"Intake forms," Rilla mutters to herself as she stuffs sheets into the folder once again. "I need more intake forms please," she calls out to a nurse as she reaches for another chart. She pulls her chair near the bed. "My name is Doctor Ford, how are you doing today James?"
No answer.
"James, do you go by any other name? My brother often went by Jem and my eldest son goes by Jims or Jimmy?" Rilla asks him, looking over the young boy who is most likely younger than Jimmy. Still no response, Rilla smiles weakly and writes down something.
"Is there anything I can get you? Water? Pencil and paper? Sweets?" Rilla tries once more.
Silence.
"All right then," Rilla says. "I'll come back in a little while."
"Jamie, they called me Jamie," He whispers.
"Jamie, it's nice to meet you," Rilla says turning back around. "I just want to ask you a few questions if I can?"
"I don't…" He says.
"Want to talk about it, I know," Rilla nods her head. "It's not easy, but it can help in the long run to get back to a normal life, the sooner you get better the sooner you can see your girl?" She says noticing photographs and a letter in feminine handwriting.
"Life isn't going to be normal, and she won't want me," the young man says throwing back his blanket to his stump of a leg. "I should have just died, it would have been better in the long run"
Rilla sighs. "Jamie…you know that isn't true right?"
"Just go away," He shouts are her and violently lashes out at her. Nurses come, and Rilla can merely nod and step away from him.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly.
She goes into her office, looking at the clock knowing that the kids would would be having breakfast at this time now.
"Did you know that Dorothea's sister Betty got married this weekend," Rowena says over the breakfast table. "She's seventeen and her guy was being shipped off at the end of the month."
"How nice for her," Ken says looking up from his plate without necessarily looking at her for a moment, before setting dark grey eyes on her. " Just so you know I will refuse to sign anything marriage-related until you are of age, or pay for one until you have graduated college. Seventeen and married is nothing to be green about. It's a lot more work than one thinks it is."
"Willow would get it," Rowena says under her breath. Willow had found a small apartment for her and Fleur near the factory she was working at. It was clean and bright and allowed her some privacy these days.
"Don't let Mom hear you say that," Oliver says from his spot before a cough racks his body and he struggles for a moment. Ken's eyes narrow slightly but are overall concerned.
"Your mother would agree with me, and maybe you should say home today, that doesn't sound pleasant," Ken tells him.
"I'm fine, and I have a test I can't miss," Oliver says shaking his head.
"I'll drop you off then," Ken says looking at the time, worried about the shallow breaths that Oliver seemed to be taking this morning.
"Where is mummy?" Clara asks from her spot.
"She went in early so she can be home when you get home after school," Ken tells her. "Finish up, I'll drop you girls off first," Ken tells them getting up from his spot.
"But my hair!" Clara exclaims loudly. "I need mummy to braid it for me!"
"I can do your hair," Rowena tells her.
"No, you hurt me," Clara cries and Ken sighs.
"I'll brush your hair and tie it up for you," Ken tells her, bending to kiss the top of her head lovingly. "Just give me a few minutes Clara, I have to finish getting ready as well. Thank you for breakfast Gloria," he says to the housekeeper who was drinking her coffee at the counter.
"Thank you, Mrs. Clarke!" Rowena tacks on. "And thank you for the class recipes, I am sure it will all be perfect for home economics."
"Any time Rowena," Gloria smiles at her. "Don't forget your lunches." She reminds them.
"I don't this war," Clara says out loud as Ken is trying to get the braid to cooperate. For all the curls and coarse hair between him and Rilla hair-wise, this one seemed to have inherited the softest and silkiest hair he had known. Braids and hair ties, and ribbons often fell out of it, and curls only lasted a day before they fell out of their twists that Rilla made in her hair occasionally.
"That is quite a statement," Ken says to her, pulling more pomade on her hair from his fingers. At least it would last part of the day without it making the hair sticky.
"You don't like it either," Clara reminds him.
"Fair enough," Ken says shaking his head. "What do you not like about it then?"
"It makes everyone sad and the worst is that it ruins birthdays and celebrations with sugar rations," Clara tells him matter-of-factly.
"So you don't like war because of rationing of things like sugar and butter?" Ken tries not to laugh. "You do realize that is for everyone's well-being? That food and supplies aren't hoarded or wasted, and to help feed our soldiers as well."
"But they are all in France, and we're here! How does it affect them!" Clara says stubbornly. "How do mummy's silk stockings make a difference to them?"
"Silk is used for many things, but it is all part of the grand scheme that we must share the hardship that comes with war," Ken says carefully, trying to sound empathetic and sincere, and not a bitter man about it all as he was on the inside. He finished her long braid and tied it with a ribbon.
Clara mainly sighs turning to look at him with big grey eyes. His own eyes. "But it's so far away from us?"
"It is, and once long ago I was there fighting in another war Clara. I was one of those men you see marching in the streets weekly. "I left my home here and went over there and fought for three years, dodging death and bullets daily. I came home when many didn't. YourUncle Walter never made it home and that still hurts Mummy losing him. You don't have to agree with it or like it but the world is more than one person's decision and sometimes even when you don't like something you have to be the bigger person and fight for what is right. Germany taking over all these smaller countries isn't fair to them and we must try and help them and protect the ones at risk where possible." Ken explains calmly. "How about this, we can skip school today and you can come to the office with me?"
"Really?" Clara looks up at him. "Like Doe and Ollie do sometimes?"
"As they have, yes," Ken says nodding his head.
He drops Oliver off at his school before dropping Rowena at the senior school, with the pretense of dropping Clara off at the primary school yard before heading towards the office. Clara was in her spot in the back car, kneeling on the seat, looking out at the bright December day, that was colder than it looked like. The air had an edge and bite to it as they walked from the parade. She knew the magazine having been there occasionally with Rilla, but never in such detail of following him around his daily tasks and errands of the day. Oliver and Rowena had come around her age as well, but for some reason, it slipped by him too quickly that she was closer to being a teenager than the infant she once was.
She writes on his blackboard, playing with the chalk in the messy script having only been to school for a year and a half at this point, she helps him pick out photos for editorials and when he sits her up on the desk as they work through the monthly news that comes through about the war. He keeps the more gruesome photos away, but the ones of soldiers in trenches, and others of cities reduced to rubble in England made her eyes go wide and her go silent. There were other photos of husbands and wives kissing at the train station, and women working in bomb factories. Propaganda to gain support for the war mostly.
"Why doesn't someone just put Mr. Hitler in time out if he's being this naughty?" Clara asks out loud and it garners a few laughs from his writers and editors.
"If one only could," Someone says. "The world is a big place and sometimes time out doesn't always work for adults."
Ken takes her across the street for lunch, ordering them both sandwiches and iced tea, and coffee for himself. Her feet don't touch the floor and swings from the chair as she chatters.
"Did you know you're the oldest daddy in my class?" Clara tells him. "Next to Margo's daddy she says he's forty-two but your forty-seven and Mommy is forty-one. Margo's mummy is only twenty-five though."
Ken's eyes bulge slightly as he coughs into his coffee. God lord he knew Andrew Peters liked them young, but he didn't realize he liked them that young! God, she would have been eighteen…freshly graduated.
"Margo says her mommy cries a lot in her room, but not it's like the way mommy sometimes cries when you have the door shut."
"Clara," Ken chastises her quietly. "It's not polite to speculate or talk like that about other people."
"I'm sorry," Clara says quietly. "You'll take me to the stable this weekend? You don't have to go away again? I miss Snowdrop and I think he misses me too?"
"I'll have to double-check the schedule, but I think I should be able to," Ken says with a nod of his head. Knowing it has been Rilla, and or Oliver who have been sacrificing time to bring Clara to the stables to her riding lessons. "You still enjoy it?"
"I can't wait to learn how to do jumps!" Clara says chirping as she takes a bite of her ham sandwich. "Can we have some pie?" She looks at the display case.
Ken nods and flags down the waitress and lets Clara order a piece of pie for them and lets her eat most of the filling as she leans in over the table as it is put between them.
What he didn't expect was his wife frantic, still dressed in her work uniform which quickly turned to relief, then to anger as she poked him in the chest.
"Do you have any idea of what you just put me through!" She harshly whispers as she drops to hug Clara. "I come home to the school calling that Clara didn't make it into school and Rowena said her sister should have been as you dropped them both off, or was going to and I had no idea and you weren't picking up at the office either!"
"We went out for lunch," Clara chirps. "Daddy got us a pie!"
"Of course he did," Rilla says sweetly, "why don't you go wash your hands and face?"Rilla says nudging her towards the washroom with a smile.
"I'm sorry, I just…"
"Didn't think?" Rilla seethed. "My god my heart dropped a hundred times driving over her. What is she even doing here?"
"She was asking questions this morning, about the war and stuff and I don't know. It reminded me about all the time Roe and Oliver would ask me things and I would bring them here so they could learn a bit more about what they were asking if I had something relevant for them to see or hear about I would bring them here?"
"I know that, but you usually told me and it was usually summertime when they were in school as well," Rilla points out to him. "Also you did not just say you took her here to explain the war to her? She seven Ken! She doesn't need to know about the tragedy that is happening. I don't need or want her to turn into Bruce Meredith crying over nightmares because of ships being sunk and Belgium children dying!"
"I don't even know what you are talking about, and I'm not showing her anything graphic Rilla, I can't publish anything graphic either so whatever is on the board is what she saw," Ken tells her before pulling her closer to him while he could. "I'm sorry I worried you, I didn't mean to truly. You know I would never do that to you, with any of the children."
"Can I come in now?" Clara says by the door, nose scrunched up seeing them almost kiss as she comes into the office once more.
"Yes, of course," Ken calls out. "Come on, Mummy is going to take you home so jacket back on."
"I want to stay!" Clara whines loudly. "We haven't picked out the recipe of the issue!"
"I hate to disappoint you, but we don't pick one it's more like pick one from the hat and go for it," Ken tells her as he hauls her up into his arms, ignoring his back protesting as he did.
"Isn't that lying!" Clara pokes him in a way that only reminds him of Rilla.
"It's not lying, it's just strategy," Ken says chuckling, letting his forehead rest on hers. "Go home with Mummy and I'll finish up here as quickly as I can and be home for dinner alright?"
Clara nods her head and gathers up her jacket, she hugs him before leaving and he kisses the top of her head, and then quickly kisses Rilla who is still miffed at him for scaring her as he did.
When Saturday rolls around things have even out and Ken lingers in bed not opening his, but he can feel Rilla curled up against him. How long has it been since they have woken up together between early morning shifts or drives opposite?
His hands pull her closer, sneaking under the rayon of her nightgown. She sighed burrowing closer, for a moment he assumed she was only asleep until her rear wiggled into him which made him groan. Peeking at the clock that has yet to go off. Plenty of time he thinks as he lefts his hands wander and they both wake up slowly as pleasure courses through their bodies.
"I miss moments like this," Rilla murmurs. "It's been all work all the time and just trying to steal five minutes to see each other."
"I'll be damned if the military keeps us from enjoying our marriage," Ken says into her shoulder. "I'll do better."
"You do what you need to do, it could be worse, it can always be worse when it comes to war," Rilla says twisting and rolling until she can face him, and he uses it to his advantage to give her a proper kiss.
"Sleep some more, I'll take Clara to her lesson, I promised her I would," Ken tells her.
Ken crawls out of the bed an hour later, Rilla still sleeping. Downstairs he tells the older children to let their mother sleep, as Ken braids Clara's long hair into two braids and ties them off. He drives her to her horseback riding lesson, dressed in her little riding pants, shirt woollen jacket and mitts while sitting in the back seat. Jabbering on about things and friends until he pulled into the parking lot of the stables.
She helps get her pony ready, or as much as a seven-year-old can as Ken stands back and watches, following as they go into the covered arena, free from snow and wind, but still fairly cold. Ken opens his thermos of coffee and leans against the wall. Other mothers and fathers were doing similar things. Her pigtails fall down her back, under her helmet as she trots around as instructed by her teacher, occasionally pushing her glasses into place as she does.
Ken can barely remember the last time he rode, probably on the island somewhere as a child. Or was it during the war? Flashes of trenches, gas attacks, and bombings attack his mind. Lots of horses fighting the mud, in a losing battle when they had no choice but to be there with their soldiers. Lots of them are being euthanized instead of being brought home because at that point what was more death?
"Got stuck on activity duty as well?" Someone asks him, and Ken instantly recognizes Margot who was Clara's friend and her Father.
"I promised," Ken corrects him as the little girl goes with her teacher.
"Yes, you are the family man aren't you?" Andrew Peter says lighting his cigarette.
"I enjoy my family and business and the war keeps me busy, but I try my best to be there for the kids," Ken says. "No smoking in here also," he tells him and the other man sighs and puts it out.
"Betsy was supposed to do this, but the woman couldn't this morning something about something." He says rolling his eyes.
"Well, women are like that sometimes," Ken says dryly.
"You're working with the Borden these days for journalism?" Andrew Peters says switching the subject. "And that wife of yours, I hear she's at Christie's?"
"She is, and I am," Ken nods his head.
"When's the last time you rode?" Peters asks curiously as if knew the look that had been in Ken's eyes.
"I can't remember," Ken says. "Never needed to really after the war."
"Brutal wasn't it, what they did to them afterwards?" Peters says with a nod of his head and when Ken doesn't respond he continues. "Your boy is still too young isn't he?" Peters asks making conversation.
"He's seventeen, and Jimmy is exempted from being a constable of the Toronto Police," Ken tells him.
"You have another daughter though don't you?"
"Rowena is fifteen," Ken nods his head, eyes narrowing as he watches Clara. "Bright girl she is."
"Aren't they all at fifteen, bright young women?" Peters grins.
"I wouldn't know I generally don't keep company with young girls," Ken says dryly. "I just know my daughter is still very much a child by the state of her room and the way she goes on about everything."
Peters was about to retort but Clara came running up to her. "I'm all done, I just have to brush down Snowdrop and give her an apple!"
"Let's go do that then," Ken says, nodding goodbye to Andrew Peters and taking Clara's hand in his.
