“I’m afraid he won’t know me. Of course he can’t know me. I’m afraid he won’t like me.”
“There are the letters you’ve written him,” Karl said. “I don’t know how many hundred.”
“I’m afraid I won’t know him.”
“You will.”
“Do you want him to come?”
“Very much. Like Mac used to say, ‘You can’t run this country without kids.’ ”
“I want to be a good mother. I’m so afraid I won’t be, that he’d be better off with Mam or Gracie or anybody.”
“You’re a wonderful mother, Sarah.”
“Wolf died.”
Each Wednesday and Sunday in the last two weeks of the month, Sarah went to the gate to meet the stage. On an afternoon in July her wait was ended. Her son arrived on the first coach she hadn’t met. The mudwagon rolled in on a cloud of dust, and before it had settled, Liam yelled, “We got him, Mrs. Ebbitt.”
Sarah ran out from the shade of the porch, then stopped before she reached the coach door, her hands flying to her hair and smoothing her dress. “Karl…” she called, looking suddenly young and frightened.
“I’m here.” Karl walked across the packed earth from the stable. Calm and reassuring, he took his place beside her.
Sarah touched her hair and dress once again and, with a last look at Karl, opened the door of the coach. A very small boy, not yet six years old, with dark hair and light blue eyes, sat alone inside, looking smaller and more alone for the empty seats around him.
“Not much of a haul for sixty-odd miles overland, is it?” Liam asked. “Business is falling off, railroad’ll have it all by 1890. Have it all. Beaner!” The wiry, mustachioed Mexican beside him looked up without rancor, recognizing the title as his own. “You swamper or ain’t you?”
Beaner jumped gracefully to the ground, though he’d been riding for hours, and started talking to the horses in a soothing Spanish murmur.
Unconscious of the men around her, Sarah held tight to the door for support and gazed on her only child. He was slender and pale and perfectly formed. There was little childish softness to his solemn face, and his young body was firm and well defined. Margaret had dressed him in short pants and a jacket of black broadcloth. Both were rumpled and dirty from the long journey. Beside him on the seat, a large bundle of letters tied up with twine served as an armrest.
“Matthew,” Sarah whispered, her hand out in a gentle unfinished gesture.
“I’m to ask for Mrs. Ebbitt,” the child said, and pulled the lapel of his jacket forward to show Sarah the note pinned there. “Gramma T. said to give this to Mrs. Ebbitt.” At the mention of his grandmother the little boy started to sniffle.
Liam grunted. “Boy’s right as rain for umpteen hours. Show him a petticoat and he goes watery at the knees.” Karl nodded absently, his attention fixed on the odd little drama.
Sarah leaned into the coach to unpin the note, her hands trembling as she lay her fingers on the curve of the child’s cheek for an instant before grappling with the pin. She brought it out into the light where she could read it:
Sarah read the note again and handed it wordlessly to Karl.
The sober little face stared at her expectantly from behind the stack of letters, years of her heart drawn into lines on paper-her relationship with her son, sealed and tied up with string. She put out her hand and he took it politely.
“I’m Mrs. Ebbitt,” she said.
“After Papa died, Gramma T. said Mrs. Ebbitt was my mother and that’s why she had the same name as me.” Matthew eyed her suspiciously.
“God bless Mam,” Sarah said.
“Papa said my mother was dead.”
“Come on out now, we’ll talk later,” Sarah said. He clutched his packet of letters as she lifted him down from the coach. “You’re quite a big boy.” She held him a moment longer, then released him. “You hungry?” He nodded. “Let’s see about getting you something to eat.”
Karl followed them with his eyes, the woman and the child, walking slightly apart, neither of them talking.
“For an old bachelor you’re quite a family man,” Liam teased.
“It’s beginning to look that way, isn’t it?”
Sarah tucked the covers around Matthew’s chin. Supper was over and the sun was setting. He squirmed from under them; the evening was too hot for covers. Sarah reached for them again, nervously, but stopped herself and folded her hands in her lap. A mosquito whined somewhere in the room.
“Can we talk now?” Matthew asked.
“We can talk now.”
“Papa said my mother was dead.” It was a challenge.
“She’s not. I’m not. I had to go away when you were a baby. But I didn’t die.”
“Why did you go away?”
“I was-I was very sick,” Sarah said slowly.
“And Papa thought you died.”
“Maybe he did.”
“Papa died.”
“I know, honey.” Sarah’s voice broke and she smiled tenderly at the small face on the pillow. Her hand strayed to smooth an errant lock from his temple. “Do you miss him a lot?”
“Sometimes. I live with Gramma T. I miss Gramma and Aunt Gracie and Lizbeth.”
“I do too. Gramma T. is my mam, my mother.”
“She’s Aunt Gracie’s mother.” Suspicion clouded his eyes.
“And Aunt Lizbeth’s and Walter’s and mine. We’re all brothers and sisters.”
He thought that over for a while. “You’re my mother.”
“That’s right.”
“You were never at our house.”
Sarah looked through swimming eyes and bit her underlip until her teeth made a white crescent in the ruddy flesh. “I wrote you.” It was difficult to speak around the lump in her throat. “I wrote you a little every day because I missed you so much I was afraid I would go crazy. Imogene was afraid.”
“Who’s Imogene?”
“A friend. She died.” The tears spilled over her lashes and down the side of her nose. “Once a week I sent you the letters. Every week since I-since I got sick and had to go away. Your grandma saved the letters for you so you would know me and know I loved you. Love you.”
She was quiet for a long time, crying.
“Mrs. Ebbitt, you can read me from the letters if you want to,” he said at last.
Sarah smiled and touched his hair. “I’d like that.”
She read him two letters, the first two she had sent. One was in Imogene’s bold hand and Imogene’s straightforward sentences. The other was in such a shaky, spidery hand that she stumbled in the reading. Matthew listened, quiet and solemn-eyed.
Finished, she smoothed the dark fringe from his forehead. “I’m your mother, Matthew. I love you very much. Good night.” She kissed him lightly, resting her cheek against his.
“Good night, Mrs. Ebbitt.”
Sarah closed the door to his room and stayed leaning against it, the strength drained out of her. Through the
