Instead, she just laughed. “Why would I want to go looking for a husband in Galveston?” she asked lightly. “I’ve already had one husband—a very good one. I can support myself. I have everything I could possibly want.” Which was a lie, of course, because she could not have Adam. “Would you like to work with us today, Delia?” she added. “If so, just pull up another chair while I get the lace that you started the last time you were here.”
Delia rose hastily. “No, never mind, Annie. I just dropped in to say hello.”
Annie’s feelings toward her neighbor had changed over the summer, and quite remarkably. Before, she had envied Delia her marriage to Adam; now, she pitied her, for she knew that the marriage was an unhappy charade. Adam didn’t love or desire his wife. He loved and desired her, and while they couldn’t have each other, the awareness of that glorious truth was like a secret treasure chest spilling over with beautiful and valuable jewels that were hers alone. She had no idea what lay ahead, but she felt enormously confident about one important thing: that what she and Adam had shared together had changed them both in ways beyond measure. To go back to his wife’s bed would be a betrayal.
But it wasn’t long before she learned that her confidence might be misplaced.
Some weeks earlier, Mrs. Crow had given Annie some dried hibiscus blossoms, sent to her by a friend in South Texas, where the shrub blossomed reliably. Annie had used the flowers regularly to brew a pretty red hibiscus tea for her workers, and they liked it so much that she decided to get more. A day or two after Delia’s visit, she left one of the girls in charge of the workroom and walked down the street to Mrs. Crow’s boardinghouse. She had just turned off the dirt path along the street when the boardinghouse door slammed open and Delia rushed out, clutching a handkerchief. Her face was pale and she seemed to have been crying. She brushed past Annie with a sweep of her wide skirts, scarcely saying hello.
Surprised, Annie watched her hurry down the street, then rang the bell. When Mrs. Crow appeared behind the screen door, she said, “Oh, hello, Mrs. Crow. I came because I wanted to get some more of what you gave me earlier, that wonderful—”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more wild carrot seeds at the moment,” Mrs. Crow said firmly. “Another lady came for it, too, and I’ve just told her the same thing. I’ve been meaning to go out and gather more, but I won’t have time to do that in the next few days. As I told that lady, if you really must have it now, you can easily get it for yourself. I saw a patch of it in the vacant lot behind Purley’s General Store, between the store and that little strip of woods along the railroad track. The flowers are already dried out and the seed is ready to be harvested.” She smiled and added, “But do be careful, my dear. There’s hemlock growing there, as well, and you don’t want to get the two confused. It’s poisonous.”
Wild carrot seeds? Annie stared at the woman as the truth began to sink in. If Delia had come to buy wild carrot seeds, it was for the same reason that she—and Annie, too—had purchased them some weeks before. Because she didn’t want to have Adam’s baby. Which meant . . . which meant that she and Adam were sleeping together again.
“I see,” Annie said slowly, thinking that Delia wasn’t exactly the kind of person to go out to a vacant lot to gather seeds. That might account for the distress she had seen on her face as she left the house. Or perhaps she was distressed because she needed the seeds now, to counter the possible result of something that had happened the night before. She took a deep breath, steadying her voice. “As it happens, I didn’t come for wild carrot, Mrs. Crow. I’d like to buy some more hibiscus flowers. The girls who work with me love the tea.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Mrs. Crow said happily. She pushed the screen door open. “Well, then, come in, dear. I have plenty of hibiscus. Did you know it’s medicinal, too? All the old books say that hibiscus is good for the heart. And if you have trouble falling asleep, just add a little lemon balm and St. John’s wort and drink it at bedtime. You’ll sleep like a baby.”
“I’m glad to know that,” Annie said, following the woman inside. As they walked down the hall toward Mrs. Crow’s stillroom, she wondered whether, if hibiscus was good for the heart, it might help to heal a broken heart. She had been so foolishly confident in Adam, and the discovery that he and Delia were sleeping together again was more painful than she could ever have guessed.
Mrs. Crow opened a jar and began to fill a paper bag with dried red blossoms. “I hope your friend is doing well,” she said. “I trust that the wild carrot seeds did their work.”
“My friend?” Annie said blankly, and then remembered the little fiction she had contrived on her earlier visit. “Oh, yes, my friend! Yes, of course. She wanted me to be sure to thank you. The wild carrot seeds did just what they’re supposed to do.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mrs. Crow said briskly. “I hope she’ll remember that a little rue goes a long way, too.” She gave Annie the paper bag. “That’ll be twenty cents, dear.”
Annie handed over the coins and took the bag. As she walked home with the hibiscus, she thought about Delia and Adam and what she had just learned. She was sure that Adam would never impose himself upon an unwilling woman. She knew—because he had told her—that he believed that intercourse was immoral without love.
But
