Abbie smiled. “I could hardly have left you on the doorstep. Jesse has written me a little about you, Elizabeth. And I’ve followed stories about the City of Futurity as long as Jesse has been associated with it. But I never dreamt I might meet a woman from the twenty-first century. Is it true you’re a soldier?”
“I served in the army, yeah. I mean yes.”
“And you saw combat?”
“I was in signals intelligence. Not really front-line stuff. I was at a base in Iraq that took mortar fire a few times, but nothing serious. And that was a few years ago. I’m a civilian now.”
“And you’ve voted in elections?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“And is it true that a black man was elected to the presidency?”
“For two terms,” Elizabeth said cautiously.
“Please don’t think I disapprove. Before I married Mr. Hauser, I advocated for abolition. I’ve read Mr. Douglass’s writings. And I pay attention to the controversy over women’s rights—I’m a great admirer of Mrs. Stanton, though I disapprove of her statements against the Fourteenth Amendment.” Abbie paused. “Do you understand me at all, Elizabeth?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t fear the future.”
“Okay, good.”
“Even if it includes something as alarming as marriage between persons of the same sex. Which Jesse has told me in his letters that it does. It’s strange, of course, and I would be helpless to defend it to a clergyman, but I think I understand the logic of it. In fact I have a cousin who—but that’s beside the point. What I mean to say, Elizabeth, is that I approve of you.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not sure you approve of me, however. No, let me speak frankly. I’m not sure you ought to approve of me, especially if Jesse has told you anything about me.”
“He hasn’t said a whole lot, Mrs. Hauser—Abbie.”
“My life illustrates the principle that it’s easier to care for strangers than for members of one’s own family. My brother Earl—Jesse’s father—fell out of favor with our parents when I was just three years old. Earl was fifteen years my senior, and the reasons for his disgrace were never discussed with me, but it became obvious that he had married a woman not respectable enough to bring home. That would have been Jesse’s mother. Earl sacrificed the prospect of a career in the family business for the sake of a woman he loved. Maybe that was foolish, maybe it was brave, but I was raised to see it as unacceptable, and I never questioned the verdict. If Earl ever tried to contact my parents, they didn’t speak of it to me.”
“That’s harsh.”
“It was harsh, but I didn’t see it in that light. For me it was as if Earl had died in some mysterious, unspeakable way. I didn’t hear from him—or, to be honest, think much about him—until I married Mr. Hauser. When our engagement was announced in the Boston Daily Advertiser I received a letter forwarded to me from the newspaper. The letter was from Earl. He offered his best wishes and he told me his wife had died. He said he was living in San Francisco, and that I had a nephew and a niece, Jesse and Phoebe. He supplied an address at which I could write to him.”
“Did you?”
“I’m ashamed to say I did not. I was too vain—too naïve—and too much distracted by my new position as a wealthy man’s wife. A few years passed. Mr. Hauser kept a home in Boston, but his business took him west more often than I liked. It suited us both to move to California, though it was a terribly long trip. The next time I gave any serious thought to Earl was when we took up residence in this house. I was all too aware that the address he had given me was within riding distance, in a part of town where nothing good ever happens. The knowledge began to weigh on my conscience. Eventually I relented and wrote him a note. A brusque note, but it told him I was in the city and that I hoped my niece and nephew were well.”
“And he wrote back?”
“Almost at once, and he begged a favor from me. He said Jesse and Phoebe were healthy but in need of education and decent circumstances, neither of which he could provide. He wondered if they might be allowed to come live with me.”
“That’s a big ask.”
“I’ve never heard it put that way—but yes, it certainly seemed like a ‘big ask.’ I resented it, and Mr. Hauser wouldn’t hear of it. But Mr. Hauser passed away only a month later. We had no other family in the city. So, belatedly, I did what my conscience had been urging me to do. I couldn’t take the children and raise them as my own, but I offered to take them periodically, especially if Earl thought they were at risk. He brought them to me a few days later. Their first visit lasted for six weeks, over the hottest part of the summer.”
“It must have been strange, seeing your brother again after so many years.”
“It surpassed strange. It was daunting. Chastening. Earl had lived a hard life. His clothes were ragged and his breath smelled of liquor. We spoke very briefly, and although we corresponded sporadically after that, we never became close. But I tried to think of my brother as a good-natured man who was walking a difficult path. His love of his children could not have been more obvious. He nearly wept when he left them with me.”
“You got along with them okay?”
“They were wary at first, and so was I. Ultimately, yes, we got along. What they lacked in discipline they made up for in natural curiosity. But, Elizabeth—” Abbie bowed her head and clutched her hands in her lap. “I could have done so much more.”
Women like Abbie had a vocabulary of hand and head gestures, explicitly feminine ways of expressing guilt or anger. Elizabeth couldn’t fake that stuff and found it difficult to read. But Abbie’s regret seemed authentic, as far as she could tell. “Phoebe lives here now, Jesse said.”
“Phoebe has lived here since the day her father was murdered.”
“When Jesse took her away from the burning, uh, house.”
“Jesse and Sonny Lau brought her to me. I summoned the doctor who treated her.”
“Sonny Lau is the Tong hatchetman?”
“Jesse’s friend. And Soo Yee’s brother. Yes. That was a terrible day. Phoebe’s injuries were terrifying. The doctor is a war veteran, and he knows all the ways a human body can come to harm. But even he was shocked. He sewed her up as well as he could, but he couldn’t save her left eye. Jesse left town after that, because he knew Candy’s men might try to hunt him down and kill him, and he didn’t want to lead them here. It was sheer luck he was hired by the City. Luck for Phoebe and for me, I mean. Every investment I inherited from Mr. Hauser more or less vanished in the financial crisis, and we would be in a difficult position if not for the money Jesse sends every month.”
“But you can afford to keep Soo Yee as a servant.”
“It was an agreement Jesse made with Sonny Lau. A job and, in effect, a Western education for Soo Yee, in exchange for which Sonny uses his familiarity with the criminal element to keep watch for any threat that might arise. If Candy’s henchmen had started hunting for Phoebe or Jesse, Sonny would have warned us. And if we need to get in touch with Sonny, we can do so through Soo Yee.”
“Like now,” Elizabeth said. “So why do think Jesse wants to talk to Sonny?”
“I’m very much afraid to ask. Don’t you know?”
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps: Jesse and Phoebe, coming downstairs.
* * *
Elizabeth had pictured Jesse’s younger sister as shy and damaged. But it was obvious as soon as she entered the room that Phoebe wasn’t shy. She went straight to Elizabeth and offered her hand, which Elizabeth shook. “You’re the woman from the future!”
“Call me Elizabeth.”
“Thank you! I’m Phoebe,” said Phoebe.
Phoebe wore a blue silk scarf tied into a kind of skewed hijab that concealed the left side of her face. The only injury that showed was some scarring above her lip. But Phoebe’s good eye was lively and alert, and her smile was obviously genuine. “Pleased to meet you,” Elizabeth said.