Chapter Text
For the second time in her life, Esme Anne Platt sat in a train bound for a town she had never been too, and she cried. She didn’t bother hiding her tears now, it was pointless. They had started when Carol had begun to scrape up every penny she could find in the tiny house to fund Esme’s ticket, and had yet to stop.
She missed them. It had only been a few months, but her cousins had become family in that short time. She loved them, and had loved them even more when they agreed to buy her a ticket to an unknown town, secret even to them.
Esme didn’t want to hurt anyone else. So she had kept silent, and Ruth had not pressed when she asked where to send her letters. Esme had simply smiled, and hugged Ruth.
Now she was on a train to Ashland, Wisconsin. She’d never heard of the town, but when she bought the ticket it was the first destination to catch her eye. So she went with the gut feeling, because gut feelings weren’t traceable.
The name on her ticket read Emma Gunther, and she knew that if Charles tried to find her through the station, he would not recognize the name.
Esme stared out the window, at the rolling hills and farms that dotted the countryside. She could learn to be Emma Gunther, perhaps. Maybe Emma had lost her husband to the war, or maybe he had died in a terrible accident.
Esme thought, maybe he had died from his wounds, had succumbed to shell shock, had fallen off the face of the earth.
Either way, she would make a place or herself here. Not only for herself, she thought, but for her baby. The baby she’d spent months talking to, in the quiet hours of the night when sleep escaped her.
She thought, this baby will be mine. Not Charles’, for Charles will not touch this baby. She was her mother’s daughter, despite growing up in the same house as her father.
She clutched her hand over her belly, which was showing now, and promised the little creature inside of her that she would make them a home, where they could be safe. Both of them.
*
The man who interviewed her for the position didn’t look up from his newspaper once. Esme was dressed nicely, and washed. She was polite, and her answers were clear and concise. She had prepared for the interview, and for any subsequent questions that might follow. He asked her three.
“Are you a learned woman, Miss Gunther?”
“Can you read and write, and do arithmetic?”
“Will you be available to start tomorrow?”
Fifteen minutes, and Esme had a job, a roof over her head, and a small salary. She was escorted to the old schoolhouse, which wasn’t very big. Then she was lead to the even smaller apartments above it, which weren’t very warm. And finally, given a week’s pay in advance so she could buy proper supplies for herself and the school.
She was delighted.
Esme knew this would be hard, because ten dollars wouldn’t buy much in the way of school supplies, let alone that and groceries. She didn’t know how many students she’d have, or how old they were, how much they already knew. She barely knew the lay of the town, and would most likely get lost on her way to find the supply store, or a post office.
None of that mattered, because in front of her, Esme saw a home. It was a bit run down, and needed attention here and there, but it was hers. She had all the time in the world to build it up, to make it warm, to make it hers.
She would raise her child here, and he would climb trees surrounding the schoolhouse, and help his mother forage for spring onions, and learn in the schoolhouse. She would teach him of her family, and one day when he asked why he didn’t have a father, she would tell him.
She would not lie to her son, not if she could help it. But she would shelter him from such horrors, as long as she could. She wanted the baby inside of her to be happy, like Florence, Thomas, and sweetest Maggie.
She wanted her baby to know nothing but love.
*
By the time summer rolled around, Esme was well settled. Sure, the floorboards in her bedroom creaked something awful, and the school room was always too hot or too cold, but she was a part of the town here. On a whim, she had sent Ruth a letter, simply saying she was happy, and if she could pass that along to Esme’s mother.
But she was settled, and happy. Teaching children made her day brighter, and they all loved her dearly. The older ones offered to help her with chores, now that her belly was so big. The little ones all called her name, and told her about what they had eaten for breakfast, or what new game they were playing.
Life wasn’t easy, but it was good.
Georgie, a young man with a crooked nose and deep dimples, visited her every day now that school was out. He was a sweet boy, and he helped her by chopping firewood or fetching groceries. She could hardly move, now that her belly was so big. He was a sweet boy, and all he asked in return was for help with his letters.
“Pa can’t read, and I wanna make sure I can take care of him n all the little ones. My letters aren’t so good, and I wanna fix that.” Georgie told her one evening, after he had spent all afternoon filling the cracks in the walls of the building with mud, so it would keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Esme had worked with him every day, after that. She understood him, and his need to protect those he could.
It was a Saturday, and Esme couldn’t bear the thought of being inside any longer. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and her ankles weren’t as swollen as they usually were. She decided to take a walk.
As she moved through the sparse trees, and basked in the filtered sunlight, she smiled. The due date was coming closer and closer, and by now she had a name picked out. Thomas James, for a boy, and Mary Belle, for a girl. She thought it might be a boy, however. Just a mother’s intuition.
As she moved closer to town, she admitted that a long walk probably wasn’t in her best interest. Maybe she could sit and talk with Misses Andrews, at the supply store, and wait for the cramps to leave her.
She’d had them before, and had nearly woken the whole neighborhood as she ran for a doctor. Misses Andrews, had stopped her, told her to sit a while, and then explained that sometimes babies like to act up, just to keep their mothers on their toes.
The more she walked, however, the more it hurt. She pressed a hand to the top of her belly, and winced.
“My love, settle down please. Your mother is very tired. We’ll rest soon, I promise.” Esme rubbed her stomach in circles, hoping to please her baby, but the pain only got worse. She could just see the first building on the main road, and as she stumbled towards it, she felt a rush of wetness between her legs.
Esme paled, and then she began to run.
*
After, after the pain and the screaming, the hours of waiting and crying, after, she held him. He was so tiny, so unbelievably perfect. He had a tuft of dark, thick hair on the top of his little head, and the tiniest fingernails she’d ever seen. Esme couldn’t stop staring at him. He was so perfect, so wonderful, and he was hers.
He didn’t cry, which worried the doctor, but Esme knew he was just a quiet soul. Like Maggie, she thought.
The more time she spent, just staring and stroking his soft little legs, holding his tiny perfect fingers, the more she fell in love. He was the most beautiful baby, she was sure of it. Every noise he made was precious. She spent the first night telling him of their home, and of Esme’s mother.
She wondered at each little movement, at his dark, warm eyes blinking open.
He was so warm, so beautiful. He’d be strong, she thought, like Michael. Kind like Thomas. Smart like Beth. Headstrong like Florence. Sweet like Margaret.
He was her family, now. He was all she had in this little town, and even as she wept for the loss of her mother and her siblings, for her cousins, she knew that life with little Thomas James would more than make up for it.
*
It happened in the night.
She hadn’t been awake, she’d rested next to him in the small bed. Before she fell asleep, she’d told him stories her mother used to tell her, and all about what wonderful lives they were going to live.
The doctor, an older man without much experience in childbirth, had told her he sent for an old friend to check up on her boy, just to be safe.
She hadn’t been worried.
She should have been.
It’s dark, impossibly dark when she opens her eyes. She knows before she’s even fully awake that something is wrong. She takes a breath, tries to push the feeling away, when she hears it.
Or, doesn’t hear it.
Two days, two whole days and she had been attuned to he breaths of her child. Esme’s whole world had resided in the uneven hitches of his chest, of his breath.
It’s silent.
She doesn’t move, for a moment, thinking that it’s just a nightmare. That she’ll wake up, and the doctor will declare her son a healthy baby, and then they could go home.
She waits
and waits
and waits.
He’s cold.
Not truly cold, like ice. But he isn’t warm. He’s cool, like the bedsheets. Still. Unmoving.
Esme feels for his little hand, his little arm, his little chest, and
Stops.
She waits, and waits, praying for a heartbeat. Begging.
Please, she thinks. I’ll do anything. I’ll go back to Charles. I’ll suffer every pain imaginable. I’ll do anything.
Anything. Please.
She doesn’t move until morning.
*
Esme Anne Platt sits, in a desk in her schoolroom, unable to climb the stairs. Up the stairs, there is a little crib with little clothes and little blankets. Up the stairs is the home she built for herself and her son.
He’s buried, now. Under an old oak, that had been the biggest tree in the forest for miles.
His perfect little hands, cold. He will rot, under that oak. He will never know the warmth of the sun or the joy of a first snow, he will never laugh or dance or sing or cry, because her baby is dead.
He’s dead.
Esme doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting in the same spot for, but there is a distant ache in her belly. If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend he’s still safe, tucked away inside her where no one can ever hurt him.
“Miss… Miss Gunther?” It takes her a moment to shake herself from her stupor, and when she turns, it’s little Georgie.
He looks uncomfortable. Sad. He’s also holding a letter.
“It’s, it’s got your name on it. We figured. Well. You’re the only Esme round here.” He walks through the room like he’s walking on glass. When he sets down the letter, her father’s words stare back at her.
“Thank you.” Her voice is so unused it sounds more like a croak than any real words. Georgie takes this as an opportunity to go and darts away. The screen door bangs behind him.
She wonders if he’s afraid that death will catch, follow him home and take someone he loves, too.
Her hands shake, not from fear, but from exhaustion as she opens the letter.
She hasn’t slept since she woke up to her dead son.
Esme, it reads, it’s time to come home. Your husband misses you dearly, and your family needs you in this time of grief.
Esme wonders how they know of her grief, all the way in Columbus.
Your mother, she reads, then stops. She starts again, quietly wondering if this is all some horrible joke.
Esme,
It’s time to come home. Your husband misses you dearly, and your family needs you in this time of grief. Your mother, may God bless her soul, passed in the night. It was quick, and painless, the doctors assured me. We need you home.
Father
Esme stares, and stares and stares until the words bleed together and she doesn’t have to see it. She stands, suddenly. She doesn't know where, or why, but her feet carry her out of the screen door and away.
Away from the little schoolhouse, with its little cradle, and its little blankets.
She walks, until she can breathe, until she cant feel her legs, until she comes to an end.
A cliff, rocky and steep, with a valley below. It must have held a river, once. Now, it’s just rocks and mud and dirt.
Empty, barren.
She grips the letter tighter in her fist. She inhales as the breeze brushes over her face, like a caress. It smells like rain, she thinks.
She falls.