“That’s great, Lori! Who have you found?”
“Aunt Josephine! She was my adoptive mother’s sister, although they were on bad terms. She lives in Waco—and she’s willing to tell me what she knows about my adoption.”
“Woo-hoo,” I said. “Atta girl!”
“I’m not getting my hopes up, of course. But this search has taught me that you never can tell what’ll happen when you pull on a thread. It might unravel a whole new series of possibilities.”
“Sounds a little like a detective story,” I said. “You are the detective and—”
“And my mother is the missing person,” Lori said with a laugh. “Yes, that’s exactly what it is—a detective story. Anyway, after we talk to Professor Vickery tomorrow, I’m driving to Waco to see if Aunt Josephine can give me any clues. She’s even invited me for supper.”
“Fingers crossed,” I said, repeating Ruby’s old Irish blessing. “I hope she can tell you something useful.”
“I do, too,” Lori said. “But whether she does or not, it’ll be interesting to meet her, after all these years. Her email seemed friendly.” She sighed. “I’d love to have even a little bit of family.”
Sometimes even a little bit of family can be just what we need to set things right, I thought as we said good-bye. Lori’s mention of Professor Vickery had reminded me of the laces, so I took the wooden chest to the dining room table and opened it to have another look.
Caitie came to prop her elbows on the table and watch me take out the lace, piece by piece—some two dozen in all. The largest was the embroidered net veil, the smallest a six-inch strip of narrow cobwebby lace. There was a lady’s lace cap with long ribbons, a baby’s lace cap, the black lace collar that had made Ruby so inexplicably sad, and the pink fingerless mitts, made of silk yarn. And something I hadn’t noticed that afternoon: a single gold-filigree earring with a shiny pink stone, stuck in one corner of the chest.
“Just one earring?” Caitie asked, picking it up. She held it up, turning it to catch the light in the gold lacework around the pink stone. “It’s pretty. I guess the other one got lost, huh?”
“Probably.” I turned the lady’s cap in my fingers. “Gosh. I wonder how old this is.”
“It looks like what Mrs. March wears in Little Women,” Caitie said, dropping the earring back in the chest and taking the cap from me. “That would make it really old.” She ran a finger around the frilly lace edging. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make this, didn’t they?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Hours and hours of work, all by hand.”
“A woman?”
“Most likely.” I began putting the pieces of lace back in the chest. “A professor from the university is coming to have a look tomorrow. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us something about the person who made these.”
Caitie nodded and straightened. “I’d better practice my violin. There’s orchestra rehearsal tomorrow. And I want to put some more chicken pictures on my website.” She began ticking things off on her fingers. “Play rehearsal on Wednesday. The chickens go to the fair on Thursday morning. And on Friday evening, we go back to the fair to see what I’ve won.” She grinned confidently. “And celebrate a blue ribbon. Maybe two.”
I laughed. “Haven’t you heard the old saying? Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. You never know what might happen.”
I was joking. But I was right.
Really. You just never know.
Chapter Four
Pecan Springs and Austin, Texas
July 1888
Now that Annie was alone and had only herself to rely on for her living, her little lacemaking business became not just the center of her life but her sustenance, as well. As long as there was a ready market for her lace, she felt she should be able to manage.
So on an early July morning, she prepared to take the train to Austin to sell the laces that she and the girls had finished in the past two weeks. She pinned up her auburn hair and put on her gray poplin traveling suit with a lace-trimmed white shirtwaist, gored skirt, and jacket. The bustle was back, but Annie’s sympathies lay with the Rational Dress Movement and she refused to wear the ridiculous wire contraption, which made sitting terribly uncomfortable. She also preferred a simple wide-brimmed straw hat with a red velvet band and a modest gray feather to the more lavishly decorated hats that were in fashion. Her only pieces of jewelry were the simple gold earrings and gold lapel watch that Douglas had given her for their first anniversary. She had buried her wedding ring with her husband.
The summer day promised to be bright and hot, but the air was still reasonably cool when Annie folded the laces into tissue paper and packed them in a wicker basket. With her white parasol over her shoulder, she walked the six blocks to the railroad depot on Sam Houston Street, to catch the nine a.m. northbound train. The International and Great Northern railway had reached Pecan Springs just six years before, linking the village to Austin (thirty-five miles to the north) and San Antonio (thirty-five miles to the south). Its arrival had transformed the sleepy hamlet of five hundred souls to a bustling, prosperous village of nearly twelve hundred. A hotel had been built beside the small spring-fed lake for which Pecan Springs was named, and tourists were flocking to the cool, crystal waters. A teachers’ college was under construction north of town on Cedar Ridge. The presence of tourists, students, and faculty members promised to change the village and make it grow even faster.
Annie always took a seat by the train window so she could enjoy the sight of the rolling, cedar-clad hills and limestone bluffs to the west.
