scrambled unceremoniously out of the buggy. “Go home!” she cried.
“Come with me,” he answered.
Banner went crimson, whirled, and stormed toward the warm sanction of the hotel, Adam’s laughter following after her.
* * *
The snow grew deeper with each passing day until the roofs of houses were groaning under its weight,children were kept home from school, and ships were neither leaving nor arriving in Port Hastings.
Banner, for all that she was very busy with patients at the hospital and the occasional house call with Adam, felt uneasy. It was as though something was bearing down on her, something that would crush her the way the snow was crushing outhouses and chicken coops.
By contrast, the mood in the Corbin house was boisterously festive. Secrets were kept, holly boughs and evergreens were gathered, songs were sung. It turned out that Clarence King, the gambler who’d had a knife thrust through his hand, was possessed of a rousing baritone.
It was to escape this that Banner went to Maggie’s kitchen that stormy afternoon of December twenty-third.
A sturdy woman with merry eyes and unruly gray hair, Maggie McQuire was rolling out pie dough at a worktable near the fire and humming a yuletide hymn.
“No smile for old Maggie?” she asked, breaking off her humming to grin at Banner.
Banner helped herself to coffee at the stove and then went to sit disconsolately on the bench closest to the hearth. The warmth of the crackling, busy fire seemed to exist only on the other side of some invisible barrier. “I’m afraid I don’t feel much like smiling,” she said.
“Missing your folks?”
There were no folks to miss; Banner barely remembered her parents, and her grandmother, who had raised her, had died long before her marriage to Sean. “Isn’t it ever going to stop snowing?” she whispered, neatly skirting Maggie’s question and frowning at the white-trimmed windows.
“Yes,” said Maggie, going on with her work but lending Banner a gruff sort of comfort as she spoke. “It’ll stop and the sun will come out.”
The double meaning lifted Banner’s spirits a little.“You’ve been cooking for days,” she observed. “Don’t you get tired?”
“I’m planning to be tired the day after Christmas,” quipped Maggie. “Until then, I don’t dare stop to draw a breath.” Her plump shoulders moved in a shrug. “I kind of like having all of the family around. Wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t have to chase one of those boys away from my blackberry cobbler every few minutes.”
Banner smiled, and it was a real smile, without effort, feeling good on her face. “You love them very much, don’t you?”
Maggie nodded. “Melissa, too, ‘course. But the boys are real special to me—especially Adam. We’ve had a time with that one right from the first. Near starved to death when he was a baby, Adam did. Guess that’s why I like to cook for him now.”
“Starved to death?” Banner repeated, staring.
Maggie nodded. “Mother’s milk didn’t set well with him, and we didn’t think Adam’d last through his first year. Probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for old Martha Washington.”
Martha Washington? Banner was about to voice her confusion when she remembered the custom of giving Indians the names of famous white people. “What did she do?”
“She came right up to the cabin door one day and said as how she’d heard we had a sick baby. Miss Katie was in tears and Daniel was away somewheres—that’s why I was around so much, though I had myself a husband then—and Adam was squallin’ fit to rouse the dead.
“Old Martha took him right in hand, she did. Once she found out that he wouldn’t take the breast, she boiled up a batch of fresh clams and gave him the broth. Lived on it until he was ten months old.”
Banner pictured the small cabin and the beleaguered young mother and thought how much things hadchanged since then. “Daniel was Mrs. Corbin’s
“Come with me,” he answered.
Banner went crimson, whirled, and stormed toward the warm sanction of the hotel, Adam’s laughter following after her.
* * *
The snow grew deeper with each passing day until the roofs of houses were groaning under its weight,children were kept home from school, and ships were neither leaving nor arriving in Port Hastings.
Banner, for all that she was very busy with patients at the hospital and the occasional house call with Adam, felt uneasy. It was as though something was bearing down on her, something that would crush her the way the snow was crushing outhouses and chicken coops.
By contrast, the mood in the Corbin house was boisterously festive. Secrets were kept, holly boughs and evergreens were gathered, songs were sung. It turned out that Clarence King, the gambler who’d had a knife thrust through his hand, was possessed of a rousing baritone.
It was to escape this that Banner went to Maggie’s kitchen that stormy afternoon of December twenty-third.
A sturdy woman with merry eyes and unruly gray hair, Maggie McQuire was rolling out pie dough at a worktable near the fire and humming a yuletide hymn.
“No smile for old Maggie?” she asked, breaking off her humming to grin at Banner.
Banner helped herself to coffee at the stove and then went to sit disconsolately on the bench closest to the hearth. The warmth of the crackling, busy fire seemed to exist only on the other side of some invisible barrier. “I’m afraid I don’t feel much like smiling,” she said.
“Missing your folks?”
There were no folks to miss; Banner barely remembered her parents, and her grandmother, who had raised her, had died long before her marriage to Sean. “Isn’t it ever going to stop snowing?” she whispered, neatly skirting Maggie’s question and frowning at the white-trimmed windows.
“Yes,” said Maggie, going on with her work but lending Banner a gruff sort of comfort as she spoke. “It’ll stop and the sun will come out.”
The double meaning lifted Banner’s spirits a little.“You’ve been cooking for days,” she observed. “Don’t you get tired?”
“I’m planning to be tired the day after Christmas,” quipped Maggie. “Until then, I don’t dare stop to draw a breath.” Her plump shoulders moved in a shrug. “I kind of like having all of the family around. Wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t have to chase one of those boys away from my blackberry cobbler every few minutes.”
Banner smiled, and it was a real smile, without effort, feeling good on her face. “You love them very much, don’t you?”
Maggie nodded. “Melissa, too, ‘course. But the boys are real special to me—especially Adam. We’ve had a time with that one right from the first. Near starved to death when he was a baby, Adam did. Guess that’s why I like to cook for him now.”
“Starved to death?” Banner repeated, staring.
Maggie nodded. “Mother’s milk didn’t set well with him, and we didn’t think Adam’d last through his first year. Probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for old Martha Washington.”
Martha Washington? Banner was about to voice her confusion when she remembered the custom of giving Indians the names of famous white people. “What did she do?”
“She came right up to the cabin door one day and said as how she’d heard we had a sick baby. Miss Katie was in tears and Daniel was away somewheres—that’s why I was around so much, though I had myself a husband then—and Adam was squallin’ fit to rouse the dead.
“Old Martha took him right in hand, she did. Once she found out that he wouldn’t take the breast, she boiled up a batch of fresh clams and gave him the broth. Lived on it until he was ten months old.”
Banner pictured the small cabin and the beleaguered young mother and thought how much things hadchanged since then. “Daniel was Mrs. Corbin’s
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