“And perhaps you shouldn’t be denouncing him for acting as he does. My boys—good God. The day they got back from the war I prepared them a turkey dinner, and they spoke almost exclusively of the horrors they’d doled out to other soldiers. The conversation wasn’t a celebration of their staying alive, but of the deaths they’d wrought. I couldn’t see the slightest morsel of sensitivity at that table. Which is to say, perhaps there’s some good to Caleb’s transformation. In light of the alternative.”
The story unfolded so quickly as to be dismissed as a harmless anecdote, but Isabelle had never heard her friend speak of her sons in such stark terms. That they might be a cause for shame was startling.
“Mildred,” she said.
“I’ve weathered worse than my sons’ behavior,” Mildred said.
“Yes, but you don’t have to do it alone. It’s why we have each other.”
Mildred was staring down the road, her apron crumpled against the railing. Her face was angular and the firmness of her disposition almost ensured that her features would never soften—would remain as they were for the rest of time.
“I don’t hold it against you,” she said, “but please don’t tell me how to manage my demons. I don’t judge you for bringing fruit to prisoners to ease the pain of your home. Let me deal with my emotions as I see fit.”
Isabelle stiffened against the back of her chair. After a time, Mildred returned to her seat. Both women seemed uncomfortable enough that they might sit there bolted permanently to the veranda before either would speak a word to the other again. The landscape before them was a vast stillness, which only brought more attention to this rare disharmony between them.
“I should apologize,” Mildred said at last.
“You’re wrong,” Isabelle said, and put her hand in the air. “There’s nothing to apologize for because you’re simply wrong in your accusation. You don’t have a clue how I feel. You might stifle your hurt, but that doesn’t reflect why I went to Selby. Any pain I have is not to be hidden. It’s a point of strength. And I will do good with it. A goal so esteemed as to help an innocent man wrongly accused—well, your apology would only tarnish the undertaking.”
Mildred looked over at her as if assessing a stranger, and her gaze did soften, minutely but perceptibly. She nodded as though the act carried a hint of encouragement.
“Much of what you’ve done recently is…let me put it this way: Your demeanor isn’t what it once was. And that can be confusing. But it would be narrow-minded to write you off like all the others.” Mildred bestowed a deep, comforting smile upon her friend. “You’re immensely courageous,” she said. “I didn’t speak ill of your trip to Selby out of any distaste for it. I think I was more so speaking to myself. To my own weaknesses.”
“Your own weaknesses?” Isabelle exclaimed. “I learned to carry myself by watching you. Any courage I might have is mere performance compared with yours.”
“What bravery is there in sitting on my porch twiddling my thumbs? It is a gaping lack of purpose, and it haunts me. Has always haunted me.”
Isabelle leaned forward. “Is it John?” she asked. “Do you miss him?”
Mildred scrunched up her face like a raisin.
“The feeling was as present when he was alive as it is with him in the grave. The problem is that I can’t locate what it is. Which doesn’t make the lack any easier to bear. If anything, the pain is only greater because of the stubborn mystery of it.”
Her friend’s countenance slowly crumbled, her jaw trembling, her almond eyes gone watery, and when her hand began to shake Isabelle reached over and took it in her own, lacing each of their fingers together, telling her it was fine—that everything was fine. The clammy warmth of the afternoon was like a sealant upon their palms, and it felt as though nothing could bring them apart, nothing could undo their bond. As far as Isabelle was concerned, they could sit here for the rest of the afternoon. She had nowhere to go.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay to feel, Mildred.”
“It’s not just that. Not right now, anyway.”
Isabelle leaned forward. “Then what?”
Mildred sighed. “I am loath to bring it up, but God, if I can introduce another topic, no matter how tawdry, to divert us from this one, it would be the greatest favor for you to allow it.”
“Anything at all,” Isabelle said.