In Love with a Single Farmer-Daddy novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Quiet Time

The little girl won't eat, won't cry, and goes back to the neighbor's after school, so Betsy drives over to bring her home and sees her through the mudroom window, standing alone in the cold.

I folded the note in half and put it in the envelope with the money.

"Thank you, Posy," I said. "I'll keep it somewhere safe."

Posy's eyes flicked up to mine for half a second.

She hadn't expected that.

Bonnie's smile stayed exactly where it was.

"Supper's in the oven," she told Roscoe. "Meatloaf. The way you like it."

"Thank you, Bonnie," he said. "Go on home. It's late."

She kissed Posy's hair and walked down the steps to her car.

At the bottom she turned around.

"Posy is in bed by seven-thirty," she said to me. "She doesn't like noise."

Then she drove the half mile up the road to the brick house with the yard light.

Supper was quiet.

Posy ate four bites of meatloaf and slid two crackers off the table into her coat pocket when she thought nobody was looking.

I'd done that once.

At seven-thirty Roscoe carried her up to bed, and I washed the dishes because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.

When he came back down, he stood in the kitchen doorway with his hat in his hands.

"Your room's at the top of the stairs on the left," he said. "Across from hers. I sleep down here, off the kitchen. I'm up at four-thirty."

"Do you want a medal?"

His mouth twitched.

"I'm saying you won't be bothered."

"I gathered that from the kiss," I said. "Very respectful. My pastor's had worse."

He looked at the floor and I'm almost sure he was trying not to laugh.

"Rules," he said. "You don't have to cook. You don't have to clean. I didn't pay for a maid."

"Good. I just retired from that."

"Posy's what I need help with. She doesn't like strangers. Bonnie's got her routine. Don't fight it."

"What if the routine's wrong?"

"Bonnie's raised more kids than you've met," he said. "Good night, Betsy."

I didn't sleep much.

The house creaked and the wind pushed at the windows.

Across the hall, Posy's room was so silent I got up twice to check she was breathing.

Sunday, Bonnie took Posy to church and kept her through supper.

Monday at five I gave up on sleep and went down to make pancakes.

Roscoe had already gone.

There was coffee in the pot and a note on the counter in square handwriting.

Calving lot. Back at noon. Bus is 7:20 at Bonnie's. W.

Posy came down at six-forty, fully dressed, braid crooked, red boots on.

She stopped dead when she saw me at the stove.

"Morning," I said. "I make the best pancakes in Morrow County. Ask anybody but my sister."

She stared at the plate I set down.

I'd made it a bear face, blueberry eyes and a strawberry nose.

She didn't sit.

She went to the pantry, took a sleeve of saltines, and put four in each pocket.

"Those are good too," I said. "But they don't have a nose."

She walked past me and out the screen door onto the porch.

I followed with the plate.

She was halfway down the porch steps when her rubber boot caught the edge of one.

She went down hard on the gravel.

I dropped the plate and ran.

Her knee was split open through her leggings, bright red already.

Her palms were full of grit.

She didn't cry.

She didn't make a sound.

She just sat there with her lips pressed together so hard they'd gone white, and her eyes went straight up the road to the brick house.

My stomach turned over.

Kids cry.

Even tough kids yell when they split a knee on gravel.

"Hey," I said softly. "You can yell. I won't tell."

She got up on her own and limped away from me.

At seven a silver car pulled into the yard.

Bonnie got out in a lavender cardigan with her reading glasses swinging on a beaded chain.

"Posy rides with me," she said. "She has for two years. The bus picks up at my place."

"I'll drive her into town," I said. "She's hurt her knee. I want to clean it."

"I'll clean it." Bonnie held out her hand to Posy without looking at her. "Come."

Posy went to her.

Roscoe's truck came up the lane, and he leaned out the window.

"Problem?"

"Your wife wants to change the routine," Bonnie said pleasantly. "On her first morning."

Roscoe looked at me, then at Posy's knee, then at Bonnie.

"Let Bonnie take her, Bets," he said. "Posy knows the way it goes."

So I let her go.

I stood in the yard with blueberries on my shoes and watched the silver car drive off.

All day, I couldn't stop seeing her lips pressed white.

At three-forty the school bus would drop Posy at Bonnie's for after-school care.

At four I drove up the road myself.

"I'll bring her home today," I'd told Roscoe at noon. "I want to get to know her."

He'd shrugged. "Bonnie'll fuss. Let her."

Bonnie's brick house sat behind a row of dead petunias.

Nobody answered the front door.

I walked around the side toward the back, past the slanted wooden door of a storm cellar in the grass.

The back of the house had a small mudroom with a window in the door.

I looked through it.

The mudroom had no heat.

I could see my own breath on the glass.

Posy was standing in the corner, facing the wall, in her leggings and a thin T-shirt.

Her coat was on a hook across the room.

Her arms were wrapped around herself, and her whole small body was shaking.

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