Chapter 12
The dust of the street clung to the hem of Ella's skirt, and she didn't stop to brush it off.
She'd spent the walk from the station rehearsing, the same way she'd rehearsed on the train, running the sentences smooth in her mind until they sat right.
I've come to help. I've come because Billy and Meg deserve to know their mother's family.
I've come because Samson shouldn't have to do this alone.
She said them over silently as she passed the church, the schoolhouse, a row of storefronts that told her, more surely than any signpost, that she was close now.
She saw the general store before she reached it, a modest false front with TOLLIVER painted across it in letters that had faded some since she'd last seen it.
Her step slowed without her meaning it to.
She smoothed her hair, straightened her collar, and reminded herself, one more time, exactly who she was here to be.
The bell over the door rang as she stepped inside, and for a moment nobody looked up. A boy was restocking a low shelf, and a girl stood behind the counter counting something into a jar, and neither of them so much as glanced her way.
Billy and Meg. She composed herself, trying to ensure she made the right impression.
"Billy," Ella said. "Meg. Look how you've both grown."
The girl looked up first, and there was nothing in her face that suggested recognition, only the polite, wary look store children gave any stranger who used their names too easily.
“Do I know you?" Meg asked.
"You don't remember me." Ella felt something falter in her chest, though she kept it well off her face. "I'm your Auntie Ella. Your mother's sister."
The boy straightened up from the shelf, studying her now with open curiosity.
"Auntie Ella?” He didn’t say it as though he was wondering if it was truly her.
More like he was questioning the existence of an aunt.
This was her own fault. She hadn’t visited in such a long time. But, until now, she’d had no reason to.
"You were awful small the last time I saw you, so I don't wonder you don't remember." She kept her voice light, warm, the voice she'd practiced. "Is your father here?"
It was then that Samson came through from the back room, a crate in his arms, and stopped when he saw her, the crate still held against his chest like something to keep between them.
"Ella," he said. “For a moment there you looked just like Livvy.”
Good…
"Samson." She smiled at him, the same smile she'd practiced. "It's been a long time."
"It has." He set the crate down slowly, his eyes not leaving her. "What brings you all this way?"
"Family," she said, simply, as though the word alone should explain everything. "I know how things have been for you, and for Billy and Meg, and I couldn't sit in Colorado knowing my sister's children were growing up without any of her people close by. So I came.”
Samson's face didn't soften the way she'd hoped it might. "That's a long way to come."
"Some things are worth a long way." She glanced at the children, who were watching this exchange with the attentiveness of young people sensing something adult and unspoken passing over their heads. "Look how big they've gotten, Samson. Meg's got Livvy's eyes exactly. I'd have known her anywhere."
"She does," Samson agreed. He was eyeing her as though there was something she hadn’t told him. He was no fool. She was going to have to work hard to win his favor.
"I only want to help," Ella went on. "Whatever you need. I know it's been hard on you, managing the store and the house and these two besides. Family ought to lend a hand when they can, and I've got nothing keeping me in Colorado that can't be left behind."
Samson was quiet a moment, and Ella made herself hold his gaze, like a woman with nothing to hide, though the effort of it sat heavier on her than she let show.
"You're welcome to visit," he said finally, careful. "See the children. But I don't need help running the store, Ella. I've got that well in hand."
"Of course," Ella said quickly. "I only meant, if there was ever anything?—"
"There isn't," Samson said, not unkindly, but with a note that said this word was final.
Ella turned her attention to the children instead, crouching a little to bring herself nearer their height, the way she imagined a fond aunt might do.
"Billy, your mother used to write me about you.
Said you had her father's temper and her own stubbornness, both together. Sounds like quite a combination."
"I don't remember you," Billy said again, plainly, the way children said true things without meaning them as an insult.
"That's all right. We'll get acquainted properly now." She turned to Meg. "And you, I hear you're quite the help around here. Your mother would be proud."
"Thank you," Meg said, polite, distant, the same careful distance Ella had heard in her father's voice a moment before.
The store had gone quiet around them, the kind of quiet that told Ella, more plainly than any of the careful words being exchanged, that nobody here was inclined to make this easy for her. She kept her smile in place all the same.
"Well," she said, straightening, "I won't keep you from your work. I expect I ought to find myself somewhere to stay for the night."
"Mrs. Shelbourne runs a guest house two streets over," Samson said. "She might have a room."
"Thank you. I know. I’ll have to pass by Elizabeth’s to get there, so I’ll check there first. The food’s better, I seem to recall.” Ella gathered herself, offered one more smile to the children, who returned nothing warmer than polite silence, and went back out into the street.