What then?She thought suddenly,what if Papa is here, and we see him, and I prove that I am not a liar? Will Thomas and I be friends again? Will he stop hugging Sarah in dark corners?
“Why does he never come to the house, then?” Thomas, who spent every day with his own father, asked cruelly.
A familiar head of hair caught her eye before she could torture herself with the potential answers to that question.
“There he is!” She jumped up and ran, sure Thomas would be on her heels.
As she drew closer, her eyes drank him in, her tall, distinguished father.Charles Hawkins.Love and ownership welled up in her heart so strongly and so suddenly that they threatened to choke her. She had missed him so much. She used to cry for days after his visits when she was younger, before she learned to lock those feelings away in a tight little box inside her heart. Never mindthat, he was here now, looking every bit the gentleman that he was, with his elegant tailcoat and cravat, holding a cane in one gloved hand, and a tiny hand in the other.
Her steps faltered. Her father was holding a beautiful little girl’s hand. She appeared to be close in age to Lizzie herself, only she resembled a little cherub with her golden curls, and her dress was like one of those elaborate confectionsPapawould bring her sometimes.
“Papa?” she called out to him, but it sounded like a question even to her own ears. She was standing in front of him now, with Thomas’ arm brushing against hers. Her father’s eyes widened in what looked like horror and shock, not the pleased surprise she had envisioned. He tried to walk past them. He must not have seen her after all.
“Papa!” she called again, and this time she walked up to him and caught him by the sleeve. He shook her hand off, and she briefly entertained the idea that she must have made a mistake, that the tall man was a stranger and not her father after all.
But then he spoke.
“Young man, are you with this girl?”
A terrible weight settled in her stomach. The feeling was similar to the one she had when she stood in her window and watched Thomas talk to Sarah a month ago. Like something terrible was about to happen, and she had no way of stopping it.
“Yes, Mister,” Thomas replied, frowning as he glanced between the three of them.
“She must be lost. Why don’t you take her back to her family?”
“But,papa,” Elizabeth continued, but her father cut her off.
“She’s clearly confused; she needs to go find her family. Here is something for your trouble,” he said and pressed a coin into Thomas’ hand.
“Right away, Mister,” Thomas said and led her now limp body away from her father.
“Why didn’t he address you properly,Papa?” they heard the other girl ask as they walked away.
Elizabeth was past feeling things. Her limbs were heavy, and her heart was numb. Her mind was struggling to understand what had just happened, but since there was no way it could make sense of it, it just kept spinning in awful circles that made her belly hurt.
Thomas quickly led her back to their coach, where an angry Mister Ed was already waiting. He must have discovered their theft and found them somehow. Thomas left her standing and ran towards his father, whose face quickly grew concerned. He shook his head and wrinkled his cap in his hands as he explained something at length to his son, and soon both father and son were staring at Lizzie as she stood there with her arms dangling oddly from her body.
What did one do with their arms? Was she supposed to hold them somehow? Place them somewhere? The image of her father’s hand holding the little girl’s came to mind, and a giggle escaped her.
“Are you alright, Miss Lizzie?” Mister Ed asked her in the same tone she’d heard him use with his horses many times.
“This is the weirdest dream I’m having,” Lizzie laughed again, and Mister Ed swore.
“Put her in the carriage, Thomas, quickly.”
Mister Ed was one of the kindest men she knew. Thomas and his older sister Mary were lucky to have him, she thought. He’d never pretend not to know them. Now Thomas would always think her a liar, and he’d marry Sarah Baker and have a dozen red-headed babies with her, and she’d see them on market day, and they’d pretend not to know her either. Another laugh escaped her, but it sounded like a sob for some reason.
Thomas pulled her into a hug like he used to do whenever she lost a game when they were younger, since she’d always been a sore loser, but on this day, she couldn’t let herself enjoy his proximity, his warmth, or his smell. She felt dirty somehow, unworthy of his hug. She felt bereft, desperate, unprotected, alone in the world.
She pulled away from him and slid to the floor, hugging her knees and swaying slightly. Thomas tried talking to her, but she couldn’t hear a thing. She was already in the throes of the worst fever of her young life.
For the next two weeks, Elizabeth existed in a dreamlike state. The pain of the fever felt so good, so necessary. She’d usually have moments of lucidity in the dead of the night, when the house was quiet, and that was when she would try to come to terms with her new reality in peace. She’d heard her father and mother arguing by her bedside a few times, but she kept her eyes closed. She wasn’t ready to face them yet.
She recovered the same way she had fallen ill: suddenly. One day, she simply got up and got dressed before joining her mother at breakfast.
Her mother, Miss Catherine, prompted by Lizzie’s father, tried talking to their daughter about the events that preceded herillness in a roundabout way, as mortifying as it was for her. She wasn’t keen on her daughter knowing the circumstances of her birth. But the girl claimed not to remember anything, and the parents were only too happy to buy the lie.
Catherine, whose life revolved around waiting for Charles to visit, keeping him happy during those visits, and then dissecting the details of those visitsad nauseam, failed to notice how the fever had burned away the last remnants of her daughter’s childhood persona.
