Page 151 of The Frozen River

“I think she was trying to warn me. She knew that North and Cicero were waiting for me.”

“That makes sense.”

“Oh! That’s the thing that makes sense to you in all of this?”

He looks out the window, to the giant live oak that grows in the south pasture. “Foxes and coyotes are natural enemies, love.”

Something about the way he says this makes me think that he is no longer speaking of Tempest and Cicero, but my mind is filled with all the things he doesn’t yet know, and I must keep them in order, so I put this observation aside.

“Sit.” Ephraim points at the tub. “I’ll wash your hair.”

“There’s no room.”

“There’s room enough.”

For my bottom only. My knees are bent and my feet rest on the floor, but the water comes up to my ribs, and sitting feels much better than standing on my lame ankle. He pours a pitcher of water over my head, and it runs down my neck, down my back. I tilt my head back. Look at his worried face. Smile sadly.

“Thank you.”

“Tell me everything,” he says.

I wrap my arms around my knees and start at the beginning, with Jonathan and Sally and our new grandson. He is neither surprised, nor entirely displeased in our son’s choice of girl.

“He didn’t choose her,” I say. “She trapped him.”

“You cannot have it both ways. Only recently you were complaining that he hadn’t yet found a wife.”

“He still hasn’t. Not really. He’s only found a girl willing to let her skirts be thrown up in the woods.”

He sighs. Pours another pitcher of water. “Don’t let him off so easily. He went to bed with her willingly enough. There’s choice in that. And now there’s a child. Have they posted their intent to marry?”

“Last night.”

“Good.”

“I can’t say he was happy to do it. He went back into the tavern and soaked himself in whiskey afterward.”

Ephraim shakes his head. “Our daughters are in such a hurry to marry. And our sons in no hurry at all.”

“Cyrus would if he could.”

“Still no luck with Sarah White?”

“No. Though I am loath to admit it, you were right. She has made her choice, and it isn’t him.”

“Who then?”

“That is a long story involving Rebecca Foster.”

“Explain that to me.”

“I will, once I tell you why Joseph North came to the mill.”

I go back to my place in the story, where I was called to attend Sally. Then I tell him how I went to North Manor to give Lidia her medicine. How I found the letter that North was drafting to the Kennebec Proprietors.

“It’s in my medical bag. There. In the corner.”

Ephraim pauses his ministrations to dry his hands and read the letter.