Jo & Laurie Read online

  How sad it was, though, to not be altogether comfortable around her own Teddy anymore.

  But she smiled, because Teddy was still Teddy—no matter how much a mess she’d made of everything. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “I know. I was watching you work. Most effectively, I might add. The way you handle a blade, Roderigo himself would be proud.” He grinned, a sly twinkle alighting in his eye.

  She wagged the aforementioned weapon in the air between them. “Well, I have been practicing. One must have prospects, and I fear cake-cutting shall be all that remains, if my next book is truly only moderately satisfying.” She sighed—then smiled again. “But thank you for your help. With the ending, I mean. Truly.”

  “What I read was very nearly finished, and will no doubt be a smashing success. And if not? Ho, ho! Jo March, the great swashbuckler of cakes!” He laughed.

  She heard the guests cheering huzzah to Brooke and Meg from the parlor, and realized they now had the room to themselves. As we had a thousand times before, Jo thought. But a thousand years ago.

  It was a shame, and she knew it, so she steadied herself and determined to do better.

  For he is my oldest friend, and it is not his fault that I have been a brainless goat.

  “Of course,” she said, as she licked one finger surreptitiously, “I will graciously make my considerable skills available to you at great discount, as our next Concord bridegroom,” she teased. “I do hope I’ll be invited, even if the wedding is in England.”

  “You won’t be,” Laurie said, quickly.

  It felt like a slap.

  Then he looked at her sadly, almost shamefacedly. It was a look she knew well. She’d seen it when he’d dropped the pie they’d spent an entire morning baking with Hannah. When he’d toppled her ink-pot and wrecked a week’s worth of articles for the Pickwick Club. Whenever he couldn’t say what she wanted to hear, or couldn’t not say what she wanted to avoid—

  “There will be no wedding, Jo.”

  “I see— I’m sorry, what?” She almost dropped the knife.

  “You are?” Laurie looked disappointed. “Sorry, I mean?”

  “What do you mean, there will be no wedding?” She was in a kind of shock, perhaps, because suddenly nothing was making sense.

  “No wedding.” He sounded miserable.

  “Oh, Teddy.” She impaled the knife into the cake and let go, straightening up. “Come here.” She took him by the hand and pulled him out into the garden, where white wedding ribbons still adorned the veranda, blowing prettily amidst the creeping garden vines. The cat, who had been sniffing at the cake crumbs, followed them outside.

  “Talk to me, Teddy.” Jo took a seat on the top step, despite her own wedding finery. Laurie sank down on the step beneath her, right at her feet. “Tell me everything.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. Nothing much.” Laurie looked pale and sad, though she thought perhaps that could have been from a lack of sleep. He reached down to pet the cat absently.

  “And Harriet?” As she said the name, Jo realized that in all the fuss and chaos of getting Meg dressed and ready, Harriet had been nowhere to be seen.

  He shook his head. “Gone.”

  Jo looked confused. “But isn’t she here? I could have sworn I saw her this morning.”

  “She left before dawn.”

  “She did? To go where?” The words almost seemed like nonsense, still. She struggled to catch up.

  “Boston. Then perhaps back to New York. I may have misunderstood, but she seemed to suggest that Fred Vaughn might want to marry her.” He jammed his hands into his pockets with a very Laurie-like shrug. “It all happened a bit quickly, to be honest.”

  “What? Whatever happened?” Jo hadn’t seen or heard anything at all, so engrossed had she been in her writing. In truth, she’d been laboring all through the night, burning down lumps of candle-wax, one after the next, only registering the hours when she looked up to see that dawn had already broken.

  Then she’d had Laurie read her pages, only to dive right back in.

  It was like a kind of time travel, when the great rivers of words finally came, and whole days could pass with Jo hardly noticing anything at all.

  “She’s broken off our engagement.”

  Jo’s mind was swirling. Had something gone awry at the dinner the night before? Harriet and Laurie had slipped away at the end of the night, which must have been when it happened, but it still made no sense. Why would Lady Hat break her engagement? They had seemed so happy. Happy, and perfect for each other. Content in who they were and the sort of life they were meant to have. Life in brilliant color and uppertens company.

  “But—I don’t understand!”

  Laurie turned to her, a serious look on his face. “I’ve learned my lesson. Maybe I only learn things in the very hardest of ways, but I do learn.”

  “Learned what?” Jo reached for his hand and took it in her own. Her old friend looked so distraught.

  He shook his head somberly. “There will be no more talk of weddings, Jo. I’ll never marry. I can’t make any woman happy.”

  “Don’t be silly, Teddy. You could make any woman happy. You’re kind and intelligent and artistic. Stubborn and argumentative, but never dull, either. What girl wouldn’t accept you?”

  Through the doorway behind them, she watched the wedding party continue on. Father was holding a glass to toast the new couple. There were cheers and huzzahs for John and Meg. Warm words and wise, for there was nothing better done than a good match well made.

  “What girl wouldn’t have me? You, Jo. You refused me, remember?”

  She did. As she stood there watching Meg and John raise their glasses to each other, she felt her eyes prick with tears.

  “And I might be a fool, but I know girls don’t like to marry gentlemen who are in love with another girl. As I will be for the rest of my life, and so I am ruined for anyone else.”

  “Teddy,” she said softly, as her heart beat against her chest. “What are you saying?”

  “If you won’t have me, then I won’t bother. I will never marry. There’s no point to it.” He shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter.” He forced a smile.

  Jo turned away. An instinct. There it was, the familiar panic. She couldn’t look at him.

  “Don’t run, Jo.” He sounded resigned. “You don’t always have to flee. I don’t know what I did—what anyone did—to make you so afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of what?” Still, she didn’t look at him. She was like some kind of trapped creature, caught halfway off the step. She couldn’t admit it was too hard to stay.

  “Of love, Jo. Of feeling it. Of giving it. Of getting it.”

  Of losing it.

  She closed her eyes and saw her Beth’s eyes close, just like always. Saw her skin turning pale. Saw her fingers letting go of the sheet’s edge. Saw her floating away as the wordless scream rose in Jo’s throat.

  The shadow. The silence. The soul-crushing, bone-crushing despair.

  Promise me, Jo, Beth had whispered. For she knew how lost her sister would feel, how dark Jo could get without her.

  Stay here. Stay in the world of the living. Keep the silence away. Promise me, Jo. You must live. You have so much to live for.

  Keep writing your way back to the light.

  Jo opened her eyes and sat back down on the step, hard. Her breath was labored—truly, she was almost gasping, like she’d suddenly arrived at the end of some great, endless race she didn’t understand and had no idea she’d been running in the first place.

  Was that it? The great risk of belonging to someone else? Someone who could hurt you. Someone who could leave you. Someone you could lose. Someone you could love, and make all those other things a thousand times worse.

  Was that why receiving a heart felt like having to give her own aw
ay?

  Every cell in her body was screaming at her to flee, but every beat of her heart was telling her to stay. And now she knew. She did belong to him, because he belonged to her, and they belonged to each other. There was no wedding vow that needed to be spoken for her to understand that. Even unmarried, even under separate roofs, they belonged together. No suitable wife would ever care for him more.

  He looked more miserable than she’d ever seen him. It wasn’t Harriet who had done this to him—it was her. It was all so clear now. Even if nothing could be unsaid, nothing could be undone.

  Jo felt the last of her resistance crumbling. “I—I know I hurt you, Teddy. I know I did. And I’m so sorry.”

  He waved off her apology. “Of course it would come to this. It’s like the end of one of your stories. Who’s the real Roderigo now?” He laughed—then sighed. “There could be no other fate for me. That I should love my whole life someone who does not love me in return—I suppose it’s fitting. Poetic justice? Is that what you writers call it?”

  Jo didn’t answer him, because she was far too occupied with not answering him. A lie. That’s what the writers call it. Because it’s too late for the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “Don’t be.” He stood up. “I mean, it’s all right, Jo. You don’t owe me your hand in marriage. You weren’t put on this earth so I could feel love. I won’t ask again.”

  He would not. She could see it in his face. The hurt that shadowed his eyes now when he looked at her. The resignation that set with his jaw. This wasn’t her Teddy; this was her Teddy hardening into someone else, someone he was never meant to be. And what a terrible shame that would be, really almost a crime.

  A world without a proper Teddy.

  And in that moment—sitting on the splintering veranda steps of Orchard House, surrounded by Vegetable Valley, looking up at the first and last great love of her life—Josephine March knew precisely what to do. And even more, she knew she was going to do it.

  Risk it. Embrace it. Maybe even, one day, lose it.

  Love.

  It would be her honor and her pleasure to go down with this particular ship. They could be dashed together upon the rocks, sink together to the ocean floor. Only blurry, ink-splotched pages to mark their watery grave.

  Because it was always our story.

  It just never had the right ending.

  Jo finally knew, and a great calm settled itself upon her, the first peace she’d felt in a very, very long time.

  “It’s all right, Teddy.” She reached for him, and he took her hand, helping her to her feet. “You don’t have to ask again. Because I will.”

  “You will?” He furrowed his brow at her. “You will what?”

  “Ask. I’m asking. This is me, asking.”

  They stared at each other. One of them glowing. One glowering.

  He dropped her hand. “Don’t jest. It isn’t funny this time. It’s cruel.”

  “My dearest boy,” Jo inhaled sharply. “My only boy.”

  She felt lighter—free—and emboldened, glimpsing a happiness that was just within reach, after all. “I do not jest. I am, most entirely, in earnest. I—I have had a change of heart, Teddy.” She stumbled over the words, searching. “Of my heart.”

  His face softened with hope, though she could yet see him holding back. She had wounded him so badly, so many times now. “And what does your heart tell you now, Jo?”

  “That I—I want to marry you. After all. After everything.” The words came tumbling out. “That is, if you’ll still have me. Rotten as I’ve been. Rotten as I will most assuredly be again. But please, please don’t let that stop you. Please, Teddy. Do say you will.”

  “Jo? Is this some sort of game?” He went very pale, grabbing for the fence-post at his side. “You can’t be serious.”

  She took a tentative step toward him. “I am. Entirely serious. Harriet might be foolish enough to let you go, but I am not. Not twice, anyway.”

  “To be clear. Just so there is no confusion.” His dark eyes sparkled. “You mean it? You want to marry me? You will marry me?”

  “I do.” She took another step. “And I will.”

  Now they were standing face-to-face.

  “Jo,” he breathed, leaning close. “Say it again. No, swear it. Swear it on the Bible. Swear it on this garden, on this family, on Orchard House itself. Swear it on Pickwick and on garrets and ink-pots and scorch marks and—”

  “Pickled limes?” Jo said, caressing his cheek.

  “Watering-holes,” came the husky reply as he grabbed her hand.

  “My dear Teddy,” she said, pulling him by his waistcoat. “Don’t you see? We swore it the day we met.”

  He touched his forehead to hers. “And every day after.”

  Jo closed her eyes. “Every moment of every day.”

  Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, and she kissed him back, his soft lips warm against hers, as his arms encircled her waist and pulled her ever closer.

  It was worth the wait.

  34

  WHALEBONES

  Love,” Mr. Brooke announced, beaming proudly at the newly wedded and incandescently beautiful Mrs. Brooke, “is not just the stuff of poets.” The doting husband paused to slip an affectionate arm around his young wife, who leaned on his shoulder. “In the immortal words of Catullus himself, ‘Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse . . .’”

  Jo stood in the doorway with Laurie, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the little wedding tableau.

  Mr. Brooke and Meg.

  What a lovely sight the two of them were! And what a happy family surrounded them! What a spectacular ending her eldest sister’s marriage plot had turned out to be, cabbages and all.

  After everything, they had found their way—from gossip and speculation and Jo’s airy invention—to something far more important. Something more human, and more true.

  From her place beside Meg, Mama Abba caught Jo’s eye, looking from her to Laurie wonderingly.

  Jo could feel her cheeks turning, and when Mama Abba inclined her head softly toward the stairwell, Jo nodded back, pausing only to whisper in Laurie’s ear, “I believe Mama Abba knows.”

  “How could she? She couldn’t possibly,” he whispered back.

  “You know Mama Abba, Laurie. Of course she could, just from one look across a crowded room.”

  “True,” he said. “But the rest of them? Do you think they’ll be surprised?”

  “No more surprised than I am,” said Jo.

  “No more surprised than either of us,” he agreed. Then he gave Jo’s hand a squeeze, and sent her off to the stairwell, and to her mother’s confidence.

  * * *

  • • •

  MAMA ABBA WAS kneeling at the cedar chest that sat at the end of the little daybed when Jo found her. The chest was open, and even that much set Jo’s heart hammering. Because the chest wasn’t just a chest, she thought, but a kind of crypt.

  For Beth’s porcelain-faced dollies. For the March girls. For little sisters.

  For childhood itself.

  Mama Abba took up the most raggedy and beloved of Beth’s toy children—but when she saw Jo’s face, she looked startled. “You’ve gone and accepted him, haven’t you?” She said the words even as Jo was still lowering herself to the clean-scrubbed wooden floor beneath them.

  “I didn’t accept him, Mama Abba. Not this time. I asked him.”

  Mama Abba dropped the old doll and reached for Jo’s hand. “Oh, Jo.”

  “Tell me I’m doing the right thing, Mama.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Jo. Not any more than you could decide Mr. Brooke was or wasn’t right for Meg. Or that he was—what was it? A zucchini?”

  “A cabbage,” Jo said, ashamedly.

  “You have to
be brave. You have to make your own way. Your own choices. Just as you always have.”

  “Mama.” Now Jo realized her mother was weeping.

  Jo felt her own eyes begin to prickle.

  She clasped her arms around her knees, staring across the room to the wall next to the bed, the wall where Amy had practiced drawing her sisters while they slept. There they still were, the smudged-charcoal faces of the four of them.

  Now three.

  Very nearly, two.

  “It’s all right, Jo. I’ve known it was coming; I’ve known it longer than either of you, I suppose. It’s just—well, some small part of me must mourn it. Just for a moment. I’ve lost Beth. I nearly lost Amy. Today I’m losing Meg. Now I’ll lose you, too.”

  “Except you haven’t. And you won’t. You’ll never lose any of us.” Jo was still studying the wall, the faces of the four sisters. Because Amy’s little mural had changed, and Jo herself had never noticed before.

  Now the third figure in the little tableau—the one between the neat-looking Meg and the tousle-headed Jo and the highly angelic Amy—wore a pair of luminous white wings, an expanse of whitewash smudging that seemed to encompass all four faces in its folds. And a broad gold circle surrounded them, connecting all four of them.

  The golden band.

  That was how their father had described it.

  Oh, Amy.

  How frightened you must have been, even before you were sick.

  How much you must have missed her, too.

  Mama Abba took Jo’s hand in her own. “It’s all right, Jo. This is life. I will lose you, and you will lose me. Losing is part of having, my love.”

  Jo reached out to touch the wall. “I miss her so much, Mama. I think—I think I buried part of myself that day. With Beth.”

  The tears were coming so quickly, Jo could taste them.

  Mama Abba touched her daughter’s face. “You all did, Jo. All of you. I used to console myself that it was your Pilgrim’s Progress, perhaps, just as it was mine. That we would all come out, I don’t know, somehow—stronger.”