“Is thismine?!” Sofia asked, her voice going up in pitch.
“All yours,” he assured her, pushing her gently into the room.
She ran immediately to the bed and threw herself on it. “It’s so comfy!” she shouted. “Mom! Look at all the toys!”
Camden grinned broadly and turned to Flora for approval, but her expression was even more dour than before. He couldn’t understand what he had done wrong, but he would rather focus on Sofia’s excitement than Flora’s disapproval, anyway.
“Sofia, did you see your new desk?” he asked, and the little girl turned to the art supplies with fervor.
***
Moving in together was both rewarding and challenging for Camden. In the days following the initial revelation of their new home, they had done their best to adjust to their new living arrangements. Each morning, Camden cooked breakfast for them before he left the house to deal with pack business alongside his uncle. After a morning of work, he caught up with his squad, who were enjoying their reprieve from military duty. Even though he was enjoying the break from work and seeing his friends outside of their usual environment, he couldn’t help but feel like his time would be better spent at home with Flora and Sofia.
“Boss, just go home,” Thompson said out of the blue while they were playing darts at the bar.
“What?” Camden asked in confusion. He had thought he was keeping his daydreams a secret, but the rest of the squad was looking at him with knowing eyes.
“He said go home, Camden,” Jasper echoed. “Your mind isn’t here right now. Go home to your mate. We’ll hang out again tomorrow.”
Camden smiled sheepishly at them, but with their encouragement, decided to head back home. It was only three in the afternoon, far earlier than he usually went home. He felt like he should know what their schedule was like during the day, but Camden wasn’t even sure what Flora and Sofia did with their time while he was gone.
As he pulled up to the house, he spotted the open windows and heard music flowing through the air. An upbeat children’s song was playing, and Camden smiled. He imagined Flora and Sofia dancing in the living room, having a good time and enjoying their newfound freedom. But when he opened the front door, he saw Sofia coloring at the dining room table while Flora scrubbed the baseboards. Her hands were pink, raw from her toiling, and sweat was glistening on her forehead.
“When you’re done with that, make sure you put everything away,” Flora said to Sofia, not realizing that Camden had returned.
“Okay, Mommy,” Sofia replied. She gathered her utensils and hopped off the chair, heading for the stairs. “Hi, Mr. Camden,” she said as she passed him.
“Hi, Sof,” he said quietly.
He turned his attention back to Flora, who was emptying the bucket of water into the sink. He watched as she rinsed it, sprayed it with bleach, and placed it underneath the kitchen sink before washing her hands. She winced as she dried them on a towel.
“Flora, what do you think you’re doing?” he said incredulously.
He had assumed Flora did light housekeeping while he was away, just like he did when he was at home, but he never expected that she would be working herself to the bone to maintain its spotless condition.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. It was an automatic response, and Camden could see the fear in her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were coming back early, or I would have finished sooner.”
“That wasn’t what I meantat all,” Camden said, emphasizing his point. “I meant, what do you think you’re doing by spending your time cleaning like this? Look at your hands!”
Instead of looking at them, Flora hid them behind her back. Her apologetic look shifted to one of anger. Camden was confounded by her. All he wanted was for her to rest and be at peace, but she was insisting on making things more difficult for herself.
“I cleaned what needed to be cleaned,” she said harshly.
“The floorwasclean,” Camden argued.
“Of course it was! Because I cleaned it two days ago!” she hissed.
Camden inhaled sharply. “Two days ago?” he asked. “Why are you cleaning things every two days? Flora, that’s insane. A deep scrub like that only needs to be done every fewmonths.”
Anger turned to confusion as they both stared at each other in bewildered shock. Camden had always had high standards of cleanliness, but the thought of deep cleaning every single day was beyond him. For her part, it seemed that she had never considered that she was doing too much.
“Flora,” he said, more gently, “before you lived here, how often were you expected to clean?”
“If I wasn’t working, I was cleaning,” she replied. “It was the only way to earn my keep with Stella and Ben.”
“Is that what they told you?”
She nodded. “It was that, or they’d sell me to the highest bidder. They threatened that more than once.”
