“I’ll start bringing up the trunks and bags,” he says, and he starts with Kat’s things, taking them to the first room off the second-floor landing. She and I follow him. The child enters the room almost like a sleepwalker, slow and uncertain.
“Might I tuck you in, Kat?” I ask.
Kat hesitates before nodding a wordless consent. Martin leaves to attend to the rest of the luggage.
The room had been the bedroom of the doctor’s sons; this is obvious by the matching bedcovers adorned with a pattern of toy soldiers and the two rocking horses in the far corner. I am going to have to do something with this room. No five-year-old girl would be at home in it. I help Kat with her buttons and get her into a nightgown, which also seems tight and short. The child needs new clothes; she has grown since her mother’s illness and death, and Martin perhaps has not noticed.
“I think we need to get a few new frocks for you.” I hang the dress in the closet as well as the half dozen other dresses that are in her trunk—all the same too-small size. At the bottom of the trunk is a photograph in an oval frame of a beautiful woman with golden hair and fair skin, and whose nose is the same shape as Kat’s.
“Is this your mother?” I pick up the frame to look more closely at the image and then glance at Kat, who is sitting on one of the beds, watching me.
The child nods and a veil of sadness seems to fall across her face. Oh, how I want this child to talk to me.
“I know what it is like to miss someone you love.” I come to Kat’s bedside, still holding the frame. “It’s the worst ache in the world. My da had an accident some years back and went to heaven, too. Just like your mother. I miss my father very much.”
Kat is still looking at me, but the look of sadness has merged with one of slight interest.
“Perhaps you want to sleep with her photograph under your pillow? It will seem like you’re resting your head in her lap. Would you like to do that?”
The child nods, climbs into bed, and lies back on the pillow. I slide the frame underneath.
“Do you say prayers at night?” I ask as I tuck the quilts up under Kat’s chin. It is chilly in the room despite the gas fire throwing an orange glow around the room. The child shakes her head.
“How about if I say a little one for both of us. Will that be all right?”
Kat blinks and says nothing.
“My mam used to say this one with me. Close your eyes, now.”
Kat obeys.
I close my eyes, too, and then speak the memorized Anglican prayer from a thousand bedtimes in Donaghadee. “Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people which call upon thee; and grant that we may both perceive and know what things we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
When I open my eyes, I can see that Kat’s eyes are already open. She is staring at me, wide-eyed, in what nearly looks like wonder. Unexplainable tears are pricking at my eyes.
“Good night.” I kiss the child’s forehead and rise from the bed quickly. When I reach to turn out the light, I see Martin standing in the doorway with his arms folded comfortably across his chest as he leans against the frame. He’s been watching.
“Good night, Kat,” he says, and he steps into the room to turn off the fireplace. I follow Martin to the door and he pulls it shut behind us.
“Should we not leave the door cracked a little?” I ask. “Might she be afraid of the dark in a new place?”
“No,” he says simply.
We head back downstairs. The foyer is now empty of travel bags and trunks. In the sitting room we retake our places, my new husband and I—Martin in an armchair and me across from him on the sofa closest to the fireplace.
“Watching you with Kat I would’ve guessed you’ve been a mother before,” he says, in an almost complimentary tone. It pierces me nonetheless.
“I helped my mam mind neighborhood children, like I said earlier.”
We are quiet for a moment.
“Kat has outgrown her clothes,” I tell him.
“We’ll buy her some new things tomorrow.” He glances at the worn shirtwaist and skirt I’m wearing. “I take it you need new clothes, too.”
“I don’t need much. Just a dress or two.”
A few more seconds of silence.
