date of December 15, 1937, it showed a loan to Mr. C. McCullough, Arnott’s Ridge, of one hardback edition of Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (one page ripped, back cover slightly damaged). Only someone who looked terribly hard might have noticed how the entry sat between two lines, its ink a very faintly different shade from those around it. And only if you were very cynical indeed might you wonder why there was a one-word entry beside it, written in that same ink: unreturned.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
• KAREN BLIXEN, Out of Africa
Much to the disappointment of the traders and bartenders, it took less than a day for Baileyville to empty. After the “NOT GUILTY—SHOCK VERDICT” headlines had been reduced to firelighters and draft-proofing, and the last of the mobile homes had rattled their way back across county lines, and the prosecution lawyer with the three inexplicably slashed tires had managed to get a spare set sent over from Lexington, Baileyville swiftly returned to normal, leaving nothing but muddy tracks and empty food wrappers dotted along the verges to show that a trial had ever taken place.
Kathleen, Beth and Izzy escorted Verna back to her cabin, taking turns to walk while Verna rode the sturdy Patch. The journey took the best part of a day, and they parted with promises that Neeta, Verna’s sister, would come and find them if she needed help with her laboring. Nobody ever spoke of the paternity of the child, and Verna had once again grown silent by the time they reached the door, as if exhausted by all the unfamiliar contact.
They did not expect to hear from her again.
* * *
• • •
That first night Margery O’Hare lay in her own bed facing Sven Gustavsson in the near dark. Her hair was soft and clean from her bath and her belly was full, and out of the open window she could hear the owls and the crickets calling into the darkness of the mountainside, a sound that made the blood slow in her veins, and her heart beat with an easy rhythm. They watched the tiny girl who lay between them, her arms thrown back in sleep, her mouth making soft shapes as she dreamed. Sven’s hand rested on the swell of Margery’s hip and Margery relished the weight of it, the prospect of the nights to come.
“We can still leave, you know,” he said quietly.
She lifted the child’s cotton blanket, tucking it under her chin. “Leave where?”
“Here. I mean, what you said about your mother’s warning, and getting a fresh start. I’ve been reading up on places in northern California where they’re seeking farmers and homesteaders. Think you’d like it up there. We could make a good life.”
When she said nothing he added: “Doesn’t have to be in a city. It’s a big old state. People go to California from all over so nobody looks twice at someone from elsewhere. I got a friend with a cantaloupe farm says he’ll give me work while we find our feet.”
Margery pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, we could look at Montana, if you prefer the sound of it.”
“Sven, I want to stay. Here.”
Sven propped himself up on his elbow. He studied her expression as best he could in the dim light. “You said you wanted Virginia to have freedom. To live however she wanted.”
“I know I did,” said Margery. “And I do. But it turns out we have real friends here, Sven. People who have our backs. I’ve thought about it, and as long as she’s got those, she’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
When he didn’t speak, she added, “Would that . . . be agreeable to you? If we just . . . stayed?”
“Any place that has you and Virginia is agreeable to me.”
There was a long silence.
“I love you, Sven Gustavsson,” she said.
He turned toward her in the dark. “You’re not getting sentimental on me, are you, Marge?”
“Didn’t say I was going to say it twice.”
He smiled and lay back against the bolster. After a moment he reached his hand across and she took it and held it tight in her own, and that was how they slept, for a couple of hours at least, until the baby woke again.