The Bone Garden: A Novel

Thirty-six

DR. GRENVILLE'S fine carriage took them west on the Belmont road, past farmhouses and wintry fields that were now familiar to Rose. It was a pitilessly beautiful afternoon, and the snow glittered beneath clear skies just as it had glittered when she had walked this road only two weeks ago. You walked beside me then, Norrie. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe you are here with me now.

— Is it much farther? — asked Grenville.

— Only a bit, sir. — Rose opened her eyes and blinked at the empty glare of the sun. And the hard truth: But I will never see you again. And I will miss you every day of my life.

— This is where he grew up, isn't it? — said Grenville. — On this road. —

She nodded. — Soon we'll come to Heppy Comfort's farm. She had a lame calf that she brought into the house. And then she grew so fond of it, she could never slaughter it. Next door to her there'll be Ezra Hutchinson's farm. His wife died of typhus. —

— How do you know all this? —

— Norris told me. — And she would never forget. As long as she lived, she would remember every word, every moment.

— The Marshall farm is on this road? —

— We're not going to Isaac Marshall's farm. —

— Then where? —

She peered ahead at the tidy farmhouse that had just come into view. — I see the house now. —

— Who lives there? —

A man who was kinder and more generous to Norris than his own father.

As the carriage came to a stop, the farmhouse door opened, and elderly Dr. Hallowell emerged on the porch. By the bleak expression on his face, Rose knew that he had already learned of Norris's death. He came forward to help her and Dr. Grenville from the carriage. As they climbed the steps, Rose was startled to see yet another man emerge from the house.

It was Isaac Marshall, looking infinitely older than he had only weeks before.

The three men who stood on the porch had been brought together by grief over one young man, and words did not come easily to any of them. In silence they regarded one another, the two men who had watched Norris grow up, and the one man who should have.

Rose slipped past them into the house, drawn by what the men's ears were not attuned to: a baby's soft cooing. She followed the sound into a room where gray-haired Mrs. Hallowell sat rocking Meggie.

— I've come back for her, — said Rose.

— I knew you would. — The woman looked up with hopeful eyes as she handed over the baby. — Please tell me we'll see her again! Tell me we can be part of her life. —

— Oh, you will, ma'am, — said Rose, smiling. — And so will everyone who loves her. —

The three men all turned as Rose came out onto the porch, carrying the baby. At the instant Aldous Grenville gazed for the first time into his daughter's eyes, Meggie smiled up at him, as though in recognition.

— Her name is Margaret, — said Rose.

— Margaret, — he said softly. And he took the child into his arms.