“But what if something should happen?”
“Like what?”
I blink back my surprise. “What if... what if Kat should get sick or the house catches fire or I fall and break my leg?”
Martin smiles easily. “I am confident in your abilities to see to any circumstance, Sophie. And what could I do from miles away if any of those events should occur?” He turns to get his hat off its hook on the hall tree, setting it on his head as he reaches for a packed valise on the floor. “I should be home in four days, maybe five. Be a good girl, Kat.”
He doesn’t seem to notice Kat is wearing one of her old dresses, or he doesn’t care. Or maybe he believes I am better suited to getting Kat to relinquish the dress and therefore it is better if he says nothing.
Martin turns to me. If we were a normal husband and wife, he’d lean in at this moment to kiss me good-bye. But we are not a normal husband and wife.
He looks eager to go, as though he is about to embark on anadventure that he is keen to begin. Perhaps this is another way he deals with his losses: by looking to the open road and the beckoning horizon as an escape from the reminders of all that has been taken from him.
“Have a good trip,” I tell him.
Martin opens the front door and steps out into the cool mist of a quiet Sunday morning.
6
March 30, 1905
Dearest Mam,
You’re surely wondering about the return address on the envelope that brought this letter to you. I have married a man who lives in San Francisco. His name is Martin Hocking and he’s the one pictured with me in the enclosed photograph. Martin is a widower with a little girl named Katharine. She’s five years old and we call her Kat. I hope to send a photograph of her to you sometime soon.
It truly doesn’t matter how I met Martin; I will just say that our paths crossed at the right time for both of us. I know you thought I could begin a new life for myself in New York, and I appreciate so very much everything you did to get me to America, but I couldn’t stay in Manhattanany longer, for many reasons. It was no place where you’d want me to be, Mam, and all that you truly wanted for me, I now have. Martin makes a good living, he has a beautiful house here in the city, and I lack nothing. I even have my own bedroom, which is what I wanted, and he did not object. I think he still grieves his first wife’s passing. He doesn’t talk much about her, and I’m glad he doesn’t. He travels most days for his job; he works for an insurance company.
I wouldn’t say that Martin and I are good friends yet, but I think we could be someday. What Martin and I do have in common, aside from old wounds, is our wanting to provide a good home for sweet Kat. She has taken the death of her mother so very hard. The wee thing doesn’t speak more than a word or two. I can see the pain of her loss in the way she looks at me, at everything. It is my hope that in time, the ache of her grief will lessen and she will want to again hear her own voice.
Kat and I find things to do while Martin’s away and when it’s not cold and rainy. There are many parks here, and a library and shops. The ocean is nearby and I can always get fresh fish. Occasionally the earth trembles here in San Francisco. There was a shuddering just a few days ago that lasted only seconds, and yet alarmed me greatly. But Martin assured me it is the nature of the earth to correct itself from time to time. This is how it does it. I will get used to the quaking, he said. Everyone who lives in San Francisco does. I’m sure he is right.
There is a lady who lives across the street with a baby. I have seen her coming in and out of her house and I hope tomeet her soon. The other people who live on our street are older and are cordial enough when we pass one another on walks. They seem a bit wary of me and I mentioned this to Martin. He said people here are wary of all immigrants. We live not too far from Chinatown, which I don’t visit, but when we are downtown I see the way some people glower at the Chinese men with their long braids trailing down their backs.
I think I can be happy here in San Francisco and I don’t want you to worry. Martin is a rather private person but it’s possible that in time affection may grow between us, and as you know, I am in no hurry. If you hear from Mason, please tell him I do not hold it against him that he left me in New York like he did. It was hard after he left, but I’m happy now being Kat’s mother, especially since she will likely be the only child I will ever be a mother to.
Give my love to the brothers and their wives and all the wee ones. I miss you and think of you often and I’m so very glad you let me take Da’s old word book with me. I know how much you loved it. Every morning I peek inside and choose a word for the day. Today I chose the wordrenaissance. It means to be reborn. That’s how I feel, Mam. I finally feel like I’ve been given a chance to start over.
I’ve often wished I could turn back time and do things differently, but maybe it’s better to start anew than to go back in time and hope you have the courage and wisdom to make different choices.
Please be happy for me, Mam...
Kat and I return from posting my overdue letter to my mother—one that I’d rewritten half a dozen times—just as a steady rain begins to fall. That we had to venture out under threat of showers was because I had no postage stamps and Martin keeps the desk in the library locked. I know this because I have tried its drawer pulls before—not to pry but because the days are long when Martin is away and there was a day when I thought Kat and I might pay a visit to Mrs. Lewis, since she made it clear to me she wants us to, but I didn’t know how to find her place again. I had hoped to come across her address in Martin’s papers, but the desk was locked. On another day I’d wanted to use one of Martin’s fountain pens, as mine had run out of ink, and the desk was locked. At the time, I’d sat back in the chair wondering why Martin felt the need to lock every drawer in the desk when he was away. If he keeps money inside I could see where he might secure that one drawer, but all of them? It seems he doesn’t want the contents of the desk safe as much as he wants them secret. What could he have in the drawers besides files for his job, ledgers maybe, a bank book or two?
I had asked him about the desk when he was home again, told him I’d needed to use a fountain pen while he was gone because I had no ink for mine, but instead of seeing it as a problem of access he told me I didn’t need approval from him for every little purchase. If I needed ink, he trusted me to use the money he gave me to go to the stationer’s to buy whatever kind of ink I wanted.
Today when I realized I needed a stamp to at last post the letter to Mam, I again tried the desk, on the off chance there were stamps inside and he had left it unlocked. He hadn’t, and Kat and I ambled down to the post office under the grayest of gray skies.
I suppose Martin’s wanting to have his desk all to himself isjust how some men are with their desks. I wouldn’t know. Da didn’t have one.
In any case, we are back from our postal mission and are taking off our wraps when I notice a small envelope that was dropped through our mail slot and is now resting on the entry rug. Kat actually sees it first. She is at last wearing her new clothes after my telling her I would make dresses for her dolls from her old, too-small frocks. She bends to pick up the envelope and the crinolines under her skirt sound like they’re whispering,What’s this?
“Why don’t you open it up, love, and we’ll see who it’s from.” I hang up our capes and watch as Kat carefully opens the letter, sealed with just a bit of wax and a monogrammed letterE. She unfolds the single sheet of paper inside and hands it to me. At the top of the paper is the nameElizabeth Reynoldsin embossed ink that shimmers like bronze. I read the note aloud.
“My dear Mrs. Hocking, If you are receiving guests, Timmy and I would very much like to stop by this afternoon at half past two to welcome you to the neighborhood. We shan’t stay long! If it’s an inopportune time, just send a note over to the house directly across the street from you and we will look to schedule another day. Cordially yours, Libby Reynolds.”
I look down at Kat. “Are we receiving guests?” I ask her, unable to rein in the smile breaking across my face. Finally meeting the woman across the street after living in this house for nearly a month is too delightful a thought.
Kat just blinks up at me.
