His voice changed.
“The younger boys were home.”
Mercy stopped peeling.
Caleb looked toward the hallway.
“Eli saw it.”
Now she understood the silence.
“He tried to go inside after her. Will caught him.”
Mercy’s heart tightened.
“Afterward he stopped talking.”
Caleb rubbed both hands over his face.
“The first woman Pa hired threw out Mama’s clothes.”
Mercy’s expression hardened.
“The second tried taking Eli’s doll away because she said a boy shouldn’t sleep with one.”
That explained even more.
“She screamed when he bit her,” Caleb added.
Mercy almost smiled.
“Did he get her hard?”
Caleb stared.
Then, against his will, his mouth twitched.
“Hard enough to bleed.”
“Good.”
That startled a laugh from him.
Mercy returned to her potatoes.
Caleb remained where he was.
After a moment he said, “They both left.”
Mercy sliced another potato.
“I gathered.”
“You will too.”
“Possibly.”
His amusement vanished.
“At least you admit it.”
Mercy looked at him.
“Caleb, anyone who promises a child they will never leave is either a fool or a liar. People die. Circumstances change. Hearts change. What I can promise is that if I ever go, I will tell you to your face. I will not disappear while you’re asleep.”
His eyes dropped.
It was the first time Mercy realized the second woman had not said goodbye.
That night, when she went to bed, there was no frog beneath her pillow.
The days acquired rhythm.
Mercy discovered Nathan could repair almost anything made of wood but hated being praised.
Ben loved books and secretly read dime novels beneath his blankets.
Will stole biscuits only because he wanted to save them for Eli.
The twins, Jonah and Jude, could lie convincingly only when separated. Together, one always corrected the other.
And Eli—
Eli followed Mercy everywhere without appearing to follow her.
He sat near the kitchen while she baked.
He watched her sew.
He appeared beside the henhouse while she collected eggs.
Sometimes he spoke one word.
Sometimes two.
Never when Thomas was present.
Mercy understood instinctively that Thomas’s hope frightened him almost as much as his grief.
So she never announced Eli’s progress.
She let the words belong to him.
One afternoon, snow threatened in the western sky while Mercy mended shirts beside the window.
Eli approached carrying the rag doll.
He placed it in her lap.
Mercy looked at him.
Its badly repaired arm had torn open again.
“You want me to fix her?”
A tiny nod.
Mercy examined the doll carefully.
Faded blue cloth.
Wool stuffing.
One button eye.
The other eye had been embroidered in black thread.
Something about the stitching made Mercy pause.
A peculiar little cross-stitch at the collar.
She had seen it before.
A very long time ago.
Her mother used to finish seams that way.
Mercy stared at it.
Impossible.
Thousands of women stitched.
Thousands of dolls wore blue dresses.
Memory was a cruel thing; sometimes it created ghosts simply because the heart was lonely.
“She have a name?” Mercy asked.
Eli touched the doll’s face.
“Merry.”
Mercy went still.
“What?”
“Merry.”
A chill traveled through her that had nothing to do with November.
When Mercy was little, her baby sister had been unable to pronounce Mercy.
She called her Merry.
For three years.
Until scarlet fever swept through their settlement.
Their mother died.
Then Ruth disappeared into sickness and confusion while Mercy herself spent two weeks feverish in the church infirmary.
