Sylvie thanked Mrs. Bellows again, for the ride and for the meal and the basket of food she’d given her to bring home and for the conversation. Mrs. Bellows smiled and said she’d enjoyed it too. Then she hesitated and said, “Don’t worry too much, Sylvie. It’s all going to be okay. You’re resourceful and creative. I’ve always known it. I’ll help you if I can. Will you and the boys be at Old Home Day on Saturday?”
Sylvie spun her wedding ring and watched a chickadee dart from one tree to another in front of the house. Chickadee quick, chickadee meet, chickadee be.
“I don’t think so. It’s too soon and I don’t want everyone staring at us,” she said finally. “At the boys.”
Mrs. Bellows sighed. “I can’t promise they won’t, Sylvie. Maybe you’re right.” She turned to meet Sylvie’s gaze, her blue eyes bright against the graying tendrils of hair escaping from her neat bun in the humid air. Mrs. Bellows always wore her hair up, secured with expensive-looking tortoiseshell combs, but Sylvie liked when she could see what the older woman must have looked like as a girl, a little bit messy, curls coming down around her forehead. “You’re going to be okay, you know.”
You don’t know that, Sylvie wanted to say.
Mrs. Bellows seemed to want to say something else, but in the end she just patted Sylvie’s hand meaningfully, told her to call if she needed anything, anything at all, and Sylvie said goodbye and thanked her again for the food, feeling lighter and a little better.
Hooking the large basket of food and the now-empty yarn basket carefully over her arm, Sylvie shut the car door behind her, standing in the road and waving until the car disappeared down the hill. It was overcast now, an electric closeness in the air. She needed to get the washing off the line and she needed to bring the sheep up too. The baby kicked, as though it knew too that she needed to get going.
They came running as soon as they heard the door. “Mama,” Louis called out. “A man came and took Papa’s book and he said our house was a didgraze and he wanted to know where you were and why you left us alone.”
“What?” She put the basket down in the hall. Andy was standing in the doorway, biting his lip. “Tell me, Andy, what happened?”
She sat down on the couch and Daniel, who had been standing there sucking his thumb, came over and crawled into her lap. He smelled of raspberry jam. He had been at the jars again, popping off the tops and wax seal and eating it with a spoon. Now wasn’t the time to scold him, though.
“It was Papa’s brother,” Andy said, his blue eyes darting between her and the door in worry. “Hugh’s brother. I knew as soon as I came to the door. He looks like him.” A tear squeezed out of one eye and he furiously rubbed it away. She gestured for him to come and sit on the other side of her and he did, leaning in and letting her take his hand. “He came in demanding to see you and asking us our names and saying the house was a disgrace and what was wrong with you anyway, were you simple? We didn’t know what to say. Then he asked us if you often left us alone and he went over to the bookcases and looked around and took a book, saying it was his, that Papa wanted him to have it. He said we should tell you that he was just taking what was coming to him and that if you had anything to say about it, you could say it to Mr. Williamson.”
“That awful man,” she said.
Andy started crying. “I should have fought him, Ma, I know I should have. But he was so big. Scott’s out on the tractor and we would have got him but we didn’t know where he was. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“No, my darling. I’m sorry I stayed so long at Mrs. Bellows’s,” she said, pulling him closer to her. “It’s my fault, not yours. Don’t worry. He won’t come back. Now, let me show you what Mrs. Bellows gave us. There are cookies and chocolates too. She said we should have some, even if it’s before dinner.” The boys looked up, wary and delighted. Hugh had never let them have sweets, before or after dinner. He said that sweet foods made people morally bankrupt and that they could get addicted to them.
This was something he had learned from Jeffrey. The Prophet. Hugh had talked about Jeffrey a lot, even though he said he hated him, and once Sylvie had asked why, if Jeffrey was so important to him, he didn’t ever visit him? After all, the farm where Jeffrey lived was just at the other end of town, not far from Agony Hill. Hugh had gotten very quiet and said that she didn’t understand at all, that Jeffrey wasn’t important to him, he was just explaining what a hypocrite the man was, and she should understand why Hugh had left Jeffrey’s farm. He’d gotten out the gin bottle then and gone out to the barn and he hadn’t talked to any of them for a few days.
Sylvie had actually met Jeffrey once, at the Bethany Fair a few years back, not long after she’d had Daniel. Hugh was looking at the tractors and she had taken the boys to get lemonade since it was such a hot day. As they wandered, looking at animals while sipping the tart lemonade, and smiling at all the sights and sounds, a very tall man in a worn green army fatigues jacket had watched them for a few minutes before approaching her and saying, “You must be Hugh’s wife, is that right?”
She’d been too afraid to do anything but nod at him.
“You have a beautiful family,” he’d said. “I hope that your life is full of peace.” Then he’d nodded and walked off, disappearing into the crowds. She had never told Hugh about it. It was just one more thing that would make him mad. Sylvie had learned that it was easier to be quiet. When you said something, the other person had to confront your thoughts about things. When you were quiet, they could keep thinking their own thoughts. Hugh had always described Jeffrey as an awful man, cruel and cheap and dominating, saying the Prophet with a mean little sneer in his voice. If Sylvie had said that he seemed kind to her, Hugh would have been furious, so she didn’t say anything and neither did the boys. They had learned a long time ago not to say things to Hugh, so long ago that Sylvie couldn’t remember teaching it to them.
“Come on, boys, come see what’s in here,” she said.
The boys fell upon the basket like wild dogs, tearing at the wrappers and the cloth around the cake, laughing and stuffing the sweetness into their mouths, and by the time Scott came back from the field, Louis’s face was smeared with chocolate.