Jenny could hear them whispering behind the door.  She had thought that Dr. Larson would have ranted or yelled when her mother told him what she knew.  But he spoke without a hint of any emotion.

“When do I need to leave?”

“Tonight would be best.  Tomorrow if you must.”

“I see.  Tomorrow, I think.”

Caroline sighed.  Jenny heard her mother walk towards the door and place her hand on the doorknob.  “You can’t speak to her, though, if that’s your reasoning for staying the night.”

There was silence.

“She’ll want me to at least say goodbye.”

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to decide what she wants.”

“I’m her doctor.”

Caroline laughed bitterly.  Jenny heard her mother’s skirts swirl as she turned around.  She spoke even softer, and Jenny had to press her ear even tighter against the door, careful not to shift her weight too much and make a sound.

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Caroline hissed.  “She put her trust in you—and you—you’re the worst kind of man.”

Jenny abruptly pulled her head away from the door.  She had never heard her mother cry.  But her furious inhales and constricted voice could only mean one thing.  Jenny’s own lip began to tremble, and she bit it until it bled.  Otherwise, she would have been heard.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” Dr. Larson said.  “I know it was unethical.  But you must understand, it was a perfectly consensual relationship.  Against my better judgement, perhaps, but—”

There was the sharp sound of a slap, and Jenny jumped back, just in time.  Her mother stormed out of the room dry-eyed.  Dr. Larson walked out slightly dazed, one hand on his reddened cheek.  If Caroline saw Jenny standing guiltily in the corner, she made no indication that she did. 

“Get out of my house,” Caroline said.

Dr. Larson didn’t need to be told twice.  He strode across the kitchen, then paused at the door.  “I need to get my things—”

“You can return for them later,” Caroline said, as the front door swung open.  Elsie and Samuel walked in from the cold, chatting amiably, their arms loaded with a week’s worth of bread.  Elsie beamed when she saw Dr. Larson, and Jenny’s heart sank.

“Dr. Larson, I hardly saw you there,” she said.  ‘I’m glad to see you out of your room,” she added teasingly.  Elsie waited for his reply, and her smile started to fade when she received none.  Wordlessly, Dr. Larson maneuvered past Samuel and out the door.  Elsie placed her bread on the table, her eyes still on the door and a confused look on her face.

“Elizabeth,” said Caroline, “I need to speak with you.”

Elsie looked away from where Dr. Larson had just been and back at her aunt.  “Is something wrong?”

Caroline huffed.  “I need to speak with you,” she repeated.  “Don’t ask questions.”

Elsie glanced at Jenny nervously, but obeyed.  She removed her cloak and bonnet, placed them on their hook, and followed Caroline into her bedroom.  The door shut behind them.

Samuel looked at Jenny as he placed his own loaves on the kitchen table, to be sorted out by Caroline when she was finished talking with Elsie.  “Is something wrong?”

Jenny just nodded.  Her father frowned at her.  “Care to tell me what it is?”

It was all too much.  She didn’t want her father to know too.  It was just too awful.  Jenny buried her face in her hands.  No tears came, but they might as well have.  She felt her father walk towards her and wrap his arms around her.  “Never mind, then,” he said soothingly.  “You don’t have to say a word.” 

Jenny silently leaned into his hug.  She was happy to stand like that until she heard the bedroom door creak open.  She looked up, and into her room. 

Caroline walked out and into the kitchen briskly.  Samuel followed her.  Elsie sat on the bed, staring ahead at nothing.  Her eyes were wet and red-rimmed, and her normally clear face was blotchy and puffy.  Jenny stood at the open doorway, feeling much as she had the day Elsie had arrived.  Like she was in a familiar place where she didn’t belong.

Jenny ran into the room, shutting the door behind her.  “What’s happened?” she asked.  She felt horrible for pretending.  But wouldn’t Elsie feel even worse if she knew that Jenny was behind all of this?

Elsie said nothing.  Jenny sat down beside her on the bed.  “What’s happened?” she repeated, with greater urgency.  Elsie looked up at her and Jenny swallowed when she saw the pained expression on her cousin’s red face.

“We aren’t getting married,” Elsie whispered.  Her voice was not shaky, as it should have been.  On the contrary, she sounded much too steady; it didn’t match her countenance.  Despite the tears welling in her eyes and trailing down her cheeks, Elsie was perfectly composed.

“Why not?” Jenny asked.  You know why, she thought.  It’s your fault she’s like this, it’s all your fault, you stupid—

“Aunt Caroline said that she’s making him leave.  And she said that he agreed it’s what’s best.”  Elsie let out a shaky breath.  “I shouldn’t—I should have known better.  I don’t know why I thought everything was going to be wonderful.”  She made a fist, and Jenny knew that her nails were digging into the pale flesh of her palm. 

Jenny’s guilt was crushed by a wave of fear. 

“Elsie, I’m so sorry.  It’s all my fault, I’m the one who told my mother about you and Dr. Larson.  I really didn’t mean to, I just—”

“I know.  She told me.  I’m not angry with you,” Elsie said emotionlessly.  “Aunt Caroline said that he said he loved me against his better judgement.  Did he really say that?”

Jenny hesitated, then nodded.

Elsie looked down.  “He would have realized that on his own sooner or later.”

“Elsie…he wasn’t worth loving.  What I read—”

Elsie’s gray eyes turned cold.  She turned away from Jenny, and stared straight ahead.  “You had no right to read through my journal.”

“I know, I know,” Jenny stammered.  “I really didn’t mean to, but—”

“You had no right.  No right.”

Jenny could feel hot tears pricking her eyes as Elsie’s voice made her skin burn with cold terror.  “I just wanted to help you.”

“Then leave.”

The tears were falling now.  “You said you weren’t angry with me.”

“I’m not.  Leave.”

“But—”

“Please leave.”

Jenny couldn’t move.  Elsie’s journal entries were floating through her mind.  The image of emptiness on Elsie’s face only moments ago, the need with which she marred her palms with half-moon scars.  “No,” Jenny said.  “I won’t leave you.”

Elsie stood, jolting Jenny, causing her to fall off the bed, landing hard upon the floor.  “Leave me alone!” Elsie screamed.  Her words vibrated through the small room; Jenny was certain that her mother and father and even Dr. Larson had heard them. 

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Elsie said in a low voice.  These words were just for Jenny.

Her lip trembled as she stood.  Jenny could taste the snot running from her nose.  “I’m so sorry,” she said.  Elsie curled into a fetal position upon the bed and turned away from her.  As Jenny backed out of the room, she could see Elsie shaking with silent sobs.  She closed the door behind her.

Her mother stood before her.  She must have been listening, just like Jenny had listened in on her.   “You did the right thing,” Caroline said uncharacteristically softly.   Jenny maneuvered away from her mother’s hug, a rare gift that she didn’t want.

She didn’t know what to do, where to go.  Wherever she went, the guilt would be there.  Her feet walked without direction towards the front door, down the rock path.  She ignored her father calling her name.  She wiped her eyes and nose.  That, at least, she could clean up. 

Dr. Larson was standing beside the pasture gate, his arms crossed, his face down.  He looked up when he saw Jenny walking towards him.

Jenny stared at him, her breath coming in heaving gasps.  “I hate you,” she said.

Dr. Larson was silent.  His face was utterly blank, as he looked down at the frost-laden grass.  Only his eyes showed any emotion; they were wide with fear.  “She approached me first,” he said.  “I didn’t do anything—”

Jenny didn’t wait for him to finish his self-defense.  She walked away, and didn’t look back.

She ignored the carved path of wagon wheels that made the road.  Jenny ran through a grass-blown path of her own design, one without any true destination.  It wasn’t until she was far from home that she stopped long enough to feel the cold air burning her lungs, the sweat soaking her brow.

She would have kept going, all the way to the Cliffs of Moher, to her sea and seashells.  But she didn’t think they would help.  Instead, she knelt in the wet grass and breathed deep, hollow breaths, in and out.  The world became those breaths, something simple that made sense, with structure and order, a problem bound to a solution.  In.  Out.  The sunlight looked like sour milk, and Jenny learned to breathe again, in air that made her gag.