She suddenly remembered her sister laughing because Nora had stitched her own skirt to the tablecloth.

A memory eighteen years buried returned whole.

Nora sat.

Not because Harlan told her to.

Because her knees no longer worked.

“When did she die?”

“Eight months ago.”

Eight months.

Nora closed her eyes.

For eighteen years she had mourned a living woman.

For eight months she had unknowingly failed to mourn the dead one.

Thomas moved toward her.

“I found the letters three months after she died. There were fourteen. Most were to you.”

“And you decided to bring me here?”

His jaw tightened.

“She kept saying your name.”

Nora laughed once.

It sounded broken.

“So you found an old address, placed a marriage advertisement, and waited to see whether I would answer?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Thomas looked toward his brothers.

Then he said the words that finally shattered Nora’s anger.

“Because Mother said if anything happened to her, you were the only person left in the world who might love us before you knew us.”

Nora did not sleep that night.

She read all fourteen letters.

Some were ten years old.

Some six.

Some had been written only months before Eleanor died.

Together they told the story of a life Nora had never known.

Eleanor escaped Missouri at sixteen.

She traveled west with a wagon train under the name Anna Cole.

She met Harlan outside Fort Dodge after his horse broke a leg.

She married him at nineteen.

She gave birth to Thomas a year later.

Then Cade.

Eli.

Porter.

Reeve.

Finally Rue.

The letters changed over time.

The early ones were full of fear.

The later ones were full of children.

Thomas has your temper.

Another read:

Cade lies when he is frightened, the way you used to insist you had not eaten the blackberry pie while your teeth were purple.

Another:

Rue has your eyes.

Nora cried at that one.

Near dawn she opened the last letter.

It had never been sealed.

Nora,

I am tired now.

Harlan pretends not to see it, but I know.

I have spent my life imagining the day I would come back for you. How cruel that life may end before I become brave enough.

There is one more truth you must know.

The land here was bought partly with money that belonged to us.

Silas stole Father’s estate, but I recovered a portion before I fled. Harlan never knew its source.

The deed was placed in the name Callaway & Greer.

I told him Callaway was a family name I wanted preserved.

If you ever come west, this place belongs to you as much as it belongs to my sons.

But that is not why I hope you come.

I hope you come because a house full of boys can survive hunger. What I fear is that they will learn to survive without tenderness.

Love them if you can.

Forgive me if you cannot.

Your sister,

Eleanor