The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander (best books to read for women TXT) 📕

recent days, and the moderate chin. There were moments, such as these, when he was serene, if not handsome.

She touched his face, hoping that her pulse would quicken, some spark to shoot through her; instead, her hand was as calm as if she were petting Charis. Touching him was oddly unsettling—something was off kilter. She quickly pushed that distressing feeling from her mind in favor of a practical one.

He is right for me and I am right for him. This will be the best course for both of us, considering what happened to me. He must never learn my secret. I’m very lucky to meet a man like Tom—lucky a man will have me at all.

* * *

On a snowy afternoon in January 1914, Emma and Tom were married in an Episcopal chapel in Boston. The event was a small affair by choice. They had agreed not to spend money on a lavish wedding, instead saving for the home they were to move into at the bottom of Beacon Hill near the Charles River. The purchase had been aided by Tom’s parents and the funds he’d been able to pull together.

Louisa was indeed Emma’s maid of honor, while Tom selected a doctor with whom he’d studied as his groomsman. The audience consisted of a few of the couple’s friends, Mrs. Livingston, Tom’s parents, and Helen and Matilda. Mrs. Livingston and Louisa arranged a reception in the chapel, but the proceedings were rather dull, Emma thought, particularly for a day that was to be the happiest of her life. Perhaps the snow, the gray sky, the cold seeping through the stone chapel, the feeling that Boston would never emerge from winter, smothered any joy the wedding dare presume. Emma also kept an eye on Louisa, impeccably dressed in a white gown and matching fur coat, who managed to maintain a reserved smile through it all.

The anxiety generated by the day carried over to the honeymoon night on Beacon Hill. Tom had never asked her if she was a virgin and Emma had never broached the subject, preferring to stay as far away from her first lover as possible. She’d half-expected Kurt to show up on her wedding day seeking to derail it—after all, the marriage of Emma Lewis and Thomas Evan Swan did make the newspapers’ society pages. She needn’t have worried, he never presented himself.

She considered virginity would never be an issue with Tom considering the varieties of physical experience a woman might go through from birth to her wedding night. As a doctor, he understood the human body.

At the house, they undressed in the cold bedroom and slid under the blankets, huddling against each other for warmth. The mechanics of sex that evening were like starting the Model T on a frigid day. Eventually, some warmth grew between them, but the lovemaking was perfunctory and Tom’s body felt like a marble slab on top of hers. At one point, as she eased into a rhythm that might as well have been played on a drum, she saw Kurt’s face instead of her husband’s and her ardor increased, clawing at Tom’s back with gusto.

He withdrew as soon as he had climaxed, disposed of the condom, and fell asleep within minutes, leaving her unsatisfied and restless. This was the pattern of their lovemaking for many months before Emma finally guided him to her like a patient teacher, but by then she had little inclination to be an instructor because their sex had become perfunctory and devoid of sensuality. Sometimes they talked of having children, but the subject never went far, Emma thinking of her painful past, Tom thinking of the future. They agreed that the time was “not right” for a child—that they should focus on his practice and her art. Too little time and too many early marriage expenses would make for a worrisome pregnancy.

* * *

War broke out at the end of July, and, for a time, no one in Boston seemed affected, other than to mouth the shallow words to pity the “poor Europeans.”

“It’s a total scandal,” Frances said one August day when Emma, Tom, and Louisa met for lunch at a Newbury Street restaurant. “I would have had you over for tea, but I felt the need to get out of the house, and, if you don’t mind my saying so, not trouble my staff on a Saturday. One tends to fixate on bad news when one is alone with the help.” She popped open her black lacquer fan and swung it vigorously near her face. “The heat is terrible today. Perhaps we should have lunched under an umbrella in my garden.”

“Quite right,” Louisa added. “Everyone is shocked by the war news, but I suppose it will blow over soon.”

Tom looked at his plate of cold fish and put his fork down beside it. “I hope you’re right, ladies, but I don’t hold such an optimistic view.”

“Tom, no one wants to hear bad news,” Emma said.

Louisa leaned across the table and gently slapped Tom’s hand. “Emma’s right, no one wants to hear it. And besides, America’s not in it. Let the Europeans sort it out for themselves—far away from us.”

Frances sipped at her wine and then frowned. “Restaurant vintage is atrocious—and at such prices! I should have brought my own bottle.” Her face soured as if a horrible thought had struck her. “French wines may become more expensive. How terrible!”

It was Tom’s turn to frown. “You’re overlooking the terrible human tragedy, Frances.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Like most Americans, I know it’s there but prefer not to think about it.”

“How is your sculpting coming along?” Louisa asked Emma, bringing about an obvious change of subject.

Emma leaned back in her chair, keeping an eye on Tom, whose frown still registered his displeasure about the war. “I’ve started a new work—Diana—after the huntress. Of course, it’s up to me to get it done and make it work, now that I’m no longer in school. It’s a smaller bronze, one