*
“Hey, honey,” Aunt Mary said when I finally returned to the house. She was kneeling on the living room rug while Emily stood on an ottoman with her arms outstretched, dressed like an angel. “We missed you at breakfast.”
“I’m sorry I left without telling you. I—”
“You had to choose between running off with a handsome cowboy you haven’t seen in months or staying in a house full of rowdy strangers…”
“And gravy,” I told her. “I also ran away from the gravy. Which might have been a mistake.”
“Then tomorrow I’ll teach you how to make it. Would you like that, Hulda?” She looked as if she expected me to protest. Or maybe confess. I was officially paranoid.
“I’d probably burn down your house.”
“It takes a lot more than you to turn this place to ash.”
“Aunt Mary, are you done yet?” Emily shifted from foot to foot.
“Stop fidgeting,” Aunt Mary commanded, then pulled a straight pin from the puffy band on her wrist and studied Emily’s too-long costume.
“I’m tired,” Emily complained, but Aunt Mary just cut her eyes up at her.
“You’re not being very angelic,” Aunt Mary said. “So, Hulda, do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“And are you settling in okay?”
“I guess so.”
“And you know you can come to me, right? If there’s anything you want to talk about. Anything at all.”
“Of course.” I smiled. I lied.
*
If it’s possible for real life to turn into a montage from a movie, that’s what happened next.
Every morning Ethan knocked on Aunt Mary’s door and I went to help him feed. (My job was opening the gates. According to Ethan, it was a very important job.)
Every afternoon I helped Aunt Mary cook and deliver food to the older people in the community who couldn’t get out in the snow. “Here,” she said the first day, handing me the keys. “I don’t drive much anymore.”
Emily and the twins tried to teach me how to two-step.
Clint grilled steaks and we had big, noisy dinners at Ethan’s house with everybody taking turns holding Ethan’s cousin’s baby.
Aunt Mary put me in charge of wrapping presents and the twins let me hold a baby pig.
And through it all, Ethan was there, teaching me how to drive a stick shift in the chore truck, teasing me when my boots got so bogged down in mud that I actually stepped out of them and had to walk back to Aunt Mary’s on bare feet.
He didn’t talk about Hulda.
He didn’t ask me where I was from or why I was running.
He didn’t look at me like I was a liar or a fraud or a cheat.
And, for a few days there, I wasn’t really Hulda and I wasn’t really me. For a few days, I was just … happy.
Because, for a few days, I had a family.
*
“You’ve got to keep stirring,” Aunt Mary told me. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and even though it was below freezing outside, Aunt Mary’s kitchen was hot. Steam collected on the windows while the brown concoction on the stove boiled and popped like something in a witch’s cauldron.
“Are you stirring?” Aunt Mary asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She eyed the boiling caramel. “Stir harder.”
When the caramel began to splatter, Aunt Mary said, “Oh, hon, you’re gonna get that all over your pretty top. Go grab an apron.”
There was a hook full of aprons in the laundry room and I grabbed one that was pink and covered with white flowers. But as soon as Aunt Mary saw me, something in her eyes made me stop.
“What?” I asked, then looked down and saw the name embroidered on the pocket. Daisy. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is this your daughter’s?”
“Yes, it is. But … you wear it,” Aunt Mary said. “She’d want you to wear it.”
When I started pulling my hair up into a ponytail Aunt Mary asked, “Did anyone ever tell you your hair looks nice away from your face?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “My mom.”
“Do you miss her, sweetie? We can call her, or—”
“No,” I said too quickly. “I mean, that’s okay. The time difference, you know. It can wait.”
The back door slammed open as Emily yelled, “Aunt Mary!”
“Boots!” Aunt Mary said, but Emily was already pulling off her muddy boots and leaving them by the back door.
“Aunt Mary, do you have any potatoes?” she asked.
“Why?” Aunt Mary sounded skeptical, but Emily cut her eyes at me.
“You’ll see.”