Then I remembered the night she disappeared.
The fire.
The rain.
And the terrible feeling that I'd failed to protect the person I loved most.
I closed the box.
But Josephine had noticed.
She was sitting near the fireplace, sewing a lace border onto a piece of fabric.
"Hiram?"
I looked up.
For several seconds, I couldn't answer.
Then I placed the box on the table.
"Eliza's things."
Josephine studied it.
She didn't reach for the letters.
Didn't ask to see them.
Instead, she set aside her sewing and waited.
Finally, I opened one.
The handwriting was delicate and slightly slanted, with unusually long loops on the letters h and l.
Eliza had always written as though every word deserved a little extra room.
I read the first sentence silently.
Then felt my throat tighten.
Josephine watched me.
For a moment, her expression changed.
Her fingers moved toward the pocket sewn inside her skirt.
Then stopped.
I didn't notice.
I was too busy trying not to cry.
That evening, Josephine asked whether I thought a person could love more than once.
The question caught me off guard.
We were sitting beside the fire.
She had finished sewing.
I was cleaning an old saddle buckle.
For a moment, I considered making a joke.
Then decided she deserved an honest answer.
"I don't know."
She nodded.
"That's fair."
I looked toward her.
"What do you think?"
Josephine was quiet.
Then she said, "I think love is different every time because people are different."
I leaned backward.
"Sounds like something from one of your books."
She smiled.
"Maybe."
Then her expression grew serious.
"Do you believe loving someone new means you've stopped honoring the person you lost?"
I looked toward the fire.
For years, I'd treated that idea as an unquestionable truth.
If I loved another woman, perhaps it meant Eliza hadn't mattered enough.
Perhaps my grief was the last proof I could offer that what we'd shared was real.
But Josephine's question made me uneasy.
I thought of Samuel, an old rancher I'd known in Texas, who remarried after losing his first wife and still placed flowers beside her grave every spring.
I'd never considered him disloyal.
Only fortunate.
Finally, I answered.
"No. I reckon it doesn't."
Josephine smiled gently.
Then whispered.
"Good."
I looked toward her.
Her eyes remained on the fire.
But the little word stayed with me long after we went to sleep.