The Hotter You Burn. Gena Showalter

her face grow hot. Had she done something wrong? Were they waiting for her to do something?

      “She’s sitting in Mam’s chair,” said one of the older boys.

      Ruthy started to rise. She wasn’t here to take their mam’s place.

      “It’s all right Nathan,” Levi said. “Ruth, that is your place at the table for now.” Levi looked at the boy who had spoken and the older brother sitting next to him. “Your mam is gone. We will not make her place at the table a shrine.”

      Both boys lowered their eyes, their necks red. Ach, ja, they missed their mam. It would take some time for them to get used to Ruthy being here.

      Levi cleared his throat. “Let’s pray.”

      Ruthy bowed her head and silently began reciting her mealtime prayer in her head. Before she was done she heard the distinct clink of Levi’s fork against his plate. Was that his signal the prayer was over? She raised her eyes to see him staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

      How did he feel about her sitting in his dead wife’s chair? However he felt, Levi Zook needed her.

      * * *

      As soon as Levi had come into the kitchen for supper he could feel the change. The bustling kitchen, normally noisy and chaotic, had an undergirding of order Levi hadn’t seen since before Sam was born.

      And now the reason for that difference was sitting at the opposite end of the long table from him. Ruth sat at the foot of his table as if she had always done so, accepting the dishes of food passed to her and helping Sam cut the meat on his plate. She smiled at each of the children as she spoke to them, introducing herself to Nathan and Elias, who had been outside since she arrived, and asking about each of the children’s favorite foods.

      The sound of her voice was a balm that soothed a festering need. When Salome died a year ago, a light had gone out in his home, but now the small flame of a woman’s influence was sputtering to life again.

      Levi speared a chunk of ham and swirled it in his mashed potatoes before bringing it to his mouth with a satisfied sigh. He had done a good thing when he put that notice in The Budget, no matter what his sister, Eliza, said. His children needed a woman’s touch, that’s all, and they belonged at home. Farming them out to relatives wouldn’t be good for them at all.

      He took another bite of ham and potatoes, and then reached for his glass of milk. Eleven pairs of eyes followed every movement, and he became aware that silence had descended on the table. He glanced at Ruth, and found her staring at him.

      Levi finished chewing, and then took a swallow from his glass. His children looked expectant, except Sam, who looked down at his plate when Levi’s gaze reached the far end of the table. Ruth’s expression hadn’t changed.

      “Did you hear me, Levi Zook?”

      Her hair glowed like gold in the light from the kerosene lamp above the table. Had she said something to him?

      “Ne, Ruth, I didn’t hear you.”

      “I said Sam seems to be at loose ends here in the house all day. I asked when you will take him out to do barn chores with you.”

      His face grew hot as Ruth kept her gaze on him. She hadn’t been here more than a few hours, and already she was telling him how to raise his son?

      Ja, well, she was right, it was time for Sam to join him in the barn. It was another thing he had neglected in the last year. Shame threatened, but irritation quickly squelched it. He should have taken this action sooner, but no woman was going to dictate how he raised his children.

      “Sam will join me in the barn when I’m ready for him to, and not a moment sooner.”

      Ruth’s face reddened as her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam’s voice piped up. “I’m ready now, Dat. Jesse has been helping you since he was little, and I’m almost as big as him.”

      Levi glanced at Jesse. At seven years old, he still wasn’t much bigger than his little brother. He hunched his shoulders around his slight frame as if he wanted to slink away from the table. He hated being the center of attention.

      Jesse had been helping in the barn for a couple of years already, but he still needed a lot of help and training with his chores, which took time. With Sam there, it would take even more time away from his own work, but on the other hand, the two smaller boys could help each other.

      She was right.

      But he would take himself behind the woodshed for a thrashing before he gave in to this woman now. This was his family and he would have the final say in how his children were raised.

      He stood up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. “I’m going out to finish the chores.”

      He grabbed his hat from the hook by the back door and stormed through the porch, snagging his coat from the wall as he went.

      The meal had started out so well, before she interfered. Levi stopped beside the chicken coop, taking a deep breath of the frigid January air. Before she made a simple suggestion.

      He reached into the pockets of his coat for his gloves and pulled them on, turning to face the house. Light from the kitchen windows gave a warm glow to the snow of the barnyard, pulling his gaze back to the table he had just left. He could see the shadowy forms of his children through the white curtains and their voices drifted to him in the still night. Elias’s deep bass chuckle rumbled through the higher pitches of the other children’s laughter.

      Pride had forced him out here into the dark, but he was right, wasn’t he? He was the man in this house, not some upstart woman who comes in and tries to take over.

      A woman he had invited. A woman he was paying to run his house for him.

      What bothered him most was that she was right. It was past time for him to bring Sam along as he worked. Next year his youngest son would start school, and he would have missed his opportunity to start him out right.

      Cold forced him away from the golden glow of the kitchen window and into the cowshed. He lit the lantern and checked on Moolah, the tall, bony Holstein. She was his best milker and due to drop a calf in a few weeks. She blinked an eye at him and chewed her cud. She was nice and comfortable tonight.

      Levi went through the cowshed and into the main barn. The constant rustling in the vast haymow above him was interrupted by a thump and a squeak as one of the barn cats ended a successful hunt. A moment of silence, and then the rustling started again as the mice resumed their endless quest for food. He opened the door of the workshop and hung the lantern on its hook. He had been sharpening knives before the supper bell rang, and he might as well finish the job now.

      He picked up one of the kitchen knives and tested its blade with his thumb. Taking the whetstone, he started the circular motion that would bring back the fine, sharp edge. From the workbench he could see the kitchen window. Movement behind the curtains told him the girls were clearing the table. Before long the children would bring out the projects they were working on during their Christmas vacation from school. This was the time of the evening when he enjoyed sitting close by, reading The Budget or a farm magazine, ready to answer any questions they had.

      In the days before he lost Salome, she would sit in the rocking chair he had placed in the kitchen for her, knitting or mending, and enjoying their family. He could see her now, if he closed his eyes to the tools and workbench surrounding him. His Salome, rocking softly in her chair, and the gentle smile she kept on her face in spite of the pain.

      The pain that had been her constant burden during those last months. Pain so horrible, that when she died, he had wept as much from thankfulness that she had been released, as from grief that he had lost her.

      Levi pulled his mind away from the memories. Salome was free of pain now, safe and secure in the Blessed Land.

      The knife lay loose in his hand, forgotten. He turned the blade over, working the other side.

      He had taken her presence for