SHE DREAMT OF a long tunnel of trees, sunlight turning the transparent leaves into a kaleidoscope. The Hamiltons kept a kaleidoscope in their parlor. When you looked inside, you saw church windows that kept shattering and changing colors. Windows and tunnels, dancing light.
Her eyes flickered and her fingertips touched the edge of something delicate. The lacy coverlet brushed the edge of her throat. So this was what it felt like to wake up under lace. Milky gray light shone on the lily wallpaper as she sat up slowly, taking in the bookcase and the walnut-framed mirror that threw her bewildered face back at her. Where was she? Her bare feet found her shoes. Yesterday's dress lay crumpled over the back of a chair. When she pushed open the curtains, the light turned golden as the full force of morning poured into the room. The sun had already risen over the woodlot, where the birds sang and sang. It was late. How could she not have heard the cow? There was no noise at all, apart from the birds.
The baby. She hadn't heard her cry all night. Throwing on her dress, she stepped out into the hallway. The Maagdenbergh woman's door was wide open, her unmade bed empty. Penny rushed down to the kitchen, which was swimming in light. How the sunlight transformed everything. How it made the dusty cupboards and icebox gleam. You had to look hard to see past its radiant spell. The sunlight seemed inseparable from the aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans.
The Maagdenbergh woman stood at the stove, heating up a pan of milk. She was wearing overalls, work boots, and a man's shirt. The sun caught her chestnut hair in a fiery blaze. The gold bathed her face. Penny had to look carefully to see how pale she still was, the gray circles etched under her eyes.
"Morning," she said, her eyes glued to the stove.
"Morning," Penny replied. "You must be feeling better." Her eyes dropped down to the Maagdenbergh woman's work boots, dark and wet from the dew. So she had milked the cow herself while Penny was sleeping.
"I feel fine." The Maagdenbergh woman couldn't look her in the eye. She seemed embarrassed, as though she didn't want to remember how Penny had found her when she was bleeding and helpless. Penny herself was embarrassed when she remembered. Turning away, she glanced at the table where the baby slept, tucked into a large basket lined with a quilt.
"Do you want some coffee? I brewed some. I always take my coffee with hot milk."
Penny looked past her to the pan, in which she had roasted the beans, and the wooden coffee mill, in which she had ground them. The smell was heavenly, but she didn't like coffee. On the back burner there was a pot of bubbling oatmeal. The Maagdenbergh woman had made breakfast, which should have been Penny's job. She should still be in bed. Penny watched her pour two cups: first the strong coffee, then the hot milk. She took the pot of oatmeal off the burner and ladled it into two bowls.
"We're nearly out of coffee," she told Penny, handing her the cup. "I need to make a run into town to get some groceries, but first I should go out and have a look around the farm."
"Dr. Lovell said you had to stay in bed for another week." Penny set her cup on the table. It seemed too late to tell her she didn't like coffee and that she thought that hot milk was what you drank when you were sick.
"I've been in bed a whole week. Another week of doing nothing would kill me. Dr. Lovell doesn't have a farm to run, does he? With all this heat, harvest might be early this year. Would you mind watching the baby for me while I go around the fields?" Sitting at the table, she spooned brown sugar on her oatmeal.
"Ma'am, I can't." Penny went to the screen door and looked out at the geese promenading across the lawn. "I can't stay here anymore."
"Call me Cora, please. And come and eat your breakfast." She spoke quickly, as if to hide her shaky authority. "You really helped me out. The doctor said you might have saved my life. I want to give you something for your trouble."
Penny stared out at the back lawn, littered with white goose feathers. If her mother were here, she would make her gather those feathers in an old flour sack. When they had enough, they would wash them clean, dry them, and sew them into a pillow. Her mother never liked to see anything go to waste. Pressing her hand against the screen door, Penny felt her heartbeat quicken. Did she miss her mother already? A memory intruded before she could push it away. She was a little kid curled in her mother's lap, gazing up at her and stroking her long black hair, telling her how pretty she was. Sweetie, her mother had said. You're such a sweetie.
"I don't want money," she heard herself tell Cora. "I don't want to take money just for helping you." She spoke so decisively that she startled herself. "But I'm going home today. The doctor said I could go as soon as you were better." Her eyes lingered on the geese as they cropped grass and preened their feathers. "My mother wants me to come home," she lied. This time her voice didn't sound nearly as strong.
"Is Penny your real name or your nickname?"
She let out a long breath. "My real name's Penelope, but nobody ever calls me that."
"That's a lovely name." Cora paused. If you didn't look at her but just listened to her talk, she sounded like any other woman. Right now her voice was as gentle as Mrs. Hamilton's had been in the old days. "Penny, why don't you finish your breakfast before it gets cold?"
She joined Cora at the table, taking her place across from her. The baby in her basket was in the middle of the table, blocking Penny's view of Cora. When Cora spoke to her, Penny's eyes rested on the sleeping infant.
"Put some sugar in the coffee," Cora told her. "It tastes better that way." She moved the sugar bowl across the table toward Penny, her hand snaking around the baby's basket. "You can see that I need a hired girl," she said.
Penny raised the cup to her lips and took her first sip of the sweet milky coffee that was completely unlike the bitter black stuff her mother made. "You said you were looking for someone older."
"How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"You should be in school."
"I'm finished with school." The words shot out of her mouth.
After a moment's silence, Cora said, "I left school early, too."
Penny wondered how old she was when she married Dr. Egan. Cora had been born in 1898, which made her twenty-five—ten years older than she was. When she tried to imagine where she herself would be in ten years, she saw only scrub buckets, worn-down shoes. A life just like her mother's.
"If you could at least stay until after the harvest is in. You can name your own wages. My grandfather left me some money. That's the way those old Dutch farmers are. They hoard every nickel."
Penny sprinkled sugar on her oatmeal and took a spoonful, allowing its thick warmth to fill her mouth. Cora made good oatmeal.
"I know I must have shouted at you. I can't even remember what I said. Maybe something awful. I was delirious. I think every woman gets a little delirious when she goes through labor."
Penny wondered how she could get up from her chair and say goodbye without being rude. She should never have come here—it was all just too much.
"I used to work in a maternity clinic," Cora went on. "I never knew a woman who didn't curse and swear and say the most terrible things when she was giving birth."
The baby began to cry. Bending over the basket, Cora stroked her daughter's cheek, cooing to her. When Penny saw Cora's face suddenly go soft, she had to look away. It seemed so private, the look she was giving her baby.
"I have to go." Penny stood up and pushed her chair back under the table as her mother had taught her. She carried her cup of coffee and her bowl of barely touched oatmeal to the sink before heading toward the back door. "Your offer is nice," she said, "but I promised my mother I'd come home." Her hand on the doorknob, she imagined the reception her mother would give her. A cold guffaw. She could already hear her. I told you that Maagdenbergh woman is as strange as they come. Sometimes she wished she was a kid again, back when loving her mother had been easy. She missed the days when they used to go to the lake together or when they went to get ice cream after church. Back when Mr. H. was just their boss and not her mother's dirty secret.
"Penny," Cora called after her. "At least finish your breakfast. If you can wait an hour or two, I'll drive you into town. We can put your bicycle in the back of the pickup."
The bicycle was where Penny had left it, propped against the porch, its handlebars glinting in the sun. She considered the long dusty stretch of road. She imagined her mother bent over the stove making soup broth, her fist clutching the wooden spoon like a club. Would she hit her again? For taking the bicycle and disappearing like that?
"Penny?"
Slowly she turned.
Cora was rocking the baby when she met her eye. "There aren't many people I trust. But I trust you."
The back of Penny's knees went soft. Then Cora went red in the face, and they both looked away.
"Can you hold her for a second?" Cora handed her the baby, then set Penny's coffee and oatmeal back on the table. Penny marveled how sweet and trusting the baby was, as peaceful as she had been in her mother's arms. Well, she knows who I am, Penny thought. She had given the baby her first bath. She had been the first person to put diapers on her. When Cora took Phoebe again, Penny sat down and finished her breakfast.