At first, she wondered if she was sick with a fever. Then she realized it was simply the sensation of being warm again.
Her hand drifted to her belly instinctively. She was yet rounded, but something was wrong: she was smaller. She made to cry out and toss the blankets when she heard a tiny wail.
“There now,” said a deep voice. “I’ve got you, love.”
From her place on the bed, she could see a man leaning over a box and ever so gently lifting something from inside.
A child. A baby. He must be holding her newborn babe.
Her throat closed in terror. She wished to scream out for help. Anything to prevent the baby from coming to harm. But before she could make a noise, she saw that this man had no ill intentions.
He cradled the baby’s head and bottom in his large hands, bringing the infant to his chest with tender confidence. The instinct to cry out ebbed when she realized the child was in far better hands than hers.
From nearby, she heard a small voice.
“Does he have a name, Papa?”
It was a little girl, her hair arranged in a single rudimentary braid, her face solemn.
“Not yet,” said the man, holding the baby so both he and his daughter could gaze upon his face. “We must ask his mama. She made him.”
“But you’re his papa,” the girl replied as if her father were obtuse.
He chuckled, and Amy could see faint lines extending from his warm brown eyes. “That I am. Still, we must ask his mama.”
“Is this lady to be my mama, too?”
The man cradled the infant in one capable arm and brought the other around his daughter to draw her close to his side.
“I’m not sure,” said the man with a candor not normally granted to children. The girl was maybe six or seven years old; she was precocious but had a small voice and stature. “If you and she are both amenable…she could be your mama.”
And that’s when Amy recalled her name was no longer Amy Abel. After her flight over the countryside for nigh on ten days, painful laboring, and delivery of the baby, she had a hazy memory of exchanging vows with a man while in something akin to a dream state. It had been so long since she’d slept soundly or eaten even close to her fill that she’d have agreed to anything after being roused.
She’d apparently consented to becoming this man’s wife. She was now Amy…Man…something. Something complicated. She didn’t even know her own surname, such was the depth of her confusion!
“Are you going to put a braid in the baby’s hairs?” asked the girl, using a fingertip to pet the newborn’s fuzzy hair.
“I don’t think he has enough yet,” replied the man.
“And does he know his Greek?” asked the girl, skepticism crowding into her voice.
“He barely knows how to cry in any language other than kitten.”
“I fear he’s something of a failure, Papa. Like the new wheat you tried to grow last year.”
Amy heard the man chuckle. He was indulgent and gentle, the sort of man she’d not even known to conjure after her limited experience with men.
“He’s perfect, Theodosia, just as you were at this age. Still are.”
She gazed at the baby skeptically. “Phineas,” she said before wiggling from her father’s arm and departing the room.
“Would you like to be called Phineas, young man?”
He held the baby out to see how the name suited him.
The child — apparently now Phineas — answered with one of his heart-rending cries.
When no amount of cradling and coaxing could soothe the child, the man approached Amy’s bed.
