Lizzie also grew into a devout Christian woman, though her devotion took a different shape from Emma’s quiet piety. Where Emma folded inward, Lizzie flared outward. She carried her convictions like banners, unafraid to thrust them before the world. I often heard her voice sharpened with purpose, rising from the threshold just as the door crashed shut behind her. Her footsteps rang down the street, and I knew she was off again—to stand in public and shame the men who drifted into saloons and the women who disappeared into houses of ill repute. Her words cut through the air like thrown stones, loud enough to bruise pride even if no one dared answer back. No one answered her, at least not in words I could hear, but her defiance filled the air. If any reply came, it did not reach me, but the silence that followed seemed heavier than words.
Andrew, both proud and wary of her, would remark to his business associates that Lizzie was “a good catch—if the winner was strong enough to bridle her independence.” He said it with the tone of a challenge, as though the suitor would need to wrestle with her spirit as much as court her hand. And always hovering above these remarks was the weight of the Borden fortune—an inheritance that drew eyes and whispered judgments alike.
Abby, whose place in the household had long been questioned by outsiders, added her own voice to the matter. Many in town labeled her a gold digger, though Andrew defended her staunchly. To her friends, however, she confessed a more domestic hope: that both Emma and Lizzie would be married before their twentieth birthdays, settled into households of their own, freed from the simmering tensions of 2nd Street.
But beneath the respectable surface of duty, religion, and propriety, the house was rarely at peace. Its walls stored the echoes of disappointment, frustration, and longing, and I was always there—silent, scarred, and listening.
No suitors came. Years slipped by, and the sisters remained under the same roof with their father and stepmother. Into their forties they stayed, the unmarried daughters of Fall River, bound not by choice but by circumstance and resentment. The closeness of the house, once simply narrow, grew suffocating.
What had begun as small quarrels hardened into a rhythm of hostility. The sounds told the story more than words could: the stamp of feet across floorboards, the crash of dishes against hardwood, the thunder of doors slammed shut with finality. Voices rose in anger, and then, just as suddenly, silence followed—long, seething silences that pressed against the walls as if the house itself were holding its breath.
The tension became its own kind of weather, seeping into every corner. At its mildest, it was a taut unease, like a violin string wound too tight; at its worst, it was dread, thick and lingering. It clung to every hour of the day. Morning prayers edged with stiffness, afternoons with avoidance, evenings with footsteps pacing overhead while the rest of the house lay still. Even visitors sensed it. They would accept Andrew’s hospitality, stay a single night out of courtesy, and then leave by morning, offering polite excuses that could not mask their eagerness to escape.
Over time, the divide widened into a chasm. The sisters and their father and stepmother spoke rarely, and when they did, the words were clipped, stripped of warmth. Meals were no longer shared. The dining table, once the heart of a household, became a hollow centerpiece. They avoided each other deliberately—choosing different rooms, different hours, even different paths through the house so their eyes would not meet.
The house, for all its modest sturdiness, had become an arena of withheld words and open suspicion. Each door carried the echo of slammed arguments. Each hallway bore the residue of silence thick enough to sting. The air itself seemed to wait, restless and expectant, as if it knew the bitterness festering inside could not remain contained forever.