Chapter Ten
Josie sat in the rocking chair beside the unlit fireplace, bouncing little Gideon on her lap.
Lillian and Jonas sat cross-legged at her feet, their small hands making wooden farm animals gallop across the floorboards.
Seated at the table, Ivy hunched over her sketch pad, her pencil moving in quick, deliberate strokes, lost in her own world, avoiding the family gathering.
Josie enjoyed spending time with the children, but she wished Travis was more involved.
She could almost feel the space he put between them, as if her presence was something he had to escape.
She didn’t mind the distance when the children weren’t around, but why be distant again when she was watching the children?
If they were all supposed to be one big family, didn’t the father need to be in the picture?
They had gone to church together that morning, so why couldn’t they continue the act at home?
Why couldn’t they be one happy family, even just for a little while longer?
“Josie, look!” Jonas exclaimed, his voice bubbling with excitement.
Josie lifted her eyes from the squirming baby in her lap, watching as Jonas made his wooden horse soar through the air with enthusiastic whooshes. A warm smile fell across her face. “He is one fast horse.”
“His name’s Flash,” Jonas declared proudly. “It’s the name of Pa’s horse.”
“I wanna ride Pa’s horse,” Lillian chimed in, still guiding a wooden pig across the floor.
“You’re too little to ride Pa’s horse,” Ivy snapped.
Josie’s gaze drifted to Ivy. “What are you drawing?”
For a moment, Ivy remained silent, her pencil pausing mid-stroke. Josie held her breath, waiting, wishing for something more than the quiet distance between them. Finally, Ivy sighed, her voice flat as she muttered, “Mountains.”
Josie set the wiggling Gideon on the ground. “What kind of mountains?”
Ivy stared at her, her facial expressions not changing. “Mountains.”
Josie smiled as the visions of home entered her mind. “Where I’m from, the mountains look very different than the ones here.”
“What ya mean?” Jonas asked, his eyebrows raising. “How different?”
“They’re called the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ones here are called the Rocky Mountains.”
Lillian’s eyes widened in wonder. “Are they blue?”
“Indeed, they are. They’re blue and green. The mountains here are much pointier, while the Blue Ridge ones are flatter.”
“I wish I could see them,” Jonas said, lying on the ground with his elbows propped up. Gideon crawled to him and squealed.
“I could draw them for you,” Josie offered, a gentle hope in her voice.
Jonas gasped, his mouth growing wider. He sat up and turned to Ivy. “Ivy! Ivy! Let Josie draw them! Let her please!”
Ivy closed her notebook and hugged it against her chest. “Josie can’t draw.”
“I can, Ivy. I’d like to show you if you’d let me.”
Ivy huffed and walked over to Josie, her jaw clenched.
Josie took the pencil and opened Ivy’s book to a blank page.
Then she pointed the pencil’s end downward and began sketching the familiar outlines of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Her pencil glided across the paper, curving out the gentle slopes and filling in the blank spaces with texture to make up for the lack of color.
After ten minutes, she finished. She held the sketchbook up, showing the children.
Jonas gasped. “Woah! That does look different.”
“It just needs some color,” Lillian added, tilting her head as she examined the drawing.
Ivy yanked the notepad back, letting out a frustrated sigh. “If only Pa had the money to buy me paints.”
“Pa says we gotta wait ‘til the harvest,” Jonas explained.
“He said that last year,” Ivy scoffed. “And the year before that. I’ll never get my paints.”
Josie’s stomach sank at Ivy’s disappointment.
The girl’s posture slouched and her bottom lip puckered.
Josie still had the money Travis had sent before their marriage—nearly four hundred dollars.
If she returned it, Ivy could have her paints, and Travis wouldn’t have to stress out about the harvest so much.
Maybe that was why he was avoiding her. He sacrificed everything to give these children a mother, and he could never love her as a husband should.
Josie would be a burden to him for the rest of her life.
Just like how she was to Papa after the war and then to Marcus. Josie shuddered.
No, this was different.
“When you get some, Ivy, I’ll give you a lesson,” Josie offered gently.
Ivy’s eyes widened. “You paint?”
Josie nodded, a smile curving on her lips. “I do. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
For the first time, Ivy truly smiled in Josie’s presence. Perhaps that was all Ivy needed. Something in common with me.
Josie looked at the time from the wall clock.
It was almost eight—time for the children to be put to bed.
Through the large living room window, a faint glow of a lantern shone from the barn loft.
Travis was still out there. She knew she needed to return the money he had given her, and maybe this was also a chance to talk. Maybe one last try.
Then she’d never disappoint anyone again.
Travis sat on his tiny cot, the pages of his Bible spread open in his lap while the faint light of his lantern flickered against the wooden walls of the barn.
He read the words, searching for guidance, for some kind of comfort in the midst of his pain.
Never had he needed it more than now—and answers that would help guide him make the right choices.
He was a new husband to a woman he felt compelled to keep at arm’s length, a woman who deserved far better than him.
The guilt grew with each passing moment in her presence and set up quarters in his mind and gut, eating him from the inside out.
Josephine would only find herself disappointed once he opened up to her.
She’d see him for who he truly was—a selfish monster.
Sophie was his wife—the only woman he had ever genuinely loved, and the one person he had betrayed.
That betrayal hung over him like a storm cloud, darkening every thought, every interaction with Josephine.
How could he ever move on? How could he let go of the past when it clung to him so fiercely?
Josephine wasn’t really here because of the advertisement.
She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Sophie’s last day on earth—the real reason she passed.
He closed the Bible, his hands trembling slightly as he let out a shaky breath. The words Travis read seemed distant, almost meaningless against the weight of his regret—both for Sophie and Josephine. How could he find peace when his heart was still tied to that one memory?
He closed his eyes as he shuddered. Blood.
Those wide eyes. Dr. Gordon pulling him aside, telling him he had a choice to make.
Travis gripped the Bible in his hands. Be smart about this, the doctor had said a year before Gideon was born.
You two have much to lose. Be careful. Travis’s teeth sank into his lip.
He could almost hear Sophie’s voice audibly clear.
I’m expecting, Travis. We’re having another baby.
The joy on Sophie’s face had been immeasurable.
Travis knew at that moment they would have a miracle.
How could God take the life of a woman so happy?
He remembered Dr. Gordon’s frightened face when they told him the news.
I told you two to be smart about this, he scolded.
Travis argued with him, telling him he was wrong.
Then Dr. Gordon shattered his excitement, saying Sophie wouldn’t survive the birth, perhaps the pregnancy.
I can perform a procedure, one that will terminate the pregnancy.
Sophie can live. Travis threw a punch in the doctor’s face after that disgusting and foul comment.
Travis threatened to kill the man if he ever brought that up again, or anything to do with Sophie’s condition.
Even if Josephine learned about the past and still wanted to be with him, he’d be betraying another woman.
He could try to care for Josephine, to be the husband she deserved, but he knew, deep down, that she would always be second in his heart.
Every moment they spent together, every touch, every glance, would be tainted by the memory of Sophie.
He couldn’t help it; every time he saw Josephine with the children, he thought of Sophie—the life they could have had if only he had listened to the doctor.
What if Josephine became pregnant? How could Travis bring a child into this mess, into a marriage built on a foundation of lies and half-truths?
How could he look his own child in the face and admit that its parents’ marriage was a sham?
The thought of it made his gut churn with dread.
And what if it all went wrong? How could he put his children through losing a mother again?
A soft knock on the barn door pulled him from his thoughts.
He looked down from the loft, and there she was—Josephine, standing in the dim light, her yellow hair catching the glow from the lantern.
Oh, blast. She was still wearing the black checkered dress she had worn to the church service, the one that clung to her hips, highlighting the outline of the form he had seen the night before. Why are you doing this to me, God?
“Mr. Blythe?”
Travis cringed hearing ‘Mr. Blythe’ from the mouth of the woman he married. “Yes?”
“I must speak with you,” she said with her whiskey-brown eyes peering up at him.
“All right,” Travis said, turning away to swallow the burn in his throat.
Josephine moved toward the ladder, and before Travis could stop her, she started climbing.
“No, no, you don’t have to do that. I’ll come down,” Travis said quickly.