Amaryllis (Suitors of Seattle) (7 page)

Amaryllis hugged her mother tightly.  “Thank you for making my wedding just as important as my sisters’ even though we only have two days to plan it.”

“You’re just as important as your sisters.  Therefor
e your wedding is just as important.”  She pushed Amaryllis toward the door.  “Oh, go read whatever you’re going to read tonight.  I know you don’t want to be here with me for even another minute.”

Amaryllis laughed as she headed for the stairs, stopping off in the entryway to grab her book.  She was going to miss having her mother to help her when she needed it.  As she climbed the stairs she realized she was only going to spend two more nights in the home she’d grown up in.  What would life be like with Alex?

*****

The morning of her wedding came way too soon for Amaryllis.  She’d finished her book and started another and done her best to bury her head in the sand and pretend nothing was going on around her, but she knew better.

Daisy had been touched to be chosen as the maid of honor.  Amaryllis could see it in her younger sister’s face and was happy to have her stand beside her.  She’d chosen a peach gown that would have made Amaryllis look terrible, but really brightened up her sister’s face. 

Daisy came into her room at noon, just after Amaryllis had finished her bath to help her get ready.  She herself was already dressed with her hair up in a way that made her look older than her seventeen years. 

“Did Rose do your hair?” Amaryllis asked.

Daisy nodded.  “She did.”  She touched her hand to the side of her hair self-consciously.  “Does it look okay?”

Amaryllis laughed.  “I don’t want Alex to see you before the wedding, because if he does, he’s going to realize he’s marrying the wrong sister and want to run off with you!”

Daisy smiled.  “Thank you for saying that.  We both know it’s not true, but thank you.”  She sat on the edge of Amaryllis’s bed.  “Do you need any help getting ready?”

Amaryllis was in her petticoats, but hadn’t bothered with pulling her dress on just yet.  She didn’t want it to get wrinkled before the wedding.  Her parents had hired a photographer for the event, and she didn’t want to be forever remembered as the bride with the wrinkled dress.  “I don’t think so.  Rose is supposed to come and do my hair.”  Amaryllis was sitting at her vanity table, brushing through her long blond locks.  Her hair was all the way to her waist and a medium blond color.  She’d always wished it were dark like her sister’s.

Daisy fidgeted, smoothing her skirt again.  “So what happened when Alex came back that you’re getting married so suddenly?  You took one look at him and forgave him for everything?”

Amaryllis laughed.  “I took one look at him and told him to get out of my life.”  She looked at her sister sitting so innocently on the bed.  There was no doubt in her mind that Daisy had never been kissed or even held hands with a boy.  “Honestly?  He kissed me.  When he kissed me, I remembered all the feelings I’ve had for him for so long.  I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted him to kiss me forever.”  She left out a lot of the story, but that part was the truth.  Every time Alex kissed her she melted in his arms.  She would never meet a man she felt more strongly about than Alex and she knew it.

Daisy jumped up to open the door when there was a knock.  Rose breezed in.  “Are you ready for me to make you beautiful?” she asked.

Amaryllis eyed her sister.  “Are you saying I’m not already beautiful?  What’s wrong with me?”

Rose laughed.  “I’m not going to let you bait me, Rilly. Today’s a day for celebration.”  She walked over to stand behind her sister and took the brush from her hands.

The talk turned to Rose’s little boys, Freddie and Matthew, after that. 

“When are we going to have another niece or nephew?” Daisy asked.  “Freddie’s already two and a half
and Matthew’s one.”

Rose blushed a pretty pink.  “In about seven months.”  When the other girls squealed, Rose shushed them.  “We haven’t told Mama yet, because we don’t want to upstage your day, Rilly.”

Amaryllis smiled at her eldest sister in the mirror.  “I’m really happy for you, Rose.  I hope it’s a girl this time.”

Rose nodded.  “Me too!  Lily should have all boys and I should have all girls,” she said referring to their tomboy sister.  “I can’t figure out what to do with the boy I have, and I’m sure that
Lilac, has never had her hair fixed in her life.”

Daisy laughed.  “I hope that someday women can do everything that men do and men can do everything that women do, and no one thinks anything of it.  It’s not right that there’re so many things that we ‘shouldn’t’ do just because we’re girls.”

Rose turned to her sister with surprise.  “Are you a suffragette?”  The shock in her voice amused Amaryllis.

Daisy shrugged.  “I think women should have the right to vote.  The laws affect our lives as well.”

Rose looked at Amaryllis.  “I thought you’d be the one with forward-thinking ideas with all of the books you read.  Never expected it of our little Daisy.”

Amaryllis shrugged.  “I think we all assumed less of Daisy because of how quiet she is.  She’s the smartest of all of us.”
  Amaryllis grinned at her younger sister to let her know she wasn’t making fun of her.

“I’m not smart.  I’m just…someone who knows how to think, and I can’t see how keeping half of the
adult population of our country without voting rights could possibly be a good thing.” 

Rose smiled.  “Don’t let Alex hear you say all that.  He’s a lawyer now, and he’ll try to keep you from getting the word out.”

Amaryllis wondered how Alex really felt about women’s right to vote.  She hadn’t given it a lot of thought, but she thought Daisy was right.  Women were certainly just as capable of thinking as men were, so why couldn’t they vote and affect the future of their country?

Rose finished with Amaryllis’s hair and kissed her cheek.  “You look beautiful.”

Amaryllis looked in the mirror.  The careful work Rose had done made her look a lot more elegant.  She stood.  “How much time do we have before the wedding?”

There was a knock on the door then, and Rose rushed to open it.  “Lily!”  The two sisters embraced.  “I’ve finished her hair.  What do you think?”

Lily shrugged.  “I think she looked good before you messed with her.”  She smiled at Amaryllis.  “You nervous?”  She walked over and hugged Amaryllis.

“A little.  How much time do we have before the wedding?” she asked again, wanting to know if it was time to put her dress on, or if she should wait a little longer.

“About fifteen minutes.”

Amaryllis nodded.  “Time to put my dress on then.”

With her three sisters helping her, Amaryllis donned the pretty dress and looked at herself in the mirror.  She looked like a different person.  Rose’s dress was beautiful, but she felt like she was impersonating someone else as she got dressed up for the big event.  Once she was dressed, her sisters took turns giving her things. 

Rose gave her a necklace to wear.  “Just for today.  I want it back the next time I see you!”

Amaryllis looked at the pearl necklace in her hand and turned so that Rose could fasten it around her neck for her.

Lily held out a handkerchief.  “I embroidered it myself, so don’t look at it too closely.  I messed up on the ‘A’.”

Amaryllis laughed, looking at the lopsided letter her sister had monogrammed into her handkerchief.  “I love it.  No one but you could make it so special.”  She had always loved Lily’s homemade gifts, because they were always unique.

Daisy held out a small book.  “I thought you might like this.”  It was a beautiful edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Amaryllis clutched it to her chest.  “Thank you, Daisy.  It’s perfect.”

Another knock came on the door.  Rose quickly opened it.  Fred stood there in his best suit looking uncomfortable.  “It’s time.  Rose and Lily, go join your husbands.”

Rose and Lily rushed from the room, and Daisy waited with Amaryllis.  Amaryllis carefully set the book in the trunk that was packed for her to take with her at the foot of her bed.  It wasn’t all her belongings, but it was most of them, and the rest could be picked up anytime.

Fred smiled down at his two daughters.  “You both look beautiful today.” 

“Thank you, Papa,” Daisy said with a smile.  “I’m going to wait for my cue in the hall.”  She rushed from the room, leaving Fred alone with Amaryllis for the first time since he’d announced she was marrying Alex no matter how she felt about it.

Amaryllis didn’t meet her father’s gaze.  She knew she shouldn’t be angry with him, but she was.  She didn’t feel like he’d done the right thing by forcing her to marry a man she didn’t trust.

“He’s going to be a good husband to you, Rilly.  Just give him a chance.”  Fred’s deep even voice always had a calming effect on Amaryllis.

Amaryllis shrugged.  “I’ll try.  I don’t have much choice in the matter
, do I?”

“No, you don’t.  He’s going to be the only man you ever marry, so you might as well make the most of it.”

Amaryllis met his eyes for the first time.  “I’ll try.”

“That’s all anyone is asking of you.”  He tucked her hand into his arm and walked toward the door.  “I only want what’s best for you.”

Amaryllis nodded.  “I know, Papa.”  She sighed.  “I’m sorry I’ve been so angry with you.”

He patted the hand threaded into his arm and stepped into the hall.  Daisy had just reached the bottom of the stairs and taken her place beside Alex and the preacher.  Amaryllis stared ahead at Alex, handsome in his best suit.  She knew everything her parents had said was right.  This was the only wedding she would ever have.  He was the only husband she would ever have.  If she wanted to be happy, getting along with him and loving him was her path to happiness.  She took a deep breath and descended the stairs walking straight to him.

Alex was the man she loved.  This wasn’t how she’d dreamed their marriage would happen, but what did that matter when she loved him?  She just wished she could stop the little voice in her head, insisting that he would never be faithful.  She did her best to ignore the voice as she took Alex’s hand and repeated her vows after the preacher she’d known all her life.

When Alex was told he could kiss his bride, he lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers, and touched his tongue to her lips.  She was startled as she looked up at him, shocked he’d do that in front of other people.

She sighed when the wedding was over.  Finally.  She was married to her Alex, and she was going to make the most of it. 

Chapter Five

The afternoon passed in a blur.  They had their wedding lunch.  Her aunt Harriett pulled her aside and had the talk she had with all of her nieces when they married with her.  “We knew we didn’t have to investigate Alex, because we know him so well, but still.  If something goes wrong, you leave him.  You go to your parents, you come to me.  In this case, you can go to his parents.  You don’t stay in a situation where you can be abused.”

“I won’t, Aunt Harriett.”  Harriett was huge with her fourth pregnancy.  She wasn’t leaving the house much, because she was so close to her due date.  “Thank you for coming.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Higgins and Mildred enveloped her in their arms welcoming her to the family, making it clear to her that there was not another young lady they wanted to marry Alex.  They were thrilled they were getting her for a daughter-in-law.  “Maybe sometime this week, the two of you can join us for supper.  We’d love to have you,” Mildred invited.

Amaryllis grinned.  “Since I have no idea how to cook, we will probably take you up on that offer.”

Mildred laughed.  “Alex knows how.  Have him teach you.”

Higgins smiled, patting her shoulder.  “You’re worth a lot more than your ability to cook.”

Amaryllis’s eyes were sparkling as they met Higgins’s.  “I know.”

When it was time for her and Alex to leave, Shawn helped Alex load Amaryllis’s trunk onto the back of his wagon.  Alex helped her up and drove her to his tiny apartment.  As they drove away, he took her hand into his.  “Thank you,” he said softly.

“What are you thanking me for?” she asked in surprise.

“Thanks for acting like a bride who actually wants to be married today and not embarrassing me in front of everyone.”

She sighed.  “My parents keep reminding me that I’m only going to be married once.  I have to make the most of our marriage or just plan to be unhappy for the rest of my life, which I refuse to do.”

“So, you’re happy you married me?” he asked in surprise.

She laughed.  “I don’t know that I’d go that far, but I’m going to do my best to make the most of it.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life unhappy just because I’m being stubborn.”

He nodded, slipping his arm around her shoulders.  “Does that mean you’re going to give me the wedding night I want?”

“That’s the one area we’ve never had a problem, Alex.  I don’t think you need to worry about the wedding night.”

He pulled up in front of his office and jumped down to unlock the door for her.  He got the trunk on his own and carried it into the office and through to the apartment.  Putting it on the floor at the foot of the bed, he sighed.  It was going to be a tight fit to even walk around the trunk, but they’d have to make it work if she wanted her things.  He had no drawer space left to put her clothes into.

She followed behind him, looking at the trunk.  “I’ll get ready for bed while you take care of the horses,” she told him.  She waited until he was gone and quickly changed into her nightgown, taking her hair down and braiding it for the night.

She looked around the tiny apartment realizing just then how many of the luxuries she was used to that she would have to live without.  Her family had indoor plumbing for years, and here she’d have to use an outhouse.  She would have to heat the water for her own baths.  She knew she could do it, because so many people in their community didn’t have those luxuries yet, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. 

She poked at the large cast iron stove he cooked on.  It was the only source of heat for the small home, but also the only way they could cook.  She rarely walked into the kitchen of her parents’ house, so she didn’t know if most people cooked this way or not.  She knew the stove at the shelter was more modern than this one.

By the time Alex returned, she was in her nightgown under the covers of the bed ready to sleep.  Alex blew out the light and quickly undressed, laying his clothes over the back of a chair before sliding into bed beside her.  In the dark he reached for her, and she moved into his arms with no problem resting her head on his shoulder.  She felt so right in his arms.  If marriage were only about intimacy, she was sure she could handle it.  She worried more about the day to day part of marriage.

Alex lay quietly for a moment, enjoying just holding her close.  He’d spent a lot of nights over the years lying in bed wishing that he could do just this.  It wasn’t just about the sexual part, although he enjoyed that, it was about having her beside him.  She completed him. 

As they’d gone through school together, he’d always known she was the girl for him.  Back as far as when he’d kept a boy from picking on her about her spectacles when she was in her first year of school, and she’d looked at him with her eyes shining with tears, but adoration in her eyes, he’d known she was the one for him.

The years they’d spent apart had been difficult, and even more so when she’d stopped writing to him, but he’d never dreamed that when he returned to Seattle she wouldn’t be waiting for him.  Finding out she thought he’d had a relationship with another woman had hurt him.  He’d never imagined she wouldn’t have absolute trust in him. 

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said honestly.  He promised himself that no matter how she felt, he would never hide his emotions from her.  He would make her feel as loved as he possibly could.  There was no other way he could be.

She dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder.  “I am too.”  She knew it was a mistake to bare her feelings, but just this once, she had to. 

He turned onto his side and cupped her face in his hands, kissing her sweetly at first, and then passionately.  Her arms went around him and she kissed him back, enjoying the feel of him against her.

Within minutes, he divested her of her nightgown and proceeded to make sweet love to her, loving the feeling that this time, it was right.  He was no longer doing something wrong with her, or demeaning her in any way.  They were married now, and this was something that they were supposed to do.

*****

Amaryllis woke up to the smell of bacon frying.  She took a deep sniff of the air and smiled.  She sat up in the bed, tucking the covers under her arms so she wouldn’t be totally bare and watched her new husband cook her breakfast.  “That smells wonderful,” she said shyly.

He turned from the stove where he was wearing just a pair of pants to cook.  “Good morning.”

She smiled, truly happy this morning, despite her misgivings.  “Good morning.”

“How do you like your eggs?” he asked.  He shook his head.  “It’s funny.  We’ve known each other for thirteen years, and I feel like I know everything about you, and then I realize I don’t know something as simple as how to cook your eggs.”

“I prefer them scrambled.”  She watched as he adeptly took the bacon from the hot pan and put it on a plate.
 

“I do too.”  He reached for the coffee pot from the back of the stove.  “Coffee?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”  She watched as he poured the coffee into a cup for her, and he brought it to her in bed.  “Thank you.”

He sat beside her for a moment, kissing her deeply.  “I thought you might like breakfast in bed for our first morning together.”

“You shouldn’t spoil me, Alex.”  She loved that he wanted to, though.  How could she stay angry with a man who got up before she did to make her breakfast in bed?

Within a few minutes, they were in the bed together eating their breakfast of eggs and bacon and drinking coffee.  “This is really good,” she said with surprise in her voice.

He laughed.  “I told you I knew how to cook.”

She shrugged.  “I guess I didn’t really believe you.  A lawyer who can cook for himself?  Isn’t that just a bit odd?”

“Maybe a little.  It makes sense though, because my librarian wife can’t cook.”

She smiled.  “Are you going to have a problem if I keep working?” she asked.

“Of course not.  I wouldn’t ask you to stay in this tiny apartment all day.  The whole thing takes fifteen minutes to clean.  If you want to stop working, you can.”

“
I want to work, but I appreciate being given a choice.  Thank you.  I’ll start reading some cookbooks while I’m at work and see if I can figure out how to prepare a simple meal.  I don’t want you to have the full burden of cooking.  I think it’s something we should share.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “For now, I could do the cooking and you could clean up?”

She nodded with a smile.  “I can do that.  Then when I learn to cook, you can clean up.”

“That’s fair.”  He knew she was surprised at his ready agreement, but since he was used to doing it all, it wouldn’t bother him a bit to clean up the kitchen when she cooked.  “I’ll teach you as well, if you’d like.  Or my mother would be happy to teach you to cook if you asked her.”

He was sitting cross legged on the bed, with his plate in his lap facing her.   She was still covered up, showing him no skin.  She liked how he looked with no shirt on.  “I might go ask her.  I’m sure she’s a good teacher.  She taught me to make coffee during my time volunteering for the shelter.”

“She was sad when you decided to do your volunteer work for the orphanage instead.  She has always felt a special affinity toward you.”

Amaryllis smiled ruefully.  “I missed her too.  I just didn’t feel like I could be around her after we weren’t together anymore.  It didn’t seem right.”

They made it through their first full day as a married couple with their easy truce between them.  At church they happily sat together and received the startled congratulations of the congregation.  Her parents came over and talked to them for a moment as if they were reassuring themselves the
newlyweds were happy and letting everyone else know the young couple had their blessing.

They accepted an invitation to eat lunch with his parents at the shelter, and she happily helped her mother-in-law with the lunch preparations.  “I wish I could cook at least one meal,” Amaryllis lamented as she made the coffee.

“You’ll get to where you can.  I know…after lunch, I’ll teach you to make pancakes.  They were one of the first meals I ever learned to make, and you can surprise Alex with them sometime soon.”

Amaryllis looked at Mildred.  “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not!  Teaching you means I’m feeding my little boy after all.”

Amaryllis laughed.  “He’s not so little anymore!”

“It’s hard to believe he’s a grown man with a wife of his own.  I’m really proud of the man he’s become.”

“You always knew he would be!”

Mildred shook her head.  “I actually was afraid he’d take after his father for a while.  He seemed to have a lot of anger inside him.”

“I don’t know a lot about your first marriage.  Alex doesn’t mention his father.”

“No, he wouldn’t.  I think he still feels some guilt over his death.”

Amaryllis frowned.  “Why would he feel guilt over his father’s death?  There was an accident, right?”

Mildred smiled over Amaryllis’s shoulder.  “Lunch is just about ready.”

Amaryllis turned to see Alex there and noticed that Mildred didn’t say another word about his father.  All through the meal as they ate with the woman who was staying there and her two sons, Amaryllis wondered what Mildred had been about to say to her.

After lunch, when the men had gone to the backyard to see to some repairs to the picket fence, Amaryllis brought up the subject again as she and Mildred washed the dishes together.  “What were you telling me about Alex and his guilt over his father’s death?” she asked.

Mildred sighed.  “I really think he should tell you, but if he hasn’t by now, he may never.”  She didn’t look at Amaryllis as she spoke.  “Alex’s father was extremely abusive.  Alex was afraid to become involved, but by the time he was fifteen, he was a big boy, bigger than his father.”

“I remember.  He was the biggest boy in school.”

“One night his father came home and was very violent with me, much worse than usual.  Alex stepped between us, and his father went crazy.  The next thing I knew, his father was lying on the floor with blood running from a cut on his head and Alex was standing over him with his fists clenched.”

Amaryllis gasped, her hand going to her mouth.  “He killed his father?”

Mildred nodded
her eyes full of tears.  “He did it to protect me.  I honestly think his father would have killed me that night if Alex hadn’t interfered.”  She handed Amaryllis a pot to dry.  “Your aunt Harriett had met me just days before, and she’d asked Higgins to watch over me.  He happened to be looking in our window when it happened.  He came to the door and introduced himself, and then he went to the police for us, explaining what had happened.  Without his help, I think Alex would have been executed for murder.”

Amaryllis stood in stunned silence continuing to dry the dishes that were handed to her.  How could she not have known something that was so important about Alex?  How could he not have told her that?  What else hadn’t he told her?

She didn’t say anything for a long while, and finally, as they dried the last dish, she said, “Thank you for telling me.”