Chapter 2 - Five Children and Four Months of Lies
The Rowan ranch appeared beneath a darkening winter sky.
Evelyn saw the barn first.
Solid roof.
Straight doors.
Fresh repairs along one wall.
Then she saw the house.
One shutter hung crooked.
Several porch rails were missing.
The front steps had not been properly cleared.
The contrast told Evelyn more about Silas Rowan than anything Hazel had written.
The animals received his attention.
The house received whatever remained of him afterward.
Inside was worse.
Not filthy.
Neglected.
There was a difference.
Coats lay on chairs despite empty wall hooks nearby.
Boots crowded the entrance.
Dishes had been stacked according to whether they looked clean enough to use again.
A basket contained unmatched socks.
Another contained potatoes.
Evelyn wondered whether anyone remembered which was originally intended for which.
Hazel hurried down the hall.
“Your room is ready.”
“You prepared one?”
“I changed the sheets.”
Silas looked sharply at his daughter.
“When?”
“This morning.”
Before she knew Evelyn would remain longer than five minutes.
That practical hope hurt Evelyn more than Hazel’s apology.
Bennett appeared beside her.
“Are you going to cook?”
“Bennett,” Hazel hissed.
“What?”
“It’s rude.”
“We’ve been eating salt pork.”
Thomas added, “And biscuits.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
“My biscuits are fine.”
“They’re mostly hard.”
Evelyn removed her coat.
“Show me the kitchen.”
Silas stepped forward.
“You don’t have to cook.”
“I know.”
That stopped him.
She found beans, salt pork, cornmeal, three eggs, preserved pears and one ancient cinnamon stick.
It was enough.
Clara stood silently in the kitchen doorway while Evelyn mixed cornbread.
“My mama made that.”
Evelyn kept stirring.
“What was her name?”
“Ruth Anne.”
Clara’s voice softened.
“She smelled like cedar.”
Evelyn looked toward her.
“Cedar?”
“Papa still has the little cedar pieces she kept in her clothes drawer.”
Clara hesitated.
“Are you going to throw them away?”
The question landed heavily.
“No.”
Clara searched her expression.
“I won’t touch them unless someone asks me to.”
The child took one cautious step closer.
At supper, the family ate like people who had forgotten food could taste of anything besides necessity.
Bennett asked for thirds.
Thomas pretended he did not.
Evelyn placed another piece of cornbread beside him anyway.
Halfway through supper, Thomas suddenly said, “We forgot stockings.”
Every utensil stopped.
Silas looked at him.
Thomas immediately shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
Silas lowered his fork.
“I forgot.”
Nobody spoke.
Silas looked directly at his son.
“I’m sorry.”
Evelyn watched carefully.
There was no defensive explanation.
No accusation.
No order to stop mentioning Christmas traditions associated with their mother.
Just an apology.
Thomas nodded.
The tension eased slightly.
Evelyn asked, “What did your mother usually put in them?”
“Oranges,” Clara said immediately.
“Peppermint,” Bennett added.
“Walnuts,” Hazel said.
Thomas smiled despite himself.
“Papa burned the cookies once.”
“I did not burn them.”
“You could hammer nails with them.”
Bennett laughed.
Clara joined him.
Then Hazel.
Silas resisted for several seconds before laughter escaped him too.
It lasted only a moment.
But Evelyn heard it.
Later, after the children had gone to bed, she found Silas alone at the kitchen table.
His coffee was cold.
He stared at it anyway.
“What they did was wrong,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I cannot offer what those letters promised.”
Evelyn sat opposite him.
“What precisely did they promise?”
“A future.”
“Hazel described a hardworking man.”
Silas said nothing.
“Did she invent that?”
“No.”
“A father of five?”
“No.”
“A ranch?”
“No.”
“A man who loved his children?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
Evelyn leaned back.
“Then perhaps Hazel invented less than you believe.”
“She wrote that I wanted to marry again.”
“That part appears inaccurate.”
Silas looked away.
“She wrote that you were willing to try.”
His expression became colder.
“My wife has been dead less than two years.”
“I know.”
“You don’t replace a woman because the house needs cleaning.”
Evelyn’s eyes hardened.
“Do you believe I traveled nine hundred miles to become an unpaid housekeeper?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked embarrassed.
Evelyn stood.
“I am not asking you to marry me tonight.”
“I know.”
“I’m asking whether there is enough truth here for me to stay through Christmas.”
Silas looked toward the hallway.
His children slept beyond it.
Then he turned back.
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn nodded.
“That is the first entirely honest answer anyone has given me since I arrived.”
She carried a lamp down the hall.
At her bedroom door, she heard paper rustling behind her.
Evelyn turned.
Silas had opened the bundle of letters Hazel had kept.
Her letters.
The ones she believed he had been reading for months.
He unfolded the first carefully.
Evelyn stood very still.
There was something intimate about watching a stranger read words she had once written expecting him to know them already.
Silas looked up.
“May I?”
Evelyn considered.
Then nodded.
“All of them.”
She entered her room.
But sleep did not come quickly.
Around midnight, Evelyn woke and heard footsteps outside.
She opened the door.
Hazel stood in the hallway wearing her nightgown and holding an envelope.
“What is it?”
Hazel looked frightened.
“There’s something else you need to know.”
Evelyn waited.
Hazel handed her the envelope.
It was addressed to Evelyn.
But the handwriting was not Hazel’s.
And the postmark was dated three months earlier.
Someone else had known about the correspondence.
May you like
Someone Hazel had never mentioned.
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