Clara sat on the floor beside her, studying her face.
“Did Mama tell you stories?”
“Many.”
“Did she tell you about the fox?”
Margaret smiled. “The fox who stole your father’s gloves?”
Clara gasped. “You know that one?”
“She told me he carried them all the way to the barn and hid them beneath a hay bale.”
“He did!” Clara turned triumphantly to Eli. “See? Mama told her!”
Eli managed a faint smile. “Your mother told everyone about that fox.”
Margaret’s expression changed. She seemed to recognize the tenderness and pain beneath his words and did not try to touch it.
The kettle began to sing.
Eli poured hot water into a cup, added a little tea, and set it before her. Then he stood by the mantel, staring at the envelope.
“Open it,” Margaret said.
His hand hovered above the paper.
“Not yet.”
“It was written for you.”
“Then why did she give it to you?”
“Because she wanted me to bring it here.”
“Why not send it?”
“She said it had to be delivered by someone who understood what it meant.”
“And you believe you do?”
“I believe I understand part of it.”
He studied her. “You’ve traveled across the continent to bring me a letter. You’ve arrived in the middle of a blizzard. You’ve accepted a proposal from a man you’ve never met, and now you tell me my wife had a different plan. What exactly am I supposed to believe?”
Margaret’s hands tightened around the cup.
“That I came because I promised her I would.”
“Not because you want to marry me?”
She held his gaze.
“I did not know you when I first promised her. I came here because I thought I could honor that promise and still make a life of my own. When your letters arrived, I began to hope that the two things might not be impossible.”
Eli looked away.
Hope.
He had spent three years avoiding the word.
“Did she tell you what happened to her?” he asked.
“I know she became ill.”
“She died of a fever.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know what it was like.”
“No,” Margaret said. “I don’t.”
He looked back at her, surprised by the lack of defense.
“I will not pretend I know what it is to lose a wife,” she continued. “I never had one. I have no children. I have not stood in a room and watched someone I love grow weaker while every remedy fails. I cannot claim your grief as my own. But I knew your wife. I knew what she feared, and what she hoped for. And I know she loved you.”
The last words struck him harder than he expected.