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hoard of bread must have convinced her as nothing else could that the rest of them hadn’t suffered enough from her self-imposed absence. Certainly it would be much more difficult to cook and eat without her if no onecould find any food. He wondered what terrible thing he had done in his life to deserve Beata. And Eli. And Caroline Holt.
    When he came out of the pantry, Caroline was no longer in the room. He leaned over the table to look out the window. She was walking across the field he should have had plowed by now, her gait strong for a few steps then hesitant, as if she were being forced to give in to the pain she still had from Avery’s beating.
    Good riddance, he thought. Let her grovel in front of Avery. And when he sent her back again, perhaps she would understand her situation better.
    He looked around at a small noise. Both his daughters stood at the bottom of the stairs.
    “Papa?” Lise said tentatively. “Did you let Aunt Caroline go?”
    He sighed. “She went, Lise. There was no letting or not letting.”
    “Aren’t you…worried? Uncle Avery—he might hurt her again, Papa. And we promised.”
    “Lise, I can’t tie your Aunt Caroline to the kitchen table so she’ll stay here,” he said, trying not to be influenced by how hard she was trying not to cry. Lise was a gentle soul; she was concerned about all living creatures—whether they deserved it or not.
    “Eli said we wouldn’t let anyone hurt her again. He promised, Papa.”
    “Lise, there is nothing I can do,” he said, in spite of the fact that he’d made the same promise himself.
    “Couldn’t you just—?”
    “This is not your business.”
    Mary Louise was tugging on his trouser leg. “What is it, Mary Louise?” he said more sharply than he intended.
    “I think we might cry, Papa,” she advised him.
    “Then you’ll just have to cry. Life is full of crying. I can’t fix everything.” He was very careful not to look into her upturned face, into those begging Holt-brown eyes.
    “Can’t you please just fix this, Papa?” Lise asked. “Don’t let Uncle Avery hurt her again. Please, Papa! All you have to do is just stand there while she talks to him—he wouldn’t hurt her if you stood by. I know he wouldn’t!”
    Her mouth trembled, but she worked hard not to give in to it. Clearly, Lise expected him to stand guard indefinitely.
    “Your Aunt Caroline left by her own choice—”
    “No, she didn’t, Papa! She left because Beata is going to be mean to everybody if she stays. Papa—”
    He held up his hand to stop her.
    “You don’t worry about your Aunt Caroline. You don’t worry about any of those people over there.”
    Caroline heard the back door slam, and Frederich caught up with her before she reached the edge of the Graeber land.
    “I have something to say to you, Caroline Holt. This is—”
    “What do you want, Frederich?” she interrupted. She stopped walking, and she forced herself to look him in the eye.
    “What do I want? I want to keep you from making the scandal any bigger than it already is.”
    They stared at each other. She abruptly looked away.
    “What is wrong with you?” he said angrily. “You behave as if you have some choice about what you will do! You don’t. You are pregnant. Avery doesn’t want you or your brat. It falls to me to keep my family from becoming any more of a laughingstock than it already is. I am going to keep the family’s honor—the honor you drag through the mud as if there is nobody to suffer the consequences but you. There is only one thing to be done. You don’t start everybody talking all over again about the marriage. Do you understand?”
    “No,” she said. “I don’t!”
    “My daughters are crying—Beata is starving us to death hiding everything she can get her hands on—Eli has disappeared! All this is your fault. Do you understand that? Going to Avery—begging Avery—will only make our trouble worse. Worse for you—worse for—”
    She looked away