“No.”
He opened it.
His mother's words were exactly as he remembered through Silas's description.
Practical.
Concerned.
Certain.
Family circumstances have changed. Graham will not be able to take the position. Please make other arrangements.
No cruelty.
That was the terrible part.
Graham folded it.
Lila asked:
“What will you do?”
He looked toward the stove.
Then smiled faintly.
“Not burn it.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
“Not keep it either.”
“Then?”
He took it outside.
Buried it beneath the cottonwood near his mother's grave.
Not ceremony.
Not forgiveness.
Just an ending for the paper.
The spurs remained.
Those belonged to him.
At fifty-three, Graham returned to Morrow Creek for the first time in years.
Different foreman.
Different hands.
Same corrals.
He stood where Lila had first approached him carrying the cloth bundle.
Memory arrived with surprising clarity.
Burgundy dress.
Dust.
Her hands.
Her voice.
Your mother asked me to find you.
Lila stood beside him now.
Gray beginning in her hair.
Still beautiful enough to make his jaw tighten.
She noticed.
“Again?”
“What?”
“The jaw.”
Graham smiled.
“Old habit.”
“Grief?”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Trying not to kiss you?”
He stepped closer.
“I stopped trying that years ago.”
Then kissed her beside the fence.
A young ranch hand walked past and immediately looked elsewhere.
Lila laughed.
“Scandalous.”
“You started it.”
“Thirty years ago.”
“Still counts.”
On their thirty-fifth anniversary, Lila found the unfinished blank letter in Graham's desk.
He had kept that.
Not the cancelation letter.
Not the house records.
The blank one.
“Why this?”
she asked.
Graham touched the worn fold.
“Because it reminds me to speak before the page stays blank too long.”
Lila looked at him.
“That is annoyingly profound.”
“I married a teacher.”
“You improved.”
“Marginally.”
He took her hand.
“Anything I've left blank?”
She thought.
“Yes.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You haven't told me what you thought the first time you saw me.”
Graham laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
“Graham.”
“No.”
“Thirty-five years.”
“Some information remains private.”
Lila narrowed her eyes.
“Was it indecent?”
Graham smiled slowly.
“That depends on the definition.”
Her face warmed despite age.
“There he is.”
“What?”
“The cowboy from the kitchen.”
Graham drew her closer.
“I thought you were beautiful.”
She smiled.
“That isn't indecent.”
“I wasn't finished.”
Lila laughed and covered his mouth.
“Perhaps some pages should remain blank.”
He kissed her palm.
“Coward.”
“Teacher.”
They grew old.
Not gracefully.
Graham complained about his knees.