What the Mountains Remember by Joy Callaway

Author:Joy Callaway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

There are three options when a woman is ignited into fury. She can fight, she can let it consume her, or she can flee.

I held onto the reins and the horse’s coarse black mane for dear life, my portfolio gripped with equal fervor beneath my arm. My legs ached and my feet were going numb on account of the fact that I hadn’t any stirrups. I’d been riding for half an hour and was now—finally—ascending the road to the inn.

I straightened atop the horse and tried to raise my knees to pull my light green skirt farther over my legs. I’d put on a pair of cotton pantaloons beneath my dress for the occasion, but it still was far from proper to be seen riding astride at all, even if my ankles weren’t in danger of showing. I breathed deep, inhaling the crisp, early morning air and the heady woodsmoke from the workers’ quarters.

It was only me and the workers and the words now. I was miles away from Marie Austen and Worth and Mother and Papa and everyone else. The mere thought of them made me want to keep going, to ride farther, to disappear, but where would I go? I wasn’t resourceful enough to make a life on my own, and even if I was, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop telling this story now. I knew for a fact that another writer, another newspaperman, would write the facts of the build clinically, without heart and without giving the builders praise. Without my story, the legacies of these men would be all but forgotten, like Father.

I crested the hill, and the side of the inn came into view. I pulled back on reins gently and the horse stopped. A team of men was scattered across the roof, bathed in the pink-gold of sunrise, their limbs spread like spiders’ as they worked to attach the tiles. They were in the middle of the building now. I wagered another day or two and they’d have to stop to let the masons catch up on the south side. Their voices—their yelling and laughing and talking—echoed over the valley and over me, joining the soft chug of the steam shovel below. The noises seemed to wake me a bit, shake my insides in the same sensation as Sylvia rousing me from slumber.

I hadn’t spoken since Marie Austen told me about her kissing Worth. She’d come looking for forgiveness when I’d already been emptied. I’d extinguished the oil lamp and lain down on my cot in the dark, the echo of Worth’s words and the wail of Marie Austen’s sobs my companions.

At first, I wasn’t angry. I felt hollow, depleted, as though this revelation wasn’t a revelation at all but a conclusion I’d been expecting. After all, when I’d been presented, I’d never thought myself destined for a man like Worth—I’d never wanted a man like Worth. He had been a pleasant surprise despite his attractiveness. I’d thought him kind and thoughtful, but most of all, I’d thought him trustworthy.

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