Jo let out an exasperated sigh. “Because it’s not true love if the love is one-sided, for one thing. For another, who wants to waste their devotion to a man who doesn’t love her back, thus taking the spot of the man who should be in her heart?” She raised her eyebrows. “Did that make sense? I lost the thread in the middle there.”
Cym caressed my arm with her fingers. Despite my misery, her touch felt good on my skin. I rose from Jo’s lap to rest my weight against the solidness that was Cymbeline. She was strong, all muscles and brain combined with a giant heart. There was nothing she couldn’t do.
“Will it always feel this way?” I asked. “Like I want to die?”
“No, it won’t,” Jo said. “I know a little about this, if you recall. I thought I’d lost my true love in the war only to find out he was a lying cheat.”
“But then Phillip came,” I said, wiping my face with a lace handkerchief. “Handsome, sweet Phillip.”
“That’s right,” Jo said as she took my other hand and pressed it gently to her chest. “You’re going to be fine. This time next year you’ll have had so many experiences and perhaps even a courtship with a man who loves you, and you’ll not remember a thing about how you’re feeling right now.”
I desperately wanted her to be correct, but right about then peace and comfort felt impossible to ever achieve again.
“Now, we have to get you put together before we go down for dinner,” Jo said. “You’re as wrinkled and wet as a newborn pig.”
That made us all laugh. I clutched Cym for what felt like dear life. She and Jo were always here for me. Nothing could change that. Love between us was a given yet I never took it for granted.
“Do you promise someday I’ll feel better?” I asked them.
“Yes, because you’re good,” Cym said. “There’s no way God isn’t planning many wonderful things for you.”
“I don’t feel good,” I said. “I’m spoiled and ridiculous.”
“You’re not either of those things.” Cym turned to take both my shoulders in her strong hands. “You’re heartbroken right now but later, when you look back on this time, you’ll see how it shaped you into the woman you wanted to be. Jo and I have both had these moments of despair, and we lived through them to be better.”
“And we had you there for all of it,” Jo said. “Encouraging us, loving us. Just as we will do for you.”
“Sisters are forever,” Cym said. “Good Lord, I sound like a bad poet. But you understand what I’m saying.”
“We do,” I said, swiping more tears as they burned hot trails down the thin skin of my cheeks.
“Now let’s finish getting you ready for dinner,” Jo said. “We should celebrate your upcoming trip. We’re all so proud of you.”
I touched my fingers under my eyes; my skin looked like puffed pastry dough. “All right. Here we go then.”
Then, as women had done for centuries, despite broken hearts, losses, uncertainty, ailments, and even soul-destroying poverty, I placed both feet on the floor and got on with it.
The morning we left,Mama and Papa and I stood with the entire family on the platform of our train station. We would take the train to Denver and then all the way to New York City, where we would board a ship to France.
There were hugs from my sisters and brothers and all the spouses. My little sisters, both crying, hugged me, then did the same to Mama and Papa. Delphia, her golden hair shining under the sun, whispered in my ear. “I’ll be marking the days off the calendar, one by one, until you come home to us.” I knelt to give her kisses on both cheeks. She was nine now, but looked younger, as she was small and lithe. A baby tiger, I often thought—beautiful, strong, and ferocious. She sometimes scared her peers because of the fire in her eyes and the way she pounced on every aspect of her life. Not me. I was used to it. I’d grown up next to Cymbeline. They shared the same fire.
Addie, who was now fifteen, shared Delphia’s coloring, which they’d gotten from Mama. However, she was tall and as slender as an aspen sapling, standing taller than any of our sisters. Despite her illness as a child, she now glowed with pink-tinged health. Each day after Theo had discovered her allergy to anything with flour, she’d grown lovelier. Now she stood before us a great beauty. A sparkle in her blue eyes was not fiery like Cym’s and Delphia’s but more like Josephine’s, serene and intelligent and perhaps even omnipresent. She’d recently confessed to me that she would like to be a writer, which had surprised no one. She was always scribbling away in her journal. I often wondered what she wrote within the pages but suspected I would never know. Until her book was published, that is. I felt certain there would be something of great worth that arose from the tender thoughts of my sapling sister.
I hugged Addie tightly and whispered in her ear to be sure to write. “I will,” she said. “But I’ll leave the boring parts out.”
“Like all good storytellers,” I said.
Theo and Flynn and Jo’s husband, Phillip, were talking with Papa about business. He’d left the three of them in charge of his affairs for the months he and Mama would be away. He seemed remarkably untroubled. If it were Flynn leaving, there would be pages of instructions about what should be done and how. Perhaps one grew mellower about all things, even money, as we aged?
I’d already said goodbye to Lizzie, Jasper, and their daughter, Florence, back at the house. Lizzie hated goodbyes. She’d said one to her mother years ago when Lizzie had come to America with Papa and had never been able to return to say a final one before her mother passed away. This made her loathe any kind of farewells, even from those who promised to return.
So I was surprised when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Mrs. Wu and Li approaching our loud and ever-stretching family.
“I’m sorry,” Li said close to my ear. “She insisted on coming to say goodbye. She had some kind of dream and said she must see you one more time.”
A shiver went through me. “Was it a premonition of my death?”
Li blinked, his straight eyelashes like small combs made of silk. “No, I don’t think so. I hope not.”
I smiled at him, hoping to convince him how fine I was now, as if I’d already forgotten my foolish and youthful claims of love. If only it were true.
Mrs. Wu approached. She pressed a sachet of spicy cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg into my hand. “To ward off any evil spirits.”
“Will there be some?” I asked.
“You’re going to Paris, so yes. There are temptations and charlatans. I dreamt of a man who would bring great sorrow upon your family. Be careful. Do not trust anyone.” Mrs. Wu’s eyes were like flint, dark and serious. I’d never seen or heard her say anything in jest, now that I thought about it. Li was also serious of nature. I would find a man who said clever and witty things and told funny stories at parties. Then I wouldn’t remember Li or long for him ever again. I’d be fine. Glorious even.
“I’ll be sure to be careful,” I said.
She squeezed my shoulder with her gnarled hand. “Good girl.”
I glanced over to see Li watching me. He averted his gaze before I could get a good reading on him.
“We’ve already said goodbye,” I said to him. “I’ll see you in six months.”