“Was it . . . was it hard for her when you were out on the road so much? Was this kind of life one that she got used to rather quickly?”
He looks up. “This wasn’t the kind of life we had.”
“No?”
“I didn’t work for an insurance company in Los Angeles. I worked at a riding club.”
“A riding club? Do you mean . . . with horses?”
His gaze is back on his work. “Yes.”
He doesn’t seem the barnyard type. Not at all. “Were you raised around horses?”
Martin answers without looking at me. “No. I worked as a ranch hand in Colorado when I was younger. I met a man while I was traveling west who saw I needed someone to teach me a skill. I stayed at his ranch for a few years, learning to ride and care for horses, break them, and herd cattle with them.”
“Oh. And then . . . then how did you come to California?”
“When that man died, he left me a little money in his will, and I decided to come out to the West Coast. I got a job at a riding club in Los Angeles where highbrow families send their daughters to learn to ride.”
“And that’s where you met Candace.”
“Yes.”
“But then how did you switch to working for a life insurance company?”
He pauses and I wonder if he is annoyed I am asking so many questions. But then he answers me. “One of the men who brought his children to the club for lessons sold insurance. He liked to talk, especially when he was doing well at his job. I knew I didn’t want to work in a stable the rest of my life, so I listened.”
“And now you sell insurance, too?”
“I assess risk for potential clients.”
“Oh.”
“I must get back to work here.”
We eat the rest of our supper in silence.
When Martin is finished, he stands and thanks me for the meal. “Good night.” He gathers his papers and leaves the room.
I watch him cross the foyer, enter the library, and close the door. I catch the merest whiff of women’s cologne on him as he walks past me. It is so faint I question whether I detected it at all after he is gone.
* * *
• • •
I awaken the next day before daybreak. While the house is still quiet, I dress and make my way downstairs. I find it easier to strike the match and put my hand inside the stove to light it. I prepare the coffee and set about making cinnamon scones. As I’m rolling out the dough, I’m joined by Kat, inexplicably dressed in her old, too-tight pink dress. She quietly helps me cut the dough into triangles and then place them onto a baking sheet. I soft-boil some eggs and fry a rasher of bacon. I ask Kat if she’d like to set the small table there in the kitchen by the back garden window, and she does so without a word.
I am just pulling the baking tray out of the oven a few minutes before seven when Martin appears in the kitchen, shaved, dressed, and clearly ready to be off. He is wearing a heather gray suit that he looks particularly striking in.
Martin sets down his satchel, grabs a coffee cup, and reaches for the drip pot.
“You have time to eat something before you go, don’t you?” I ask.
“You can wrap up one of your biscuits for me.” He takes a gulp of coffee.
“They are scones, and if that’s all you want, I can do that.”
“I need to be on my way.” He sets his cup down and reaches into his suit pocket, pulling out a few dollar bills. He places them on the countertop. “Here’s some money if you need anything while I am gone.”
Martin takes another swallow of coffee.
“I’m off,” he says. “It will take a little while to get to the automobile and then out of the city. Even on a Sunday.”
I follow him into the foyer and Kat trails behind me. “And if I should need to reach you, is there an office or person I should ring up who will know where you are?”
He is shrugging on his coat. “We don’t check in with the office when we’re out.”
“But what if something should happen?”
“Like what?”
I blink back my surprise. “What if . . . what if Kat should get sick or the house catches fire or I fall and break my leg?”
Martin smiles easily. “I am confident in your abilities to see to any circumstance, Sophie. And what could I do from miles away if any of those events should occur?” He turns to get his hat off its hook on the hall tree, setting it on his head as he reaches for a packed valise on the floor. “I should be home in four days, maybe five. Be a good girl, Kat.”
He doesn’t seem to notice Kat is wearing one of her old dresses, or he doesn’t care. Or maybe he believes I am better suited to getting Kat to relinquish the dress and therefore it is better if he says nothing.
Martin turns to me. If we were a normal husband and wife, he’d lean in at this moment to kiss me good-bye. But we are not a normal husband and wife.
He looks eager to go, as though he is about to embark on an adventure that he is keen to begin. Perhaps this is another way he deals with his losses: by looking to the open road and the beckoning horizon as an escape from the reminders of all that has been taken from him.
“Have a good trip,” I tell him.
Martin opens the front door and steps out into the cool mist of a quiet Sunday morning.
6
March 30, 1905
Dearest Mam,
You’re surely wondering about the return address on the envelope that brought this letter to you. I have married a man who lives in San Francisco. His name is Martin Hocking and he’s the one pictured with me in the enclosed photograph. Martin is a widower with a little girl named Katharine. She’s five years old and we call her Kat. I hope to send a photograph of her to you sometime soon.
It truly doesn’t matter how I met Martin; I will just say that our paths crossed at the right time for both of us. I know you thought I could begin a new life for myself in New York, and I appreciate so very much everything you did to get me to America, but I couldn’t stay in Manhattan any longer, for many reasons. It was no place where you’d want me to be, Mam, and all that you truly wanted for me, I now have. Martin makes a good living, he has a beautiful house here in the city, and I lack nothing. I even have my own bedroom, which is what I wanted, and he did not object. I think he still grieves his first wife’s passing. He doesn’t talk much about her, and I’m glad he doesn’t. He travels most days for his job; he works for an insurance company.