The Miner's Wife

Chapter 19: A Town boy and a Seam girl - Part One

Katniss POV

I'm playing with Ivy in the garden. We've just come back from following Arrow to school. It's a beautiful, warm day. It's still summer, but I feel in the air that fall is coming.

Peeta didn't come home last night. I don't know where he is, or when he's coming back.

Ivy is walking on somewhat unsteady legs. I wish Gale could see her now. He'd be so proud of his daughter. He'd throw her into the air and tickle her, and she'd laugh and squeal of joy. I'm torn between these two men - her father, who is not here to cherish this moment with me, and Peeta. The guilt I've felt over falling for Peeta and sharing his bed was already difficult to handle. What he told me last night though, shook me to the core. When he does come home, I have absolutely no idea what to say to him.

I hear Peeta's heavy steps on the gravel behind me and I nearly sigh in relief. At least he's come home. I turn around and look at him as he approaches. His face does not betray any emotion as he stops a couple of yards away from me and studies Ivy as she plays.

When Peeta sees her, he doesn't laugh. He doesn't tickle her. He doesn't throw her into the air. He doesn't do any of those things, because he's not her father. But when Ivy gives him a dandelion with her little hands, Peeta accepts it, says 'thank you' and smiles to her. There aren't a lot of dandelions in bloom at this time of the year, but she still found one. Of all the flowers she could've chosen, of course it had to be a dandelion.

He looks at the flower in his hand. "She's growing up so fast," he says to me. "When I left for the Capitol, Ivy was still a baby. Now she's walking."

Ivy bends down to pick up another dandelion, but loses her balance and falls. She quickly stops crying, though, and wants to pick more flowers. "Why didn't you tell me?" I ask him. We are both looking at Ivy instead of at each other. It's easier to talk to him when I don't have to look directly at him.

"What difference would it have made?" He picks up Ivy's pink ball and kneels down. She wobbles over to him and takes it from him, flowers apparently forgotten already.

"It could've made a difference to me. It could've made it easier to understand you."

"I didn't want you to understand me," he says flatly. "Not that part of me, anyway. The fact that you didn't, that you were so pure, made it easier for me to pretend that what happened in the Capitol wasn't real."

"You could've told me. Sooner than you did."

"Yes," he agrees. "I wanted to, but I always found an excuse to put it off. I guess I was too ashamed."

"You have no reason to ashamed."

He shakes his head, chuckling softly. "I have every reason to be ashamed, Katniss. You don't know what it's like."

"I understand better than you think." I would do anything to protect my children. There was a dark winter night not too long ago, when I almost did.

Peeta turns to me. I can feel his gaze on me, but I don't meet his eyes. "Maybe you do. You have experienced the desperation that drives you to do it, but you don't know what it does to you in the long run." He sighs. "Look, Katniss, I don't know what you want. You haven't moved out, so I guess that means that you want to stay, though I can't understand why."

I don't answer. That's a question I can't answer, not even for myself.

We manage to hold it together in front of the children, but only just. I think Peeta's avoiding me as best as he can, and I drown myself in housework trying to do the same. He has dark rings under his eyes. I suspect he's having nightmares again, although he doesn't say anything about it. In fact, he doesn't say much at all.