The Gift of a Child by Laura Abbot

voice.
    Rose barely heard Lavinia’s “How nice” before her eyes teared up when Alf put his arm around Mattie’s shoulder and said matter-of-factly, “We love Sett.”
    The sun bore down, causing Rose to feel faint. No, I can’t let myself think about love. Not with Seth, not with any man. I couldn’t bear the hurt again.
    * * *
    Perspiration dripped from Rose’s forehead and she wished nothing more than to step out of her stifling dress and sink into a cool bath. Laundry day in the Kansas summer came too often. Elbow deep in the steaming water, she scrubbed their clothes along the corrugated surface of the washboard, knowing, as she did so, that her roughened knuckles would tell the tale. She glanced up to check on Alf, who sat in the shade of the backyard elm tree playing with his blocks, which had lately become a stable for his new horse carving. Nearly finished, she wrung out the clothes and piled them in a basket.
    “Alf, would you help me hang the wash?”
    Trailed by Ulysses, he joined her where she stood beneath the clothesline, the laundry basket at her feet. “Your job is to give me these clothespins,” she said, handing him a drawstring bag.
    He extracted a handful, studied them, and said, “Sojers.”
    “Soldiers?” Rose laughed, already picturing him commandeering her clothespins to populate the fort he now would undoubtedly construct from his blocks. Then another thought came to her. “Alf,” she asked cautiously, “where did you see soldiers?”
    He shrugged, then handed her a clothespin. “E-nah and me.”
    Such a tiny clue. That and his “cage.” What else did he hold in his little head that had no means of expression and how closely dared she question him? “Did you know a soldier?”
    “Bad man.” Alf sucked on the end of a clothespin.
    “Here, give that to me.” She took the damp pin and began hanging shirts on the line. “Is your horse lonesome?” she asked, knowing she couldn’t delve any more deeply into his past at this moment and hoping to divert him.
    The boy looked up at her, as if questioning her abrupt change of subject. “Lonesome? He’s sleeping.” He reached again into the clothespin bag, handing one to her. “Another sojer for you.”
    As they continued hanging the laundry, Rose wondered for the hundredth time where Alf had come from, who his parents were and why someone had so cruelly abandoned him. With the chore finally completed, Rose went to the pump and plunged her hands into the cold water, wiping her face and neck with a cool cloth. “Alf? Are you hot?”
    Shaking his head, the boy gathered up his toys and followed her inside. She had just recombed her hair and gathered it into a bun when she heard a knock on the door. “A man is here,” Alf called from the parlor. Straightening the collar of her plain dress, Rose hurried to the door, dismayed to see Sheriff Jensen standing there, his hat in his hand.
    “Come in, please,” Rose said, her mouth dry. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Perhaps you could use a glass of lemonade.”
    Glancing in Alf’s direction, the lawman took the hint. “That would be welcome.” The boy looked up briefly, but then turned back to his marbles.
    Rose poured two glasses of lemonade, not permitting her mind to go to the reason for the sheriff’s visit. “You have news?” she finally mumbled.
    He cupped the glass in his large, freckled hands. “Nothing but a clue. I thought you needed to know.”
    She sat, her lemonade untouched, as he told her of a report from a small town south of Fort Riley, home of the U.S. Cavalry, concerning an army deserter and the Pawnee woman he had been seen dragging about four years earlier. When the man left her to go into hiding, she scrabbled for work, performing the most menial of chores. Then as it became obvious she was pregnant, she, too, disappeared. Whether there was any possibility these were Alf’s parents remained unclear, but at least it put the Indian woman in the Flint Hills