I needed help. You needed someone to save your family. His jaw tightened. I needed someone to help me find out if keeping them here was still the right thing. Hannah stared at him.
Grant's hands hung loose at his sides. He looked like a man resisting the urge to grip something. The last woman left, he said. One before her lasted 6 weeks. Molly stopped talking to her after the second day.
Henry tried to run her off. I kept thinking if I hired another person, maybe the house would settle. Maybe I'd have more time. Maybe I'd stop failing them. His voice roughened on the last words.
Hannah had never heard that tone from him. Grant looked toward the stairs. Then I realized maybe wanting them near me wasn't the same as doing right by them. Marian said nothing. Hannah remembered the night pantry.
Henry's bare feet. Crackers hidden beside Molly's bed. A boy who had said women leave. A girl who had once been afraid there would be no breakfast. Grant had seen it too.
Maybe not every detail. Enough. You were willing to give them up. Grant looked at her. If they were better without me.
No defense, no attempt to make himself noble. Just the truth. Something shifted inside Hannah. She had thought Grant hired her because he needed a cook, a housekeeper, a woman to keep two children out of trouble. She had resented that simplicity.
Now she saw what had been underneath it. A father who had reached the terrible point of asking whether love was enough reason to keep his own children home. Marion folded the letter once and placed it back on the table. "I brought clothes for them," she said. Hannah looked at the volise near the stairs.
Not a visit then, not entirely. Marion had come prepared to take them. A cold feeling moved through Hannah. When? Grant said.
Nothing's been decided. Marion glanced at him. You asked me to come before the mountain weather turned. I know. So, I came.
Henry's voice came from the hallway. Came for what? Nobody moved. Hannah turned. Henry stood near the pantry door.
The plates were gone from his hands. His face had changed. Behind him, Molly stood on the stairs, clutching the banister with one hand and the blue ribbon with the other. Grant took one step toward his son. Henry.
The boy looked at the letter, then at Marian's, then at his father. You're sending us away. Grant stopped. Hannah's heart dropped. The secret had lasted months.
Now it had taken less than a minute to break open. Henry backed away. Molly looked from face to face. Grant said softly, "Son, listen to me." Henry shook his head. No.
And before anyone could reach him, he turned and ran for the back door. The screen door slammed hard enough to rattle the kitchen window. Grant moved first. Henry was already across the yard by the time his father reached the porch. The boy ran past the wash line, cut between the smokehouse and the barn, and disappeared behind the north corral.