Chapter 12 #3
But that whatever their story, whatever role she played in their marriage, it would always center more around Carson and what the loss meant to him than who Alyssa was as a person.
It wasn’t really fair.
But in the wider world, that wasn’t true. She had a family who had known her all those years as something other than Carson’s wife. And they would grieve for her fully, and wholly.
“All that to say,” she said softly, “I don’t think it’s fair for you to make the memory of her a sad one by making it all about you.”
“That is bracing. And true. It’s complicated.
Because I miss her. I do. I miss being able to dream about what we could be.
Because even though it was tough, I could still see what we hoped for.
When I asked her to marry me, it all felt possible.
A clean house, well-maintained. Me working the land, her setting up a pottery studio.
Maybe even opening a souvenir store in town.
One she could bring the kids to. I wanted that life.
In hindsight, I’m not sure that she fit into it.
She wanted a specific kind of husband, and I’m not sure that I actually fit the shape of what she hoped I would be. ”
Perry thought about that. Long and hard.
His words brought up some of the same things she was sorting through with Carson.
The way she had always carried a torch for him.
And how projecting her desires onto him would’ve forced him into something she wanted.
It was so complicated to attach your hopes and dreams to a specific person.
Though it could never be said that she didn’t know him.
She didn’t only know him—they were like trees that had grown up shaped around each other.
They had bent and twisted around their childhood trauma, but also around their friendship.
There were so many good things intertwined with the bad.
Branches that had rotten fruit, and branches that grew something delicious.
And the good fruit was because of their closeness to each other.
But if she bent his branches in a certain way to please herself, she might break him. So she was left with the arduous task of unwinding herself.
Because what he was talking about was what happened when you tried to force someone into a shape they weren’t able to take.
“Anyway. I’d better continue to take inventory.”
“Sure.”
They walked up the stairs and into one of the far bedrooms. Everything was cleaned out, so she noticed something odd for the first time.
The wallpaper was faded and bowed in a spot she hadn’t noticed before.
She walked over and peeled away the edge, and it gave easily.
She frowned. There was a small compartment behind the wallpaper.
In it was a journal.
“What is this?” She stared at it, and then she cracked it open.
She recognized the handwriting. It was Mae Tanner’s.
She opened up the first page and saw the date.
This diary picked up a year after the one she had read left off. Perry had read about Mae’s arrival in Oregon, and then her description of meetings with the man that she married. But nothing beyond the first few months of their marriage.
“Oh,” she said. “This is … this is the rest of the story.”
“What story?”
“I’ve told you about Mae Tanner. How she moved out to Oregon as a mail-order bride. She kept a record of her new life in her diary. But this is more. More of her writing. And here is a bundle of letters too,” she said, reaching into the compartment again.
“Why was it in there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for safekeeping. But it was kept a little bit too safe.”
“Well, you’ll want to keep that. Good thing you found it before you sold the place.”
“Yes.”
She looked around the room, and suddenly everything felt wrong. The idea of leaving this place. When her family history was literally in its walls.
She didn’t put a lot of stock in her family’s past. Not considering the way her parents were. But this …
This link to the past felt important. Important in ways she couldn’t articulate. She held the bundle to her chest. “You can … continue on.”
He nodded. And she took the letters downstairs. She sat on the bottom step and opened the diary up to the center.
When he puts his hands on me, I feel as if I learn new colors, new sonnets …
Her eyes widened.
I didn’t come here for passion. I had given up the hope of it.
Not a single man in Boston ignited desire in me.
And when I got here, he looked at me with such cold eyes, I couldn’t imagine that he would feel it for me.
Not when his heart is so firmly buried in the ground with her.
Sometimes it seems the only way we can talk is with our hands. Our mouths.
Perry had not had old-timey erotica on her bingo card.
This stark writing about the sex life of her ancestor was not something she had anticipated. She closed the diary for a moment.
She was breathless.
She was definitely going to read this entry later.
Maybe things had been different between Mae and her husband more than she had ever imagined.
Not that this entry sounded especially happy. Mainly, it sounded as if Mae and her husband shared a strong attraction.
For one moment, Perry wondered what that would be like. To feel an intense attraction for somebody, but not love. Well, she’d been attracted to men she didn’t love. But not in the way that Mae was talking about.
For Perry … there would have to be deep emotion connected to such intense physical pleasure. The only thing that came close was how she felt for Carson. But he had never touched her. Not in that way.
“Okay. I think I have a fair idea of what I need.”
She jumped, and felt guilty about the direction of her thoughts.
“Great,” she said.
“I’d better go down to the hardware store.”
“I’ll go too,” she said. “I want to get some new seeds from the nursery next door.”
“All right.”
That seemed like the best idea. Because she could sit here and ruminate, play that same song over and over again. Or she could get in his truck and try to find her footing again.
Good thing she was used to doing that.