One ugly-sad thought after another tumbled through Annabell, the futile things she couldn’t change. Joy drained out to reality. The new mama and baby represented what she would never have or be.
As if he read her thoughts, he said, "I know you got an offer for marriage. That guy from Pearl, and the other one from Rivrtonn. And what about—"
"I'm too old for marriage."
"Mother had four more children after her thirtieth birthday, and ya ain’t there yet, girl. She would want you married. You should have children about you. You can have that. Come and live with Bess and me."
"Those are your children. Not mine."
"Don’t you love your big brother’s children like your own? No? Well, then sell this place to me, get yourself a cash dowry. Go marry again. Have a chance at happiness."
"They don't want me, Benjere. Marriage would mean selling myself to someone who didn’t want me. I'm doubly cursed. They just want my money."
"Ha, sister. Little you know. You may be tall for a woman, but you have all the assets men like in all the right places."
She stared at him blankly. Had her older brother said she was desirable to men? She almost cocked her hip and cupped her chest to highlight her 'assets,' and thank him for noticing that she was a woman and not a child.
"Vinegar just makes you sour."Mama's reprimand stopped her.
Out loud, Annabell said, "When are you going to stop asking?"
"When you gonna do something I say?"
"Not anytime soon." Daisydoo would be fine without a bull, and so would she. Nor did she want to go grazing in another woman's pasture, caring for her children. The moons bleed again, but Annabell would not be a servant in her brother's home, under his thumb and his wife's command, taking care of his children and possessions.
"It's not good to be alone. If Mother and Father were here, they would never permit this. I don't know why I do this with you. But we both know you can't run this place all by yourself. That you talk to no one but yourself. Don't you want more? Do you have plans you aren't saying?"
"I have plans."
"Are you going to run off into the Peace Lands and find a native husband?" His voice turned ugly, words hitting like a slap. He resented the smear against the family caused by the Orki's courting. Did he bring that up to make her feel dirty? Unlike the lessons she had taken to heart as a child, stories she delighted in, her brothers opted to fear and resent the Orki. A few years ago, the town council sent a man into the Dorsus wilderness controlled by the Orki with a proposal to expand the Peace Contract. The Orki sent him home, face down, not breathing, over the back of a horse for having broken the law.
No talking. No mercy from the Orki.
Relations between the peoples were fraught with tension.
Benjere pushed guilt and regret at Annabell. She had done nothing. But her life was a disgrace to everyone who thought they had a right to comment on it. In spite of them, that day the Orki proposed sat in her heart like a sweet thing, a dream of childhood come true. There was no space within her to let the memory shame her, not in the least. Even if the bossiest thought it should.
Looking down at her hands, filthy from birthing the calf, Annabell gave him her back as she went to the bucket to wash.
"Will you come in for tea?" Annabell asked with cold courtesy, soaping up to her elbows.
"Nice is as nice does," their Mama would say, covering tension with polite routine.
"Looks as though things turned out well for your heifer here, mind the bleeding. There shouldn't be too much if everything is well. It's late. Need to get back to my family." Oblivious to her coldness, he resettled his hat on his head and looked about the barn, as if to check to see that he had everything he'd arrived with.
"The girl is there now, yes?"
"Yes, she sleeps in the children's room, but my Bess will wake her up at dawn and have a list of tasks. If you won't come, I think I will have Missus Yoyersdotter come in the afternoons. It's too much for the girl to do the chores and the children."
"Your hired girl has a name, doesn't she?"
Benjere looked at her blankly. "The girl? I suppose she does."
Annabell sighed.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, giving a quick kiss to her forehead, her brother said his goodbyes. Disappearing into the dark as soon as he was through the gate, Annabell took a moment to watch him. It was a cool night—but not so bad he'd freeze his toes–and the walk took a familiar path. He was the only person to talk to her in weeks, but she wouldn't miss him now that he was gone.
She wouldn't.
