OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Ch. 17: Clementine Drowns and Lillabit Surfaces (Lillabit)

In that moment, I truly did love Benj Cooper. He accepted the real me, on every crazy level, rather than some Victorian facsimile... I mean, goal. Rather than some Victorian ideal.

"Then maybe you could help me with something... timely." Except that he was supposed to be helping with the herd. "When you have the chance."

"Somethin' as important as your happiness and well-being, I ain't leavin' to chance," Benj assured me. "Amos? Would you mind givin' us some privacy while I talk over old times with Mrs. Garrison here?"

Amos hesitated, obviously torn... but Benj was part owner of the herd, and segundo. Jacob had sent him. So Amos nodded. "I'll jest hobble Lulu by that patch of wheatgrass yonder."

Yonder put him upwind of us. He wouldn't overhear our conversation but, despite the shelter of the cart, we would stay in sight of him, all the same.

Good man.

As soon as Amos had moved out of earshot, I sat up and said, "Some of the technical stuff may have gone past you, same as it did me, but... you remember how we talked about using meditation and visualization to time-slip home, right?"

My friend's handsome face went uncharacteristically expressionless. A moment later he swallowed hard enough that his Adam's apple bobbed and he said, carefully, "Still tryin' fer home, are you?"

At least he believed that I could.

"No! That's the problem exactly! I'm not trying to go home--I mean, back. I mean... forward. You know what I mean."

He rested his elbow on his knee and his scruffy, cleft chin on his hand, looking relieved. "Well, if I don't, you've sure got me fooled into thinkin' I do."

I managed a partial smile at that. How could I be so tired, after sleeping so deeply last night? Some of it had to be the baby... though some was the abbreviated nights everyone kept, reminding themselves to sleep come winter. "I'm trying to not go. I have no intention of leaving the here-and-now. Jacob and I took vows, and... and he's my husband...."

"And you're happy 'bout that?" Benj prodded.

I narrowed my eyes and growled, "Deliriously."

Perhaps not the best way to convince him. He reached for my hand and, when I hesitantly gave it, he spoke so quietly that I had to lean closer to hear him. "Now darlin', you tell me true. You didn't wed him jest to keep from having a baby in the bushes, did you? 'Cause fine a man though Jacob can be, there's other ways to deal with yer, uh, circumstances."

That surprised me. "Other ways? You can't mean...!"

This was 1878!

His eyes widened; he knew exactly what I was thinking, though neither of us said the "A" word. "I mean there's places you can go, homes for errant girls, folks who could care fer you until the time comes, then find a good family where nobody need--"

I snatched my hand away. "No! That's not the only reason I married him. I mean... yes, it's a reason. If this weren't...." And I dropped my voice too. "If this weren't Jacob's baby, maybe I would've chosen differently. Chosen my old life. But he is the father, and I--"

Love. The word is love, Elizabeth. I love him.

Jacob really should hear the words before Benj did.

"I wanted to marry him," I insisted instead. "I want be a wife and a mother, to do and be something good and important. I think... I hope he can be happy with me, too. I'm trying to be the kind of wife he needs." But without a Jacob Garrison owner's manual, who knew how I was doing?