So, yes. That was the answer to Mother's question. Kit would be staying here, and so would I.
After Ashpoint was put to rights, we would marry and settle in Eastcliff. I would run the farm, as was my responsibility, and Kit would be with me. It was as settled as it should have been long ago, and I should have been relieved. There was peace in certainty, after all, and honor in keeping one's promises.
But then why, as Mother collected herself and we trudged back to the house, did I feel neither peaceful nor honorable? The fields stretched wide around me, golden in the morning light, steady and unchanging. They had always been here, always waiting.
Maybe it was time I stopped trying to outrun them.
Time. Kit had said that. We had time to figure things out.
He may have had time, but I had responsibilities. A farm that wouldn’t run itself and a family that needed me.
Dreams were for boys, and I wasn’t one anymore. I was a man—the man of the house—and I needed to start acting like it.
38
Kit
The week after the conversation with his mother was the longest I’d ever seen Penny go without picking up his sketchbook. It stayed in his satchel along with the roll of coloring pencils, and none of it moved from its spot on top of the dresser in our bedroom. It was like witnessing a sort of slow death as his focus narrowed to work, eat, sleep for days at a time.
And he wasquiet. He’d speak if spoken to, but unless I carried the conversations, our days in the fields passed in near silence. He kept to himself at mealtimes as well, too worn down to feign amiability while Warren detailed what we’d accomplished and Sayla fawned over him for it.
I could hardly remember the last time I’d seen Penny smile.
He was up with the sun more often than I was, so I wasn’t sure how much he was sleeping, since he was usually still awake by the time I drifted off each night. It was as if he was determined to prove to the now-absent Merrick that he could be a proper farm owner, or possibly prove it to himself.
There was no talking to him about it; he brushed off my concern any time I tried to bring anything up, claiming he wasfine, as though I couldn’t see the unspoken pain and worry in the pinch of his eyes.
I did my best to be quietly supportive and managed well enough for a while. We got through plowing and planting two of the fields in good time, and were due a more relaxed day while we let the horse rest. With nothing to do but finish clearing the third field and prepare it for plowing the next day, I knew there wouldn’t be a better time to get Penny away from it all.
So, after lunch, when he rose from the table to go back to work with half of his food left untouched, I caught his arm.
“I think you and I need to take the afternoon off,” I said. “We’re ahead of schedule, and you need a break.”
Penny’s mouth pressed a thin line as he cast his gaze out the back windows at the fields beyond. “There’s still so much to do. Once the field is clear, there are fences to fix.” He nodded toward the ceiling. “The roof needs patching, the plow could do with sharpening, and I really should fix the torn strap on the harness?—”
“Pen, take a break,” Sayla chimed from her post by the kitchen sink. “You’ve barely stopped in the last week.”
Penny’s shoulders stiffened, and he swallowed hard. “This farm is my responsibility,” he said, monotone as if it was a script he’d rehearsed in his head. “I need to make sure it’s at its best. I need to make sure you’re taken care of.”
On the other side of the table, Amelina’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes flicked briefly to me before dropping to where she was pushing the crust of her bread back and forth across her plate.
“You can’t take care of anyone if you don’t take care of yourself first.” I squeezed his arm. “There’s no harm in taking a few hours off. We can go into town and get a strap for the harness, and maybe pick something up so we can make a dessert for this evening.”
He still looked unconvinced, but Warren perked at the mention of sweets.
“We can handle the last bit of the field, Penny,” he rushed to say. “You should go.”
Warren’s father and brothers murmured agreement, and Penny relented with a nod.
I reached for my plate, but Sayla waved me off.
“I’ll get the dishes. You two go ahead.”
While Penny went to the front door to pull on his boots, I detoured to our room to grab my coin pouch and tuck it into Penny’s satchel. I ferried it to the door to step into my own boots and hand it off to Penny.
He stared at it with a sort of longing before he finally took it from me and slung it across his chest.
“That’s better,” I said as I opened the door and motioned him out. “It’s been strange seeing you without this all the time.”
