fail her.
Janson squeezed his eyes tightly shut, feeling in that moment that she was slipping away from him, even though he held her, even though his cheek rested against her thigh. She had given up so much to marry him, so much. How could he ever expect—
For a long moment there was silence between them. He could think of nothing to say, even though there were a thousand thoughts and feelings moving through him. Words were so little compared to the things he felt, the things he needed, from her. “I love you,” he said at last. “I just want you t’ be happy. I just want—”
When he lifted his eyes to her face, he found that she was crying, and that vision tore completely through him.
“Please—oh, God, Elise, I would do anything t’ make you happy. I’ll work as hard as any man can; you know I will. I’ll give you th’ home I promised you; I’ll give you th’ life I promised you, no matter how long it takes me—oh, please, I would do anything. Anything—” For a long moment he stared at her, suddenly knowing, understanding. “Even if that means I have t’ take you back home, back t’ your folks. Even if it means that I have t’ beg your pa t’ understand this was all my fault, an’ that you need t’ be back with your people. Even if that means—”
“No,” she said, quietly, shaking her head. “No, I’m not going back home. That’s not my home anymore, and it never will be again. My home is here, with you, wherever we have to be to be together.”
“But, you’ll never be happy here. I know that now—”
She shook her head again. “I’ll be happy because I’m with you; that’s all that’s important. That and—” She fell silent again, her blue eyes searching his own. “Janson,” she said quietly, after a time, “we’re going to have a baby.”
He stared. “A baby?” he said at last, surprised to hear himself say the words, even after he had heard her say them.
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head, her eyes never leaving his.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His hands reached out, his fingers to touch her flat stomach through the fabric of her dress—Elise, his Elise, with a baby inside of her. His baby—he could only stare at his hands for a moment. Elise was going to have a baby. They were going to have a—
He looked up at her, finding her watching him closely. For a moment he was too dumbstruck to speak. “We’re havin’ a baby?” he heard himself say.
“Yes,” she said, and he felt himself begin to smile a moment before he realized—
“You’re happy about it, ain’t you?” he asked, searching her eyes, needing to know.
But suddenly she was smiling, almost with what seemed to be a mixture of relief and worry, as well as with happiness. “You know I am.”
“That’s not th’ reason you’re willin’ t’ stay here, is it? Just because—”
“You know it’s not. After everything we’ve been through to be together—” For a moment she fell silent. “There are a lot of things we both will have to get accustomed to. Everything is so different here, it will just take time for me to get used to it. You have things to get used to as well, you know—” She was suddenly smiling again, looking genuinely happy for the first time since they’d arrived in Alabama. “At least I’ve had a little time to get accustomed to the idea of becoming a mother—”
“A mother,” he said, smiling, the worry leaving him for now in the face of concepts he had not considered coming to them so soon. “You’re going to be a mother.”
“And, you’re going to be a father—the two things go together, you know.”
He was grinning helplessly, and he knew it. He just kept touching her stomach, amazed that inside of her was a new little person. “We’re havin’ a baby.”
“You’re happy about it, aren’t you?”
He looked up, surprised that she had even asked. “You know I am.”
“I’ve just been worried, with everything else—”
He shook his head. “None of that’s important. Don’t even think about it; I’ll take care of everythin’. All you have t’ worry about is takin’ care ’a yourself, an’ our baby.” He grinned, returning to touching her stomach, amazed at what they had done. “How long have you known?”
“Since just before Daddy found out about us—”
“Since—Elise, that’s been—” For a moment he could only stare up at her. “Why ain’t you done told me?”
“With everything that’s been happening, having to worry about getting away, and Daddy hurting you like he did, you almost dying—I couldn’t add even more to the burdens you were already carrying—”
“Burdens? Elise, this ain’t no burden. A baby is the farthest thing from a burden.”
“You won’t mind there being an extra mouth to feed? Three of us to support, instead of just two?”
“Lord, woman, what kind ’a man do you think you married? A man’s got t’ know children’ll come along if he loves his wife th’ way he’s supposed t’. I knowed there’d be more ’n two of us sooner or later. I guess I never thought about it happenin’ s’ soon, since it took my folks s’ long t’ have me after they got married.”
She smiled at him. “It must have happened one of the first times we were together.”
He grinned to himself, then stretched up to draw her lips to his. After a moment, he stood and pulled her up into his arms, to hold her close to him, more content in that moment than he had ever been. “I love you, Elise Whitley,” he said quietly against her hair.
“Sanders,” she reminded him, bringing her eyes to his.
“Mrs. Sanders,” he said, looking at her for a long moment, knowing in that instant what it was to be truly happy.
Janson lay awake before dawn that next morning, having slept very little through the hours of the night. Elise’s body lay warm against him, her head on his shoulder, as he stared at the dark shadows that played across the whitewashed ceiling. Daylight would not be long in coming, but there were decisions he still had to make, choices he had never thought to consider. There were three people he was responsible for now—three—and yet he had no job, no roof of his own to put over their heads, no future he could offer his wife or their child. In bringing Elise here to this life he had offered her, in bringing her to his grandparents’ home to live off what amounted to little more than their charity for a time, he had been doing all that he had known to do in the circumstances in which they had found themselves. There had been no way they could have stayed in Endicott County, Georgia, and lived as man and wife. William Whitley would never have allowed his daughter to live openly as the wife of a dirt-poor, half-Indian farmer—they had both known that, even before her father had tried to kill him, even before her elder brother had thrown him, unconscious, down a well to die, even before that same brother had stolen the money he had worked so hard for and saved, money that would have brought them a much better life
