‘You hush now. Soon as we get Rosetta’s chest filled, we can start working on another quilt for yours. Lord knows there’s scraps of fabric waiting, and now you can have some of Rosetta’s wedding fabric pieced in.’
Betsy pouts, but she brings the quilt from our room and then sits herself down. I ain’t had much use for Betsy since she started promenading with Carrie Jewett and all the other town girls. The giggling when Carrie told Betsy she’d better not let any more of me rub off on her was worse than anything Eli Snyder ever done. Betsy used to hold my hand walking to school, used to call me her best friend besides Tillie Nilsson. She ain’t bad, my sister, she just aims to please folks in a way I’ve never seen the sense in doing.
I reach for a pillow slip, but Betsy gets it first.
‘Rosetta ain’t filling my hope chest,’ she says, staring down at the hem, but Mama pretends she don’t hear.
Mama has my wedding dress on her lap, hiding the new knot of thread in the lining, careful with even the smallest thing.
She says, ‘This can be your something blue. And besides, you always look prettiest when you wear this shade,’ and I almost jump at how warm her words are.
Papa shoulders his way through the door, his arms full of wood. After he builds up the fire, he sets the lantern on the table between his and Mama’s chairs.
‘And what shall I read tonight, my ladies?’ Papa winks at Mama before taking the Bible from the mantel to read Scriptures for her like he always does.
Mama pauses and then says, ‘The Book of Ruth, I think.’
‘The Book of Ruth? You aiming to teach our girls about getting widowed?’
‘Of course not!’ Mama’s sharp voice comes back, and then she looks at me and her face softens. ‘But Ruth tells us how a marriage makes new bonds, don’t you think?’
‘Making new bonds doesn’t mean you have to break the old ones,’ Papa says, his eyes on me. He looks back at Mama. ‘Seems if you’re looking for marriage advice from the Lord, other books got more instruction than Ruth.’
‘Just read Ruth,’ Mama says, poking her needle into the fabric.
Papa sighs and thumbs to the right place. ‘Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem went to sojourn in the country …’
Hearing Papa’s molasses voice fill the room, I almost start missing home already, until Betsy reaches across me for more thread and ain’t careful about her elbow in my side.
CHAPTER
2
FEBRUARY 3, 1862
Bundled up in the wagon, Betsy chatters on about how she wouldn’t want a Winter wedding, how she would want wildflowers for her bouquet and a picnic on the church grass. I never cared to think on such things, not before now. I am about to tell her how Winter is best for a farm wedding when she says, ‘After seeing how pretty you look, ain’t nobody can ever get married in blue in Flat Creek again!’ and Mama turns to smile at the both of us, the same smile as when she saw my reflection in her looking glass, tears brimming to see me looking how she’s always said I ought, almost handsome with my hair still fresh-washed, the freckles from Summer almost faded.
It is too cold in the churchyard to be milling with folks waiting for the start of Sunday services, and anyway we ain’t got time for socializing. Papa keeps hold of my arm and Mama and Betsy lead the way, walking up the steps to the church door. I don’t like feeling as if people are seeing good in me for the first time now I’ve got my fancy dress the color of bluebells and my hair done up in twists at the back and curls hanging down at the sides.
Inside it is quiet and white, the Winter sun beaming in long shafts through the windows, lighting the walnut pews. We walk right to the front and Mama slides into the first one. I don’t dare look for Jeremiah, not with the whole congregation watching. Preacher Bowers takes the pulpit and I ain’t ever been keen on his sermons before, but with all those eyes on me for once I am glad for anything to keep my mind busy.
‘At this time of great discord in our nation,’ he says, his voice grave and slow, ‘when so many of our men are battling so far away from their earthly homes, we can draw wisdom and comfort from remembering Eden and Heaven, our first and last homes, the purest examples of harmony and perfection …’
Seems to me a wedding ain’t the time to trot out war talk, like there ain’t a new casualty list posted outside the church door and enlistment posters up at the Mercantile calling for fresh volunteers, but I keep my mouth shut and focus on the stained-glass window behind Preacher’s head.
‘What then, are the principles of unity, of marriage, set out by our God? God tells us in Genesis that it is not good for man to be alone. He also tells us in First Corinthians that a wife must not separate from her husband …’