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Despondently, Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“With all due respect, I believe you’ve already ‘done it.’ Now you need only sit back and wait the required amount of time for a tiny, loud human to arrive.”
Gabriel shot him an impatient look. “Come on. If we don’t hurry, Violet will be halfway there by the time we make it out the door. Maybe on the way you can tell me more about where babies come from.”
Christopher picked at his supper and tried to pretend that he wasn’t constantly aware of Sofia’s absence at the meal.
“Have you seen—”
“She was headed towards the carriage house,” Jeremy replied.
Nodding his thanks, Christopher abandoned his meal and left through the kitchen door, passing by the carriage house en route to the cabin. He was eager to see Oliver settled and to reassure Sofia that plans were in place. Eager to see her, full stop.
He found Sofia in the sitting room, clutching a bouquet from the garden. She didn’t turn around when the front door clicked shut nor when he cleared his throat.
“Sofi?”
Her head snapped up, then back down to the flowers in her hand. “I wanted to leave him something cheerful so he would know I was thinking about him.”
Christopher nodded, taking in the stiffness of her shoulders, then eased closer.
“But then I realised that anything I placed them in would make an unforgiving projectile if it met with someone’s head.” She let out a humourless laugh.
Christopher slipped the bouquet from her fingers. “How long have you been standing here?”
“A while,” she admitted. “He’ll stay in the cabin and tolerate the company of his ‘jailors,’ but he doesn’t want to see me.”
Christopher nodded even though he didn’t precisely understand.
“He doesn’t want to subject me to his temper. If he loses control, he’s worried he will … hurt me.”
Christopher let out a breath and reached for her hand. It was the first glimmer of decency he’d seen in Oliver, but the decision was clearly wreaking havoc on Sofia, so he held his tongue.
“I don’t want to leave him to deal with this all by himself.”
Christopher lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles, holding them against his mouth for a long moment before letting them go. “This isn’t something you can help him through, sweetheart. No one can really. But he agreed to come, so that’s got to mean something. How did you get him to agree?”
She shook her head and looked away. She would not answer him, he realised.
“I’ll stay with him tonight. Hamish and Jeremy have both agreed to help, but in the end, it will have to be his choice.” Christopher changed the subject. “How many years separate you from your brother?”
“Almost ten. He is thirty-eight years old. Oliver’s mother, Sarah, passed to her reward when Oliver was a mere babe. It was years before Papa married my mother, and then I arrived.”
“What of your mother? You’ve never mentioned her.”
She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I don’t remember much, and what I do isn’t worth remembering.”
Christopher stepped away to fetch a lightweight tin cup, then began arranging the flowers Sofia had collected.
“She left my father when I was small. I don’t think motherhood was what she thought it would be. She avoided both my brother and I whenever possible, but she used to plait my hair at night. One tight, economical braid.” She trailed her fingers down the nape of her neck. “Even though there was nothing gentle or comforting in her rushed fingers, I thought of it as our special time together. She sat quietly while I rambled on about my day, allowing me to empty all my stories and adventures into the space between us. One year, my brother bought me a beautiful doll for Christmas. I loved her, but her hair wasn’t quite long enough for my clumsy fingers to weave together.”
Christopher watched her surreptitiously as she disappeared into the memory, her eyes far away from the small room. He continued moving the flowers in various arrangements, giving no attention whatsoever to the task.
“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t plait her hair. I became frustrated and cried. When I didn’t stop at Mama’s command, she threw her hands into the air and asked what the problem was.”
Christopher trimmed the end of a long stem and placed it back into the water, then turned, waiting for her to continue.
“I told her I wanted to be a good mother and arrange her hair, to show her that I loved her.” Sofia’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I feel so stupid now, so naive to have seen affection where there was none. She told me that love had nothing to do with it. That she only plaited my hair at night because five minutes of wasted time and inane chatter was preferable to the thirty minutes she would have to endure untangling my rat’s nest in the morning if my hair was not contained.”
