Page 44 of The Frozen River

“He doesn’t have to like me as long as he keeps asking the right questions.”

“You might regret saying that one day.” Coleman laughs. “That boy don’t seem the sort to stop.”

I place everything into my basket and hoist it over my arm.

“Thank you. For the goods and gossip.”

“Always,” he says, and once more reaches out his old, weathered hand and grabs mine. “Be careful, Martha. Sentiment has turned against Rebecca Foster. It’s turning against you as well.”

BALLARD’S MILL THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17

Thursday, December 17.—Birth. Mr. Stone’s daughter. Clarissa Stone was delivered of a dead daughter at the twelfth hour yesterday. The operation performed by Dr. Benjamin Page. The infant’s limbs were much dislocated, as I am informed. The man knows not how to deliver a breech presentation.

Hannah brought the news this afternoon. One day after scolding Clarissa Stone at Coleman’s Store, she went into labor. And instead of calling for me, as she should have, she called for Dr. Page. This is my fault. I’m certain of it. I know I was hard on her for shunning Sarah and gossiping about Sam. But this? It is too high a price to pay. For her. And for me.

I set my pen down.

Close my eyes.

Weep.

BALLARD’S MILL FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18

Ephraim is dead.

That is the nagging fear that has plagued me over the last twelve days, and I have to drive it from my mind so it does not take root and fester. I feel his absence as though it were a missing limb, some vital part of me gone, and often find myself looking to the lane, watching for his return.

I must leave for Vassalboro on Tuesday, with or without him. I would prefer with, of course, but am growing less certain by the hour that he will make it home in time.

If he makes it home at all.

“No,” I say aloud, taking that thought captive as well.

In his absence, I keep myself busy. Cooking. Cleaning. Spinning flax and weaving linen. I tend to the neighbors and my patients when they call, making tinctures and syrups in my workroom. I manage our small farm and assign work for my children. Cyrus runs the mill. Hannah and Dolly milk the cows. Jonathan tends the livestock. Young Ephraim oversees the chickens and tends to the horses. He has a soft voice and gentle hands, and I have never seen a horse startle or rear in his presence. Still, he’s a bit young for the job, and I check on Brutus and Bucket once a day just to make sure all is well.

I slide between the heavy barn doors, a bucket of slops in each hand. It is time to feed the pigs, but Jonathan is nowhere to be found, which means he’s slipped off again without telling anyone.

The barn was built as a large square with a peaked roof and four separate quadrants on the inside, one each for the horses, cattle, goats, and pigs, with a cross-shaped walkway between the pens. It smells of old straw and fresh manure, of alfalfa, hay, and barley stacked in the upper loft. It smells of warm animals and wet sawdust. The horses whicker as I make my way between the stalls. Both dairy cows are pregnant, and they shift and low at the sound of my voice, while the bull stomps and snorts in his pen. He is restless, eager for another chance at the cows, but he’s done his job for the year and will have to wait until breeding season in June. The calves—one male and one female—are bored and they nap, oblivious, as the goats bustle in their pen, bleating out their request for dinner.

“Hush,” I say. “It’s not your turn. Jonathan will see to you later.”

I lift one bucket and then the other over the pig pen rail and dump the contents into the trough, wincing at the wet, vomitous sound. I don’t stay to watch the fat pink animals root and snort their way through dinner. I have never been fond of messy eaters.

I am almost at the barn door when I hear the thing I’ve spent weeks listening for: the heavy clop of horse hooves on frozen ground.

“Ephraim,” I whisper and run out the door, an empty bucket swinging from each hand. They bounce against my calves as I hurry down the path, careful not to slip on the hard packed snow.

My smile evaporates the moment I round the bend and reach the front yard. Joseph North has dismounted his bay mare and is tying his reins to the gate post. His mongrel dog sits at his feet, looking at me as though I were a meal. He bares his teeth but doesn’t growl.

I drop the wooden buckets with a clatter and set my hands on my hips. “What do you want?”

“I’ve come to see the results of Ephraim’s survey. I stopped by the mill, but he wasn’t in.”

He may as well have said that he’s stopped by for tea. Or to bring payment on a late bill. But his eyes are pinched at the corners, calculating, and I know that he came to see if Ephraim has returned.

“That’s because he isn’t at the mill.”

“Where is he, then?”