He simply looked her in the eyes and said, "Then it's fortunate I have two perfectly good eyes."
I still remembered the silence that followed.
And the way he turned toward me afterward.
"You're beautiful, Rose."
He said it as though it were the most obvious fact in the world.
I married him that afternoon.
Not because he was wealthy.
He wasn't.
Not because he owned a grand home.
He didn't.
And certainly not because mountain life promised comfort.
It promised freezing winters, muddy springs, difficult harvests, and more hard work than most people could imagine.
I married him because he looked at me like a woman rather than a problem to be solved.
And for eight wonderful months, I believed we had been given a second chance at happiness.
Until that Sunday.
The morning began with snow.
Heavy, soft snowflakes drifted past our kitchen windows, covering the distant pines and turning the narrow mountain trail into a white ribbon that vanished beyond the ridge.
Inside the cabin, the stove was already burning.
I had risen before William, wrapped myself in a wool shawl, and carried several pieces of split oak from the woodbox.
Sunday dinner was important to me.
It always had been.
My mother believed that a family needed at least one meal each week where nobody hurried, nobody complained, and nobody left the table feeling unwanted.
When I was little, she prepared chicken and dumplings every Sunday.
Not fancy food.
Not expensive.
But rich, tender chicken swimming in golden broth, with soft dumplings that soaked up every bit of flavor.
My father used to say he could smell Sunday from halfway down the road.
After my mother died, I kept making the dish.
Sometimes for relatives who barely thanked me.
Sometimes for neighbors who paid me a few coins.
And sometimes just for myself.
Cooking was the one thing I could do without worrying whether people approved of the way I looked.
A good stew didn't care how much the cook weighed.
Bread rose because the dough had been prepared properly, not because the baker had a narrow waist.
And when someone closed their eyes after tasting a meal I had made, I felt useful in a way nobody could take from me.
William understood that.
He loved watching me cook.
Sometimes he helped.
Other times he stood behind me with an expression so affectionate that I had to tell him to stop staring before I burned something.
That Sunday, I was preparing our favorite meal.
A whole chicken.
Two onions.
Fresh celery stored in the cellar.