"I know exactly what I'm dealing with." He almost smiled. "Saturday, then," he said. "Saturday," she agreed. The church social was held in the yard behind the church.
Long tables set out, the smell of baked goods and roasted meat. The whole of Red Willow Creek assembled in its Sunday best and attempting to look casual about examining the Holloway family's new addition. Clara had dressed carefully not to impress, but to give no one anything to criticize. Her best dress, clean and pressed, her hair pinned neatly. She helped Sam with his collar, which he objected to with great feeling, and she told him he could take it off the moment they left, and he accepted this compromise with dignity.
They arrived as a family. All nine of them, which was the most people the Holloway wagon had carried to a social event in 3 years, and Clara registered the moment they drew up to the church because the conversations in the yard paused not dramatically, not all at once, but the particular pause of a crowd recalibrating. Nate helped her down from the wagon. He did it simply, without performance, offered his hand, which she took, and she stepped down. But it was the first time he had done it in public, and she was aware, without looking, that several people saw it.
"You all right?" He said quietly. "Fine," she said. "Then let's go say hello to people," he said. And there was something in his voice that was both resignation and resolve, which she recognized as his version of courage.
They moved through the social together. The children helped. Thomas and Daniel, who had apparently received some kind of instruction from James about behavior, were almost alarmingly well-mannered. Luke had left his engineering book at home and was attempting very hard to act like a normal boy at a church picnic with partial success. Ethan was quiet but present.
James moved with the easy social grace of someone who had grown up in this community and knew everyone and was known. And Sam Sam was Sam. Within 15 minutes of arriving, he had attached himself to three elderly women Clara didn't know, accepted cookies from two of them, told the third that her hat was a very serious hat with such earnest admiration that she laughed until her eyes watered, and generally conducted himself as an ambassador of goodwill that no amount of town gossip could withstand. Clara watched him from across the yard. "He does that everywhere," said a voice beside her.
She turned. A woman about her own age, dark-haired, with an open face and laugh lines that suggested she used them frequently. "Martha Greer," the woman said. "My husband has the livery. We've been neighbors of the Holloways for 12 years."
"Clara Whittaker," Clara said. "I know who you are," Martha said, and her tone was warm enough that it was not a pointed thing to say. I also know about Sam's fever. Half the town does. News travels fast out here."
She paused. "You stayed up all night." "The children needed tending," Clara said. "Edna Hargrove says I suspect I know what Mrs. Hargrove says," Clara said pleasantly.