Chapter 8
Ivy woke to birdsong and pale light framed by her open curtains, feeling a rush of anticipation. Through the window, she could see a slice of the lake glinting silver, the shore still clumped with the last stubborn patches of snow.
She dressed quickly, braided her hair into a practical coil, and donned her best coat, which she’d finally unpacked from her trunk and hung on a peg. Then she hurried outside to use the privy.
The frigid experience made her fervently miss indoor plumbing, and she wondered about tricks to making it better.
Fire-heated bricks on the seat to warm it up?
She certainly couldn’t mention such a thing to Torin.
Maybe when she and Cora had some privacy to talk.
In the middle of winter, which is worse?
A stinky chamber pot inside or a privy outside?
But once in the kitchen, everything started to change. Torin looked as though he hadn't slept well. His dark hair, usually tied back with a leather thong, hung loose around his shoulders, and his blue eyes held a guarded, distant look. Her attempts to make conversation resulted in curt responses.
My employer seems to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Or, at least, that’s what she hoped his problem was and not anything to do with her.
She thought back to the previous evening.
They'd sat in the parlor after Jewel went to bed, each reading by lamplight.
The quiet had been easy, comfortable, even as she kept sneaking admiring glances his way.
At one point, Torin had looked up from his book and caught her watching him, and she'd felt her cheeks heat.
Had he seen her regard? Had that been enough to make him retreat behind his walls?
What happened between last night and this morning?
It doesn't matter, she told herself firmly. He's your employer. Whatever mood he's in is his own business.
Even though Torin poured her a cup of coffee and they conversed about Jewel, he didn’t soften. The revelation that his daughter was doomed to a short life made pain flash across his face, before being stoically hidden.
The very thought of such a devastating loss made Ivy want to cry.
When Jewel emerged from her room, hair every which way, rubbing her eyes, clutching both her rag doll and the pink felt J, and trailed by Brave, Torin greeted his daughter with his usual tenderness—dropping a kiss on top of her head, smoothing an errant strand of hair from her face.
But when his gaze met Ivy's, something shuttered.
They ate their breakfast of oatmeal with dried blueberries and a drizzle of honey in silence. Brave gobbled some meat scraps and then slunk off.
Even Jewel was too sleepy to talk.
Torin’s gaze was always on Ivy, critically watching, making her uncomfortable and uneasy. She couldn’t settle into the pure joy of getting to know Jewel and finding out how she could best teach her.
After breakfast, while Torin helped his daughter dress, Ivy moved to the dining room to set up the items for their lessons at one end of the rectangular table in front of the fireplace.
She'd brought out the red felt letter A she'd made back in New York—the first in what she'd planned as a complete alphabet set—and Jewel's slate and chalk.
Today, she wanted to work on Jewel learning A, through familiarity with the felt letter and using the slate to practice printing As.
Father and daughter walked into the dining room, Jewel in the pink dress she’d worn yesterday, with her hair brushed loose.
Ivy’s hands itched to plait it back, but she knew Torin was capable because the girl had worn pigtails yesterday. This is his choice today.
The dining room had a table that sat six. In the middle on a lace doily stood an empty cut-glass vase and crystal squares containing salt and pepper and miniature spoons resting on a silver holder
Torin took a seat at the other end of the table from the fireplace, leaving them the warmer space. He placed a book on the table but didn’t open the pages, instead closely watching them.
She wanted to ask what he was reading, but given his mood, didn’t dare. Instead, she tried to pretend he wasn’t there.
“Today, we're going to learn a new letter.” Ivy held up the felt A for Jewel to see. “This is the letter A. Can you say aaa?”
A smile crinkling her eyes, Jewel reached to take the letter, turning it over in her hands with the same careful reverence she gave to her J and her P. “Aay.”
“That's right, A.” Ivy guided Jewel's finger along the shape.
“See how it has two long legs?” She raised her arms and put her hands slanting toward each other, fingertips touching to form a physical demonstration of the A.
“Can you make this?” She held her position, waiting to see what the child would do.
Jewel was able to approximate the shape, although her fingers were cupped, not straight, and her elbows lifted too high, causing a flat A.
Ivy reached to manipulate her hands and arms into place. “See, A.” She ran a finger up one of the girl’s arms and down the other. Then she picked up the felt letter and inserted it under Jewel’s hands, tip to tip.
The girl giggled and snapped her hands shut on the letter. “Aay.”
“Very good.” Ivy smiled.
Jewel set the felt A on the table and studied it. “Wwed.”
“That’s right. The color is rred.” Ivy emphasized the R sound but wanted to focus on As, not Rs.
“Now, let's try drawing the A on your slate.” She placed the chalk in Jewel's hand and gently guided the strokes.
“One long leg. Two long legs. Then they join across the middle because they like each other.”
Jewel’s first attempt was wobbly, the crossbar too high, but the basic shape was there. “Wonderful, Jewel. That's very good.”
“Good?” Jewel beamed. “Show Papa?”
“Of course. But first, let’s draw another A underneath this one.” She tapped the spot with the chalk. “Do you want me to help you, or do you want to do it yourself?”
“Self.”
“Of course, you do, Little Miss Independence.”
Jewel’s second letter was slightly better than the first. “Show Pa-pa now.” She lifted the slate and moved around the table.
Torin’s smile to his daughter seemed strained. But he gave her his full attention. With a finger in the air a few inches above the slate, he traced the outline of the letters.
Watching the two heads bent over the slate, their mink-brown hair almost intertwining, caused Ivy’s throat to close up.
He’s so good with her. Ivy could only recall her father teaching her from a greater distance.
Was he closer with me—physically, emotionally—when I was small?
She brought her attention back to father and daughter.
“I like your As, Sweetness. Can you draw some more for me?”
“More Aays,” Jewel happily agreed, moving back to her chair.
Something about the interaction must have assured him, for he rose and moved his chair closer to the window for better light—close enough to observe, far enough to maintain his distance—and opened his book. From the rustle of pages, he was finally attempting to read.
Ivy felt his gaze, but when she glanced over, his eyes were fixed on the page.
Fine. She turned her attention fully to Jewel.
They worked on the A for the better part of an hour. Jewel traced the felt letter, drew it on the slate, and Ivy helped her practice the sound. “Aay,” Ivy said. “A is for apple.” She drew out the syllables. “Can you think of anything else that starts with the A sound?”
Jewel's brow furrowed in concentration. Then her face lit up. “An-mals!”
“Animals!” Ivy clapped her hands together. “Yes, that's right.”
The praise made Jewel wiggle with happiness in her chair.
Brave, who'd wandered in from the parlor, leapt onto the table to investigate the felt letter.
Jewel pushed the slate underneath the cat’s head. “Bave learn Aay, too.”
“Brave is a very smart cat,” Ivy said solemnly. “But cats don’t belong on the table.” She scooped up Brave and deposited her on Jewel’s lap.
The child giggled and stroked her pet.
Brave yawned, showing tiny, white teeth, and curled into a ball in Jewel's lap.
With another giggle, Jewel returned to her slate.
She’s doing so well. The thought filled Ivy with quiet satisfaction. Jewel learned differently than other children—she needed more repetition, more tactile engagement, more patience. But she did learn. Every small triumph was hard-won and so very precious.
Ivy wished she could share the moment with Torin, but one glance at his rigid posture and averted gaze told her the wall was still firmly in place. So she swallowed her hurt about him shutting her out and poured her warmth into Jewel instead.
Whatever he's wrestling with, he'll have to come to terms with it on his own. I won't push. I won't beg.
She'd spent too many years trying to win her father's approval to repeat the pattern here.
But, to Ivy’s great relief, by the afternoon, Torin seemed to relax somewhat. He’d sit in the same room but pick up a book and dip into it, reading longer than previously before glancing up.
The first time he went outside to check on the livestock, he returned and walked into the dining room wearing a strange expression.
He looked from Jewel to her and back to his daughter.
“I usually have to take Jewel with me when I go to the stables, unless I can get there before she wakes in the morning or if she’s napping.
And in this past year, not even then because instead of playing in her room or coming to find me, she got away from me—one time going to Hank’s, the other to Brian’s. Scared me out of my wits, she did.”
“I’d imagine so.”
He leaned against the door jamb. “Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about her at night. She sleeps tight. Unfortunately, I’m so worn out by then that I go to bed not long after she does.”
“That’s usually my reading time.”
“I haven’t gotten much of that in the last ten years. Even today, I kept an ear cocked. Kept having to remind myself she was safe.”