He repaired boots by lamplight.
Checked accounts.
Mended harnesses.
Sometimes Clara found him asleep upright at the kitchen table.
Once she saw a notice beside his hand.
FINAL PAYMENT DEMAND.
He woke and immediately covered it.
“I wasn’t reading,” Clara said.
“I know.”
“You owe the bank?”
“Everyone owes someone.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
His eyes flashed.
“That sounds like none of your concern.”
Clara stood.
“You’re right.”
He looked ashamed instantly.
“Miss Hayes—”
“Clara.”
He exhaled.
“Clara. I apologize.”
She nodded.
Then pointed toward the empty plate beside him.
“You may demonstrate your remorse by eating.”
To her surprise, Ethan laughed.
It was only one sound.
Short.
Rusty.
Almost painful.
From the doorway Annie froze.
Samuel looked up.
Lucy’s spoon stopped halfway to her mouth.
Ethan saw their expressions.
The laughter died.
And Clara understood something terrible.
Those children could not remember the last time their father had laughed.
Winter crept closer.
Clara repaired curtains.
She made stew stretch three days.
She turned flour sacks into kitchen cloths and an old green dress into two shirts for Lucy.
She scrubbed the floors until the wood appeared beneath the grime.
She opened curtains Ethan had left closed since Margaret’s funeral.
Light entered the house.
Then something else entered with it.
Life.
One rainy evening Samuel was helping Clara mix biscuit dough.
He reached for the salt.
Clara reached too.
Their hands collided.
The salt jar fell.
White crystals scattered everywhere.
Clara sighed theatrically.
“Well. I suppose we shall have to move away now.”
Samuel stared at her.
“Ain’t that bad.”
Clara froze.
So did Samuel.
The words had come out barely louder than breath.
Behind them, Ethan stood in the doorway.
His face emptied of color.
“Samuel?”
The boy panicked.
His eyes filled.
Clara immediately turned back to the dough.
“Your father seems confused,” she said casually. “Perhaps he has forgotten what talking sounds like.”
Samuel stared at her.
Then a tiny laugh escaped him.
Ethan covered his mouth.
Tears filled his eyes.
He walked outside.
Clara found him five minutes later behind the barn.
He stood facing the fields.
“Ethan?”
He wiped his face roughly.
“I thought I’d never hear his voice again.”
“You heard it.”
“He stopped the night Margaret died.”
Clara waited.
Ethan looked toward the distant hills.
“She went to town alone. Wagon overturned near Miller’s Crossing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They said the horse must have frightened.”
Something in his voice made Clara look at him carefully.
“You don’t believe that?”
His jaw tightened.
“There are things I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
Before she could ask what he meant, he walked away.
That night Clara found Lucy asleep until dawn.
Two nights later, the family laughed together during supper when Ben put peas in his ears.
Ethan stood in the doorway listening.
Then his gaze found Clara.
And remained there.
Something changed between them.
Not dramatically.
No declarations.
No stolen kisses.
Just small things.
