Read Online Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards - Free Book Online

hands stop mine—“I should have let you know.”
I sit beside him. “Now I know it was only the letters that stopped.”
Peter holds my hands to his chest. “My intentions
have not changed.
And you …
feel the same?
Since you are here?”
“Yes.” I smile and he sinks back into the pillows.
    He sits up again. “Well, how can you be here—
do your parents know?
Are they alive?
They must’ve been lost at sea!”
“They made an arrangement—
a choice that would force me into a life
that I would find intolerable.” I look away.
He gently guides my chin
until our eyes meet again. “A match?”
“To a half-wit braggart.”
“Celestia!”
“I had to escape it and I had to find you
before you lost your love for me.”
Peter kisses my hands. “That’ll never happen.”

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
    Lake Conemaugh
    Whitcomb
    Givens limps into the front room.
“Raining buckets again today, sir.”
I draft letters
at the big mahogany desk in the front room.
“I am aware of that, Mr. Givens.”
“Your girl’d be sore afraid
lost in the woods
on a day like this, sir.”
“I am sure she would”—I keep my eyes trained on
my papers—“if she were, in fact, lost.”
“If you’d be wanting me to send to South Fork
for a search party,
we could maybe find her
before nightfall.”
    I take a deep breath
and place my pen precisely
in the center of my book
before looking up. “Thank you, Mr. Givens,
that is not necessary.”
“Well, now, I know she’s got spunk and all, but …”
“She is not lost in the woods”—I push my chair back
and rise,
looking out the window
in the direction of the valley—“and I am almost certain
that she does not wish to be found.”
Givens joins me by the window and nods. “Aye,
the boy from the valley …”
I am taken aback,
as always,
by how much the help know
of our personal affairs.
I resume my seat
and take up my papers. “Shut the door behind you, Givens.
I am not to be disturbed again.”
    I extract a fresh sheet of stationery.
No point in delaying;
it cannot be avoided any longer.
    Dearest Mildred ,
    Celestia is missing .
I believe she has left us for the Johnstown boy .
I will confirm this, then join you at home .
Say nothing to anyone .
Destroy this letter .
    Bertram

    I dream that a team of eight runs over me
at full gallop.
I wake to the beating of rain.
How can any roof withstand it?
I shiver.
Is Celestia warm?
I s she under a decent roof?
But no!
I must retrain my thoughts.
Her welfare is no longer my concern.
    How could she choose this?
    I gather the blankets around me
and get up to stir the fire.
The hinged frame sits on the mantel
and I remove Celestia’s likeness.
She was such a good girl,
never gave a minute’s worry
before last summer.
I was so proud of all the books she read,
and now …
nothing.
    I tear the portrait
in half,
half again,
and let the pieces fall
into the fire.

Johnstown
    Celestia
    How long have I been here in Johnstown?
Cannot keep day from night,
caring for two helpless men,
catnapping in Anna’s rocker.
I retrieve her sewing from its basket—
how many years untouched?
    I shake the dust
and examine the fine needlework,
not unlike what we have been taught.
Her books,
her garden,
her travels …
    Perhaps Anna’s life was once not so different
from mine.
What if she left that life to become a teacher,
and to marry Peter’s father.
What did her parents do about it?
Was she banished like Estrella?
    I wonder
what Estrella is stitching at this moment
somewhere abroad.
I wish I had applied myself to lessons—
instead of sneaking a book
under my embroidery frame—
so we could be sewing at the same time.
Joined in spirit at least.
    I imagine the woman in the portrait
working her needle like Estrella,
gracefully,
rhythmically.
    Sleep prevails again.
I dream Estrella
hums and rocks
a baby.
A loving embrace,
warm and dry,
safe.
Longing for my sister
nearly wakes me …
surely she has delivered by now …
but sleep overpowers.
    When my