Yet.
“You must see your father.” She kissed Mercy’s forehead, kissed her curls, then John’s cheeks. “He is…that is, your father has been ill, so you must be brave when you see him. He needs you to be brave. You will, won’t you?”
John stepped back and raised his chin, as if it was the one thing he was certain he could do. Not until he took Mercy’s hand and led her back for the door did Georgina see.
Tiny lines of blood stained the back of his shirt and pants.
She caught her mouth and wept.
Nothing seemed real. Perhaps the fever did that—blurred everything and painted it softer, made every voice and every touch like a dream he kept awakening from.My children.He forced his sore eyes to remain open.They’re back.
Sometime in the night, a kind-faced maidservant dragged in a copper tub and bathed both children. The doctor rubbed thick plaster into the tiny red stripes on John’s back and legs, and though the maid glanced at Simon with pity, no one spoke of it aloud.
Simon could not have if he wanted to.
He was too afraid of himself. If he knew who had injured his son, he would have needs to revenge him—and if there was anything Simon was weary to the bone of, it was revenge.
Everything was over.
He told himself that a hundred times, as the doctor helped Simon situate to his side, as the children climbed in his bed and burrowed into his arms. He slipped in and out of sleep. Sometimes shivering. Sometimes sweating, as if the fever was breaking.
By the time sunlight pinkened the burgundy curtains and streamed into the room, his aches were less distinct. Morning rays illuminated tiny gray uniforms heaped on the floor, water stains on the rug about the copper tub, and the maid’s empty chair.
Even the doctor was gone.
They were alone—Simon and his children—and the beat of his heart drummed with painful rejoicing.Lord, thank You.
By instinct, he pulled them closer, until John yawned and dragged a fresh nightgown sleeve across his drooling mouth. When he opened his eyes, they were bloodshot and confused. The fear in his gaze gutted Simon. What kind of father was he?
He should have foreseen the danger and stopped this from happening. He should have been able to do the one thing he desired more than anything else.
Protect his children.
A sleepy smile dimmed the terror in John’s eyes. “Papa.” How many years had it been since John had called him that? Why should he say it now—when Simon deserved it least?
Mercy rubbed her eyes and fussed in her sleep.
“Don’t cry, Mercy,” John said into her ear, his voice gentle and encouraging. “Wake up. Look. It’s Papa.”
She forced herself awake, blinked up at Simon with crusty eyes and pink sleep wrinkles denting her cheek. A tear rolled to the pillow. “Mr. Wilkins took Baby.”
“I’ll make you a new one,” said John.
“But there is no more corn.” She sniffed. “The corn is back home.”
“Then we will go home.” The words were out before Simon had a chance to reason them through. He had never considered where they would go from here.
Perhaps the cabin was wrong. He had lost too much in those walls.
But he needed the mountains.
They all did.
“We are?” John leaned up. “We’re going home?”
“You would like that?”
John nodded, his smile a little shaky, as if the thought was too wonderful to be true.
