Come, Josephine

Chapter 23

1927

After mamma and Jack returned, they took me home in the back of the wagon that Jack had to fetch. He had laid a thick quilt and and mattress in the back, hanging blankets over the sides of the wagon to cushion the splintered wood.
Jack carried me outside, and tucked me under the blankets he had spread out. Mamma sat with me in the back on the way home, resting my head in her lap, and trying to calm me. No matter how careful Jack was, each jolt of the wagon sent a sharp pain through my body.
I did not see Nick again for a long while, and once we returned home, I spent weeks in bed, trying to recover. In the end, the physical injuries were the least of my worries.
I stopped drawing, stopping reading, and stopped trying. I lay in bed, waiting for my body to heal, so I could do something. Anything was better than lying in bed.
Jack came in often, because he knew that my thoughts weren't good company. He tried to get me to talk about what had happened, but something inside of me would not open up. He tried to stir something in me, by acknowledging it wasn't a hunting accident, but that he could promise it wouldn't happen again, but nothing could right me. No matter how kind he was, something within me had changed.
Eventually, mamma grew tired of bringing me my supper, and began to withhold food unless I ate at the table with them. My leg had healed, and there was little reason for me to stay in bed.
After a week or so of eating downstairs, and returning to my room afterwards, Jack became furious at my quietness. He wouldn't say a word, but I could see the rage brimming behind his eyes. Aimed at who, I didn't care to think.
One night, I went downstairs to dinner to the sound of familiar laughter. It did not belong to my parents.
Sitting at the long farm table was Nick, with his too-messy hair and sun kissed face. We were already deep into autumn, and I wondered how he could maintain such a complexion even in the cooler months.
Jack, for weeks, had offered to invite him over, "it will do you some good," he had said, "come on, Josie."
   I had always refused, because it was too much... work. Too much energy could be spent on trying to be pleasant and grateful while I wanted silence.
   I entered with a half-nod and made my way across the room. It was horrendous to be exposed to such brutal silence, and equally as bad to be expected to talk.
   I summoned the courage to speak, "hello, I mean, well, hello."
  I recoiled at my awkward behaviour and took a good, hard look at the table. I went over, focused on the worn, hard wood, and tried not to panic. 
   I was panicking.
   The only remaining place was beside Nick, so I aimed for there and tried to remember how, exactly, one is supposed to breath.
   I somehow didn't trip over my own feet, and made my careful way to table. I sat down, lowering my eyes as I did so, and remembered to comment on how nice everything looked.
   The talk around the table was somewhat comfortable, although I had a feeling that they had been discussing something serious before dinner. While Jack's tone remained light, something between Jack and mamma's eyes told me they were thinking about something.
   Dinner finished too soon, yet not quite soon enough. Everything in me screamed to bolt from the kitchen, although I knew the over-exertion would make me bring up the contents of my stomach.
   It wasn't like I had eaten much anyways; it had all tasted like sawdust and I was unsure on what I had actually eaten.
   At last, I rose from the table, silently, and went to return to my room. As I turned to leave, Jack forced cheeriness into his voice, "Josie? While we clean up in here, will you go to the barn with Nick? I'm not sure I locked everything up."
   I was sure I had seen him wink at me, but I chose to ignore it. Jack could scheme all he wanted; I wouldn't rise to it.
From the look on Nick's face, I could tell he had realised what Jack was trying to do. I inwardly swore to myself, and hoped that he hadn't got the wrong idea. Perhaps he thought I was rude?
I tried to look oblivious, and I hoped I managed the appearance well. I ducked out of the room, and onto the porch, and Nick followed.
Say something, my heart screamed, for God's sake! Say something!
"Well..." I started, "I would thank you for your help again, but I believe Jack has already thanked you enough."
"You call your father both Jack and dad? Mind if I ask why?" He shot me a quizzical look.
"Jack wasn't around for some of my childhood, because there was a shipwreck that led mamma to believe he was dead. They don't usually like to talk about it, especially in the past, but I suppose you know why it wasn't a hunting accident?"
He looked towards the sky, "well, I got that far, purely because of the man holding a gun to my head- but they didn't so much answer questions as much as they asked them."
"Ah," I had forgotten how much he already knew, "well, it all links together, see..."
I lead the way over to the barn, "mamma was once engaged to a man by the name of Caledon, and they were travelling from England back to America with her mother. Caledon was possessive and aggressive at times, and she was forced to marry him by her mother for financial reasons. She did not love him."
I went to unlatch the door, but the door jammed. As I tried to force it open, Nick reached over and opened it with ease. I blushed, "one night, she escaped dinner and went up on deck. That's when she met Jack," I knew of the stigma attached to children born out of wedlock, yet I continued, "they cared for each other deeply, but when the ship- the Titanic- sank, they both believed the other to be dead..."
I clocked Nick's sorry expression, "so, mamma raised me near Santa Monica- Jack and she had always spoke of going there- until Caledon arrived very recently.
"I met him in the park one day, and I went home to mamma and told him about how rude he was to me. She realised who he was straight away and we fled here, because she knew Jack had grown up here and possibly had a house. That's when we found him... alive.
"Caledon must have been looking for her, because he tracked us here. He lured mother away with a letter, thinking he could murder Jack and I. It didn't work..." I avoided his eyes.
   He gave a grim smile, and I knew that he understood.
I went up and down the barn isle, checking the horses' stalls as I did. I knew I didn't have to, because Jack had just been scheming to get me outside with Nick. It was then that I realised that I hadn't left the house since the accident, nor had I breathed in so much as an autumn breeze. It was especially pleasant to feel the soft autumn draft on my face under the cover of the barn; the fresh air was gentled by the gapped wooden wall in front of me. The warped wood let in enough breeze for it to be comforting, yet without the sting of bitter night air.
I finished checking on the horses, if only for the show of it, and went back to where Nick was waiting. By the large, slightly open barn doors he stood, petting one of the old horses. Winnie breathed into his jacket, as if she sensed all of the good inside of him.
   I tried to sound friendly, "does it all make more sense?"
   He nodded, and motioned towards the house, "as much as it can."
  He flashed a wicked grin and I heard laugher. My laughter, I realised. I had almost forgotten to be mournful and sorrowful, and I couldn't be gladder.
   He laughed with me, and for a moment, it felt as if all of the horridness had never happened. I was back at home, in mamma's kitchen in our old house, laughing about something trivial. I missed it dearly.
   He extended his arm, and I took it gladly. Then, as if the world couldn't hurt us, we went back into the house.