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She cried herself to sleep that night. She wished for arms around her, wished for the missing weight on the other side of the bed to come back. The silk of Martha's pillow was heavily stained with tears by the time she finally calmed herself down, her nightdress rumpled.
The phantom arms around her slender shoulders and the hands in her long, un-tied hair didn't help. Martha wished for that comfort back every night since he left.
But as she fell asleep to false promises of protection from fate, her arms around nothing, guilt melting her bleeding heart. She did this to him. She let go. She let him go. She let him run to save them both.
She didn't wake until the sun was high in the sky, not until she felt a cold cloth on her forehead and the smell of breakfast. Martha blinked the sleep from her eyes to find Dorothy sitting on her bed. "No one had said they'd seen you today when I asked. I came to check on you and I found you here, still asleep. She raised her hand to Martha's forehead where the cold cloth laid. "Your skin felt hot."
Martha, for the first time since losing her husband, smiled. "Thank you for caring about me…but really, I'm fine. I promise. You didn't have to cook for me, I could've fared on my own," But despite her words, Martha let her hands move to the slice of day-old bread spread with jam.
"It's apple. I made it myself," The smile that spread across Dorothy's face at Martha's enjoyment of the jam proved to be infectious.
"It's quite lovely. Thank you, dear," Martha sunk her teeth into the bread, which Dorothy had baked for her the day before when she had visited.
"You mustn't talk with your mouth full, Martha," Dorothy playfully chastised. She quietly watched Martha as she ate, making sure that the two slices of bread with jam and honey were enough for her. Martha didn't finish her food, but she gratefully sipped on the ornate teacup that Dorothy had filled with Martha's favorite tea to accompany the meal. The women smiled at one another, silent words of affirmation falling between them. They each knew what the other was going through and would support each other in a heartbeat.
Martha set the teacup back onto its matching saucer, letting out a nervous laugh. "I really am thankful that you have prepared this meal for me, Dorothy. I promise. But I—" She sighed. All of the worrying she'd done about her dear Thomas had ripped her appetite from her stomach, instead filling it with an unsettling feeling to accompany the few bites of toast and sips of tea. "—I just don't feel hungry anymore."
Dorothy's sincere smile never faltered. Martha wondered how she didn't feel at least a tiny bit offended at her refusal to eat the food she had prepared specifically for her, but she knew deep inside of her that Dorothy's selfless nature would never let her get caught on an issue so miniscule.
"That's perfectly fine, dear. I understand. You don't have to eat all of it," Dorothy readjusted the cold cloth to rest over Martha's shoulders as well as her forehead. Martha didn't know why, but the small brushes of Dorothy's knuckles and silver wedding ring against her cheek made her feel a little warm in the face. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was being cared for, the fact that Dorothy did to her as she might do to her own husband or vice versa.
Still, Martha persisted. "I don't want your food to go to waste." Dorothy smiled warmly, finally sitting back down next to Martha.
"It's a simple bread and jam, dear, you mustn't worry about that with all else that's on your mind. I could make thirty of what I made for you with all of the bread I have baked," Dorothy fixed a loose strand of Martha's hair that lay over her face. Once again, she blushed a little, unsure if it was from the sickness that came with her troubles or Dorothy's fingertips caressing her face, "but if you insist, I suppose I am hungry enough to finish it. It's only half a slice, it isn't much."
Dorothy raised the bread and jam to her mouth, taking small bites. She hadn't eaten that day, but if she was going to, it would only be something small. The half of the slice that Martha left was perfect, seeing as she planned to cook larger meals for both herself and the other woman for the rest of the day.
And until their husbands returned.
Would they?
Dorothy shook the thought from her head as she watched Martha's pale face flush with color simply at her being. She hoped Martha felt better with her arrival, stacking the newly-empty teacup, saucer, and plate on top of one another to bring to the kitchen. As she rose, Martha stopped her.
"Stay here? I don't know what it is, but I need you to be with me at the moment. I feel lonely without my Thomas. But when I am with you, I no longer feel lonely." Dorothy felt herself swell with pride and gratitude at Martha's words. Martha's smile told Dorothy that her words were completely sincere and genuine.
Martha continued, "When I am accompanied by anyone else, even with the other women and, on occasion, the other men in this town, I still feel…empty when he is not there. But when it is you, I feel fuller. As if I am a flower dying with the winter and you are the spring."
Dorothy felt her own pale face bloom with a tinge of pink.
"Then I shall stay."
Never once did Dorothy refuse an offer to stay after that. Even when Thomas stopped writing, even when a letter never came, even when Martha fell too ill into her own worry that she could not leave the bed that she and Thomas once spent nights holding one another until they drifted to sleep. Martha spent days at Dorothy's side, and she only bid her adieu as their eyelids fell tired and would shut with ease, not opening until the morning, when the women greeted one another with open arms again.
They'd fallen into this routine quite easily. After the first few days where Dorothy was unsure whether Martha would be alright or if she herself would even be alright, they decided to spend their time together mornings through evenings and not part until the sun had long since set.
One night, however, it all changed.
After Dorothy had cleaned the dishes from that night's dinner (a lovely roast chicken and potatoes that she had taken the day to prepare), she straightened the chairs and picked up the trinkets that laid on the table as she always did, preparing to leave.
She crept up the staircase to find Martha sitting up in her bed, staring at the beautiful portrait of Thomas that had been mounted on the wall. The woman said nothing, not until Dorothy, by routine, helped her into the large bed and placed a glass of water by her bed.
"Good night, my dear. I hope for you to sleep well. I hope, as always, that this worry shall not overcome you and that you shall feel well very soon." As she finished her statement, Dorothy turned to leave, but Martha stopped her.
"Don't go, Dorothy. Not tonight."
What?
"I miss him too much. I miss his arms around me as we slept. Thomas was never distant, he couldn't be. He helped me sleep. I…haven't been able to sleep well without that." Dorothy listened intently as Martha spoke. Surely, she couldn't be suggesting the thought that appeared in Dorothy's mind, but she was willing to oblige even if it was.
"Could you, perhaps…do as Thomas did? Stay with me? Only for tonight, though. I just miss him so much…I have gotten so used to his presence I forgot what it felt like to be alone. I don't want to be alone, Dorothy. Not when I have you."
Dorothy smiled. Quite an unusual request, she thought, but she understood Martha. Thomas and her had been inseparable since their joining all those years ago, and never once had they spent long durations of time apart. Not with the uncertainty of Thomas' return, at least.
And what good of a companion would Dorothy be if she didn't drop her ideals to help her friend in need?
Carefully, so as not to damage them or her stockings, Dorothy slipped off her shoes. She hadn't brought a nightdress with her—she'd never needed to—so she pulled one from the wardrobe that Martha's dresses hung in and took it into the dressing room.
Outside of the dressing room, in her bed, the blankets around her and her head rested softly against the pillow, Martha wondered if Dorothy would accept her strange request. It was quite an offer, one that Martha would not have ever thought of if she wasn't desperate, if she wasn't anxious, if she wasn't willing to go to the most unusual extremes for some sense of normalcy in the worrisome times that she was forced to face.
But seeing Dorothy step out of her dressing room, her hair cascading over her shoulders, dressed in a nightgown that Martha wore quite often, made the guilt and nervousness melt from her heart and pool somewhere far, far away.
Somewhere far away that Dorothy erased when she slid into bed behind Martha, wrapping her arms around her shoulders in a way that Thomas would. Martha felt that her loneliness subsided the very moment Dorothy opened the door and walked into her bedroom, and her back being pressed to the other woman's chest in a mock of what Thomas would do made her forget she'd ever felt lonely at all.
"Goodnight, Martha."
"Goodnight, Dorothy."
Martha must've dreamt the "I love you" that followed.
She must've dreamt it, and she must've meant to, as the message that she would typically hear from the mouth of her husband seemed to fall from the lips of her closest friend, instead.
"Only for tonight" never happened. The nights they spent in one another's arms grew and grew and grew until Martha's only thoughts were of getting to hold Dorothy in her arms each night. The times she thought of her husband diminished until it had lessened from constantly to only a couple of times throughout the day. She no longer pleaded for his safe return, no longer cried in uncertainty of his life.
Martha worried for Dorothy instead. Dorothy had provided the tools she'd needed to dig herself out of the hole she'd fallen into and it was Martha's turn to take care of her. Recently, she'd begun to take on the role of cooking and cleaning as Dorothy read the very few letters from her husband over tea and biscuits. Dorothy had practically moved into Martha's house, her dresses having a space in the closet, her shoes lined up next to the door. If shopping needed to be done, the women would leave the house together. If a friend invited one of them for tea, she who hadn't been invited would attend as the other's company.
It felt normal to have Dorothy in her house, Martha found, as she cooked a filling dinner to celebrate the month that they had stayed together. She felt as though Dorothy had become her first choice, her favorite person.
Her new Thomas, her new guardian that had stepped in due to his absence.
"You're sure you don't need help preparing our meal, dear?" Dorothy spoke from the doorway, interrupting Martha from her thoughts. She had just begun to light the fire in the oven to cook the beef alongside the vegetables that Dorothy had grown in the garden.
"I'm alright, you rest. It will be finished by the next hour," Martha smiled at Dorothy as she began to season the vegetables with herbs she'd bought months back that seemed to still be good.
"Surely there is something that you'll let me help with," Dorothy insisted, moving to stand at Martha's side. "I could prepare dessert." Martha thought for a moment. She didn't want to burden Dorothy with the cooking, but she seemed persistent and willing to help.
And dessert sounded delightful. Dorothy was a much better cook than her, even though she'd let Martha take up the cooking to let her rest. The idea of a pie sounded lovely, and they would be able to enjoy it for breakfast for days to come.
"That would be nice," Martha finally answered, "There is an unfinished bread dough that I made this morning, you could use it as a crust. The glass dish that the old woman gifted me two summers ago would be perfect for a pie." Dorothy nodded at her instructions and worked quickly, not having to look in a cookbook for a recipe, having made dozens of pies for John.
Martha smiled softly to herself as she continued to cook, taking the silence to think of the normalcy that has become her and Dorothy. She worries about Thomas in the back of her mind, she always will, but she's come to realize, through information given by John and that woman Anne that had passed through the city simply days before, that Thomas didn't worry for her as she did for him. He wanted justice, she wanted to be loved.
Dorothy wanted to be loved, too.
Maybe they'd talk about it. Maybe they could start over. Women without husbands to be tethered to, living and not simply existing. Bachelorettes with no concern other than the day's plans to water the garden and care for Robert and Catherine's livestock that they had been tasked with caring for.
Or they could stay in this unspoken routine of caring for one another and nothing but each other, shutting out the horrors of England and the world at that moment, not involving in ideals that may hurt the other. They would never do what Thomas and John had done to them to one another. Martha silently vowed to never abandon anyone again, knowing the hurt that Thomas' abandonment had plagued her with.
But she could not dwell. Through the weeks that Dorothy had stayed at her side, she realized that it was time for her to move to what made her truly happy instead of what forced her to dawdle on the negative. And the only fool-proof thing that seemed to fuel Martha with joy as of late was Dorothy.
As the sixth hour after noon passed and the beef with vegetables could be pulled from the oven, Dorothy sat and poured both women glasses of wine from the cellar that Martha hadn't used in months. They could spoil themselves and one another with luxuries, having no-one else to lean on.
And as they ate and talked and the seventh hour passed, Martha discovered that she wasn't alone in her feelings. Dorothy had felt as though she'd been abandoned by John and gratefully turned to Martha instead.
The eighth hour passed and the women cleaned. The ninth hour passed and finally, after the long day, they settled into bed.
Falling asleep was the same as always, with Dorothy's arms around Martha's shoulders and her back pressed softly to Dorothy's chest. Dorothy had almost fallen into slumber once more when Martha spoke up, her voice quiet with her tiredness.
"Dorothy?"
"Yes, dear?"
Martha's face flushed with a little color. "I think I have accepted that we're alone now. Our husbands are putting themselves in danger and I don't want to live like that. But I want to learn to love again. I want to learn to love someone that will love me above some stupid Catholic revolution. Above some violence."
Dorothy never spoke, only listened to Martha's words. She listened until Martha paused to let her answer one very short, yet complex question.
"Will you help me learn to love someone again, Dorothy?"
Yes. Forever and always, dear.