On the good days—and more of them occurred as April surrendered to May—she and Jewel bundled up and went exploring. Sometimes, Torin came along, pointing out the tracks of deer and elk in the soft mud, identifying birds by their calls, showing Jewel where the trout liked to hide in the shallow pools along the lake's edge.
Other times he sent them off with a wave, taking the opportunity for his own walk or retreating to the stable where the sound of sawing and hammering suggested a project he wouldn't discuss.
“Just tinkering,” he said when Ivy asked, though the sawdust on his sleeves and the measurements he'd scrawled on a scrap of paper told a more purposeful story. She'd learned not to push. Like the spring itself, Torin revealed things in his own time.
The forest around Three Bend Lake transformed bit by bit each day. In New York, Ivy had planted bulbs in window boxes, coaxed reluctant geraniums to bloom in the meager light of theirparlor window, and kept various flowers growing in pots lining the front steps.
But nothing in her experience had prepared her for the wild, unruly generosity of a late Montana spring. The splendor of various flowers blooming in their natural surroundings filled her soul with their beauty.
The snowdrops, which had so enchanted Ivy upon arrival, gave way to crocuses—purple and gold and white, pushing through the last crusts of ice with what seemed like sheer, stubborn determination, and three-spot mariposa lilies, with their white, bell-shaped, upward-pointing petals, and a secret dot on each deep inside.
Other places blossomed with the imported blooms planted by Torin over the years--patches with spikes of blue muscari, sunny yellow daffodils, and vibrant red tulips lent their beauty to the forest. If she bent and looked only at those flowers, she could imagine being in Central Park.
That morning after breakfast, with the last snowfall two days behind them, the outdoors beckoned Ivy to conduct her lessons in nature. “Shall we go outside and find moregee-growingthings?”
Jewel was already sliding off her chair, the felt letterGclutched in one fist, and Brave bundled into the crook of the other.
The once-scrawny, half-grown kitten had filled out into a sleek adolescent cat with calm dark-blue eyes, who’d, when outdoors, learned to walk on a leash attached to a harness. Now, she submitted to being carried toward the door with the resigned dignity of a creature who’d long since accepted her role as Jewel's constant companion.
Along with the cat, theGlooked to be going along on their jaunt. Jewel had taken to carrying one letter at a time, rotating through her favorites.
They stepped into a day so bright, the sunshine made Ivy blink. Three Bend Lake lay below the meadow in a sheet of hammered silver, and the snowcapped mountain beyond rose in layers of blue and violet against a sky that seemed too vast to be real.
After New York—the streets cramped with pedestrians and vehicles, the soot-darkened brownstones, the narrow corridors of sky visible between multi-story rooftops—Montana’s enormity still caught her off guard. Some mornings she stood on the porch and simply breathed, filling her lungs with air that tasted of pine and snowmelt.
You're never going back,Ivy told herself.You are here. You are needed.
The reassurance was becoming easier to believe.
She held out a hand for her pupil to take. “Come, Jewel. Let's walk to see the flowers.”
They followed the path that led from the house through a stand of aspens whose new leaves trembled like small, green coins in the breeze and came to a flattened tree stump that they often used as a desk.
“Let’s stop here.” Ivy crouched beside Jewel and pulled a cloth bag from her apron pocket, spilling out dried beans onto the wood surface. “Time to count. How many beans can you hold in one hand?”
Jewel set theGon Ivy’s knee and cupped her palm.
Holding theG, she stood and winced. While the muscles in her lower limbs had grown stronger from usage, Ivy knew from experience she’d be crouching more times on this walk.
The child picked up one bean at a time, placing it into her cupped palm. “One, twoo, shree, four, fivv, six, seb-en. Seb-en!” Jewel beamed.
Seven, along with five, were the girl’s favorite numbers. She'd mastered the numerals early and took fierce pride in deployingthem at every opportunity.Seb-en cookies, Papa. Seb-en birds. Five fin-gers.
“Very good. Now put three beans on the stump. How many are you still holding?”
This was harder. Jewel's tongue appeared between her lips—a sign of deep concentration. She placed three beans carefully on the wood, studied her palm, and held up four fingers. “Four,” she said, uncertainty wobbling the word.
“Four!” Ivy squeezed her shoulder. “Seven take away three is four. Oh, Jewel, you clever girl.”
Jewel bounced on her heels, her arm inadvertently scattering the remaining beans.
Brave pounced on one and batted it across the grass, making them both dissolve into giggles.
Ivy’s soul filled. This is what I’ve come three thousand miles for—these accomplishments from a special child.Not the salary—though the fifty dollars a month was more than she'd ever dreamed of earning. Not the escape from her father's house—though the freedom was so profound she sometimes felt weightless with relief.This.The moment when a new idea took root and Ivy could see the learning grow, could watch the wonder bloom in Jewel’s eyes. Her analogies amused her. Perhaps I should call myself a farmer or gardener rather than a teacher.
She'd felt a milder version while tutoring the Altucher boys, with Fritz's stubborn triumph over the subjunctive, and Henrick's dawning passion for Cicero. Same for every child she'd ever taught. But with Jewel, the feeling was fuller, more luminous, edged with a tenderness that frightened her.
Don't love her too much,a cautious voice whispered.You're the governess. Not Jewel’s mother.
