“Yes.”
“You intend to sleep on the floor?”
“I can.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Tomás met her eyes.
Clara stood.
She was taller than most women, broad and heavy, her presence filling the small room.
For the first time he saw nervousness in her.
Not fear of him.
Fear of being unwanted.
That realization hurt unexpectedly.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t expect anything tonight.”
Her face closed slightly.
Tomás saw the mistake.
“I didn’t mean—”
She turned toward the bed.
“You’re tired.”
“No.”
She began folding the blue dress.
Tomás stepped closer.
“Look at me.”
She did not.
He waited.
Finally she turned.
“I said I don’t expect anything because three days is not enough time to ask you to trust me with your body.”
Her expression softened slightly.
“Not because I don’t want you.”
Now she stared.
Tomás felt heat rise in his face.
“Good Lord.”
Clara almost laughed.
“I’m bad at this.”
“That was becoming clear.”
He smiled nervously.
“I find you beautiful.”
Clara’s eyes lowered.
“And I am attracted to you.”
She looked up again.
Tomás continued before courage disappeared.
“But I would rather wait until you believe that than try proving it because a minister gave permission.”
For several seconds Clara said nothing.
Then she sat.
Tomás feared he had ruined everything.
Finally she said, “You may sleep in the bed.”
He blinked.
“That sounds like military orders.”
“It is.”
“With boundaries.”
“Obviously.”
He nodded.
They lay side by side fully clothed beneath a thin sheet.
A foot of space separated them.
Tomás stared at the ceiling.
Clara stared too.
After five minutes she said, “You breathe loudly.”
He turned.
“I am breathing normally.”
“No.”
“You’ve known me three days.”
“Long enough.”
He laughed quietly.
Ten minutes later, her hand found his beneath the sheet.
No words.
Just fingers.
Tomás held them.
They slept that way.
The first week of marriage taught Clara what Tomás’s letters had not.
He apologized to animals when correcting them.
He hated wasting food.
He could repair nearly anything made from wood but destroyed bread with astonishing consistency.
He talked in his sleep when exhausted.
Usually numbers.
Debt followed him even into dreams.
Tomás learned Clara hummed while sharpening knives.
She feared thunderstorms less than silence after arguments.
She hated milk.
Loved peaches.
Read newspapers from beginning to end, including advertisements.
And possessed an almost unnatural ability to notice when someone lied badly.
They also learned marriage did not remove problems.
On the eighth day, the bank manager arrived.
Mr. Harlan rode in with a leather case.
Tomás saw him from the barn.
His stomach tightened.
Clara noticed.
“Bank?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Tomás stared.
“What part?”
“I want to meet him.”
“Why?”
“I’m married to the debt now too.”
He disliked the sentence.
But could not deny it.
Harlan sat at their table.
Small man.
Thin mustache.
Round spectacles.
He opened the ledger.
“Mr. Reed.”
“Mr. Harlan.”
“Mrs. Reed.”
Clara’s eyes flickered at the name.
First time someone had used it.
“Mr. Harlan.”
He explained what Tomás already knew.
Payment due September twenty-eighth.
Five hundred dollars interest plus scheduled principal.