“I did not expect friendship.”
“I certainly did not expect you.”
People smiled.
Clara continued.
“You taught me something I had forgotten.”
“That being needed is not the same as being loved.”
“And being capable does not mean I have to do everything alone.”
She squeezed his hands.
“I promise to answer your letters even when you're sitting in the same room.”
Thomas laughed.
“I promise to remind you that repairing something without being asked is not always romantic.”
A louder laugh.
“And I promise that when fear tells me happiness is dangerous because I once lost it, I will remember that losing love does not mean love was a mistake.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
Reverend Pike pronounced them husband and wife.
Thomas kissed Clara beneath the cottonwoods.
Willow Creek moved below.
The bridge creaked.
Nobody fell through.
Thomas later claimed that proved divine approval.
Clara said it proved she had replaced three boards the previous summer.
Marriage began appropriately.
With disagreement.
They lived at the Rourke ranch.
Clara could not immediately bear selling the Whitmore house.
Thomas never asked.
For nearly a year it remained across the creek, quiet but cared for.
Sometimes Clara visited.
Sometimes Thomas came.
Sometimes she went alone.
One afternoon she brought Samuel’s letters to the ranch and placed them in a cedar box beside Thomas’s correspondence.
Two histories.
Same shelf.
Thomas watched.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Clara touched the boxes.
“He is not living across the creek anymore.”
Thomas understood.
Neither said more.
They sold the Whitmore house the following spring to a young family with two children.
On the final day, Clara stood inside the empty kitchen.
Thomas waited outside.
She touched the wall where Samuel once marked the height of a table he planned to build.
“Thank you.”
She whispered.
She did not know whether she meant Samuel.
The house.
Her younger self.
Perhaps all.
Then she stepped outside.
Thomas took her hand.
They crossed the bridge home.
Years passed.
Not dramatically.
That was the gift.
Cattle.
Harvests.
Bills.
Storms.
Arguments about money.
Burned biscuits.
Excellent pies.
Thomas discovered marriage did not cure his habit of leaving boots beside doors.
Clara discovered no number of letters could make him remember to close cupboard doors.
They argued over whether to buy more cattle.
Clara won.
Thomas claimed this happened because he was reasonable.
Clara claimed it happened because she possessed numbers.
Both were partly true.
The letters continued.
Thomas wrote one every anniversary of their first correspondence.
Clara answered.
Sometimes long.
Sometimes only a sentence.
One year Thomas wrote:
I used to wonder what your laugh sounded like.
Clara replied:
You now hear it every time you attempt carpentry indoors.
Another year:
Do you still love me?
Clara:
At present, moderately. Your boots are in the kitchen.
Thomas moved them immediately.
At forty, Clara found herself pregnant.
Neither had expected it.