straight-laid streets of Union, with its church spires and few lone telephone wires and its surrounding farms. Not when she knew for sure that her curiosity would scorch her if she didn‧t heed it. No, she wanted to see the world, and even as she promised to be John‧s forever, in her head she was planning how to steal away long enough to grab her case—already packed with the few things she would be taking to the Fields‧—and slip out the back window onto the alley, and make her way to the station for the 6:52 train that went all night to New York City, where she had been born.
When she heard her aunt clearing her throat, Cordelia realized that she had missed everything Father Andersen had said, including his prompting to her one and only line.
“I do,” she said, closing her eyes so John wouldn‧t see the dishonesty in them, and hoping he‧d forgive her someday.
Then Father Andersen pronounced them man and wife, and John moved toward her and folded the netting back over the crown of her head. She was almost shocked to look at him straight on, with no barrier between them, but when he put his mouth to hers, it was in the same soft, intentional way he‧d always kissed her before. Someone—probably her aunt—let out an audible sigh of relief. It was not until the newly married couple had turned to walk back down the aisle that Cordelia realized it was the last kiss John would ever give her.
2
THEY HEARD THE TRAIN A WHILE BEFORE THEY SAW IT, just as they passed out of the woods that separated Union, Ohio, from the next town over, and it was about that time that both girls broke into a run. Letty was shocked by how rapidly the train‧s noise approached, the screech of steel wheels against steel tracks. She looked over her shoulder to see how it towered over them, but Cordelia, her long legs moving as fast as possible, did not turn her head once. The cars shot by them, rearranging the sun-touched strands around Cordelia‧s face. Letty‧s bun was too firmly in place for that, but her old peacoat flapped open as she tried to keep up.
Cordelia was a year ahead of her in school and always spoke with an enviable sureness. As long as they‧d been friends, she‧d told Letty that they were both too good for Union, that someday they‧d find a way out. But Letty had always known it. She‧d known since she was a little girl that there was something special about her. The way she moved, the purity of her voice—she had an attention-drawing quality that her mother used to call her “magic.” And Mother had been a true beauty who‧d danced with the Cleveland ballet when she was young, before she‧d met Father. She used to whisper that Letty was her favorite, the most gifted of her children, when they‧d had their dance lessons on the first-floor parlor of the big house on Main Street—back when they were a happy family, before Mother was taken from them and Father decreed that dancing was one of the devil‧s tricks and that there would be no nicknames in the Haubstadt clan and began calling her Letitia, her given name.
Up ahead, at the Defiance Station, the waiting passengers stepped forward across the platform in anticipation. There was a flurry of activity—everyone shouting, luggage being thrust upward, boys who‧d been raised on farms saying good-bye to their mothers for a long time. They probably wore new coats over humble denim, which would of course give them away. But then, the dour quality of Letty‧s own dress and her straitlaced bun also gave her away, too, as the product of a very backward place. In the city, she used to like to tell herself before she fell asleep, all her most brilliant qualities would be instantly recognized and celebrated. For years, she had dreamed of going there—only, she could scarcely believe that dream was now about to become real, on this summer evening in mid-May of the year 1929.
That is, if she could keep her pace up. She had become breathless, and her legs were tired, and the duffel she carried over her narrow shoulders must have grown in size since they‧d left Union. It seemed to weigh almost as much as her younger sister Laura, who still demanded piggyback rides even though she was tall for her age, and even though their father