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“Rare for a woman to get with child again before weaning. Not impossible, but rare.”

Mrs. Maggs set a cup of coffee before her. Adele blew on it, then sipped. It was bitter, mostly chicory. She would remember to bring a bag of coffee with her the next time she came out. “And what about after weaning?” Adele asked.

She prepared herself for a talking-to about how George wouldn’t be a baby forever, how Adele would want another child before she knew it.

But Mrs. Maggs just said, “Drink your coffee, and then we’ll go out to the garden.

I’ll show you what you need. Nothing’s foolproof, mind. But then, you’re no fool.”

Adele dressed George in trousers most days.

Dresses were for church and company. And thanks to Mrs. Clemson, George had a closetful of the frilly, impractical things.

Adele’s mother was always measuring George and asking her to try things on, two activities Adele had hated when she was a girl.

But George didn’t seem to mind. She twirled her ruffled skirts and giggled.

When her grandmother presented her with a choice of fabric, she inevitably chose the floweriest, most-likely-to-show-a-stain pastel option.

Mrs. Clemson was delighted with her granddaughter.

Her only complaint was that George would not stop growing.

“Just like you,” her mother said accusingly, as if Adele had any control over her daughter’s height.

Though she secretly believed she might. Let her be tall, Adele thought as she spooned hearty servings onto her daughter’s plate, remembering how often she’d risen hungry from her mother’s table.

She could work herself into a state thinking about all that. But then George would climb into her lap and put her sweet, soft arms around Adele’s neck, and Adele’s mind and nerves would calm. “She has what Pauline had,” Adele said to Charles one night. “Somehow she just settles you.”

Charles admitted that he had felt it too. “But I haven’t had much experience with children,” he said. “I thought it was just her being little that did it.”

“I don’t think so,” said Adele.

Charles reached for her and kissed her neck. “We could find out. Do an experiment. Have another one.”

He’d begun hinting at this. Making it clear he wanted another child. They weren’t careful with their lovemaking, and she was eager for it still. Surely by now he must know a baby would not be coming. George was nearly six, after all. Despite the way he was kissing her neck, she stiffened.

He drew back. “Adele?”

She felt the tears starting—she hated to cry in front of anyone, but she especially hated to cry in front of Charles.

“Oh, honey.” He folded her into his arms and pressed her between them.

He wasn’t Pauline or George, but the pressing calmed her enough for her to whisper, “I can’t, Charles.”

“I know it took a while the first time. And it might take a while again. Once you stop drinking your ... well, you know.”

This surprised her. She had thought her herb garden was of little interest to him. She’d assumed he never noticed the teas she brewed and drank. Men weren’t supposed to know about these things.

Charles sighed and said, “You hate gardening, but you’re religious about tending that patch near the kitchen door.

And there was a ... woman ... in France.

A woman I met during the war, who—” Already Adele wanted to cover her ears.

“I asked her how she kept from ... you know.” He turned bright red from the collar up and began to stammer.

It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to hear about the woman—she hoped it had been only one—in France.

It was that talking about the war meant he’d have the dreams. He’d wake up shaking and sweating, and she would hold him until the terror subsided, saying, “Oh, honey, it’s okay.

It’s just fine. I’m right here. I’m right here with you.

I’m right here. Always.” In the morning, he’d seem his normal self, and they would not speak of it.

She didn’t want to speak of this. She was the one shaking now, remembering the forceps protruding from Dr. Sawyer’s leather bag, the smell of blood and shit and fear, her sister’s casket descending into the muddy trench.

Mrs. Maggs had, the year before, been lowered into her own deep hole in the dirt.

No new midwife had taken her place, and no new doctor had arrived to compete with Dr. Sawyer.

Even if one had, Adele wouldn’t have taken her chances with him.

Charles would love her less if she told him.

It was a miracle that he had ever loved her at all.

She was odd. People talked about her. They laughed about her.

She could tolerate the laughter—she laughed right back.

It was their pity she couldn’t bear. Pity for strange Adele Ector, not woman enough to bear more children.

She hated the way her body shook. The way she was powerless to stop it.

Charles pressed her tightly and whispered, “It doesn’t matter.

” A sob escaped her. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

He held on to her and said, “Oh, honey, it’s okay.

It’s just fine. I’m right here. I’m right here with you. Right here. Always.”

When Adele’s mother brought George pink satin hair ribbons, George bounced up and down with glee.

“For her first day of school,” said Mrs. Clemson.

How could George be old enough to go off to school?

Adele fussed and fussed tying and retying the ribbons until the bows looked relatively similar in size.

What a waste of time, she thought, and then, seeing George’s smile in the mirror, she felt an increasingly familiar pang of guilt.

“Oh, Adele,” said her mother. “They’re just ribbons. What’s the harm?”

The harm was that George was going out into the world.

Where she’d meet more girls in ruffles and bows, and boys who wanted her to stay in the house and pretend to cook while they galloped around the schoolyard on their pretend horses.

She couldn’t prevent this from happening.

All she could do was try to counter it with her own example.

On Saturdays, she led George on tramps across the Ector property, took her down to creek beds to search for crawdads. She drove her to the Clemson ranch and tried to get her interested in the steers. “When you’re older, you can raise one,” said Adele.

George looked appalled. “Why?”

“For the experience of learning to take care of an animal. And to earn money,” said Adele.

George blinked her golden-hazel eyes—eyes just like Pauline’s—and said nothing.

She was a polite child—too polite, Adele often thought.

Rather than say she wasn’t interested in learning to take care of a steer or selling one for money, she just kept quiet.

Had Adele taught her to do that? She didn’t think so, but George had certainly picked it up somewhere.

Possibly from her new friend, Helen. Adele was hearing quite a bit about her these days.

Thanks to Helen, George had asked for patent leather shoes.

Impractical and uncomfortable, and thus, an utterly ridiculous request. But George kept pestering until Charles said, “Maybe for your birthday.” Men were weak.

They tramped back through the long grass, George wearing a chain of oxeye daisies she’d woven while Adele poked around in the shallows, turning over rocks and hoping to flush out a crawdad.

Her daughter skipped alongside her and asked if she could have an embroidery hoop for her birthday instead of the shoes. “And some floss,” she added.

Adele planned to get George a bicycle for her seventh birthday. Something she would have dearly loved as a girl. “What for?” asked Adele.

“For cross-stitch. Helen has one.”

“Oh, I’ll bet she does.”

“Lots of girls at school do.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s about time I learned to sew, don’t you think?”

Adele most assuredly did not. But the longing in her daughter’s eyes stopped her from saying so.

She was the wrong mother for her daughter.

Any other woman would do better—would be the mother George clearly wanted.

A mother like Adele’s, who enjoyed curling her little girl’s hair, who knew how to tie ribbons and do cross-stitch.

Adele sighed. “Let’s go home. I need to tune up your father’s truck before he drives down to Wichita Falls this week anyway.”

“Ford!” whooped Georgeanne. She bounded ahead of Adele, punctuating each leap by singing, “Model! Teeee! Pickup!” The fragile daisy chain fell to the ground, but George didn’t notice. She glanced back at Adele. “Can I help?”