must feel good.”
“It’s something you have to work at.” Samantha got up. “Everybody’s stirring, but take your time. We’re not on a schedule. There’s cereal and toast for breakfast, and plenty of fresh fruit. Just help yourself whenever you’re ready to come down. If we’re not around, we’ll be off on a walk. Mom loves wildflowers, and she brought her guide. It’s a little early in the spring at this elevation, but she notes dates and location when she finds something new. We’ll probably be scouting the woods for spring beauties and trout lilies.”
Cristy watched her go, the mug of coffee warming her hands.
* * *
Everybody was already downstairs before Cristy dared take a shower; then she spent what was probably too long in the bathroom, luxuriating in hot water, privacy and no one telling her that time was almost up. She washed her hair and combed it away from her face. Her hair was longer than she’d worn it before prison, inches below her shoulders when it was wet, but she’d had no desire to let another inmate in “cosmo,” the cosmetology courses at the prison, sharpen their skills on her. Curly hair was difficult to cut and manage, and she hadn’t wanted to end up feeling worse about herself than she already did.
Back in her room she sorted through her new clothes. In addition to the jacket, Samantha had paid for two outfits a size smaller than she’d worn before NCCIW, and now she changed into the most casual, jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. By the time she was ready to go downstairs, the hike was about to begin.
“We can wait if you want to come along,” Georgia said, after greeting her with a nod and one of her rare smiles. “We’re in no hurry.”
“You go ahead. I’ll eat, if that’s all right.”
“It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t eat.” Samantha finished zipping a light jacket. “Make yourself at home. If Harmony and Lottie arrive, introduce yourself.”
Preparations complete, the trio left, and the house was suddenly silent. Cristy realized they had just sauntered off and left a convicted felon in their house alone. Of course, what would she make off with? Crockery from the kitchen? Pillows on the sofa? It wasn’t the kind of place where valuables were kept. She supposed they’d felt perfectly safe.
And wasn’t that a thought unworthy of all the generosity they had shown her?
The kitchen was well equipped with sensibly arranged basics. Cooking utensils standing in a wide-mouth canning jar beside an electric stove. Knives on a magnetic strip along the wall, pots and pans hanging from an iron rack overhead. A cupboard was filled with canned goods and jars. Another held staples, mixing bowls and measuring cups, and brightly colored dishes were visible on open shelves. Cooking wasn’t one of the things she did well. She had worked in the kitchen at the prison, but her job had involved scrubbing and cleaning after others did preparation. She had never asked to be moved up the line. She had carefully avoided any job that required following a recipe.
An open box of Cheerios waited on the table beside a half carton of fresh blueberries. She poured some of both into a bowl and added milk from the refrigerator. There were bread and butter on the table, too, but she carefully put them away.
She ate and cleaned up, enjoying both. The kitchen was a cheerful place that looked freshly painted. She liked the pale lemon color and the framed vintage pictures of women on one wall that looked as if they had come from old magazines. Someone had added words, decals in flowing script, as if in comment. She wondered what they said. She tried to sound one out but after a moment gave up with a shrug.
She knew she should probably do something useful while the others were gone, something to show she was going to be a tenant they could count on, but the house was dust-free. She peeked outside, then ventured out to the porch, but even that didn’t need sweeping. She perched on an old metal glider and gave a tentative push with her feet. It creaked cheerfully, and she settled against mismatched cushions to slide back and forth.
On the porch she didn’t feel as overwhelmed as she had yesterday on the walk. She felt contained by the pillars and roof, even protected. She wondered when or if she would begin to feel like the woman she’d been before prison. Back then she had loved to hike. Outdoors, with a million different things to look at and examine, she had felt just like everyone else. When she had lived behind the shop she’d regularly brought home leaves, pretty stones, moss-covered sticks, and arranged them on her bedside table or her living room shelves. Sometimes she had used her finds in arrangements when a client had wanted something more natural or interesting than a dozen red roses or daisies dyed blindingly bright colors that Mother Nature had never considered. Betsy had encouraged her to find her own style.
She would tramp the woods again, she supposed. She would do a great number of things in the years to come. Unfortunately those days seemed far in the future.
She heard a car and got to her feet. A pale green SUV came into view, a small one, but it took the steep driveway with ease and came to a stop next to Georgia’s and Samantha’s cars. As she watched, a young woman got out, blond hair swinging over her shoulders as she opened the rear passenger-side door and leaned in. A few minutes later she emerged with a small bundle and a bag she slung over her shoulder. A large shaggy golden dog emerged next; then together they started up the wide terraced steps to the house.
Cristy wasn’t sure how to greet this visitor. She knew this had to be Harmony. The baby—who was certainly at the center of the warmly wrapped bundle—was carried tenderly against her chest.
Cristy rose and went to the porch steps, but not down them. The dog had stopped at the bottom to sniff the bushes. “Hi,” she said shyly. “Are you Harmony?”
“That’s me. You must be Cristy.”
Cristy smiled, although it didn’t feel natural. “Do you need help?”
“I have everything. I don’t need much for a day. Just wait until she has to have her favorite toys and blankets and food and whatever else these little tyrants require. I guess we edge slowly into that, and mothers don’t notice some little person has turned them into a pack animal.”
Cristy didn’t know what to say. The last time she had been near a baby, it had been her own. She had never been particularly comfortable with children, and the smaller they were, the less comfortable she was. This one seemed particularly small.
Harmony dropped her bag beside the glider and sat down. “Join me? Or are you in the middle of something?”
“I was just...” She thought about what to say and discarded “worrying.” “Enjoying the view,” she said instead.
“It’s so lovely here. I come whenever I have the chance, just to breathe. The air down below’s just fine, and I live out in the country. But there’s something about the air higher up.” She nudged the blanket away from the baby’s face and cradled her tiny head in the crook of her left arm. “Lottie here seems to like it, too. She’s always quieter, but maybe it’s the trip. All those twists and turns probably put her in a trance. And Velvet—that’s the sniffer down there—loves to find out what critters passed this way in the night.”
Cristy peeked at the baby. She had a sweet little pointy chin and surprisingly long eyelashes, like feathers against her cheek. Her hair was the palest brown, not quite blond like her mother’s, and there wasn’t much of it, just enough to be seen.
“She’s lovely,” Cristy said.
“Especially when she’s asleep, although now that she’s beginning to smile, I think she could win a beauty contest.”
“When do they start to smile?”
“Little smiles really early, but at about three to four months they last longer, and she smiles when she’s responding to something she likes.”
“She’s three months?”
“Thirteen weeks.”
The baby opened her eyes and blinked a few times, as if she was trying to focus.