I glanced down at the letter, reading it one more time.
Dear Phillip,
My family and I would very much like you to come for a visit. Whether you decide to stay permanently in Emerson Pass or not, we’d be honored if you’d spend the holidays with us.
I hope you won’t find my large and somewhat obnoxious family too overwhelming. I’ve asked them all to be on their best behavior, but that’s not a guarantee. You’ll bunk with my twin brothers. They also served in the war. I’m sure you’ll all become fast friends.
Papa and my brothers will be happy to help you find employment if you decide to stay.
I shall look forward to meeting you soon.
Sincerely,
Josephine Barnes
I folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then traced the letters of my name, written by her hand.
Walter, I thought, you lucky, conniving bastard. He’d held that hand in his own.
The train had made it to the top of the peak. I looked out the window to snow that sparkled under the sun. Josephine hadn’t exaggerated about the piercing blue hue of the sky.
The baby stopped crying. Her mother, a pretty blonde woman wearing a gray traveling suit and matching hat, apologized to me for the noise. “The altitude hurts her ears.”
“No need to apologize, ma’am. We were all babies once.”
She peered back at me with obvious curiosity. “Do you know someone in Emerson Pass? Most people who head our way either live there or are visiting family or friends.”
“I’m visiting the Barnes family.”
Her face lit up with a bright smile. “The Barneses. They’re very close friends of mine. I’m Martha Neal. I was the second schoolteacher in Emerson Pass, but now I’m married to the town doctor. He was an outsider who moved to town to take over the practice of our last doctor and somehow managed to make me his wife.” She indicated the baby with a dip of her chin. “This one is named Quinn, after our first teacher in Emerson Pass, who is now married to Alexander Barnes. But you know all that, I suppose?”
How much should I say? My natural tendency was to remain taciturn. When one’s lived the kind of life I have, sharing too much led to either pity or fear, as if being an orphan or poor were contagious. “I served in the war with Josephine’s beau, Walter Green. When he died he left a few items that I thought she might like to have. It’s taken a while to get out here. My name’s Phillip Baker.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re a friend of Walter’s?”
Not exactly a friend. “That’s correct. Did you know him?”
“No, no. I’ve only heard about him from Josephine. Those of us who attended school together are quite close. We meet for tea at least twice a month to discuss books and gossip. Oh dear me, where are my manners? I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Baker, and I’m terribly sorry about Walter. We lost one of our boys and the whole town cried for a week. What you must have seen, I can’t imagine.” Martha bounced Quinn on her lap. The baby babbled and chewed on her fist.
“Thank you. He wasn’t a close friend. We served together, that’s all.” The car jerked, causing both Martha and me to sway slightly. I gripped my seat with both hands.
“Our poor Josephine. His death broke her heart. We all hoped she’d move on, but so far she hasn’t.”
“How so?” I couldn’t help but ask. What luck to meet Martha. I’d gather as much information about Josephine as I could. The nuns often told us that the more we knew about a subject, the better we could make a decision or persuade others to our cause.
“She’s sworn herself to spinsterhood and running the library. Which is disappointing to the eligible bachelors in town. Given half a chance, most of them would snatch her up if they could. She’s remarkable. Did you know she brought the library to us with funding from Andrew Carnegie?”
I nodded. She’d written in detail about the building and opening of her library. As if Walter had cared. I’m not sure he’d ever read a book. “Yes, Walter mentioned that to me.”
“May I ask what you’re bringing to her?” Martha adjusted Quinn to the other knee.
“The letters she wrote to him. There are stacks of them, and I thought she might like to have them. I wanted an excuse to come out here, too. I’m thinking of staying.”
“I hope you will.” She smiled at me. “We’re friendly in Emerson Pass. I think you’ll love it as much as the rest of us do. And how kind of you to bring the letters. Jo walked to the post office every Monday and Friday with a letter in her hand. Without fail, even though he almost never sent one in return. Do you know why he wrote back so seldom?”
He was too busy sleeping with nurses to reply to Josephine’s heart-wrenchingly beautiful letters. “I’ve no idea, really. He wasn’t the writing sort, I guess.”
“Have you brought the books she sent, too?” Martha asked.
She knew about the books? “Yes, I wanted to return them to her for the library. They gave me such pleasure during difficult times. I wanted to make sure others could enjoy them.”
“You like books?” Martha watched me with a more serious expression on her face.
“More than anything.”
“And Walter?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did he like books? Martha asked.
“I can’t say that he did, no.” He’d always tossed them over to me the moment he took them from the box Josephine had sent. The candy he’d kept for himself. He’d had a terrible sweet tooth.
Her glaze flickered to the window. “How odd.”
“Ma’am?”
“Josephine told me he’d written to her two times about how much he enjoyed the books, even mentioning specific plots and characters. She was thrilled, of course.”
I flushed. I’d told him what to write in those letters so that she continued to think of him as a scholar. Both times he’d tricked me into describing the plots. I couldn’t help myself but to discuss books with enthusiasm.
Martha peered at me through narrowed eyes. “May I be frank about something?”
“Of course.” Where was she going with this?
“I’ve suspected there might have been others. Women, I mean.”
I bit back a bark of surprise. Martha was no fool. I almost smiled with triumph. “What makes you think this?”
“When my husband was courting me, he was already a busy country doctor, yet he wrote me love letters at least once a week, and we lived in the same town. All he had to do to say hello was walk over to my parents’ store. All of which leads me to believe that Walter’s feelings weren’t what he’d professed them to be. What’s the old saying? Actions speak louder than words.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s not for me to say.”
“You shouldn’t play poker.”
“Poker?”
The baby began to fuss. Martha reached into a bag by her side and came out with a hard-looking biscuit and handed it to Quinn. “I can see by the look on your face that there was more to this Walter than Josephine knew.”
I moved my gaze away from her, flustered by this interrogation, and looked out the window. We were now on actual ground, passing through a dense forest of fir and pine trees. If Martha was an example of what I was to face in Emerson Pass, then I better get my story straight.