Tide | Tide Book One (Free Sample)

Two

"Thank you, Hania," Papa said, looking up from his work and giving me a broad smile. He was bent over an old shirt, fingers shaking as he tried to sew together a hole. I took it from him and laid it across the table.

"I'll patch it tonight," I promised him, and I could see the relief in his shoulders.

"This place would fall apart without you, I swear it," he told me with a laugh as he stood. He stifled a wince, and I glanced to Tobin. Our father wasn't old, but a lifetime of hard work had worn on him. He had always insisted that Tobin and I help but leave time for our own pursuits, and now with Mama gone he'd taken on more than his share. The lines in his face had deepened in the last three years, and there were times that he moved with a sort of care he hadn't before.

I fetched a chipped mug and filled it with water. "Are you going out to the fields, Papa?" I asked as I passed it to him.

"Of course. We don't get a break until tomorrow."

I glanced out the window at the darkening sky. "Be careful. It might storm."

"I've weathered more storms than you know, Hania," he reminded me, but his eyes shined with silent appreciation for my concern, as always. I returned his small smile before turning away.

"I know, but I always worry."

"Your mother taught you that."

Tobin laughed, but I thought it didn't hold quite the right humor in it. "Yes, she did." I glanced to him with a grin, but his expression remained open, relaxed. Nothing wrong in it—imagined, then, perhaps.

The wind strengthened outside, the gray clouds rolling closer. "I'm going to bring the laundry in before the rain comes," I said, slipping out the back door that led to the garden. Two lines were strung in the air between the house and toolshed, covered in clothes and sheets. I pulled them down, draping them over an arm, and tossed the pins into a basket waiting against the wall of the house. There was more laundry to be done but it could wait. There was no use washing it when a storm was coming.

The smell of summer clung to the fabric, and I breathed it in as I went, running my fingers along the familiar cotton and linen. None of it was luxurious or expensive, but it was comfortable and practical and sent my mind to the sunny days of childhood, of Tobin and I racing across the fields to see who could reach home first when our mother called us in to eat.

When he noticed me, Kotar curled around my leg and gave a creaky meow, and I stooped down to scratch his chin. As soon as he knew he had my attention, he rolled down into the grass to bask in the sun. The light shone on his striped pelt, ragged and tufted in places from age and scars. He was looking thinner. "I'll bring you some scraps after supper," I ensured him, pulling down the last shirt.

Papa and Tobin were speaking again when I returned inside, but their voices passed in one ear and out the other. I slipped along the back wall to my bedroom to put the laundry away. I piled them on the old bed to sort through and fished out my things, brushing each one smooth before placing it in the drawer. Ones that needed mending went into a folded pile at the foot of the bed; I would get to them after I'd fixed Papa's shirt. When each was in its place, I gathered up Tobin and Papa's clothes and turned to the door.

"Hania won't like it," Tobin's voice reached me, soft and filled with a tired sort of despair.

I pulled up short, hovering in the doorway. "No, she won't," Papa agreed. I almost stepped through and demanded to know what I wouldn't like, but I didn't dare. They had discussed it when I was out of the room; it wasn't a conversation to intrude on.

And yet I had a right to know what was so terrible, didn't I? I stepped aside, out of sight but still close. Eavesdropping was a shameful thing to do, especially to your own family, but I couldn't pretend I hadn't heard them, and I wasn't sure I could ask them face-to-face what they meant, either. Maybe it was nothing, a problem with Papa's new shoes or another batch of my vegetables those hares had eaten up. Something that could be fixed.