The first time I realized I might be falling in love with Josephine, she was angry at me.
Not mildly annoyed.
Properly furious.
I'd returned from checking the stable with a torn sleeve and a bruised shoulder after slipping on ice near the woodpile.
Josephine asked what happened.
I told her nothing.
She asked again.
I repeated that I was fine.
Then she noticed I couldn't lift my right arm without wincing.
"Hiram Walker, sit down."
I laughed.
"Now who's giving orders?"
She didn't smile.
"Sit."
I sat.
She examined the shoulder carefully.
There was no obvious deformity, but the pain made certain movements difficult.
She asked whether I could move my fingers.
Whether I felt numbness.
And whether the pain changed when I adjusted my arm.
I answered.
Then she prepared a supportive wrap and insisted I avoid heavy work until we could judge how the injury developed.
I complained.
She ignored me.
Finally, I said, "I've had worse."
Josephine looked directly at me.
"That doesn't make this good."
I stared.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she continued.
"You keep treating your body like it doesn't matter because you're accustomed to surviving without help."
Her voice trembled.
"But it matters to me."
Something in my chest shifted.
I looked toward her.
She seemed surprised by her own words.
Then quickly returned to adjusting the wrap.
But I couldn't stop looking at her.
No woman had spoken to me with that kind of concern in twenty years.
And for the first time, I wondered whether the quiet I'd built around myself was beginning to disappear for good.
My shoulder improved over the following weeks, though I obeyed Josephine's advice more slowly than she would've preferred.
She took the opportunity to remind me of the injury whenever I tried lifting something unnecessarily heavy.
Sometimes she made me laugh.
Sometimes she irritated me.
But beneath every argument was a tenderness neither of us dared name.
We developed little habits.
I brought her coffee before she asked.
She saved the best pieces of dried fruit for me.
I brushed snow from the window so she could see the mountains.
She hummed while I worked, choosing songs she claimed she couldn't remember learning.
One evening, I caught myself smiling merely because I heard her laughing at something in a book.
The realization frightened me.
I went outside and spent half an hour checking a perfectly sound fence latch.
When I returned, Josephine looked toward me.