Sundance by David Fuller Page A

But you knew her, you knew what she was like.”
    He thought he did not know her. Her actions were inexplicable, inexcusable, opaque. Somewhere in the choices she made was the woman he loved. But her choices were unrecognizable.
    â€œWho came after that?”
    â€œA day or two later a man came. He had a bandage on his cheek. He was handsome, dark hair, olive skin, what do you call that? Swarthy. He was polite, but I could tell it wasn’t sincere. He scared me.”
    Clearly not one of the two monkeys who had visited Mina. He had thought that those men were hired to intimidate her and were therefore unimportant. Now he was convinced.
    â€œRemember his name?”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    â€œEver see him before?”
    She shrugged. “It was two years ago.”
    â€œHad she spoken about him?”
    â€œWhen she wasn’t talking about you, she talked about Lillian.”
    â€œLillian Wald.”
    She nodded. “The founder of that Settlement place. I saw her give a speech once. Oh dear. Don’t tell my husband. It was about suffrage and temperance.”
    â€œShe wrote me about her.”
    â€œShe liked it there. She’d come home and stop by the mirror and say, ‘Etta, that was a pretty good day.’”
    â€œShe said ‘Etta’?”
    â€œWasn’t that her name?”
    â€œYes.” He knew a strange relief. An encounter with the familiar, something that told him they were speaking of the same person. It was natural to call herself Etta with him, and even use it to annoy Mina, but that she had adopted it in New York meant something more.
    â€œShe’d take your letters and rush upstairs. Not exactly ladylike. She was less lonely when they came. After she read them, she was sadder.”
    Longbaugh pictured her on the stairs, holding up her skirt to run.
    â€œI thought of us as friends, but she didn’t always notice me. She had her own life. I liked her and wanted her to like me, but . . .” She shrugged. “Sometimes when she talked to me, it was like, I don’t know, she had a sort of glow that I could almost, this sounds silly, but that I could feel. And I felt . . . I guess I felt respected.”
    Longbaugh understood. He had seen how idly Etta treated certain people. He had also seen her turn on that light and how people were drawn to it. She had been like that with him every day they were together.
    â€œAbigail, I appreciate all this.”
    â€œOh goodness, call me Abby,” she said, then was flustered and turned to the side, running her fingers across her forehead to push away habitually loose hairs that today were not loose but carefully pinned.
    â€œWhat did she look like?” He meant it as a neutral question. “What did she wear?”
    â€œThat’s very sweet,” said Abigail sentimentally.
    Longbaugh cringed and said nothing.
    â€œI suppose she looked like a New York City girl. Kept her hair up, wore shirtwaists, long skirts, like most of us.” She looked down at her dress. “When we’re out in the street.”
    â€œAnything more about this man, the one with the bandage?”
    Abigail shook her head no. “You came a long way to find her.”
    He needed to steer her away from her maudlin appreciation of his marriage. “Thank you again, Abby.” He looked over and saw a muscular young man in the doorway, dressed in overalls with a black slouch hat in his hands, like the young men he had seen on the streets. He would learn later that he was dressing like a Wobbly, a western miner, part of the Industrial Workers of the World. Tough men emulated by the young boys of the East.
    Abigail looked as well. “Oh. Robert. You’re home early.”
    She pushed up from where she leaned on the counter, but did notmove toward him. Longbaugh thought her tone defensive, caught talking with a man in her kitchen, with her hair pinned and makeup on her