Chapter Forty-Four

Jacob slid into consciousness, uncertain what day it was or even where he was. He looked blearily around the room, his eyes moving slower than his head. He recognized his own bedroom: the striped curtains, the matching rug, the writing desk. He was home.

But where had he been before?

Something had happened. Something terrible, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. He tapped his forehead with his index finger, trying to jolt his brain into functioning. The last time he’d been this fuzzy he’d been hungover. He frowned, remembering how badly his drunkenness had frightened Claire. And then he’d upset Eleanor too.

Eleanor.

His stomach spun, and a sob escaped his throat. He clapped a hand over his mouth, not wanting whoever else might be in the house to hear it. This was a grief he deserved to stew in alone.

He didn’t silence himself in time. A few seconds later, the bedroom door opened, and Will stuck his head in. When he saw Jacob was awake, he stepped all the way in and closed the door behind him.

“How you feeling, Jake?”

Jacob pushed himself up on his elbows, aware of a throbbing not only in his head but, strangely, in his right hand. “Awful. Was I drinking last night?”

Will shook his head. “You were… a bit overcome. Lyddie wrapped your hand and gave you a dose of laudanum, and I brought you home.”

Jacob glanced at his right hand and saw a bright white bandage wrapped around his knuckles. He flexed the fingers and winced. Nothing seemed broken, but it would hurt like hell for a while. And the laudanum explained the fuzziness. Jacob studied his quilt intently and picked at stray thread with his left hand, embarrassed that his daughter had needed to drug him and yet grateful that she did. The medicine had erased all memory of last night after Will found him in the barn.

A shame it didn’t erase all of last night.

Will shifted. “You should rest up today. Luo Shu is here with Grace, and George Lewis is minding your store. We’re laying Eleanor to rest tomorrow.”

Jacob cringed. Eleanor had been alive less than twelve hours ago. And in less than twenty-four hours from now, she’d be in her grave. He stifled another sob.

“Do her parents know?” he said when he trusted his voice again.

“I wired them,” Will said. “I was going to follow up with a letter on Monday.”

“I’ll write it. Her death was my fault.”

Will pulled a chair up alongside the bed and sat. “Lyddie told me there was no sign of infection from the surgery. And if you hadn’t tried, Benji would have died, too.”

Jacob sat up fully and shook his head. “There could have been internal suppuration we couldn’t see. The uterus might not have been healing properly.” He worried a loose thread on his quilt. “I was in such a hurry I might not have cleansed all of my tools properly in the carbolic acid. Sepsis is more common in women whose labor is prolonged. If I’d performed the craniotomy as soon as I arrived rather than trying to play the hero…” He clapped a hand over his mouth when he realized what he’d said.

Benji’s sweet, Lewis-like face floated in front of his eyes, blurring and merging with his view of Will. Dear God. How could he even think that? He was a failure as a surgeon and a reprehensible human being. Benji wasn’t just his namesake, he was Will’s first grandchild. Jacob’s stomach lurched.

Will’s eyes hardened, and he stood. “Get some more rest. You get hungry, I made some pancakes for Grace’s breakfast. There’s leftovers in the kitchen.”

The door closed behind Will with a definitive thud. Jacob drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, bundling himself into as small a ball as he could. He closed his eyes and fought against the suffocating sensation that tried to take over him. He couldn’t fall apart. Not now. He had to own up to what he’d done and write to Eleanor’s parents.

He unfolded and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood slowly, gripping the bedpost for support. God, he hated how wobbly laudanum made him. He took tentative steps to his desk and sank into the chair.

When he opened the top drawer to remove a piece of writing paper, something rolled in the back of the drawer. He reached in, and his fingers closed around a small, cool cylinder that with a flat tip. He pulled the Minié ball out of the drawer and placed it on the desktop.

“Long time no see, old friend,” it said. “How have you been?”

******

The image of Eleanor’s pale, dead face haunted him all day and kept him from falling asleep that night, her final request that he not grieve impossible to fulfill. Around midnight, almost exactly twenty-four hours after Eleanor’s death, Jacob ripped open his wardrobe door, relieved to see his black leather bag sitting inside. He undid the clasp and pulled out a small bottle of laudanum. He took a small, careful swig, stoppered the bottle, and went back to bed. In minutes, he fell into a merciful sleep.

******

The next morning he wished he’d taken a larger dose of laudanum. A bigger dose would have left him fuzzy to make the ninety-minute drive to Andrew’s house for the funeral. Instead, his conscientious dosing left him painfully clear during the entire horrific event. He didn’t miss a detail. Not the black crape draping Andrew’s front door, not the clocks all stopped at Eleanor’s time of death. Not Andrew’s puffy red eyes and vacant stare. And certainly not Grace’s nonstop whimpering. The little girl hadn’t taken the news of her first governess’s death well and repeatedly asked when Eleanor would come back. Each query was a stab through Jacob’s heart, the knife twisting when Grace cried afresh each time he reminded her Eleanor wouldn’t be coming back.

Mourners milled about the house. When they made their way to their carriages for the trek to the gravesite, Jacob was surprised to see Tom Nugent and his neighbor, Mrs. Williams, among them. They both stopped and told him how sorry they were for his loss. His stomach rolled with guilt at each condolence. He didn’t deserve their compassion.

The Lewiss hadn’t yet been in California long enough to have a family burial ground on the Lucky Star, so Andrew had selected a spot for Eleanor near a creek that ran through the property.

“She always liked—” Andrew began to say to an elderly lady Jacob didn’t recognize, but a sob cut him off.

“She always liked watching the ducks there,” Frank finished. He hovered close to his older brother, stepping in front of him when mourners pressed him too hard for conversation and keeping a hand on his arm or shoulder.

At the gravesite, Jacob tried to slink to the back of the cluster of mourners, but Will grabbed his arm and brought him and Grace to the front row with the rest of the family.

During the short walk, Jacob whispered an apology for his foolish words the day before. Will squeezed his shoulder.

“None of us has been right in the head the past couple days,” Will muttered back. “Don’t think on it, Younger Brother.”

He placed Jacob and Grace next to Fionn and Lyddie, who cradled tiny Benji in her arms. Fionn balanced Declan on his hip. The fifteen-month-old’s face lit up when he saw his grandfather.

“Gampy!” he exclaimed and stretched out his arms. Jacob was about to take him when Grace pawed at his coat hem. He picked her up instead, and she buried her face in his neck.

“Don’t let dem put Elnor in da ground,” she whimpered.

Jacob couldn’t answer. Though the motion made his damaged knuckles throb, he patted her back and screwed his eyes closed against the hot tears burning in them. Someone squeezed his elbow, and he glanced over to see Lyddie smiling sadly up at him, Benji still asleep in her arms. Jacob got so caught up feeling sick over his words to Will last night about Benji that a few moments passed before he understood why the baby was with Lyddie instead of Andrew: She must be keeping him to nurse now that his mother was gone. He stared at the infant, now motherless like Grace. Like Claire. Like Lyddie. He shivered, and not from the crisp breeze near the creek.

He held tightly to Grace and tried to block out the reverend’s words during the brief graveside service. There was nothing the minister could say to ease this anguish, not even if he deserved comforting. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he could feel the eyes of the rest of the assembly on him. Heat crept up his neck despite the chilly weather. He focused on the child in his arms, on inhaling the sweet scent of the soap from her bath the night before, on feeling the fine curls that now reached the middle of her back, but it was no use.

Everyone behind him was glaring at him, blaming him. As they should. When he could stand it no longer, he chanced a peek behind him and saw that the eyes of the congregants were either on Reverend Howe or on their own feet. Tom Nugent spotted him and gave him a little nod, but that was all. Jacob faced front again.

When it was time to lower Eleanor’s coffin into the ground, Will and Frank stepped forward. Will caught Jacob’s eyes and jerked his head to one side, indicating that Jacob should join them. Jacob began to shake his head but felt a pressure on the small of his back.

“They need you, Papa,” Lyddie said, nudging him again.

Jacob set Grace down and stepped forward.

Still too dazed to be of any help, Andrew stood motionless next to his mother. Tom Nugent, Reverend Howe, and a man from a neighboring ranch Jacob knew only by sight helped the three Lewis men take up the ropes and lower the coffin into the ground.

Jacob’s injured hand screamed as the rope’s rough cords rasped through his bare palms, and he welcomed the pain. Pain made him angry, and anger was something he could handle. Anything to drown out this overwhelming grief.

When the coffin rested safely at the bottom of the grave and the men pulled their ropes free, Jacob stared down at the wooden box containing the mortal remains of his best friend. He stared until he was certain he was attracting the attention of the congregation, for certain this time. He didn’t budge until Andrew, prodded by Will, stepped forward with a shovel to toss the first bit of earth onto the coffin.

“You deserved better than me,” Jacob whispered before stepping away. He glanced around at the expanse of the Lucky Star Ranch and his family, his eyes settling on Grace, clutching tightly to Lyddie’s free hand.

He started back toward the family and cringed when he heard the first dull thunk of dirt hitting wood. The sound tore through him like a bullet, and he fought to keep his feet. He fixed his gaze on Grace and focused on reaching her when Andrew nudged him and handed him the shovel.

“She loved you, you know,” Andrew said, his voice wavering. “She said you were the best friend she ever had. Thank you for trying so hard to save her.”

Jacob would have preferred his nephew had placed a pistol against his head and pulled the trigger. A quick, unexpected death would have been better than bearing the weight of Andrew’s words. He could only nod in reply and accept the shovel. Bile rising in his throat, he returned to the graveside and stabbed the shovel into the mound of dirt next to the grave. He held it over the gaping hole and stared at the coffin for a moment longer.

“Forgive me,” he whispered and let the dirt fall from the shovel into the grave.