His voice was steady now.

“I will always love the life we had.”

Nora’s eyes stung.

“But loving what I lost does not lessen what I have found.”

He took her hands.

“I love the woman who saved my daughter.”

Nora’s breath trembled.

“I love the woman who made coffee before sunrise and repaired my coat when she thought I wasn’t looking.”

Tom smiled.

“I love the woman who lies terribly about hating chickens.”

Nora laughed through tears.

“And I love Nora.”

He reached into his pocket.

Inside lay a simple silver ring.

Not Evelyn’s.

A new one.

“Nora Bennett, will you marry me?”

She did not make him wait this time.

“Yes.”

Tom exhaled so violently that she laughed.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

He pulled her against him.

Then Nora leaned back.

“There is one condition.”

His face changed.

“What?”

“You never call Lily’s frog song foolish again.”

Tom stared at her.

“That is unreasonable.”

“Then the wedding is off.”

He kissed her.

It was not graceful.

It was not careful.

It was six years of loneliness ending beneath a sky so wide that even grief seemed small inside it.

They married in June.

Lily scattered flower petals down the church aisle until she ran out halfway, then returned to collect several and throw them again.

Amos cried harder than Nora.

He denied it afterward.

The new pine cradle remained beside the bedroom wall.

Months passed.

It held Lily’s dolls.

Then blankets.

Then laundry whenever Nora was too tired to fold it.

Tom never complained.

In early December, almost one year after the blizzard that had changed everything, Nora woke before dawn feeling ill.

Tom found her sitting at the kitchen table.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re pale.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Nora—”

She looked up.

Something in her expression silenced him.

Tom stared.

“No.”

Nora’s lips curved.

His eyes widened.

“No.”

She nodded.

Tom sat down very slowly.

“Are you certain?”

“The doctor is.”

He looked toward the bedroom.

Toward the cradle.

The tiny star caught the morning light.

Tom began laughing.

Then Nora began laughing.

Then Lily ran into the kitchen in her nightgown demanding to know what was funny.

Tom lifted her into his arms.

“You’re going to be a sister.”

Lily gasped.

“To a baby?”

“That is generally how it works.”

She slapped both hands over her mouth.

Then shrieked loud enough to frighten the horses.

For the rest of the morning, the house was chaos.

Hours later, Nora was alone in the bedroom putting away linens when she noticed something beneath the cradle.

A folded piece of paper.

She frowned.

It had slipped from an old blanket Tom had brought down from the loft weeks earlier.

The paper was yellow with age.

Nora unfolded it.

The handwriting was Evelyn’s.

Her knees weakened.

The letter had apparently been tucked into the lining of the old cradle for six years.

Tom came in behind her.

“Nora?”

She turned.

“I found something.”

He recognized the writing.

Neither breathed.

Tom took the letter.

It had been written weeks before Evelyn left on her final journey.

Most of it was ordinary.