The youngest took dancing steps over, stopping in front of Jewel. “Hello. Who are you? I’m Krista.”
Jewel gaped at her. “I Jewel.” She patted her chest.
The other girls followed. They all shared a strong likeness—pretty and blue-eyed, their hair in pigtails.
The oldest tapped her chest. “I’m Inga.” She touched the remaining one’s shoulder. “This is Elsabe. We didn’t know a girl lived here.”
“There!” Jewel pointed to the house. As she tended to do in times of excitement, she raised both arms.
Krista clapped her hands and bounced on her toes. “Would you like to play with us?”
Smiling, Jewel vigorously nodded, and clumsily clapped her hands.
Flabbergasted, a word Ivy never thought would apply to her. Her thoughts ran clickety-clack like wheels rolling over a railroad track.
Too late. Can’t go back now. What’s done is done. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“We have little sisters and a brother,” Inga told her, waving a hand at her sisters. “So we play London Bridge Is Falling Down. Do you know it?”
Jewel’s tongue poked out.
Ivy came to her pupil’s rescue. “She doesn’t know that one. But I bet she’d like ring-around-the-rosy. She knows the rhyme. Why don’t you all move over there.” She pointed to a patch of grass near the porch.
Throwing up her arms again, Jewel chanted, “Ring round wrow-see. Poc-et full pos-ee. As-ez all fall down!”
Elsabe tilted her head. “You talk funny. But that’s all right. My pa talks funny too because he’s Swedish.”
Laughter bubbled up in her chest. Ivy put a hand over her mouth to hide her reaction. She had to take a breath before she could talk again. “How old are you girls? Jewel’s twelve.”
Inga touched her chest. “I’m thirteen, Elsabe’s eleven, and Krista’s nine.”
Stair-steps, indeed. Ivy wondered about the rest of the children, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
Krista held out her hand to Jewel and extended the other to Elsabe. “We all join. Like this.”
With a wide smile, Jewel took Krista’s hand and followed as they shifted to play on the grass.
Praying this would work, Ivy tried to prepare the other girls. “Jewel can’t move that fast, especially sideways, so go slow at first and be careful.” She sank down on the porch steps.
The girls joined hands and started to chant the rhyme and move in a clockwise circle. Jewel was clumsy and took several attempts to learn to circle. But after a few false starts, the Swensen girls adjusted their rhythm to Jewel’s awkward sidestepping.
After about four rounds, Jewel grew more confident, and they slightly picked up speed.
Jewel let out happy squeals, shouted the words, and plopped herself down when the others did. Amid lots of giggles, the three helped her stand, and they’d start all over again.
As she watched, tears of joy came to Ivy’s eyes.Another milestone.
This is the proof Torin needs. Jewel has been so sad and look at her now. He can’t deny playing with these girls is good for her.
Ever since his friends visited,Torin chose solitary walks instead of joining his daughter and her governess. He had a lot weighing heavily on his mind, but at the same time, he didn’t want to think about what, no,whowas so much in his thoughts. So, today, he briskly climbed to the lookout. Instead of the leisurely stroll he’d taken with Ivy, he pushed himself to move with haste. By the time he’d reached the rock and plopped himself down, panting, he needed to regain his wind.
Deliberately, he took some deep breaths, drawing in the spicy-sweet scent of the nearby evergreens and focused on the beauty of the area, especially the view. From here, only the roof of his house was visible. He could see Brian’s place in its entirety, and Hank’s not at all.
Birdsong from the nearby woods surrounded him. The wind blowing across the lake nipped at the exposed skin of his face and hands, a welcoming coolness after his hike. The surface reflected the cerulean sky, complete with a few drifting, puffy clouds.
Gradually, peace soaked into his soul, and Torin felt his body relax. He hadn’t realized how tightly wound he'd been until the loosening happened.
All through the long winter—through the changes, the loneliness, the dismals, the exhausting repetition of Ps and Js, and then the gnawing fear that he'd made a terrible mistake by inviting a stranger into their lives—he'd been clenched againstsomething.
