At breakfast the next morning, I didn’t look at any of them. I served myself toast and a boiled egg and kale and sat at the far end of the table, away from Billy and Liz.

“Hey,” Billy said. “Good morning.”

I rose to pour myself a cup of coffee.

The little ones had egg all over their hands, so I dampened a cloth and wiped their tiny fingers. Emma and Jackson and Hunter got up and cleared their dishes.

“I’ll be in the schoolhouse in a few minutes,” Liz told them. “You can get started with the chapter.”

And then the high schoolers were gone, and the little ones were lost in their own worlds. I felt the intensity of Terry and Liz and Billy staring at me. Looked up and found it to be true.

“Where’s Lee?” I asked.

“He’ll be staying in bed today,” Terry told me. “He’s tired and needs to rest. Julia’s up there now to check on him.”

I nodded. Chewed and swallowed. Found I wasn’t hungry.

I heard Julia’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Mila,” she said. “I need to get ready for the twins to arrive. They’ll be here soon. Would you be willing to help me? After we’re done, you can have the rest of the day for lesson planning in the schoolhouse.”

I cleared my dishes.

The rest of them still sat at the table. I followed Julia out of the kitchen.

I’d been upstairs only a few times over the months I’d lived on the farm—last night when I’d gone searching for Lee, once to help wash the little ones’ hair, once to carry a chair from the basement up to Lee’s room. He’d wanted a place of his own to read. I passed his room now, paused to listen. Only silence. I touched the door as though it could tell me something, and then followed Julia down the hall. There were three bedrooms on the second story: Lee’s; the little ones’; and one that would soon belong to the twins. The teenagers lived in the two attic rooms, and Terry and Julia’s bedroom was downstairs. The house seemed to go on forever.

Julia stepped through the door at the end of the hall. A slanted ceiling. Two wicker beds, with a circular rag rug between them. She set the sheets down, opened the window to let in the breeze. We made one of the beds and then the other. We wiped dust from the dresser and fluffed the pillows.