Mittman, Stephanie (25 page)

"There's
a book in the kitchen that'll tell you how to boil up them beets, Willa,"
Annie said as she helped the girls get dressed. "If you have any trouble,
just ask Bart. I know he'll be glad to help ya."

Noah
threw Annie's shawl over her shoulders as she made her way out of the house.
She draped it around herself and Hannah, whom she held in her arms. When they
got to the wagon, Bart took Hannah from Annie and gave his sister a reluctant
hand up to the seat, steadying her as she climbed the wheel and finally handing
the child back once she was safely aboard. Noah handed her Julia and she
cuddled both girls to her gently, wrapping her shawl around the three of them
as Noah leaped into the wagon and gave a salute to Bart.

"I'll
take good care of her," he said.

"You
damn sure better," Bart said gruffly, "or you'll regret it."

They
rode in a silence that was neither companionable nor angry, but seemed to be
forced by the presence of two very shaken little girls.

"I
wasn't sure you'd agree to come," Noah said after a while, as they headed
toward his farm.

"Oh,
I believe that and next you'll be sellin' me fresh roses in winter," she
said with some annoyance. "You were as certain as dollars to doughnuts,
and don't pretend otherwise."

"I
suppose," he said, with the hint of a smile touching his mouth.
"Still, I don't know how to thank you."

"You
said, back there in the house, any terms I wanted. Did you mean it?"

He
threw a curious look her way but nodded. "Of course I meant it."

"Well,
here are my terms." She put up her fingers to number them. "First,
you ain't to come in the house while I'm there. You want me, you come knock at
the door and I'll come out, but I ain't gonna be alone in your house with
you."

"Done,"
he agreed.

"This
is, like you said, temporary. You gotta be trying your hardest to find someone
else to take over this job. I'm getting married in a few months and I can't be
watching your little ones when I got a husband to take care of."

"No,"
he agreed. "I can see how that would be a problem. I'll look—in fact, you
could look for me—and the minute you find someone to replace you I'll be happy
to hire her."

"I'll
have to be making your dinner early so I can get home to my own family. If Bart
has to eat much more of Willa's cooking I might have to learn leeching or
something."

"We
can eat whenever you say, right, girls?" He chucked Hannah under the chin,
but the child only stared at Annie.

"And
fourth, or is it fifth?" she asked. When he didn't respond, she continued.
"One thing I gotta know: have you read all those books in your
house?"

"I
have," he said.

"Then
I expect you could teach me?"

"You
can't read?" he asked. He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.

"I'm
all right with words," she said, swallowing her pride, "but whole
books are another thing. I didn't get much in the way of schooling, as you
probably know, and they didn't start a school library till after I was out of
the Union School. And being as how I'm gonna be a minister's wife"— she
didn't want to miss the opportunity of reminding him of that—"I need to
read and write better than I do."

"I
would be honored to teach you," he said. Why, he even seemed to mean it.
"But to be honest, you know, the ladies have formed a Library Association.
Wouldn't you rather join the library?"

She
knew all about the Library Association. Hattie Brotherton and Clara Cavett
themselves had come to her house and invited her to belong for what they called
the small sum of three dollars a year. Even if she'd had three dollars to
spare, and that was a laugh, it would probably take her a whole year to read
just one of the books. She didn't need the good ladies of Van Wert knowing that
the minister's wife could barely read. "You don't want to do it,
then?"

"Oh,
no," he assured her. "It would be an honor. I can't think of anything
that would give me more pleasure."

She'd
seen the way he looked at her, and she thought that Bart was probably right
about him, so she doubted this last statement was true. Still he seemed so
genuine about it that she pressed her luck.

"My
speech ain't great either," she admitted. "Do you think you could
help with that?"

"Isn't
great,"
he corrected. "And though I'd rather hear you speak than do almost
anything, I'd be happy to help you speak in a way that pleases
you.
Though
anyone who isn't pleased with you the way you are now is a fool. Still, I'd be
happy to help."

She
was telling him her faults, and somehow he was turning them all around and
praising her. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had praised her for
anything besides her cooking. He made her feel that even if she never roasted
another chicken or baked another pie, he would still think she was a worthwhile
person just by virtue of being Miss Annie Morrow.

"Well,"
she said, cuddling the girls closer to her and sharing her warmth. "I
think we got a deal."

"Have
a
deal," he corrected. "I think we do."

And
he began to whistle.

***

The
girls always liked it when he whistled. He'd started it when they were babies,
afraid that his singing voice was more likely to make them cry than put them to
sleep, and they'd taken to it, calming almost immediately as soon as he began.
Today was no different for Julia, whose little body began to relax against his.

Hannah
remained stiff against Annie's side, listing first one way and then the other,
mumbling something he couldn't quite make out.

"What's
she saying?" he asked.

"I
can't hear her. I asked, but she's too upset yet to tell me. Let's give it a
little time."

He
went back to his whistling, but it wavered as he thought about the marks on her
back.

"You
want to sit with me?" he asked his older daughter.

She
shook her head and clung more tightly to the woman next to her.

"What?
You don't want to sit on the ol' hot water bottle?" he joked, patting his
lap. "Miss Annie must be mighty warm to pass snuggling up to your
pa."

"I
ain't warm at all," Annie admitted. "I wish I'd thought to bring some
blankets."

"We'll
be home soon enough," he said, trying to move closer to them and share his
warmth, little as it was.

"Was
it right, then?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Ain't.
I said I ain't warm and you didn't correct me. Was it right?"

"There's
no such word as
ain't.
It doesn't matter how you use it, it won't be
right. The word you want most of the time is
isn't,
although sometimes
it's
am not.
It depends."

"Keep
talking," she said under her breath. "About anything."

He
looked past her at Hannah's closed eyes and nodded. It wasn't like her to ask
about her grammar at a time like this, so he should have known she was doing it
for his children's sake. But even for their sakes he could think of nothing to
say.

"It
looks like a cold day for laundry," Annie said. "'Course the cold is
welcome when you're working over the boiling pots."

"What?"

Annie
jerked her head in Hannah's direction. "But when you're hanging out those
wet things in the cold wind." Her voice faded out.

"I
can see that the cold would be a problem," he agreed, feeling like a total
fool. His children had been hit by the woman he had expected to care for them,
protect them from harm. They had been betrayed, and he had put them in that
position.

"Quite
a squaw winter we're having," Annie said, startling him.

"What?"

"Guess
it means we'll have a nice Indian summer. That's what they say, you know."

She
kept up the banter for the better part of three miles before finally going
silent.

"Sure
is cold," he said, to fill the sudden quiet.

"You
can stop," Annie said with a sigh. "She's asleep."

"Why
the hell were we talking about the weather and the laundry?" he demanded,
now that he was free to talk.

"Because
the best thing to do when a child is scared is to make things seem as regular
as you can. The more upset you get, the more upset she'll get."

"How
did you get so smart?" he asked.

"Smart?
I ain't—I'm not smart at all. Anyone can tell that just by listening to me. But
I know children. That ain't—oh, it's
not
smarts. It's experience."

"Do
you think I'm smart?" he asked her, holding her eyes with his.

"If
you really read all those books, I'd say yes, you surely must be."

"Well,
then, if I'm smart then I must be right about how smart you are, don't you
think?"

"No.
Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can't be mistaken."

He
laughed and shook his head. "Not only are you smart," he said to her
before redirecting his attention back to the road, "you just outsmarted me."

And,
he
decided, when he thought about her conditions,
you also outsmarted yourself.
You gave yourself away with your terms. I know what you treasure, and I can
give it to you.
But more than that, despite her first condition, that he
wasn't to come into the house when she was there, her other conditions demanded
that he do just that. How else could he teach her to read and speak better if
he stayed away from her?

As
for finding someone to take her place, he was convinced no one could do that.
If she wanted to waste her time looking, he had no objection, but as far as he
was concerned she would not be leaving him to marry Miller Winestock or any
other man. After what his girls had suffered, he just couldn't believe they
were about to be hurt again. Even if God could be that cruel, he couldn't
believe Annie Morrow would be.

"We're
here," he whispered, pulling the horse to a stop and easing down from the
wagon as carefully as he could so as not to wake the sleeping children. He
rounded the cart and reached up for Hannah. Annie's strong arms held her out to
him, and he shushed the child back to sleep and carried her inside.

When
he came back out, he stood watching Annie from the doorway. She had moved Julia
onto her lap and wrapped her in the shawl. With her forefinger she was
smoothing the frown lines on Julia's little face and cooing to her quietly. If
he'd seen a lovelier sight, he couldn't recall it.

She
looked up and smiled at him, and he came forward to take his baby. "I'll
be right back for you," he whispered as he turned toward the house, but
she was out of the wagon and leading the way, opening the door for him as he
bore his little girl.

Once
inside, she let him take the lead, following him to the girls' bedroom and
taking in the room as he laid the girl on the bed next to her sister.

"Let's
let them sleep in their clothes," she whispered. "They need their
rest."

He
nodded and turned to leave but saw she wasn't following him.

"I
could give you your first lesson before I head out to the fields," he
offered. She looked at him suspiciously. "On the porch," he added.

She
threw a last look at his daughters, then followed him out of the room. When he
stopped at the bookcase she paused a few feet from him, and her eyes widened at
the selection in front of her.

"What
do you think you might like to start with?" he asked her, moving closer
under the guise of searching for a particular book. If he just reached out his
arm, he could touch her. Reaching for Shakespeare would put him in contact with
her right arm. The
Almanac
would surely let him brush against her
breast.

He
put his hands behind his back and took a step away from her, cautioning himself
that there was a world of difference between having her in his house and
keeping her there. And no matter how much patience it took, he was determined
to keep her in his house until it became her home, and forever after that.

He
let her take her time, enjoying just being near her, watching her excitement as
she studied the spines of his books. She looked at his bookcases the way he
looked at her laden dining room table. They were a perfect match. "Go
ahead," he encouraged her. "Choose one."

"Any
one?" Her eyes were wide but, like him, she kept her hands neatly pinned
behind her.

"Touch
them," he said. "See how they feel. Heck, smell them if you want.
There must be one that appeals to you."

"Oh,
there is," she admitted somewhat shyly. "But it'll take me a long
time to get through it, and I don't feel right about keeping a book from its
rightful owner for so long."

"Which
one is that?" he asked, purposely ignoring her comments about how long she
would need the book. If things went as he planned, and he was going to see that
they did, the book would be back in his house along with all her belongings.