Chapter 2 - The Road Between Them
For the first hundred yards, neither spoke.
The morning was cold and clear. Pale mountains rose beyond yellow grass while wagon wheels rattled somewhere behind them in town.
Rosalie walked briskly.
Wade matched her pace without trying to slow her.
Finally he said, “I should have made my intentions plainer.”
“To whom?”
He considered the question.
“To you.”
“You were plain enough when we were alone.”
“Then to your family.”
Rosalie stopped beside a split-rail fence.
“My family didn't steal a brooch because you failed to publish a notice.”
“No.”
The immediate agreement unsettled her.
“Did you ever give Vivien reason to believe you were courting her?”
“No.”
“Did you ask my mother for permission to call?”
“I told her I intended to call on you.”
Rosalie's stomach tightened.
“What did she say?”
Wade hesitated.
“She said you understood the difference between kindness and courtship.”
The world seemed suddenly colder.
“And what did you say?”
“That I hoped you did.”
Rosalie looked away.
There it was.
The lesson she'd heard all her life had traveled beyond their house.
“You believed her.”
“I didn't understand why she kept saying it.”
“But you listened.”
“Yes.”
His honesty hurt.
Wade could have defended himself.
Instead he stood there and accepted the consequence.
Rosalie resumed walking.
“I can't continue seeing you while my family turns every visit into a question of which Bennett daughter you meant.”
Wade's hand tightened around his hat.
“Are you ending this?”
“I don't know what this is.”
Pain crossed his face.
Quiet.
Unperformed.
“I need room.”
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
Wade nodded.
“Then I won't decide the measure for you.”
He stopped walking.
Rosalie expected another sentence.
There wasn't one.
“Good morning, Rosalie.”
He turned toward town.
Rosalie watched him leave.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead she missed him before the road swallowed him.
At the mercantile she finally opened the letter in her pocket.
The Cottonwood Creek District Board offered her the teaching position.
Eight dollars weekly.
A small room behind the schoolhouse.
Six months.
Rosalie read the contract twice.
Freedom apparently came with poor wages and a leaking roof.
She smiled.
That afternoon she told her family.
Lydia reacted first.
“You cannot live eight miles away alone.”
“I'll have twenty-three pupils.”
“You know what I mean.”
Horus frowned at the salary.
“Eight dollars?”
“A week.”
“That's hardly worth leaving home.”
Rosalie folded the contract.
“It is if the money is mine.”
Vivien said nothing.
For the first time since the church supper, she seemed embarrassed rather than angry.
Three days later Wade came to the Bennett house.
Rosalie heard the knock while standing at the staircase landing.
Lydia answered.
Vivien appeared immediately in a lavender afternoon dress.
“Mr. Hollis.”
“Mrs. Bennett. I came to ask whether Rosalie wishes to see me.”
“Vivien is here.”
Silence.
“I didn't come to see Vivien.”
“She has been terribly distressed.”
“I am sorry for her distress.”
“People are talking.”
“They're talking because someone announced a marriage I never proposed.”
Lydia lowered her voice.
“If you continue singling Rosalie out, she may take it more seriously than is wise.”
Rosalie's hand froze on the railing.
Wade was silent.
Then:
“You told me that before.”
“Because it's true. Rosalie is sensible. She understands what she looks like.”
The words entered Rosalie like cold metal.
“She won't mistake kindness for courtship,” Lydia continued.
Wade's answer came rougher.
“No. You needed her to believe that.”
Rosalie descended.
Her mother turned.
Wade saw her.
“How long?” Rosalie asked.
Lydia frowned.
“How long what?”
“How long have you been telling people I should interpret affection as pity?”
“I was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
“From foolish hopes.”
Vivien appeared behind Lydia.
“Mama—”
“A woman like Vivien can help a rancher's position,” Lydia said. “You have always been happier with useful work.”
Rosalie looked at her sister.
“Did you know the brooch came from my room?”
Vivien swallowed.
“Mama told me you'd put it away because you understood it wasn't meant for you.”
“And you believed that?”
Vivien looked down.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt precisely because it was truthful.
Wade stepped forward.
Then stopped.
Rosalie turned toward him.
“You heard my mother telling you I would mistake courtship for kindness. Why did you remain so careful?”
“Because I thought quiet was what respect looked like to you.”
Rosalie's eyes burned.
“Sometimes it is.”
She swallowed.
“And sometimes quiet leaves room for a lie.”
Wade did not defend himself.
That mattered.
Rosalie removed the contract from her pocket.
“I need to make one decision that isn't about who wants me.”
Wade looked at it.
“Then make it.”
He left.
Saturday morning Rosalie rode to Cottonwood Creek.
The district chairman placed a pen before her.
“Still interested, Miss Bennett?”
Rosalie thought of the empty cedar box.
Her mother's voice.
Vivien wearing the brooch.
Wade walking away because she had asked for room.
Then she signed.
“Yes.”
Outside, Rosalie held the key to the teacher's room.
For the first time in her life, she possessed a door whose opening did not depend on her parents.
Then a horse approached.
Vivien dismounted.
Her face was pale.
“Rosalie.”
She held an old letter.
“I found this in Mama's desk.”
Rosalie unfolded it.
The handwriting belonged to a dead woman.
Dear Lydia, if anything should happen to me, there is something your daughters deserve to know.
Rosalie looked up.
Wade's mother had been dead fourteen years.
May you like
And Rosalie's name appeared in the next sentence.
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