PART 2 — THE SECRET THE CHILDREN WERE HIDING

Amos had never taken orders from anyone.

Not from the men who worked beside him in the mountains. Not from the traders who tried to cheat him. And certainly not from the women who had occasionally come to the cabin offering sympathy after his wife died.

Yet there he stood, unlacing his muddy boots because a woman who had arrived four days earlier had told him to.

Ava watched him carefully.

“There’s a basin by the door,” she said. “Wash your hands before you touch the food.”

Amos glanced at the basin.

Then at her bandaged hand.

“What happened?”

“Your son happened.”

Ben immediately disappeared beneath the table.

Amos’s face hardened.

“Ben!”

The boy flinched.

Ava raised her good hand.

“Don’t.”

Amos looked at her.

“He bit you.”

“He was frightened.”

“He needs to learn better.”

“He needs to learn that nobody is going to hurt him for being frightened.”

The cabin fell silent.

Hattie stopped arranging the plates. Even the little toddler, Tommy, seemed to pause between coughs.

Amos stared at Ava as if she had spoken a language he had forgotten.

Finally, he washed his hands.

They ate in silence at first.

The cornbread was warm. The stew was thick with potatoes and carrots. For the first time in months, there was enough food on the table that nobody needed to fight over the largest piece.

Tommy sat on Ava’s lap, wrapped in a clean blanket.

His breathing still rattled.

Every few minutes, Ava placed her palm against his forehead.

Amos noticed.

“How long has he been coughing?”

“Before I arrived?”

“Since winter began.”

Ava looked up sharply.

“And you haven’t taken him to a doctor?”

“There isn’t one up here.”

“There’s one in town.”

“Forty miles away.”

“He needs to be examined.”

Amos put down his spoon.

“I know my children.”

Ava’s voice remained calm.

“Then you know he’s getting worse.”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

“He was sick when his mother died. He’s never been strong since.”

Ava looked down at the child.

“His mother died two years ago?”

Amos nodded.

“Fever. It took her in three days.”

For a moment, something in his face changed.

Ava understood then that the cabin was not merely dirty because Amos had been careless.

It was dirty because grief had settled into every corner, and nobody had known how to drive it out.

She gently adjusted Tommy’s blanket.

“I’m taking him to the doctor tomorrow.”

Amos shook his head.

“The roads are bad.”

“Then we’ll leave before sunrise.”

“I said no.”

“And I heard you.”

He stared at her.

Ava met his eyes.

“But I’m not going to sit here and watch a child struggle to breathe because the road is inconvenient.”

Hattie looked down at her plate.

Ben slowly emerged from beneath the table.

Amos pushed his chair back.

“I’ll take him.”

“Good.”

He seemed almost surprised that she had accepted his decision without arguing further.

That night, Amos slept in the cabin for the first time since Ava arrived.

He insisted on taking the floor beside the door.

Ava did not protest.

But when she woke in the middle of the night, she found him sitting beside Tommy’s bed, watching the child’s chest rise and fall.

He looked older in the firelight.

“Does he always breathe like that?” Ava whispered.

Amos shook his head.

“Not when he was a baby.”

She sat beside him.

“Then we need to find out what’s wrong.”

He rubbed his face.

“I should have done more.”

Ava didn’t answer immediately.

Then she said, “You can start tomorrow.”

He looked at her.

For a long time, neither spoke.

The trip to town began before dawn.

Amos drove the wagon while Ava held Tommy against her chest. Hattie sat beside them, clutching a small cloth bundle containing clean clothes and bread.

Ben refused to come.

He stood at the cabin door with his arms folded.

“I’m staying.”

Amos sighed.

“Get in the wagon.”

“No.”

“Benjamin.”

The boy’s expression hardened.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Ava climbed down.

She approached him slowly, careful not to reach for him.

“You can stay with Mrs. Miller down the road if she’d be willing to watch you.”

Ben looked suspicious.

“Why?”

“Because your brother needs help, and your father needs someone to keep him from driving the wagon into a ditch.”

Hattie almost smiled.

Ben didn’t.

“I don’t need anybody.”

“I know,” Ava replied. “But sometimes even people who can manage alone deserve company.”

He looked away.

Then, without another word, he climbed into the back of the wagon.

The doctor examined Tommy for nearly an hour.

He listened to the toddler’s chest, checked his temperature, and asked Amos a series of questions.

At last, he removed his spectacles.

“The little fellow has a serious chest infection. He needs proper medicine, warmth, rest, and careful observation. If his breathing worsens, you bring him straight back.”

Amos looked as though someone had struck him.

“Will he be all right?”

The doctor glanced at Tommy.

“I believe he has a good chance if you follow my instructions. But don’t delay.”

Ava nodded.

She listened carefully as the doctor explained the treatment and wrote everything down.

Amos watched her.

He had expected her to be frightened.

Instead, she asked practical questions about the medicine, the child’s feeding, and when the doctor wanted to see him again.

When they finally left, Amos carried Tommy to the wagon as carefully as if the child were made of glᴀss.

On the journey home, he spoke for the first time without being asked.

“Thank you.”

Ava looked at him.

“For what?”

“For not giving up on him.”

She turned toward the road.

“He’s your son.”

Amos looked at the mountains.

“Yes,” he whispered. “He is.”

The following week changed the cabin.

Ava established routines.

Breakfast before work. Clean clothes every morning. Lessons for Hattie in the afternoon. A small task for Ben that he could finish without feeling watched. Tommy’s medicine at the exact times the doctor had prescribed.

The children resisted.

Hattie complained that the old way had been easier.

Ben refused to wash his hands until Ava placed his dinner plate upside down.

But slowly, the cabin began to feel different.

Hattie started brushing Tommy’s hair.

Ben began stacking firewood without being asked.

And Amos found himself returning from the traps earlier than usual.

One evening, he entered the kitchen carrying a small wooden box.

“I made something.”

Ava looked up from the sewing basket.

Inside the box lay three wooden animals: a rabbit, a horse, and a little bear.

Hattie gasped.

“For us?”

Amos nodded.

“Your mother used to carve things for you.”

The smile disappeared from his daughter’s face.

Ava noticed the way Amos immediately regretted speaking.

Hattie took the rabbit and held it against her chest.

“Can you make another one?”

Amos swallowed.

“If you want.”

“I want one like Mama used to make.”

For several seconds, Amos couldn’t answer.

Then he nodded.

“All right.”

That night, after the children had gone to bed, Ava found Amos sitting outside the cabin.

The snow had begun falling again.

He was holding a small wooden bird in his hands.

“She used to sit right there,” he said, pointing toward the porch railing. “She’d carve while I worked.”

Ava sat beside him.

“What was her name?”

“Sarah.”

“Was she kind?”

Amos smiled faintly.

“She could make a hungry man feel welcome with a bowl of beans.”

“Sounds like a good woman.”

“She was.”

His smile faded.

“I thought if I kept everything the same, the children wouldn’t forget her.”

Ava looked at the dark windows.

“They won’t forget her because you clean the floor.”

He stared at the wooden bird.

“I didn’t know how to raise them without her.”

“Neither did they know how to grow up without her.”

Amos looked at Ava.

For the first time, he seemed to see more than the woman who had answered his advertisement.

He saw someone who understood that the children were not difficult because they were bad.

They were hurting.

And perhaps he was too.

Then a sound came from the barn.

A horse whinnied sharply.

Amos stood.

“What was that?”

Ava listened.

Something struck the barn door.

Once.

Twice.

Then came the sound of a man calling from the darkness.

“Amos! Open up!”

Amos reached for the rifle hanging beside the door.

Ava caught his sleeve.

“Who is it?”

He stared into the snow.

Then his face went pale.

“Silas.”

“Who is Silas?”

Amos didn’t answer.

The man outside called again.

“Amos, I know you’re in there! I’ve come to collect what’s owed!”

Ava stepped closer to the window.

A second horse stood behind the first.

And tied to its saddle was a small travel trunk.

One with the initials carved into its side.

S.B.

Amos whispered a name Ava had never heard before.

“Samuel Blackwood.”

Then he turned toward her.

“Get the children upstairs. Now.”