Even now, the loss hurt so acutely that if she focused on it, she was sure she’d lose herself. Maybe she’d even end up like her father, drinking to escape the sorrow.
The babe released another wail. Zoe guided the girl’s thumb to her mouth. It would have to sate her until Pastor Abe returned with real sustenance.
She expected Herman to leave, wanted him to leave. But he hesitated. “Rose was a good wife and mother.” The words came out in a broken whisper. “I’d be obliged if Violet knew that someday.”
Herman’s words sounded final, almost like a good-bye. Zoe narrowed her eyes upon the miner, but he refused to meet her gaze. Maybe Herman had no intention of coming back for Violet later. If so, she wouldn’t try to change his mind.
Pastor Abe might attempt to convince Herman Cox of his need to turn his life around and become the kind of father Violet needed. Pastor Abe might know how to offer the right Scriptures and prayers to comfort him. But Zoe had nothing to say.
“You’ll take good care of her, won’t you?” Herman’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“’Course I will.”
Blinking rapidly, he turned and hurried toward the door.
Zoe had seen too much heartache in her life to do anything but let this man go, if that’s what he wanted. She bent and placed a tender kiss on the babe’s forehead. Violet deserved better. And Zoe intended to see that she got it.
Pastor Abe returned to the hospital a short while later and was whistling a familiar hymn as he breezed into the first-floor examining room the attendant had allowed Zoe to use while bathing the babe.
He carried a crate. “My baker friend still had half a bottle of milk remaining from his baking projects.”
Zoe stopped bouncing Violet only to have the babe release a wail that was becoming more pitiful—and uncontrollable—with hunger. “Were you able to find a baby bottle?”
“Pete’s wife knew of a customer who just had a baby. And thankfully the family had an extra.” Pastor Abe placed the crate on the table, then held up the typical clear glass, banjo-shaped bottle used for feeding infants. A tube was inserted through the stopper and dangled down into the bottle.
Bouncing Violet again, Zoe crossed to the table and stood opposite the reverend. “Did they give you a nipple?”
Pastor Abe fumbled in the crate before retrieving the small rubber piece that attached to the tube projecting from the top of the stopper. Looking everywhere but at the nipple, he held it out gingerly, almost as if the item were indecent, like a piece of women’s undergarments.
Zoe reached for it but then stopped, humor tickling her, even if faintly. Pastor Abe had clearly never held a nipple. The word itself likely flustered him.
Biting back a smile, Zoe retracted her hand. “You’ll need to get the bottle ready.”
His gaze flitted to the offending object before darting away. “I’m afraid I’m woefully ignorant about nipples. . . .” At his declaration, his eyes widened as if he hoped the floor would open up and swallow him.
His innocence was a refreshing change from the fellas Zoe had known in her Manchester slum neighborhood who were rough and crude and lustful. If she’d been talking to one of them, she could only imagine the turn the conversation would have taken.
Pastor Abe cleared his throat, and then he dropped the nipple back into the crate, his coat stretching taut against his broad shoulders and muscular arms. She couldn’t keep from studying him as she had earlier when he’d first walked into Jane’s hospital room.
She was struck once again that he was much too good-looking to be a pastor. His jaw was square and sturdy, his nose and forehead in perfect proportion, and his mouth attractive. To top it off, he had sandy-blond hair and the bluest, kindest eyes she’d ever seen.
Violet’s fussing turned louder, forcing her to stop gawking and return her attention to the infant. “Hush now, little one. Your belly will be full soon enough—as soon as Pastor Abe gets your bottle ready.”
He held up his hands to deflect her request. “I really am ignorant about such matters.”
“Then you’ll need to be holding the babe while I ready the bottle.” She extended Violet.
Pastor Abe recoiled, his features reflecting horror as if she’d asked him to swim naked in the ocean.
This time she couldn’t hold back her smile. In fact, her smile changed into laughter.
Pastor Abe lowered his hands and then smiled. This smile was different from the one he’d given her earlier, which had been impersonal but full of compassion. This smile was wide, revealed his perfect teeth, and made him roguishly endearing.
As Violet’s angry wails intensified, he reached again for the discarded nipple and picked it up cautiously. “Let’s get this baby fed.”
Over the noise, Zoe instructed him how to fill the bottle with milk and attach the nipple to the piece of rubber tubing. Once he finished and passed Zoe the container, Violet took to it greedily, grasping the glass with both hands, her cries now replaced with noisy sucking.
For a minute, Zoe watched the sweet babe eat and pictured Eve doing the very same thing. Swift tears stung Zoe’s eyes, and grief rushed into her heart, nearly overwhelming her. Not only was Eve just a memory, but now Jane was dead. Her dearest friend was gone.
Several tears escaped and slid down Zoe’s cheeks. She swiped at them, wishing the pain would go away and that the loss didn’t have to hurt so much.
“Are you thinking of Jane?” Pastor Abe’s voice was gentle. He still stood at the center table across from her.
“Aye.” When she chanced a glance at him, the sympathy in his eyes unleashed her grief again. She had the sudden need to fall into his arms and sob. There was just something comforting about him, an air of understanding and compassion that she needed. She supposed that’s what pastors were like. They probably practiced lowering their eyebrows sorrowfully and setting their mouths into grim lines.
“I’d love to hear about Jane and what she was like,” he stated softly.
“You would?”
“Yes. She must have been a wonderful person if she had a friend as kind as you.”
Kind? Zoe had never thought of herself as particularly kind. No, but she was determined, resourceful, and persistent. Those qualities had helped her survive when her world had crumbled, especially over the past couple of years when most of the cotton mills in Lancashire had closed. With the ongoing war in the United States, England lost the steady cotton supply that fueled the mills. As a result, the booming textile industry had come to a near halt. Thousands upon thousands had no work and therefore no means to pay rent or purchase food.
Like many others, Zoe had resorted to standing in long lines every day for food from different charity organizations that had come to Manchester in an effort to provide relief. She’d hated accepting the handouts, had only gone when she absolutely needed the food. She’d been waiting in one such charity line with Jane when Miss Rye of the Columbia Mission Society offered them an alternative.
“Jane was wonderful. And of the two of us, she was the one who deserved a better life.”
“Were you friends growing up?” His expression contained genuine interest, as though he truly cared and wasn’t asking because that was his job.
“I met her when I started working at the mill three years ago—”