Chapter 17 #2
Ever since his friends visited, Torin chose solitary walks instead of joining his daughter and her governess.
He had a lot weighing heavily on his mind, but at the same time, he didn’t want to think about what, no, who was so much in his thoughts.
So, today, he briskly climbed to the lookout.
Instead of the leisurely stroll he’d taken with Ivy, he pushed himself to move with haste.
By the time he’d reached the rock and plopped himself down, panting, he needed to regain his wind.
Deliberately, he took some deep breaths, drawing in the spicy-sweet scent of the nearby evergreens and focused on the beauty of the area, especially the view. From here, only the roof of his house was visible. He could see Brian’s place in its entirety, and Hank’s not at all.
Birdsong from the nearby woods surrounded him. The wind blowing across the lake nipped at the exposed skin of his face and hands, a welcoming coolness after his hike. The surface reflected the cerulean sky, complete with a few drifting, puffy clouds.
Gradually, peace soaked into his soul, and Torin felt his body relax. He hadn’t realized how tightly wound he'd been until the loosening happened.
All through the long winter—through the changes, the loneliness, the dismals, the exhausting repetition of Ps and Js, and then the gnawing fear that he'd made a terrible mistake by inviting a stranger into their lives—he'd been clenched against something.
But winter had passed. The snow melted.
Trees budded. Flowers bloomed. Birds returned. The swans and their cygnets paddled across the lake. Spring was here.
Like a bulb, hope inched roots down and sent a shoot upward, breaking through the dark crust of earth to glimpse the sun.
From the lookout, Torin had a view of Hank’s meadow, where Ivy led Jewel along the wildflower path they'd worn into the grass over the past weeks.
Instead of venturing off a few feet to explore whatever caught her attention, Jewel stayed close to her governess, her head lowered. What could she be looking at?
Even from here, he could tell what was missing from the idyllic picture was Jewel’s chattering in her earnest, halting way, and gesturing with both arms as she always did when excitement outpaced her words. How she darted, in her own ungainly manner, to examine new flowers or pick up a feather.
Concern made his stomach tight, and he wondered how much longer before Jewel returned to her normal cheerful self. Hopefully soon.
Ivy walked with a hand hovering almost protectively behind Jewel’s back.
She bent now and then to point at something.
That, too, was different. After the first couple of weeks, the governess often stood behind a step, waiting to see what interested Jewel, and then would join her to have a discussion.
By squinting, he could make out Brave padding behind them like a small gray shadow.
The picture they made—woman and child and cat against a meadow of wildflowers with the lake gleaming beyond—was so achingly beautiful, he had to look away.
Don't stare. Don't feel. Don't let yourself want her.
But wanting, Torin had discovered, was not something he could will away.
A slowly growing feeling crept in through unguarded moments, enticing all his senses.
The sound of Ivy laughing with Jewel. The sight of her apron hanging on its hook in the kitchen, looking like the garment belonged there.
How she smelled of roses. The taste of her cinnamon rolls.
The times she’d clasped his arm, an intimacy that lingered. He could still feel the sensation.
She’s the governess. She works for you.
The two, followed by the cat moved out of sight under the trees.
Ivy has come to mean so much more to me.
The thought made his heart beat faster—not with the cold, clenching fear he'd carried for so long, but with something warmer. Something that felt almost like hope.
Finally, the doubts he’d grappled with since her arrival stilled. Ivy isn’t Mary Beth. She’s proven she’s good for Jewel. My daughter is not only safe with her, she’s flourishing.
Trust her.
Torin sat for a while longer, breathing in and out the release of fear. Not all, of course. He didn’t think that state was possible. He’d always be fiercely protective of Jewel.
Suddenly, wanting to see them, he stood, brushed the pine needles from his trousers, and started down the trail. The air was sweet with pine resin and the scent of warming earth, and somewhere in the canopy a thrush sang in liquid notes.
His stride was lighter than it had been in weeks—the stride of a man walking toward something rather than fleeing. Hiking down the trail, Torin could hear the sound of his daughter’s enthusiastic squeals. Thank goodness! Ivy must have found a way to make her happy. The thought warmed him.
A smile broke out over his face. He quickened his steps, curious about what they were up to.
But, as he drew closer, he recognized other girlish voices chanting, “Ring around the rosy.” What the heck is going on? His stomach twisted with sudden nausea. Surely, Ivy hasn’t allowed…
He emerged from the trees and stopped, rearing back, aghast.
Jewel was in the yard beside the porch, turning in a circle with three other girls, their hands clasped, their voices raised in a chant from Mother Goose. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies...”
The Swensen girls. He recognized Inga immediately—the eldest, blond braids swinging, her voice leading the others with the natural authority of an oldest sister. He supposed Elsabe and Krista were the other two. Constance and Elsie had described them several times.
Beside her, a smaller girl with the same flaxen hair—Elsabe, perhaps eleven—and the who must have been around nine and who held Jewel’s hand.
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!”
They tumbled to the grass in a heap of skirts and laughter. Jewel fell last. As always, her coordination being a beat behind. But she fell with abandon, with a trust in the ground and in the girls around her that made something in Torin's chest seize and twist.
“Again!” Jewel scrambled up, grabbing Krista’s hand. “Again, again!”
Ivy sat on the porch steps, watching. Her face held an expression Torin had never seen on her—a complicated mixture of joy and concern, her eyes bright with unshed tears, one hand pressed to her mouth as if to hold in her emotions.
She hadn’t noticed him. None of them had.
Torin stood at the edge of the tree line, and the warmth that had carried him down the mountain—the hope, the tentative openness, the fragile, dangerous willingness to imagine a different future—turned to ice in his veins.
Ivy went behind my back.
She’s broken my trust.
The thought was a blade, slicing through everything else—through the sound of his daughter's laughter, through the sight of four children innocently spinning in the sunshine, through the rational part of his mind that was trying, even now, to tell him that this incident was not a betrayal but a gift.
I told her no visitors. I told her to keep Jewel away from the children. And the moment I left the house, she turned against me.
Righteous anger burned through him. He breathed. In and out. Slow and controlled.
Be calm. The girls are neighbors. They've done nothing wrong. Jewel has done nothing wrong. Your anger is for Ivy. She’s the one who betrayed you.
Ivy saw him first. Her hand dropped from her mouth. Her expression shifted—the joy draining away, replaced by a wariness as she obviously braced for his reaction. She stood.
Good.
“Hello.” His voice came out pleasant. The careful, neutral tone he'd perfected over years of concealing his inner turmoil from his daughter.
He walked the remaining distance to the children and forced a smile. “You must be the Swensen girls. I’m Mr. Rees, Jewel’s father.” He nodded at the eldest. “Inga, you do such a good job with our mail.”
Inga straightened proudly, smoothing her pinafore. But she didn’t smile. She was old enough to sense the undercurrent, though she couldn’t have understood the reasons. “We came to deliver a letter, Mr. Rees.”
“That was kind of you.” Torin made himself sound calm.
Krista clasped her hands together. “Thank you for the fairytale book, Mr. Rees. Mama’s been reading us the stories.”
“That’s one of Jewel’s favorites, too.” He managed to remain polite.
Jewel released Elsabe’s hand and came running, her expression incandescent. “Pa-pa! Pa-pa, we play Ring round the Wo-see! Elsa-bee and Kis-ta and In-ga—they my fends!”
“I can see that, Sweetheart.” He crouched and gathered her to him, pressing his lips to the top of her head, smelling lavender soap and sunshine and the green, growing scent of the grass she'd been rolling in. She’s safe.
Over her shoulder, his stare connected with Ivy’s. He held her gaze for one long, charged moment—long enough to say, without words, we will discuss this—and then turned back to the Swensen girls with a smile that cost him effort.
“Thank you for the letter, Inga. And for playing with Jewel. Your parents will be expecting you home before too long, I’d imagine.” He dropped a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Jewel needs to go inside now, girls. Say goodbye.”
Inga gathered her sisters with a quick word and a gesture—the practiced efficiency of an eldest child accustomed to herding younger ones.
“Bye-bye, Jewel!” Krista waved, wiggling her whole body. “We’ll come back soon!”
Oh no, you won’t. But that was a problem for a later time.
“Bye-bye, Elsa-bee!” Jewel waved back with both hands, bouncing on her toes. “Bye-bye, Kwis-ta! Bye-bye, In-ga! Come back, come back!”
“Bye, Jewel,” the other girls sweetly chimed, as they walked away. After a few steps, Krista took her sisters’ hands and the three swung their arms and began skipping in unison.