explanation of “seeing to the poor child, alone all day.” Sarah was asleep. Without waking her, Imogene kissed her forehead and whispered, “I’ll find us a home.”

SARAH’S FEVER SEEMED TO HAVE BURNED UP WITH THE PAINTINGS; morning after morning she awoke with a cool brow and clear eyes. Imogene began to hope she was finally mending. Weak from the long illness, Sarah stayed in their room much of the time. The first jewellike days of autumn, she had ventured out to sit on the porch in the sun, but the overzealous ministrations of Evelynne Bone had driven her back inside.

With her health, her spirit began to recover. Letters to her son, Matthew, were her chief joy. As she grew stronger, she delighted in keeping house for Imogene. The room was always tidy and a new painting or a spray of sage, carefully arranged, would cheer the schoolteacher’s desk. And Imogene’s undergarments were mended with such delicate stitchery that Lutie said it was a shame she couldn’t show it off to the menfolk.

Both Imogene and Lutie looked for a day when they could take Sarah to the mountains. On a Saturday in Indian summer, they borrowed Fred’s vegetable cart and drove Sarah to the meadow west of town. Though there was already snow on the peaks, the air was soft and the sun warm on their backs. Birdsong played with the rush of streams. The summer’s last warmth brought out the smell of the pines.

Tethering the pony in the shade of a white pine, they spread their blanket on the bank of a stream that cut through the new grass of the meadow. Sarah, imprisoned so long in her convalescence, turned her face to the sky like a sunflower. In the fresh mountain air she was persuaded to eat half again what she would have at the Broken Promise.

After lunch, Imogene and Sarah left Lutie to doze over her crocheting and walked arm in arm along the creek. Stands of willows bowed over the water, dappling the light with thin, bladelike leaves.

Sarah held tight to Imogene’s arm, breathing deeply of the sweet air. “There’s no smell like this in the world, Imogene. It makes me feel that if I could only breathe in enough, I could float-like those hot-air balloons you read to me about from the newspaper.”

Imogene pressed her hand. “It is good to be out of doors. I think we both had a touch of cabin fever.”

For a few moments they walked in silence. Overhead, geese honked, flying south. Golden aspen leaves gilded the mud along the creek.

Sarah slowed to a stop, her face blank in thought.

“What is it?” Imogene asked.

“I was wondering what I would have done without you these past months. What I would do without you now. You were always there.”

“I always will be.”

Fear touched Sarah like a shadow and she shook herself to be rid of it. “I’m younger than you,” she said sadly, then brightened. “But I’m not terribly healthy. Maybe I will die first.”

“Sarah!” Imogene laughed. “That’s a morbid fancy.” She started to stroll again along the stream.

“Wait.” Sarah stopped her and took her face between her small hands. “I want to thank you. Lean down.” Softly she kissed Imogene’s mouth. Sarah’s knees gave way and the schoolteacher had to support her in the crook of her arm.

“My dear! Are you all right?” Anxiously she laid a hand on Sarah’s forehead, but it was cool to the touch. “Your eyes are feverbright.”

“I’m fine,” Sarah said breathlessly. “I’m singing inside.” Her face quickly sobered. “Maybe we’d better go back to Lutie.”

“Let’s sit a minute,” Imogene suggested. “Let you rest-let me rest.” She smiled at Sarah. “Sometimes I don’t know if my old heart can take you. It’s pounding like a stampede of wild mustangs. Besides, I have some good news. I wanted to wait till we were alone to tell you.” Imogene sat on a fallen log and Sarah perched obediently beside her. “I have found us a house. It is quite small, but it is dear. And we can afford it with what I’m making at the school.”

“Imogene, you don’t mean it? Just the two of us?”

“Just the two of us.”

Sarah hugged herself. “You can’t guess all the hours, when my eyes were still too weak from the fever to read, I passed the time pretending we had our own home. Little dreams-like me calling to you from another room and nobody else to hear, us puttering around the kitchen. Mam’d never believe this, but I’d think how I’d like doing the dishes and filling the icebox with food. How long have you known?” she demanded suddenly, and pounced on Imogene, tickling her for keeping such a secret.