This chapter starts with Marty waking up in Clark\u2019s house and having a moment of confusion about where she is before suddenly remembering. It\u2019s the evening of the day Clark proposed this bargain. A lot has happened in just one day.\u00a0<\/span>Marty freshens up and leaves the bedroom; Clark looks up from the kitchen and motions her to the table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Marty sat down and Clark came from the stove with a plate of pancakes and another with a side of bacon. He set it down and went back for the steaming coffee. She felt a sense of embarrassment as she realized he was taking up what she should have been doing. Well, it would be the last time. From now on she\u2019d carry her load.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is something of a theme\u2014Marty is determined to pull her own weight and hold up her side of the bargain she has entered into. In fact, she seems to expect more out of herself than Clark does. Clark knows what it\u2019s like to lose a spouse. He\u2019s said she should take some time to settle in. Marty\u2019s response feels very natural, though. It\u2019s a coping mechanism: the more time she spends focusing on how determined she is to fulfill her side of this bargain, the less time she has to think about Clem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And then there\u2019s this<\/em> suddenly stuck in here:<\/p>\n Clark sat down, and just as Marty was about to help herself to a pancake, she was stopped by his voice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFather, thank ya fer this food ya provide by yer goodness. Be with this, yer child, as Comforter in this hour, an\u2019 bless this house an\u2019 make it a home to each one as dwells here. Amen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Marty sat wide-eyed looking at this man before her, who spoke, eyes closed, to a God she did not see or know\u2014and him not even a preacher. Of course she had heard of people like that, various ones who had a God outside of church, who had a religion apart from marryin\u2019 and buryin\u2019, but she had never rubbed elbows, so to speak, with one before. Nor did she wish to now, if she stopped to think about it. So he had a God. What good did it do him? He\u2019d still needed someone to help with his Missie, hadn\u2019t he? His God didn\u2019t seem to care much about that. Oh well, what did she care? If she remembered right, people who had a God didn\u2019t seem to hold with drinkin\u2019 an\u2019 beatin\u2019 their women. With a little luck she maybe wouldn\u2019t have to put up with anything like that. A new wave of despair suddenly overwhelmed her. She knew nothing about this man. Maybe she should be glad that at least he was religious. It might save her a heap of trouble.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh my gravy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start by being completely fair: The temperance movement did often link alcohol consumption with domestic violence. Additionally, historians today acknowledge that this was actually a serious problem, and not mere propaganda.<\/p>\n Missing from this treatment, \u00a0however, is that many people of the time viewed the overly religious as kill-joys who got in the way of fun and enjoying life. Someone like Marty\u2014who it seems did not grow up in an overly religious home (what kind of home she did<\/i> grow up in I\u2019d dearly like to know)\u2014might just as well have responded to Clark\u2019s prayer by worrying she\u2019d married a stick in the mud who thought he was better than anyone else. Not everyone thought that having religion made someone a better person.<\/p>\n Perhaps more importantly, though, Marty\u2019s musing\u2014\u201cpeople who had a God didn\u2019t seem to hold with drinkin\u2019 an\u2019 beatin\u2019 their women \u2026 with a little luck she maybe wouldn\u2019t have to put up with anything like that\u201d\u2014feels out of place. Oke offers us no context. I want context. Was this something Marty was actually worried about having to put up with? If violence against women was much a part of her lived experience and her understanding of the world, why didn\u2019t she ask Ma Graham or some other local woman for some background on Clark before accepting his offer?<\/p>\n Marty didn\u2019t weigh the possibility that Clark might beat her when she pondered whether or not to accept Clark\u2019s offer. Why not?<\/p>\n I can imagine an explanation\u2014perhaps she grew up in a home with domestic violence, perhaps Clem even hit her a few times, perhaps she sees violence against women as simply something that happens. The trouble with this possibility is that this issue simply disappears<\/em>.\u00a0Marty doesn\u2019t marvel, later, when Clark gets mad at her but doesn\u2019t hit her. Indeed, she seems to expect fair treatment from those around her as a matter of course. She doesn\u2019t otherwise appear to see violence against women as something that just happens. That may be why this offhand comment suggesting she does<\/em> see it that way feels so off.<\/p>\n Clark, of course, isn\u2019t just not physically abusive. He\u2019s also perceptive and genuinely participatory, even around the house, in what is now Marty\u2019s sphere. He\u2019s no absent father.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After the meal she heard herself volunteering to wash up the dishes, and Clark said fine, he\u2019d see to putting Missie to bed, then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Several commenters have noted that the bargain Clark struck with Marty\u2014that she could go back east in the spring if she took Missie\u2014would make a lot more sense if he were a fairly absent or uncaring father. It certainly would, but he\u2019s not. He\u2019s not at all.<\/p>\n As Marty puts the dishes away she realizes for the first time that she\u2019s living in some other woman\u2019s house. It sort of freaks her out. I get it\u2014that would be a weird feeling.\u00a0It leaves her feeling unsettled.\u00a0<\/span>When Clark comes back from settling Missie, he seems to recognize her need for assurance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Feel free to be a usin\u2019 anythin\u2019 in the house, an\u2019 if there be anythin\u2019 thet ya be needin\u2019, make a list. I go to town most Saturdays fer supplies, an\u2019 I can be a pickin\u2019 it up then.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The town can\u2019t be that<\/em> far away, if Clark goes every Saturday. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On another note, I\u2019ve noticed something in my re-reading of this book: When there\u2019s tension between Marty and Clark, it frequently occurs in Marty\u2019s mind. Marty imagines that Clark is angry with her over something, when he\u2019s not. Marty imagines that Clark is being terse, when he\u2019s not. Marty spends a lot of time imputing things onto Clark, which in turn tends to drive much of the tension in the book.<\/p>\n Take this for example:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think thet ya better git ya some sleep,\u201d he said, his voice low. \u201cIt\u2019s been a tryin\u2019 day. I know thet it\u2019s gonna take ya some time before it stops\u00a0hurtin\u2019 so bad\u2014fer ya to feel at home here. We\u2019ll try not to rush ya.\u201d<\/p>\n Then his gaze demanded that she listen and understand. \u201cI married ya only to have Missie a mama. I\u2019d be obliged if ya \u2018llow her to so call ya.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It was an instruction to her; she could feel it as such. But her eyes held his steadily, and though she said nothing, her pride challenged him. All right, she knew her place. He offered her an abode and victuals; she in return was to care for his child. She\u2019d not ask for charity. She\u2019d earn her way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That doesn\u2019t sound to me like an order. It sounds like a request. The only thing that at all suggests that it might be more than that is Oke\u2019s comment about his gaze, but gaze is something frequently interpreted by the beholder. Clark\u2019s gaze probably looks like that because he\u2019s about to break down into tears, and he\u2019s fighting that impulse and trying to hold it together. He\u2019s asking some other woman to have his daughter call her mama,<\/em> for god\u2019s sake. He\u2019s probably thinking about Ellen, his deceased wife.<\/p>\n Marty, though, interprets his comment as a command. This actually feels very familiar to me. See,\u00a0I grew up in a home where indirect communication was common. \u201cThe floor is dirty\u201d actually meant \u201cplease sweep the floor.\u201d Every statement had layers of meaning to be interpreted. A decade ago, I too would probably have viewed Clark\u2019s words as a command. I suspect Marty grew up in a similar home.<\/p>\n Speaking of which, what kind of home did<\/em> she grow up in? This lack of any background for her whatsoever is frustrating as heck. She existed before she met Clem. I think.<\/p>\n Anyway, my husband grew up in a home where communication was direct. There were<\/em> no layers of meanings behind his words. In the early years of our marriage, our communication styles often clashed. I read things into his words that he never intended; he missed things I thought I had communicated clearly (but had not at all). It took me a long time to recalibrate my communication style.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The dynamic between Marty and Clark feels very much like the dynamic I experienced early in my own marriage. Clark says he\u2019d appreciate it if Marty\u2019d let Missie call her mama, and means just that, but Marty hears him\u00a0instructing<\/em> her to let Missie call her mama. I have so been there.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think this is every actually resolved as such, though. I wish more romance novels would resolve communication problems by having characters learn to recognize mistakes they were making and communicate more effectively. It would resolve the tension and actually be instructive.<\/p>\n One huge contrast I\u2019m noticing between Oke\u2019s book and Rivers\u2019 and Farris\u2019s books is that Oke is much less obvious in the lessons she teaches through her stories. So much so that things I think I would ordinarily see as \u201clessons\u201d sometimes aren\u2019t. Oke references Marty\u2019s \u201cpride\u201d leading her to hold Clark\u2019s gaze steadily, but she isn\u2019t actually that hard on Marty. Marty is never treated as a particularly bad person.\u00a0Marty is hard, closed-off, and easily upset, but this is continually treated as understandable; when she eventually converts (because you know that will happen),\u00a0Oke\u00a0emphasizes only the joy she feels. She doesn\u2019t make a big deal about Marty realizing she\u2019d been prideful, or anything of the kind. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0refreshing, frankly. <\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, after holding Clarks gaze to keep her pride intact, Marty turns away and goes into the bedroom, where she looks at the sleeping Missie in her crib. Wait, did they even have<\/em> cribs back then?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be right back.<\/p>\n Okay, I\u2019m back.<\/p>\n Nope, there would not have been a crib. Missie would have started out in a wooden cradle\u2014Clark likely would have built one. Cribs on the other hand\u00a0weren\u2019t developed until<\/a> the end of the 19th century, during the Victorian period<\/a>, when it came to be believed that infants needed airflow underneath them\u2014sides were added so that infants and toddlers wouldn\u2019t fall out of what was essentially a raised bed. Another factor to the crib\u2019s development was the advent of larger homes, which Clark doesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n Unless it\u2019s actually 1880 (which I doubt, given that trains aren\u2019t mentioned) and Clark is trying to keep up with the Victorians (which I also doubt), Clark would not have had a crib. Missie, at almost two, is\u00a0too big for a cradle. She would have slept in a trundle bed pulled out from under the bed, or on a pallet made up for her nearby\u2014or simply in the bed with Clark after her mother\u2019s death.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a tender moment here where Marty looks at Missie, \u201cthe brown curls framing her pixie face,\u201d and realizes how much the world has already hurt her. Marty feels a surge of compassion for her.<\/p>\n But wait! This chapter isn\u2019t quite over yet.<\/p>\n The next morning, Marty wakes \u201cdetermined to uphold her part of the \u2018convenience\u2019 marriage which was now her lot.\u201d<\/p>\n So she had a roof over her head. She\u2019d earn it. She would be beholden to no man, particularly this distant, aloof individual whose name she now shared. She refused, even in her thoughts, to recognize him as her husband.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is that thing I mentioned earlier\u2014by focusing in a stubborn way on upholding her part of the bargain she\u2019s struck with Clark, Marty can take her mind off of Clem.<\/p>\n Just then, she realizes her name is no longer Martha Claridge.<\/p>\n Listlessly she wondered if there was a legal difficulty if she stubbornly clung to her \u201creal\u201d name. Surely she could be Martha Lucinda Claridge Davis without breaking any laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Look, if she\u2019s planning to go back east, she can call herself whatever she wants. It\u2019s not like there\u2019s a central registry of marriages that\u2019s going to show up in her home town, wherever that is.<\/p>\n Then with a shock she realized her baby would have the Davis name too.<\/p>\n \u201cOh no!\u201d She stopped and put her hands to her face. \u201cOh no, please. I want my baby to have Clem\u2019s name,\u201d she whispered her horror.<\/p>\n But even as she fought it and the hot tears squeezed out between her fingers, she knew she\u2019d be the loser here, as well. She was in fact married to this man, no matter how unwelcome the idea; and the baby who would be born after her marriage would be his in name, even though Clem was the true father. She felt a new reason to loathe him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![](\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/user-media.venngage.com\/372777-2acefdff295780d9736824cb3fa84bab.gif\")
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