Plans to have her again washed away with the morning dew, and they were soon readying a buggy.
As the sun crested the horizon, Eleazar looked east and suffered a melancholy sense of foreboding. The bitter cold blanketed the earth in a crisp frost as magenta hues fought for the sky and clouds rolled overhead.
The horses huffed and kicked as steam rose off their bodies and misted from their nostrils. They rode in silence, nothing but the click-clack of hooves on the ground accompanied by the rattling of their rig.
Larissa shivered and he pulled her closer to his body. “You need a cloak.”
“I’d rather make new ones than have to ask Silus for my things.”
“Of course.” The less she asked of Silus, the better. “I’ll send for the materials you need.”
When they pulled in front of the Hartzler house, he said a silent prayer that the day would not be too difficult for his mate. The door of the house opened, and he sensed Abilene’s presence before he spotted her.
As he handed Larissa down, her mother gasped. “Larissa? Is it really you?”
Eleazar gave a polite nod, regretting the site of the woman’s gaunt cheeks and the fact that her appearance would no doubt trouble his mate. “Good morning, Sister Abilene.”
“B—Bishop King.” Her startled gaze searched her daughter’s composed expression then returned to him. Her desperate fear pierced him like a thousand needles. “Is Jonas…?”
“I have no news of Jonas’s whereabouts. I’m only here to deliver your daughter.”
He could see she wanted to embrace her daughter but would not do so in his presence. Saving Larissa the need for an urgent explanation, he casually grasped her hand and gave her an affectionate squeeze. Call for me when you are ready to be picked up.
She nodded. “I will.”
Tipping his hat toward Abilene, he circled the carriage and collected the reins. It was difficult to willingly leave Larissa behind, and he counted the moments until she would return to his side again.
“How long have you been home, Larissa? And why is the bishop escorting you?”
“May we go inside and talk? I’m freezing.”
Leading her mother into her childhood home, she immediately noted the unusual sense of emptiness compared to the fullness it once was with six of them living under its roof.
A squeal pierced the vacant silence and Larissa was thrown off balance as her younger sister Gracie catapulted into her arms. “You’re back! I knew you would come back! Oh, how I’ve missed you, sister!”
Larissa laughed joyfully and hugged Gracie’s smaller form. “Oh, Grace, I have missed you dreadfully. You look exactly the same.”
“Did you expect me to change?”
“No, I just… I guess I’ve just been away for so long, I assumed something should look different.”
She turned her concern back to her mother. She had lost weight. Her cheeks were gaunt and her eyes heavily shadowed.
The momentary sense of joy attached to their reunion crumbled under the press of reality. She collected her mother’s cold hands in hers and looked into her eyes.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t been here for you, Mother. If there’s anything I can do—”
“There’s nothing to be done.” Her mother withdrew her hands and busied herself at the counter, where a loaf of raw dough needed to be worked. “Your father belongs to her now.”
The sharp certainty of her statement sliced like a knife. “Mother…” She wanted to say that she would always have a part of him, but in light of all she has lost, any attempt to beautify the pain seemed trite and insincere. “I hate that this is happening to you.”
Hate was not a word their kind often used, but its potency fit at the moment.
Her mother’s eyes closed and she exhaled. “I hate it too.” When she opened her eyes, she stared at Larissa through a wall of unshed tears and worked her fingers into the dough. “But I love your father, and we all must make our sacrifices.”
Her stoic words were made of strength and grit, but her voice crumbled under their weight. Larissa took a step to comfort her mother, only to have Gracie catch her sleeve and hold her back. With a shake of her sister’s head, she understood that their mother did not wish to be coddled.
It broke Larissa to think of the pain she had to bear on her own. But her mother was a woman of pride, and she would likely do her best to fall apart in private and save others the empathetic ache. It was no wonder Adam was not around. Her brother, a gifted empath, would suffer every ounce of their mother’s agony.
They each had their ways of coping, but this was happening to her family, and Larissa had so much regret for the months Silus had kept her away. She ached to hug her mother. “Let go of me, Grace.”