Josie set the wiggling Gideon on the ground. “What kind of mountains?”
Ivy stared at her, her facial expressions not changing. “Mountains.”
Josie smiled as the visions of home entered her mind. “Where I’m from, the mountains look very different than the ones here.”
“What ya mean?” Jonas asked, his eyebrows raising. “How different?”
“They’re called the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ones here are called the Rocky Mountains.”
Lillian’s eyes widened in wonder. “Are they blue?”
“Indeed, they are. They’re blue and green. The mountains here are much pointier, while the Blue Ridge ones are flatter.”
“I wish I could see them,” Jonas said, lying on the ground with his elbows propped up. Gideon crawled to him and squealed.
“I could draw them for you,” Josie offered, a gentle hope in her voice.
Jonas gasped, his mouth growing wider. He sat up and turned to Ivy. “Ivy! Ivy! Let Josie draw them! Let her please!”
Ivy closed her notebook and hugged it against her chest. “Josie can’t draw.”
“I can, Ivy. I’d like to show you if you’d let me.”
Ivy huffed and walked over to Josie, her jaw clenched. Josie took the pencil and opened Ivy’s book to a blank page. Then she pointed the pencil’s end downward and began sketching the familiar outlines of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her pencil glided across the paper, curving out the gentle slopes and filling in the blank spaces with texture to make up for the lack of color. After ten minutes, she finished. She held the sketchbook up, showing the children.
Jonas gasped. “Woah! That does look different.”
“It just needs some color,” Lillian added, tilting her head as she examined the drawing.
Ivy yanked the notepad back, letting out a frustrated sigh. “If only Pa had the money to buy me paints.”
“Pa says we gotta wait ‘til the harvest,” Jonas explained.
“He said that last year,” Ivy scoffed. “And the year before that. I’ll never get my paints.”
Josie’s stomach sank at Ivy’s disappointment. The girl’s posture slouched and her bottom lip puckered. Josie still had the money Travis had sent before their marriage—nearly four hundred dollars. If she returned it, Ivy could have her paints, and Travis wouldn’t have to stress out about the harvest so much. Maybe that was why he was avoiding her. He sacrificed everything to give these children a mother, and he could never love her as a husband should. Josie would be a burden to him for the rest of her life. Just like how she was to Papa after the war and then to Marcus. Josie shuddered.
No, this was different.
“When you get some, Ivy, I’ll give you a lesson,” Josie offered gently.
Ivy’s eyes widened. “You paint?”
Josie nodded, a smile curving on her lips. “I do. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
For the first time, Ivy truly smiled in Josie’s presence.Perhaps that was all Ivy needed. Something in common with me.
Josie looked at the time from the wall clock. It was almost eight—time for the children to be put to bed. Through the large living room window, a faint glow of a lantern shone from the barn loft. Travis was still out there. She knew she needed to return the money he had given her, and maybe this was also a chance to talk. Maybe one last try.
Then she’d never disappoint anyone again.
Travis sat on his tiny cot, the pages of his Bible spread open in his lap while the faint light of his lantern flickered against the wooden walls of the barn. He read the words, searching for guidance, for some kind of comfort in the midst of his pain. Never had he needed it more than now—and answers that would help guide him make the right choices.
He was a new husband to a woman he felt compelled to keep at arm’s length, a woman who deserved far better than him. The guilt grew with each passing moment in her presence and set up quarters in his mind and gut, eating him from the inside out. Josephine would only find herself disappointed once he opened up to her. She’d see him for who he truly was—a selfish monster.
Sophie was his wife—the only woman he had ever genuinely loved, and the one person he had betrayed. That betrayal hung over him like a storm cloud, darkening every thought, every interaction with Josephine. How could he ever move on? Howcould he let go of the past when it clung to him so fiercely? Josephine wasn’t really here because of the advertisement. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Sophie’s last day on earth—the real reason she passed.
He closed the Bible, his hands trembling slightly as he let out a shaky breath. The words Travis read seemed distant, almost meaningless against the weight of his regret—both for Sophie and Josephine. How could he find peace when his heart was still tied to that one memory?
