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She liked the work. She liked the house. And she especially liked her new family. Teddy was still resentful to the point of being rude, but every so often she caught him gazing at her with a puzzled look in his eyes. Perhaps he was inching toward accepting her.
She genuinely liked Thad’s young son. He was bright and curious, and deep down, she suspected he could be as kind and caring as his father. At least the boy’s gibes at her were now spread over days instead of hours.
Each chilly morning Thad tramped out to the barn before dawn to milk the cow and feed the horses, and Teddy dragged himself off to school. All day Thad worked in the fields and did not return until after dark. Leah sat by the fireplace, waiting for the sound of her husband’s boots on the porch steps and thinking about her life, and about Thad—how his voice lapsed into a Scots burr when he was angry. How soft his mustache felt against her bare neck at night, and how his warm breath caressed her skin into shivers when they lay like two spoons, her back to his chest.
She bent forward to bite off a thread. Lately she had begun to want more at night than his arm casually draped across her waist and his soft breathing near her ear. The fantasies she conjured while sewing by the fire made her blush.
But each night she lay in the big double bed beside a man who was not just tired but silent. Distant. She wished he would touch her as he had the nights he had rubbed her back with liniment. Or kiss her, as he had done months ago. Weeks went by but he never did.
Now she heard a step on the porch and her heart sped up. Quickly she laid aside the skirt she was hemming and raced to the door. But when she swung it open, it was not Thad who lurched into the room; it was Teddy.
Blood dribbled out of both nostrils, down his shirt and onto his jacket front. One eye was swollen and turning purple, and he was trying hard to choke back sobs.
“Teddy! What happened?” She pulled him across to the fireplace and started to unbutton his jacket.
“Got into a fight,” he muttered.
“Are you hurt?” She pressed her scrunchedup apron to his bloody nose. “Let me see your eye.”
The boy tipped his face up and Leah gasped. It was worse than she’d thought; one side of his face and forehead, including his eye socket, was shadowed by a dark, spreading bruise.
She untied her apron and stuffed it into his scraped hands. “Hold this tight against your nose.” From the kitchen she brought a huck towel dipped in cold water, then pushed him down into the big armchair and laid the compress on his face.
“How did this happen?”
Teddy drew in a shaky breath. “I punched Harvey Poletti an’ he punched me back. Lots of times.”
“You mean you two had a fight?”
His thin shoulders slumped. “Dunno how to fight. I just kept hitting back. I hit Edith Ness, too.”
“Edith? But Edith is only six. And she is a girl. Teddy, you should never hit a girl.” Leah lifted the folded towel from his swollen face, swung it in the air to cool it and gently replaced it.
“Pa’s gonna lay me out somethin’ awful.”
“Was the fight your fault?”
“Well, guess I kinda started it when I punched Harvey.”
“Teddy, why did you hit him?”
The boy tried to look away with his one good eye. “’Cuz he said somethin’.”
“Said what? What did Harvey Poletti say?”
“I can’t tell you.”
In the silence that followed Leah heard the hiss and pop of the log fire, the lid rattling on her simmering kettle of soup and the ragged breathing of the battered boy in front of her.
What should she say?
Torn between concern for Teddy and fear of what Thad might do to the boy, she worried her fingers into a knot. She wasn’t Teddy’s mother; she wasn’t even a real wife yet. Most of all she knew she should not come between a father and his son.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
The boy groaned. “My shoulder’s kinda sore, an’ Edith kicked me in the shin real hard.”
“Oh, my. Let me see.”
He pulled up his pant leg so Leah could check the angry red mark on his shin and the dried blood on the reddened scrape. She had just started into the kitchen for another towel when she heard Thad’s boots on the porch.
The instant the door opened, Teddy leaped out of the armchair and threw himself against his father’s legs.
“What’s this, now?”
“He’s hurt,” Leah called from the sink. “He had a fight at school.”
Thad bent over his son. “That right?” The boy wrapped his arms around Thad’s neck and his father clasped his thin body.
“Ow! My shoulder hurts.”
“You want to tell me about it, son?”
