After walking about a mile through the narrow city streets, they came to a less-populated area where the buildings were larger and set farther apart. They stopped before the biggest of these—wattle and daub sides with a thatch roof like the rest, but distinguished from the others by a carved oak door and eaves and immaculately cared for outbuildings. A long, clipped grassy plot led down to the river.
Suddenly the door swung open and a horde of shrilly squealing young people swarmed out—all girls—ranging in age from about five to fifteen, with every shade of red hair in the spectrum.
“Father! Father!”
“At last! At last! You came home!”
“What did you bring me?”
“How long will you stay?”
“Pick me up. Pick me up.”
“Will you take me for a boat ride like you did afore?”
With one girl in each arm and the others clustered around him, hugging tightly, Olaf smiled widely, trying to answer each of their questions in turn with fatherly patience. Finally, as he put the two youngest girls on the ground gently, he said, “Girls, I would introduce you to our guest.”
He motioned Ruby forward and said proudly, “Ruby, these are my daughters.” One by one he pointed them out in order of size, starting with the youngest. “Tyra, Freydis, Thyri, Hild, Sigrun, Gunnha, Astrid.”
Seven! He had seven daughters!
A woman standing quietly in the doorway, watching the joyous reunion of father and children, motioned to Thork and whispered something to him. He walked to the side of the building and disappeared out of sight. Then Gyda turned to her husband with a warm smile.
Olaf’s pretty wife had blond braided hair wound into a coronet atop her head. About the same age as Olaf, who seemed to be in his late thirties, Gyda was short, slightly plump and feminine—definitely the womanly ideal Thork and Olaf had spoken of earlier.
“Welcome home, husband,” Gyda said softly as she stepped forward.
“Good it is to be home again,” Olaf responded with a wide grin and a gleam in his eye.
With a whoop, Olaf scooped Gyda into his arms and swung her in a circle, hugging her warmly. Gyda buried her face in his neck, holding on to his shoulders tightly as her skirts swung high off the ground. When she raised her misty eyes, Olaf kissed her soundly, put an arm under her knees and carried her resolutely into the house, leaving them all alone outside.
Ruby turned embarrassed eyes to the children who stood near her, hoping they hadn’t heard Olaf ask his wife meaningfully, before the door closed, “Would you like to see the present I have for you?”
But the girls weren’t self-conscious at all. The oldest girl, Astrid, told Ruby unabashedly, “They like to welcome each other in private.” There was no question the girl knew exactly what her parents were doing.
“Do you wanna see the ducks in the river?” the littlest girl, Tyra, who was about five years old, asked hopefully. When Ruby nodded, the child smiled enchantingly, showing two missing front teeth. She put a small hand in Ruby’s and pulled her to the side of the house.
Ruby’s heart lurched. She’d always wanted a little girl of her own, one just like the gap-toothed Tyra who innocently offered Ruby her first real welcome to this foreign land—a daughter she could pamper with frilly dresses and flowery bubble baths, a daughter who would weep with her at sad movies, share her love of sewing.
She and Jack should have had another child. That sudden thought jolted Ruby. They’d always planned to have more children, but once she’d started her lingerie business and the recession had hit the real estate market, there never seemed to be enough time. Ruby couldn’t remember the last time they’d even talked about it.
Was it too late now? Was she too old? Did Jack still want more children? It was a moot point, really, unless Jack came back to her. Or if she never returned to the future.
Ruby’s headache slammed back in full force. She shook her head to halt her straying thoughts.
They circled the house and walked past a well and a covered garbage cesspit, then down the cushiony slope to the river. Tyra’s curious sisters followed closely behind them, like ducks themselves in their long, vividly colored dresses covered by crisp white pinafore-style aprons.