“Thor. He can’t hear you.” Haakon tapped his own ear. “He can’t hear anything.”
Aven looked back to Thor, who was still reading his paper. “He can’t?”
After a sip of coffee, Haakon made a face and rose.
Brow lifting, Thor slanted a glance to his brother, then gulped his own brew that was black as night. Haakon fetched a small sugar dish, and Thor rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to reading.
Haakon sat and plopped the dish beside him. “See, look . . .” He knocked on the table near his brother’s elbow. Thor lifted his head.
Haakon touched a finger to his ear and then to his lips. Next he pointed at Thor and, after a few more gestures, pointed over to Aven. Thor looked at her, and gone was her confusion from the day before. In its place was a sadness. Rushing to mind was the weighty expression he’d displayed yesterday. The one that befit what Haakon just declared.
Had she really thought Thor so imposing on the lane? Aye, he was a fair height, and the spindly chair he leaned against seemed to be no match for that broad back, but . . .
“What do I do?” she asked Haakon.
“What do you mean?”
Her gaze was still locked with Thor’s. “What do I say?”
“Say whatever you want. If he’s lookin’ atcha, he can read your lips.”
Truly?
Thor’s focus dropped to her mouth, then back up. Haakon chuckled, and in response, Thor made several motions with his hands to his younger brother. Haakon motioned back. A form of communication, quick and foreign.
“I—I was unaware,” Aven said, hoping she wasn’t interrupting.
Haakon shrugged. “Sorry ’bout that. We’re so used to him this way that we forget others aren’t.” He picked up his fork and stabbed a chunk of potato.
Thor used the heel of his palm to rub his forehead. After nabbing the whiskey bottle, he uncapped it and poured amber liquid into his coffee.
Such an amount that even Haakon stopped chewing. “Easy, Thor.”
Thor gave him a dark look.
Jorgan strode into the kitchen, tucking a small box of matches into his shirt pocket. His smile at Aven was amiable. “Ida said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Aye.” Desperate was the need to figure out what to do. What her place was here. Would she have one? Or was it best for all if she moved on? If she stayed, tongues would wag—people having their say of her presence here with unmarried men, and that would be no help to this family who’d welcomed her in.
Jorgan slid meat onto a plate. “Lemme get Thor and Haakon off, then you and I can sit down.”
“Thank you.”
When Jorgan settled at the head of the table, he and his brothers turned all attention to food and drink. Feeling ever so out of place, Aven tried to do the same. After a few minutes of silence, Haakon tapped the table near Thor to get his attention. He made several of those hand shapes again—so smooth and easy they had to be a sentence. Thor watched, face void of emotion until Haakon must have said something about Aven because Thor’s gaze slid her way. She sat very still.
With two knuckles Thor stroked the side of his beard. Brown eyes still upon her, he took up the sturdy tin cup that was dwarfed by his fingers and gulped what had to be more whiskey than anything else.
“If it’ll set you at ease, you can say good mornin’ to him.” Plate empty, Haakon pushed it back. “You can say it if he sees you, or you can sign it.” With one hand he touched fingertips to his lips, then moved that arm down and up like a rising sun. “Good morning.”
Thor was staring at Haakon now. No . . . glaring.
Then he looked at Aven, and suddenly panicked, she rushed out a “Good morning!” Much too loudly. She winced.
Grinning, Haakon tossed his napkin on the table. “You don’t have to yell.”
Brow stormy, Thor knocked twice on the table and Haakon spoke. “She nearly shouted it.”
“Shut your trap, Haakon,” Jorgan mumbled around a bite of potato.
Skidding his chair back, Thor stood.
“Have I offended him?” Aven asked, and Thor winced like she’d just made it worse.
“Naw. He’s always moody in the morning.” Haakon stared at Jorgan as if daring to be countered. “Blames it on the headaches, but it’s just his personality.”
Thor stomped from the kitchen and into the next room, returning but a moment later with a rifle hitched apart and resting on his sturdy shoulder. He snapped a sharp hand sign in Haakon’s direction and strode out into the sun.
Haakon stood and pointed after him. “See, now if I said that, I’d a gotten my mouth washed out with soap.” He stepped onto the porch, and Jorgan fought to hide a smile behind his coffee cup.
Fearing she’d upset Thor, Aven gathered up their empty plates, stacking them. At the washbasin she rinsed the first few dishes. Through the window she saw Thor leading a team of horses from the barn. With Haakon’s help, they fastened straps and buckles.
“Where are they off to?” she asked.
“Just scoutin’. Thor’s worried about some movement on our land and wanted to have a look around.”
“Oh.”
“Ida’s up in the garden.”
Aven hadn’t asked, but his mention of her whereabouts was thoughtful. She watched as Haakon and Thor worked without speaking to one another. Realizing the plate in hand was dripping onto the clean floor, she turned away for a towel. Aven made a tidy stack of dry dishes on the edge of the table as she knew not where things belonged.
“Tell me, Aven, about yourself.” Jorgan lifted the stack into a cupboard.
She shook the coffeepot to check if it was empty. Aven spoke as she washed it, describing how she’d lived over a bake shop with Benn. “As you know, he worked near the docks building boats. I kept busy by taking in sewing.” She’d learned to piece together a window-ready gown in a week’s time. If there was something she’d learned from watching her mother work, ’twas efficiency and attention to detail.
And why she’d mentioned sewing as an answer to that, she didn’t know.
Perhaps because it was less unsettling than all other aspects of her life.
“And how did you come by such a skill?”
“My mother was in service—seamstress to a lord and his wife. We lived in a manor in the countryside just north of Dublin when I was quite young. I recall very little.” Not much beyond her mother’s hardworking hands and smiling eyes.
Other memories were frailer. Like the mist that had gathered on the hillside there. Memories of Irish gentry, the clank of tea service, and the glow of downstairs evening parties, when colorful gowns twirled by candlelight to the music of a lone fiddle. “I was allowed to stay so long as I kept out from underfoot and out of sight.”’ Twas a rare courtesy extended to the staff.
Who her father was . . . now, that she didn’t know. She wasn’t allowed to play with the other children, and before she was old enough to be told the ways of a man and a maid or how her birth had come about, Aven and her mother were made to leave.
“From there we traveled south to the Limerick workhouse. My mother didn’t survive beyond the first month of our arrival. I was there some time longer.” She kept her voice steady even as grief and loss grew so cold that Aven whisked her mind back to the present. Standing here, in this place—surrounded by Ida’s warm kitchen and Jorgan’s compassionate demeanor.
“I’m real sorry for that,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry at how misleading Dorothe’s letters were in regard to us. My brothers and me. If you’re at ease with staying, I have some ideas as to what you might do here but would rather know from you first.” He dried his hands on the towel she gave him. “What do you wish?”