The Firstborn

Chapter Two

"Well, aren't you a cheerful thing this morning?"

Sophia swept a lock of red hair back from her cheek before bending down over the small, wooden cradle. George stood on the balls of his feet, both hands reaching up towards her while his plump fingers made grasping motions in the air. As soon as her hands clasped him beneath his arms, the infant let out a terrific squeal of delight, his blue eyes shining as Sophia swung him over the edge of the cradle and into a full circle through the air before finally settling him on her hip.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked, the sound of her voice only increasing the boy's grin, a grin that sported two white teeth from his bottom gums. As Sophia changed the boy's nappy and put him in clean clothes for the day, she spoke to him of what she'd dreamed about while she slept, of the sun that shone in through the bedroom windows, and of the white roses that had begun to bloom along the hedge. George babbled in reply to every one of her queries, his hands clapping excitedly when she again picked him up and carried him downstairs for his breakfast.

"Would you like some apples?" Sophia asked as she opened a crock of applesauce and poured it into a dish. The boy chattered from his corner of the kitchen, where there was an assortment of wooden blocks and a newly purchased toy horse complete with a wooden carriage that rolled along the floor on clackety wheels.

"We should get a bit of string for that carriage," she went on, her hands deftly slicing off the end of a loaf of dark bread that she passed down to the child. He began to gum the tough bread eagerly, while a sheen of drool collected on his chin and ran down to soak his collar. "That way, as soon as you begin to walk, you'll be able to pull it along behind you all through the house!"

George shrieked around a mouthful of soggy bread and kicked out his pudgy legs as Sophia lifted him from the floor and set him in his high chair at the end of the table. She sat beside him on a tall stool, feeding him bites of apples as he lost interest in the bread and began to tear it to crumbs.

"Perhaps we should go for a walk this afternoon," Sophia suggested, taking the now empty bowl to the wash basin. "If the sunshine holds, we could even have a bit of a picnic. How would you like that?"

She continued to chatter to the babe as she fixed her own breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen. She ate standing up, slipping bites of buttered bread and bacon between sweeping the floor and wiping down the table. The windows would soon need a good wash, she reminded herself as she glanced out into the garden behind the cottage. And the garden needed a good weeding, and the hedge needed a trim, and...

"Or perhaps we'll save the picnic for tomorrow, hmm?" She pinched one of George's cheeks as she passed by his chair, but the boy was too occupied with banging one of his blocks against the tabletop to notice the brief touch. "Besides, Lissy should be coming today to help wash the curtains, and I'm sure she'll want to take you out to search for caterpillars, that is, only if you're a very good boy this morning."

The chores, she hoped, would be enough to take her mind off of other things. Of course, she held the same hope every morning, that the work of running the household, of taking care of little Georgie would succeed in distracting her from her thoughts, but each day, without fail, her smile faltered as she settled into her work, her arms tiring too quickly as she mixed the dough for the fresh loaf of bread she planned to bake later that day.

When she spoke to George, she never allowed those thoughts to show in her words or expression. He didn't need to know that his mother had abandoned him, without a single card or letter to let them know of her current whereabouts. But that had always been Lucy's way, Sophia mused. To run away without looking back, to leave everything and everyone behind her the moment something, or someone, happened to catch her attention.