Chapter Ten
Grace tried to focus on sewing the torn canopy of the wagon back together, but it was difficult not to let her eyes wander to Emily, who followed obediently behind Ethan.
While most of the other children were chasing one another around the open expanse of the plains, Emily was learning how to repair wagons.
Grace kept thinking of every misfortune that might befall her daughter.
A horse might be spooked and step on or kick her.
Wagon wheels could pinch searching fingers or trample tiny feet.
Broken wood might lead to splinters or cuts, and those might lead to infection—
“There!” Hannah’s delighted exclamation brought Grace back to the present.
The other woman raised her own repaired canopy aloft and inspected her stitching, which was some of the best Grace had ever seen.
“You did a wonderful job mending it,” Grace told her.
“Thank you.”
Hannah smoothed the canvas on the ground before her, inspecting it from a different angle.
A lump lodged itself in Grace’s throat. It was an ugly thing to be envious, but a small part of her wished that she could be more like Hannah, who seemed to have so few cares in the world.
It was like she already knew her place in the world and was content with it, while Grace was destined to be forever ill at ease for some reason or another.
“I believe Emily is quite taken with Ethan,” Hannah said, laughing as she observed the two of them.
Grace started, blinking in her surprise. “I suppose she is.”
“He’s always had a way with children. I suppose that comes from caring for me for so long.”
“He was a good brother, then?”
“Is,” Hannah said with a smile. “He is a good brother.”
Grace’s face grew hot. She had no idea why she had used the past tense when speaking about Ethan. Maybe it was just that he seemed so unkind to her that she assumed he must be similarly gruff with everyone else in his life, even his loved ones.
“When I was a child, I sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a sibling.” Realizing her mistake, Grace hurriedly added, “I mean, because Emily and I are so—so far apart in age! Sometimes it doesn’t really feel like we’re siblings.”
“I don’t know how we would have managed without Ethan,” Hannah confessed. “It was…difficult.”
“Your childhood?”
Hannah gathered the canopy in her arms and folded it so it could be given to Amos, who would see that it was returned to the correct wagon.
“My father wasn’t present for much of my childhood,” Hannah said. “It was—well, my mother, too—but more so Ethan who cared for me.”
“Oh.”
Grace tried to imagine Ethan as the sort of man who cared tirelessly for his mother and younger sister.
It was hard to reconcile that gentle image with the Ethan she knew, but Grace found it possible when she watched him with Emily.
They were both crouched in front of the wagon wheel at the moment, Ethan gesturing to parts of the wagon with his hand.
Emily stood close to him, nodding at everything he said.
Emily was an enthusiastic and energetic child, and sometimes she even bounced up and down while Ethan continued talking. He only smiled. Grace felt warm and cold all at once, unable to untangle her own thoughts.
So he is capable of being kind…just not to me.
“I’ll be back soon,” Hannah said cheerfully, leaving to give Amos the canvas.
Grace resumed her stitching, but her eyes kept darting to Emily.
Having completed their inspection of the wagon, Ethan had gone to the next.
Emily skipped along behind him, swinging her arms loosely.
Despite Grace’s reservations, it was good for Emily to learn about wagons.
Knowledge was always valuable, and while Emily wouldn’t need to repair a wagon anytime soon, it never hurt to take an interest in something new.
Thus far, no catastrophe had occurred. Grace sighed and continued sewing.
She supposed that she ought to be grateful Ethan was kind to her daughter.
Too often, children were looked at with distaste.
People of all classes parroted the idea that they were meant to be seen and not heard, and they were accused of getting underfoot if they tried to engage with adults, even politely.
Yet Ethan handled Emily’s interest with grace and kindness.
If Ethan was going to behave unkindly to anyone, it was for the best that it was her and not her daughter.
Grace soon finished repairing the canopy and looked across the wagon train.
She found Amos easily. He was still speaking to Hannah, who was still holding the canopy.
After climbing to her feet, Grace grabbed her own and went to join them.
A dull ache throbbed along her calf, the remnants of her earlier injury still occasionally reminding her of her grave brush with peril, though she could now walk without issue.
“Nicely done,” Amos said as Grace neared, admiring Hannah’s neat stitches.
“Thank you,” Hannah said.
He glanced at Grace. “You, too.”
Grace smiled and tried to shove away her fears that, like most men on the trail, Amos still found her lacking.
She wondered distantly if it mattered how hard she tried to prove herself, or if the men would continue to think poorly of her even though she was more than capable of completing tasks like this.
“Thank you.”
As she and Hannah walked back to the wagon, the other woman linked her arm with Grace’s. “I am glad to have met you,” Hannah said. “I think I should be very lonely if we were not friends. I don’t know any other women on the trail, and I’ve always had so few female friends.”
“Really? I find that difficult to believe.”
Hannah laughed. “Why?”
“Because you are such a pleasant person! I should think everyone would want to be your friend.”
Silence fell between them and stretched for so long that Grace began to think Hannah might not explain at all, but, eventually, the young woman sighed, the sound soft and weary.
“We didn’t get along well with our neighbors,” she said. “They thought very poorly of us.”
Grace furrowed her brow, suspecting that there was more Hannah wasn’t saying.
Grace thought of her own past, of Charles, and of fleeing to her father’s house under the cover of night.
There were some things which were just not easily shared.
Grace wasn’t sure she could manage to speak about her failed marriage without breaking down in tears; maybe Hannah had experienced something similar.
Just in case, Grace decided she wouldn’t pry.
“Well,” Grace said, decision made. “That is their loss. You are a perfectly lovely woman, and it is a shame that your neighbors couldn’t see it!”
Hannah smiled, her expression a little sad. “Perhaps.”
“Maybe your family will have a better start in Oregon,” Grace continued.
“I think so,” Hannah said. “No, I know so. You will be there, after all. I have already made a friend, which is more than I had back home in Missouri! And my brothers will be there, too.”
It occurred to Grace that Hannah had only mentioned Ethan being the reason she had survived her childhood, and that he had taken care of her and her mother.
She hadn’t said a word about Derek. Maybe that wasn’t too strange, though.
Derek was the youngest of the three, so it seemed likely that most of the responsibilities had fallen on Ethan as the oldest.
Grace’s gaze drifted along the line of wagons, her heart hammering against her ribs during the few seconds that it took her to find Emily. Her daughter was fine, of course, still dutifully following Ethan along on his inspections.
Grace sighed softly. Maybe she was worrying over nothing. She tried to convince herself of that, but Emily was her world. After nearly losing her daughter in the river, Grace just couldn’t take any chance of something happening to her.
***
Grace, her father, Emily, and Ethan all gathered around the fire together, scraping the last remnants of stew from their bowls.
The fire crackled and popped faintly, especially when Grace added a little more wood to it every so often.
Across from her, Ethan was carving a wooden doll for Emily.
The child sat beside him, watching with rapt attention.
A man was being kind to her child. She ought to be pleased. Instead, Ethan’s attention sent a jolt of discomfort skittering along the path of her spine. Grace glanced to her father and found that he was also watching Ethan, but with a deep wariness in his eyes.
He noticed her looking. “Grace.”
“Yes, Father?”
“Will you come back to the wagon with me? I want to speak with you about something.”
Emily looked at them with curious eyes. “Can I come, too?”
“It’s adult talk,” Grace’s father said in that gentle tone he always used with Emily. He stood and offered her a small, fond smile.
“It won’t take us long,” Grace added.
She and her father walked to the wagon in silence. When they were far from the campfire, her father sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I wish to remind you to be cautious.”
“About?”
“Ethan.”
Grace started. “What about him? Have you heard something?”
A sudden concern seized her. Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to know if her father had learned some dreadful rumor about Ethan, but he also seemed to be becoming a fixture in her life.
Emily was fascinated by him, for reasons Grace didn’t understand, and Grace didn’t want to take away her daughter’s friend.
“Heard something?” Richard echoed.
“Just…” Grace trailed off and shook her head. “I do not understand him. That is all.”
“Well, I would advise you not to try and understand him too much,” Richard said sternly. “It is good that you have a friend, and I know you are happy spending time with him and Hannah.”
“With Hannah,” she corrected. “Ethan is…”
Grace searched her mind for some way to explain what she thought of Ethan.
Her first instinct was to insist that the man believed she was helpless and that he had to do everything for her.
When she thought about him more carefully, she thought of how kind he was to Emily.
She remembered him enthusiastically showing her the wagons and shooting her kind smiles at the fireside.
Grace couldn’t honestly say that she thought of him so poorly anymore.
Maybe Ethan was a genuinely kind man, and she, in particular, would just never be someone he liked. The feeling was mutual, and likely for the best anyway. She had learned her lesson with Charles, and she’d never be so careless again.
“A decent man,” Grace said at last. “He is good to Emily, and that is what matters.”
It was more than that, though. He had saved her life, and when she thought about it, really thought about it, Grace realized that Ethan had frequently been a great help to her. When her ankle was injured, he had helped her ceaselessly, something she hadn’t even asked for.
“I am glad that he is good to you both,” Richard said. “He seems dependable, but I hope you aren’t…imagining something with him.”
Grace recalled in an instant what Hannah had said about them all being together in Oregon.
It seemed like Hannah already envisioned a future where Grace would be a part of her life, maybe forever.
Grace thought about them being neighbors, going to one another’s houses to embroider cushions together and gossip about the other townsfolk.
She imagined cooking Sunday dinner after church together. It was a nice image. Pleasant.
Grace shook her head. “I don’t imagine anything at all with him,” she said. “I have never even considered Ethan that way. At best, we might be—what? Neighbors, maybe.”
“I see.”
“You do not have to tell me what might happen,” Grace said. “I have not forgotten how poorly my marriage to Charles ended, and I am not eager to marry again anyway, especially now that I have Emily to care for.”
Richard shoved his hands into his pockets and gave her that same cold look that he used when he was negotiating with fellow businessmen. “Then we understand each other. I just wanted to be certain that you weren’t thinking about him romantically.”
“Not in the least.”
“Good.”
“Look!” Emily’s shrill shout cut the air as she ran to them, waving her arms in the air.
Grace managed a smile for her daughter. Emily stopped before them, gasping for air after her sprint to them. “Look!” she declared, waving a small wooden doll at them. “Isn’t she pretty?”
“She is,” Grace agreed, taking the doll and rolling it around in her hands.
Ethan had done an excellent job of smoothing out any rough edges and ensuring the doll was safe to handle.
The doll had two tiny eyes and a smile carved into her face, and wore a little white bonnet and dress made from scraps of calico and lace.
Emily grinned, her face as bright as the sun.
“Ethan's the best! My best friend!” she declared. “And look! Hannah made her a dress and a bonnet, too!”
Grace laughed and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I am glad that you’ve made a friend. Now, go on back to Ethan and Hannah. We’ll return in just a moment.”
Emily crossed her arms in an expression of child-like defiance, but still did what Grace had asked.
“She is just like you,” Richard murmured. “Mischievous. You must know she came over here not to show us her doll, but rather to hear what we were discussing.”
“Yes,” Grace agreed. “And you’re right. I would have done the same thing.”
She remembered too well the many times that her father and his business partners had met together for ‘adult conversations.’ Grace had often been sent to bed early on those nights, but she’d always crept down from her bedroom and tried to listen in by pressing her ear against the door.
As Emily joined Ethan by the fire, Grace’s chest grew tight. Was Emily growing too fond of Ethan? Grace imagined a future where they all arrived in Oregon and never saw Ethan again, and she inwardly winced when she pictured her little girl’s heartache.
Heartache was inevitable, of course, because sometimes people simply left. But at Emily’s age, Grace knew that even the smallest pain felt like a great ordeal, and there was nothing in the world she could do to protect her daughter from that. Not forever.