From This Moment (32 page)

She hadn’t been a very good wife to him. He hadn’t been a very good husband, either, but the qualities about Clyde that frustrated her had all been in full view while they were courting. At the time, she’d thought his reckless spirit and his high-flying dreams had been thrilling. Why had she assumed he would suddenly be tamed after walking down the aisle?

A man could not be expected to turn those qualities off and on as her whims dictated. He hadn’t been the best of husbands, but there had been stretches of real happiness, and she missed them. By the time Clyde had tried to become a better husband, she had given up, and that was her fault, not his. It wasn’t his fault she’d lost the baby, even though for years it had felt good to nurture that bitter seed of anger against him. It was easier to be angry than to keep hurting.

She wanted a man in her life again. A real man, not one from a girlhood fantasy. She didn’t need a man to bring her chocolate or flowers. She needed the kind of man who saddled up and got the job done, whether it was picking up a shovel to work on
a subway or rushing across the state to help a friend in need. A man who could fix the leaky roof or provide electricity to a greenhouse to ensure the hummingbird eggs would hatch.

Men like Clyde Brixton were the heart, soul, and muscle that made the world go around. Clyde could be clumsy, brash, and thoughtless, but she was no princess, either. They were both flawed, broken people, but she loved him. She’d spoken holy vows with him that could never be set aside, even though she’d done her best to ignore them for the past six years.

She wished with all her heart she didn’t need to deliver this terrible telegram to him, but it was time. When she returned to the lodge, he was out on the terrace, a book lying open and unread on his lap as he stared into the distance. He hadn’t yet noticed her approaching.

She bowed her head and said a short prayer. It was impossible to know why God had sent this calamity into their lives, but there was a reason and they needed to accept and deal with it.

She walked to Clyde and set the telegram on his lap.

He smiled a bit in greeting, his eyes impossibly blue. She tried to memorize his face, his expression, the faint hope in his eyes. This was the last moment before the final foundations crumbled beneath him.

He turned his attention to the telegram, staring at it for a full minute. A meadowlark chattered in a nearby bush, and a squirrel gnawed on a piece of bark in the garden. Clyde was motionless save for the muscle in his jaw that repeatedly clenched and released. Finally, he handed the note back to her. There was no change in his expression. She grabbed the small notepad and stub of a pencil she carried in her skirt pocket and scribbled a message.

Clyde? Talk to me. Tell me what you’re feeling
.

She tried to give him the notepad, but he pushed it aside and looked the other way.

She changed sides to hunker down next to him, but he shifted again and looked in the opposite direction.

A man had to have some dignity. In his own way, he had just asked for privacy, and it was not an unreasonable request. She complied, but left instructions to the nurse to keep an eye on him. She didn’t think Clyde would do anything foolish, but it seemed he was being systematically stripped of everything that mattered to him.

She retreated to the lodge’s library to sulk for only a moment before regrouping to start a battle plan. Clyde Brixton was not going to become a useless cripple. She didn’t know precisely what fate had in store for them, but it wasn’t going to be staring mutely into space while the seasons passed. The library had medical texts, history books, and inspiration. As long as she and Clyde both had a brain, they would not give up. It wasn’t in their nature—not since the day they’d met more than a decade ago and had the impossible task of figuring out how to keep hummingbirds alive in captivity.

Clyde was falling deeper into a hole. He was the only one who could pull himself out, but she could throw him a lifeline. The seed of an idea took root and grew. She dragged out dozens of books, flipping through them quickly and assessing various angles. She scribbled notes and made plans, not even breaking for dinner. She’d had no coffee all day, but excitement thrummed through her veins, and it was going to be impossible to sleep with all the hopes and possibilities swirling in her mind.

She sat at the table long into the night, dialing up the flame in the kerosene lantern as she plowed through book after book. Her plan would only work if Clyde cooperated, and he was notorious for kicking up a fuss.

After breakfast the next morning, she went in search of him. As expected, he was sitting on the terrace, a blanket over his
lap, staring at the mountains. Already he was starting to look more like an aging, depressed invalid. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and she suspected he must not have slept much last night, either.

She’d spent an hour this morning drafting a carefully worded note to him. She knelt on the chilly slate stone beside him and set the note on his lap. It didn’t take him long to read it. He rolled his eyes, snorted, and threw it on the ground. She picked it up.

“Beethoven was stone deaf when he wrote the Ninth Symphony,” she said, angling to stand in front of him so he could see her. “If he can write a symphony, don’t tell me you can’t design an electrical grid or write a book about it.”

She repeated the words and pointed to her note, which said the same. It was unlikely Clyde could work out in the field again. Communication was too important on a large-scale engineering site to have a deaf man at the helm, but that didn’t mean he had to abandon his calling. Half of Clyde’s professional troubles stemmed from his inability to get along with Thomas Edison, a man who had starkly different views about how the cities should be electrified. It was an important technological issue that so far had remained confined to engineers, city planners, and corporate financiers. As city after city began to build electrical grids, not many ordinary citizens understood the controversy about alternating currents versus direct currents, and yet it was those ordinary people who would be most affected by the outcome of the controversy.

Evelyn knew how to communicate to laypeople. Clyde did too if he would take the time to do so. Together they could write a book about the history and turbulent development of how electricity was planned, financed, and being unrolled across the nation. Was there anything more significant to the lives of everyday Americans than getting electricity into their homes?
She and Clyde could write about everything from the plans to use Niagara Falls to deliver hydroelectric power for the entire eastern seaboard to the bold plans to light up the nation house by house.

Clyde’s mouth tightened. “I am an engineer,” he said loudly. “It’s the only thing I know how to be. The only thing I want to be. I’m not a writer.” Already his speech was starting to regress. His words were a little slurred, almost as if he were drunk.

She reached for the piece of paper and scribbled quickly.
We can do it together. I’ll help you.

He grabbed the paper and crumpled it up, tossing it aside. “I don’t want your pity.”

“Then think of something else to do. Teach. Learn how to design houses. Just do something besides sitting in that chair and staring at the mountains.”

He looked at her blankly, for she had been babbling too quickly again. She reached for the notepad and wrote out her thoughts. There were plenty of things Clyde could do if he would pull himself out of this despondency. She wanted to come alongside him and be a team again, and it had nothing to do with pity.

Last night when she’d been cocooned in the library and had tentatively outlined the possible chapters for a book about electricity, she hadn’t been feeling pity, she’d been excited. She could be more than Romulus’s managing editor. She could create something on her own and learn how to be a better wife to Clyde.

She scribbled another note.
It will be fun. It will be something new for us
.

Clyde frowned. “It won’t be fun. I’ve never been able to make you happy.”

Her heart squeezed. Nobody could make another person happy, but she had certainly been masterful at blaming Clyde
for everything that went wrong in their marriage. She hunkered down before his chair so she could be on the same level as he.

“I love you.” The words were simple enough she knew he’d be able to read her lips, and he did.

“Shut up.”

“I love you,” she repeated. When he turned his face away, she framed his head with her hands and turned it so he couldn’t look away. “I love you.
I love you
.”

He jerked away. “Don’t lie to me. I swear that will push me right over the edge.” He stood and stalked toward the path skirting the meadow. It was hard to keep up with his long-legged stride.

“Don’t walk away while I’m talking to you!” she yelled after him, but he didn’t break stride. It was idiotic to shout at a deaf man’s back, and they were going to have to figure out some way to communicate with each other. She didn’t know if his deafness would last another week, another year, or forever, but she loved him and couldn’t stand aside while he withered beneath despair.

The path took them past the outdoor patio, where a number of patients still lingered at the outdoor breakfast table. People gawked at them, but she didn’t care. Neither did Clyde as he shook off the hand she clapped on his shoulder in a vain attempt to slow him down.

She hiked up her skirts and sprinted ahead of him, stepping into his way and blocking the path. “Don’t run away from me!” she hollered. Which was stupid, but it made her feel better to yell.

“Go home, Evelyn. Let it go.” He averted his face again, and it was maddening. They couldn’t go through the rest of their lives if all he had to do was turn his face away like a child refusing to eat whenever he wanted to shut her out.

“I won’t ever let you go,” she said, and two fat tears plopped down her cheeks.

He looked back at her, the first hint of curiosity in his expression. She smiled, and it was a genuine smile mixed with a little laughter as more tears spilled down her cheeks. He was definitely intrigued now, and he waited as she scribbled more words on the notepad.

I was a lousy wife. If you can forgive me, I want to do better.

Now he looked confused. “You’re always angry,” he said. “I don’t know how to make you happy. Now I can’t even earn an income. I’m useless to you.”

She blanched. This was the second time he’d accused her of caring only for the money he earned. It was unfair, and she drew a breath to defend herself, but then paused.

His concern was valid. She’d been furious when he’d lost one job after another because he couldn’t get along with the financiers who controlled the projects.

“I don’t need you for an income,” she said, but he shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t understand her, so he pointed to the notepad. It was progress. At least he was listening to her. She wrote as quickly as possible.

I don’t need you for an income. I can work until you are on your feet again. We are partners. We should never have lost sight of that
.

This time when he read the note, his face softened. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She stepped in front of him, a thousand watts of love and affection blooming inside.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you, and I don’t pity you. You’re too pig-headed for that.” She used grand gestures to illustrate her point, and he must have understood most of it because he looked partly amused, partly indignant. But for the first time since the accident, the lopsided grin she’d always loved tilted across his face.

He tugged her into his arms and held her tightly, rocking
them both from side to side. How many years had it been since she’d let him hold her? It felt like coming home.

At last, Clyde pulled back, holding her shoulders and smiling down into her face. “I think everyone is watching us,” he said loudly. He glanced at the dozen patients and nurses on the breakfast patio, staring at them in amusement.

“They are, beloved.” Evelyn laughed.

Let them watch. She had found the man she loved. Beneath the careless insults, the forgotten anniversaries, and socks thrown on her clean floor, she had found a man. And she loved him desperately.

This was love. This was a marriage, in all its shining, imperfect glory.

It didn’t take long for Stella to locate the shared photographers’ studio down near the wharves. It was in a dilapidated section of town, the streets crowded with fishmongers carting in their haul. The repetitive slosh and slapping of the waves against the seawall was worrisome, a constant reminder of the cold, briny seawater just yards away.

It was a good thing she hadn’t had breakfast this morning or that sloshing water would have made her feel even more ill. Besides, how could she have an appetite when she was pursuing the slim chance that the police had a photograph of Gwendolyn’s dead body? Such a photograph seemed like a gross intrusion on her sister’s dignity, but Stella prayed it existed.

The studio was in a windowless brick building amid the fish stalls and meat markets. The rent must have been inexpensive, for there was nothing pleasant about the space. She banged on the door, but there was no answer. A passing fishmonger told her the police had been by earlier to drag one of the photogra
phers to a textile mill where an overnight fire had caused two deaths. The others were at lunch. Stella had no choice but to wait on the cracked and rickety bench outside the studio for the photographers to return.