Becoming Calder (A Sign of Love Novel)(15)

"Yes, Father," I whispered.

**********

Hector and Mother Miriam left the following week, and so Mother Hailey and her four boys moved into our wing of the main lodge.
Mother Miriam had never been blessed with children, and so to now have the noise and laughter of kids around brought me happiness.
Mother Hailey had a kind, quiet demeanor and I loved simply being near her. Although I wasn't allowed to cook or clean like Hector's mistresses, Mother Hailey didn't seem to mind that I sat with her as she prepared meals and did laundry.
The first week they were there, I watched her play a game of jacks on the floor as her littlest boy laughed and chased after the small, rubber ball whenever it bounced away from someone.
Standing off to the side, watching them from behind a large column, I felt deep sadness and a memory I chose not to explore, skated around the edges of my mind.
Once, once I had been loved.
The tears began to fall and so I picked up my long skirt and walked quietly up the stairs to my room where I sat on my bed staring out my window at the city lights far, far beyond. I had come from lights just like those—another world entirely—a world almost as distant as the lights of the stars above.
Suddenly my door squeaked open and Mother Hailey stood there, smiling gently at me. She moved her long, light brown hair behind her shoulder.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, and Mother Hailey came and sat on the bed next to me and took my hands in hers. "You're sad all the time. Why, Eden?" Her gentle, blue eyes regarded me with concern.
I sniffled as another tear made its way down my cheek. "I watch you play with your boys and I . . ." I looked up into her kind, pretty face. "I guess I was just wondering, with so many boys, if maybe you . . . could use a girl?" My last word came out on a squeak and my cheeks heated. I knew I was far too old to be useful as somebody's child. I didn't even really know what I was asking her exactly. I felt the loneliness I'd lived with so long consume me.
But she squeezed my hands in hers and she seemed to understand what I was asking for, even if I didn't. "I've always wanted a girl. I love my boys, but, well, to have a girl would be just lovely." She stood up and clapped her hands together. "Well now, this is cause for celebration."
I grinned up at her and felt relief and happiness.
She took my hand and we went downstairs and I watched her as she prepared and cooked dinner, and for the first time since I was a little girl, I felt the love of family around me. I soaked it up like an overly dry sponge suddenly plunged into a sink full of water. Hailey and Hector's four boys raced around the large kitchen, laughing and playing, and Hailey hummed as she worked, shooting me smiles every once in a while.
As she peeled the potatoes, I asked her, "Mother Hailey, do you like being with Hector?"
She looked up at me. "Yes, Eden, he's a kind man if you're obedient."
"And if you're not obedient?" I asked, my cheeks heating as I studied Hailey. It's not that I planned on being disobedient, it was just I had so many hopes and dreams, and I didn't know what I'd do with those once I knew for sure they could no longer come true. Could I simply pack them away in my mind, like old clothes meant to be handed down to someone else? Did Hailey have hopes and dreams that were her own, too?
Hailey stopped peeling and looked up at me, a concerned look replacing the gentle one that had been there a moment before. "Eden, you must always be obedient. You of all of our people. You have an entire family depending on you. The foretelling is the key to our salvation and you are at the center of it. I know you understand that."
I nodded. Yes, I understood. It was the only thing I had been educated on since the day I left my home with Hector. That and my music. But in my room alone, I daydreamed. I allowed my mind to wander in ways that were far from obedient.
My days after that were filled with the first real happiness I'd known since I had arrived. I spent the mornings playing with Jason, Phineus, Simon, and baby Myles and the afternoons reading from the Holy Book—a compilation of the teachings and foretellings of the gods, as spoken to Hector. Then I would practice the piano in the early evening as I continued my real full-time job, which was daydreaming about Calder Raynes.
It was now easier for me to sneak out and leave butterscotch candies for him, and so I ramped up my efforts. Calder had a belly full of sugar those first few weeks.
But it was on my way back to the lodge, right next to the field where Calder had first called me “morning glory,” that I saw him bending over a girl to help her with something on the wooden table where she was sitting.
She said something and glanced back at him and he leaned his head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said in the history of life on earth.