Most of those remarks came from people who knew nothing about her.
But repetition had a way of becoming its own kind of injury.
At twenty, she inherited a small sum from a distant aunt and used part of it to hire a skilled wheelwright to design a properly reinforced carriage compartment.
The arrangement gave her more independence than she'd previously enjoyed.
She could travel in comfort with the assistance of reliable horses and people she trusted.
She began selling embroidery patterns, repaired clothing, and carefully made lacework to merchants in nearby towns.
Her work became known for its quality.
She wasn't wealthy.
But she earned money of her own.
And she developed a fierce pride in never allowing strangers to decide what kind of life she was permitted to want.
One evening, while she was mending one of my shirts, I asked whether she ever wished she'd stayed in a larger town where travel was easier.
She considered the question.
"Sometimes."
I nodded.
"Would've been safer."
She looked up.
"Safer isn't always the same as kinder."
I didn't know what to say.
Then she added quietly.
"Some of the cruelest places I've ever been had clean streets and beautiful houses."
For a long time afterward, I thought about those words.
I had no particular talent for talking about feelings.
I could tell whether a horse was favoring a leg from fifty yards away, estimate how long a storm would last by studying cloud movement, and identify a failing wagon axle by the sound it made.
But when Josephine asked me why I'd chosen the mountains, I found myself staring into my coffee like it contained instructions.
"Old men like quiet places," I said.
She smiled.
"You're not that old."
"Tell that to my knees."
She put down her sewing.
"Hiram."
Something in her voice made me look up.
"Yes?"
"You don't have to tell me anything you aren't ready to say."
I nodded.
Then she continued.
"But you don't have to pretend your loneliness is a preference just because you've lived with it a long time."
I looked toward the fire.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
No one had ever described my life quite so accurately.
Finally, I said, "There was a woman."
Josephine's expression softened.
I told her about Eliza.
Not everything.
I couldn't.
But I described our marriage, the little settlement near Red Willow, and the fire that tore us apart.