She smiled.
“You changed quickly.”
“I’m adaptable.”
Pregnancy frightened Judith more than she expected.
Every cramp meant disaster.
Every morning without sickness worried her.
Every night she checked for blood.
Zeke noticed all of it.
He did not tell her not to worry.
That would have been useless.
Instead he learned.
Sarah explained warning signs.
Zeke memorized them.
Judith hated being watched.
They argued.
“I am not glass.”
“I know.”
“You stared at me for ten minutes while I carried laundry.”
“It was a heavy basket.”
“It contained shirts.”
“My shirts are large.”
“That is not an argument.”
Eventually they negotiated.
Judith could work.
Zeke could worry.
Neither was allowed to become unbearable about it.
They failed often.
The baby survived summer.
Then autumn.
Judith’s body grew even larger.
For the first time in her life, no one dared suggest she should eat less.
Zeke fed her constantly.
“You're trying to fatten me.”
“You're already perfect.”
“That was suspiciously smooth.”
“I practiced.”
“On whom?”
“The mule.”
Judith threw bread at him.
In November labor began.
Snow had already closed the highest trail.
Sarah stayed at the cabin three weeks before Judith’s due date because Zeke refused to risk being unable to fetch her.
Judith objected.
Sarah accepted the bed.
Zeke slept near the stove.
When labor came, it lasted eighteen hours.
Judith believed she would die at hour twelve.
At hour fourteen she promised God several things she had no intention of honoring.
At hour seventeen she told Zeke she hated him.
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Then Sarah said:
“One more.”
Judith screamed.
The cabin filled with another sound.
A baby.
Alive.
Loud.
Furious.
Sarah laughed.
“A girl.”
Judith collapsed back.
“A girl?”
Zeke stood frozen.
Sarah wrapped the infant.
Judith looked toward him.
He seemed terrified.
“Come here.”
He approached slowly.
Sarah placed the child in Judith’s arms.
Tiny.
Red.
Dark hair.
Judith cried.
Zeke cried too.
Completely.
No attempt to hide.
Judith looked at him.
“Three sons?”
“Never heard of them.”
She laughed through tears.
Zeke touched one finger to the baby’s cheek.
“Hello.”
The child screamed louder.
“Strong.”
Judith smiled.
“What do we call her?”
They had discussed names.
None felt right.
Judith looked toward the window.
Snow beyond the glass.
Then at the cabin.
The place that once held one chair.
One cup.
One man.
Now Sarah.
Judith.
Zeke.
A baby screaming with enough strength for three.
“Hope.”
Zeke looked at her.
“Hope?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Hope Thorne.”
Judith laughed.
“That sounds like a warning.”
“Good.”
Their daughter changed the cabin.
Everything moved.
Zeke built a cradle.
Badly.
Judith criticized it.
He rebuilt it.
Hope cried at night.
Zeke walked the floor.
Judith nursed.
Sometimes the baby slept on his enormous chest, almost disappearing beneath his beard.
Judith would stare.
Zeke caught her often.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look strange.”
“I’m looking at my family.”
The word family never stopped feeling miraculous.
A year later Bishop Staltzfus visited again.
He brought a small quilt from women in the settlement.
Judith touched the stitching.
Names she recognized.
Women who had once watched through curtains as she left.
“Why?”
The bishop said:
“They wanted Hope to have something from where you came from.”
Judith’s throat tightened.
“Thank them.”
“You could come visit.”
She looked at Zeke.
He shrugged.
Her choice.
“I might.”
The following spring, Judith returned.
Not permanently.
For a day.
Hope rode against her chest.
Zeke beside her.
People stared when they entered the settlement.
Judith felt her old body memories return.
Shoulders narrowing.
Chin dropping.
Then Hope grabbed at her prayer covering.
Judith laughed.
Loud.
Several people turned.
She almost stopped.
Then didn't.
Miriam Fisher, one of her childhood friends, approached first.
“Judith?”
Judith smiled.
“Miriam.”
They hugged.
Hope cried.
Everyone laughed.
Judith looked around.
Nothing had changed completely.
That was all right.
She had.
Years passed.
Hope became five.
Then seven.
The cabin received an addition.
Then another.
No biological siblings came.
Judith conceived once more when Hope was four.
Lost the pregnancy at twelve weeks.
Grief nearly broke both of them.
Judith waited for Zeke to become distant.
He did not.
For three days he barely spoke.
Then he sat beside her one evening.
“I loved that child.”
Judith began crying.
“So did I.”
“I still love you.”
She looked at him.
“I know.”
That mattered.
They never conceived again.
At first Judith mourned the absence.
The imagined sons.
Daughters.
Beds that would never be filled.
Then life complicated the meaning of empty rooms.
A winter accident killed a trapping couple fifteen miles east.
They left two boys.
Samuel, nine.
Benjamin, six.
No nearby family.
The settlement planned to send them to relatives in Ohio.
Zeke heard.
He looked at Judith.
She looked at him.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally Judith said:
“We have room.”
Zeke smiled.
“Three boys by spring.”
She stared.
“Don't.”
“Hope counts as trouble enough for two.”
Judith laughed so hard she cried.
Samuel and Benjamin came to the mountain in January.
Not immediately sons.
Children did not become family because adults signed papers.
Samuel distrusted Zeke.
Benjamin cried at night.
Hope became furious that they touched her toys.
Judith sometimes wondered whether they had made a terrible mistake.
Then one evening Samuel called from outside:
“Pa!”
Zeke froze.
Judith froze.
Samuel had never used the word before.
Zeke stepped from the barn.
“Yes?”
Samuel looked embarrassed.
“The trap line broke.”
Zeke nodded.
“I’ll come.”
He walked away before tears could embarrass the boy.
Judith saw him wipe his face behind the barn.
She never mentioned it.
By spring, the cabin had three children.