“Is that Mommy?” Addie asked.
“It’s . . .” Betsy froze. “What do you want me to say?” she whispered.
Ty tapped on the door to the bathroom. “Whatcha need?” His hair still dripped with water from the shower.
“It’s . . .” She pointed to the phone. Jenna, she mouthed.
“Betsy, I’ll just let you go,” Jenna broke in. “I’m sorry for calling at a bad time.”
“No, wait—”
“I’ll call again soon. I promise.”
When the line went quiet, she set her phone on the counter. It hit a puddle of water and slid right to the floor. She pressed her forehead to the wall a moment, then leaned down and turned the phone over. The cracked screen looked like a spiderweb.
Ty knelt next to her and took the phone from her. “What’d she say?”
“Oh, not much, except that she’s trying to find a new job and who knows, maybe it’ll be across the country. That and I shouldn’t be bathing them so close to bedtime.” She laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.
“Why don’t you take a breather? I can . . . I’ll do something in here while they play.”
“No, I’m fine.” Betsy turned back to the bathtub and grabbed a washcloth. “Who wants to get clean first?”
“Was that Mommy on the phone?” Addie asked again.
Betsy nodded. Pumped Aveeno baby wash onto the washcloth. “It sure was. She said she’d call again soon so you can talk to her.”
“Why didn’t she want to talk to us now?”
“I don’t know, honey. I guess she was busy.” Betsy squeezed the washcloth to get it soapy, then rubbed it on Addie’s arms, the back of her neck.
“Wait!” Addie screeched. “Mommy always washes our hair first. Then she does the soap. Not soap first!”
“We’ll just do it like this tonight.”
“No! This isn’t how she does it.”
“Well, Mommy isn’t here right now, is she?”
She caught the decibel, the hard edge to her voice a second too late. Addie dropped the cup she’d been holding and Walsh’s bottom lip quivered.
Behind her, Ty cleared his throat. “Why don’t you take a second, babe,” he said, one hand on her shoulder. “I can take over here.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“I got it. You need a break,” he whispered.
She dropped the washcloth into the water. On her way out the door, Ty grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. She pulled away and left the steamy bathroom. Down the stairs, one foot in front of the other, she finally made it out the back door into the yard. The air around her wasn’t exactly refreshing—the night was warm and still, without even the slightest breeze rustling the leaves—but the openness felt like coming up from a pool of water after being under for too long. She inhaled deeply, big gulps of air that helped relieve the suffocating helplessness she’d felt in the bathroom.
All she wanted was to not hurt. Before Jenna showed up with the girls, she’d been so close to getting past it all. She reached up and pulled her hair down from the knot at the back of her head. She ran her hands through her waves, untangling snarls with her fingers, and smoothed it back into a bun.
From the bottom porch step, she surveyed the land that stretched beyond the backyard. The barn was dark, its edges sharp against the navy sky. Faint lowing from the cows, sleepy within their stalls, trickled across the grass.
The fence that separated the backyard from the pasture beyond had stood strong for nearly a century. Ty, and his grandfather before him, had mended it from time to time, replacing rotted or cracked wood when necessary, but on the whole, it was the same fence Ty’s great-grandfather had built in the 1920s. It was the same with the house and parts of the barn.
When Betsy thought of the longevity of those wood boards, the bricks and mortar and rafters that held their physical life in place here, she felt so small. A farmer’s wife. Just one woman in a line of them, their joys and sadness, hopes and hurts mixing together and settling within the cracks and folds. Ty’s grandmother had suffered two late-stage miscarriages before giving birth to Ty’s father—her only child. His great-grandmother had lost her first husband to tuberculosis. Betsy’s hurts and losses were nothing in comparison. Insignificant pains in the face of such tragedies.
And yet her hurt remained. Maybe it always would. Her one constant dream for herself—that of giving and nurturing life, of spending herself for the sake of her own—had yet to be realized. According to Dr. Fields, future prospects didn’t look hopeful, but a tiny ember of hope deep in her heart refused to die away.
Upstairs, Addie’s and Walsh’s voices seeped out through the window Betsy had left open a crack. A moment later, Ty’s voice—growling like a bear—drowned them out, sending shrieks and laughter into the dark night.
Betsy stood, one foot on the ground, one on the porch step, caught between two worlds. One of old hurts and pain that she desperately longed to escape and one of laughter and lightness, promise and new dreams. She yearned for that one with an impatient heart.
The girls were wrapped in fluffy white towels, their wet hair clinging to their cheeks and shoulders. Ty was stooped over next to Walsh, holding her footed pajamas up next to her, visibly confused about which end to start from.
“I’ll take over,” she said from the doorway. Both girls looked up and Ty exhaled, dropping the pajamas on the bed.
“Thank the Lord. I’m out of my league here. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”
“Thanks,” she said as he passed by. “I needed that.”
“I know. You okay?” He paused and leaned against the wall just outside the doorway.
She shrugged. “Better.” She offered a small smile.
“Aunt Betsy, I need you!” Walsh called.
Betsy took a deep breath and ran her hand across her forehead. Ty leaned over and gave
