Gabe
Isobel's birthday was a fluke.
She'd liked his gifts because of the novelty of them. Of him. The real gift that day had been his presence, and now he'd gone and made a habit of it.
He didn't stop halfway to the Tuckers' to sit and ponder on his terrible gift-giving, as he had last time. Nonetheless, doubt gnawed at him as he rode like the cold gnawed at his fingers and toes. He'd brought two bundles this time—one for Katherine and one for Isobel. Silly, stupid gifts. But he couldn't show up empty-handed on such a momentous occasion.
Isobel, of course, wasn't aware of the gravity of the day. When he arrived at the little homestead, she flounced into his arms like she had every other time he'd visited, chattering about goats and sledding and Aunt Mel and how unfair it was that Ma made her go to bed before she was tired.
As usual, Katherine let him have his time with their daughter, just the two of them. He'd never asked it of her, wouldn't have dared, but she gave it to him nonetheless. She seemed to understand the niggling insecurity he battled, like he was an imposter. A visitor to their lives. After all, Katherine and Isobel had been a unit for six years. They were bound and tied, and his presence was an invasion of the norm, welcome or not.
The time alone helped. Usually, he read to her, which inevitably turned to an inquisition. Sometimes they played with her dolls or had little tea parties on the floor before the fire. Gabe wasn't much of a conversationalist, but his Isobel could hold up a dialogue all on her own. Literally. If he didn't answer her questions fast enough she supplied her own answers.
In those priceless hours, he came to know his daughter. She came to be his daughter, and though she never called him as much he felt that he was gradually becoming her father. She had never shown much caution towards him, but as the weeks pressed on, she had spoken to him more freely. The glint of hero worship and delight in her eyes when he arrived faded to happy acceptance and expectation.
Of course he had returned for another visit. It was understood. It was expected. He was a part of the fabric of her world.
Today, they sat in their customary spot by the fire and he read to her from Robinson Crusoe. She didn't ask as many questions as usual, like she could sense his nerves. She just sat in her spot on his leg, leaning against his chest with her head on his shoulder. When he held her like this, he felt more god than man. It was different from the glory of holding Katherine. Holding Katherine tore down the walls around him until he was little more than a soul in flimsy wrapping. He felt more—more happiness, more anguish, more hope—when she was in his arms than he felt in the sum of all the moments away from her.
Holding Isobel, he forgot his own soul and became whatever force it took to shelter hers. He was steel and stone and thunder, and so much more than human. Fire would burn around him and leave him unscorched. Rain would pour down on his head, and he'd be warm and dry. With his daughter in his lap, the weight of her head on his shoulder, and the sound of her small breaths in his ear, there was no happiness, no anguish, no hope. There was just her, and the knowledge that he was invincible. He couldn't afford to be anything less.
An hour passed, and Katherine appeared in the doorway. He had expected her to be nervous and pale, jittery and reluctant. He had waited an extra few minutes in the barn with Reaper, expecting her to come out and beg him to put it off just one more week. He had waited so long for Katherine to be ready, to meet him at the proverbial bridge. He had forgotten how to trust her to show up.
She had showed up. With rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and a comforting hand on his arm, she had showed up.
"Do you two want some cookies?" she asked when he reached the end of the chapter. Isobel perked up in his lap, craning to look at her mother, who had materialized in the doorway.
"Cookies?" she asked, her voice rising at the end.
"You can have two," Katherine said sternly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Gabe?"
"Sure," he said, marveling that he was the jittery one who couldn't make his voice work quite right. "Cookies sound good. Coffee?"
"On the stove."
Setting the book aside, he stood and placed Isobel on her feet on the chair. She laughed and clapped as he turned, stifling a grunt of pain when she leaped onto his back and squeezed her arms around his neck.
"Easy, Iz," he wheezed, looping one arm beneath her to hold her in place and tugging at her grip with the other. "You'll strangle me to death."
Her grip didn't loosen, and he counted himself lucky that the journey was so short. Not like that long walk back from the river, with Katherine in his arms and Isobel clinging to his back. His body still ached just to think of it.
In the kitchen, he settled Isobel at her customary seat at the table and joined Katherine by the stove.
"Need a hand?"
She nodded toward the towel-covered plate at her elbow. "You can take those to the table and get us some plates."
He obeyed, familiar enough with the kitchen after so many visits. He found three small plates and fetched three ceramic cups down from the shelf mounted over the washbasin. He poured a measure of milk into one and left the other two empty for the coffee.
While Katherine prepared their coffee, he set the milk in front of Isobel, and distributed the plates, setting two cookies on each. Then he excused himself and went to the mudroom to retrieve the parcels he'd left there.
Isobel's eyes brightened when he returned with the presents.
"Mister Gabe, are those for me?" she asked, her voice a little breathy, legs swinging from the edge of her chair.
"Isobel," Katherine said warningly. "Be polite."
"Sorry, ma," she said, but her toothy grin grew wider when Gabe winked at her.
"One of them is for you," he told her. "The other is for your ma."
"How come you got us presents?" Isobel asked, leaning forward to poke at the package he set beside her. "It's not my birthday. Ma, is it your birthday?"
"No, sweetheart," Katherine said, her face a little pink as she brought the coffees to the table and sank into her chair. Gabe sat across from Isobel, with Katherine between them. She nudged him with her foot beneath the table. "Sometimes only the good Lord Himself can explain why Mister Gabe does the things he does."
He took a sip of coffee and rolled his eyes at her over the rim of the cup before turning back to Isobel.
"Birthdays aren't the only special occasion, Iz," he told his daughter.
"Is this for Christmas?"
"Nope."
"What's it for?"
"Well, that's what your ma and me wanted to talk to you about."
He exchanged another glance with Katherine, waiting for her to take over. She just nodded, and beneath the table her foot came to rest over his and pressed down gently. The secret lovers' equivalent of hand holding, he thought wryly.
Isobel watched him expectantly, her mouth full of cookie with crumbs clinging to her lips.
"So..." he began. He hadn't really planned a speech. He had expected Katherine to do the heavy lifting. "You remember a long time ago, you asked me if I had any brothers or sisters?"
"Uh-huh."
"I told you I had some sisters, down in Texas."
"By Mexico!" she said brightly. He'd never cease to wonder at her mind. He hadn't been half as clever at her age, he was sure. Neither had Katherine for that matter. Maybe Isobel had the power of both of their brains combined.
"Yeah, by Mexico. So y'know... you and your ma are guests here at Mr. and Mrs. Tucker's house."
"Yeah, I like it a lot."
"I know you do."
"There's goats."
"I know there's goats, honey. But you're just on a sort of a... a holiday. You can't stay here forever."
At that, her smile disappeared, her small brow furrowing into severe lines. "Do we have to go home?" she asked warily, her voice small but heartbreakingly steady. She was twice as brave as him and Katherine, too.
"No!" he exclaimed, glancing at Katherine, whose lips were pressed together as if to contain her own emotional outburst. "No, honey. No. You never have to go home. Not to your old home."
"But we can't stay here?"
"No. Not forever."
"Where are we going to go?" She turned her gaze to Katherine, and thank God she finally decided to step in.
"Well, sweetie," she said, reaching over to tug gently on Isobel's braid. "We were thinking we might go somewhere else. Somewhere like Texas."
For a long moment, Isobel stared at her mother and silence hung in the air like a thick fog. Gabe couldn't breathe for the tension, and the pressure of Katherine's foot atop his had become painful.
Then the horrible moment cracked and shattered into something even worse.
"No!" Isobel cried, and it was truly alarming how quickly she could go from dry-eyed to bawling. She threw her cookie down on her plate and slid off her chair.
"Izzy," Katherine said, shooting to her feet, and Gabe followed simply because he couldn't remain in his seat. He felt hot. He was choking to death on the air in here. His heart hurt so badly his palms were aching with it.
"No!" Isobel wept, backing away from her mother and burying her face in her hands. "We can't go!" she whined, her voice muffled. "We can't leave!"
Gabe supposed this was a good lesson in parenting. Sometimes what was best for the child did not line up for what the child wanted. He had never deigned to hope she'd be enthusiastic about the plan—that's why he'd brought the presents to sweeten the pot—but he certainly hadn't expected this level of meltdown. And as he watched Isobel weep in her mother's arms, he began to doubt the wisdom of it altogether. He began to wonder when, exactly, he'd decided he would be suitable compensation for the loss of Rebecca and Mel and Amelia and Josh and familiarity and comfort and the goddamned goats.
He should have been helping, but instead he just stood like an idiot and watched Katherine struggle to hold her daughter together. Isobel, meanwhile, had fallen into the throes of a genuine tantrum. Katherine had warned him they existed, but he'd never seen it like this before. She wailed and cried and hiccupped and coughed, alternating between stiff and utterly limp in her mother's hold as if in protest. Strings of snot oozed from her nose and gathered on her upper lip, and her voice had climbed six octaves until it pierced his ears like razors.
"We can't leave!" she wailed, stomping her foot against the floor and then sinking onto her butt. "We can't go!"
"Isobel," Katherine said, her voice hovering between stern and breaking. She looked up to Gabe and he saw the apology in her eyes. Somehow, her pity made it worse. He shifted his gaze to the parcels on the kitchen table.
Stupid. So, so goddamned stupid.
Suddenly, Isobel broke away from her mother. She tore around the kitchen table and slammed into him, wrapping her arms around his legs and smearing a gobbet of snot across his pant leg as she pressed her face to his knee.
"We can't leave," she said between hiccoughs. "Mister Gabe visits us here! We can't leave!"
Oh.
... oh.
He stared down at his daughter, and then looked up to where Katherine still knelt on the floor on the far side of the table. Her glassy eyes were wide, eyebrows arching up toward her hairline. Slowly, she pushed to her feet and lifted her shoulder in a silent shrug.
He bent, prying Isobel's arms from around his legs and lifting her into his arms. She had stopped wailing her protests, and merely sobbed as he sank into his chair. He was a god, again, as he rubbed her back and pressed a long kiss to her tantrum-tangled hair. A god with snot all over his clothes and a heart that had jammed itself so far up his throat he had to swallow three times before he found his voice.
"Isobel, listen to me," he said in her ear as Katherine sank back down into her chair beside him.
"We can't leave," Isobel moaned into his shirt.
"What if me and Reaper came with you?"
The fit ended just as suddenly as it had started. Would he ever get used to that? Hopefully she'd grow out of it and her emotions would make a little more sense. Sniffling, Isobel lifted just her head, peering up at him with puffy red eyes.
"To Texas?"
"Yeah."
"To visit?"
"No, honey. To stay." He looked to Katherine and she nodded encouragement, holding out a handkerchief she'd retrieved from somewhere in her dress. He shifted Isobel so she sat on his leg, though she kept one hand firmly wrapped in the fabric of his shirt. "Your ma and I were thinking that we could go together. You and me and her could have our own house and live together."
The little girl's eyes flared, puffy as they were, and he used her shocked stillness to wipe first at the tears on her cheeks and then at the mess still oozing from her nose. She knocked his hand aside as she lifted her own to rub the back of it roughly over her mouth with a shuddering sniff.
"Does that sound okay?" he asked cautiously, brushing back the strands of hair that clung to her forehead and temples.
"You'd live with us? Like Pa?"
Gabe ground his teeth together. "Sure." Then, because he couldn't help but drive his point home, he added, "But not him, Isobel. It would be you, your mother, and me. Not him."
She slumped, and he liked to think it was relief that was sucking the fight out of her. Then she perked up with a little hiccough.
"So you'd be my pa!"
Well... damn. He certainly hadn't expected part two of this conversation to happen so easily. He lifted his gaze over Isobel's head to see Katherine shrug again and make a 'go on' gesture with her hand.
"Yes," he said firmly. "I would. I... am."
"Not him," she said sternly, shaking her head.
"Nope. Not him. Just me."
"You're my pa!"
"Yep."
"Do I still have to call you Mister Gabe?"
"No, honey. You can call me what you want."
"Do I have to wait until we get to Texas?"
He wasn't a god. No god could ever feel like this. He was bigger than a god. Better than a god. He was the universe itself.
"No, honey."
"Can I tell Aunt Mel I have a new pa?"
Keeping secrets was a reflex. He opened his mouth to say no. Absolutely not. But Isobel's happy smile and palpable excitement forced him to acknowledge that the Tuckers had proven themselves trustworthy so far. Even little Rebecca had dutifully kept her new playmate a secret.
"Sure."
"Can I tell Rebecca?"
"If you want."
"Can I tell Miss Amelia and Mister Josh?"
"Mmhm."
"Can I tell them we're going to Texas?"
"I don't think you should tell everyone where we're going. It's a secret, see? But you can tell them we're leaving."
"When are we leaving?"
"When the snow melts, sweetie," Katherine chimed in, and Gabe was grateful. His heart was still worming its way up his throat and it was getting harder and harder to swallow it down. He sat like a mute while Katherine and Isobel chatted about the move, fighting to pull himself together and listening to the dialogue of promises and plans.
"Hey, Mister—" Isobel cut herself off as she turned back around in his lap, grinning up at him so wide he could see the little gap where her new tooth was still working its way up. "Pa?"
"Mmhm?" he hummed, because his voice was suddenly lost to time.
"What's in our presents? Is it for Texas?"
"Mmhm." Grinding his teeth together, he reached forward and retrieved her parcel from across the table, setting it in front of her.
"Can I open it?"
"Mmhm."
Katherine was watching him with an amused smile tugging at the edges of her soft lips, but he refused to meet her eye. Instead, he jerked his chin at her own parcel. She sighed, her smile breaking free as a little flare of the girl she had been passed over her face.
She'd always liked presents.
He sat in stony, contained silence as they both fought the twine and tore at the brown wrapping paper with mirrored urgency. He supposed it was a hell of a lot easier to determine who a child's mother was than the father, but if anyone ever doubted Isobel belonged to Katherine he'd have showed them this moment as proof.
Katherine defeated the wrapping first, and he was glad. He wouldn't have wanted to miss the way her face crumpled as she pulled the items out of the small box and set them in front of her on the table—a cheap nickel chain with a cut glass pendant, a ten-year-old train ticket, and a carved wooden comb with marble inlaid on the handle. And because it would be rude to give a gift that was just old gifts repackaged, he had added something new. Two somethings.
She pulled out the bible and flipped through it. When she got to the first marked page, she pulled out the scrap of paper and he watched her eyes fill as she read it.
He figured it'd be some kind of sacrilege to write in the margins of the Holy Book. So, instead, he'd torn edges off pieces of paper and written his notes there instead, tucking them between the relevant pages. Passages he liked, and stories he thought were silly. She had been prodding him since they were children to read the Bible, and he'd always resisted. He was not a man of God and never would be. He'd seen more pain than salvation coming through the doors of the church, his experience too consistent to ever follow priest or pastor.
Nonetheless, it mattered to Katherine and once he'd made the decision to accompany her—to marry her and raise their child with her—he decided it was time to at least make the effort. Whatever his personal beliefs, her faith was important to her. He might as well at least try to understand it.
And he had found, in his reading, that he didn't hate it near so much as he had expected. All he knew of scripture was the passages that were hurled like shit at his mother's feet, and spat at the girls like bullets. Now that he'd read the damn thing, he wondered if Reverend Peters ever had. If he had, he must be an idiot. The message wasn't exactly subtle, but the man had managed to miss it completely.
His second new gift remained in the box, and he watched lines of anger, confusion, disgruntlement, and finally acceptance pass over Katherine's face as she stared down into it.
Katherine was not one for firearms, but this was a gift more for him than for her. He needed to know she had the little gun. He'd lay down his life to protect her, but if it came to that and his life wasn't enough, he needed to know she could protect herself.
He was spared her response to the gun by Isobel, finally prying open her box. His gifts to his daughter were a little less laden than Katherine's.
"What's this?" she asked, pulling out the leather pouch and setting it on the table in front of her.
"Might be easier to tell if you opened it," he said, poking her in the side, relieved his voice had finally returned.
She carefully pulled open the drawstring top and peered into it. Then she reached a small hand inside and came up with a small cylindrical tube of burnished brass.
"What's this?"
"It's a spyglass," he said, reaching around to take it from her and showing her how to extend the telescoping tube to its full length. "It makes things that are far away look like they're right up close."
Isobel gasped and held it to her eye, backwards. "It makes things small," she said, laughing.
"Turn it around."
She obeyed and gasped again, aiming it out the window on the west-facing wall. "I can see everything!"
He doubted that, but her delight was a balm after the turmoil they'd all just endured. Setting the spyglass down with infinite care, Isobel reached back inside the pouch.
"What's this?" she said, turning to face him and holding up the object in her hands.
"A compass." Again, he demonstrated how to open it. "It shows you which way you're going. The red part of the arrow always points north."
She made little sounds of aw as she turned the small compass in her hands and watched the arrow move to show north. Once satisfied that it performed the task he had described, she set it aside and dove back into the pouch.
"What's this?"
He laughed. "You know what that is."
She frowned and leafed through the pages of the leather-bound book. "There's no words or pictures."
"Not yet."
She scowled up at him, unamused.
"Well, every great adventurer has to write down her story, right? Otherwise how are you going to remember?"
"I can't write very good yet," she said somberly, thumbing through the empty pages.
"Well, for this trip me or your ma will write for you, and then you can take over. But you can draw the pictures. I know for a fact you're good at drawing."
"I'm really good at drawing," she said, nodding in agreement. "Is there more?"
"Isobel," Katherine sighed, but Gabe could only laugh.
"One more."
He could feel Katherine's glare burning into the side of his head as Isobel pulled the last item from the leather pouch.
"This one is going to stay with your ma for a little while longer," he said, taking the worn pocket knife from her and flipping the little blade out to show her what it was. Unlike the rest of the presents, this one wasn't new. Like Katherine's, it was a remnant of a bygone era. Her first gift to him. It was the closest he could come to handing down an heirloom to his daughter.
"Can I have it?" Isobel asked, reaching.
"Only when I'm watching," he said. "Or your ma. Once you're big enough and you've shown you can handle the responsibility you can keep it for yourself."
"When I'm seven?" she asked expectantly, looking at him over her shoulder.
"Probably not until you're at least ten."
She harumphed, but the rest of her presents seemed suitable compensation. She surrendered the knife, and he passed it off to Katherine with an apologetic smile. She glared as she took it and slipped it into the pocket of her dress, but Katherine's glares were always more light than heat.
The rest of his visit was quiet. Isobel had exhausted herself with her tantrum, and if Katherine felt anything like Gabe, she was drained as well. Relief was like an opiate, and they moved together to the sitting room and lounged by the fire in sated quiet.
When it was time to go, he hugged Isobel goodbye and Katherine walked him out onto the porch.
"I can't believe you gave our daughter a knife," she hissed as soon as the door shut behind him, and they were the sweetest words he had ever heard.
"It's my most prized possession," he said, shrugging as tugged her to him with a hand on the small of her back. "It was only right that I pass it along to our daughter."
"Our daughter is six years old," she snapped, looping her arms around his neck and leaning back to peer up at him. It was beginning to snow, the mountains blotted out by a wall of gray-white.
Damn.
"Why do you think I told our daughter that she couldn't keep it yet?"
"Do you think our daughter is going to be satisfied with that when she wants to play with it and I'm too busy to watch her?"
"Probably not. Our daughter is as stubborn as her mother."
"Our daughter is as willful as her father, you mean to say."
He kissed her. Hard. He kissed her in a way he never would have dared three months ago. Hell, he wouldn't have dared it three weeks ago. He didn't hesitate or ask. He didn't handle her as if she were spun from glass and crystal. She was wrought-iron and pure faith, unbreakable as he bent her back over his arm, her weight solid and liquid at once in his arms as he took her mouth with his. Of course, if she'd gone stiff he'd have stopped. If she had whimpered in protest or pushed at him, he'd have released her in an instant. But she didn't, as he knew by now she wouldn't.
She dug her fingers into his scalp until he felt the burning prick of her nails breaking the skin. She inhaled him, consumed him, held him as tight as he was holding her. He tasted every inch of her mouth, plundering with the same fervor with which she seemed to pull the very essence of who he was out from within him with every gasping breath.
Greed was a tricky thing. It lured a man deeper into itself with promises of satisfaction.
If she'd show up at the Bridge, I'll be happy. That's all I need.
If she'd just look me in the eye, I'd be content.
All I need is a smile. Just one smile, and I'll have everything.
If I could touch her, I'd feel right again.
If she'd kiss me...
If she'd love me...
Well, she had shown up at the Bridge. She had looked him in the eye. She had gifted him one smile, and then a hundred more. She'd touched him, and let him touch her. She'd kissed him and let him kiss her, loved him and let him love her.
Funny. He had everything he had wanted up to this point.
And now he wanted more.
* * *
The winter dragged on.
There was a fire in the stables at the end of January, officially attributed to an oil lamp that had been knocked over. Gabe knew better. Luckily, it hadn't been burning long by the time he went out for his evening chores, and he was able to put it out with a blanket and a couple buckets of water.
Two weeks later, a group of men cornered him while he was making a run to the bank, but he pulled his gun and kept them away until he could reach his horse.
His mother said there was no reason to close the business, as that was what the reverend wanted. If they closed, he would win, and he would not be permitted to win.
So the saloon stayed open, and Gabe sat in the barroom for hours each night, his skin crawling, jittery like his blood had been replaced with thick, black coffee.
Once, a fight broke out over one of the girls. Ordinarily, he'd have waded into the middle of it to calm things down with a few well-placed fists. Instead, he dragged Penny out of the fray and stood back to watch. After a minute or two passed, the fight just died. He wondered how many knives he would have caught if he'd tried to break it up.
The girls started turning down more and more customers. After what happened to Chrissy they were cautious. The only men who received servicing were the men who had no problem with the doors being left cracked open.
When he was little, still living in the city, Gabe had seen a street juggler at the market. The man was dressed plainly—brown trousers and a stained white shirt, but he was juggling oranges, which stood out in stark contrast to his drab clothes and his dirt-smudged skin. First three oranges, then four, then five! Gabe was enraptured, and his mother had given him a few pennies to drop into the man's hat, which sat bowl-up on the ground at his feet.
As winter pressed on, Gabe felt more and more like the juggler. Only he wasn't tossing oranges into the air. He was juggling lives and priorities. Responsibilities and obligations.
At the beginning of February, he found a quiet moment and pulled his mother aside.
"What's the matter?" she asked, shutting the door behind her. They were in the pantry off the kitchen. The night was over and the girls and cook had wandered off to bed. The floor above their heads creaked with footsteps, thuds, and the occasional squeaking bedspring indicating each girl slipping beneath the covers for the night.
"Nothing is the matter," he said, leaning against a barrel and tipping his chin toward the flour sacks in the corner. She sat, arranging her skirts just so. His mother was the embodiment of elegance, and Gabe hated to think of her as a whore. The word never fit her. Whores were dirty, weary women, beaten down by life and forced to spread their legs for men who dropped a few coins on the table on their way out.
Gabe's mother was not a whore. When he was younger, he'd found a thesaurus and flipped to the word 'prostitute' and decided that 'courtesan' was a much nicer word. Perhaps, at its root, the meaning was the same. But the graceful turns and syllables of 'courtesan' had brought thoughts of fancy dinners and elegant dresses to his childish mind, and he liked those thoughts much better than the ones he associated with 'whore.'
"Something must be the matter," she said with a small smile.
"Nothing is the matter," he insisted. The words were fighting him. The words were a betrayal. How could he betray his mother? After everything she had given him?
"Gabriel..."
"I'm leaving," he said, the words pushing themselves together into one rushed exhalation. His mother blinked, the only indication she'd heard him a slight inclination of her head to the side. He swallowed and went on, battling hard to keep his eyes on hers and wondering what he feared more—her anger or her elation. "I need to get Katherine and Isobel away from here," he said. "They can't stay. Even if the reverend was gone, the town would shun them at the least. They need new lives, and I'm going with them. To keep them safe."
The agitated crawling beneath his skin intensified as his mother studied him, her lips a straight line and her brow unwrinkled. Not confused. Not angry. Not happy. Just gathering information from him the way only she could.
"What makes them your responsibility, Gabriel?" she asked finally, and again it held notes of neither accusation nor joy. Her tone was utterly level.
"I love her," he said, crossing his arms over his chest against the ache that pressed at his ribcage. "She loves me. And Isobel..." The words caught in his throat and he cleared it, swallowing hard to dispel the lump of pride and despair. Isobel made all of it so much bigger and more blinding. "Isobel isn't the reverend's daughter."
He watched his mother's face, waiting for her brows to shoot up in shock and her mouth to twist down in an angry frown.
"I taught you better," she was sure to say.
"Is that so?" she said instead, her voice unaffected.
"I'm sorry, ma," he said, his strength running out of him with the admission. He dropped his gaze to the floor and studied the knot in the hardwood by his left boot.
"What are you sorry for, angel?"
He shook his head. "All of it. Getting so tied up in it. When it was only Katherine, I had a choice. I wouldn't have liked it, but I could have sent her into the world to make a new life. She's stronger than she seems. But then I went and added this new element, and I can't possibly turn my back on that. She's... she's my..." Why was it so hard to say the words? When he was with them, the words were a blessing. When he was so far away from them, it felt like a death sentence. Not for him or for Katherine, but for Isobel.
"Oh, Gabriel," his mother sighed, pushing up from her flour-sack throne and coming nearer to him. He stared at her swishing skirts and the polished toes of her patent-leather shoes, until she placed a finger beneath his chin and forced his gaze up from the floor.
"I'm sorry, ma," he said again, shaking his head. "I can't stay here."
"I know you can't," she answered with a small smile. "I'm not angry with you, love."
"You're not?"
"I'm... surprised that you weren't smarter." She gave a wry grin. "I always thought the one silver lining of raising you in a brothel was an innate understanding of the consequences of lewd acts."
His neck burned and he tried to drop his gaze again, but she wouldn't let him.
"I'm happy," she said firmly, meeting his eyes. "I'm happy for you, Gabriel. I never wanted this to be your life, you know that. Did you truly expect me to stop you from going after something better?"
"No," he said honestly. "But things are so bad here. I can't leave you all without protection."
"We're women," she said sternly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Not helpless little girls. If I need another burly lout to toss out troublemakers, I'll hire one. You're not indispensable in the barroom, angel. You're indispensable as my son. You're indispensable as that little girl's father."
He needed to dust in the pantry, because all their moving around in here had stirred up a haze and the haze was making his eyes water.
"When are you leaving?" she asked, smoothing her hand over his cheek before stepping back and resuming her seat on the flour sacks.
"Spring," he answered roughly.
"That's plenty of time to find another lout," she said, nodding. "Where are you going?"
"We don't know. Somewhere far from here. The reverend is bound to have folks looking for us. We need to go somewhere where we can have new names."
"You remember Annabelle?"
"From the place in Dallas?"
"The redhead, yes. She lives in Austin now. I visited her a few years back. She's made quite a little life for herself, down there in the criminal underbelly of the city."
"I don't—"
"If anyone can give you a new name, it's Annabelle. I'll send her a letter to expect you and you can memorize her address before you leave."
"Ma..."
She sighed heavily, and for a moment he saw the weight of her years, carved with a chisel into the lines of her face. The wrinkles fanning out from her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and the white streaks in her auburn hair.
"I love this saloon," she said, and this time she was the one whose gaze wandered. "I know it's an improper trade, but I've always been good at my work and it's a good feeling, to know you excel at what you do. I love owning a business and earning money. I love finding girls and giving them a chance at something resembling dignity. I'm so proud of what I've done with my life, for all that the rest of the world seems to hate me for it."
"You should be proud," he said lamely.
"I am. But I am not nearly so proud of this place as I am of what I see standing before me." Her eyes locked on him, and he wanted to squirm. Wanted to turn away. Wanted to fold her into his arms and protect her the same way he protected the girls. "I was so frightened when I found out you were coming," she went on. "Carrying and giving birth to you took months of earnings out of my pocket. The one thing I was good at, and you didn't let me do it."
"Ma—"
"But it changed, angel. I swear on my life, the moment I saw your face it all changed. And through the years, I just grew more sure that you are my crowning achievement. There were so many times it could have gone wrong. You could have grown up a brute or a prude. You could have grown up hating me for the way I raised you, or viewing every pair of breasts in your vicinity as yours for the taking. There are so many foul ways you could have gone wrong, and I don't see a single one of them in the man you've become."
He stared at her, and she at him. He wondered what she would do if he wrapped her in a hug and held her.
"You're not ordinarily so maudlin, ma," he said with a small smile, hoping she'd hear the words he really wanted to say.
"No, I'm not," she said, swiping one finger beneath her eye and shaking her head. "But I'm not ordinarily a grandmother, now am I?"
"Guess not."
"I'm proud of you, Gabriel."
"I know you are, ma."
"I'm happy for you."
"I know."
"I love you."
"I'd hope so, after all that mush you just served me."
She laughed and stood, and he pushed off the barrel. She turned as if to lead the way out, but he caught her arm and let his instincts pull her into a hug. He'd meant to offer her comfort, but he wound up hunched over with his face pressed to her shoulder. She smelled of rosewater, and the scent took him back—not to when things were better, but to when he didn't understand that they were bad.
"Thank you," he said, as her hand gently patted his back.
"You're the one who gave me a granddaughter," she said softly. "I should be thanking you."
"Ma?"
"Yes, angel?"
"Thank you."
A soft sigh, and her hand stilled on his back.
"You're welcome."
***
Hey, all!
I hope this chapter finds you well, and I hope it wasn't too terribly boring. It occurred to me that this story has been (and will be again soon) a nonstop angst-fest. Not that angst isn't my trademark, but I do consider it my civic responsibility to provide at least some fluff to break up the monotony of despair.
I've kinda sorta got my mojo back, I think, and have rebuilt a decent buffer. PLUS I am leaving this cavern where I am being kept in a few days and will hopefully have a more reliable signal so I can rejoin the world in some way beyond the occasional update. Connectivity in my current digz is, to put it mildly, quite limited.
Thank you so, so much for reading.
Love!
Liz
***