But she said nothing.
Not then.
Life changed so quietly that Tom did not recognize the danger.
The first morning, he woke before dawn and smelled coffee.
Real coffee.
Not the black mud Amos made by boiling grounds until they surrendered.
A steaming cup waited beside Tom’s usual chair.
Nora was kneading biscuit dough.
Lily sat at the table drawing a horse with six legs.
Tom stared at the cup.
“You made this?”
Nora glanced at him.
“No. The coffee fairy came during the night.”
Tom looked at her.
She tried not to smile.
He took a sip.
It was exactly the way he liked it.
Strong enough to wake the dead.
“How’d you know?”
“Yesterday you put twice as many grounds into the pot as any sensible person would.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully.
“Good observation.”
“That was not praise.”
“It was from me.”
Within two weeks, the ranch house smelled different.
Bread.
Soap.
Wood smoke.
Stew.
Sometimes cinnamon.
Lily’s drawings appeared everywhere.
A horse with six legs.
A cow shaped like a barrel.
A portrait of Tom in which his arms reached his knees.
“Why do I look like an ape?” he asked.
Lily studied the picture.
“What’s an ape?”
Nora laughed so hard she had to turn away.
Tom pretended to be offended.
But he kept the picture.
He tucked it into the drawer beside his bed.
Nora never knew.
Tom began repairing things that had been broken for years.
The pantry shelf.
The loose stair.
The kitchen window that rattled whenever the north wind blew.
Then he began repairing things Nora had not yet complained about.
The wobbling leg on her chair became solid overnight.
A hook appeared beside the stove exactly where she tended to hang her apron.
When her boot sole separated at the heel, she placed the boots beside the door after supper.
By morning, the leather had been cleaned and the heel repaired.
Nora held the boot up.
“Tom?”
He kept eating eggs.
“Yes?”
“Did you fix this?”
“Could’ve been the boot fairy.”
Lily burst into giggles.
Nora gave him a long look.
Tom suddenly found his eggs very interesting.
She never thanked him aloud.
That afternoon he found two slices of warm apple cake wrapped beside his saddle.
That was how they spoke.
Neither of them was brave enough to call it love, so they called it coffee, firewood, repaired boots, hot meals, and water buckets that somehow carried themselves into the house.
Lily, however, was not interested in subtlety.
“Are you always this grumpy?”
She asked Tom one evening while he sharpened a knife.
He glanced at her.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Practice.”
“Does it hurt?”
“What?”
“Your face.”
Nora choked on her tea.
Tom stared at Lily for five full seconds.
Then a laugh escaped him.
It was rusty and short and shocked everyone in the room.
Including Tom.
Lily beamed.
After that, she decided he was fixable.
She followed him constantly.
He showed her how to feed grain to the gentlest mare.
She showed him how to make dolls from corn husks.
He showed her how to recognize wolf tracks.
She taught him a song involving a frog, a preacher, and an unfortunate pair of trousers.
