Chapter Thirty-Nine
Joseph stepped away from Katie for only the briefest of moments to look in on his daughters, checking to see if they were sleeping. No one in the house had rested well since the fire. They had passed a long and grueling week. Ivy was plagued by nightmares; Emma wouldn’t eat.
He’d spent the hour since Katie had awoken holding her while she cried. She hadn’t spoken, hadn’t looked up at him. She simply cried against his shoulder. Deep breaths had ended in whimpers of pain. He’d sat there, silently, with an arm around her. She had been deeply suffering, and he, like a useless idiot, hadn’t been able to think of a single thing to do or say.
“Is something wrong, Papa?” Emma’s sleepy voice floated through the dim room.
“No, sweetie. I’m only checking to see that you’re sleeping.”
He saw her shift beneath her quilt. She didn’t get up, didn’t seem truly awake. He slowly closed the door, careful not to make noise. The girls were finally sleeping. He stood in the hallway, searching for the strength to make it through the rest of the evening.
“Joseph.”
He turned at the sound of Biddy’s strained voice. She stood in the doorway to his room, her arms full of bandages. The bleeding at the stubs of Katie’s fingers had slowed, but not stopped entirely. Mrs. Smith had lectured them all on the importance of changing out the linens used to bind Katie’s wounds. Women on the Irish and Red Roads had volunteered to wash the strips of fabric Katie and Finbarr had used up over the past days.
The tight pull around Biddy’s mouth instantly worried him.
“She’s unbound her hand,” she whispered, the words quick and concerned.
Not yet. She isn’t ready for this yet.
He moved swiftly inside the room. Katie sat with her feet hanging off the edge of his bed. Her arm, bandaged and splinted from wrist to elbow, was unwrapped from the wrist down. She kept completely still, her gaze never leaving her fingerless hand. The only sound in the room was her too-quick breathing.
What do I say? I can’t fix this.
She didn’t look up as he reached her. He knelt on the ground in front of her. Katie’s eyes remained riveted to the red, tender remains of her left hand resting on her lap. The look of horror on her face cut him deeper than any knife could.
Maybe he should have said something when she first woke. He should have broken it to her gently rather than leaving her to discover it this way. But when could he have possibly told her? There’d not been a chance before she’d realized Marianne’s fate. She had been in no condition for further difficulties afterward. He wondered if she’d already realized she couldn’t feel her fingers and had pieced together what had happened.
Coward. You only told yourself that to avoid this moment.
“What happened?” Katie spoke not in the broken whisper he’d expected but in a voice so flat it worried him more than her silence had.
“Your arm broke when the barn collapsed, and your hand was crushed.” He watched for her reaction, needing to know if he was causing her more pain. He saw nothing. He couldn’t even say for certain that she heard him. “We did everything we could, but it was so badly broken. It couldn’t be saved.”
“I need my hands, Joseph.” Her tone was direct, all but empty of emotion.
“Katie, I—”
“I don’t know how to do anything without both hands.” Her words picked up speed, the first hints of worry entering her voice. “How will I do any of my work? How will I bake my bread?”
“This town won’t let you go hungry or be in need while you’re adapting,” Joseph insisted. “You can relearn.”
“What good will I be?” she muttered. “If I can’t work, I’m worthless.”
Joseph took her face in his hands, turning it so she was looking at him. “You have never been worthless, Katie Macauley. Not ever.”
He’d never seen such bleakness in any person’s eyes.
“I can’t play my fiddle.” The words trembled, yet she sat stoically still.
The loss of her music hurt the deepest. He’d known it would.
“I am so sorry.” He had said those four words to her more than any others over the past few days. They were woefully insufficient but the only ones he had.
He let his hands slide down her arms, careful of her left arm, which was still splinted and bandaged, and took her hands in his. It broke his heart to feel the difference between the two.
She lowered her gaze again. “I stole my father’s fiddle. I took away his music.” Her quiet words grew more steady, a terrible hopelessness entering her tone. “Now I’ve lost the music as well. That’s fitting, I suppose. The cruelest of punishments. I rather deserve it, actually.”
He had fully expected her heartache, but he hadn’t anticipated the guilt she had so quickly tied to it.
Her shoulders rose and fell with an unsteady breath. “Life just takes and takes. I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t.”
She pulled away from him, moving her legs back up onto the bed. This was one of the moments Joseph had worried about. She needed the peace and reassurance playing her music brought her, but where would she find that now?
Katie slipped under the blanket, her back turned to him. She blamed him as much as he blamed himself it seemed. He should have done more to stop this. He should have thought of something else to try before letting this happen. Joseph dropped his head against the bed.
Life just takes and takes. She was suffering, and he couldn’t help. He couldn’t do anything for her.
Biddy came in the room and knelt on the floor beside him. She held out the bundle of bandages. “Her hand still needs wrapping,” she whispered.
He shook his head. Katie wanted nothing to do with him.
“During the darkest times in Katie’s life,” Biddy lowered her voice even further, “everyone abandoned her. She has faced every hardship alone because no one would stand by her. Don’t you do that to her as well, Joseph Archer.”
“Nothing soothes her like playing her violin, and she doesn’t have that now.” Joseph kept his voice as quiet as Biddy’s. Katie didn’t need to overhear them discussing her.
“And there is no way to change that now, so you need to help her through this.”
He sat back on his heels, a weight settling in his chest. “You should be talking to Tavish; he is the one who knows how to make her laugh and smile.”
“When a person is dying inside, she doesn’t need a jester.” Biddy set the bandages in his hands. “She needs a champion.”
Joseph thought about that for several long moments after Biddy left the room. Katie needed so much. He despaired of being equal to helping her through the struggles that lay ahead of her. She had lost something vitally important to her, something he couldn’t give back. Even if those failures made her hate him in the end, he knew he could never abandon her.
He came around to the other side of the bed. Katie’s eyes were closed, tears trickling over the bridge of her nose. She’d shed too many tears.
Joseph pulled the chair close then sat, trying to decide the best way to ease her worries. He slipped his hand beneath her wounded one.
“I’ll be very careful,” he told her.
Each wince struck him like a blow, but he kept working. Katie didn’t speak, didn’t even open her eyes. The gravity of the situation sat heavy on his shoulders. He’d never known anyone with her fortitude and determination, but her inner reserve of strength seemed to be failing her.
Tavish would have teased and joked with her until she smiled. He would have banished her tears with laughter. Joseph didn’t have that talent. What did he have to offer her? He could talk her ear off about budgets and profit projections and sound like a sentimental fool speaking endlessly of his daughters and his land. That wouldn’t help at all.
He tied off the bandaging, then slipped her arm back under the quilt. He sat silently beside the bed.
She needed her music, but he couldn’t give that back to her. She still hurt over her father’s rejection, but he couldn’t change that either. Her family was in Ireland, too far to send for or bring by.
He did, though, have the telegram Joshua Johnson had brought back after his last trip to the train depot. It wasn’t exactly a declaration that she was loved and cherished. But it was something.
“A few days ago I received an answer to a telegram I’d sent to Belfast.”
He thought he saw the smallest of reactions in her face, though she kept her eyes shut.
“I have a business associate there, and I asked him if he could look in on your family.” That sounded so presumptuous. Had he crossed a line? “I only wanted to know if there was anything that could be done to help.”
Katie’s breathing had slowed. She sounded calmer, or at least like she was listening.
“Mr. Butler wrote that he visited with your parents.”
Katie’s eyes opened, but she didn’t look at anything in particular.
“He said your father’s illness is a weakness of the heart. He’s easily tired but isn’t in pain.” Would that help her worry less? “Someone named Brennan is staying with them, helping.” Joseph thought that was one of Katie’s brothers. “Mr. Butler said they have very kind neighbors looking out for them and a competent apothecary giving him powders for palpitations. He said they seem to be doing well.”
“Did they ask about me?” Katie spoke quietly, a quivering undertone of hope in her words. “Or have a greeting for me or anything?”
The very question he’d been afraid she would ask. He’d procrastinated telling her about the telegram for just that reason.
“The telegram wasn’t long. I am confident they sent a letter, and it simply hasn’t arrived yet.”
He had wanted her to hear something personal from her parents, even the most basic words of caring and concern. He’d asked Mr. Butler specifically to ask Mr. and Mrs. Macauley for any greetings they might have for their daughter, assuring him he would cover the cost of a longer telegram if necessary.
After reporting on the general state of the Macauley household, Mr. Butler had added “No messages for Miss M.” That was the entirety of her parents’ greeting to their only living daughter.
“They didn’t say ‘hello’ or ask how I was,” Katie muttered. “My mother usually tells me to work hard. She didn’t even say that, did she?”
Like an idiot, he’d made her feel worse. He thought she would want to hear that her father wasn’t suffering. His well-being seemed to mean a lot to her, whether or not he’d earned her devotion.
“Life takes and takes, Joseph.” She closed her eyes again. “It just takes and takes.”
I not only can’t make things better, I make them worse.