CHAPTER 39
Lambert relished the sight of Emily holding their son. He was charmed at every new aspect of his wife: the way she dug worms, played with the children, chased lightning bugs, and handled a plow. He experienced joy just watching her. Joy in the life that had become his, and the baby she placed in his arms when the time arrived. They agreed to name him Will, after the brother for whom she still grieved. Rosa Claire wanted to know how the baby had told them his name.
The farm went on as always. Lambert rested his saw on the ground and looked up. Emily stood at the edge of the yard, an old blue-checked dress hanging loosely about her. Without petticoats, she appeared insubstantial, even in the leftover swelling of her pregnancy. Lambert removed his hat, brushed his brow with his forearm, and started toward her. Sweat trickled from his temples into the corners of his eyes. There was sawdust in his eyelashes. Emily raised her hand. Overhead, a breeze unsettled the leaves of the sapling Lambert was cutting. Both of them shaded their eyes from a glint of sun on the saw blade. Lambert reached for her.
“What is it, Emme?”
“I am just low today,” she said.
“Not the children? Or the baby?”
“No, Rosa Claire and Lonso fuss over him like a mama hen with one chick. He’s as much sibling to them as they are to each other. I should be rejoicing, Lambert.”
“But something’s amiss.”
“I don’t have a name for it.” Emily paused, examined his face, lined with sawdust plastered in the rivulets of sweat. “It’s so strong.”
“So are you, Emme.”
“So many people suffering here about. Especially the women. I should be grateful.” She twirled a loose thread from his frayed cuff between her fingers. She must remember to turn those cuffs.
“Maybe you’re afraid of things seeming too good,” he said.
“That has words to it.”
“Are you afraid because of the rift with—”
“Don’t say it, Lambert. I don’t want to hear it.” Emily turned her back to his chest, letting his arms fold around her; her head tilted to the side, as he kissed her neck. She could feel the grit of the sawdust. The tree would be down with a few more strokes. She had interrupted his work.
“All right,” Lambert said. “But that has words, too, even if you don’t want to hear them.”
She pushed away from him. He held on to her and she stopped.
“Come to dinner when you get that tree down,” she said. “Ginny has made a pot of corn-cob soup. I’ll be all right.”
Lambert watched her walk away, knowing she would not—not so long as the rupture remained unhealed between her and Adeline.