“Now see,” Hannah’s father said. “There’s an idea that’s got his attention. Do you want to come up the hill after the fireworks?”

Nicholas hesitated. “Will my sisters be there?”

The breath caught in Hannah’s throat. “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Because of Ma,” said the boy. “Because Ma will want to see them.”

“One thing at a time,” Luke said.

It was the kind of thing adults said to children. She said such things to her own, when she wanted to reassure them without making promises. And Nicholas accepted it just as her children did, with a blind faith that was touching, and frightening too.

At the foot of the stair Hannah stopped and turned Nicholas toward her. In the light of a brace of tallow candles his expression seem to jump and shift, all nerves.

She said, “You understand how to act in a sickroom? No loud talking or jumping. Try not to excite her.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “You mean I can’t tell her about Harper?”

“She’s already heard about Harper,” Hannah said. “Do you understand me, Nicholas? Your ma is very ill.”

Nicholas glanced up and then jolted so violently that Hannah herself jumped, even before she saw that Birdie was standing at the top of the stairs. She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again Birdie was standing right in front of them.

“Little girl,” Hannah said, struggling to contain her tone. “What have you been up to now?”

Birdie straightened her shoulders as if she were going into battle, but before she could answer Nicholas jumped in.

“Will you come with me now to see my ma? Please?”

It was the first clear sign that he was worried and agitated, and the only thing that could convince Hannah that Birdie should join them. She pointed up the stair with a movement of her head.

Birdie started to say something and Hannah shot her a look that made her fall silent.

“My ma’s sick,” Nicholas said to Birdie just as Hannah knocked at the door.

“Leave me alone!”

“It’s me,” Hannah said. “And I’ve brought Nicholas to see you.”

They moved into the room, all three of them in a row. Birdie came last, and she came reluctantly. If Nicholas hadn’t had her by the hand, she would have bolted.

Jemima said, “Oh, look, you’ve grown since I’ve been gone.”

“Ma,” Nicholas said, walking right up to her bedside and leaning in to look her in the eye. “Ma, is it true you wanted to take the orchard away from my sister Callie? They said you did but I said that couldn’t be true. I said you wouldn’t be so mean, and they said—” His voice trailed away.

The look Jemima sent Hannah was pure poison. “Have the Bonners been telling you these lies?”

He looked confused for a moment, and then shook his head. “I heard them right here,” he said. “Downstairs in the common room. Callie doesn’t even own the orchard anymore, she sold it to Levi, did you know that? Are you going to try to take it away from Levi? I don’t understand why you’d want an orchard, that’s why I told them it wasn’t true.”

Jemima took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She said, “Once I thought the orchard was rightfully yours, and that you should have it. Property passes from father to son; do you remember us talking about that?”

“Oh,” Nicholas said, bright color coming into his cheeks. “But I don’t want the orchard, Ma. I like helping there, but I wouldn’t know how to take care of it. I’m just a boy.”

Jemima was trying to control her urges, Hannah could see that. “Birdie and I could leave,” she said to mother and son. “We could wait in the hall.”

“Yes,” Jemima said.

“No,” Nicholas said. “Please let them stay, Ma, so if I forget what you said exactly they can remind me. Are you angry with me if I don’t want the orchard?”

Jemima forced a smile. “I’m not angry with you.”

His color climbed another notch, in pleasure or relief or both.

“You look awful sick, Ma.”

“I am sick, but I feel better just now. Will you come to see me every day? I’m going to be at your sister Martha’s house—”

“No,” Hannah said. “No, I wasn’t able to arrange that. Nicholas, you’ll be able to visit your ma right here. She’s only a few minutes away.”

Jemima went still, all expression wiped from her face. “Son,” she said. “Take Birdie and wait in the hall while I talk with Hannah, would you?”

In the hall, Birdie’s legs were so shaky that she sat right down on the floor. She had thought maybe no one would ever know that she had come to talk to Jemima, and then to run into Hannah three steps out the door—that was bad luck. If she had had some good news to bring home, she wouldn’t have minded, but she didn’t. All she had done was to convince herself once and for all that Jemima wasn’t interested in making things better.

And now Nicholas sat beside her, very quiet and still. She wondered if Hannah had said how sick his ma was, and decided she had not. It was not the kind of thing she’d tell in passing. It might be that Nicholas had reasoned some things out for himself, as he did now and then. Birdie tried to imagine how she would feel if her ma were as sick as Nicholas’s, and a hot fear gripped her.

They could hear voices seesawing back and forth, but the words weren’t clear.