The Road Taken Read Online Free PDF Page A

she had overlooked, she went to every town social event, and she went to the funeral of everyone in Bristol she had ever met, particularly if it was the funeral of a wife.
    She had known William Smith for several years because she bought her meat at his butcher shop, and when she heard that his sickly wife had died on the very same day she herself had attended to his son’s lovely birthday cake, Celia thought it might be an omen. He was an older man, which she liked, he was healthy and good-looking enough, and he had young children who would need a new mother. The fact that the oldest of these children, his daughter Maude, was fifteen while Celia herself was only twenty-five, didn’t bother her. People were old and died at fifty; twenty-five was middle-aged. His girls would need a trusted older friend, which she would be. In all the time she had been listening to gossip at the bakery, Celia had never heard a breath of scandal about William Smith—despite his wife’s frail health he had never been known to look at another woman. That was good. He would be a faithful husband.
    Celia not only went to Adelaide Smith’s funeral, but she wrote William a sympathetic note. It was on expensive stationery she really couldn’t afford, but she didn’t want him to think she needed his money. Her letter was formal and old-fashioned, the way she had been taught to write before she left high school. “I hope you do not feel offended that I take the liberty of saying that I know how you must feel,” Celia wrote, in her painfully neat penmanship, “as I myself am recently bereaved. But it must be so much worse for you because you have three heartbroken children to comfort, while I myself have only one. Life goes on, yes, that is true. Believe it. If you need anything please do not hesitate to ask me. Your friend and neighbor, Celia Kisler.”
    Not long afterward he came by the bakery at closing time and asked her if she would like to take a stroll with him.
    He opened up on these walks, seeming glad to have another adult to speak to who was not a relative. He talked of his worries about his children, how hard it was to be both father and mother to them. He said he felt awkward with his daughters, and that they needed a woman’s touch in their lives. Their aunts were not enough, he knew, and besides, their aunts had families of their own to take care of. Celia, of course, agreed. William also told her, several times, how beautiful his wife, Adelaide, had been, and how much he missed her.
    Beautiful? Celia thought. That pasty-faced creature? He really must have been in love.
    She looked at this masculine man, of respectable old Yankee stock, with his own business, and thought what a good catch he would be. He was lonely; she listened to him, and complimented him, and sometimes gave him the sort of domestic advice only a woman could give. She made herself as attractive and feminine as possible, scented, softly murmuring, but also practical. She often gave him cakes or cookies to take home to his children, a sign of caring, and a treat. She invited him and his children to Sunday dinners and arranged outings. She wanted him to see her and Alfred as a part of his family. William Smith needed her, and Celia was aware that the need he felt would, in time, convince him that he had to have her. He couldn’t keep living with just the memory of a woman; he deserved a real one. Eventually, he proposed.
    When they were married everyone said they were both lucky: Celia because she didn’t have to work anymore and he would take care of her, and William because she would take care of him and his orphan children. Whether or not the newlyweds were in love didn’t matter. They loved each other enough.
    The truth was they did love each other enough: Celia no more or less than she had ever loved anyone, except for Alfred, and William more than he had expected.
    Celia set to work getting her new household in order. She had a hired girl who worked