None said he was hungry.
Their eyes did.
A twelve-year-old with a stubborn cowlick finally spoke.
“You gonna cry and leave too?”
Mercy continued kneading the final piece of dough.
“I’ve cried before.”
The boy waited.
Mercy dusted flour from her hands.
“Never noticed it making supper cook any faster.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But something close enough to matter.
The boy’s name was Levi.
The oldest was Caleb, sixteen and already carrying himself like a man who had no intention of needing anyone.
Jonah was fourteen, sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued.
Levi was twelve.
The ten-year-old twins, Eli and Asa, appeared to communicate mostly through conspiratorial looks.
Noah, eight, spoke softly and startled whenever someone raised a voice.
And Benjamin—Ben—was five.
Ben owned the rag doll.
Mercy found it beneath his pillow while carrying clean blankets into his room.
One button eye.
A faded blue dress.
One arm repaired badly with uneven stitches.
Mercy knew immediately who it had belonged to.
She did not touch it.
She did not ask questions.
She laid down the blanket and left the doll exactly where she had found it.
Some grief did not need questions.
It needed permission to remain private.
Now, hours later, Mercy stood beside the stove while the boys tasted supper.
Caleb took the first bite.
He stopped chewing.
Mercy’s stomach tightened.
Caleb reached for bread.
Jonah followed.
Then Levi.
Then the twins.
Soon spoons scraped bowls and bread disappeared.
Ben finished everything and stared at his empty bowl.
Then he looked toward Mercy.
“Is there more?”
Mercy turned toward the stove before anyone could see the sudden moisture in her eyes.
“Yes.”
She filled his bowl again.
Behind her, a chair moved.
Thomas had put down his spoon.
Mercy turned.
He stared at the empty bowls.
Then at his sons.
Then at her.
For the first time, his guarded expression cracked.
“You can stay.”
Mercy raised one eyebrow.
Every boy stopped eating.
Thomas seemed to realize how terrible the words sounded.
“That wasn’t—”
“I know what you meant.”
Mercy placed the ladle down.
“But I didn’t travel six hundred miles because I needed your permission to survive my first night.”
A strangled sound escaped one of the twins.
Possibly laughter.
Thomas’s mouth twitched.
Mercy looked around the table.
“I haven’t decided whether I like any of you yet.”
Levi nearly smiled.
Ben did.
It was tiny.
But Mercy saw it.
And
that was the first victory.
The next morning, Mercy woke before dawn and discovered Caleb already splitting wood.
He was too thin for the size of the axe.
“Your hands are blistered,” she said.
He kept chopping.
“They’re fine.”
“They’re bleeding.”
“Still fine.”
Mercy watched him swing again.
“You think if you work yourself to death, your father won’t notice you’re sixteen?”
The axe stopped.
Caleb looked at her.
There was anger in his face.
But underneath it was something worse.
