Chapter Twenty-Eight
A small part of Maeve had hoped-dared, even-to believe that after the loving moment they’d all shared as a family, they would walk into the next morning brighter-eyed and bushier-tailed than ever before.
Unfortunately, the last week of July felt like Maeve was being forced to pull her own teeth out.
It didn’t help that she’d been relegated to housework and Lila duties, what with her bandaged arm still sore from simply bending it at a right angle.
She gave her pitcher of drink an experimental taste with her finger, her face puckering immediately after.
“Ugh. No, that’s too much cider vinegar.
” Maeve then dumped another scoop of white sugar in (courtesy of Sadie’s bottomless generosity) and gave the mix another stir, glancing toward the living room from her spot in the kitchen.
She caught sight of Lila rounding the corner of the couch for the fourth time in under a minute, waving her wooden spoon as if she were leading a parade with a grand flag.
“I wonder if you got that there idea from the circus?” Maeve wondered aloud.
“Dada!” Lila replied, waving her spoon with renewed zeal. She continued her march and rounded the couch once more, a sprig of black hair sticking up just above the back of it.
“I know you didn’t get that from the circus.” Maeve let out a dramatic sigh, folding her elbows against the counter as she rested her face in her hands. “When you gonna try fer my name, missy miss?”
Lila’s face peeked around the couch, a mischievous smile spread wide across her face. “Dada! Da-da-da-dada!”
Maeve teasingly stuck her tongue out at her daughter, relieved for the brief moment of silliness. They were sporadic at best, but always a sliver of sunlight that occasionally broke through a seemingly endless storm.
An unusual knock came at the door, threatening to spoil the pleasant atmosphere. But it didn’t deter Maeve’s mood, and she stepped forward to undo the locks without a moment’s hesitation.
Jed stood on the other side, sweaty and red-faced from the long hours spent working under the sun. He wiped the back of his neck with a kerchief, then moved his mother’s hat off his head to give himself a desperate fan. “I’ll tell you what, I ain’t a fan of summertime no more.”
Maeve stepped aside, allowing her husband to stumble out of the heat and into the cooler interior of the cabin. “I made some switchel fer you and Sam, that is if he ain’t already rode off on another wild goose chase.”
Jed got down on one knee, scooping Lila up in his arms as the toddler ran excitedly to him. “I think he’s getting frustrated. We’d hoped that by now they would’ve caught one of them bandits fer questioning.”
“That’d make Joshua’s job easier fer sure,” Maeve admitted.
She slipped past the pair and slipped back into the kitchen, digging out a tall glass for Jed as she poured a portion of homemade switchel out for him.
“If we just knew how many folks Thomas actually had under his thumb, or had some idea as to what he were trying to do…”
Hard as he tried not to, something dark slipped into Jed’s tone. “Knowing him, he’s probably doing it fer a laugh. Like watching chickens with their heads cut off–wear us all out so when he strikes, we’re too disorganized and tired to do anything about it.”
Maeve made a face. “Jed, I say this with all the care in the world…you had awful sense when it came to making friends.”
Jed chuckled dryly, accepting the glass as Maeve carried it back toward him. “Lucky fer me that yer instincts were so sharp then. You got yerself a good posse, Maeve. I’m lucky they took me in so quickly.”
A tinge of heat tingled across Maeve’s cheeks. “W-Well, I were lucky they didn’t leave me high and dry after how often I ignored ‘em.”
Jed took a long drink from his cup, letting out a refreshed gasp. Lila mimicked him immediately, and Maeve couldn’t help but snort with laughter.
“After all this time I spent with her, she acts more like you then me!” she teased.
Briefly, a flicker of guilt crossed Jed’s eyes.
“Oh, no, Jed–I’m just joshing around.” Maeve offered a reassuring smile and a pat on her husband’s shoulder. “I think it’s sweet how much she idolizes you. Even looks a bit like you from a certain angle.”
“Does that mean you find me pretty, or you find Lila handsome?” Jed asked.
Maeve replied with a childish smirk. “I’ll leave that fer you to decide.”
***
Nighttime was always the worst. The days were hot and long, but at least Maeve could keep herself busy and her mind occupied.
She could always find the odd chore that suddenly needed attending to, though more often than not Lila simply needed constant supervision.
But once the toddler finally fell asleep, Maeve was left to sit in the unnervingly familiar quiet of the cabin, else she risk waking Lila up.
“Y’ain’t alone this time,” Maeve reminded herself whenever panic threatened to claw its way free from her throat. “Y’ain’t trapped under a mountain of snow. Pa’s spirit ain’t lingering round here. He’s in Heaven with Ma, and he’s proud of what he sees.”
Even if she knew she was right, Maeve had a hard time chasing away the loneliness.
While Jed still worked with her during Lila’s bedtime routine, he always immediately took to the living room, leaning himself against the wall with her father’s shotgun angled between a gap in the now boarded-up windows.
He gave off a faint air of hostility, as if the first bump in the night would cause him to pull the trigger.
She tried to busy herself with checking the door’s locks, but after the fourth time Jed had nearly jumped out of his skin after she’d passed him by, Maeve abandoned the thought and simply sat in the bedroom.
In truth, she knew it was for the best; if bandits organized a strike against them, it was better that she stayed out of Jed’s way.
She could get Lila to safety quicker as well, and, most importantly, someone needed to catch Lila whenever she tried to escape her crib.
On the last night of July, Maeve sat on her father’s old bed, her fingers stiffly maneuvering her knitting while she cast an occasional glance Lila’s way.
She’d done her best to run the toddler ragged, and Lila had rewarded Maeve’s hard work by falling asleep almost immediately.
Currently, she laid sprawled on her back, her arms bent around her head while one foot was slowly working its way toward getting stuck between the crib’s bars.
“Oh, Lila…” Maeve set her knitting needles aside and stood, gently freeing the toddler’s foot before tucking her slumbering form underneath her lilac blanket.
Her fingers brushed across its fraying surface, and Maeve wondered what sort of terrible circumstances might have forced Lila’s birth mother to abandon her in the woods as she had.
Briefly, Maeve’s hand brushed against a coarse thread, and she tilted her head, realizing it was a different kind of yarn that made some sort of writing. “‘Rose’, huh…?”
‘Was this blanket from your grandmother? Your aunt?’
The word ‘mother’ choked Maeve, and she quickly brushed the thought away. Flowers always seemed to bring out tears for her.
“Speaking of blankets…” Maeve quietly moved back to the bed, tying off her last bit of yarn as she freed her hand-knitted blanket from the needles at last. It certainly wasn’t her best work–a few of the stitches had been made too loosely, to the point she could easily fit two fingers through the space between them.
The size wasn’t very impressive either, perhaps just a smidge larger than Lila’s own blanket.
“I don’t reckon Jed’ll get much use outta this,” Maeve groaned quietly to herself.
She glanced towards Lila’s crib one more time before carefully making her way out of the bedroom, stepping lightly through the hall before stopping just inside the entrance to the living room.
A speck of doubt had appeared in the back of her mind, and she did her best to push it away before it took root.
‘Did he take my words to heart before?’
Maeve scowled, clutching the blanket tightly against her chest. He wasn’t acting as distant as he had when she’d first yelled at him, though the long nights spent out of their bedroom were starting to pick away at her confidence.
She didn’t necessarily want to ask him about it.
That might show that she was worried, that she herself wasn’t confident in her grand gesture to him.
‘But I am! I ain’t leaving his side, no matter what Thomas tries.’
And yet, Maeve couldn’t stop a dreadful shudder from rolling down the length of her spine at the thought of that man.
Curling her hand into a fist, she gently rapped against the side of the wall, mimicking the irregular sound everyone had grown to trust as a sign of a friend’s approach. She stood nervously in place, waiting for Jed to confirm he’d heard her.
“Come on over, Maeve.”
Blowing out an anxious breath, Maeve crossed the living room while hiding the blanket behind her back.
Just as every night before, she found her husband propped against the window, shotgun aimed out into the pitch-black night.
Lanterns had been briefly considered, but the light was eventually determined to be far more advantageous for the bandits.
And thus, every evening, the Mercer residence had all lights extinguished as the sun dipped below the horizon.
‘The Mercer residence…?’
It was the first time Maeve had referred to it as such. She took a moment to sit with the thought before turning her attention to Jed. “I…”
Her mouth went dry. Was she really going to try and give him such a pitiful excuse for a blanket? It wasn’t even a surprise anymore. Briefly, she caught a nervous hum escape Jed’s lips, and she remembered a long-forgotten promise.
“I never told you what me and Sadie’s silly sisters chant were.”
That caught Jed’s attention. His head fully turned away from the window, a hint of curiosity dancing behind his dark eyes. It was like staring into the unknown depths of a great forest; Maeve wasn’t sure which way she’d be taken next.
“You– You’ve been singing all the time now.
” Maeve tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ears, suddenly feeling very flustered.
“And I ain’t even given you one line of our chant yet.
So, you’d…you’d start by saying the person’s name, and…
” Maeve’s face flushed hot, and she shook her head furiously.
Jed tilted his head, fully engaged now with the conversation. Maeve almost wished he were still distracted, but a silver lining didn’t come often these days.
‘What right do I got, taking it away from him just ‘cause I’m embarrassed?’
Maeve sucked in a breath, shifting her arms behind her back so as to get a better grasp on the blanket. “‘Jed, you and I ain’t simply acquaintances fer the sake of it. We are sisters born of different blood. There ain’t a force-”
Maeve immediately shut her mouth as smile crossed Jed’s face and he chuckled.
“Wh-what?! I told you it were embarrassing!”
“Why’d you use my name instead of Sadie’s?” He laughed. “It’s a bit odd, having my wife refer to me as her ‘sister born of different blood’.”
Maeve’s face burned like the surface of the sun. “W-well, I don’t gotta keep going if it’s gonna make you uncomfortable.”
“Noo, no, you ain’t getting outta it that easy.
” Now Jed gave her his full attention, going as far as to pull up one of the dining room chairs he’d brought in to sit on when the night dragged on.
He set the shotgun carefully against the corner of the wall, and just like that, Maeve had a fully attentive audience.
“I…uh… Where’d I leave off?”
“‘Sisters of different blood’,” Jed teased.
“R-right! Well, I’m sk-skipping that part, ‘cause you already heard it.” Maeve took in another breath, drawing on every reserve of courage she had to spit out the rest of their chant.
“‘There ain’t a force in this wide world of ours that’ll ever hope to change that.
How we feel about each other,” she clarified.
Jed nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
“Not the wildest of twisters, not the coldest of rains. Not any big horned beast, or snaggle-toothed bully…” Maeve’s sentence trailed off, acutely aware of the shift in Jed’s expression.
He’d gone from teasing to strangely somber, genuinely listening to each and every word as if she were speaking directly to him.
In a strange way–the mention of sisterhood notwithstanding–the promise did apply well to their own partnership as well.
Maeve exhaled slowly. She crossed the living room, taking Jed’s hands in her own and giving them a gentle squeeze. Her wedding vows hadn’t been particularly memorable, but now…
“Jed, ain’t nothing will break my marital bond with you.
Not just because it were done under God’s watchful eye, but because throughout this last month and then some, I’ve been excited to discover who you really are.
To slowly chip away and see that fiery glow brightly shining inside.
No force of nature, no hideous beast, nor no man viciously twisted up in his own ego is gonna change that fer me, and I hope one day you hear these words and really believe them. ”
Jed looked completely taken aback. He stared at Maeve, wide-eyed and somewhat slack-jawed. She wondered if perhaps she had gone a bit too far. Instead, she went the extra mile and leaned in close for a kiss; a proper one, like the one they had shared underneath the fireworks.
It didn’t feel exactly the same, and at first Maeve wondered if she’d done something wrong.
But the longer they held the moment, the more she realized it was simply…
different. Not one blazing with passion and intense emotions, but one that was thoughtful.
Tender. One that had been quietly steeping in love for nearly two months, finally translated through such a vulnerable act.
Eventually, Maeve pulled away. Much to her relief, Jed looked completely enamored by her spontaneity, his spirit fully ablaze behind his forest eyes.
“I’m still scared,” Jed admitted quietly. “I…I’d hoped bravery were easy to hold onto, once you managed to grasp it briefly.”
Maeve nodded, gently pressing her lips against his again. “I’m still scared, too. But I know, in the very depths of my soul, that we can get through this, Jed. Together.”
His eyes shimmered with an emotion Maeve hadn’t witnessed before. It wasn’t the same as his occasional spontaneous laughter, but something more permanent. Grounded. Completely rooted in their shared resolve and the vulnerability she’d shared with him. “I…I love you, Maeve.”
She blinked furiously, unable to stop a wobbly giggle from escaping her throat. “I think I love you too, Jed.”
Beneath the midnight sky, in a cabin drenched in darkness, Maeve solidified her new resolution with one more kiss. One that might have lingered until the end of time itself as she fully committed herself to the name ‘Mrs. Mercer’.