Most days he used the chair.
He no longer apologized.
Martha looked toward the road.
“Remember Amos’s wagon?”
“Yes.”
“You hated me.”
“I didn’t know you.”
“You glared.”
“I was in pain.”
“You were rude.”
“You threatened me with a shovel.”
“You deserved it.”
Colum smiled.
After a moment he said, “You almost left me outside.”
“I should have.”
“Cold woman.”
“You lived.”
“Barely.”
Martha looked toward him.
“What did you think when he dumped you?”
Colum’s expression changed.
He considered.
“That my life was over.”
Martha became quiet.
“And then?”
“You told me you weren’t dragging me.”
She laughed.
“That helped?”
“Strangely.”
He took her hand.
“You were the first person after the injury who talked to me like I was still annoying enough to be human.”
Martha squeezed his fingers.
“You were extremely annoying.”
“Still am.”
“Yes.”
Colum looked toward the fields.
“What did you think?”
“When?”
“When you saw me.”
Martha answered without hesitation.
“That I was tired of caring for broken things.”
Colum nodded.
“Fair.”
She looked at him.
“Then I realized you weren’t broken.”
He smiled.
“Careful.”
“What?”
“That sounds sentimental.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
They sat quietly.
The plains rolled golden beneath the sunset.
The same land the town once believed Martha could not manage had become one of the most productive farms in the county.
Not because she proved she was secretly something different.
She remained enormous.
She remained stubborn.
She remained tired some days.
Colum remained disabled.
He remained angry at his body sometimes.
He remained dependent on adaptations.
Neither became acceptable by becoming less of what people mocked.
That was the point.
The final winter of Colum’s life came when he was seventy-two.
His lungs weakened after pneumonia.
Martha was seventy-six.
She moved slowly now.
Her knees hurt.
Her large body that had once anchored rescue ropes against blizzard wind required its own accommodations.
Colum complained whenever she refused help.
Martha reminded him how badly he had behaved on the iron cot decades earlier.
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was handsome.”
She laughed until she coughed.
One evening snow began falling.
Softly.
Nothing like the great winter.
Martha sat beside Colum’s bed.
He looked toward the window.
“You think it’ll drift?”
“No.”
“North wind?”
“West.”
He smiled.
“You learned.”
“I had a good teacher.”
His breathing was shallow.
Martha knew.
So did he.
Colum looked toward her.
“You regret it?”
“What?”
“Keeping me.”