“I appreciate all your help, Edith. You don’t have to rush off right away, you know.”
“It wasn’t any trouble at all.” Edith looked over at Millie and smiled an encouraging smile. “Millie needs time to settle. Both into the house and with the children. Don’t get too excited about me being gone, though. I’ll come back in a few days. Just to see if I can help.”
Adam had no doubt that Edith would be back. Neighbors were scarce enough out here and opportunities for socializing were few. A woman near her own age for a neighbor? That had to feel like treasure to someone as outgoing as Edith.
“I’ll get your horses and hitch them.” Adam set Genie down by the women and walked into the barn, pausing in the cool shadows inside. He turned to watch the group.
Edith was talking to Millie, her lips never seeming to stop and her hands moving in motions that probably corresponded to her words. Millie was watching, but was not talking in response. Caty and Genie were just standing there. The awkwardness seemed to reach out and blanket the entire front yard.
Well, it was done. He had a wife. His children had a mother.
Please, God. Don’t let this have been another mistake.
To Do:
Wake up early
Gather eggs
Get water
Bring in wood for the day
Milk cow—well, try to milk the cow
Wash clothes
Hang clothes to dry
Churn butter
Make beds
Make stew for supper
Make bread
Beat dust out of rugs
Tackle mending pile
Weed garden
Work on knitting things to sell for extra money
Milk cow again?
Millie looked at her to-do list and frowned. She was hopelessly behind today. No, that wasn’t the full extent of it. She was hopelessly behind this month. Making her plans and lists was one thing. Actually doing them was a completely different thing. An increasingly frustrating thing, it turned out.
Between the two children outside her womb and the one inside, Millie was not getting anything done. At all.
Millie looked at her plans for the day and then scratched them out with a giant X. She hated that proof of her failure, right there for all to see. If she could, Millie would erase the always-uncompleted lists and pretend they never existed. But, she had used up all of her eraser doing that already. And, it hadn’t helped. She was still looking at a book of archived failures instead of a book of accomplishment.
“Miyi.”
Gene was awake. Millie closed her book and walked to the bedroom where the children were napping. She opened the door and was not surprised at all to see the little boy sitting up and grinning at her from the bed. Caty was still sleeping soundly next to him.
This had been their pattern for the past month. Both children would go down for their nap without a fuss, and both would quickly fall asleep. But, Genie woke up early. Every. Single. Time. Then, he grinned and charmed his way out of the rest of his nap. Millie supposed she should be firmer with him, but she just couldn’t. Not with that smile.
Millie came in and picked Gene up out of the bed. Holding him on one hip, she leaned down and adjusted the covers so they fully covered Caty. The girl would sleep for another hour or so, yet. Millie wasn’t too concerned about the difference in their nap time each day. Both children went to bed easily and on time. Both woke easily enough, too. Millie felt sure that each child was getting enough rest.
Millie left the door cracked as she went back out into the main room. She sat down in the rocking chair, adjusting Gene so he sat in her lap facing her.
“Well, Mr. Beale, did you have a good nap?”
“Yes!”
“Shh, you’ll wake your sister.”
“Blocks!”
Millie gave him her best mock-stern look. “May you please play with blocks?”
“Blocks, please?”
Good enough. Millie leaned forward and kissed his forehead before standing up and carrying him to the small area rug in the center of the room. She set him down and went to get the basket full of blocks from the corner. Genie would happily sit there, banging and making noises as he played, for hours.
He was a good boy. Actually, they were both good children. Millie had settled into life with them fairly easily. Compared to most of the children in The Home, Caty and Genie were amazingly well behaved.
Millie walked over to the kitchen table and eyed her notebook with disgust. No, it wasn’t the children’s fault that she was not getting things done. They took up some of her time, of course. But, they were not demanding children. And the time she spent with them was a joy.
She was the problem. Millie had been around women who were expecting before. She knew about the sickness that could plague the first few months of pregnancy. Or, she thought she knew.
It seemed that knowing and seeing were nothing like actually experiencing. Millie was past the first few months of her pregnancy. This feeling of illness should be over, but it wasn’t. Millie was tired. Really, really tired. And she was still getting physically sick every day.
The result was that notebook full of failed plans and more than one night spent obsessing about her failure. Just seeing it on the table made Millie want to go back to bed, pull the covers up over her head and hide from the world.
But, that wasn’t going to help anything.
Instead, Millie went into the kitchen and began cutting vegetables for the stew she planned for supper. She listened to Genie’s noises, pictured a sleeping Caty and looked at the main room of the house. Despite all her shortcomings, she had made her way to a nice place. A safe one.
The house was as charming as those two rocking chairs on the front porch had promised. The kitchen and family room were combined in one large room. At first, Millie had been surprised by the lack of privacy in the kitchen. She’d never worked in one that wasn’t enclosed in its own separate space.
But, she’d come to think the design was pure genius after only a few days with the children. Millie was able to work in the kitchen or sit at the table and still see exactly where Caty and Gene were and what they were doing.
Beyond the main room, the house had three bedrooms. Three seemed like a lot for this part of the country, and Millie felt almost spoiled. Adam had a bedroom, the children shared a room, and the third one was Millie’s.
Millie had never had her own bedroom before. She still felt a sense of wonder at the thought. Adam’s letter had made clear that he was seeking a mother for his children and someone to help with his home. Not for more intimate companionship. Even so, Millie never considered she would have a room of her own. At best, she’d hoped for a separate bed in with the children.
Even now, weeks later, Millie sometimes found herself standing in the doorway and staring at it. Making sure it was real. The room had a bed and a chest of drawers and too many small, comforting details to count.
The bed was covered in a gorgeous quilt. The care and love with which it was made was only enhanced by the softness that came from many washings. A vase of flowers sat on top of the chest. They had been there that first day, and Millie had kept fresh ones there ever