***Y'know, I'm a little miffed. This quarantine was supposed to be my time to retreat into my little bubble and focus on writing. But instead I'm at my work computer 9 hours a day having Skype meetings and sending emails and just generally doing more work than I do during a typical day at the actual office. It's bullshit! Bullshit I say! Anyway, here's another lousy chapter. Brent's coming back soon, but I wanted a couple years to pass before he did so I'm trying to make the time jump less erratic by giving some filler chapters in the in-between years. I hope it's not too boring. Cheerio!***
Josh
"Please, no. Oh, please, no. Please, don't make us go." Amelia clasped her hands beneath her chin and stared up at him with mock pleading. Rebecca clung with one grimy fist to her skirts and stared up at him as well.
"Peez!" she echoed. She wasn't quite walking and wasn't quite talking, but she was getting very good at wobbly assisted standing and repeating sounds. She had a handful of words that made sense-- ma, da, wuf, no-- and another handful that made absolutely no sense at all. According to Amelia, ro translated directly to "milk" and na obviously meant "pick me up." Obviously.
His daughter stared up at him with big blue eyes and extended her free hand in his direction. "Na!"
Pinching his lips together on a smile, he reached down and hoisted her into his arms. If he didn't know better, he'd say the smile she flashed her mother as he settled her onto a hip was triumphant. Maybe even a little haughty. Pudgy fingers slapped at his jaw.
"We don't have a choice, Ames," he said, reaching up and absently pulling Reb's hand away from its assault. "It's Easter."
Her dramatic pout deepened. "Exactly! It's supposed to be a glorious day of new beginnings! Remind me again why we're spending it listening to that slimy weasel rant about original sin?"
He laughed. "Same reason we go every Sunday, I reckon," he answered with a shrug. "Now why don't you get our daughter ready while I fix up the sled."
He passed Rebecca into her arms, and she received the child with a lukewarm glare. It was their Sunday tradition to argue about church. At first it had annoyed the daylights out of him. It wasn't like he wanted to go. They went to keep his father happy. She knew that. Or at least he thought she knew that. But every Sunday she moaned and carried on and begged him to stay home, just this once.
It took months for him to realize what she was doing. It shouldn't have taken him so long, except he tended, once the service began, to fix his eyes on the upper right-hand corner of the giant cross behind the altar and let his mind wander until the preacher stopped talking. He knew the words the man said weren't true, but hearing them week after week left a mark. Like the ruts a heavy wagon left in soft earth if it sat for too long. The words sank into his brain and lingered there. His mind knew they were false, but his heart bore scorch marks in the shape of the lies.
So he learned not to listen. It was Melissa's trick, to pick a spot to stare as if deep in thoughts of penance, and let the mind roam free to more worthwhile endeavors. Before Amelia it had been work. After Amelia it had been plans for her and the baby. After the baby... well, after Reb he came to his senses.
It was his daughter who finally clued him in on Amelia's duplicity. Her gentle-hearted kindness. Their daughter had been two months old when they first brought her with them to the service. Amelia had put up a bigger fight than ever, having been allowed to stay home for two months under the auspices of recovery. He'd damn near lost his head and yelled at her before she finally acquiesced and clambered up into the wagon.
Halfway through the service, Reb had begun to squirm and emit the distressed little sounds that Josh had grown to recognize as the warning signs of a wailing breakdown. The preacher he could ignore. Rebecca, he couldn't. Tearing his eyes away from the cross, he looked over at Amelia and found her watching him. Reb fidgeted in her arms, but his wife's eyes were on him, glazed with a sheen of worry.
After that, he'd started paying attention. Started catching her concerned glances throughout each service. Started seeing her pleas to stay home as what they were-- a show of support. Assurance that she was on his side. She knew as well as he did why they had to go, but she didn't believe the preacher's words any more than he did. Hell, she probably believed them even less.
As much as he hated church, he had come to cherish their pre-church ritual. And their post-church rituals as well. For some reason, the vitriolic anti-passion rhetoric they suffered during the service imbued in his wife an urgent, almost desperate craving for carnal pleasure. One that he was happy to oblige.
For that reason, he was smiling as he walked out into the driving wind. Spring had come on paper, but the weather, as usual, seemed to have missed the notice. Snow still blanketed the hills and bitter wind sliced through his outerwear as he strode toward the barn. It was a small structure. Modest, like the little cottage he shared with Amelia and Rebecca. He and the men had thrown it up shortly after finishing with the house. Just eight stalls, a claustrophobic tack room, and a hayloft.
Inside, he was greeted by the familiar musk of livestock and a few friendly snorts of greeting from the horses. Leaving the saddle-horses to their warmth and fresh feed, he harnessed up his old draft horse and led her out into the wind. She tossed her head in displeasure, but subsided reluctantly once he had her hitched to the sled. He'd have to retire her soon. She had maybe two or three years left of good work in her. He had a mind to ask his father to breed one of the Percherons, but he wasn't holding out hope.
Mind wandering, he led the horse and sled toward the house, hitching the animal to the post he'd installed by the porch steps. All around the house, their regular foot traffic had tamped the snow down to a thick layer of ice. It was easier to traverse than the knee-high drifts that covered less-trafficked areas, but it was slick as hell.
"You know I'm out here all day every day, walking around," Amelia laughed as he met her at the top of the stairs and pulled Rebecca from her arms. Even so, when he hitched Reb onto a hip and offered his wife his free arm, she took it. "I fall down all the time and I haven't died from it yet."
He laughed, taking extra caution to center his balance as they shuffled toward the sled. She was right. She had the grace of a newborn foal on the ice, and her spills inevitably ended with a fit of giggles and his own stifled laughter as he helped her back to her feet. Even so, that was when he was busy. Right now, he had nothing better to do than offer her a steady hand and help her to the sled. It wasn't a selfless gesture, either. There was little he loved more than the feel of her clinging to his arm, her body shaking with suppressed laughter as she slipped and slid clumsily over the ice. Somewhere between the porch and the sled, the heat of her nearness banished the harsh wind.
He handed her up, and she settled in, reaching down for their daughter. Poor Reb was bundled within an inch of her life. Josh gave her a year, maybe two, before she started protesting her mother's excessive swaddling. For all that she'd grown heartier with her second winter, Amelia would always have thin southern blood. Rebecca was born in the mountains. She was half her father, and whether that meant Josh or Brent didn't really matter. Both had grown up in these harsh, relentless hills. Both had spent their youth caked in snow, with wet socks and ice-crystals in their hair. So would Rebecca.
But for now, she was content to snuggle against her mother's chest, huddled beneath the three layers of blanket he'd grabbed from the house for the drive. He supposed if he had the option to be held against his wife's bosom instead of driving he wouldn't put up much fuss about it either.
Wind buffeted the clouds overhead as the rising sun began to burn off the wispy layer of gray. Amelia tipped her head back and smiled at the beams of sunlight that slashed over her face, and it was a good thing the horse knew where she was going or Josh likely would have driven them into the river that snaked alongside the path they followed.
"If I close my eyes and ignore the wind and the cold I can pretend it's actually spring," Amelia joked, and he laughed, shifting the reins to one hand and reaching over to drape an arm around her shoulder.
"That's all you have to do?"
"Mmhm." She shifted over on the bench as Reb began to wiggle around in her lap, struggling to face forward. "Here, take your little urchin and let me drive."
"How come she's only 'my little' anything when she's acting up?" he asked sullenly, handing over the reins and lifting Reb from her mother's lap.
"Because I am a flawless angel, and never gave anyone any trouble growing up," Amelia said primly, snapping the reins a little and leaning back in her seat. "With that in mind, she's my little angel, my little buttercup, my little princess--"
"And my little urchin?" he finished, scowling over at her. He'd tried to tuck the blanket around his daughter, but she twisted and fidgeted in his lap until he set her free and placed her forward on his knees so she could see over the top of the sled.
"Exactly!" Amelia said happily. "Your little urchin, your little hell-raiser, your little barbarian..."
"Hmph."
Rebecca squealed happily as he jounced her on his knees, two hands wrapped around her small body to keep her in place as she shouted with glee. The wind didn't seem to bother her as she leaned forward in his lap, reaching for the front of the sled. God, she'd be worse than Melissa and Brent put together once she got to walking. She'd put him in an early grave.
"See!" Rebecca yelled happily, arms still grasping around in front of her. "See! See! See!"
Josh glanced at Amelia, raising an eyebrow in question.
"Horse," she said, as if it should have been clear, handling the reins with ease.
"Ah..." he shook his head in resignation, pulling Rebecca back off his knees to sit more snuggly in his lap and tugging the blanket over her. She might not mind the harsh wind, but she was still so little. He figured he'd worry less in a few years when she was a little older and less cherubic. By the time she turned into a woman he'd hardly worry at all.
Snorting at his own absurdity, he tightened his arm around his little barbarian, who had subsided reluctantly into her cocoon. He had a strong suspicion that loving Rebecca was going to be a lot like loving everyone else in his life. Every day she'd burrow a little deeper into her heart and every little change in who she was would endear her to him more.
Amelia was a good example, he thought as he watched his wife steer the sled through the crunchy crust of late-spring snow. Look at how much she had changed, in just a year and a half. She was loud and bold and she sassed him mercilessly which she certainly wouldn't have had the nerve to do when they were first married. Her body had changed with Reb's arrival, her curves more pronounced, her eyes a brighter blue, her hair a slightly more burnished gold. And he loved her more now than he had then. Knew that he would love her somehow even more when her hair had faded to gray and her entire body was sagging with the weight of gravity, for surely she'd be even bolder and give him even more trouble as the years pressed on.
"What are you all pensive about?" Amelia asked, nudging his side with an elbow. Overhead, the sky had cleared to pale blue, and the wind had faded. It was shaping up to be a pleasant day.
"Just readying myself for a couple hours of prayerful self-reflection," he drawled, adjusting his grip on Reb when she twisted around in his lap and burrowed sleepily into his chest. She was an all or nothing kind of kid, his Rebecca. If she wasn't charging headfirst into trouble, she was tumbling headfirst into dreams. "Sedate" wasn't in her wheelhouse. All she knew was "manic energy" and "unconscious."
"Oh? What will you be reflecting on today, then?" Amelia asked.
"Oh, you know, the usual," he said with a shrug, tugging the blanket up higher on Reb's shoulders and hitching a foot up against the front of the sled.
"Faith? Devotion? Redemption?"
"Sin."
She laughed, the sound like ringing sleigh bells, dancing like the sun over the white expanse around them. "Now why on earth would you be preoccupied with sin, on Easter Sunday of all days? Easter is about forgiveness, Joshua."
"Ah, well, there you go. If we didn't sin, why would we even need forgiveness? I respect the big man, Amelia. I don't want Him to feel we no longer need Him. The things I plan to do to you when we get home tonight are an act of pious devotion."
"Blasphemy," she gasped dramatically, her scolding lit from behind by a glow of excitement. "You're going to damn us both to hell."
For a moment, his heart stuttered, those old scars and scorch marks aching at the accusation. She's joking, you ass. He swallowed and knocked the foolish hurt aside, but not before she'd twisted around and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. His face was numb from the cold, but he still felt her touch. He'd have to be dead not to feel her kiss, and even then he figured he'd resurrect just to kiss her back.
"You're sure we have to go today?" she said as she settled back into her seat, reins still clasped in her gloved hands. "It's not too late to turn around. Honestly, Josh, that preacher makes me so crazy I think I really would rather go to hell for eternity than go to church for two hours."
He laughed and reclined a little farther into the hard edges of the bench seat. In truth, he was feeling awfully grateful lately, and awfully full of faith. He was a sinner for sure, but it seemed God had forgiven him anyway, burying him in blessings he definitely didn't deserve but wouldn't dare spurn. If spending a few hours in a smelly old church listening to a twisted little rat ramble was the price to pay for his paradise? Well, then, so be it.
Amelia
"My lord, she's getting big," Amelia crooned, hefting little Isobel in her arms and smiling up into her pudgy face. Katherine sat beside her, bouncing Rebecca on her knee. The preacher's wife had opened up some since their shared months of pregnancy, and even more since Isobel's birth. Amelia wouldn't exactly describe her as vivacious, and she still retreated into a hard shell of apathy when her husband was around, but Amelia had come to consider the woman as a friend. It helped that they were both first-time mothers, raising little girls with only six months between them. It gave them common ground-- shared tips and tricks and frustrations.
"She's always hungry," Katherine complained, her voice quiet but lively. She, Amelia, and Melissa had stolen off to the kitchen in the small house behind the church. Somewhere, Josh would be suffering through cigars and whiskey with his father and the reverend, which was undoubtedly a torturous experience. But he was the one who'd encouraged her to befriend Katherine all those months ago, so really it was his fault. Not that she wouldn't make it up to him when they got home.
"Have her teeth started coming in, yet?" Amelia asked, shuddering as she remembered that first hellish month. Of course there were still bad weeks, but nothing like that first month. The fevers, the endless screaming, the little daggers digging into her poor, abused flesh during feedings. She'd have thrown herself off the roof if her harried, overwhelmed husband hadn't sent for his sister.
Melissa had arrived with three worn textbooks containing snippets about teething, a dire warning about employing any "quack cures" as she called them, and a short shopping list which she tucked into Josh's pocket before sending him away to the general store on his fastest horse. Then she had sent Amelia to bed for a much-needed nap and walked around outside, bouncing her wailing niece on her hip and letting the little hellion gnaw on her finger. When Amelia woke up from her "short nap," the sun had long since set, her husband was sprawled on the bed beside her, fully clothed and snoring, and Rebecca lay on a quilt on the living room floor, gnawing happily on an India rubber pacifier while Melissa sat beside her sipping a mug of tea.
Thank Heaven for clever aunts.
"I think it's starting," Katherine said, her face twisting in apprehension. "She's stopped sleeping through the night again. Jacob went to town two days ago and brought home a bottle of Mrs. Winslow's. He says--"
"Absolutely not," Mellissa said sharply, spinning around from where she had been standing, gazing out the window by the stove while the two mothers admired each other's babies.
"He says--"
"I don't give a care what he says," Melissa hissed, lowering her voice and stepping closer when Katherine's face paled and her eyes flitted toward the door and the distant sound of men's voices. She knelt at Katherine's side, speaking under her breath. "Don't give your baby even a spoonful of that poison." The poor woman's face paled even further and she glanced fretfully at her daughter.
"It's bad for her?"
"Mrs. Winslow's would knock a grown man on his ass," Melissa said frankly, sitting back on her heels. "You might as well just feed her cyanide." Amelia's instincts roared, and she gestured at Katherine, offering Isobel back to her. They swapped children, and Katherine cuddled her daughter close to her chest, a gleam of tears in her eyes. It was Amelia's greatest fear on earth that she did something to harm her daughter. She couldn't imagine being told she'd almost inadvertently poisoned her.
"What should I do?" Katherine asked, raising frightened eyes to Melissa. "Jacob has been so good to us since... he's been so good. But he doesn't like it when she cries at night, and she's been so fussy. From what you said, it'll only get worse and I don't... I can't..." she trailed off, shaking her head and clearly fighting tears. Amelia shared a knowing glance with her sister-in-law. It was an unstated fact that the reverend did not treat his wife kindly, but it was also true that he'd softened since his wife began to show her pregnancy. Even his sermons lost a bit of their toxicity, and he had been boyishly excited when he announced Isobel's birth. Amelia still disliked the man intensely, but she understood Katherine's hope, as well as her fear. She just wished the woman would be more forthright about it so she could offer to help her escape.
"You know you can come stay with us anytime," Amelia said. "Just for a few days when it gets bad. Melissa could come too. We'd make a silly celebration of it, and take turns staying up with the squalling little monsters."
Katherine gave a shaky laugh and swept her fingers over Isobel's curly mop. Where the child had gotten her coal black hair was a mystery. Katherine's hair was a sooty auburn and the reverend's was the color of dirty straw. Once, months ago, Amelia had absently taken note of the curiosity. Katherine had shrugged and explained that her father's hair had been black before it went gray. "Guess it skips a generation," she had observed with such nonchalance Amelia hadn't understood why Melissa had dragged her aside back at the ranch and commanded her never to ask such questions again.
"I don't know," Katherine said faintly. "I don't think Jacob would like me being gone. Especially not... well, you know." Of course, she knew. The preacher's disdain for Amelia's husband was as blatant as it was ridiculous.
"Perhaps you could come stay with me and Pa," Melissa said. "Lord knows I could use a break from the old man. I've been all alone since Amelia here decided she and Josh needed more privacy to act out their torrid affair."
"Melissa," she snapped, scowling. "That's inappropriate." But Katherine was laughing, her cheeks pink.
"That might be okay," she said. "He won't be pleased that I'm not using the syrup he bought, though."
"Then don't tell him you're not using it," Melissa whispered conspiratorially. "Pour it out and then tell him it didn't work. Or, better yet, pour it in his evening tea. He'll go down so hard you could run a herd of steer through the house and he wouldn't wake up, let alone fuss about one little crying baby."
Again, Katherine laughed. Her demeanor brightened as their post-church coffee date progressed, and by the time they left she had promised to ask about coming to visit the ranch. The hope in her face had Amelia's own spirits lifting, and she was near to giddy when they stepped out of the house and found that the brisk, windy morning had settled into a still, sunny afternoon.
They rode home in contemplative silence. Josh handled the horse and Amelia dozed against his shoulder. Melissa and her father rode ahead a ways, and Amelia knew there would be a dinner invitation when they reached the fork where she and Josh peeled off and headed to their own corner of the property. They had already agreed to accept the invitation. It had been three weeks since they had done so, after all, and it was Easter. Time for family. Even if that family comprised of two people, one of whom was a noxious, hateful old windbag, the second a regular guest at their own home who they couldn't go three days without seeing.
Dinner was sedate and uneventful. The men discussed the ranch. Melissa and Amelia doted over Rebecca. Mr. Tucker hadn't been quite so poisonous since she and Josh had moved out. He wasn't exactly kind to his son, but he wasn't as frequently or as overtly cruel. Amelia liked to think that the old man was finally coming to his senses. More likely, though, she supposed it was just the distance. When Josh lived at home, he gave the old man updates on the ranch every day, which made the business portion of each conversation shorter and left more time for anger. Now, with the updates coming less often, they took up more time. It wasn't exactly a solution to all of their problems, but Amelia wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
After dinner, Josh excused himself to check in on the ranch, and Amelia sat in the parlor and watched the angry old drunk morph into a kindly grandfather, all too willing to lay on the floor and play with his only grandchild. Again, Amelia wished she could believe his affection was a sign of reformation. Again, she knew better. Rebecca was Josh's daughter. She'd known that the first time she saw them together, and every day it grew more clear. But it was equally clear that, for the old man, Rebecca was a link to the only son he still knew how to love. The prodigal, whose eventual return was guaranteed by the little girl's presence. Amelia, of course, had no such delusions. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to dissuade this man from loving her daughter. He was her ticket to a bright future, and he could dwell on whatever wrong-thinking he wanted so long as that didn't change.