The Revealing by Suzanne Woods Fisher Page B

might take another few days. It might be four or five days before she heard back from him. Should she try to go visit him? She had offered to visit him but he had discouraged her, telling her he’d prefer letters. To be frank, visiting a prison filled her with panic.
    Should she call Allen Turner? He was a go-between for Tobe and his court-appointed attorney. But then she dismissed that thought. She couldn’t involve him in a family issue like this.
    Back in the house, Rose dashed off a letter to Tobe to find out if he knew a woman named Paisley. She had just arrived at Eagle Hill, with plans to stay. Also, with plans to deliver a baby. His baby.
    And did he have any idea yet when he might be released from prison?
    She had just sent Mim off to town with the letter when she heard Paisley call out to her. “Oh Rose. I’ve had a little accident. Can you come here? Quickly?”
    Rose hurried upstairs to Bethany’s room. There in the middle of the quilt Bethany had just finished—the first quilt she had ever made—was a tipped-over bottle of bubble-gum-pink nail polish. The polish had started with a puddle and was now spreading out. Paisley stood in the center of theroom, a blank look on her face. “I was polishing my toes and must have knocked the bottle over.”
    Rose quickly picked up the bottle and lifted the quilt as carefully as she could, so the rivers of polish would remain on that one quilt block and not spread onto others.
    “Oh dear, oh dear,” Paisley said, fanning her eyes with her hand as if she was trying not to cry. “It’s my condition, you see. I have become so clumsy.”
    Rose’s first inclination was to ask her why she would paint her toenails on someone’s handmade quilt, but instead she said, “It’ll be all right. Bethany can replace that quilt block and it will be good as new.” She was trying to be polite to the girl. It would be a painstaking task to fix this quilt.
    “Well,” Paisley snuffled like a little child. “If you’re sure.”
    As Rose carried the quilt downstairs to the basement to try to get the stain out, she cringed, thinking of Bethany’s reaction. She was going to hit the roof when she saw her spoiled quilt. She had just finished it! Her first quilt.
    After Paisley had recovered from her episode of near tears, she found Rose hanging the quilt on the clothesline and said she wanted a tour of the whole farm. Rose showed her the garden, the henhouse, the pastures, Silver Queen and her colt, and the barn. As they walked, Paisley was full of questions like how fast do chickens lay eggs—daily—and how long did it take for a horse to have a colt—about eleven months—and were sheep a good investment—no—and how much money did Rose think the whole place was worth? She asked Paisley what made her so curious about Eagle Hill and she said, “Oh, well. Tobe can’t stop raving about the place.” She peered into Flash’s stall and the old horse peered back at her. “I suppose it’s become like home to me.”
    Rose was just about to ask Paisley where her home was, when Sammy came out of the feed room, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with hay. Paisley made a big fuss over him. “You’re such a little boy to be pushing that big wheelbarrow!”
    Rose cringed. She knew how sensitive Sammy was about his small stature. His cheeks turned red and he got flustered and called her Parsley. She laughed the first time, then she got irritated when he called her Parsley a second time.
    “Sammy,” Rose said, “I hear Silver Queen neighing for her dinner. Why don’t you head out to her.”
    Sammy grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and hurried out the barn door.
    As soon as he was gone, Rose turned to Paisley. “Please don’t embarrass him. He’ll learn your name. It’s just a little . . . unusual.”
    Paisley lifted her eyebrows at Rose and then nodded as if she understood a great secret. “Oh! Tobe didn’t tell me that Sammy was developmentally delayed.”
    “What?”