He hesitates a moment. “My parents died when I was little,” he finally replies, his tone betraying nothing of what it might’ve felt like to say those words to me. “I was raised by an aunt and uncle back east. We’re not close.”
My heart instantly aches a little for him. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he says easily. “I don’t remember my parents.”
“Still, I’m sure it was very difficult for you losing your parents so young like that. How did it happen?”
“They were coming home from an event in the city but were caught in a blizzard no one knew was coming. They lost their way and froze to death in their carriage.”
“Oh, Martin.”
“That was a long time ago. I don’t think about it anymore.”
I wonder if this man has spent his whole lifetime telling himself it was just a small thing that he grew up without his mother and father. How does someone school himself to believe losing parents at such a young age doesn’t matter? I can’t imagine it. I lost my father when I was sixteen and it was nearly my undoing. I wait a moment to see if Martin will query me about my own parents.
“My mam likely won’t approve,” I say when he doesn’t. “I’m not sure what my father would’ve thought.” I turn my head to look out the window. I see only mist and other carriages and the hulking shapes of buildings in the undulating fog. “He probably would’ve said it was imprudent or preposterous, what I’ve just done. My da liked using fancy words. He collected them in a book like some people collect old coins. He wanted to go to university and become a professor, but there was no money for that. He became a roofer just like his father had been. But he taught himself what he could on his own. He was always borrowing books from the rich people in the village who had libraries. He’d read the books out loud to me and my brothers, and he’d find so many words he wanted to remember. He wrote them in a little ledger. He fell from a roof a few years ago. He never woke up from the fall and died a few days later. He was such a gentle soul.” I turn to face Martin, my mouth suddenly agape. I hadn’t intended to share that much with him. I don’t know why I did.
Martin is studying me, however, with what seems to be intense interest. Something about what I said has drawn me to him an inch or two. And then the moment passes.
“How unfortunate,” he says.
We are quiet as his reply, sincere but distanced, settles about us. The clopping of the horse’s hooves outside the carriage is the only sound.
After a few more minutes the carriage comes to a stop.
“I’m afraid we will have to walk the rest of the way to the boardinghouse where Kat and I have been staying. The hill here is too steep for carriages and the cable car doesn’t go up this street. San Francisco is like that.”
“I don’t mind walking.”
“You can leave your bags inside the cab. We’re coming back to it.”
We exit the carriage. Ahead of us is a steeply inclined street packed on either side with three- and four-story townhomes, and whose end, if there is one, is concealed in mist.
We begin to ascend the hill like a seasoned couple who have strolled it a thousand times already.
“Kat and I have been staying at Mrs. Lewis’s the last four months, and she’s been looking after Kat for me when I’ve been working,” Martin says as we walk. “But I’ve just taken ownership today of my own place. We’ll collect Kat and then make our way there. I need to get back out to my clients, so I want you and Kat to get settled in right away.”
I had momentarily forgotten that Martin works for a life insurance company on the road, not from a downtown office. “Of course,” I say a second later.
We pass a few people on the street who nod their “good evenings.” The steady incline is making me short of breath. I fairly whisper my own greeting in return.
We arrive at a large, four-story structure with forest green windowpanes and trim. Martin withdraws a set of keys from his pocket and slips one into the lock, and we step inside. The foyer opens to a hallway of doors to the first-floor rooms and a staircase to the second floor. Martin raps at the first door on the left.
The door opens. Mrs. Lewis—gray-haired, matronly, and plump—looks me up and down. Martin apparently told her who it was he was fetching from the ferry terminal and for what purpose. The woman looks deep into my eyes, as if wanting to divine how I became acquainted with Martin when she has never seen me with him. Not once. And yet here I am newly married to the man.
“This is my wife, Mrs. Lewis,” Martin says. “Sophie, this is Mrs. Lewis.”
“How do you do,” I say, as confidently as I can.
“Pleased to meet you.” But Mrs. Lewis is clearly something other than pleased. Flummoxed, perhaps. Baffled.
The woman turns to call out over her shoulder into the depths of her front room. “Katharine, your father and . . . your father’s here.” She holds out her arm for the child to come. The little girl appears and stops at the woman’s side.
Kat is wearing a dress of pale blue that is too small for her, and in her arms is a black-haired doll whose porcelain face has a cracked cheek. The child’s tawny eyes, so like her father’s, seem bright and knowing, as though there is great knowledge behind them—impossible, I know, for a child of only five. Kat’s heart-shaped face is framed by straight hair the color of cinnamon. She stares up at me in neither annoyance nor curiosity nor delight.
“Let’s go, Kat.” Martin motions with his hand for Kat to come. The child moves to stand by her father, but her gaze stays on me.
“I baked you folks a little wedding cake,” Mrs. Lewis says. “Since you’re not honeymooning or anything.” She reaches behind her to a pedestal table and a small wicker basket covered with a paisley cloth.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lewis.” Martin takes the basket from her.
I’m touched. And a little taken aback. A wedding cake? For Martin and me? I don’t feel much like a bride. “Yes, thank you,” I manage. “That’s very kind.”
“You’re English.” Mrs. Lewis’s gaze is full of questions.
“Irish.”
“Oh.”
The woman seems loath to let me leave, as if there is something else she wants to ask me. Or tell me. But Martin is ushering Kat away from Mrs. Lewis’s door, and as he does so, he introduces his daughter to me.
“Kat, this is your new mother,” he says, nodding toward me as we turn for the front door.
Kat, whose gaze has stayed on me, blinks slowly.
“I’m so very happy to meet you, Kat.”