When Caleb finally stood and tested the wagon, Samuel beamed.
“It works!”
“It does,” Caleb admitted.
“I knew it would.”
“You were right.”
Samuel looked so pleased that Caleb felt ashamed of how rarely he said those words.
Later, after the children were asleep, Caleb found Adeline folding the last of the clean laundry.
“Miss Rue.”
She turned.
“Please, call me Adeline.”
He hesitated.
“Adeline, I should tell you something about the arrangement.”
Her hands grew still.
“If the work is too much, you can say so. I don't expect you to be a servant to my children day and night.”
“I don't mind helping them.”
“I know. But I hired you to cook and keep the house, not to carry every burden I've failed to manage.”
Adeline studied him for a moment.
“Do you believe you've failed them?”
The question was quiet, without accusation.
Caleb looked toward the staircase.
“I can't seem to make anything right.”
“Have they been fed?”
“Yes.”
“Have they been kept warm?”
“Yes.”
“Have you stayed beside them when they cried?”
His jaw tightened.
“I try.”
“Then you haven't failed them.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh.
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“Perhaps not. But I know the difference between a father who has abandoned his children and a father who is exhausted from trying to save them.”
The words struck him harder than he expected.
He had been exhausted for so long that exhaustion had become part of his nature. He had mistaken his inability to do everything for proof that he was doing nothing well.
Adeline returned to the laundry.
“You need help, Mr. Hart. That isn't the same as being a failure.”
He wanted to believe her.
He wanted it so badly that he could not bear to answer.
Instead, he took the folded coat she offered him and examined the repaired sleeve. The tear had disappeared beneath a line of precise stitches.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You're welcome.”
He stood there another moment.
Then he asked, “What happened to your brother?”
Adeline's hands stopped moving.
For the first time since she had arrived, she seemed unsure whether she wanted to answer him.
“He was six,” she said. “There was a winter much like this one. Our father had gone looking for work, and our mother was sick. I was seventeen and thought I was old enough to manage anything.”