Margaret glanced at Eli.
“Your wife seems to have had a very high opinion of herself as a matchmaker.”
“She wasn’t matchmaking,” Eli said.
Thomas grinned. “No? Then why did she tell me to keep my mouth shut if you ever complained about being lonely?”
Eli’s expression darkened.
“Because she knew you’d say something foolish.”
“Probably.”
Clara appeared from the back room and ran straight to Thomas.
“Uncle Thomas!”
He swept her up. “There’s my favorite niece!”
“I’m your only niece.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite.”
Clara giggled.
Thomas stayed for two nights. He helped Eli repair a section of the barn roof, took Clara riding, and spent long hours talking by the fire. Margaret learned that he had been worried about his brother since Anne’s death, though he had not known how to help without making Eli feel pitied.
One evening, while Eli and Thomas were outside checking the horses, Thomas paused beside Margaret at the kitchen door.
“You’ve done him good,” he said.
Margaret stiffened.
“I hope I haven’t made him worse.”
Thomas shook his head.
“He was disappearing into that place. Working until his hands bled, refusing company, letting the house turn into a memory. Clara needed him, but he was so busy grieving that he couldn’t see how much she needed him to live.”
Margaret looked down.
“I’m not here to fix him.”
“I know. Anne knew that too.”
She looked up sharply.
Thomas’s expression softened.
“She wrote to me before she died. Said she’d asked you to come, but that you might not. She said you had your own life to live and that she would not blame you if you chose not to leave it.”
Margaret’s eyes glistened.
“She never told me she wrote to you.”
“She was trying to protect everyone from everyone else’s feelings. A habit of hers.”
Margaret smiled through the ache.
“She was very good at making other people feel brave.”
“She was good at being brave herself.”
They stood quietly for a moment.
Then Thomas said, “Eli may take some time. He’s not a man who knows how to ask for what he wants.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“He’ll try to make everything a duty. Don’t let him.”
Margaret met his eyes.
“I won’t.”
Thomas nodded.
“Good. Because he needs someone who’ll tell him when he’s being an idiot.”