certain events that had led him to this
desperate act of hope.
He was a fifty-four-year-old man whose face was shocking to him, and in a few moments even that slate would be wiped clean.
He allowed himself that hope.
We all want the simplest things, he thought. Despite what we may have, or the children who die, we want the simplicity of
love. It was not too much to ask that he be like the others, that he, too, might have something to want.
For twenty years, not one person had said good night to him as he turned off the light and lay down to sleep. Not one person
had said good morning as he opened his eyes. For twenty years, he had not been kissed by anyone whose name he knew, and yet,
even now, as the snow began to fall lightly, he remembered what it felt like, the soft giving of the lips, the sweet hunger
of it.
The townspeople watched him. Not that it mattered anymore. We were there, they would tell their children and their neighbors.
We were there. We saw her get off the train for the first time, and she got off the train only three times. We were there.
We saw him the minute he set eyes on her.
The letter was in his hand. He knew it by heart.
Dear Mr. Truitt,
I am a simple honest woman. I have seen much of the world in my travels with my father. In my missionary work I have seen
the world as it is and I have no illusions. I have seen the poor and I have seen the rich and do not believe there is so much
as a razor’s edge between, for the rich are as hungry as the poor. They are hungry for God.
I have seen mortal sickness beyond imagining. I have seen what the world has done to the world, and I cannot bear to be in
the world any longer. I know now that I can’t do anything about it, and God can’t do anything about it either.
I am not a schoolgirl. I have spent my life being a daughter and had long since given up hope of being a wife. I know that
it isn’t love you are offering, nor would I seek that, but a home, and I will take what you give because it is all that I
want. I say that not meaning to imply that it is a small thing. I mean, in fact, that it is all there is of goodness and kindness
to want. It is everything compared to the world I have seen and, if you will have me, I will come.
With the letter she had sent a photograph of herself, and he could feel the tattered edge of it with his thumb as he raised
his hat to one more person, saw, from the corner of his eye, one more person gauge the unusual sobriety and richness of his
black suit and strong boots and fur-collared overcoat. His thumb caressed her face. His eyes could see her features, neither
pretty nor homely. Her large, clear eyes stared into the photographer’s flash without guile. She wore a simple dress with
a plain cloth collar, an ordinary woman who needed a husband enough to marry a stranger twenty years her senior.
He had sent her no photograph in return, nor had she asked for one. He had sent instead a ticket, sent it to the Christian
boardinghouse in which she stayed in filthy, howling Chicago, and now he stood, a rich man in a tiny town in a cold climate,
at the start of a Wisconsin winter in the year 1907. Ralph Truitt waited for the train that would bring Catherine Land to
him.
Ralph Truitt had waited a long time. He could wait a little longer.
CHAPTER TWO
C ATHERINE LAND SAT IN FRONT of the mirror, unbecoming all that she had become. The years had hardened her beyond mercy.
I’m the kind of woman who wants to know the end of the story, she thought, staring at her face in the jostling mirror. I want
to know how it’s all going to end before it even starts.
Catherine Land liked the beginnings of things. The pure white possibility of the empty room, the first kiss, the first swipe
at larceny. And endings, she liked endings, too. The drama of the smashing glass, the dead bird, the tearful goodbye, the
last awful word which could never be unsaid or unremembered.
It was the
desperate act of hope.
He was a fifty-four-year-old man whose face was shocking to him, and in a few moments even that slate would be wiped clean.
He allowed himself that hope.
We all want the simplest things, he thought. Despite what we may have, or the children who die, we want the simplicity of
love. It was not too much to ask that he be like the others, that he, too, might have something to want.
For twenty years, not one person had said good night to him as he turned off the light and lay down to sleep. Not one person
had said good morning as he opened his eyes. For twenty years, he had not been kissed by anyone whose name he knew, and yet,
even now, as the snow began to fall lightly, he remembered what it felt like, the soft giving of the lips, the sweet hunger
of it.
The townspeople watched him. Not that it mattered anymore. We were there, they would tell their children and their neighbors.
We were there. We saw her get off the train for the first time, and she got off the train only three times. We were there.
We saw him the minute he set eyes on her.
The letter was in his hand. He knew it by heart.
Dear Mr. Truitt,
I am a simple honest woman. I have seen much of the world in my travels with my father. In my missionary work I have seen
the world as it is and I have no illusions. I have seen the poor and I have seen the rich and do not believe there is so much
as a razor’s edge between, for the rich are as hungry as the poor. They are hungry for God.
I have seen mortal sickness beyond imagining. I have seen what the world has done to the world, and I cannot bear to be in
the world any longer. I know now that I can’t do anything about it, and God can’t do anything about it either.
I am not a schoolgirl. I have spent my life being a daughter and had long since given up hope of being a wife. I know that
it isn’t love you are offering, nor would I seek that, but a home, and I will take what you give because it is all that I
want. I say that not meaning to imply that it is a small thing. I mean, in fact, that it is all there is of goodness and kindness
to want. It is everything compared to the world I have seen and, if you will have me, I will come.
With the letter she had sent a photograph of herself, and he could feel the tattered edge of it with his thumb as he raised
his hat to one more person, saw, from the corner of his eye, one more person gauge the unusual sobriety and richness of his
black suit and strong boots and fur-collared overcoat. His thumb caressed her face. His eyes could see her features, neither
pretty nor homely. Her large, clear eyes stared into the photographer’s flash without guile. She wore a simple dress with
a plain cloth collar, an ordinary woman who needed a husband enough to marry a stranger twenty years her senior.
He had sent her no photograph in return, nor had she asked for one. He had sent instead a ticket, sent it to the Christian
boardinghouse in which she stayed in filthy, howling Chicago, and now he stood, a rich man in a tiny town in a cold climate,
at the start of a Wisconsin winter in the year 1907. Ralph Truitt waited for the train that would bring Catherine Land to
him.
Ralph Truitt had waited a long time. He could wait a little longer.
CHAPTER TWO
C ATHERINE LAND SAT IN FRONT of the mirror, unbecoming all that she had become. The years had hardened her beyond mercy.
I’m the kind of woman who wants to know the end of the story, she thought, staring at her face in the jostling mirror. I want
to know how it’s all going to end before it even starts.
Catherine Land liked the beginnings of things. The pure white possibility of the empty room, the first kiss, the first swipe
at larceny. And endings, she liked endings, too. The drama of the smashing glass, the dead bird, the tearful goodbye, the
last awful word which could never be unsaid or unremembered.
It was the
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