Page 63 of If the Boot Fits

May 15, 1870

Perhaps all is not lost. Eli dotes on the child. He insists on calling her Samantha. I suggested we save the name Samuel for the son we are sure to have in the future. We could call this child something like Catherine, Amelia, or Helena. A regal name befitting her father’s status. But Eli will not be swayed. He declares that our little Sam is utterly perfect just as she is. He might simply be trying to make me feel better about my failure to produce a proper heir, but I see love glowing in his eyes every time he holds her. Maybe this is not such a catastrophe after all.

May 11, 1873

Samantha turned three today. Such a little lady! Eli brags that she has my looks and predicts he’ll need to keep his shotgun loaded for when the suitors flock to his door. She really is a charming child. I quite adore her. She picked a flower—a weed, really—and brought it to me the other day, and I found myself compelled to press it between the pages of my Bible to preserve the memory. She has quite changed me. I long to see her smiles and ache when she brings me tears. I no longer dream for myself but for her. With the right guidance, she’ll excel in society. I’ll have to curb her tendency for stubbornness and high spirits, but with her beauty and winsome ways, there will be nothing she can’t achieve.

August 17, 1873

I bumped into Mrs. Philpot at the mercantile. She asked when Eli and I would be having another child. I feel the darkness descending again. . . .

29

Samantha had to wash her face before being presentable enough to attend dinner with her aunt and uncle. Even with Aunt Regina’s warnings, it had hurt to read of her mother’s disappointment at her birth and see how long it took for her to set aside her despair and learn to love the daughter she’d been given.

It wasn’t only for herself that Samantha had cried, however. Her heart had ached for her mother. For all the pressure she put on herself to achieve something outside of her control. The bitterness and melancholy she carried, the constant fear of not being able to fulfill her duty to her husband, and the legacy she wanted so badly to achieve. It made the happy memories she had of her mother infinitely more precious knowing the weight she had carried through much of Samantha’s early years.

Yes, her mother had been strict in her rules and her governance of Samantha’s behavior, but she’d also been eager to praise her daughter’s successes. There’d been hugs and kisses and outings to the river, where they’d sit under a tree and her mother would read to her until she fell asleep, her head in her mother’s lap. Daddy loved to make his girls laugh with rowdy parlor games that Mother never would have permitted if guests had been present. But in those private family moments, she had let her guard down, and the sweet tones of her laughter filled the room.

“Are you all right?” Aunt Regina touched a hand to Samantha’s arm as she gathered the dirty dishes from the table.

Samantha shrugged as she stacked the plates and carried them to the sink. “You were right about it being difficult to peek into the raw places of a person’s private thoughts, but even though it hurts to read some of the things she wrote, I feel closer to her for having done so.”

“I’m glad, but maybe you should set the book aside for the rest of the evening. I’m sure your uncle would love to challenge you to a game of backgammon.”

Samantha considered her aunt’s advice, but her mother’s journal beckoned, and she had no desire to resist the call.

“I appreciate your concern, but I want to continue with the journal. I don’t know if it is the tug of curiosity or something more, but I feel as if I’m supposed to keep reading.”

Aunt Regina looked as if she wanted to argue, but then something in her demeanor changed, and she smiled. “Well, you are a woman grown and capable of making your own choices. Besides, if it is something more than mere curiosity driving you back to that book, I don’t want to be guilty of quenching the Spirit. Just remember that I’m here if you need to talk about anything, all right?”

Samantha nodded, then on impulse reached out and embraced her aunt around the basket of leftover rolls she held. “Thank you.”

Her aunt chuckled softly. “Go on, now. Get back to your book. I’ll see to the dishes.”

Samantha pressed a kiss to her aunt’s cheek, then hurried back to the parlor, moving to the settee so her uncle could read the paper in his favorite chair.

The room gradually darkened as the sun set. At some point, her aunt and uncle bid her good-night, but Samantha barely noticed, caught up in the surprising turn her mother’s life had taken. One Samantha never would have believed if the recounting had come from any source other than Victoria Dearing herself.

June 20, 1875

Five years. I had prepared myself for a long battle in the Desert of Barrenness, but I refuse to continue wandering aimlessly with nothing to show for my patience. It took five years for Eli and I to conceive Samantha, and it has been five years since her arrival. Yet my womb remains empty. I am weary of praying and receiving no answer. God knows the desire of my heart, yet he withholds his blessing. Eli tells me the child we have is enough, that he is content. Well, I am not. I vowed to give him a son, and I won’t rest until I have done so.

July 8, 1875

My sister thinks to comfort me with Bible stories. Does she expect me to wait twenty-five years for a son like Sarah? At least Sarah had a promise to give her hope in the waiting. What do I have? Nothing but silence.

July 12, 1875

Sarah’s story lingers in my mind. I’ve gone back and read it three times since my sister’s letter arrived. An idea is forming. One that fills me both with dread and hope. Sarah, too, grew tired of waiting. She concocted a plan to take matters into her own hands. To craft her own destiny. She instructed her handmaid Hagar to lie with her husband. To bear the child she could not. The Lord did not curse Hagar for lying with her mistress’s husband. In fact, he took pity on her and her son, making Ishmael into a great nation.

What if . . . ? Dare I even contemplate such action? But I must. Waiting and hoping have achieved nothing. I must be bold, brave, daring if I am to seize control of my destiny. Yet I cannot proceed as Sarah did. For one, Eli would never welcome another woman to his bed. He is far too honorable. And second, it is my responsibility to bear him a son. It would bring more shame upon me if another woman rounded with Eli’s child. No, the only way for this to work will be for me to bear the child. I must simply increase my chances of doing so. I must seek a lover. One who can be trusted to keep silent. One who expects no emotional attachment, for despite the rashness of this plan, my love and loyalty belong solely to my husband.

I am the wife of a cattleman. I hear talk among the men about the potency of different bulls. Some sire thirty calves in a breeding season, some only ten or fifteen. And some fail to get a calf on any cow. If bulls can be infertile, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to believe the same can be said of men. Doctors might insist that barrenness only afflicts women, but doctors are men with egos that do not wish to believe the fault might lie with them. Cattlemen are much more pragmatic. If a bull fails to service the heifers of the herd, the animal is put out to pasture and a new one brought in. I must do the same.

July 25, 1875

I have done it! My hand shakes as I write these words, for my heart still pounds in my chest. After weighing my options for two weeks, I made my selection and propositioned the man today. I will not write his name, for that will make it feel too much like a liaison. This is a business transaction. Nothing more. There is no romance. No illicit love affair. I seek only his seed. I offered to pay him, but he refused. I believe he has long admired me, and while I worry he might become attached, I know he will keep our secret. For if he doesn’t, Eli will send him packing without pay or reference.