The Inheritance and Other Stories

food and forced herself to eat. Gillam had been watching his father and now he dipped his bread in his soup and took an exploratory bite of it. She looked back at Pell and managed to say calmly, “What you’re eating? That was to be Gillam’s breakfast tomorrow.”

“This?” He was incredulous. “You should be feeding him meat by now. Meat and eggs and hot porridge for breakfast. Not soup. No wonder he’s so timid.”

“I feed him what I have,” she retorted. The implied criticism stung. She had worried, often enough, that Gillam was not as well fed as other children. She had compared his size and his alertness to other boys of his age and told herself that he did not suffer in that comparison. But there had been times when he had asked for “more” and there was no more to give him. “Soon enough, the chickens will start to lay, and then he can have eggs. And after Tessie drops her calf, I hope there will be milk for him as well.” She finished her food; it had not taken her long to eat it. If not for Pell, she might have allowed herself and Gillam another break of the bread.

But Pell was wiping out her pot with the last crust of her bread. She would have to make Gillam hearth cakes in the morning if he was to have anything to eat. When Pell set the pot down, she asked him directly. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

He looked surprised. “I told you. I’ve come home. My grandfather left me this house.”

She stared at him silently. She wouldn’t ask him if he meant to stay, because then he might think she wanted him to. Instead, she said bluntly, “No, Pell. Your grandfather left his house to Gillam, not you. It’s our home, not yours. There’s no room in my life for you, Pell. You shamed me and you abandoned your son. I don’t love you and I don’t want you here.”

She’d expected at least one flicker of hurt at her words. She didn’t want to admit to herself how much satisfaction that would have given her. Instead, he just set his jaw. After a moment he said, “Well, none of that has anything to do with the fact that you’re living in my son’s house. I’ve as much a right to be here as you do. I’m back, and that’s that.” He thudded the empty pot back onto the table. “I thought you might be smart enough to make the best of it. I thought I should give you another chance to do that. To be fair.”

Fair? She tried to shape her thoughts about Pell around that word. He waited for her to say something. No words came to her and despite how tight her throat went, she refused to cry. She would not weep over this. Weeping, she knew, solved nothing. She looked at Gillam. He was regarding his father with a small scowl. He thrust his jaw out, and Pell suddenly laughed. She looked back at him incredulously.

“Look at him. He looks just like my little brother when he got angry.” He sobered suddenly. “I never expected him to look so much like my family.”

“Everyone says he looks more like you than he does me,” she admitted stiffly. Then she asked, “Why wouldn’t you expect your son to look like you?”

“Well,” he said and shrugged one shoulder. “There was talk, you know. Back then. That perhaps he wasn’t mine.”

She stared at him, cold rushing through her. “Talk? There was never any talk. Everyone knew he was yours.” She dragged in an outraged breath. “Who ever said he wasn’t? Because that person was a liar!”

“Don’t shout! It was a long time ago, and it scarcely matters now. He looks like me, so that’s done with, eh?”

“You just said that because perhaps you hoped it was true. But there was never any talk, Pell. You were my first and if you must know, my only. I’ve never been with another man than you, before or since. He’s yours. There was never any talk otherwise.”

“Have it your way, if it matters to you so much. Yes. He’s mine.”

And when he claimed the boy, she could have bitten the tongue out of her own mouth. Why had she said that, why had she herself admitted what she wished were not true? Pell was watching her face, smiling slightly, knowing well he’d won. She looked away from him.

“I’m tired,” he said. The bed was only three steps away in the little house. He sat down on the edge of it and bent over to tug off his fine boots. He set them side by side and followed them with his thick wool socks. Next he dragged off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. His trousers followed it. He stood, almost inviting her to look at him. He’d always been proud of his body. He was lean and muscled still, but no longer boyish. She hadn’t wanted to see him; his mean little smile showed that he knew she had looked at him. Naked, he rucked his way into her clean bed and drew the covers up nearly over his head. “Brr. Blankets are chilly.” He laughed a small laugh. “I could use some company under here to warm me.”

“You won’t get any.”

“As you will, Rosie. And you will when you will, and it will be soon enough for me.”

“I won’t.”

“We’ll see,” he said and yawned as if bored. Then he was still.

She stared at him. There was only one bed. Since Gillam had been born, they had shared it. “He go my bed,” Gillam exclaimed between wonder and dismay.

“Yes he did,” she confirmed for him. She pulled her gaze away from the sight. “Finish your food, Gillam.”

She doubted that Pell was really asleep. Could he have been that relaxed about all of this? She doubted it. If she had been alone, she would have hit him with the pan and told him to get out of her house. No, she realized. If she were alone, she would have left here long ago. The only reason she had stayed was that her child needed a roof over his head and regular meals on the table. He still did. And that, she told herself, was the only reason she wasn’t confronting Pell now. She didn’t wish to frighten Gillam.

Or provoke Pell.

She did not want him to stay. She was clear with herself on that. It was too late for the old dreams that had once sustained her. He’d hurt her too badly, humiliated her too deeply. She could never feel about him as she once had. Never.

She tried to go about her evening tasks as if Pell did not exist. She tidied away the dishes and brushed off the table. She gave Gillam a tin cup, three broken buttons, an empty spool, and a spoon to play with and set out her sewing on the table. She faced a real challenge with this quilt. She had no rags of her own to quilt from, but her friends saved her the pieces of cloth that they judged too small or oddly colored to work into their own piecework. She worked painstakingly with scissors and pins. She did not have many pins, and sometimes had to resort to a quick loop of thread to hold a bit in place. And she dared not sew any of it permanently until she had enough bits to make an entire quilt top, for who knew what colors and textures might come her way the next time she went begging for fabric scraps? She was glad to lose herself in the detailed work, glad to push her present problem out of her mind.

Gillam was content at her feet, and she was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice when he disappeared. When her eyes grew weary with squinting through the dimness, she rolled up her work and looked about for her son. She caught her breath at what she saw. With the pragmatism of small children, he had put himself to bed, on his side of the bed where he always slept. He was a smaller lump under the covers next to Pell.

That forced her to confront her next decision. Did she sleep on the hard flagged floor, as a message to Pell that she’d rather be cold than sleep beside him? If she claimed a spot in the bed, would he understand she wasn’t surrendering territory, or would it make him think she would willingly come back to his bed? She did her nightly chores as she pondered it. Was she a coward? Should she have flown at him, kicking and scratching and screaming the moment he showed up? She felt her pulse quicken with enthusiasm at the idea, and as quickly she refused it. He would have been delighted. They had quarreled once, violently, before she was pregnant with Gillam. He had slapped her, hard, to “bring her to her senses” as he put it then. And then apologized so abjectly and made love to her so earnestly that she’d accepted his behavior. Stupid girl. What if she’d run away from him then? What if he’d never got her with child, never lived with her, never left her, never returned? What life would she have now? Would she be like Hilia, with a husband and a home and a legitimate baby in her arms? Would she be in safe harbor? Useless to wonder.

She built up the fire for the night after she put her sewing away. As she went to pull in the latchstring to secure the cottage for the night, she wondered what she feared out there. Her worst fear was already inside the door and in her bed. She blew out her candle and undressed under her worn flannel nightgown. Then she crept in beside Gillam, balancing almost on the edge of the bed. The blanket didn’t quite cover her. She tugged a bit more of it free, and then lost it when Marmalade thudded into place between her and Gillam. He settled in, surrounded by