“Think they’ll put it out by morning?”
“I hope,” Abby says. “I’m worried about it coming up the mountain if the wind shifts.”
“Surely it’ll get to the crick and stop?”
“Not afore it burns through Hosea’s orchard. He’s gonna be hell to deal with after this, Gracie. Bellflower better hope his pockets are deep enough to pay the Rays for the damage.”
Abby’s still blissfully unaware of what Bellflower truly is. I take the cup of coffee from her and drink. It’s full coffee for once, not cut with anything. Ebba must have brought it from town. The bitter taste clears some of the muddiness from my head. My eyes still sting from the smoke, and I’m so bone tired I could fall over. Still, being here with Abby provides some respite.
“This fire might put a halt on my weddin’。 Pa had arranged things for this Sunday, after church. You’ll be there, or at least come to shivaree us, won’t you?”
And just like that, my peaceful respite is over. I think of the way Harlan’s fingers crawled up my skirt in town. How he made me twist and choke in the tent tonight. I stand up from the swing, the hot coffee sloshing over the rim of the cup. I don’t even feel it scald my hand. “You’re actually goin’ through with marrying that bastard?”
“Gracie, I have to. It’s what Pa wants.” Abby tries to grab my hand. I push it away. “He’s only got a few days left, according to Doc Gallagher. He’s wasted away to a scrap of what he was. He ain’t even eating now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Abby. But does your pa know he’s marryin’ his only daughter to a rapist?”
“Harlan can be a little forward in his ways, but to say he’s—”
“No.” I don’t let her finish. If Abby’s gonna marry this bastard, she deserves to know the truth. “He knocked up little Corinne Baker. She came here last month, asking for Granny’s secret tonic.”
“What?”
“It’s a purgative tonic, to end a pregnancy. If you take it early enough, it works.”
“No.” A horrified look passes over Abby’s face. “She’s just a baby herself.”
“Yup. I sat there and held that little girl’s hand while she cried and told me how scared she was that her daddy’d find out about Harlan sneakin’ in her window. She was even more scared of the hellfire she’d face if God wouldn’t forgive her for killing her baby. I told her if God couldn’t forgive a scared kid for doing what she had to do, he’d better not forgive Harlan Northrup, ’cause that ain’t the kind of God I want to believe in.”
My lip trembles and I start to cry, tears of anger and frustration bubbling over. I wipe them away angrily. “But she ain’t the only one. He cornered me outside the mercantile yesterday and shoved his hand under my skirt. Touched me. He wanted to do a whole lot more.”
“Gracie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well. Now you do. And since you were at that camp meeting tonight, you saw for yourself what he did to me there. So, no. I won’t be comin’ to your wedding, Abby. I won’t bless your marriage to a man cut from the same cloth as my daddy. In every way.”
It takes a minute for my words to hit Abby fully. I can see the shock wash over her like a cold rain. “Gracie . . . Your pa did that to you? Why’n’t you ever tell me?”
“Because it ain’t something I care to remember. Or talk about.”
No. I don’t want to remember, but I do anyway.
I remember the night Shep Doherty came in from a drunken tear and found his way to my bed. I’d just turned thirteen three weeks before, and I’d shot up like a spring sapling. Before he’d done what he’d done, he’d whispered my mother’s name—as if looking like her gave him the right to touch me.
“Things didn’t go farther than groping. But I think they would have.” My words sound distant, hollow. It’s easier to imagine I’m talking about somebody else. “I was just thankful the whiskey made his dick so soft he couldn’t do more. He never touched me again . . . not in that way. But he still found ways to hurt me—sometimes with his words. Sometimes with his fists.”
Abby’s eyes fill with sympathetic tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“I started skipping out on school and going on the train almost every day after that. Pretended I was an orphan. The rich people treated me good—paid for my dinner, gave me sweets. The whole time, I was stealing from them when they had their backs turned. I didn’t like it much, but I had to. I swore, once I had enough money saved up, I’d stay on that westbound train until it got to California. Then, he up and died and I had to come here.”
Abby takes my hand. “And if you’d never come here, we’d have never met.”
“You’re right, I reckon.” I smile at her. “I just wish we could be together, Abby. Really together. I hate it that you’re marrying Harlan. I wish there was some way . . .”
“I can’t talk about it, Gracie.” Abby’s voice cracks. “What good does it do to think about the might-have-beens? That lighthouse won’t make me a living, and I can’t run our farm by myself much longer. It’s too expensive. Harlan has more than enough money to take care of things. You’ll get married, too, someday, Gracie.”
I laugh. “No. No I won’t. I’ll stay single, just like Granny.”
“And you know how people judge her for it—for having Val out of wedlock and everything.”
I let go of Abby’s hand. “My being single or married ain’t gonna change a thing about our standing in this place. They’ve always judged us. They always will.”
“Well. I’d better get back home. With Pa sick the way he is, I don’t like to leave him for very long.”
“Okay.” I turn away. “Go on, then.” I try not to cry. All of this is too much. There’s a beat of silence, then she takes me by the arm, turning me.
“Gracie?”
“What?”
“After you get some rest, come up to the lighthouse. Real early, before daylight. Pa ain’t up by then . . . and well, I’d like to . . .” She smiles shyly. “I’d like to finish what we started the other night.”
I touch my forehead to hers and close my eyes. “Maybe after Caro gets home, I can sneak away.”
“I’d like that a lot.”
It’s three in the morning when I creep down the ladder. Caro is in bed, sound asleep, one leg thrown over the covers. She hadn’t been able to find Doc Gallagher, but Granny had made it through the night without having another fit, and I’d finally gotten a couple hours of rest.
I silently slip on my boots and head out the kitchen door. The smell of charred timber hangs in the air. Down over the ridge, the sky still blazes orange. Now and then, the fire catches on a tree and shoots up a column of explosive flame. It’s almost enough to make me turn back and go inside—but this might be the only chance Abby and I have to be together, and I can’t deny myself the one bit of sweetness I have left in my life.