Ruth laughed and stepped back.
Jonah looked over his shoulder.
“Sometimes married people kiss.”
Clara considered this.
“Do they have to do it in the kitchen?”
“Only when the kitchen is warm.”
Clara giggled.
“Can I have soup?”
“Soon,” Ruth said. “Go wash your hands.”
Clara disappeared down the hall.
Jonah turned back to Ruth, his expression amused.
“You were saying something about a special supper?”
“I was saying that you should stop distracting me.”
“I’ll try.”
“You will not.”
“No,” he admitted. “I probably won’t.”
As winter deepened, Jonah began to speak more openly about Anne.
Not constantly, and not without pain. But he no longer treated her name as something that must be hidden. He told Ruth how Anne had loved music, how she sang while baking, and how she had once insisted that a stray calf be allowed to sleep in the kitchen because it looked lonely.
Ruth listened, sometimes smiling, sometimes asking questions.
She learned that Anne had been practical and stubborn, that she had laughed loudly, and that she had been afraid of thunderstorms. She learned that the blue quilt on the bed had been sewn during the first winter of their marriage, when money was scarce and Jonah had spent long evenings repairing tack by the fire.
One afternoon, Ruth found a small wooden box beneath the bed.
Inside were Anne’s letters, a ribbon, a pressed flower, and a tiny silver bell.
Ruth sat back on her heels, uncertain whether she should touch anything.
Jonah came into the room and saw the open box.
For a moment, his expression closed.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I was looking for the missing blanket.”
He approached slowly.
“You can look at them.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not.”
He sat beside her and lifted the pressed flower from the box.
“Anne gave me this the summer before we married. It was growing near the creek. She said it was a promise that something beautiful could come from the roughest ground.”
Ruth examined the faded petals.
“That sounds like her.”
“It does.”
He placed the flower back in the box, then looked at the letters.
“I kept everything.”
“I understand.”
“I thought if I put it away, I would be putting her away.”
Ruth closed the box gently.
“You can keep it. You can remember her. You can tell Clara stories about her. None of that threatens what we have.”
Jonah looked at her with an expression she could not immediately read.
“Does it ever hurt you?”