She quickly removed her dress and slipped into the nightgown, rushing more than she needed to, but she could not stop herself. She felt exposed, vulnerable here in this house that belonged to someone else, fearing that someone might take the notion to check on her before she was fully dressed. She lifted the quilts and got into bed, then moved to the far side, pulling the covers up over her breasts and hugging them tightly to herself as she stared at the dark shadows moving over the whitewashed ceiling. She felt so very alone and homesick, even as she told herself that she now had what she had wanted most in the world. She was Janson’s wife; no one could hurt him anymore or try to keep them apart. She was Janson’s wife—but she wanted her mother now. She wanted to be home, in a place that would be familiar to her. She wanted to feel safe—but she should feel safe, she kept telling herself. Janson would take care of her.
The door opened and he entered the room, then turned to close the door quietly behind himself. He was still dressed in the dungarees and work shirt he had been wearing when they had arrived in Eason County earlier in the day, but the clothes were wrinkled now even worse than from the long train ride, the dungarees and shirt both stained heavily in places from the work he had been doing with his grandfather. His green eyes came to rest on her where she lay under the quilts on the bed, and he smiled—but she could not bring herself to do anything more than stare at him, watching as the shadows played over his features, across the high cheekbones and the complexion darker than her own, the features that showed so clearly the mixed blood of his heritage. He began to talk as he undressed for bed, his words moving over her, but she could not listen to him. She could only stare as he removed his shirt and dungarees, and then hurriedly stripped off his long-johns in the chill room as he prepared to get into bed with her.
He lifted the quilts as Elise stared at him, and she burst into tears, turning her face from him toward the whitewashed wall.
Elise awoke slowly the next morning, her head hurting from having cried herself to sleep. She sat up on the straw tick of the bed, bunching the quilts in her hands as she stared around the room. She was alone, alone in the room, and alone with her thoughts.
She was embarrassed, feeling guilty over the bout of crying the night before. Janson had left their bed unsatisfied this morning as he never had in the times they had been able to be together in the months before their marriage. She could not understand her reasons for crying so when he had only wanted to do what they had done so many times before. He had been so kind even as she cried, holding her, seeming to understand as she cried herself to sleep on his shoulder—he must think he’s married a child, she told herself, drawing her knees up to her chest to rest her crossed arms on top of them. She felt as if she’d driven him out of bed this morning, even for all his kindness the night before. He had a right to expect more than that from his wife, and he could probably not look at her now in the light of day without remembering the whimpering child who had spent the night crying her eyes out on his shoulder.
She lay back on the straw tick and looked around the room, realizing that it did not seem so frightening now, with the sunlight streaming in the window near the foot of the bed. The room was neat and clean except for their discarded clothes that were now folded over the back of one of the straight chairs. The whitewashed walls, fire burning in the fireplace across the room, and the colorful patchwork quilts beneath which she lay, now brightened the room up in the light of day.
She wished Janson had awakened her before he had left to do whatever work his grandfather might have for him this morning. She needed to apologize for her behavior the night before. She was not about to allow a moment’s self-pity to ruin what she had worked so hard to have. Her father’s words when he had ordered them from his land rose all too easily to haunt her—he had told her she would grow to hate Janson for her decision to marry him, and that Janson would grow to hate her as well. They had both risked so much, even Janson’s very life, just to be together. She was dead to her family now, for she had chosen to marry Janson even though her father had forbidden it. William Whitley and Elise’s oldest brother, Bill, had both been willing to kill Janson to keep them apart. They would have found murder preferable to seeing Elise marry a man who was part Cherokee, a man who was only half white, no matter how much she might love him.
Now she had what she had wanted, what they had risked so much for, what they had given up so much to have, and she had cried herself to sleep, pitying herself for having gotten the very thing she had wanted so badly. She felt herself a fool this morning, a silly, empty-headed fool who would see devils in friendly faces and cry at dreams she thought were nightmares.
She got up quickly, washed her face and bathed with water from the basin sitting on the washstand near the foot of the bed, brushed her hair, and dressed in a low-waisted frock that she hoped Janson’s grandmother would not find too offensive. She wanted the old woman to like her, or at least to tolerate her; she already knew there was little hope that either Janson’s Aunt Belle or Aunt Maggie would ever feel more for her than an absolute dislike. To have Janson’s grandmother feel the same would be more than she could bear.
She sat down before the dresser and did her makeup and hair almost without thought, then she stopped for a moment and stared at her reflection in the fading mirror, smoothing a spit-curl of hair down against her cheek and thinking that she looked younger than she should. The memory of having cried herself to sleep the night before was all too fresh, and the knowledge of what Janson must think of her this morning spurred her to movement. She would have to find him, apologize, and show him that she was not a child. She had only gotten what she had wanted—she was not about to lose it now over a silly bout of homesickness.
The kitchen was warm and filled with the smell of baking bread when Elise entered it a moment later. Deborah Sanders looked up from the bread dough she had been kneading and asked how she had slept.
“Fine,” Elise answered, then asked, “Where’s Janson? He was gone when I woke up.”
“Folks’re usually up an’ workin’ around here about sunrise.” She glanced up from her work again, leaving Elise feeling properly chastised for having slept so late. “Th’ men had work t’ do out back ’a th’ barn. I ’spect Janson’s out there with th’ rest of ’em—now, you set down an’ eat you some breakfast; we’re gonna have t’ put some meat on them bones ’a yours.” She wiped her floury hands on the apron tied around her waist, then brushed a strand of gray hair away from her forehead with one hand and toward the heavy bun at the back of her neck. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a look at Elise, making Elise feel as if there was nothing the woman saw within her in that moment that she liked in the least.
Elise looked toward the pots boiling on the back of the woodstove, then away quickly. She was feeling queasy this morning, and the thought of food was almost more than she could bear. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just go find Janson. I wanted to—”
“Now, we’ll have none of that,” the old woman said, taking her by the arm and ushering her to one of the benches beside the kitchen table, making her sit down, then going to take a plate down from the warming oven over the stove, a plate piled high with biscuits, sausage, eggs, and grits. She set it down before Elise. “Now, you eat,” she said. “Cain’t go skippin’ breakfast. It ain’t good for a body t’ start th’ day without somethin’ in their stomach.” She turned back to her bread dough, glancing back up at Elise one last time.
Elise looked at the mountain of food before her, her stomach churning. She obediently picked up the fork the old woman had placed beside her plate and tried to do what she could with it. “You said Janson’s working out behind the barn?”
“Yeah, but you don’t want t’ be goin’ out there. Th’ men’re workin’, my Tom, Wayne, an’ Janson—”
“I won’t bother them. I just wanted to talk to him for a second.”
“Not