Page 17 of The Frozen River

“Am I not allowed to want vengeance?”

“Of course. But his body is still at the tavern. There will be an investigation. And can you imagine what will happen if Isaac is accused? Besides, you do have your vengeance, at least one half of it anyway.”

“No,” she says. “I will never be free of what they did to me.”

I cannot argue this. Nor do I try. Instead, I reach for her hand, and we finish our tea in silence, watching the hypnotic dance of flames in the fireplace. Later, when the shadows have shifted and the coals settle in the hearth, I set down my empty cup, kiss Rebecca on the brow once more, and whisper my goodbyes.

Only when I reach the parlor door does she speak again.

“Martha?”

I look over my shoulder. “Yes?”

“I haven’t bled since July.”

My lips form an O of surprise and I return to her side, placing my hands on each of her shoulders. I can feel the little knobs of bone beneath each palm. “Are you telling me that you are with child?”

“I’ve had the boys. I know what it feels like.”

“Is there any chance at all it could be Isaac’s?”

Rebecca shakes her head. “We haven’t gone to bed since before he went to Boston. And he hasn’t touched me since. There is no way it can be his.”

“When was the last time you bled?”

“The end of July. After Isaac left.”

Four months. Long enough for a child to take root.

“Have you told him?”

“No. But I think he’s guessed.”

“I am so sorry,” I whisper, pulling Rebecca to my chest. Only this time there is no weeping, no anguish. There is only a vacant stillness. A void where the spirit of my friend once resided. I pull away and lower one hand to Rebecca’s belly. The small, firm mound is easy to find. I press gently, this way and that, just to make sure, but there is no doubt. Rebecca Foster is a slender woman. Soon there will be no hiding it at all.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. Her eyes, wide and brown, the color of tea. They are swimming with tears.

“You don’t have to. Not today.”

BALLARD’S MILL

I go straight to my workroom. My mind is on Rebecca Foster, but when I reach for the diary, I find a note sitting on top and recognize Cyrus’s loopy scrawl.

I know you want to talk, but I’ve gone to the Hook with Moses to get some tallow that Amos saved for us. Not sure when I’ll be back.

Here there is an ink blot, as though he let the quill rest against the paper while he thought of what to say next.

About Burgess: I guess you know he put his hands on Hannah. That’s why I hit him. But if he’s dead, I had nothing to do with it. I brought the girls home and went to bed. On my honor.

—C.

I have only the children that I have. But if I’ve learned anything about raising young men, it’s that some are liars and some are confessors. Cyrus is the latter. A confessor. In all the decades he’s lived under our roof, I’ve never had a reason to doubt him. And I have none now. So I fold the note and set it to the side. Try to remember why I came in here.

I have lost my train of thought, cannot recall what I meant to find in the diary. This is the trouble faced by any woman who sets pen to paper in a busy household. I am never guaranteed the certainty of quiet, much less a solid length of time to chase my thoughts and bind them together. That is the luxury of men with libraries, butlers, and wives. Mothers find a different way to get their work done.

Ha! There it is! A glimmer. I grab hold of the tail end of the thought as it skitters by, then chase it so that it won’t evaporate.

I look at the diary entry again. Flip back through the pages.