“You don’t have to come down now. I’ll leave a plate for you near the stairs.”
“I said I’m not hungry.”
“I heard you.”
The girl finally looked at her.
“What’s your name?”
“Clara Bell.”
“No. I mean what did he hire you as?”
“Housekeeper.”
The girl’s mouth twisted.
“We had two before. One cried. One stole Mama’s brooch and left.”
“I don’t wear brooches.”
The girl did not smile, but something in her face changed.
“My name is Ruth.”
“I’ll remember.”
Clara went downstairs.
Gideon stood in the kitchen doorway, staring at the table as if it had insulted him.
“You cooked.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you to.”
“You hired me to keep house. Hungry children are part of a house.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You think you know this family after one hour?”
“No.”
“Then don’t act like you do.”
Clara set four plates on the table.
“I know a sick child needs clean bedding and medicine. I know the girl upstairs has not been eating enough. I know your older boy watches every doorway like he expects trouble. That is what I know.”
Gideon stepped closer.
“And what do you know about me?”
She should have lied.
A clever woman might have.
But Clara had grown tired of saving men from truths they had already earned.
“I know you are grieving,” she said. “And I know grief does not cook supper.”
His face went still.
For a second, she thought he might throw her out into the snow before the first meal was served.
Then Ben appeared on the stairs, wrapped in a quilt, leaning against Silas.
“Pa,” he whispered. “She made biscuits.”
Gideon turned.
His anger cracked just enough for pain to show through.
“Sit down, Ben.”
The boy obeyed.
He took one bite and closed his eyes.
“It’s hot,” he said, as if he had forgotten food could be.
Silas ate fast, trying not to look desperate. Gideon stood by the window with his back turned, shoulders stiff, one hand gripping the sill.
Clara made a plate and carried it upstairs.
Ruth’s door was closed.
Clara set the food on the floor.
“I’ll leave it here,” she said. “No one has to know whether you eat.”
An hour later, the plate was empty.
That night, Clara unpacked in the small room off the pantry.
It held a narrow cot, a washstand, and a window facing the barn. The walls smelled faintly of onions and cold plaster. It was not much, but it had a door.
In her suitcase she placed two work dresses, one Sunday dress, a brush, stockings, underthings, a sewing kit, and a small tin box wrapped in cloth.
She did not open the box.
Inside were letters from a man who had once promised to marry her until his family saw her and decided she was not the sort of woman who improved a man’s standing. There was also a tiny pair of knitted booties she had made before the child came too early and left too soon.
Clara touched the cloth once.
Then she slid the tin beneath the cot.
Upstairs, Ben coughed.
Outside, the barn door banged in the wind.
Clara lay awake in the dark and reminded herself this was temporary.