Chapter 3 #3
Josh nods slowly, seeming both chastened and impressed by my unexpected outburst. “Okay,” he says. “I see it. I get it.”
“So, we can be friendly,” I tell Josh severely. “We can be friends.” Then I can’t help but crack a grin. “Besides, he’s got all those guns.”
Josh lets out a shout of laughter, then gathers me in my arms.
“I love you, Abby,” he says, which seems like a complete non sequitur, but I’m glad he said it all the same.
CHAPTER SIX
When I see Emmy at Bible study the next week, she’s back to her brisk self, cheerful and dismissive of her outburst the other morning, which she tells me was a combination of PMS, lack of sleep, and being hangry.
I’m not sure I believe her.
Emmy is always so cheerfully capable that it never really occurred to me that keeping her mood up might sometimes be exhausting.
That someone as seemingly confident and faith-filled as Emmy might have moments of doubt or fear or just weariness, the same way I do.
Looking back, it seems obvious, but Emmy puts up a very good front, and really, I think she is that way most of the time.
Just not all the time. And because Emmy has helped me in so many ways, I want to help her, too. The trouble is, people like Emmy don’t always like accepting help, so I know I’ll need to be sneaky about it.
Fortunately, I’ve got a plan. I just need to talk to Josh about it.
Life is getting busy on our homestead, now that it’s spring, and although he’s still hobbling around and wearing a boot, Josh is determined to get outside and start doing things.
With William working full time for the forestry, he doesn’t have his usual partner for projects, and I worry he’s going to overdo it.
Plus, it’s hard to find a time to talk about my plan for Emmy.
One morning in early April, I stare out of the kitchen as Josh limps to the barn, a now familiar ball of worry knotting in my stomach.
Yesterday, he insisted he didn’t need to go to Buckholt anymore for PT.
It’s only been a month, and his surgeon said he needed three to six months of physical therapy.
He also said if Josh didn’t do it, he could suffer some kind of permanent damage to his knee.
Meanwhile, my husband seems to secretly believe that PT is for sissies, which feels like a very outdated, not to mention stupid, notion.
I glance back at Jack, who is slurping Cheerios and reading a graphic novel, which at least has some words in it.
He’s meant to be doing his math right after breakfast, but now that the weather has started getting warm, both of our wills to keep homeschooling are petering out.
I’ve come to realize that the homeschooling cycle is a burst of purposeful education followed by myriad distractions and enticements—first it was Christmas, then snow, now spring.
There is, I reflect on a sigh, always something, so really, it’s kind of amazing that my kids even know how to read.
Of course, they all learned that before I started homeschooling them. Thankfully.
Rose comes into the kitchen with a basket of eggs from the coop, practically an ad for the bucolic benefits of the homeschooling—or maybe just homesteading—life.
She finished her reading and writing for the year by the end of February, but she could do some math, too.
The trouble is, she only likes the fun word problems Josh makes for her, and he hasn’t done those lately.
I tried, writing a convoluted problem about cupcakes and sprinkles, but she said it wasn’t the same.
Josh, meanwhile, is struggling just to open the barn door.
“Jack,” I say abruptly, “go outside and help Dad. I think he wants to get the tractor out.” After Mike the Prepper reprimanded us for not plowing yet, I think Josh has been feeling behind.
Last night I saw him googling cold frames, even though we hadn’t considered them before Mike came along, and it’s probably too late in the season, anyway. Maybe next year.
I did venture into our semi-dilapidated greenhouse that Bethany and William reassembled from an old one Ed Wilson had brought over. It lists to one side, and there are some serious drafts blowing in through the cracks, but it mostly works.
It felt strange to be starting over for a second time.
Last year, everything felt brand new, scary, and exciting, our plans barely nascent.
This year, I have more confidence in what I am doing—mostly—but I am also wondering why I didn’t rinse out the plant pots, which are now full of dried, ashy compost, or tidy up the sacks of potting soil, or consider labeling the plastic baggies of various seeds I cannot possibly identify now.
I guess I could just plant them and see what happens.
Or we could just throw them out and start over, which feels easier.
I continue to watch Josh struggle while Jack stands nearby, looking torn.
I’m guessing he wants to help, but he’s afraid Josh is going to yell at him, which is likely because Josh doesn’t like being offered help, especially by his children.
Since getting his cast off, it’s as if he’s been auditioning for Superman. Admittedly, a lame Superman. Literally.
I watch apprehensively as they exchange words, both Josh and Jack standing with their hands on their hips, facing each other.
A jolt of surprise goes through me at the sight; until now, when I can see them standing there together, I didn’t realize how tall Jack is now, well past Josh’s shoulder.
He looks grown-up… and he also looks a lot like Josh.
The same wide-legged stance, the same stubborn look on his face.
“Don’t you have some homeschooling to do?” I hear through the open window.
“Isn’t this why we moved here?” Jack replies. “So I could do this stuff?”
Josh sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.” He gives our son a sheepish smile. “I guess I just wish I could do it myself.”
As Jack goes to open the barn door, I feel a little pulse of relief. Crisis averted. I turn back to the kitchen table, where Rose is meant to be starting her math, only to discover she has disappeared. What a surprise.
“Rose,” I call. “It’s math time, and you still need to put your eggs away.” I rest one hand on my bump, feeling tired even though it’s only eight o’clock in the morning, when a sudden twitch inside has me stilling, and then gasping out loud.
I think the baby just kicked me. My little girl.
Rose slumps into the kitchen, Ginger—or maybe it’s Marmalade—in her arms, crammed into Felicity’s riding outfit from the American Girl Doll company, which it sometimes feels we single-handedly keep in business. Those dolls have more clothes than I do.
“But Jack isn’t doing his math,” she complains.
“You’re right,” I tell my ornery tween. “So, you don’t have to, either.
Instead, you can clean the downstairs bathroom, including the toilet, and recite your multiplication tables while you’re at it.
” I smile sweetly while Rose gapes at me in shocked outrage.
I don’t usually take such a hard line, but when I do, she knows I mean business.
“I’ll inspect your work in fifteen minutes,” I tell her, just as I feel another twitch inside. Seems my baby agrees with me.
It isn’t until the evening, when we are getting ready for bed, that I have time to talk to Josh about Emmy. The day was full, as this time of year always is, with work, chores, plans, and kids.
Bethany came back from Buckholt bubbling over about some plan to start selling her own aromatherapy oils at the health shop where she works.
My daughter makes a lot of plans—in addition to taking over our neighbor Miss Barbara’s herbalist business when she moves next month, she is training to be a midwife and now, it appears, start her own aromatherapy business.
I can’t keep track of all the ideas she has; I just hope some of them come to fruition.
“Do you think you have time to do that and manage Miss Barbara’s business, along with your online midwifery modules?” I asked mildly as I handed her plates for the table.
“Yes, because Josie wants to help with Miss Barbara’s business,” she tells me a touch impatiently. I think I’d forgotten that detail, but as I said, it’s hard to keep track. “By the way, Miss Barbara is having a going-away party next Friday. We’re all invited.”
“Oh? You mean she’s really going?” Miss Barbara has talked about moving to California to be closer to her sister since we moved here.
“Of course, she’s really going, Mom,” Bethany replied, rolling her eyes. “Didn’t she say she was?”
“Yes, but…” Miss Barbara is something of a free spirit.
She moved to Wildflower Valley thirty years ago to start a yoga studio and ended up running her herbalist business instead.
To be fair, I don’t know her that well, although I’m glad she’s taken Bethany under her wing.
“Well, that sounds like fun,” I say, which seems like the best response.
Now, as Josh eases himself into bed, wincing slightly as he lifts his leg over, I sit down next to him.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” I say, and the seriousness of my voice has him turning to me in alarm.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “It’s not about me or any of us. Actually, it’s about Emmy.”
“Emmy?” Understandably, Josh sounds incredulous. Emmy really is one of the most cheerfully capable people either of us knows. “What’s wrong with her?”