The boy in the green blanket had stopped crying.<\/p>\n
I kept looking down at him.<\/p>\n
For the first time since I entered Cedar Run Ranch, his face seemed less strained.<\/p>\n
His little mouth was quiet.<\/p>\n
His hands no longer moved with the same restless urgency.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe he was satisfied.<\/p>\n
But I had learned not to trust a single peaceful moment too quickly.<\/p>\n
Ada had rested in my arms too.<\/p>\n
I had mistaken some of her stillness for comfort.<\/p>\n
I knew better now.<\/p>\n
Caleb sat opposite me with his daughter.<\/p>\n
The brown blanket was gathered around her small body.<\/p>\n
He kept watching her face.<\/p>\n
Every time she moved, his attention sharpened.<\/p>\n
Every time she went quiet, he seemed to hold his own breath.<\/p>\n
I recognized that kind of fear.<\/p>\n
It did not leave a person room to think about anything else.<\/p>\n
I looked from the boy in my arms to his sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe should try again,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Caleb nodded.<\/p>\n
He did not ask whether I was certain.<\/p>\n
He had seen enough to know that his son had taken milk.<\/p>\n
He wanted the same thing for his daughter.<\/p>\n
I wanted it too.<\/p>\n
But the little girl had less strength.<\/p>\n
We both knew it.<\/p>\n
I looked at Caleb's hands.<\/p>\n
They were large around the brown blanket.<\/p>\n
He held the baby with care that seemed almost painful.<\/p>\n
I wondered what those hands had been doing before Lydia died.<\/p>\n
Working around the ranch.<\/p>\n
Managing the ordinary demands of Cedar Run.<\/p>\n
Things that could be set down at the end of a day.<\/p>\n
Now he was responsible for two children who needed him constantly.<\/p>\n
I thought of Thomas.<\/p>\n
I remembered how naturally I had assumed we would share the work of raising Ada.<\/p>\n
I had imagined handing her to him when I needed rest.<\/p>\n
I had imagined watching him learn to hold her.<\/p>\n
I had imagined laughing at his uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Those ordinary pictures had become another part of what I had lost.<\/p>\n
I looked at Caleb.<\/p>\n
He had no wife to hand the babies to.<\/p>\n
He could not rest simply because he was exhausted.<\/p>\n
He had to keep going.<\/p>\n
The thought made me feel less alone in one way.<\/p>\n
It also made me terribly sad.<\/p>\n
We had each lost the person who was supposed to stand beside us.<\/p>\n
And now, through no plan of our own, we were sitting in the same room trying to care for his children.<\/p>\n
The boy stirred in my arms.<\/p>\n
I adjusted the green blanket.<\/p>\n
He made a small sound.<\/p>\n
Then settled again.<\/p>\n
I felt a quiet relief.<\/p>\n
It did not feel like victory.<\/p>\n
It felt like being allowed one breath after holding it too long.<\/p>\n
Caleb looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou've done more than I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
I did not know what to say.<\/p>\n
He had expected nothing.<\/p>\n
Amos had told him there was no one who could help.<\/p>\n
Caleb had left that house believing the answer was final.<\/p>\n
I had come to him without warning.<\/p>\n
Now his son had fed.<\/p>\n
But I did not want him thanking me as though the work were finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour daughter still needs milk,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
His expression changed.<\/p>\n
He looked down at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I regretted the sharpness in my voice.<\/p>\n
He did not need reminding that one child remained weak.<\/p>\n
He had been worrying about her before I arrived.<\/p>\n
I softened my tone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'd like to try with her again.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
We exchanged the babies carefully.<\/p>\n
I gave him his son.<\/p>\n
He placed the girl in my arms.<\/p>\n
The change in weight was slight, but I felt it.<\/p>\n
She seemed more delicate.<\/p>\n
Quieter.<\/p>\n
The brown blanket had become something I dreaded looking into because I was afraid of finding her still.<\/p>\n
I drew it back just enough to see her face.<\/p>\n
She moved.<\/p>\n
I felt relief.<\/p>\n
Then I felt ashamed that I had needed such a small sign to steady myself.<\/p>\n
I was not her mother.<\/p>\n
I had only just arrived.<\/p>\n
Yet the fear of losing her had already entered me.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether that was wrong.<\/p>\n
I did not know how to care for a baby without feeling something.<\/p>\n
Perhaps there were women who could treat nursing as a simple task.<\/p>\n
Milk offered.<\/p>\n
Child fed.<\/p>\n
Work finished.<\/p>\n
I could not.<\/p>\n
Not after Ada.<\/p>\n
Every child I held reminded me that a life could disappear before anyone was ready.<\/p>\n
I brought the little girl close.<\/p>\n
She stirred weakly.<\/p>\n
I waited for her mouth to search.<\/p>\n
There was a small movement.<\/p>\n
I helped her find her place.<\/p>\n
Then I sat still.<\/p>\n
For a moment, nothing happened.<\/p>\n
I could hear Caleb shifting the boy in his arms.<\/p>\n
I could hear the small sounds of the house.<\/p>\n
I could hear my own breathing.<\/p>\n
I wanted the little girl to begin feeding.<\/p>\n
I wanted it so badly that my hands trembled again.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n
I was not sure whom I was speaking to.<\/p>\n
The child.<\/p>\n
God.<\/p>\n
Ada.<\/p>\n
Perhaps nobody.<\/p>\n
I only knew I was asking for something simple.<\/p>\n
One swallow.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
The baby made a weak effort.<\/p>\n
I held her steady.<\/p>\n
She tried again.<\/p>\n
I could feel the movement.<\/p>\n
Not strong.<\/p>\n
Not enough to make me stop worrying.<\/p>\n
But real.<\/p>\n
I looked down at her face.<\/p>\n
Her eyes remained closed.<\/p>\n
I wanted to see her become more active.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to protest.<\/p>\n
To move her hands.<\/p>\n
To make the room hear her.<\/p>\n
Instead, she continued with small efforts.<\/p>\n
I did not rush her.<\/p>\n
I knew she needed nourishment.<\/p>\n
I also knew she was tired.<\/p>\n
Those two facts frightened me because they worked against each other.<\/p>\n
I wished the physician had been standing beside us.<\/p>\n
I wanted someone who understood more than I did.<\/p>\n
Someone who could tell us exactly what her weakness meant.<\/p>\n
But I had no doctor in front of me.<\/p>\n
I had Caleb.<\/p>\n
I had the child.<\/p>\n
And I had what my body could give.<\/p>\n
So I continued.<\/p>\n
After a little while, I felt another swallow.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes briefly.<\/p>\n
It was such a small thing.<\/p>\n
The sort of sound I had expected to hear from Ada without ever thinking it remarkable.<\/p>\n
Now it seemed enormous.<\/p>\n
I remembered the doctor telling me there had been no way to make Ada's lungs work.<\/p>\n
There was no treatment he could offer.<\/p>\n
I had spent days struggling against that truth.<\/p>\n
I had wanted there to be a different answer.<\/p>\n
Here, at least, the physician had suggested something practical.<\/p>\n
Find a nursing woman.<\/p>\n
Caleb had tried.<\/p>\n
Amos had refused him.<\/p>\n
And I had come.<\/p>\n
I was doing the thing the doctor believed might help.<\/p>\n
I needed to hold on to that.<\/p>\n
The little girl paused.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
Then she made another effort.<\/p>\n
I felt my throat tighten.<\/p>\n
I looked toward Caleb.<\/p>\n
He was watching us.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is taking some,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
He leaned forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
His face changed.<\/p>\n
He looked almost afraid to believe me.<\/p>\n
I understood.<\/p>\n
Hope had become dangerous to both of us.<\/p>\n
It invited a person to imagine what came next.<\/p>\n
And neither of us had been treated kindly by what came next.<\/p>\n
I wanted to reassure him.<\/p>\n
I wanted to say the twins would be well.<\/p>\n
That their worst night was behind them.<\/p>\n
That Lydia's children would grow strong.<\/p>\n
But I could not know any of those things.<\/p>\n
So I said only what was true.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's a beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
I could see how much that small statement meant to him.<\/p>\n
For a while, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
The little girl continued to feed in short efforts.<\/p>\n
Her brother rested against Caleb.<\/p>\n
The desperate crying that had drawn me across the fields was no longer filling the room.<\/p>\n
The quiet felt unfamiliar.<\/p>\n
I had come expecting urgency.<\/p>\n
I had found it.<\/p>\n
Now there was a pause in the fear.<\/p>\n
Not an end.<\/p>\n
Only a pause.<\/p>\n
I realized how exhausted I was.<\/p>\n
My shoulders hurt.<\/p>\n
My back ached.<\/p>\n
The soreness from childbirth had grown worse after the walk.<\/p>\n
I had been concentrating so completely on the babies that I had barely noticed.<\/p>\n
Now my body demanded attention.<\/p>\n
I shifted slightly in the chair.<\/p>\n
The movement made me wince.<\/p>\n
Caleb noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou're hurting.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words came automatically.<\/p>\n
I had been saying them for days.<\/p>\n
To Martha.<\/p>\n
To anyone who asked.<\/p>\n
Sometimes even to myself.<\/p>\n
Caleb did not look convinced.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou walked all that way after having a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long ago?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
I did not want to speak about Ada's death while holding his daughter.<\/p>\n
But he needed to understand why I was weak.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter was buried three days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
His expression changed completely.<\/p>\n
He looked down at his son.<\/p>\n
Then back at me.<\/p>\n
I could see the shock.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he had assumed my child had died longer ago.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he had not imagined that my grief was so fresh.<\/p>\n
I watched him struggle to find words.<\/p>\n
He had probably heard plenty of useless words since Lydia died.<\/p>\n
So had I.<\/p>\n
At last, he said, \u201cYou shouldn't have had to come out in that cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
His concern was genuine.<\/p>\n
But it troubled me.<\/p>\n
He had not asked me to walk.<\/p>\n
He had not known I was coming.<\/p>\n
He had been trying to find help for his children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chose to,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether I sounded angry.<\/p>\n
I did not mean to.<\/p>\n
I simply needed him to understand that my decision belonged to me.<\/p>\n
For days, Amos had treated me as someone whose choices could be made for her.<\/p>\n
I did not want Caleb to do the same.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the little girl.<\/p>\n
She was still resting against me.<\/p>\n
I had no idea how much milk she had taken.<\/p>\n
But there had been movement.<\/p>\n
There had been effort.<\/p>\n
I wanted to remember that.<\/p>\n
I wanted Caleb to remember it too.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needed someone,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo did her brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had milk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words sounded painfully simple.<\/p>\n
I almost laughed at how little they explained.<\/p>\n
They did not explain Ada.<\/p>\n
They did not explain the mornings at the basin.<\/p>\n
They did not explain how frightening it had been to leave Martha's house.<\/p>\n
But they explained enough.<\/p>\n
I had something his babies needed.<\/p>\n
And I had chosen to bring it.<\/p>\n
Caleb was silent for a while.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cI don't know how to thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon't worry about that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked down at his daughter.<\/p>\n
I followed his gaze.<\/p>\n
She had gone quiet again.<\/p>\n
I watched her carefully.<\/p>\n
She moved slightly against me.<\/p>\n
I felt relief.<\/p>\n
But I was still afraid.<\/p>\n
The twins had managed some nourishment.<\/p>\n
That mattered more than I could say.<\/p>\n
Yet one feeding could not undo all the weakness of the previous day.<\/p>\n
They would need to eat again.<\/p>\n
And again.<\/p>\n
Their father would need help beyond this one evening.<\/p>\n
I knew that.<\/p>\n
Caleb knew it too.<\/p>\n
Neither of us spoke about what the morning would bring.<\/p>\n
I think we were both too tired.<\/p>\n
The boy in green rested quietly.<\/p>\n
The little girl in brown remained against my chest.<\/p>\n
I looked at the blankets and remembered the empty basin at Martha's house.<\/p>\n
For three mornings, I had poured away milk because the child it was meant for had died.<\/p>\n
Tonight, two children had received it.<\/p>\n
That did not bring Ada back.<\/p>\n
It did not make her death easier to accept.<\/p>\n
But it changed something about the next morning.<\/p>\n
I could no longer imagine returning to the farmhouse and emptying the basin as though I had not seen the twins.<\/p>\n
They would be hungry again.<\/p>\n
I knew it.<\/p>\n
And I had begun to understand that leaving them after one feeding would be much harder than arriving had been.<\/p>\n
Source: life5.aubtu.biz<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The boy in the green blanket had stopped crying. I kept looking down at him. For the first time since I entered Cedar Run Ranch, his face seemed less strained. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11257,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11237\/revisions\/11257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 8: By the Time Both Babies Had Fed, I Understood Why I Could Not Simply Return to My Sister’s House<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"