Would the woman have tried to talk me out of what I am about to do? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Half of my flatmates thought I was crazy, and the other half were jealous I’d found the advertisement and they hadn’t. Mam does not know what I will do when I get off this boat, and I’m not writing her of it until it’s already done.
Even after I finally tell her how miserable the tenement was, Mam will still want to know what possessed me to marry a man I don’t know. This was not the plan when I left Ireland to come to America. This was not what she’d wanted for me when she helped me pack my one travel bag. I had pondered what answer to give to that question, too. I’d already started the letter I would send to my mother.
I want a home, I’d written in broad terms, so that if another reads the letter—perhaps one of my two older brothers still in Ireland—they, too, will understand. I want what I had when I was a little girl. A warm house and clean clothes and food in the pantry. I want to sing lullabies and mend torn rompers and make jam and cakes and hot cocoa, like you did. And I want to have someone to share it all with. I just want what you had, back when you had it.
But what above love? my mother will want to know, because even though Da has been gone for too many years, Mam still loves him. She still feels like she is married to him.
What about love?
What about it?
The ferry is closing in on its slip, easing its way to the dock and the men who stand ready to tie up its moorings. Beyond the ferry building, the spread of the city beyond looks like an aspiring snip of Manhattan, with towers and multistoried structures lifting themselves skyward. The sun is beginning to dip below the buildings, casting a rosy glow that tinges everything with haloed light. The passengers in the main cabin behind me are already making their way downstairs to queue up to disembark.
I slip Martin’s photograph back inside my handbag and straighten my hat. It was Mam’s years ago, and made from the prettiest blue velvet and satin trim, both of which still hint at their original luster. Even slightly out of style, the hat pairs nicely with my dove gray shirtwaist, the only good dress I own, and I’d written Martin that I’d be wearing it. I reach for the travel bag resting at my feet.
Every step toward the ramp to the pier is taking me farther away from who I am and closer to who I am going to be. As I step off the ship and join the throngs moving toward the ferry building, I look to see if Martin Hocking is outside it studying the crowd of passengers, searching for me. Is his little girl with him? Is Kat wearing a pretty little frock to meet her new mother?
I don’t see him in the sea of faces awaiting the arrival of passengers. Maybe he is waiting inside.
Dusk is descending like a veil and the electric lamps surrounding the ferry building are hissing as they come to life. The crowd starts to thin.
And then I see him. Martin Hocking is standing just outside the entrance, in a pool of amber light cast by a lamp above him. His gaze is beyond me and to the right of where I stand. Even from many feet away I can see he is as stunning as his portrait. Not merely handsome, but beautiful. He wears a coffee brown suit and polished black shoes. His hair, as golden brown as toast, is perfectly in place. He’s tall, nearly six feet, I’d wager. He is not overly muscular and yet he has strength in his arms and torso, I can see that. He looks like royalty, like a Greek god.
And those eyes.
My seatmate was right. Martin Hocking’s eyes look like they could peer into my very soul.
Time seems to stand still as niggling questions that I’ve ignored for days again needle me. Why does such a man want a mail-order bride the likes of me? This man could probably court any woman in San Francisco looking the way he does. He wrote to me that his desire to secure a new wife was for practical purposes—he needs a mother for his daughter—but also because he needs to be viewed as a fortunate businessman rather than a pathetic widower and father. Appearances matter when you work for a life insurance company and interact with their wealthy clients. And yet why send away to the East for someone, a stranger no less, and why choose a bride as uncultured as myself? And why doesn’t he want the intrigue of romance? I know why I’m not keen to wait for it, but why isn’t he?
Unless he is so grieved over the loss of his first wife that he can’t imagine ever loving another. Unless he wants companionship and hot meals and a clean house but not romance. Not love.
Perhaps Martin Hocking wants—more than anything else—a Cinderella of a girl precisely like me, with no family, no background, and the simplest of desires. After all, what do I bring to this arrangement except my willingness? My emptiness? My gorta mór—my great hunger for everything Martin already has and which for me has been so elusive—a secure home, a child to love, food and clothes and a bed that doesn’t smell of poverty.
If this is true, I am practically perfect for him.
And then he turns his head in my direction. Our eyes meet. Martin’s closed mouth curves into a relieved, welcoming smile, and it’s almost as if he’d indeed read my thoughts.
Yes, that half smile seems to say. You are exactly what I wanted.
I step forward.
3
Martin Hocking is alone.
I hadn’t realized how much I wanted his daughter to be waiting there with him until it is clear she isn’t. Perhaps Martin had asked Kat if she wanted to accompany him and she’d said no. Or maybe he’d asked and she’d said nothing. Martin had written me that his daughter had withdrawn into near silence following the death of her mother, speaking only an occasional word here and there. Maybe he’d invited her to come along and gotten no response at all.
“Welcome to San Francisco, Sophie,” Martin says as soon as he is close to me. His voice is a little deeper than I’d imagined, a little softer. He doesn’t seem nervous, not even a little. And he called me Sophie, not Miss Whelan. My first name fell off his lips as though we’ve known each other for years. He takes my hand and clasps it like we are old school chums.
“Thank you,” I say, and then, in an attempt to match his relaxed tone, I add, “Martin.”
He lets go of my hand. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, without visible emotion, and yet he doesn’t sound insincere. He sounds satisfied, relieved perhaps that I didn’t change my mind.
“Yes, I’m happy to be here as well.”
He reaches for my travel bag. “Do you have a trunk that needs to be sent along to the house?”
I own nothing else and my cheeks warm a degree. “I don’t.”
But Martin doesn’t seem concerned or amazed that the entirety of my worldly possessions fits into a single travel bag and the handbag I am clutching. “We’ve only a few minutes before the courthouse closes, and they are expecting us.” He speaks the words as though we might merely miss the opening lines of a play if we don’t hurry. We leave the dock and enter the expansive and busy ferry building. We walk through quickly to the street entrance on the other side.