Chapter Thirteen
After the last guest departed and the final dish had been cleared, the house fell into a hushed, expectant quiet. Addie and
I changed into muslin dresses, bonnets tied under our chins and shawls draped over our shoulders, for the drive to the farm.
We stepped out onto the porch, our parents close behind us.
The air was clear, the moon bright over the meadow. The brothers had brought their carriage around, and now it stood in front
of the house beside two oxcarts, stacked with trunks of boxes covered in canvas. Two field hands would drive the oxcarts in
the morning, with Grace traveling alongside.
After we gave Mama a dutiful hug and said goodbye to Papa, he leaned in close. “I won’t be surprised if you gals are back
here in a couple of days. No shame in that.” Then he helped us into the carriage.
Now that I was officially married, it felt strange not to sit beside my husband. But of course, he was with his brother up
front, and I with my sister, behind them.
The four of us were quiet—tired, apprehensive, a little uneasy. Chang held the reins. When Addie put her gloved hand on mine,
I knew it was meant to reassure me, but it only tightened the knot in my stomach.
After what felt like hours, we turned onto the long drive that led to the house. In the distance, two windows glowed faintly,
one upstairs, one down. Oil lamps burning in preparation.
Once again, I felt detached, as if observing myself from a remove. Here I was, climbing the steps to the porch behind Addie, watching the brothers open the front door.
The dimly lit foyer smelled of tobacco. A bouquet of pink roses sat on the side table beneath the looking glass. As Addie
and I removed our bonnets, shawls, and gloves, each task became a lesson: here is where we hang the coats, here is the hat
rack, this hook is for shawls, that drawer for gloves.
We set our bags beside the staircase.
The brothers led us into the parlor, where two wingback chairs had been arranged beside the fireplace, across from their double
chair. A low fire burned in the hearth.
At the drinks table, Chang poured a pale liquid into miniature crystal goblets.
“Join us?” he asked, lifting the decanter. “It’s sherry.”
The effects of the wedding wine were beginning to wear off, and I was eager to extend the feeling, the woozy numbness. “I’ve
never tried it, but—all right.”
“All right,” Addie echoed.
He handed a glass to each of us, then one to Eng. The brothers sank into their shared chair.
“Cheers,” Chang said, raising his glass.
“Cheers,” Eng said.
We clinked rims. I took a sip. The sherry was warm and sweet and burned my throat on its way down. I gasped a little.
Eng smiled. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“You’ll grow to like it,” Chang said.
We sat for a moment watching the fire snap and settle.
“You ladies must be tired,” Chang said. “Did you enjoy the day?”
The four of us seized on the easy opening. Yes, yes! Such a full day. The garlands were lovely. The fiddler so talented, the
ham perfectly cooked. The weather was ideal, not too warm, not too cool. And what a sunset!
“Tomorrow we will explore the property,” Eng said. “And get Grace settled when she arrives. We’ve prepared a room for her in the kitchen building.”
Conversation dwindled, leaving only the steady tick of the grandfather clock.
Eng fingered the shell of a peanut, cracked it open, and tossed the nut in his mouth.
“I don’t believe you’ve been upstairs yet, have you?” Chang said. “Let us show you around.”
I drained my glass, feeling a tightness in my chest, as if a cord were cinched around it.
The brothers rose, collected the glasses, and busied themselves at the drinks table.
In the foyer, Addie picked up her overnight bag, and I did the same. I trailed behind her and the brothers up the stairs,
our footsteps loud in the silence. The warm haze of the sherry had faded to a dull fatigue.
“There are four bedrooms,” Eng said. “If you wish, for modesty’s sake, you may each claim one as a place for your trunks.
A dressing room.”
“For now, at least,” Chang added with a smile. Implying, I assumed, that children would soon fill those rooms.
The first bedroom had wide-planked pine flooring and a white-painted mantel over the hearth. A bed, a washstand with pitcher
and bowl, an oil lamp on a side table, and a large armoire filled the space. In one corner, half hidden behind a screen, stood
a blocky wooden chair.
“What on earth is that?” Addie asked.
“A night commode,” Chang said. “Imported from England. It has a closed seat, which you’ll find preferable to a chamber pot.”
“There’s one in each bedroom. Ours is custom made,” Eng said.
I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about any of it.
Addie set her bag in that room. I placed mine in the one beside it, nearly identical. Then the brothers led us to their bedroom across the hall.
It was larger than the other two, dominated by a wide four-poster bed of dark-stained maple. Spread across it lay the Wild
Goose Chase quilt Addie and I had stitched with our neighbors.
Chang cleared his throat. “You may, if you like, prepare for bed in your own rooms and join us when you’re ready.”
“Yes,” I said quickly, “that’s a good idea.”
Eng gave me a look—half expectant, half encouraging. “We understand this may feel daunting. Take whatever time you need.”
I tried to catch Addie’s eye, but she was watching Chang, a faint, unreadable smile on her face.
She turned into her room and shut the door. I did the same.
I unpacked my valise and hung the two dresses I’d brought in the armoire, its brass handles rubbed to a shine, a beveled mirror
catching the lamplight, a carved crest crowning its top. The pine furniture in our father’s home was sturdy and plain, built
for use, not beauty. The brothers’ furnishings were more refined, their surfaces etched with patterns meant to be admired.
Sinking onto the bed, I unlaced my boots and slid off my stockings, then unclasped my pearls and set them on the washstand.
But when I reached to undo the buttons on my dress, I found I couldn’t manage it alone.
I went into the hallway and knocked on Addie’s door.
She opened it.
“My buttons.”
She rolled her eyes. “Where is Grace when you need her?”
We unfastened each other’s dresses, removed our petticoats, and unlaced our corsets. It was a ritual we’d performed hundreds
of times, but tonight every move felt charged and tense.
Back in my room, I changed into a new white nightdress, its bodice and sleeves stitched with tiny pink flowers I’d embroidered weeks earlier.
At the washstand, I poured water into the basin and splashed my face.
I dabbed rose water behind my ears, brushed my teeth with baking soda, and unpinned my bun.
Sliding the long white ribbon from my hair, I began brushing slowly, methodically, trying to calm my nerves.
Should I wear bloomers? I didn’t know. I hesitated, then decided I would. I didn’t want to seem immodest.
Now here I was: dimming the oil lamp, easing the door shut behind me, stepping across the hall.
Addie was perched in her new nightdress on the edge of the bed, Chang’s side, the side near the door. She gave me that same
distracted smile from earlier, then quickly looked away. Neither of us spoke. We had tacitly decided to ignore each other.
Eng patted the bed on his side, and I went over to him dutifully, like the wife I now was.
Not everything. Only the next thing.
“Should we dim the lamp?” Chang asked the room.
Yes. We should dim the lamp. I wanted the room to be so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. So dark it felt like
falling. Dark like the bottom of a well.
Addie and I rose at the same time. We laughed a little, and she gestured for me to go ahead. I stumbled around the boxy post
at the end of the bed and made my way to the narrow table in front of the window. When I dimmed the lamp, the moon outside
swam in the sky, its light veining the silhouette of Stone Mountain.
The people in the bed were shadowy shapes. I was a shadow too. I made my way back to Eng’s side and felt for the soft quilt. Pulling it back, I lay gingerly next to him. I didn’t know where to look or how to breathe. I lay there, still as stone, willing myself to blend into the sheets.
Eng shifted, making a pretense of moving over, though there wasn’t far for him to go. Sliding his arm behind my head, he patted
my shoulder clumsily but kindly. Then he leaned toward me, his lips brushing my hair and neck.
It tickled, and I squirmed.
“You smell nice,” he whispered.
“It’s perfume.”
“It’s you,” he insisted.
This was the Eng I didn’t like, the one who seemed to have studied how to behave with a woman but lacked the finesse to pull
it off.
“It’s rose water,” I said irritably. “Made of crushed petals.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “You wear it often, I think. It smells like you to me.”
He ran a tentative finger along the embroidery on my bodice as if trying to discern its pattern. I lay there silently, holding
my breath.
Suddenly, abruptly, he pulled away from me.
I was confused, disoriented. Then I realized: Chang had turned in the other direction, and Eng had no choice but to follow.
The movement was halting, almost acrobatic. He rose up and over his brother as though clambering across a narrow bridge. His
hip brushed my arm; his knee landed briefly on my ankle. Then he dropped heavily onto the other side of Chang.
The room was dim but not dim enough. Chang murmured something and Addie responded with kitten-like sounds. I closed my eyes,
trying to think of nothing, nothing at all.
A moment later, I felt a shift. The press of the mattress, the squeak of the ropes beneath.
Now Addie was beside me, and Chang was on top of her. His breath was hard in my ear, his elbow digging into my shoulder. I inched as close as I could to the edge of the mattress, pulling my nightdress down around my legs, trying to avoid touching them.
It felt unreal. I could not believe it was actually happening.
Chang began moving on top of my sister, mere inches away. I was appalled by the sheer effort of it—the grunting, the animal
intensity, the rasp of the rope webbing beneath us, the groan of the bed frame. I tried to remove myself in my mind, to tune
them out, but I couldn’t help counting: one, two three, four, five six . . . The motion quickened. Chang gasped. Addie sighed.
Chang rolled off her and lay on his back. Eng fell back to his place beside me, his body landing like a sack of flour.
The room was silent now, except for the irregular breathing of Chang and Addie. Eng’s hand found mine, seeking comfort or
perhaps just reassurance of my presence. It was all I could do not to snatch my hand away.
After a few minutes, my sister sat up.
I watched her in the moonlight as she stood, smoothed down her nightgown, and moved toward the door. She hesitated, glancing
back at the bed, her hand still on the latch. Then she stepped into the hall. A moment later, I heard the click of her own
bedroom door as it shut behind her.
Chang’s breathing was loud in the still room.
My chest felt tight, my pulse fluttering in my ears. I lay still, the quilt drawn to my chin.
“Are you ready?” Eng whispered.
Tears slid down my temples into my hair.
“Sallie,” he said, his palm on my shoulder, “don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”
I did not want him to touch me. It felt unnatural, wrong, obscene. I thought longingly, desperately, of the empty room across the hall where I’d left my overnight bag. All I wanted was to be alone in that room with the door latched shut.
He touched my damp cheek.
I flinched.
“You don’t have to,” he said. “We can wait.”
Chang, on the other side of him, muttered something emphatic in a language I didn’t recognize—their native tongue, I realized.
They’d never spoken it in front of me before.
Eng responded curtly. They went back and forth in angry bursts. Chang spoke last.
We lay on our backs, the three of us, in fraught, unhappy silence.
After what felt like an eternity, Eng turned his head toward me. “I will not force you.” When he exhaled, I could feel his
breath on my cheek. “You may go back to your room, if you wish.”
I slipped out from under the quilt and sat on the edge of the bed. Relief flooded through me. But I felt a wave of pity for
Eng, raw and grievous. I felt sorry for rejecting him, for humiliating him in front of his brother.
I hated Chang for being pushy and presumptuous, hated Eng for his compassion, hated Addie for manipulating me into this stunt
of a marriage.
Hated myself for going along with it. Hated being there at all.
I woke early, alone in a strange room, to the crow of a rooster. Rising from bed, I went to the window. The sun was a dazzling
yellow. In the orchard, white blossoms flared on newly planted trees. The grass shimmered with dew.
The stark sunlight only highlighted my disastrous mistake. I didn’t know what I wanted in a marriage, just that this was not it. Was I truly expected to submit to the needs of a virtual stranger for whom I felt nothing? Would I be caged in this perversion of a partnership with no hope of escape?
I wondered what it would take to get the marriage annulled. If we hadn’t consummated it, was it even legally binding?
How naive I’d been. I thought about the scandal of my pregnancy, the child I carried in my womb and lost in such a stupid,
graceless way. Maybe I was destined to end up alone in the woods like Aunt Joan, my blunders and poor choices growing around
me like the tangle of briars on an abandoned wall.