Page 14 of Atone, Adonis

He did not answer her, of course. Only turned back for his bag before making his way down the stairs. But his silence was answer enough, and Julianna’s stomach turned with a hot, prickling anger. Of course Fred had sent him.

Of course he’d decided—without bothering to ask either her or her brother—that Thomas should see the physician and then just sent the man over. She had thrown stones at foxes all winter but the worst of them all had simply purchased his way into the hen house.

“Wait,” she said, trailing behind the physician. “The yarrow.”

He turned and nodded his head to her before he stepped out into the cold morning air. “See to your brother, Miss Farrow. I’ll gather my fee at a later date.”

Julianna stood in the kitchen for a long moment after the door shut, one hand braced against the table as if the wood might keep her upright. The kettle began to scream on the hob. She let it keep on with its racket. She rather liked the sound that filled the cottage—thin and furious—because it matched her own feelings.

“Julie-bug?” Thomas called from upstairs. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. I’ll be up in a moment.”

She crossed the room and yanked the kettle off the heat hard enough that water sloshed onto her fingers and burned her. But she barely felt the sting.

Tuberculosis.

The word reverberated in her ears, ringing and ringing like the cow’s bell.

Tuberculosis.

She moved without thinking then, doing what she could to comfort herself. She was not a woman who usually found solace in household duties—she much preferred time with her plants—but she nonetheless scrubbed the counter. Then the table. Then dropped to the floor and washed it too. Finally, she brought her own hands to the lye soap and cleaned them again and again until her knuckles went pink and raw.

As if she could scour the sickness out of the air.

As if she could scrub the last ten years away and get back the life, the family, the optimism that had been stolen from her.

On the mantel above the hearth sat a small carved music box, its lid worn smooth by her mother’s hands. Julianna picked it up and held it in her raw palms. She stared at it until her vision blurred.

She wanted to throw it. She wanted to hear something splinter for once that was not her. Instead she opened the lid and let the little mechanism wheeze out its faint, tinny tune. She could remember her mother’s humming, the way her father’s fingers had played the same tune on the pianoforte, and she nearly dropped to her knees.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to them. “For how your lives ended. I’m sorry I ever let him back into this house. I’m so sorry.”

And then she stood, placing the music box back on the mantel where it belonged. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, swallowed hard to force all that grief back down into her insides where she could keep it contained, and forced herself to go make the tea.

She climbed the stairs slowly with their repast, eyeing the banister that was worn smooth by so many years of their touches. The door to Thomas’s room creaked when she opened it, and he turned his head on the pillow.

“The doctor told you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So that’s settled then. We know.”

Julianna sat beside him and reached for his hand, which felt dry and rough to her, empty of the vibrancy he’d had all her life.

“I’m still not ready,” she admitted, tears rising.

“That makes two of us. Yet here we are.” A rattling cough tore through him. “Julianna, I’m going to sign the marriage contracts as soon as Fred sends them. Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”

“Like what?” She forced a smile. “Run off to Gretna Green with the gardener? We don’t have a gardener, Tom. I am the gardener and I can hardly elope with myself.”

“Please don’t make a joke of this. It’s my dying request.”

She squinted her eyes at him. “Really? You would play the ‘it’s my dying wish card’ upon me now?”

The old grin sprang onto his features for a moment as he nodded. “I do mean it, Julianna. Tell me you’ll marry him.”

She looked away, staring out the frost-covered window. And then back at their clasped hands. “I’ll do it,” she said finally, her fingers tightening around his. “I’ll marry him.”