David went to Seamus and Dierdre’s at least once a week and usually twice. He always came back exhausted but arms full of preserves or late fall garden harvest and instructions from Dierdre to Sarah—on how to weave, the best place to dig for peat, and better ways to make goat cheese. When he was at home, he checked the rabbit traps, gutted and skinned the rabbits, cleaned the stalls, and constantly checked or mended the security of the doors and fences. If he could stay awake, he spent his evenings writing the philosophy book he had always been too busy to work on back home. With John, he had created a movable chicken pen that allowed the birds to spend every day on a fresh patch of grass. With effort, it could be moved with both of them dragging it. On the days that David was gone, John could hook it up to his pony and move it by himself.
For Sarah, her day began before it was light out. In the dark, she would pray. Later, she lit the cook stove and made the tea. At first light, she often wrote to her parents. If she had yeast she made muffins or if not made biscuits for everyone’s breakfast. She kept the cottage spotless—not easy to do with so much of their lives happening outside in the dirt and the wind. She cleaned and mended their clothes. She kept an inventory of the food cellar and made careful plans for their future meals. She milked the little goat daily and made bread dough every other day. She went in the barn often to check the horses for injuries. Evenings, she knit or read aloud. Sometimes she tested John on his Latin or French vocabulary. And she rode Dan at least a little bit even if it was only in the paddock every afternoon, rain or shine.
There was snow on the ground this morning and Sarah was glad that David had not tried to come home the night before. The sun was up and made mesmerizing sparkles on the snow. She began the ritual of starting a fire in the cookstove.
She couldn’t help but think any day now. She had to believe that every day took them closer and closer to the day they would be rescued or when news would come that life had returned to normal. She slid the pan of biscuits into the oven and closed the door, appreciating the brief blast of heat. The only thing she knew for sure was that it was early November and winter was coming.
She had decided to make a special meal for David’s homecoming. While not completely sure of herself, she had lately been exchanging frequent and detailed notes with Dierdre on how to kill and clean one of the chickens. There were eight now and they could afford to lose one to a meal. Besides, it had been several days since John’s rabbit trap had been fruitful and they were all getting tired of biscuits and canned beans.
From the beginning, she had worked to try not to see the birds as pets. It was hard. When she fed them, they rushed to greet her. They gave her the precious eggs that made life so much more bearable. The thought of killing one of the “girls” was difficult. But for a week or more now, she had begun to see the challenge as an important step to her being able to provide for her family. They all had to do difficult things in this new life. Looking at their animals as sources of food rather than affection or company was a new way of framing her worldview that Sarah was determined to master.
John came to the breakfast table and sat down. He looked half asleep still.
“‘Morning, sweetie.” She set his mug of tea down on the table.
“Is this the day you gonna kill Ethel?” John yawned.
She stopped. Is the child a mind reader?
“You… you named the chickens?” she asked.
He sipped his tea and then grinned at her.
“Just kidding,” he said. “That would be dumb, naming chickens. Which reminds me…” He bolted away from the kitchen table and flung open the bathroom door where the puppies had spent the night. They were growing stronger. He led them at a run to the front door and he flung it open. “Out! Out!” he said. Then he turned and went back to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Sarah smiled. She watched the puppies from the kitchen window. Whether from their horrific first few weeks in the world or the breed, they were a quiet and sweet couple of dogs. John had named them Patrick and Spongy. They adoringly followed him throughout his day. As soon as she was sure they wouldn’t foul the bed sheets, she was going to let them sleep in the bed with the rest of them.
John collected the dogs from outside and returned to the table.
“Did you wash your hands?”
“What’s the point? It’s the one part of me that’s always clean.”
“John…”
Grinning, he hopped up and went to the kitchen sink to wash.
“So when you gonna do it?” He asked over his shoulder.
Sarah took the biscuits out of the oven and slid one onto a small plate for him. She pried the biscuit open and put a sliver of goat butter and a dollop of one of Dierdre’s blackberry preserves on it. Then she added a large scoop of scrambled eggs to the plate.
“As soon as possible,” she said. “Get it over with. Besides, Dad’ll be home by lunch which is when I’d like to…you know…”
“Serve her?”
She made a face at him that made him laugh. He pulled off two pieces of biscuit and fed them to his dogs.
“Gosh, Mom,” he said. “Is this egg one of Ethel’s, do you think? ’Coz that’s what I call giving to the bitter end.” He laughed again, amused at his own wit.
Sarah wagged a warning spatula at him that just made them both laugh harder.
David pulled off his sweatshirt in spite of the dropping temperatures. He’d been steadily sweating most of the day.
Seamus and Dierdre’s farm was small by any standard, but it was still more than the couple could handle, and now with Seamus less than capable, the place—once surely as pretty as any postcard farm in Ireland—was falling down from neglect.
David had slept until five that morning, awakened by the rain on the farmhouse’s hard metal roof and the realization that he would be working in the mud and the rain all day.
Where’s the quaint thatched roof when you need it? he thought, already tired before the day had even begun. As he pulled on his wellies and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Dierdre crept silently into the living room and set a large mug of coffee in front of him.
“Breakfast in a tick,” she whispered.
Wondering why she was whispering since he was clearly awake and he could see that Seamus was already moving about, David stood up and stretched the kinks out of his back. Could he ever have imagined back home that he’d awake to spend a full day in the kind of conditions he expected to be in today? He pulled back a corner of one of the curtains in the front room and peered out into the grey gloom of a rainy Irish morning in late October.
He wondered how Sarah’s parents were doing this morning. His own folks had passed nearly a decade ago—the tragic victims of a drunk driver on a country road. He had become very close to Sarah’s mother and father, in many ways even closer than to his own when they were alive. He tried to imagine the chaos at home and how his in-laws might be faring. Would the neighbors help them? Would they reach out and help keep them safe? He prayed they would. It surprised him a little to realize that, lately, he’d done quite a lot of praying.
“We’ll just be needing the cows milked,” Dierdre said standing at the kitchen table where David could see Seamus was now seated. “And maybe a few odd jobs.”
David nodded and joined Seamus at the table. The rain looked worse from the kitchen window.
Man, it was really coming down.