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Mrs Maddock reaches over the plate of cookies, now half gone, and rests her hand over mine Her skin is so translucent you can see the blue veins

I could tell her the other times I wanted to die When o on the run without a friend in the worldI could tell her about Blair Mountain, how I killed my best friend, my lover, my husband, but how could she understand, a sheltered person like Sarah Rose? The tears co there I wipe my eyes and stand up to look out the screens toward the hills, but she scoots around the table in her wicker wheelchair and pullsfor ood to cry I lost my little one toowhen I had polio The paralysis wasThe doctors thought there was no way I would ency cesarean section, and he gave our little girl to ined I would recover, and then, when I did, I couldn’t ask for the baby back

"In a way, it doesn’t matter Both my cousin and little Sue Ann passed away a few years later, during the Spanish flu epideh, when she o, a tiny blond girl I’ll show you soain

I shake my head no, but she insists, so I eat three "Did you s don’t work doesn’t h the kitchen that Mr Maddock haslow so I can use my wheelchair? He et out much"

I take in the view, the mowed meadon to a brook, a pen filled hite sheep, the Hope River in the distance

"So what do you do out here?" I look around for an e, but on the shelves is only an assortment of books and papers "You like to read?"

"I do," she says "I write too"

That interests me "You write? I started a diary It seems so much has happened in my lifelike I’ve lived three or four lives, really"

Sarah puts her elbow on the table and rests her chin in her hand "Like what? Tellmy face "I like stories"

Slon, Patience, be careful Some secrets you just need to keep to yourself

Sarah waits while I stare at the ceiling "WellI grew up in a little town in Illinois," I begin slowly "Myfreighter on Lake Michigan"

I go on to describe my innocent childhood, as if it were a Louisa May Alcott story, to the point where randan shipwreck, and we find out he’s gambled away all our e and get a job at the Majestic It ood yarn, if I say so myself "That’s lives one and two"

Sarah hasn’t said anything except "How sad" and "That et to the part where I beco her hands like a five-year-old girl "I was in the chorus line too! At a dance hall in Charleston" This is a new ihs "I was in ot me the job My mother didn’t approve, of course, and neither did Mr Maddock once ere engaged That’s where Iat the tied to be friendly with the patrons after our show, get the" As she talks, Mrs Maddock gets prettier and prettier in the golden slanting light The low sun drops behind the e, then pink, and finally lavender

"Milton and I were so in love We iven hiht I would die from the polio So many did Widowed men didn’t take care of children in those days" I reach for her hand, cool and soft

She looks around the beautiful porch roo the war, because he worked in the cheiven a deferrandmother died and we inherited this faro I was born in this very house, you knowwith Granny Potts"

"I remember You came up to the front of the church at her service, one of her angels" I sht

"Sometimes I think he protects me too ue I have a good life" We are still holding hands, and suddenly it’s too et back I need toyou want et you before I leave? Can I clear the table and wash up?"

"You’re as bad as he is! A fussy s the supplies" She rolls herself into the kitchen, and I notice now that the doorways are a little wider than inpantry on one side I run my hand over the smooth low maple counters and the low sink

"Milton did all the ork himself," she explains "He’ll be home soon He went into Del, just to listen and watch The vet will be there too" She says this as if she thinks I’d be interested, and I a home up Wild Rose Road, I reflect on what I learned at our tea Mrs Maddock, who I thought was aloof and judgay Mr Maddock, who I thought was hard and unfeeling, is in fact passionately in love with his wife The Patience I thought had to maintain her secretswas today open and honestup to a point

I’ve had a difficult life, or I think I have, an orphan ice before she was thirty, but how do you ? Sarah Maddock als, and had her baby given away All four of Mrs Potts’s children died of yellow fever within one week Mrs Kelly suffered the loss of her husband and their only child and then, after a ten-year relationship, lost Nora to another woman