Page 109 of The Frozen River

At first Sarah balked at doing this lesson in front of Hannah and Dolly—it was a dose of humble pie she had not intended to consume before an audience—but my girls, having learned to read at my knee as well, are delighted to have Sarah at our table, and they take turns playing with Charlotte while she does the lesson.

Dolly comes to stand behind Sarah and peers over her shoulder at the primer. “The pictures were always my favorite part. I still want a nice illustration every now and again when I read.” She pats Sarah’s shoulder, then wanders off again to knead the bread that has finished rising.

“Hannah?” I ask.

She looks up.

“Will you go tell Cyrus and your father that lunch is almost ready?”

“I’ll tell Father,” she says. “But Cyrus is gone. He rode off not five minutes ago.”

Dammit, I think.

“Where did he go?”

Hannah shrugs. “On some errand for father.”

I stifle a sigh. This is the best chance I’ve had to get Sarah and Cyrus in a room together in over a month. His confinement to the jail yard complicates that, of course, given that he’s home only during daylight hours. Having Sarah do her lesson here had seemed the perfect solution.

I turn back to Sarah and tap a small square on the left side of the page. Inside is a simply drawn hourglass with flowers in the corner. “Let’s try one more page before lunch. Start here.”

Sarah furrows her brow, and I see her lips working to sound out the letters before she speaks. “As… runs… the… glass… man’s… life… doth… pass.”

“Excellent! Now the next.”

“My… book… and… hear—No!—heart. It says heart. My book and heart shall never part.”

The pictures help, but so does the rhyming, and the farther we go down the page, the more comfortable Sarah feels reading the words aloud. It isn’t just the writing she’s been practicing every night, but the reading as well. And in the absence of shame, this new skill begins to bloom.

I sit back—pleased—as Sarah continues without my prompting.

“The lion bold, the lamb doth hold. The moon gives light in time of night. Night. In. Nightingales! Nightingales sing in time of spring.”

On we go for the rest of the page, and when I look up, I see my daughters watching with expressions of pride. They are proud of Sarah. They like her, and the girl could do worse than marrying into a family in which she is liked. I only have to figure out a way to make it happen, a way to make Cyrus stay put long enough to try.

When lunch has been consumed and Sarah has bundled herself against the cold and tucked Charlotte into a sling beneath her coat, I see them both to the door, then watch as Jonathan bundles them onto the wagon. Once they’re gone, I go back to the fire and sit beside my husband. He’s nursing a glass of brandy and barely hiding a smile.

“Why the sour look, love? Have you been thwarted?” he asks.

“You warned Cyrus off, didn’t you?”

“I sent him on an errand. We still have a business to run despite your schemes.”

“Last I heard, you liked this scheme.”

“I do. But it still has to be her idea.”

“Well now she’s gone off with Jonathan.”

Ephraim shrugs. “He could do worse.”

I swipe his glass and take a sip of the brandy. “No. Jonathan is the last thing Sarah needs. He’s going to find himself in a great deal of trouble if he doesn’t stop bedding girls before he marries one.”

That shocks him at least, and I’m glad to have his full attention.

“You’re certain he and Sally have…?”

“More a suspicion than a certainty.” I tip the last of his brandy into my mouth and swallow. “But it’s going to end badly for that boy of yours. Mark my words.”