The Bone Garden: A Novel

— The one place I knew you'd tell me to hide her. —

— My clever Rose! You know me so well. —

He cupped her face, and she sighed at the warmth of his hands. — The best is yet to come for us. You have to believe that, Rose. All these trials, all these miseries, will just make our future so much the sweeter. — Gently he pressed his lips to hers, a kiss that should have made her heart soar. Instead it brought a sob to her throat, for she did not know when, if ever, they would meet again. She thought of the journey that lay ahead for him, of secret way stations and wintry roads, all leading toward what? She couldn't picture the future, and that's what frightened her. Always before, as a girl, she'd been able to imagine what was to come: her years working as a seamstress, the young man she would meet, the children she would bear. But now, when she looked ahead, she saw nothing, not a home with Norris, nor children, nor happiness. Why had the future suddenly vanished? Why could she not see beyond this night?

Is this the only time we will ever have?

— You'll wait for me, won't you? — he whispered.

— Always. —

— I don't know what I can offer you except a life in hiding. Always looking over our shoulders, always watching for a bounty hunter. It's not what you deserve. —

— Nor you. —

— But you have a choice, Rose. I'm so afraid that one day you'll wake up and regret this. I'd almost rather we never see each other again. —

Moonlight blurred through her tears. — You can't mean that. —

— I do mean it, but only because you deserve to be happy. I want you to have a chance at a real life. —

— Is that truly what you want? — she whispered. — That we live our lives apart? —

He said nothing.

— You must tell me now, Norrie. Because if you don't, I'll always be waiting for your letter. I'll wait until my hair is white and my grave is dug. And even then, I'll be waiting? — Her voice broke.

— Stop. Please stop. — He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, — If I were truly unselfish, I'd tell you to forget me. I'd tell you to find your happiness elsewhere. — He gave a sorrowful laugh. — But it seems I'm not so noble after all. I'm selfish and I'm jealous of any man who'll ever have you or love you. I want to be that man. —

— Then be him. — She reached up and clutched at his shirt. — Be him. —

She could not see into the future; she could see only as far as these next few hours, and tonight might be all the future they'd ever have. With every heartbeat she could feel their time together slipping away, receding beyond the reach of anything but memory and tears.

And so she took what time they had left together and wasted none of it. With feverish hands she pulled at the hooks and laces of her gown, her breaths quick and frantic with the need for haste. So little time; dawn would be upon them. Never before had she made love to a man, but somehow she knew what to do. She knew what would please him, what would bind him to her for always.

Moonlight shone down, rich as cream, on her breasts, on his bare shoulders, on all the secret places, the sacred places, they had never shown each other. This is what a wife gives her husband, she thought, and though the shock of his entry stole her breath, she rejoiced in it because pain was how a woman marked the triumphs in her life, in lost virginity, in the birth of every child. You are my husband now.

Even before the night lifted, she heard the crowing of a rooster. Stirring awake, she thought: Insane old bird, fooled by the moon, announcing false dawn to a world still asleep. But it was no false dawn that soon glimmered in the window, and she opened her eyes to see that darkness had lifted to a cold and sullen gray. In despair, she watched the day brighten, the sky deepen to blue, and though she would hold back the morning if she could, already she felt Norris's breathing change, felt him surface from whatever dreams had kept him so soundly entwined around her.

He opened his eyes and smiled. — It's not the end of the world, — he said, seeing her mournful face. — We'll live through this, too. —

She blinked away tears. — And we'll be happy. —

— Yes. — He touched her face. — So very happy. You just have to believe. —

— I don't believe in anything else. Only you. —

Outside, a dog was barking. Norris rose and went to look out the window. She watched him standing there, his bare back framed in the morning light, and hungrily committed every curve, every muscle to memory. This will be all I have to comfort me until I hear from him again, she thought. The memory of this moment.

— Mr. Wilson is here to fetch you, — said Norris.

— So soon? —

— We should go down to meet him. — He came back to the bed. — I don't know when I'll have another chance to say this. So let me say it now. — He knelt down on the floor beside her and took her hand in his. — I love you, Rose Connolly, and I want to spend my life with you. I want to marry you. If you'll have me. —

She stared at him through tears. — I will, Norrie. Oh, I will. —

He pressed her palm to his and smiled at Aurnia's trinket of a ring, which never left her finger. — And I promise that the next ring you wear, — he said, — won't be a sad bit of tin and glass. —

— I don't care about a ring. I only want you. —

Laughing, he pulled her into his arms. — You'll be an easy wife to support! —

A loud knock made them both stiffen. The old woman's voice called through the door: — Mr. Wilson has arrived. He needs to return at once, to Boston, so the young lady had best come downstairs. — The old woman's footsteps thumped back down the stairs.

Norris looked at Rose. — I promise you, this is the last time we'll ever part, — he said. — But now, love, it's time. —

Thirty-two

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES sat in Edward Kingston's parlor, listening to Kitty Welliver on his left and to her sister, Gwendolyn, on his right, and decided that being imprisoned in Hell would be far more tolerable. Had he known that the Welliver sisters were visiting Edward today, he would have stayed away? at least ten days' ride away. But once one has set foot in the house of one's host, it is the height of rudeness to immediately flee from it, screaming. At any rate, by the time he considered that option, it was too late, for Kitty and Gwen had leaped up from the chairs where they had been so prettily perched, and each had snagged an arm by which they pulled Wendell into the parlor, like hungry spiders hauling in their next meal. Now I'm truly done for, he thought, as he balanced a cup of tea on his lap, his third this visit. He was trapped here for the rest of the afternoon, and it was a matter of waiting to see whose bladder reached its bursting point first, forcing its owner to end the visit.

The young ladies, alas, appeared to have bladders of iron, and they cheerfully sipped cup after cup of tea as they gossiped with Edward and his mother. Not wishing to encourage them, Wendell remained mostly silent, which bothered the girls hardly at all, since they scarcely paused long enough for him to get in a word anyway. If one sister did pause, say, to draw breath, the other cut right in with some fresh gossip or catty observation, a truly marathon stream of words limited only by the need to inhale.

— She said it was a truly horrid crossing and she almost died of it. But then I spoke to Mr. Carter, and he said it was nothing, just a small Atlantic storm. So you see, she's exaggerating again? —

— ? as usual. She always exaggerates. Like the time she insisted that Mr. Mason was a world-famous architect. Then we found out he'd built one little opera house in Virginia, quite an unimpressive work, I'm told, and certainly not on the level of Mr. Bulfinch? —

Wendell suppressed a yawn and stared out the window as the sisters rambled on about people he could not