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With all seven daughters-in-law working to clean the kitchen, there was nothing for Ma Berry to do but sit and watch, and she seemed to like it that way. Looking around the house, Constance noticed it was absolutely immaculate. Even though children had been there the night before. Surely her mother-in-law hadn’t locked them in a room by themselves so they couldn’t mess anything.
After the meal, there was a bit of visiting, and then everyone was loading into buggies and wagons and heading home. “How far from here do you live?” Constance asked Judy as they were walking to their respective conveyances.
“The next farm over is ours. All of us live in a big clump here. All except you and Leonard.” Judy leaned close. “Just be happy Leonard had moved away from everyone else before you married, because you’d definitely be blamed for his absence otherwise!”
Constance grinned. “It’s good to feel like I’m not all alone in this.”
“You are not at all. Any one of us would be there for you if you only asked. Just keep in mind we’ve all been there. It’s not you. It’s her.”
“Thank you.” Constance hugged Judy before turning and getting into the buggy with Leonard. She couldn’t help but notice that he was already on the seat with the leads in his hands, and he had no intention of helping her up.
After climbing into the buggy on her own, Constance covered herself with the lap robe. She had no desire to get her new dress dirty. No, it would stay as clean as it had been when she’d first donned it.
As they drove away from the house, Leonard asked, “Why did you say that about Ma on the way here?”
“She told me I was too small to birth children. That’s all. I guess I just took it the wrong way.”
“You don’t believe it anymore then?”
Not wanting to lie to her husband, Constance shrugged. “She seems to like me as much as all of your sisters-in-law.”
He chuckled at that. “Well, maybe not as much as the others yet. You haven’t given her a grandbaby.”
Constance smiled and nodded. What else could she do? She didn’t want to cause problems with her husband, even if his mother wasn’t the kindest person she’d ever met. “What will we do for the rest of the day?” she asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I was up much too early. I’m going to take a nap.”
She smiled. “I do believe I’ll join you.” He was her husband and she was going to do all she could to make their marriage a happy one. Even if it meant that she would have to put up with his mother.
*****
The evening went well, with the two of them reading together in the parlor after their supper. Constance was very aware of Leonard watching her in a way he hadn’t before that day, and she wasn’t certain why, but she wasn’t willing to rock the boat enough to ask.
“Do you miss your family?” he asked out of the blue.
She nodded. “Of course, I do. They’re the people I’ve been with every day of my life. How could I not miss them?”
“You have a new family now.” His words were quiet but spoken authoritatively.
“I do. But I can still love and miss my old family.” Why couldn’t he understand that her family was important to her just the same as his family was important to him?
“I guess I just never thought about you missing family from back east. I thought you’d come here, and mostly forget about them, and just be part of my family.”
She blinked at him, astonished by his words. “Would you forget your family if you moved to the east?”
“Of course not. But that’s different.”
“Why is it different?” She really didn’t understand him. She’d thought they were a great fit, and now it seemed like he was turning into someone else entirely—someone who had no empathy for her situation at all.
“Well, because you’re a woman. You’re supposed to leave your family and join your husband’s. Why do you think you take on his family name and give up your own?”
“Do you really think that’s why?” she asked, getting annoyed with him. But she had to keep calm. She couldn’t let her temper show this early in the marriage, or he’d put her on a train right back to Massachusetts.
“Makes sense to me.”
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t give up missing my family as quickly as you think I should. I do wish I could sit down with my mother and discuss the events of the day. I’ve been writing her of course, but it’s just not the same. A woman needs her mother.”
“I think if you’d start thinking of my ma as your mother, you would miss yours less. She’s a wonderful mother. You’ll see.”
