A Woman in Time: A Novel by Bobi Conn

Author:Bobi Conn [Conn, Bobi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2022-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

SPRING, 1932

Before Barbara left, she made several gallon jars of tonic for Rosalee, telling the young mother she’d need to keep her strength up if she was going to handle two boys. Rosalee drank it without fail, thinking Barbara’s medicine was the reason she could get out of bed and fulfill her role as a wife and mother.

“You can go visit her if you like,” Barbara told her one day. “Best do it now, before I leave. I’ll watch the young’uns if you want to walk over there.”

Rosalee knew she meant Irene’s grave, which had a headstone now. John had bought one for his father’s grave at the same time, so the two now sat next to each other. Rosalee thought sometimes it would have been better just to have Irene’s alone.

She nodded to Barbara and made her way there after feeding Ezra. The earth above Irene’s body had settled, and Rosalee realized nothing but weeds would grow where she lay—no forest flowers or willows—but in the fall, broad sycamore leaves would scatter over what was left of her body and memory.

Rosalee knew it would be difficult to get back to Irene’s grave alone for a while, and for most of her trips anywhere, she’d be carrying an infant and coaxing a one-year-old to follow. She stared at the headstone above Irene and tried to think of something to say. She cleared her throat and began, “You taught me so much . . .” But she trailed off, hearing a rustling close by, in the woods at the edge of the field. She strained to listen, wondering if Samuel was walking in this part of the woods for some reason. Her thoughts rushed to Joseph. As if a pond had stilled, revealing that which it reflected in a clear picture, she recognized the hungry look he had sometimes given her when no one was looking. She hadn’t registered it when he was at the house right after Ezra was born, she had been so distracted by grief and pain, but she remembered finding him watching her several times, his lust unmasked. She imagined he was close by, and her pulse quickened with a new kind of fear.

The rustling in the woods stopped, and Rosalee tried to push her fear away. Probably just squirrels, she thought, though she listened for a few minutes longer before she turned her attention back to Irene’s grave. She realized she didn’t know what to say to the woman. Rosalee had needed her, and she was there. And yet, Rosalee needed something more that Irene wouldn’t, or couldn’t, give. You can’t really blame her, Rosalee thought. She wasn’t Mama. Or Bessie. Nobody is. She thought of the letters, her last connection to Irene and family she had never met, and she knew Irene must have moved them before her death. Rosalee thought of the places she could search in Irene’s bedroom—under the mattress, or maybe at the bottom of a cedar chest—but in her mind’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.