done before the pressure in her chest prevented her from speaking.
“I’m sorry,” Molly said. “It was him. I let him go. I couldn’t see him hanged, oh I’m sorry … Bess, I’m sorry.”
Bess had dug her fingers like talons into the mattress and had listened, rarely blinking, never once interrupting. Her astonishment at learning General Bell was Molly’s father had diminished when she learned that Nicholas had murdered Lem. They were sitting hip to hip and Molly hugged her from the side, if only to hide her own face and keep herself from rambling. Bess’s stomach grumbled softly and she didn’t hug back. The hearth fire hadn’t yet heated up the room and the warmth between their bodies grew thin.
“You’re bleeding,” Bess said.
Molly let go. Her left-arm bandage had begun to seep through. Bess unraveled it and scowled at the irritated skin. She dabbed the blood with a cloth and studied the deepest wounds, each of which Molly could remember having made, as if the memories she’d called upon were labeled on her arm.
Bess applied a tingly mint salve with her fingers, took a fresh strip of linen, and began to wrap the arm again.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Molly said. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” Bess said. “I’m sorry about your baby.”
She proceeded with the second wrap, and Molly let her do it, sensing that her friend’s insistent ministrations were as comforting to Bess as to her own throbbing arms. Sun filled the room and tricked the iciness away. The finished bandage spiraled neatly from her elbow to her wrist, and Bess secured it with a pin and pulled down the sleeve. She looked at Molly up close and kissed her on the lips. It was sisterly and sweet and pleasantly insouciant, raising shivers like the salve she’d applied to Molly’s wounds.
“You’re staying now for good?”
“Yes,” Molly said.
“Do you love him?”
Molly smiled.
“We’ll be family if you marry him.”
But something hadn’t been right about Tom since they returned. It was more than Lem’s burial and worry over Bess, more than the exertion of the last few days. Molly hadn’t found a chance to speak with him alone. She had spent the night with Bess, dreaming of ships and Grigory’s death and little Cora on her own, and she had woken up scared and hadn’t felt at home. Every minute was a footstep leading to the next but she had no clear sense of which direction they would go.
* * *
Tom stood with his back to the window in the Knoxes’ kitchen, taking the twilight draft directly into his spine. Abigail added an extra log to the fire, an uncharacteristic extravagance—she thought of deadfall as God’s good reminder of the grave—but one she willingly bestowed for the comfort of the guests. Benjamin sat at the table, genial and talkative but shiveringly frail. Molly sat beside him like a well-loved niece. Tom admired his friend’s acuity in sensing her discomfort. It would never have crossed Benjamin’s mind that Molly might blame herself for costing him a hand, but once he’d read it in her manner, he behaved with more fragility, allowing her to help him into his chair, cover his shoulders with a blanket, and remain by his side in heartfelt penance.
“It’s time to change your bandage,” Abigail said.
“May I help?” Molly asked, standing up and walking forward.
Abigail paused without at first replying. She went to a cabinet for an earthenware jar and fresh supplies, laid them on the table in front of Benjamin, and summoned Molly over to a basin near the window, where she washed Molly’s hands and scrubbed beneath her fingernails. Molly looked pleased, familiar with Benjamin’s fixity on cleanliness and seeming to believe, through the careful preparation, that Abigail was showing her a great deal of trust.
Benjamin removed his sullied bandage, which Abigail deposited into a boiling pot of water. It was an ugly wound. The flesh had shriveled since the cut and gradually retracted. Now the forearm bones protruded slightly from the muscles and would probably result, once the stump was fully healed, in noticeable bumps instead of the smoother, neater surface of a proper amputation.
Molly stood there, expressionless, long enough for Abigail to question her resolve, but then she sat and got to work as calmly as a surgeon.
Benjamin watched her over his glasses. He smiled reassuringly and said, “First a gentle cleansing. Dab lightly. Do not rub.”
Molly did as she was told and asked him, “Does it hurt?”