“Get up this instant, Hannah.”
The words cracked through the half-dark of morning before Hannah Whitlow had fully surfaced from sleep. She opened her eyes to the gray light leaking through the gaps in the cabin wall and saw her mother standing in the doorway with both hands planted on her hips, her face already sharpened into contempt.
“The sheriff has called all the girls,” her mother said. “Every last one. They’re choosing wives today.”
She let the sentence hang for a moment, then added with a bitterness that never seemed to tire, “A fine day for most families. Not for me.”
Hannah pushed herself upright too quickly, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. The room was cold. Her heart thudded painfully. She knew what day it was, of course. Everyone in Reedridge had been talking about it for a week. The sheriff’s order had spread through town like fire through straw. Every unmarried woman of suitable age was to present herself in the square. The men would choose. The town would approve. Lives would be assigned.
No one had said it that plainly, but everyone understood the shape of it.
“You’ll go,” her mother continued, voice hard and dismissive. “Even though no man in his right mind would ever choose you. You’ll still stand there like the rest so I’m not shamed for keeping you hidden at home.”
The words struck exactly where they always did, in the same bruised places already tender from years of hearing them.
Hannah gripped the edge of the blanket. Her first thought was not rebellion. It was the old familiar wish to disappear. If she could have folded herself small enough to slip through the floorboards, she would have.
Instead she lowered her feet to the ground.
“Don’t just sit there staring,” her mother snapped. “The bucket’s empty. Fetch water and bring back vegetables. You might as well be useful, since you’ll never be wanted.”
Then she left, taking the last of the room’s warmth with her.
Hannah dressed in silence. The faded dress strained slightly when she pulled it over her shoulders. The seams at the sides had been let out before and could not be trusted much farther. She wrapped her old shawl around herself, fingers moving automatically over the familiar worn spots and mended corners. Outside, the morning air cut cold and clean across her face, but it did nothing to cool the heat of humiliation already burning there.
The town was waking. Horses moved along the road. Shutters opened. Men’s voices carried between storefronts. Somewhere a door slammed and a baby began to cry. Ordinary sounds. Familiar ones. Yet even before she reached the well, the whispers found her.
“There she goes.”
“The sheriff’s gathering won’t change her fate.”
“No man would burden himself with that.”
Hannah fixed her eyes on the dirt road and kept walking. The bucket knocked softly against her leg. She had long ago learned not to flinch outwardly when the town spoke as if she could not hear. That only encouraged them. But the words still lodged in her all the same, burrs under skin.
Halfway to the well, she heard a child crying.
A little boy sat beside the road with one knee drawn up and both fists pressed uselessly into his eyes. Passersby stepped around him with the efficient indifference of people who believed someone else would surely help if help were needed. Hannah stopped.
She knew what would happen if she knelt down. Someone would laugh. Someone always laughed when she let her soft heart show. But the child’s scraped knee was bleeding in a thin, bright line, and he was trying so hard not to sob loudly that her body had already made the choice before her fear could.
She crouched beside him.
“Shh,” she said softly. “Let me see.”
The boy lifted his leg. Dirt clung to the scrape. Hannah tore a strip from the worn edge of her shawl and cleaned the cut with slow, careful hands.
“You’re brave,” she told him. “See? Nothing to fear.”
His breathing hitched, then steadied. He looked at her with the solemn gratitude children reserve for those who help without making a fuss.
“Thank you.”
She smiled and patted his hair.
Across the road, a pair of women watched and whispered.
“Always tending strays.”
“Strange girl.”
Their laughter followed her as she rose and went on.
At the well, girls already clustered in bright ribbons and cleaner dresses than Hannah could ever remember owning. Their faces held a nervous shine, not of dread but of hope. Some of them stood on tiptoe to catch their reflections in the water while pretending not to. Others rehearsed smiles behind gloved hands.
Hannah kept her head down, dropped the bucket, and watched her own image blur across the surface.
Her round face.
Her flushed cheeks.
Her tired eyes.
The way the shawl could not quite disguise the shape of her body no matter how tightly she wrapped it.
No man would ever choose you.
Her mother’s voice had become so constant in her mind it no longer sounded separate from her own.
“Let it be over quickly,” Hannah whispered to the dark circle of the well.
The bucket splashed below.
She hauled it up with arms already trembling and carried the water and the vegetables home through streets growing louder by the minute. By the time she reached the cabin, the town crier had begun walking the square with his bell.
“By order of the sheriff,” he shouted, and the sound carried through open doors and down every lane. “All unmarried women are to appear at the gathering today. Men will choose their brides so the town may prosper.”
The words rolled through Reedridge like thunder. Doors opened wider. Mothers began barking instructions. Dresses were shaken out. Hair was combed hard and fast. There was panic in some houses, excitement in others. In Hannah’s, only bitterness deepened.
Her mother wheeled on her the moment she stepped inside.
“You heard him. Fix your hair. At least look decent. Don’t shame me more than you already do.”
No man will choose you, but you will go. That was the logic of it. She was too much of an embarrassment to be hidden and too much of a burden to be spared.
From a drawer, her mother yanked out the red dress. It had once belonged to a cousin and had been altered badly enough that the seams pulled where Hannah’s shoulders were widest.
Choose Any Woman You Want, Cowboy — the Sheriff Said… Then I’ll Marry the Obese Girl
