“Do you think I can ever go back?” Sophia asked looking beyond Jack into the clear sky.
“Where? Home?”
“Yes. I miss my mother and my brothers.” In the first year, Sophia had asked Jack a hundred times if he thought she could go home. He even helped her create elaborate plans to ride in the backs of hay trucks and sneak onto train cars, but every time the date for her departure grew near, he insisted she stay for a bit longer. It had been over a year since she’d even posed the question.
Jack sat up.
“I never want you to leave, but that’s selfish, isn’t it? How about this? In a couple more years we can get married and then we’ll go visit them together. I’ll drive and you can lie in the backseat so that no one sees you. It will be an adventure.”
Sophia smiled.
“After we get married?” Sophia looked into Jack’s dark eyes, his mother’s eyes, which often unnerved Sophia, but oh they were beautiful, deep and gray with tiny streaks of light moving towards the black mystery right in the center.
“Of course! I mean you want to marry me, don’t you?”
Sophia sat up and snuggled into Jack’s lap.
“I’ve never wanted anything more.”
1941
Many times in the years to come, Sophia would remember that conversation.
They never went on that adventure. Jack‘s father, Andrew Porter, died less than a year later, and a year after that, at eighteen-years-old, Sophia gave birth to Peter and Jude, twins.
Life transformed and Sophia often struggled to keep up with the constant changes.
When Jack bought the farmhouse, Sophia rejoiced. They were finally free from the watchful eyes of Ruth Porter. After Andrew’s death, Jack’s mother became unbearable, undermining Sophia at every turn.
The final straw had come when Sophia discovered Ruth feeding the babies formula after Sophia and Jack had both made it clear she was breastfeeding only.
Sophia looked up from her painting and watched Jack in the backyard. He was tilling the soil for her new garden. Jude and Peter were on a blanket, not yet crawling, but both on the verge. Their dog Howdy trotted by and Jude, trying to pet him, flopped on her side. Peter followed suit and soon both babies were rolling on their backs, feet wagging in the air.
As Sophia painted, an image emerged, and she realized she was capturing a memory of the little pond behind her childhood home. The pond where she’d nearly drowned one summer and been saved by an angel. As she painted, the ghostly image of a woman reflected in the water appeared.
“Soph.” Jack’s voice startled her, and she looked up. The sun had begun its descent.
“Anne,” she reminded him. Only Jack spoke Sophia’s true name, but as their children grew, it would be important that he always call her Anne. “I lost track of time,” she murmured, setting her brush down and turning in her chair.
“That’s beautiful,” he said, coming to stand behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, pressing into the knotted muscle, smoothing the tension away.
“Where are the babies?” she asked, seeing the empty blanket in the yard.
“Asleep. I put them in their cribs. I’m sure they’ll need to eat soon, but first…” he trailed off and Sophia felt his hands slide to the front of her dress and slip down beneath the light fabric. He grazed her milk tender breasts and leaned down kissing her neck.
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “Yes.”
Jack guided her from her chair, her back giving a little groan, her feet tingling from sitting, and led her to the bed. She fell back marvelling at the man who never ceased to amaze her.
“How did I get so lucky?” she murmured as he leaned over her on the bed, pressing his unshaven face into her neck as he kissed her.
“I’m the lucky one, Sophia.”
Chapter 10
September 1965
Hattie
Hattie sat in the last pew of the little church she visited every Sunday. She went alone. Hands clasped in her lap, she stared at the serene figure of Jesus Christ suspended from his wooden cross. His downcast eyes seemed to peer into another world, a peaceful world, where love ruled supreme.
That Sunday, she felt especially drawn to the tranquil space. The night before she had dreamed of the girl in the yellow dress. In her dreams the girl had been alive running with her friend, Sophia. Sophia - who was later accused of Rosemary’s murder.
Hattie had attended church since she turned ten years old. On her tenth birthday, a Sunday, she asked Gram Ruth’s cleaning lady Marcy to take her to the Sunday service.
Marcy, a skinny mother of three, had looked at Hattie in puzzlement. She waited for Hattie to explain and when she did not, Marcy told Gram Ruth that they were off to run errands and she drove clear across town to her own church and they attended together. After that, they attended church every Sunday.
Hattie listened rapt to every sermon and committed to memory the most important pieces for her own life. Pastor Greg told his congregation that love, acceptance, and forgiveness solved all things. He prayed for the ailing in the community and in the world. He passed the collection plate, while earnestly demanding that you only give if you could spare the money. Marcy put five dollars in every single week, even though Hattie knew her three young children often wore shoes with soles flapping, and homemade pants that were too tight. Hattie saved her candy money to put in the plate on Sunday morning.
Nine years later, Hattie still went every Sunday. Pastor Greg, graying now, continued to inspire her and draw out the glimmer of light that Hattie often lost sight of. As she perched on the edge of her seat, hands mindlessly knitting together and then breaking apart, she saw Greg nod toward a young man who entered the nave and took a seat near the back of the room.
After the sermon, Hattie slipped around the crowd bidding farewell to Pastor Greg and took the back stairway into the basement. She walked to the nursery where the mothers plucked children from playpens and bouncer seats. Ansel sat in the corner clumsily stacking wooden blocks. He stared at the small tower with such focus that Hattie stopped, not wanting to interrupt him. His two-year-old hands were pudgy and uncoordinated. As he set the top block down the structure collapsed and he squealed in frustration.
“Antsy Pants,” Hattie called squatting down. Ansel turned and a drooly grin replaced the grimace from moments before. He stood and rushed over to her, nearly tripping over his scattered blocks. She caught him as he barrelled into her and kissed his head through his thick mop of black curls. He smelled like talcum powder and bananas.
Hattie watched Ansel every Sunday after service. His mother, Katherine, met with Pastor Greg for guidance and Hattie had volunteered to care for the toddler during their meetings. Katherine was Marcy’s oldest daughter, only seventeen years old, and Hattie had often thought of her as a younger sibling. Though Hattie saw Marcy’s children less as they grew older, their younger days of playing together at Gram Ruth’s left a lasting bond. When Katherine became pregnant at only fifteen, it devastated Marcy and she turned to Pastor Greg and to Hattie for help with her wayward child and now grandchild.