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By Root 793 0

I wanted to be alone to read or write notes back to Louise and Olea, he left me. If I wanted to talk about business, he made the time. He’d packed a number of books for reading on board the St. Louis, which took us first to Liverpool. We exchanged titles as we’d finish and speak of the authors and themes. He was kind to the servers, gentle with children. But he spoke with confidence at the dining table, told stories that made people lean in to hear him and settle back in laughter at the proper time. In groups, Olaf had been as silent as a mouse. So was I. Others sought Franklin’s advice about travel when they learned that he’d crossed the ocean numerous times and felt at home in markets around the world. Maybe Olaf would have found such confidence one day. Maybe I would too, with the proper training.

Franklin walked me to my room, holding my elbow against the movement of the ship. He looked into my eyes as he opened the stateroom door and leaned forward toward my face. I turned away. My heartbeat quickened, though from the inexperience of what might happen next. Uncertainty pulsing? I had no trouble breathing. He wasn’t the Forest of my youth. It was an observation I could have done without.

We spent several days in London visiting manufacturing houses. I thought I’d smell leaves and streams lingering on the raw skins as when I’d trapped with the Warrens’ help, but the tanning process stripped that all away with sawdust and corncobs tumbling the fur. Franklin patted my gloved hand drawn through his arm as we made our way past the soft gold of fur. This was a new world to me, the facilities bigger than those I’d seen in New York years before.

We shared our dinners in the dining rooms of London’s finest. “My treat,” Franklin insisted each time. The view of the Thames through floor-to-ceiling windows crossed into tiny squares transported me to Shakespeare’s days. I marveled that I was even here.

The day before we left England, Franklin handed me a large box wrapped in a black velvet ribbon.

“What’s this?” I asked. I sat a proper distance from him on the settee in his room, always before our dinner, never after.

“Something you ought to have,” he said.

I opened it with a flicker of anticipation. I’d never been given a gift from a man who was neither a brother nor stepfather. Out of the box I unfolded a luxurious motor coat made from pelts of white fox with a matching muff.

“Stand up,” he said, lifting it from me to place on my shoulders. “I think I chose the correct size.”

It felt like a gentle rain falling over me. The collar enthralled my neck, and with both hands I pulled it toward my chin. It smelled of the outdoors, fresh, pure. Franklin stood in front of me and buttoned the coat. It was the length of the reform dress, leaving a good foot of my black skirt hanging beneath it. “We’ll be having cooler weather from here on,” he said, “and you ought to have fur to ward off the chill.” He stood back and gazed at me. “White becomes you, brings out the darkness of your eyes.”

His words sounded thick, and his fingers lifted soft curls at my temple. With both hands, he centered the collar so it rose up toward the chignon at the top of my head. “Yes,” he repeated. “White fur becomes you, especially with that new hair color.” He bent to kiss me. My thoughts jumbled. When our lips parted, he stepped back.

“You’ll set the pace of this, Clara. I won’t push you.”

“I appreciate that.” My mind swirled with complications well beyond the innovations of the fur business in Finland. I wished now that Louise and Olea had come along.

Franklin stepped back, rubbed his fingers along my arms, reached back, and gave me the muff. I slipped my hands inside. He didn’t apologize, for which I’m grateful, and I had no need to tell him he was the first man who had ever kissed me—save that cheek peck from Forest years before. I felt warm and protected and wondered in that moment if this—not thumping hearts or shortened breaths—was the truer form of love.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Memory Geography

JULY 1906

Cool sunshine brushed my face as