Chapter 27
Four months later
Keene, New Hampshire
The white church at the head of the square chimed the hour.
From within the muffled quiet of the library stacks, Fern heard the four solemn tolls.
The library closed at four o’clock on Saturday afternoons, but it was usually closer to five when she finally shooed the last of the children out of the repurposed brick mansion on Winter Street.
Fern didn’t mind staying the extra hour, especially now that the raw chill of December had settled in.
The carpeted floors, the radiators pumping heat, and the green frosted shades of the table lamps were all cozy, compared to her bedsit a block away.
She’d made the single room as comfortable as possible these last few months, but there was still a lonesome air to the place.
Mrs. Saxton, the head librarian, bustled past the row where Fern was busy reshelving the day’s returns.
“I’ve scoured the place, and there are no stragglers anywhere,” the older woman said.
“I’ll lock up as soon as I’m done with this cart,” Fern told her.
She peered at Fern with a stern brow, correctly suspecting that she would dawdle with the task.
Mrs. Saxton had kindly taken her on when she first arrived in town in early September, even though she hadn’t truly needed another employee for the library.
Whether she’d sensed Fern’s desperation for work, or felt sorry for her scars, didn’t matter much to Fern.
After traveling east for a few days, and switching buses in several towns along the way, she’d been ready to stop and stretch her legs for a little while.
Keene was a sweet town, set in a valley in the southwestern corner of New Hampshire, and she didn’t see how it could be any better or any worse than anywhere else.
She’d been in a fog at that time anyhow.
Looking back, Fern thought that fog had helped get her through.
She hadn’t worried so much about her scars, or her new name, or the lies she fabricated to explain how she’d come to be in the little town, alone, with a broken arm, looking for work and a new life.
She’d simply put her head down and ploughed through, until one day, in late October, Fern finally looked up.
“Don’t stay too late, dear,” Mrs. Saxton said as she continued toward the front of the library to fetch her coat, hat, and gloves.
The bell above the front door chimed, and from her place in the stacks, Fern heard the librarian telling whoever it was that the library was closed.
“It’s all right!” Fern called. “They can have fifteen minutes!”
She hated to turn anyone away, especially if she was going to be here, tidying up and dragging her feet.
Though she’d been in town for a handful of months, she didn’t socialize much.
People were nice enough, and there was another clerk, Katie Bishop, who’d asked Fern to a Christmas party next week.
She would go, if only so Katie wouldn’t think Fern didn’t like her or that she was too shy.
She didn’t want to be seen as shy. But there was an emptiness in her, a hollow center that just couldn’t be filled.
It was so hard to smile and laugh, to feel happy.
Perhaps one day she would, but for now, Fern was content to return to her apartment, make dinner—egg salad with ketchup—and then cross the hall to see her elderly neighbor, Mr. Franklin, for their weekly game of backgammon.
He walloped her every Saturday but always promised Fern that she would improve and beat him the next time. Neither of them believed it.
Fern also had a letter to write. One she’d been putting off for weeks.
The library subscribed to newspapers from around the world, including the Chicago Tribune.
She would often read it while having lunch, and though her father’s name regularly appeared in the circuit court pages, it was her brother’s name, and the mug shot accompanying it, in one of last month’s issues that had stunned her.
Buchanan had been arrested for an embezzlement scheme at the bank where he worked, and his case would be going to trial at the start of the new year.
Fern wondered if the scheme would be connected to the Jacky Boys at all, but there had been no mention of Giacomo Bianchi in the article.
She could only imagine the turmoil his arrest had caused her mother.
Buchanan’s trial would likely end her father’s career too.
Ironically, the lewd photographs taken of Fern would have been only mildly scandalous in comparison to her brother’s illegal activities.
But she did not feel sorry for her parents.
Or for Buchanan. The letter she needed to write wasn’t to express her condolences or to apologize to them for leaving Chicago with no warning and no explanation.
It was simply to say goodbye. It was possible they would not appreciate the letter, but Fern wouldn’t be writing it for them.
She deserved to say a proper goodbye for herself. So that she could move on.
She didn’t want them to know where she was, so instead, she’d decided to mail the letter to Hannah Levy and ask her to have it delivered via messenger, so no postmark would give away her location.
It was only last week that she’d finally written to Hannah, as promised.
Fern had started several letters to her, only to toss them into the trash.
The mere thought of addressing an envelope to Chicago had inexplicably felt like touching a raw nerve.
It brought her too close to the pain she’d tried to bury.
Too close to memories of Cal. Thinking of him hurt.
It stole the air from her lungs. And yet, it was also the only thing that made her smile—really smile.
It was the only thing that made her cry too.
Fern slid a book into place, recalling the young woman who had returned it earlier.
Her eyes had skipped to the left side of Fern’s face a few times, but Fern was starting to find it bothered her less and less.
Oh, people in Keene stared as much as people in Chicago had; there was no difference there.
It was Fern who was different. In the back of her mind, whenever she was feeling self-conscious, she heard Cal’s voice: Who are they? They’re nobody.
Smiling, even though her heart ached, Fern reached for the next book on the cart.
The tall, leaded window at the end of the aisle looked out over the busy street, but as it was dark outside, all she could see was her own reflection, and those of the book cart and the towering stacks.
In her peripheral vision, a figure moved past the head of the aisle.
A man in a hat and long coat. The last-minute patron, she figured. He came to a stop.
“Take your time,” Fern said to him, running her fingers along the spines, searching for the right slot for the book in her hand. “I’m in no rush to lock up just yet.”
He stayed at the end of the aisle another few seconds. Too long for her to ignore. She looked over her shoulder, to ask if he needed help finding anything…and the book slipped from her fingers. It landed on the carpet with a dull thud.
“You should be more careful, princess. Any riffraff could walk in off the streets.”
An electric eddy poured through her in hissing sparks. Fern stared, unable to breathe. Unable to think or move or speak.
The corners of his deep copper eyes lifted with an uncertain grin.
He leaned on a walking stick, and the brim of his fedora couldn’t obscure a thick scar running through his right eyebrow.
But it was him. His broad shoulders and solemn face.
Fern couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t understand.
Needles of pain and joy and confusion stabbed her, sealing off her throat.
“But you’re…” Her chest heaved with a sob.
He stepped into the aisle, hitching his right leg with the help of the walking stick. “I didn’t know where you were until Hannah called to tell me.”
Fern’s eyes stung as hot tears fell freely, but her arms stayed heavy at her sides.
“But the explosion,” she whispered, unable to blink. If she did, he’d disappear. This was just an illusion, her imagination showing her what she wanted more than anything.
“By dumb luck, some debris fell on top of me. Busted my leg in a few places, but it shielded me from most of the flames. I don’t remember any of it.
I didn’t wake up for a week.” The words rushed out of him as though he’d been waiting ages to say them.
“The hospital had me down as a John Doe. Vinny had taken my billfold. I don’t know how the cops made out anything inside it after the way Vin burned, but when they did, they must have thought he was me. ” Cal shrugged.
Fern remembered Vinny, flames consuming him as he screamed and thrashed, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Cal took another limping step into the aisle.
“Hannah said you’d left the city. She didn’t know where to, but she said you were gonna write.” He swept off his fedora. “I didn’t go far, just up to Milwaukee. Chicago wasn’t safe for me anymore, but… Waiting for Hannah’s call was hell, Fern. After a few months, I started to think…”
Cal’s pleading eyes revealed what he couldn’t say.
He’d feared that he’d never get that call.
That she’d be lost to him forever. Fern stumbled forward, her heart splitting open like a block of ice cleaved apart.
He caught her in his arms, sealing her to him, and finally, she let go of the sob that had lived in the center of her chest for months.
All the anguish, anger, and loss streamed out, and burning euphoria took their place.
He kissed her temple, her forehead, and when Fern lifted her face to drink him in again, he caught her lips with his. His seeking mouth was insatiable, and heat and joy suffused every inch of her body, every corner of her heart.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped.
He reluctantly pulled back. “What for?”
“For Rod. For what happened at the Den. I should have never suggested you go back to get the negatives.”
“Forget about it,” he said. “You got nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who screwed up. I nearly got you killed.”
Warily, Fern exhaled and set her chin. Her eyes ached from hot tears. She blinked until they cleared. “Were they wrong about Rod too? Is he…?”
Cal shook his head. His brother was gone. Fern wasn’t sorry, though she hated that Cal might be hurting over losing his brother. What Cal felt had to be more complicated, though, and all she wanted to do was hold him, love him.
“I should’ve written to Hannah sooner,” she said. “I shouldn’t have left Chicago so quickly.” And Cal…he’d been in the hospital too. For all Fern knew, he’d been there when she’d dressed and left without telling anyone. The possibility left her gasping for air again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his fingers kneading her hips. “I’m here now.”
She leaned against him, no longer afraid that he would disappear if she blinked. He was here, the reality of him flooding the hollow place inside her so quickly that it threatened to sweep her away.
Fern gripped Cal as she would an anchor.
The bedsit was draped in darkness, and along the wall, the radiator hissed.
Fern hadn’t stopped to turn on the lights when she’d led Cal inside the apartment.
They’d been too busy discarding their coats and hats and everything else, all while keeping their mouths locked in a searing kiss.
Pearlescent moonlight spilled over her bed as he laid her down, and it illuminated Cal’s broad shoulders and back as he moved over her in an impatient rhythm, as though desperate to reclaim every minute of every day that had separated them.
Tears dampened Fern’s cheeks when she cried out his name, and he seemed to know it was joy, not pain, causing them to fall.
Afterward, while resting her head atop Cal’s chest and listening to his slow, steady heartbeat, Fern reached beneath the blanket. She touched his leg. He flinched as her fingers ran over the long scar she’d seen on his thigh while making love. It was still so new, the jagged seam angry and dark.
“There goes my future as a track-and-field star,” he said, his coarse fingers languidly brushing Fern’s bare back.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Nothing I can’t deal with,” he answered. She loved hearing his voice. Loved feeling his body against hers. She was still a bit dazed that he was here. Alive. That he’d found her.
He’d arrived on a bus earlier in the afternoon, he explained, and after seeing her through one of the library’s windows, he’d decided to wait until she was alone to approach.
He’d taken a walk around town, stopping into a couple of the manufacturing mills Keene was known for, to inquire about jobs.
All while waiting for the library to close.
“You’ve already looked for work?” she asked, startled.
His hand stilled against her back. “Honest work, Fern. I’m done with that life. And you like it here, right?”
“I do,” she said, without having to consider his question. But would Cal? He’d once told her that he preferred the quiet. It had surprised her then, and even now, she couldn’t picture someone like Cal making a normal, quiet life in a small city like this one.
“We could always go somewhere else,” she said. It wouldn’t matter where, so long as they were together.
“No, we’ll stay,” he was quick to reply. “You picked a swell place, Fern Black.”
Her throat tightened with another knot. She peered up at him. The warmth of his skin, the smell of his familiar cologne, made her dizzy with bliss.
“Turret. I’m Fern Turret here.”
He crinkled his forehead. “I have a marriage certificate in my bag that says otherwise.”
Fern recalled the false papers she’d left with Hannah. He must have taken them with him.
“But that certificate isn’t real,” she said. “And everyone I’ve met here knows I’m unmarried.”
Cal shifted on the small bed, tugging Fern so that she was lying fully on top of him.
“Then, let’s make it real, Fern Black. Marry me.
” She shivered as he lifted his head to whisper against her ear, “I didn’t deserve you in Chicago, and I still don’t.
But I’m gonna try, if you’ll let me. Every day for the rest of my life. ”
She dropped her mouth to his and answered him with her whole body, her whole soul. Her yes was made of salt tears, forgiven sins, and second chances. It promised thousands of days and nights to come in a life they would make their own.
And it had already begun.