Behind a Lady's Smile Read Free

She’d never known anything could hurt this much. She’d always figured childbirth was the worst pain. She remembered her mother screaming when she was trying to have her little brother or sister. She was only eight, but she remembered it like it was yesterday, how she thought her mother was being silly for crying so much. In her world, the most painful thing she’d experienced up until then had been a badly scraped knee. Surely having a baby couldn’t hurt more than that.
    But when her mother died, Genny realized there was a pain much, much worse than a scraped knee. There was pain that could kill you.
    “I’m ready,” she said, even though she wasn’t.
    He stood, slightly shaking. She could feel the tremors move through his body like a small earthquake. She held on tight, letting out only a small sound when the pain got too bad. Her father had always said she was too tough for her own good, just like her mother. Genny had never thought of her mother as tough. She was soft and sweet and would sing to her right after her prayers. Genny knew she was nothing like her mother. Her mother had been special and beautiful; she would have known that even if her father hadn’t said it.
    Then Mitch lifted her up into his arms and she didn’t cry out at all. When they got to the cabin, he kicked at the door and it swung open. “We made it,” she said. “There’s a bed to the right.” She still slept up in the tiny loft, but she knew sleeping in her father’s bed for now would be more practical.
    He deposited her on her bed and stepped back, looking around the one-room cabin. Genny’s memories of her home in Philadelphia were vague images of long staircases and red carpeting. She wasn’t certain she was remembering her home or some hotel they’d stayed in on the way to California. The ceilings had soared above her head and there were a dozen rooms to explore. At least that’s how it seemed to an eight-year-old girl. She couldn’t be sure if the memories were real or if she was simply remembering her father’s tales of what their life had been like. He got tired of talking about it after a time.
    “Homey,” Mitch said, but there was something in his eyes that made Genny think he didn’t like what he saw. She kept the place neat and clean, but it didn’t have soaring ceilings or red carpeting. “Do you have drinking water?”
    “There’s a stream out back. The dipper and pail are by the door.”
    He grabbed both and was gone.
    For the first time, Genny began to think about her predicament. She knew nothing about broken bones or how long they took to heal. But she figured it would be days before she could walk. What was she going to do? She needed to eat. Already her stomach was rumbling. Her last meal had been a day ago when she’d eaten the last bit of a king snake she’d cooked two nights before.
    Mitch walked in, bucket and dipper in hand, and knelt by the side of her bed. “Here.” He laid a hand behind her head and helped her to sit so she could take a long drink. “I’ll leave it here so you can reach it.” He stood and looked down at her, hands low on his hips.
    “Listen, I’ve got to go tell the men what happened. I’ll get some supplies and come back. I’ll be gone until morning. Do you think you’ll be all right?”
    No. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”
    He gave the cabin a dubious look. “You have any food?”
    “I ate the last of what I had yesterday. I was planning to go out today to look for something.”
    He gave her a sharp nod, but she had a feeling he was swearing silently. He was a man who liked to swear. “I’ve got some cornbread and jerky back with Millie. I’ll bring that by before I go.”
    Genny had been alone for eight months in her cabin and it was strange to see another person there. But when Mr. Campbell was gone, it seemed unusually empty, the way it had when her father had first died. It was a small cabin, but it had seemed terribly big and lonely right after it had