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* * *
It was the saddest moment of her life, burying this man she loved so dearly.
Amy had only to watch of course, but it didn’t make it much easier. Things had gone so wrong so fast. In retrospect she didn’t think any of them wanted it to go so far as a death, not even at the peak of her father’s rage. If only there had been more time to cool down...
It was night by the time he was buried, a small fire lit in the recently revealed grass that silhouetted the only person left in her life. He’d done it all himself, despite having the use of only one arm. After what had happened, he couldn’t dream of letting her do a thing.
With a sad look he came back to her, “I’m so sorry, Amy,” his voice more depressed than she’d ever heard it, his face contorted in hurt and regret.
She thought back to the first time they’d met, to how broken up he’d been over the war and killing, and she moved to embrace him. She couldn’t console him, even though she knew how heartbroken he was. Even though she knew it would eat him up for the rest of his days.
For her, all there was sorrow, and she wept openly into her lover’s chest, her hand down to her belly and rubbing it with such melancholy. She couldn’t form words, not really, and her sorrowful blubbering was all she could manage. Her heart burned, her entire body felt weak and limp, and even though she’d had time to mourn, it wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough to ease this ache?
The farmhouse was so spacious for the two of them, even as they approached three with her advanced pregnancy. Spring was there in full bloom, and Legault did his best to step in where her father left off. Returned after a long hard day of work in the field, one arm still in a sling from the fall he took, he gave her a smile. It still had that warmth in it, that love and affection, but she knew he kept some hurt in him for what had happened. What he couldn’t have prevented.
“I’ll be a farmer yet,” he declared with a deep exhale. “Though I think I’ll need both arms ‘fore I’m any good at it, Amy.”
“You’re doin’ fine,” she reassured him as she set out a pitcher of water and a bowl of soup for each of them. She’d grown so much since he’d first met her, even though it’d been just over half a year. The death of her father and the pregnancy hadn’t dimmed her youthful spirit, but it had tempered her.
She still smiled at him with such love and affection, though, even in those moments she woke in the middle of the night to fits of sobbing. They slept in her room, now, and had moved two of the beds together. She couldn’t bare sleeping in her father’s room or bed.
“How’s your arm goin’?”
Sat down at the table he reached across to her, his hand rested atop hers. “It’ll be fine before ya know it,” he declared optimistically, though truth was the thing wasn’t healing as fast as he’d expected.
As they began to eat he cleared his throat after a few spoonfuls. “Hun, I know it ain’t great ta talk on,” he began carefully. “But with Spring here, I reckon the odds o’ them collectors or conscription brutes comin’ by are goin’ up,” he stated, and she knew it to be the truth. They never failed to show up, gauge crop yields and haul off men who’d come of age, or deserters. Like him.
Her face fell and she nodded, “Yea. I know.” A young woman running a farm... She nearly scoffed at the idea. They’d have different ideas, and worse, take her
love away from her. Leave her alone, not a soul left to love in the world. “You can’t go back to the war. Maybe it’s time ta head back to the forest, lay low again...”
Legault shook his head, “I had a better idea. That is,” he cleared his throat, “if’n ya were feelin’ up to it. I understand if ya weren’t though,” and he gave an understanding smile to her. “I know it wouldn’t be pleasant, so if ya ain’t, I’ll hide out in the forest as often as I can.” Though he knew that wasn’t an option. A farm with only a young pregnant woman, being tended to apparently all by herself with crops growing would be obvious to the most idiotic inspector.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice quivering with uncertainty as she shifted in her seat and lifted her shaky hands to a glass, sipping down the water.
“Well hun,” he said, his spoon placed down. “I’m a good deal older’n you,” he said plainly. “And so... if’n you were up for it, we’d put on the act of me bein’...” and his pained face told how hard it was for him to say. “I’d pretend ta be yer pa. That way they’d not question a thing. Unless it were the same inspector as last year,” but they both knew that was unlikely. The war ate up soldiers so fast, and inspectors were rotated to the front so often.
She looked crushed, and she set down the glass, resting her trembling hands on her knee. Tears threatened her once more but she blinked them away, swallowing hard. It wasn’t for a long few minutes before she finally spoke again, “Y’think that’s best?”
This was the last thing he wanted to have to discuss with her, but he nodded. “I don’t think we have a choice, hun,” and his eyes glistened slightly. “Even if I did go hide in the woods when they came, they’d take a look at you with yer belly full, and a farm full a growin’ crops, and they wouldn’t buy for one second you was alone. They’d hunt me down, arrest you for harbourin’ a criminal.”
She knew he was right, but it broke her heart to admit it. “They’re gonna ask who the daddy is.”
He nodded, “I know. We’ll have ta say yer husband went off ta war. They’ll buy it,” he said.
Her hand reached out for his, squeezing it so hard. “I’m not gonna lose you,” she said sternly. “There ain’t gonna be nothin’ or no one that’ll take you away from me now. I need you more then that damned war.”
* * *
They were upon the cusp of summer, and already the snow was gone and the sun had picked up its intensity. Supper was not yet ready when Legault snuck into the farmhouse, and with a certain amount of playfulness that had come with the passage of time since the tragedy, he came upon her at the table and pounced. His strong, bare arms around her pregnant, swollen form. Cradling her stomach with one arm, across her breasts with the other, he kissed at her neck. “Gotcha,” he murmured into her flesh.
She gasped but immediately she sank into his body, chuckling as she relaxed, “Damn it, you scared the daylight from me!” She still mourned, for she would always mourn. She’d lost every one of her family, yet she had him, and for that she was grateful. Eternally.
“Dinner’s not even ready yet,” she put down the wooden spoon on the cutting board and ran her hands over his. “Though, you make it hard for a woman to complain too much.”
His lips moved over her flesh, supping and nipping at her skin, up to her earlobe as those powerful hands rubbed over her stomach and massaged at her engorged breasts. “‘Course it ain’t ready yet,” he chided in a husky voice, “why ya think I came in so early for? Wanted ta catch ya before ya got stuffed with food.” He gave a bit of a playful growl, “Was thinkin’ I’d stuff ya with somethin’ else first.”
She swatted his hand as she laughed, a low, throaty sound that spoke to her arousal as much as anything. Pregnancy had done something fierce for her needs, and she felt so swollen and wanting all the time, much to his joy. Even as she entered the final weeks, she felt no desire to deny him their joint pleasure.
