His heart turned over. “You can have one if it will help. You’ve been through a lot in the past few weeks.”
The toe of her red leather boot peeped out from beneath her skirt to tap his shoulder. “You’re not helping.”
Then he would divert her attention. “Did he tell how he got the artichokes into the kitchen?”
She laughed a little. “I asked. He wouldn’t tell.”
“But he’s behind it?”
“There’s no doubt in my mind.” Exhaustion made her voice faint, but even so, he could hear the affection. “I wish I could convince you he is innocent.”
He clasped the toe of her boot with his hand, giving her foot a quick squeeze. “I knowyoubelieve his innocence, and I also know you’re a loyal American. No one could work so hard in such a thankless task unless they were.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose.” She sighed and looked away. “Someone like you probably can’t understand why I’m so irrational about this. Unless you have a brother or a sister,it’s hard to describe the bond. It’s more than a friendship. We share the same blood, the same history. Even the same heart.”
“I had a sister once.” The words inadvertently popped out, surprising him as much as her.
“You did? I thought you said you had no family.”
“That’s true too. My mother left when I was young, and my dad died when I was fourteen. Molly was still a little kid, and I was the only one left to look out for her.”
Caroline leaned in closer, her face intrigued. If sharing his own loss would help her deal with this separation from her brother, he would do so. He told her about living in Chicago and working as a photoengraver during the overnight shift at the newspaper. He spoke of how he came home to wake Molly each morning, help her dress, and walk her to school.
Their walk ran alongside one of the logging runs on the river. Chicago was the largest lumber market in the nation, with schooners coming in from the Great Lakes and the Canadian timberlands. During logging season, Molly was fascinated by the thousands of logs that cascaded downstream until they arrived at the mills, where burly lumber-shovers guided the logs onto chutes and into the mills.
But logging season didn’t last forever, and during the down times, Molly begged Nathaniel for the chance to swim in the river, especially during the sweltering days of August. Their tenement bordered the river, and leaving Molly alone and unsupervised for so many hours in the day was a recipe for disaster, so he taught her to swim. She was a natural, and he called her his little water sprite, which she loved. He took her to the public park to swim in the lake at least once a week during the summer.
But the river beckoned. They could see it from their fourth-floor apartment, and Molly pestered incessantly, especially when she saw the Italians who lived on the opposite bank wading in the river. What eleven-year-old child had the wisdom to see the danger? It was late summer, and the logging season wastapering to an end. Days could go by without a schooner, and the heat sometimes drove people to take a quick dip in the river.
“I was always so tired during those years,” he said. “I worked the overnight shift at the newspaper and only had a few hours to sleep each morning. Then I went to class, came home and fed Molly, and then it was time to go to work again. One day I fell asleep after class. I had an hour before I needed to make dinner, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, Molly was gone.”
He immediately suspected where she’d gone and darted to the window to see if she was wading in the river. There was no sign of her, but what he saw chilled his blood. Hundreds of logs barreling downstream. A schooner had arrived and unloaded its haul. If Molly had been in the river...
He hadn’t even put on his shoes. He merely vaulted down the stairs and tore across the yard to the riverbank. There was trouble downstream. A group of Italians clustered on the bank, standing over something.
“It was Molly,” he said blankly. “She was still wearing her school clothes, but her feet were bare. She’d hiked up her skirt to wade in the river, but the current could be so strong. And then the logs came, and she didn’t have a chance.”
Caroline’s face was horrified. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Molly would be thirty-one if she had lived, probably married with a bunch of kids. Now she would always be eleven years old, a beautiful water sprite who would forever be his greatest failing.
“After Molly died, I felt like a weight settled on top of me, sucking me down. It comes back sometimes. It’s a sense of failure, drowning out whatever good is in my life. I’ve lived that day over a million times. What if I’d had just one more cup of coffee? What if I’d been firmer with Molly about enforcing the rules?”
Her smile was sad but knowing. “Gray always wanted me and Luke to walk the straight and narrow. It wasn’t his faultwhen we didn’t. What happened to Molly wasn’t your fault either. God has created a huge, complex tapestry with our lives. It’s got shadows and darkness shot through with highlights of gold. We can never go back and undo those threads and weave them into something else. I wish we could.”
She laid her hand on his shoulder, and her compassion flowed into him like a balm. What he wouldn’t do to have a woman like this in his life. He laid his palm over her hand, gently squeezing.
“I’m glad you’re home,” he said.
“I am too.”
Disappointment from failing in Cuba was heavy in her voice. Her brother was a traitor and the first lady was a harridan, but she’d been working with those dark threads from the day he met her. She managed to live a luminous life of joy and hope despite the darkness dogging her heels, and there was much to admire in that.
He only feared her optimism might someday be crushed by the slow wheels of justice.
Twenty-One
Nathaniel braced himself for the nationwide presidential tour. The three-month trip was going to be the longest time any president had been away from the White House, involving a journey from coast to coast, and from the Great Lakes all the way down to the port of New Orleans. As spring morphed into summer, the tour took shape as more stops were added to the itinerary and details were finalized.
