able to facilitate such things swiftly and with, perhaps, a little greasing of the wheels to ensure confidentiality. The prospect of his son’s name being associated publicly with the word “annulment” seemed to stay his habitual temper, and after that meeting he barely mentioned the library publicly again.
Under the agreement they let Bennett marry again first. The librarians felt they owed the younger Van Cleve for the help he had given them, and Izzy even attended the day with her parents and said it was lovely, all things considered, and that Peggy made a beautiful and very contented bride.
Alice barely noticed. She was so ridiculously happy that most days she didn’t know how to contain it. Every morning before dawn she would unwrap her long limbs reluctantly from those of her husband, drink the coffee he insisted on making for her, then walk down to open the library and get the stove going, ready for the others to arrive. Despite the cold and the brutal hour, she was almost always to be found smiling. If Peggy Van Cleve’s friends chose to remark that Alice Guisler had let herself go something awful since she’d started up at that library, what with her un-set hair and her mannish outfits (and to think her so refined and well-dressed when she came, and all!), then Fred couldn’t have noticed less. He was married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and every night after they had each finished work, and put away the dishes side by side, he made sure to pay homage. In the still air of Split Creek it was not unusual for those who were walking past in the darkness to shake an amused head at the breathless and joyous sounds emanating from the house behind the library. In Baileyville, in winter, there was not much to do after the sun went down, after all.
* * *
• • •
Sophia and William moved back to Louisville. She did not want to leave the library, she told the other women, but she had been offered a job back at the Louisville Free Public Library (Colored Branch) and, given their cabin hadn’t been the same since the floods, and William’s chances of work were limited, they figured they would do better in the city, especially a city where there were large populations of people like themselves. Professional people. Izzy cried, and the others didn’t feel much better about it, but there was no arguing with good sense—and not much arguing with Sophia. Some time later, when they started to receive the letters she forwarded from the city, and the photograph of her promotion, they framed it, and put it up on the wall, next to the one of them all together, and felt a little better about it. Though it had to be said, the shelves were never quite as well organized again.
* * *
• • •
Kathleen, true to her word, did not remarry, although there was no shortage of men who stopped by asking to court her once a decent amount of time had passed. She had no time for all that, she told the other librarians, what with the washing and the cleaning and looking after her children on top of her work. Besides, there was not a man who could measure up to Garrett Bligh in the whole state. Though she would admit, when pushed, that she had been a little taken aback at how Jim Horner had scrubbed up at Alice’s wedding, having received the attention of a professional barber and put on his good suit. His face was quite pleasing, liberated from all that hair, and his general appearance was much improved out of his dirty overalls. She would not marry again, oh, no, she was adamant, but within a few months it was not unusual for the two of them to be seen taking a stroll around the town with their children and maybe attending a local fair together in the spring. It was good for his girls to have a feminine influence after all, and if there were some sly looks and raised eyebrows, well, that was their business. And Beth could stop looking at her like that, thank you very much.
* * *
• • •
Beth’s life remained largely unchanged immediately following the trial. She remained at home with her father and brothers, complained bitterly about them at every turn, smoked in private, drank in public, then surprised everybody six months later by announcing that