“Evangeline...” That was the name of an adventurer who appeared in a heroic legend surrounding a certain fiend—a woman whose abilities were not the lesser of any man; a woman who was kind, wise, and self-assured.
Giving her that name didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Perhaps it would be good to name her with the earnest wish that she would turn out like the legendary woman. Not that he was hoping for her to grow up to be an adventurer, but he wanted her to grow to be a strong, kind person.
Even so, the sound of the name didn’t quite fit the baby. “She doesn’t strike me as an Eva... Let’s take off the front part and... Angeline.”
That seemed to fit right. Belgrieve nodded.
“Angeline...yeah.” Not bad.
Belgrieve went over to the baby’s side to find her soundly asleep. Looking at her face filled Belgrieve with boundless happiness.
“Angeline,” Belgrieve muttered.
He gently reached out and stroked her cheek with the tip of his finger. The baby incoherently moved her mouth and turned over in her sleep. She didn’t seem disgruntled; as a matter of fact, if he wasn’t just imagining it, she looked a little happy.
The lamp sputtered and began to streak black smoke. Belgrieve mulled over it for a moment, but he finally extinguished the light and lay down in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that the baby wouldn’t cry again that night. And just as he’d foreseen, he managed to sleep soundly until morning.
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Just a short while ago, Belgrieve had thought she was getting rather good at crawling, but now she had learned to stand while grabbing on to something. She could even walk a short distance, which meant he had to be incredibly vigilant with her. He couldn’t take his eyes off of a child who had just learned to move around on her own. She would frequently escape from the cradle, only to trip and cry as she made a bid for freedom.
Belgrieve decided that the day he had picked her up was her birthday, and that meant she was already more than a year old. As winter gave way to spring, and as the fresh buds sprouted all over the fields and mountains, the eighteen-month-old girl graduated from crawling to using her legs to walk around. Angeline often moved her hands around too, and she had gotten good at grabbing things. Ever since she’d started moving around freely, he could no longer leave anything within her reach. There was a time she had tried to lift the blade he’d left in the middle of honing. He had raised his voice at her in horror, and she had burst into tears. It had taken a good long period of holding her before she’d calmed down.
Angeline was an energetic girl. She loved her father and always wanted to be by his side. She would grumble whenever Belgrieve would leave her with someone so he could work, and inevitably, he would end up taking her with him into the field where she could play nearby. Even then, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her for long, and he found himself constantly glancing over at her.
“Dad...” Angeline waddled down the field, uneven after the tilling. Her arms were spread wide, and it looked like she was bracing her legs. But even that was still dangerous, and Belgrieve hurried over to her.
“Oh, you’ve really gotten good at walking.”
“Uh-huh,” Angeline mumbled proudly. She placed her hand over Belgrieve’s, grabbing his finger and tugging it. “Dad, uppies.”
“Yeah, sure.” He lifted her up. She had gained weight and was much heavier than a year ago, though she was hardly enough to burden him. Each time she called him “dad” with her lispy voice, Belgrieve’s expression would soften.
Angeline clung to him. “Mmm.”
“There, there,” he said, patting her lightly on the back. Angeline comfortably closed her eyes and nuzzled into his embrace. Come to think of it, it’s almost noon. Is it time for her nap? But she should eat something first.
“Ange, let’s have something to eat before you sleep.”
“No.” Angeline shook her head, clinging even tighter to Belgrieve as though to insist she wouldn’t be peeled off of him. There were times when she would listen to him, but there were also times when she would get strangely obstinate. She was still too young to scold, and she worked far more on emotion than logic. Belgrieve, smiling wryly, turned Angeline in his arms and carefully sat down by the side of the field. His prosthetic leg made squatting down a bit challenging, and it was all the more so when he was holding a child. But he finally settled down, cross-legged, with Angeline in his lap. Angeline leaned back against him, relaxing in his arms.
Belgrieve reached for the nearby picnic basket. He took out a canteen of goat milk that had been boiled and then cooled and poured some into a bottle.
“Here.” He tried to feed it to Angeline, but she would have no part of it.
“Nooo,” she insisted, turning her head this way and that to dodge out of the way. This was getting nowhere, so he held her head in place and pressed the bottle to her mouth. But with a strong breath, she sprayed out the milk.
“Ah, for crying out loud...” He smiled bitterly at Angeline, who seemed to be rejoicing at all the fun she was having. Belgrieve wiped the milk from her mouth.
“You’ll get hungry later. You need to eat properly.”
“No!” Her rebelliousness had evidently become a fun game, and Angeline wouldn’t eat no matter what.
Good grief... Belgrieve shook his head and put the bottle away. “Then daddy’s going to eat.”
He dipped his bread in the milk and ate it. Ange seemed discontented that he wasn’t paying attention to her and began to kick and scream.
“Ange too!”
“You’ll eat?”
“Yeah!” Once she started eating, it was simple. Angeline drank down the milk that her tongue had grown accustomed to. She also ate some softened bread and dried meat after Belgrieve had chewed it to soften it up. Since she had no mother, Angeline was well accustomed to goat milk by now, and since her first birthday, she’d naturally added milk-soddened bread and soft, boiled wheat porridge to her diet. Some children would cling to their mothers’ teats long past their due, so in that regard, perhaps he had it easier.
With her stomach full, she started to get sleepy. Her eyes became unfocused until she gave in to her exhaustion and collapsed against Belgrieve. He carefully held her up over his shoulder with a hand behind her back, which he gently rubbed.
Angeline’s body was gradually growing warmer, and then she was soundly asleep. He carefully checked to make sure her eyes were closed. Relieved, he laid her to bed on a mat on the ground and laid his cloak over her.
During her afternoon naps, she rarely awoke when put to bed like this. This was the time of day when Belgrieve could relax the most and the time when he could get the most work done.
Even so, Belgrieve stayed by her side a while longer. He placed a hand on her stomach and gently patted her as he watched her sleep.
Babies grew at an astounding pace. It wasn’t just a matter of one day to the next. He’d take his eyes off of her for a second, and then it would seem like her face had completely changed the next time he looked at her.
He thought he’d picked up a sense for it after looking after the kids of his friends, but when he shared each and every hour of the day with her, he was surprised by the changes. She’d learned to speak and had begun to unconsciously mimic the same things she saw him do. There were times when he would have to reflect on his own habits.