“The trustees hired someone local after my start date changed.”
“You came west for a job that no longer existed.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I had enough money for perhaps three weeks.”
“No family?”
“None willing to finance another failed plan.”
Graham watched the fire.
“She took you in.”
“Initially for chores.”
“Then board.”
“Then…”
Lila hesitated.
“What?”
“I don't know what to call what came after.”
Graham looked at her.
“She became important.”
“Yes.”
“And you to her?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
Lila smiled faintly.
“Your mother was not generous with declarations.”
“That sounds like her.”
Rain hammered the roof.
Graham studied the woman across from him.
Road dust gone from her face now.
Hair loosened completely from the wet.
The burgundy dress clung slightly at the shoulders from rain before drying near the fire.
He looked away before looking became something else.
Lila noticed.
She said nothing.
That was worse.
The next afternoon they took rooms at a small hotel.
Separate.
Graham ate downstairs.
Lila joined him halfway through supper.
“You didn't wait.”
“I didn't know I was supposed to.”
“You weren't.”
She sat.
Graham glanced at her.
“That sounded like a trap.”
“It wasn't.”
“Good.”
She ordered stew.
The innkeeper brought bread.
Lila tore off a piece.
Graham said:
“My mother ever mention me?”
“Yes.”
He had not meant to ask so directly.
“Frequently?”
“No.”
That hurt more than expected.
Lila saw.
“But consistently.”
Graham frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“She remembered things.”
“Not stories.”
“Details.”
“Which details?”
Lila looked at his plate.
“Potatoes.”
Graham stared.
“What?”
“She cut them small because you hated large pieces as a boy.”
He laughed despite himself.
“That is absurd.”
“She also remembered you disliked onions browned too far.”
Graham stopped laughing.
Lila continued.
“She knew you slept poorly during thunderstorms until sixteen.”
“You preferred black coffee after eighteen.”
“You once broke an upstairs window throwing a boot at your cousin.”
Graham rubbed his mouth.
“Enough.”
Lila stopped.
He looked toward the room.
“She remembers all that.”
“Yes.”
“But didn't write.”
“No.”
Lila did not soften it.
He appreciated that.
Juniper Bend appeared six days after leaving Wyoming.
Graham recognized the ridge first.
Then the creek.
Then the cottonwoods.
The house came last.
Smaller than memory.
That was the first insult.
He had imagined it enormous.
A prison.
A monument.
Instead it was just a two-story farmhouse with a repaired porch step and fresh curtains.
Lila dismounted.
Graham remained in the saddle.
“She changed the curtains.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the old ones tore.”
Of course.
The answer was so mundane he almost resented it.
“She kept living.”
Lila looked toward the house.