Delaney comes through the back door, snatches a scone, and slides into the chair next to mine. Within thirty seconds, she’s checked whether I need anything from town, confirmed that Maggie knows we’re here for dinner, and texted someone about something I can’t follow. The woman coordinates as if it’s second nature.
“How are you settling in?” Luna asks, moving to sit beside me.
“Getting there.” My standard answer. Safe. Noncommittal.
She nods as if she hears what I’m not saying. “I grew up in the system too.”
My eyes widen.
She says it without ceremony, without the careful framing people use when they want you to know they understand. She says it the way you say it to someone who’ll know exactly what it means: quickly, factually, and without requiring a response.
“The first few weeks are the hardest,” she continues, her voice low enough that it’s just for me. “Your brain keeps running the math. How long before the catch? How long before someone changes their mind?” She picks up her tea. “The math never comes out right here. These people don't work that way.”
My throat tightens. “How long before you stopped counting?”
She thinks about it. Really thinks, not the polite pause of someone performing empathy. “I’ll let you know when I do.” A small, honest smile. “But the intervals get longer. And the man helps.”
My throat works. I look away, down at the scone, at my hands wrapped around the plate. She said it so simply, as if arriving at a ranch terrified and broken is a stage you pass through, and there’s an after.
A fourth woman appears. Small and blonde, with creative energy crackling off her like static. She takes the chair across from me and says without preamble, “I’m Kitty, Tom's wife. Shay told me about your nails. Can I see?”
I freeze. I want to curl my fingers and hide, but Kitty’s expression isn’t one of horror or fascination; it’s the focused look of a woman solving a problem.
I uncurl my fingers and lay them flat on the table. Bitten to the quick, cuticles torn.
Kitty studies them for three seconds. No flinch. “I can work with that. Remind me before you leave.”
Luna stands and collects one of the jars from the counter. She crosses to me and sets it on the table next to my plate. It’s sealed with a handwritten label. She opens it to reveal the thick,cream-colored contents, flecked with green, and the smell that rises is a combination of herbs and something earthy, made with intention.
“Kitty made it,” Luna says. “For your skin. Calendula, oats, beeswax. She tested three batches.”
My hands are in my lap, and the jar is on the table, and I cannot reach for it because reaching means accepting that someone told these women about my skin. But they’re not offering pity. They made something especially for me.
“Oh.” My voice comes out cracked and small. “You didn’t have to?—”
“Of course we didn’t.” Shay interrupts my protest before it forms. “Kitty’s been looking for a reason to use the calendula she dried last fall. You’re doing her a favor.”
I pick up the jar.
Three batches. Kitty, whom I met minutes ago, tested three batches because Ethan told them about my skin. He didn’t make a speech. Didn’t ask for my permission. He gave these women what they needed and stepped back. Built me a whole family of caretakers without ever telling me he was doing it.
I grip the jar, and the room blurs at the edges.
Shay is saying something about the next batch while Luna tops off my coffee.
Delaney’s hand briefly rests on my arm, a practical pressure that conveys, “I know. You’re okay.”
Henry moves through the background with Max on his hip, fixing a cabinet hinge one-handed.
Nobody comments on the tears I’m blinking back because every woman in this kitchen has been where I’m sitting.
“Angus made her test it on him first,” Luna adds. “Both forearms. He let her slather calendula paste on him for twenty minutes. Didn’t say a word. Just stood there with his sleeves rolled up and his scars visible, letting her work.”
“He’s ridiculous,” Kitty says, though her voice is soft.
“He’s Angus.” Luna shrugs like a woman who has stopped being surprised by her husband’s devotion and has started to expect it. “He doesn’t know how to love small.”
Shay snorts. “None of them do. Henry ate twelve scones this morning because I was nervous about the batch. Didn’t tell me they were overbaked until I found him drinking a gallon of water behind the barn.” She shakes her head, but her smile is that of a woman who watched a man the size of a barn door choke down bad pastry because her feelings mattered more than his stomach. “Tom’s the worst, though.”