He paged through them, making his own notes, outlining his own theory.
She had to work, and so did he, but he adjusted his own schedule to include what he thought of as mining-the-past time. He added to his stack of household ledgers with meticulous recordings of purchases of fowl, beef, eggs, butter and various vegetables from a local farmer named Henry Tribbet.
Eli decided Farmer Tribbet was an ancestor of his drinking pal Stoney. He amused himself imagining Stoney wearing a farmer’s straw hat and overalls when Barbie let out a warning woof, then dashed out, barking.
He rose from the temporary work space of card table and folding chair, started out. A moment after the barking stopped, Abra called up.
“It’s just me. Don’t come down if you’re busy.”
“I’m on three,” he called back.
“Oh. I’ve got a few things to put away, then I’ll be up.”
It sounded good, he admitted. To hear her voice break through the silence of the house, to know she’d come upstairs to join him, work with him, bring up bits and pieces of her day and the people in it.
Whenever he tried to imagine his days without her in them he remembered the dark cloud of time, his self-imposed house arrest where everything had been dull, colorless, heavy.
He’d never go back there, he’d pushed too far into the light to ever go back. But he often thought the brightest light was now Abra.
A short time later, he heard her coming up at a jog. He watched for her.
She wore knee-length jeans and a red T-shirt that claimed: Yoga Girls Are Twisted.
“Hi, I had a massage cancel, so—” She stopped on her way to the table where he sat, anticipating her hello kiss. “Oh my God!”
“What?” He sprang up, ready to defend against anything from a spider to a homicidal phantom.
“That dress!” She all but leaped on the dress he’d left draped over the trunk he was cataloging.
She snatched it up as his heart gratefully descended from his throat, and rushed to the mirror she’d already undraped. As he’d seen her do with ball gowns, cocktail dresses, suits and whatever else caught her fancy, she held up the boldly coral twenties-style dress with its low waist and knee-length fringed skirt.
She turned right and left so the fringes lifted and twirled.
“Long, long pearls, masses of them, a matching cloche hat and a mile-long silver cigarette holder.” Still holding it, she spun around. “Imagine where this dress has been! Dancing the Charleston at some fabulous party or some wild speakeasy. Riding in a Model T, drinking bathtub gin and bootleg whiskey.”
She spun again. “The woman who wore this, she was daring, even a little reckless, and absolutely sure of herself.”
“It suits you.”
“Thanks, because it’s fabulous. You know with what we’ve found and cataloged already, you could have a fashion museum right up here.”
“I’ll take the option of a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
Men would be men, she supposed, and she had no desire to change that status.
“Okay, not here, but you definitely have enough for a fantastic display in Hester’s museum. One day.”
Unlike Eli, she carefully folded the dress with tissue. “I checked the telescope before I came up. He’s still a no-show.”
“He’ll be back.”
“I know it, but I hate waiting.” Belatedly, she walked over to kiss him. “Why aren’t you writing? It’s early for you to stop for the day.”
“I finished the first draft, so I’m taking a break, letting it cook a little.”
“You finished it.” She threw her arms around his neck, shook her hips. “That’s fantastic! Why aren’t we celebrating?”
“A first draft isn’t a book.”
“Of course it is, it’s just a book waiting for refinement. How do you feel about it?”
“Like it needs refinement, but pretty good. The end went quicker than I’d expected. Once I really saw it, it moved.”
“We’re absolutely celebrating. I’m going to make something amazing for dinner, and put a bottle of champagne from the butler’s pantry on ice.”
Thrilled for him, she dropped onto his lap. “I’m so proud of you.”
“You haven’t read it yet. Just one scene.”
“It doesn’t matter. You finished it. How many pages?”
“Right now? Five hundred and forty-three.”
“You wrote five hundred and forty-three pages, and you did that through a personal nightmare, you did that during a major transition in your life, through continuing conflict and stress and upheaval. If you’re not proud of yourself you’re either annoyingly modest or stupid. Which is it?”