the peeling wallpaper – a pleasant blue and white floral pattern – it looked the way Olivia would have imagined a room in a nunnery, not one in the home of a
woman of ill repute. Mrs. Place set one lantern on the chest of drawers and went
out carrying the other. She soon thumped back up the stairs and knocked on
Olivia’s door to hand her a pitcher of water and a towel. When she turned to leave, Olivia’s voice stopped her.
“Mrs. Place?”
“Yes?”
Olivia hadn’t intended to ask so soon, but couldn’t wait. “I was just
wondering, do you happen to know when Mourning Free got back to town?”
“Didn’t know that he did. Ain’t heard or seen nothing of him since he left.”
Chapter Forty-One
The next morning Olivia lay in bed, staring at a rusty watermark in the shape
of Lake Erie that stained the wallpaper above the window. She put off facing the
day for a while by trying to place Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit
on it. The room was half-dark. The yellowing blind on the tall narrow window
was down, but sunlight leaked around its edges and through the hole in the
middle of it. Olivia finally rose and peeked through that hole, assuring herself that the window looked out over the empty fields before yanking on the pull string. The blind flew up with a loud snap and Olivia froze, listening, but the house remained silent.
She tiptoed to the door and pulled it open a crack, hearing only the ticking of
a clock. She had used the chamber pot during the night and pulled it out again,
knowing she dare not visit the outhouse in daylight. Then she poured water from
the pitcher into the basin and washed, wishing she had some tooth powder. There
was nothing else for her to do but gaze out the window, her mind blank. A few
clouds drifted across the sky, but the sun was bright. If only she could walk down to the river and Mourning would miraculously come sloshing up the bank.
Restless, she put on her dress and opened the door. Mrs. Place had set a pair
of fluffy pink house slippers in the hallway and Olivia slipped into them. The ticking was coming from a shelf in the hallway and Olivia started. The clock on
that shelf used to sit on the desk in her father’s study. She stared at it for a moment, wondering if she minded, but felt nothing. It was just a thing, a
timepiece. It was only a few minutes after nine o’clock, so she knew she had time to herself. Mrs. Place would be in her bakery all morning, until she closed
for an hour at noon.
Olivia tiptoed down the stairs, which creaked loudly in the empty house. Mrs.
Place had left the curtains in the parlor tightly shut and Olivia peeked around the
edge of one of them. A pair of women in identical brown poke bonnets came to
the bakery and quickly left, but neither of them glanced at the house. She
watched for a while longer, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tobey coming for an apple pie, then pulled back from the window and studied the parlor furnishings.
She half-expected to see more things that had once belonged to her father, but
nothing else looked familiar. Two flowery wingback chairs with matching
footstools were arranged with a small round end table next to each. On the wall
opposite, to the left of the arched doorway that led to the kitchen, a china cabinet
displayed silver goblets, fussy pink and white plates, and china figurines of women of various nationalities in exotic dress. Next to the cabinet, two ladder-back chairs and a rocker with a bright red cushion and matching footrest
completed a ring around the circular rug that covered the center of the floor.
Olivia didn’t share Mrs. Place’s taste in furnishings, but that rug was the only thing in the house that Olivia considered hideous. It was blotted with enormous
red and pink flowers, with leaves in two shades of sickly green. The background
