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But his purpose had been accomplished. They were officially not together anymore.
He hadn’t exactly wanted it to happen quite like that, but he supposed that it was better that they were broken up than that she had somehow tried to talk him into staying together. But considering how terrible he was, she certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do that.
He would have laughed at the absurdity, except the conversation didn’t leave him feeling very good. In fact, he felt worse than he could ever remember feeling since his parents’ funeral.
I suppose this is what I get for allowing it to go on instead of stopping it. I took the easy way out, and this is payment, right, Lord?
There was a little bit of a shift in the breeze, and while he knew it wasn’t God speaking, it still made him smile. Remembering God’s still, small voice speaking to his chosen man, Moses.
Ezra had never gotten to the point where he wanted to speak to God, and he had to admire Moses’s courage in wanting that to begin with.
Knowing that he’d regret what he’d done with Sondra for a long time, he stayed until full darkness had descended, praying that he would be a good husband, that things would go well with the weanings in the morning, that no one would get hurt. That he would be able to be a father, afather.
When he thought of the example of his dad, he felt intimidated, but he knew that his dad had to start somewhere too.
Maybe a relationship like his parents had would never happen for him. He could hardly imagine Alaska and him having the kind of love that seemed to flow effortlessly between his dad and his mom, but he hoped for that. Whatever God gave him was what he would take, and he would try to be happy with it. Since that was what God wanted.
He secured his tools, got on the four-wheeler, and rode slowly back to the house, just one more day as a single man.
Chapter 8
Alaska picked up the full clothes basket, put it on one hip, and grabbed Alice and put her on the other.
“Be careful, Eugene. Sit down on your butt and slide down.” She watched as Eugene obeyed, sitting on his rear and sliding down the steps. Eugene was too little to be able to climb down them the regular way, and there was no way Alaska could carry the baby and the basket and Eugene too.
Going up the stairs, she could put Alice in the basket and then hold Eugene’s hand.
She sighed. It was almost dinnertime, and she was exhausted. Ezra had said that while he could use her help outside, the kids would need to stay out of the way, and they weren’t old enough to know where they could be safe and stay there. So, he’d asked if she would stay inside and cook lunch so that Claudia, who usually did the cooking, could go out and help.
She had been more than happy to. She figured the more she did, the more she’d start to fit in with the family.
He also mentioned that if she wanted to, she could move his things over to the small house. The twins, Phoebe and Priscilla, as well as Claudia and Asher, all lived in the big farmhouse.
Ezra had moved out of the small house for her, and some of his things weren’t even unpacked in his bedroom.
She hadn’t quite recovered from the day before, and every time she went down the steps, she looked around, making sure that no one had come in the house that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Her heart fluttered, and her hands sweated as she followed Eugene down the stairs.
This was the sixth or seventh trip she made, and Alice was getting heavy.
There was still one more load.
“Good job, Eugene. Now stand up so Mommy can finish coming down the stairs.” She didn’t expect anyone to come. Rex was the only one who wished her harm, other than Chalmer, who had threatened her at times, but she didn’t really think Chalmer would follow through. He was...not a nice person, but he wasn’t prone to violence either.
Plus, he wasn’t quite as far into the drugs as what Rex was.
She had seen how they wrecked a person’s life. She wished that she could have believed without experiencing, but there wasn’t any way to go back and redo the past, so what she had to do was try to take the lessons that she’d learned and put them to good use.
That reminded her that she wanted to try to figure out how to be a good wife.
Ezra had told her that he had given her phone number to some of the ladies in town, and they would be in contact with her. But she hadn’t heard from anyone.
She tried to tell herself to be patient as she walked through the kitchen and out the back door. The smell of chicken wafted up, and she figured that she probably ought to forgo the last trip and start making the mashed potatoes.
She didn’t know how to make real ones, but she had seen a box of the powdered ones in the pantry and planned to use that.
She had never made chicken before either, but she’d been able to pull up a video on her phone.
