Dear Mrs. Wakefield,
I am writing this letter as your Husband, and that is something Good. It don’t mean a thing is different about my Feelings that I am setting off without you knowing, or seeing you one more time and telling you all my Thoughts. You will cry to Hear them said so that is why I am Going this way, so I can Make myself Leave without causing you any more Pain.
I always knew you were someone Brave, the way you didn’t take Nothing from no one. And every time we talked about Farming, and Nebraska, I saw you weren’t scared about going. There ain’t another Girl who would Do for me. That is how I know that you will hold up while I am gone, because you are Strong, Mrs. Stone.
It’s no easy thing, Parting, but it helps thinking of you in our house with all our People close, taken care of and Safe. We will have Our Farm when I am back. It is only because of what I want for us Together that I do this. It will be but a short while I am Gone and I’ll send you letters all that time.
Already I am missing you.
Your Faithful Servant and Loving Husband,
Jeremiah Wakefield
He thought real hard, wrote nice things in that letter, but I can only think about how he has gone and I ain’t said good-bye, not really. I run to the lean-to and see what I ain’t seen before, how he must’ve moved his pack when he went out to the privy this morning. Seeing that empty space, I sink down to the floor. Days ago, I snuck up behind Jeremiah and wrapped my arms around him the moment the ax came down on the stump. But now, when I heft logs from the stack Jeremiah left me, I’ll think of how the wood split in two.
NEAR TWILIGHT I get up and go to the washbasin in our room. Next to the pitcher, tucked under my brush, there is a folded-up piece of paper. Inside it says I love you, Stone Lady. I throw that paper down on the ground, but there’s a sweetness in what he’s done. I will be like that name he gave me. I won’t stay mad, but I will be strong, I can make this place my home, even without him. I can wait here for him.
Back in the kitchen, I eat my supper at the table, across from his empty place. I wash dishes and make everything clean so no one can say I ain’t doing my wifely duties. When there is nothing else, no other chores, I straighten our bed one more time. I go to the chest of drawers and take out a work shirt Jeremiah left, burying my nose into it. I lie down, holding that shirt, feeling how we will be together again because he has been bound to me almost since the first I knew of him.
And then I see the map, still on the bedside stand. I sit on the edge of the bed and unfold it carefully. Jeremiah has made a heart at Flat Creek and a star at Herkimer. But in the Nebraska Territory he has written, I shall always be near to you.
CHAPTER
4
WAKEFIELD FARM: FEBRUARY 1862
All night I play over one memory from the Summer. I was standing at the barn well, my back to the field, working to fill the jug with water because Mama’s lemonade don’t last longer than a lightning bug’s flash. The buckets for the horses were already as full as I dared make them, if I wanted to make one trip. But then there were legs swishing through the rye grass behind me.
‘I came to see if you needed help,’ Jeremiah said.
‘That bucket is ready for taking,’ I said, nodding at it sitting at the base of the pump.
He came round to take the bucket while I kept pumping.
‘I’m almost done, but the horses’ll be thirsty in this heat,’ I said.
‘This one’ll hold a little more,’ he said, looking me full in the face before he bent to move the jug and put the bucket under the spigot. I slowed my pumping so as to waste less water, my breath coming hard from the work or the heat or both. The warm wind coming off our hill blew loose hair from my braid into my face where it stuck to my sweat-damp skin, working its way into my mouth. When he’d got the bucket set, he went back to watching me. I didn’t know what he was staring at until he reached for my face and trailed a work-rough dry finger down my cheek, pulling the hair loose. I was still sweating and my face got hotter, but my arms turned goosefleshy and there weren’t a thing I could do to hide it.
Jeremiah smiled and ducked to take the buckets. He pushed the jug back under the pump and then I stared after him walking, the weight of the buckets on his arms tilting him like a wind-crooked tree. He didn’t look back even once, and when he disappeared over the hill I was still standing at the well forgetting to even pump.