Page 48 of My Heart Will Find You

“Kisses in the moonlight,” Etta said to Max, and he smiled. She had just solved the biggest problem of his life.

When Alice sniffed, they turned to her.

“I hate both of you,” Alice said, then ran back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

It was dark but Etta could see Max’s expression.How are you going to fix this?was what he was asking.

Suddenly, she felt dizzy. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t even know if I’ll be here.” Yet again, she fainted.

9

When Etta woke, she didn’t open her eyes. She saw light through her eyelids, but did it come from Ben’s window or was she still in Max’s house?

She wasn’t ready to know. She thought about what had happened in the dream. She’d united Ben-Bert with Caroline-Cornelia, and she hoped she’d changed Freddy’s life, and maybe Sally’s. She may have ensured that Henry’s house in Kansas City got built. Alice might have made some new friends, and she and Cornelia were again BFFs.

All of that was probably enough to make her wake up in Henry’s house. It was just that logic had nothing to do with how she felt. She ran her hand over the bed. Was it Ben’s or Max’s?

“Please be Max,” she whispered. “I don’t want to leave.”

Squinting, she slowly opened one eye. It seemed to take forever to focus. “Max!” she said. She was still in her dream. Still with all of them.

She flung back the covers and started to stand up, then flopped back down. She was sore all over. Yes, she’d solved some problems, but yesterday had been long and exhausting.

As she looked around, she realized she was not only in Max’s house, she was in his bed. She lifted up on one arm. The pillow next to her was dented, as was that side of the bed.

Well, well, well, she thought. It looked like she’d been moved from a room downstairs up to Max’s bedroom. Was it her reward for freeing him from his violent girlfriend? Or, maybe the bedroom honor wasn’t for Etta herself but because she’d removed a problem. Who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?

She made a second, more vigorous, attempt at getting up and she succeeded. She had on the voluminous nightgown that had been in her trunk. And no corset.

She gave a one-sided grin. Did Max undress her? It was a nice thought.

As soon as she was standing, she again wished for a modern bathroom. Now she’d have to dress before going outside to that smelly old building. Yuck.

She opened the bedroom door. No one was in the hall. She went to Max’s mother’s room. The beautiful silk dress she’d worn at dinner was on the bed, as was her corset and the cotton undergarments. Etta rummaged through the wardrobe to see what was in there. Heaven be praised but she found a white cotton blouse and one of those skirts that was actually a pair of pants. As long as no one asked her to ride a horse, she’d be fine. In a drawer at the bottom she found an abbreviated corset that laced in the front. She was falling in love with Max’s mother.

By the time Etta was dressed, she ran to the outhouse. The only one she knew of was Alice’s private one, but she wasn’t yet ready to see someone who’d said, “I hate you.” Etta went around the house to reach it.

At last relieved, she went back into the house, hoping Max would be there.

Instead, she almost ran into her father. She was so glad to see him that it was difficult not to throw her arms around him. “We meet again,” she said.

From his look, he didn’t remember her.

“Max’s wife,” she said. “Do you want me to show you to the office?”

He gave a silent nod, but then her father was always wary of strangers.

She led him to Max’s office and again she looked at the big desk. It was just like Henry’s but, with no carving on the front, maybe it wasn’t his after all.

“Well?” he said.

“This desk should have something on the front of it, but then, it would have cost a lot and Henry couldn’t afford it.” He was looking at her as though she was crazy. She got herself under control and opened two drawers before she found the account book. It was a mess. Numbers had been repeatedly inked out. She knew her father would hate that disorder. She shut the book. “You won’t like this.”

There was a file cabinet in the corner, and she opened the drawers. In the bottom were new, clean ledgers. She put one on the desk, then rummaged until she found ink and a steel pen. She set them to the upper right of the ledger, the way her father liked it. She stepped back. “There you go.”

He was looking at her with the expression that was beginning to be familiar. She was odd, strange, even a freak. This time, she didn’t let it bother her. “Have a seat and I’ll make you an omelet.”

“A what?”

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