Emma Goldrick - The Unmarried Bride

‘What’s the matter, Harry?’ she murmured.

‘I don’t know,’ the boy said. ‘I was dreaming about—about—well, you wouldn’t care about that. You don’t have to sit with me. You could go back to bed. I’m all right.’ There was a large amount of pride in his voice, more than his age or size should have contained.

‘I’m sure you are,’ Abby said. She applied a little pressure and pulled the boy against her until the whole length of him was resting against her body. The sobbing gave way to intermittent tears. ‘Do you want me to call your dad?’

‘No!’ said the boy sharply. ‘Not that! He’d be awful mad.’

The crying had stopped completely. He rubbed his nose with one hand and poked at his eyes with the knuckles of the other, still leaning against her. She could feel the muscles in his body relax. Silence played across the room. Nothing but the sound of the storm could be heard.

As the wall clock struck the quarter-hour he lifted his head out of the warm, soft nest between her breasts.

‘You know, you’re awful soft. My daddy is hard, like iron. I think my mommy used to be soft like you.’

Wordlessly, Abby stroked his shoulder and brushed his hair out of his eyes. She maintained the pressure that kept him against her and waited. By the next striking of the quarter-hour, he was asleep. His features were marked by tears but there was a little smile on his face.

‘What do I do now?’ Abby muttered.

She almost jumped out of her skin when a deep voice behind her said, ‘Now you pick him up and put him back in bed.’

She turned around and looked over her shoulder. Selby Farnsworth, dressed in the bottom half of an old pair of pyjamas, was staring down at her, brooding over the pair of them. She looked back at him for a moment or two and then sighed. ‘I can’t—he’s too heavy for me.’

He stepped down a stair or two to position himself in front of them and reached down gently to pick up his son. As his arm encircled the child the back of his wrists touched and then caressed her breasts. Abby took a deep audible breath as all her systems snapped to attention, and then he was gone.

She trailed after him into the boy’s room. He put the child down gently, arranged the blankets over him, checked the window to make sure it was shut and then tiptoed out into the hall. Abby took a moment to lean over the bed and kiss Harry’s forehead. He stirred uneasily, which made her back up hurriedly.

‘Go’nite, Mommy,’ Harry murmured.

Abby moved quietly out into the hall, and in the darkness ran into Selby. His arms came around her, perhaps to steady her, or perhaps—oh, stop that, she told herself angrily, stop romanticising.

‘Does he always have nightmares like this?’ she whispered.

‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I almost had him over these dreams. Thanks for your help.’

To be totally honest, it didn’t sound as if he really meant any thanks at all. It was almost as if he was embarrassed to have his son be the centre of such notice, Abby told herself. And he’d said dreams, not nightmares.

‘I couldn’t just leave him there, crying,’ she snapped, just barely remembering to keep her voice down. ‘Any woman would have gone to comfort him.’

‘That’s what you think,’ he said disgustedly. ‘His mother wouldn’t.’ And he marched smartly down the hall towards his own room.

As she stood watching him move away from her, her hands doubled into fists. ‘I could give you such a whack,’ she whispered. But the lessons on ladylike behaviour which her mother had drilled into her as a child all came to mind and so, with only some mild swearing under her breath, she returned to her room.

Sleep, this time, did not come quietly, or gently. She finally fell asleep and wrestled with her own terrible dream, which lasted until morning. In that dream she was chasing Selby Farnsworth with a big stick and she finally caught him. But before she had the satisfaction of whacking him the dream came to a halt, and then went back to its beginning, like a recorded tape whose end had been spliced to its start to make a circle. She never did get to whack him—hip and thigh, as the Bible would have it. It was frustrating, it was tiring and it was totally unsatisfactory!

Abby opened one eye and looked out of the window at a weak sun trying to rise over the hills of Martha’s Vineyard island. Time to get up, she grumbled to herself. Her sheets were all in twisted skeins around her legs. She had to unwind them before she could set a foot on the floor.

If I don’t get up and make a real breakfast he’s going to make some of those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he threatened me with last night. And that, my girl, is something up with which you shall not put! she told herself.

She swung herself up out of the bed, sleepily staggered over to the window, raised the blind and threw the window open. There was a fine wind coming in from the east, bringing with it the flavour of sea and shore and all the world of fishing. Gulls haunted the stern of one of the passenger ferries which ploughed the waters north of them from Woods Hole to Martha’s Vineyard and back again. Here and back and the birds followed along, having learned long ago that the best of food came off the stern of one of these vessels after the breakfast or dinner meals.

Resolving to get going, Abby looked around her, found her robe and slippers, gathered up her underclothes, and padded down to the ornate bathroom. There was not a sign of life from either of the other two bedrooms. Which is just as well, she told herself. The last thing I need is to have two strange men following me around while I’m showering.

So she went as quietly as possible into the bathroom and started the shower. The quick response of the electric generator soon gave her hot water with enough to spare. She soaked under the pleasure of it and then was reminded by a movement outside the bathroom door that her time was fast fleeing. She stepped out, dried off, climbed into her undies and slipped into a pair of blue jeans and a light yellow blouse. Her hair was more than she could handle so she left it the way it was. Raggedy Ann, she told herself and laughed. Raggedy Ann looking for Raggedy Andy. Stop this, Abigail, she chided herself. There is more to this whole family set-up than you know. Something is seriously wrong and you may not wish to be dragged into this whole mess. But a little voice in her subconscious whispered that if there was trouble ahead little Abby Spencer would be among the first to offer to help. She blamed her mother for this affliction of hers—offering to help. Along with the ladylike lessons, her mother had been, and still was, big on simple kindness and the proverbial helping hand.

She picked up her night things and went out into the hall again. Her dog was waiting with her yellow tennis ball clenched between her teeth.

‘Come on, girl,’ she said softly. ‘Downstairs. Breakfast. If you don’t put that darn ball away you won’t eat.’

Breakfast—that was the magic word. The dog lifted up her ears, hiked herself up to her feet and raced, if that was a word that could be used about Cleo, to the head of the stairs. She turned, looking for praise. Her play-ball dropped out of her mouth and went merrily bouncing down the dark stairs. They both could hear the ball bouncing at least partway down the staircase. They made their way down, with Abby holding tightly on to the banister on one side, and Cleo’s collar on the other. Neither she nor Cleo could find the yellow ball. Cleo sat down at the foot of the stairs and mourned.

‘I didn’t throw it,’ Abby said. ‘Don’t expect me to go fetch it for you. Come on.’

Her ‘woman’s best friend’ offered a little growl. Abby stamped her foot on the dull linoleum. Complaining was acceptable; threatening was prohibited. They both knew the rules, but Cleo was standing up for her own principles.