She hesitated, caught. How could she tell any man, any being, about me? She knew so little. We’d shared a handful of letters consisting of little more than evidence that we were still living, proof that we had not succumbed to the fate of poor Dorothy May. My mother knew nothing about me.
“I told him how able you are. I’ve been kept abreast of all your accomplishments. And Mrs. Thomas tells me you have not been ill, even once. Your teeth are strong and straight . . . your figure too. And you are an accomplished weaver. All the Bradfords are. I daresay there is nothing he will require in a wife that you can’t provide.”
“But what if he is not what I require in a husband?”
She blinked at me. “You are beyond the age where you can be too particular, Deborah. And you could do much worse. He is not much to look at, though I often think good looks are a cross. Your father was a very handsome man. We both suffered for it.”
I was too distracted by her last statement to be offended by her first. “Oh? How exactly did he suffer?”
“His good looks made him believe he deserved more than life gave him. Had he been plain, he might not have been so proud.”
“Had he been proud, he would not have abandoned his responsibilities,” I countered.
“He was lost at sea.”
“Lost at sea?” I’d never heard this part of the tale. “He did not drown at sea, Mother. He left us. Do not make excuses for him.”
My honesty seemed to stun her. “He was ashamed,” she murmured.
“His shame was more important to him than his family?”
“He was swindled out of his inheritance. It broke him. He tried to make a living as a farmer, but he was cut out for greater things.”
“Greater things?”
“He was so handsome and so smart. So gifted. ’Twould have been a waste to not pursue more than our circumstances offered. He had to try, didn’t he?”
She was lying to herself. I couldn’t decide whether she’d told the story so often she believed it, or if it was simply better for her to be a widow than a woman abandoned by her husband. I suspected that was so, and it made me angry at her and angry at anyone who would condemn her, as if his failures were her fault. A widow still had her dignity. A discarded wife did not.
“He wanted to see the world,” she explained. “He wanted to explore.”
“And you didn’t?” I asked.
She chuffed as if such things were ridiculous. “You children are all grown. All healthy. All strong. My work is done.” She had not really answered the question, but she wouldn’t. She had learned not to want impossible things.
I did not want to hate my mother, but I did not love her, and I could not listen to her rationalizations. She had not raised me. She had not worked for my welfare. I had done that with my own sweat and my own labor.
I rose, unable to abide her presence any longer. I was supposed to remain with her until the following day, when Deacon and Mrs. Thomas returned, but I determined in that moment that I would walk back to Middleborough if I had to. I was wearing sturdy shoes.
“Your sister, Sylvia, had another baby. She has four now,” she said in a rush, seeing I was ready to flee. “She writes that all are healthy and strong.”
“I am glad she is well,” I whispered. I hoped she was. She lived in Pennsylvania. I hadn’t seen her—or any of my siblings—since I was five years old. I could not even conjure a face.
“All of my children are well. That has been my only goal.”
I wanted justice—justice for her, justice for me—but as I looked at her, mercy won. It was true. She was right. I was well. I was healthy and strong and grown, just as she’d said. With five young children and no way to support them, she must have feared such a day would never come.
“He came back . . . for a time, just after you went to live with the Thomases,” she added. “He asked about all of you. Where you were and if you were well. I thought he would stay. But he didn’t. And I haven’t seen him since.”
“You let him come back?” Had she welcomed him into her bed with the arms that had once held his dispersed and discarded children?
“Of course I did. It was all I ever wanted.” She didn’t even look up from her stitching.
“Why?” The word was almost a wail.
“Because it would have meant you could come back,” she said quietly.
I sank back into the chair I’d vacated, shamed and heartsore. My mother had given me all that she had. And I was angry that she couldn’t give more.