Chapter 10 #4
"If I decide it belongs behind glass..." She shook her head. "Then that tradition ends because of me."
The words hung between them.
"I keep asking myself whether I have the right to make that decision." Her gaze drifted back to the trunk. "Not only for every woman who carried it before today..." She drew a slow, careful breath. "But perhaps more importantly, for every woman who might have carried it someday."
Wilson let the silence linger a moment longer.
Mercy had talked herself all the way from excitement to uncertainty...and from uncertainty to responsibility. By the time she'd finished, she looked as though she'd accepted the burden of deciding not only the locket's future, but its past as well.
He couldn't understand why she carried it so deeply.
Most folks would have seen a difficult decision.
Mercy seemed to feel a personal responsibility for every life the locket had touched—and every one it might have yet to touch.
He found himself wondering, not for the first time, what had shaped that kind of conviction.
She wasn't looking at him now.
Her gaze remained fixed on the trunk, her shoulders quieter somehow, as though all the possibilities she'd been weighing had finally settled upon them.
He'd listened because she'd needed someone to listen.
Now...
Now she needed something else.
Wilson wanted to ease that burden somehow. "Mercy."
She looked up.
"Let me ask you something." He took his time, choosing his words carefully. "What story are you trying to honor here?"
She didn't answer. Instead, the faint crease between her brows deepened.
Wilson wasn't certain he knew the answer either. He absently rubbed the back of his neck as he sorted through everything she'd said. "You've been talking about where the locket belongs," he said slowly. "Who ought to see it. Whether the parchment should stay with it."
She nodded, her gaze never leaving his.
"But unlike when you've spoken of other artifacts..." He frowned thoughtfully. "You spoke of the history happening around it, and the important people who touched it, not about the lives it touched."
He crossed his arms. "And perhaps, because of the place they hold in our country's history, that's the appropriate story to honor.” He held her gaze one beat longer. “Only you can decide that.”
The words settled over both of them.
She didn't speak, didn't even move.
But as he watched, something in her expression softened, as though the question had quietly shifted her thinking.
Finally, a slow smile touched her lips. "Thank you."
Why was she thanking him?
She lowered her gaze for a moment, then looked back at him.
"You've helped me see why I couldn't settle the question.
" She let out a quiet breath. "I've been so captivated by the bits of our country's history surrounding the locket and how it ties to the Centennial that I stopped looking at it with the true purpose of this exhibit in mind. "
She nodded with growing certainty. "What I really should have been focused on is which story I've been entrusted to honor."
Wilson felt something inside him settle. He wasn't certain where that realization would ultimately lead her, and he didn't suppose she knew yet either. But the burden she'd been carrying no longer seemed to be weighing her down.
She glanced toward the schoolroom where her notebooks waited and gave a soft, almost self-conscious laugh. "I still have a great deal to think about."
"I reckon you do."
Mercy straightened and brushed at her skirt. "So, I'd best get back to work."
Then she headed for the classroom, but halfway there she paused and turned. “By the way, Mama said to be sure I told you you're welcome to join us for dinner again this Sunday if you're free."
Of course he was free. He usually was. "Tell her I'd be obliged."
The previous Sunday's invitation had been for the interview. This one was simply an invitation. He decided not to look too closely at why that pleased him so much.
Instead, he bent to retrieve his hammer. As his fingers closed around the worn handle, another memory from earlier today slipped in unbidden.
Not the locket.
Mercy.
The warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips as he'd worked the stubborn clasp.
The soft curve of her neck, the silken strands of hair that had brushed the back of his hand.
The delicate flush that had slowly climbed her throat until he could no longer tell whether the stubborn clasp or his own unsteady fingers had been the greater cause of the delay. Had she noticed?
He'd told himself he was concentrating on the clasp.
But if that had been entirely true, he wouldn't have found himself wondering what she was thinking as she stood so still before him...or found himself so distracted by the impudent curl at her nape.
He tightened his grip on the hammer. Still, though the moment had lasted only a heartbeat, the memory of her warm skin lingered beneath his fingertips.
Somehow the morning's conversation had made those memories harder to dismiss, not easier.
He wasn't altogether certain what to make of that.