May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (33 page)

But neither of them has much to say when they eat lunch that day. When she stands up and says she best be gettin’ Miss Juss, he stands up too and reaches for his hat, diggin’ around inside it. He looks at the overseer and at the men and the gals, and then takes Mary by the shoulders and kisses her. And the music’s playin’ so loud again that she hardly notices when he takes her hand and puts a little piece of paper inside it. It’s only when she’s walkin’ up to the hospital that she gets to realizin’ what she’s got right there in her hand.

She never told him about knowin’ how to read and write, and he never said nothin’ about it either. It’s about as deep a secret for her as the time with Mista Grant, only she knows she can’t get in no trouble for the time with Mista Grant now. But readin’ and writin’s a different story altogether—and she starts to thinkin’ about what might happen if the overseer seen the piece of paper and is maybe chasin’ after her—and how she and Micah gonna get sold off a thousand miles from each other … and then they’d go and put Mista and Misses Kittredge and Miss Randall in prison … and maybe even Miss Juss too for bein’ the ones that let her get all that learnin’ … and she looks back and sees the overseer just as concerned with his lunch as ever, and there’s Micah standin’ with his hat off, watchin’ her, smilin’. And all that worry is gone now. There’s just the tingle left runnin’ within her, and the memory of his kiss.

Juss is talkin’ the whole walk home, about the usual things, this officer and that, this or that nurse who told her not to get too friendly with the patients, and such. And it’s all so much the same sorta thing walkin’ back home, that Mary drifts into her own thoughts, off’rin’ the occasional
mmm-hmmm
, by way of keepin’ up. But her mind drifts elsewhere, back to Carolina, and the overseer Mista Grant, the man who she’s worryin’ might make Micah not want to be her man once
he knows about what happened ’fore she and Gertie run off. And the heat of the day … the worryin’ about the paper in her sleeve … and the memories of all those years past … set her to driftin’ more than walkin’ … dreamin’ one of those nightmares all over again …

You all right, Mary? Juss asks, as they’re steppin’ up to the house.

And Mary can’t answer her, takin’ hold of her arm instead and leanin’ her head against Juss’s shoulder. Juss walks her through the front door and yells at Bessie to get her some water. And then it’s into Mary’s room, where she sips the water and lays down on her bed, with Juss sittin’ beside her for as long as she can stay ’til the Misses assures her Mary’s all right now, and it’s time to get to her lessons.

No work in the shop for you today, the Misses says, leavin’ Mary to lay there for the rest of the afternoon.

She’s layin’ there with just those memories, ’til she remembers the slip of paper Micah gave her, takes it from her sleeve now and can tell right off that there’s handwritin’ on it. She panics for a moment, thinkin’ that he knows her secret, ’til she realizes that
he’s
the one that done the writin’, and if anything it’s him who’s riskin’ everything, practically trustin’ her with his life. That calms her a little, and she unfolds the paper altogether and reads the words written in a thick black carpenter’s pencil:

You are the sun to me after a night three thousand days long

And that’s it right then. Like she’s melted right there in her tiny room, knowin’ there’s such a man in this world, who could write such a thing. To her. And she knows she’ll never be an island again.

It was nearly as impossible to distinguish the gray uniforms from the blue as it was to see evidence of a soul having once occupied the bodies laid in patternless rows. Limbs were intermingled and thrust outward from their torsos in unnatural forms, bent awkwardly at the elbows and knees in ways they would never be when still animate. It was an unfettered introduction to the horrors of this war, and she was only glad that Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine had not accompanied her to the gallery after all. The title below the framed photograph read, “The Sunken Road, Antietam.”
Mr. Brady does love his gore
, Marcella thought.

Brady’s pictures were gruesome and compelling, just as advertised. But she had found herself more impressed with the work of a man who seemed to be an afterthought in the exhibition. Moving slowly down the row, she took in each picture for several minutes before proceeding. Near the end of the display wall, she stopped completely and backed up a fair distance from yet another image of Mr. McOwen’s—several sturdy-looking men standing beside a cannon. The collection of these dozen photographs was entitled “Men of the Irish Brigade.”
Actual living soldiers, how original
, she thought.

But aside from the obvious distinction between McOwen’s work and nearly all of Brady’s pictures, she saw something captured in their faces that was quite different from the usual Brady portraits with the
customary puffed-out chests and stern gazes. McOwen had managed to elicit an element from within his subjects that was more revealing of who they genuinely were. Unlike the collection of corpses or anonymous infantrymen Brady’s pictures coldly displayed, these photographs told stories of men become soldiers, men who had left lives and families behind, men compelled to act, but wanting nothing so much as the chance to return to those lives and families when the work was finally done, men who were a family in and of themselves. And as Marcella stared at them, engulfed in everything their two-dimensional faces said, a pair of high-society matrons approached and walked directly up to the photograph, apparently unaware that they were blocking her view.
Oh by all means, yes, please do
, she thought.

“Oh, well look at this,” one of the ladies said to her companion. “This is
classic
Brady. Just look at the brutishness of the men. They are so magnificently … common, so … vile. I suppose the Irish are good at fighting at least, and Brady just captures that disdain they have for decent society.”

“Yes, only Brady could do that,” her friend declared. “Oh, look at this one with the beard … those eyes, so dark and menacing. It’s deliciously terrifying.”

Deliciously terrifying? Like, say … your hat?

Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine were not there to restrain Marcella from engaging in the games she often liked to play on occasions such as these. It was not so much that she
liked
to play them, but rather that, despite the calming, civilizing influence Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine had on Marcella, she still needed such episodes as a release that would enable her to remain calm and civilized at all other times. And after more than a year of working in the army hospital, where some of the battered men from the war struggled to put their lives back together, she had grown even more intolerant of boorish women such as these.

“Oh what a beautiful McOwen!” Marcella said, stepping forward into the ladies’ conversation as if they were old acquaintances. “He just captures their inherent brutishness. So vile, are they not? So common. And yet … positively
delicious!”

The ladies did their instant appraisal of Marcella as such women always did. Their eyes started on her hat, took in her olive-toned face and
dark eyes surrounded by menacing cheekbones that, minus a smile, gave way too readily to something appearing to be a scowl, still, undeniably pretty in a nonclassical way. They noticed the jewelry, of course, then continued all the way down the dress, perhaps noticing her lack of a corset, and on to the tips of her shoes and back up again, before a glance at each other to confirm whether they were in the presence of someone who merited their attention or not. It was all expertly done in a matter of two or three seconds, and then the ladies turned back to Marcella and nodded.
Oh thank heavens, I’ve passed inspection!

“Yes, I was just saying …” The first lady paused as if Marcella’s statements had actually just registered with her now. She looked down at the nameplate beneath the photo, but remarkably,
deliciously
one might say, she did not miss another beat. “Yes … McOwen, I’ve heard some
very
good things about him.”

“Yes, he’s quite a talent,” the second replied. “I’ve seen several of his shows. Quite a
visceral
quality to his work. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, quite,” the first agreed.

“
Visceral
, yes … quite,” Marcella agreed enthusiastically. “Although … I
believe
 …” She turned the page of her program and looked down at it—“yes, that’s what it says here. ‘Ethan McOwen, a veteran of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment and official photographer of the valiant Irish Brigade, makes his
debut
with this evening’s opening.’ ”

“Ohhh … yes, that’s right,” the second lady corrected. “I was thinking of that
other
Irishman … you know … 
Mac
something or
Oh
something …”

“Oh yes, I know exactly what you
mean
,” Marcella interjected. “They’re
impossible
to distinguish. But it’s nice to see that at least one or two of them have something meaningful to contribute to society.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” the first woman agreed.

“I hear they make competent enough servants,” Marcella added. “Though Pa
-pah
would never hire any of them. Said he’d hire a
Negro
first if it came to
that
. But thankfully there are enough Chinese and respectable-enough peasants to fill out a decent staff.”

She laughed loudly, tapping each of the ladies on the arm with her program, and they became uncomfortable, though it was doubtful if either of them could say why. They nodded and excused themselves, but
Marcella grabbed each of them by an arm and leaned in closely as if to confide a great secret to them.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” she whispered, “but this McOwen has taken some pictures of the
Negroes
, too. Runaway slaves. They’re along the back row way over there … if you can sneak over, I
highly
recommend it. Positively, deliciously vile. Such visceral brutishness.”

She lifted her eyebrows and nodded her head several times for effect, and the ladies looked at her awkwardly before practically dashing back to their husbands gathered in the corner drinking brandy. Marcella watched them all the way, then nodded and winked, pointing to the back row of pictures again when they arrived safely. Finally they turned completely away from her.
Thanks for the chat
, Marcella thought, and chuckled to herself in triumph.

“That McOwen, he is
something
, isn’t he?” came a voice from over her shoulder, as she stood in her triumph.

She looked to her left and saw a man leaning on a cane and smiling at her.

“Oh yes, he is a talent,” she answered.

He was dressed in a black suit, and his hair was thick and covered half of his ears. There was a hint of a beard—perhaps two or three days’ worth of whiskers, the blackness of which accentuated his blue eyes—and he leaned enough on the cane he held in his left hand to reveal that it wasn’t simply for show. Overall, he didn’t seem a comfortable fit with most of the other men here.

“Oh, most definitely a
remarkable
talent,” he continued. “Better than Brady certainly. Don’t you agree?”

“He is very good,” she replied. “Are you familiar with him?”

“This evening is the first time I’ve seen his work on display. I find him far superior to Brady.”

Is that a brogue underneath I hear?
she thought.
Could this be a taste of my own medicine, perhaps?