drowning in a pool of wax. With great force of will she could pull herself out of the void, but it took a tremendous effort, both physically and mentally.
She hated it. She hated the sickly sweet smell of rot, the sightless eyes. She hated that her mind was not her own, that she was nothing more than a vessel for outpourings of grief and anger.
Kicking off her quilt, she padded across the tiny room to the window. Below her, mist wreathed the cemetery, headstones just visible like buoys bobbing in the harbor. Passersby might think that the dead slumbered without regard to the outside world, that their trials were over. How comforting a thought that must be, what a solace when pondering one’s own mortality. Tabby alone was privy to the burdensome truth that told her otherwise. When she finally crawled back into bed, her sleep was thin and fitful.
* * *
“Tabby, did you hear what I said?”
Tabby was sitting at the rickety table in the front room that served as their parlor, a rainbow of threads spread out before her as a weeping willow slowly took shape on her embroidery frame. When the scene was finished, it would depict a widower mourning at the grave of his beloved wife, the trailing leaves of the willow echoing his tears. Tabby was quick with a needle and thread, and though the memorial embroideries were not as fashionable as they once had been, they brought in some much-needed income. And, if she concentrated on the stitches hard enough, her mind was tight as a ship, with nary a crack in her defenses against the dead.
Frowning, she looked up Eli’s words. “What was that?”
“I said that it looks like rain and I haven’t been out to collect the old bouquets in weeks.” Eli had been bent over his account book, but now he was peering at her. “Are you all right? You looked a thousand miles away.”
Warmth flooded Tabby’s cheeks and she ducked her head, concentrating twice as hard on pulling her green thread through the linen. Her mind hadn’t been a thousand miles away, only a few yards, actually. She’d been thinking of young Caleb Bishop and the way he carried himself with such confidence, how he radiated charm. She was thinking of the way he made her feel as if she was the most important person in the world—no, the only person in the world—when he spoke with her. But at Eli’s question she quickly pushed such foolish thoughts away.
“Just trying to get this stitch right,” she said lamely.
Eli gave her a lingering look of doubt and then slowly unfolded himself from his chair. “Well, I’d better go collect them if we don’t want the rats finding them first.”
“Oh no, you won’t,” she said, jumping up. Eli’s back had gotten bad over the past few years, and she didn’t like the idea of him stooping over more than he already needed to. “I’ll take a basket and do it. Besides,” she added, giving him a sly look, “I saw Miss Suze yesterday, and she said she had a pie she wanted to bring over for you.”
At the mention of the older woman’s name, Eli obediently dropped back down in his chair. “Is that, ah...is that so?”
Eli was a quiet man who kept his own counsel, even from his daughter. Tabby didn’t know everything of what went on in his mind, but she knew enough that she recognized the look Eli gave Miss Suze from the Baptist church as pure, unadulterated longing. Miss Suze was a widow with six grown children, at least a dozen grandchildren, and a propensity for making enough food to feed a small army. Occasionally she invited Eli and Tabby to dine with her, and Tabby always enjoyed the boisterous family meals.
“I don’t know why you don’t just ask her,” Tabby said. “It’s clear that she holds you in high esteem.”
“It’s not that simple,” Eli said with a deflective grunt.
Tabby thought it was the simplest thing in the world. Miss Suze always made a point of sitting near Eli in church. Eli was a well-respected man in the community, never married, and clearly had feelings for her. Perhaps their living situation in the boarding house wasn’t ideal for a married couple, but surely they could make it work?
As she was turning to fetch her shawl, Eli reached up and clasped her hand. “My Tabby cat,” he said, his long face creasing with a smile. “You’re a good girl.