They spent the next hour enthralled, as Sorrow read her thrice-great-grandmother’s letters. It was impossible for Marlene to hear the woman’s words and not feel their universal truth. Sorrow Crabtree had been a woman who dreamed of greater things, stuck in a situation with no escape.
Sorrow stopped cold, calling Marlene back into the moment.
“What is it, dear?” Edith asked.
“Just a minute. ” Sorrow flipped the pages back and forth. “These are out of order. ”
Laura frowned. “What do you mean?”
Sorrow shuffled through some more, then just dropped on her knees to the floor, spreading out all the pages. “Okay, remember this gem? ‘My Mama told me to live life for me. To follow my heart and love my kin and my God. And I’m going to do that, Buck. Just me and our boy. With or without you. ’ That was dated 1851. ” She set it aside.
“Now check this out. We read this one first—remember? Where she went on and on about the dance hall and making a life for herself? At the end, she wrote, ‘I’ve got a babe in my belly. ’ We’d thought it was from that same time period. But it’s not. ” Sorrow flipped through, matching page numbers and connecting sentences. “This one is dated 1853. ”
The women gasped.
“She had another baby,” Edith said, marveling.
Pearl clucked. “That woman’s luck was poor from the day she was born. ”
Marlene frowned at her. “Some see a baby as a blessing, Aunt Pearl. ”
Laura plopped onto the floor next to Sorrow, holding out her hand. “Let me see that. ” For once, Sorrow didn’t hesitate and just handed over the pages without question, and Laura read for a moment. “Wow. You’re right. Check this out, ‘He moves in my belly. A boy, like your beautiful son. I’ll raise them both to be good men. ’”
Edith tilted her head, peering at the pages scattered across the floor. “Was Buck the father?”
“No,” Sorrow said, “Buck Larsen never returned. There must’ve been another man. ”
“She was a fast woman,” Ruby said, shaking her head.
Pearl grunted her disapproval. “Two fathers, no husband. ”
“A life of toil and fatherless babies,” Ruby said. “That’s what being a fast woman brings you. ”
“That’s enough,” Marlene said. She was tired of this conversation. Tired of what they implied about her very own mother.
But Pearl wasn’t done. She pursed her lips. “I wonder if it runs in the blood?”
Laura rolled her eyes. “That’s us. We Baileys of the spoiled blood. ”
Sorrow shot Pearl an impatient look. “Who says she was fast? If she had another baby, maybe it means it got better for her. Maybe it wasn’t a fatherless baby, but a secret love affair. ”
“Shush,” Laura said, trying to concentrate. She grumbled, “How did you read this, Sorrow?”
“What does she say?” asked Edith impatiently.
“Give me a second,” Laura said. “Handsome…first sight…blah blah. Okay, here it is. This must be the baby’s father: ‘My Silas is an angel. As dependable as God’s love, he comes to town once a month, with letters in his bag and love in his heart. ’”
“Oh my God!” Sorrow shrieked. “She was in love with the mailman!”
“Those guys were actually pretty macho,” Laura said. “Snowshoeing all over the wilderness. Think about it. ”
Edith’s eyes went wide. “First sight…angel…When we read it before, I didn’t really get it. I’d thought it had something to do with the baby. ”
“We all did,” Sorrow said.
Marlene leaned forward in her seat. “And you’re sure the date is correct? 1853?”
“Read more, read more. ” Sorrow waved her sister on.