Eliza’s eyes lit.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
He was twenty-four.
Six feet three.
Strong enough to lift feed sacks one-handed.
Still powerless against his mother.
Eliza eventually obtained the photograph.
She studied the young woman.
“Who?”
“Her name is Anna.”
“Do you love her?”
Samuel groaned.
“Mother.”
“What?”
“You cannot ask that immediately.”
“Why not?”
Caleb said:
“She absolutely can.”
Samuel glared.
Ruth entered.
“What's happening?”
“Samuel is in love.”
“I am leaving.”
Everybody laughed.
Samuel grabbed his coat.
Before exiting, he stopped beside Eliza.
His expression changed.
“Actually.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“I need advice.”
The room quieted.
Samuel glanced toward the door.
“Anna thinks she isn't…”
He struggled.
“Enough.”
Eliza’s smile disappeared.
“In what way?”
“Pretty.”
Eliza became still.
Caleb looked at her.
Decades collapsed.
A stagecoach.
A grieving woman.
A desperate father.
A baby wrapped in cream wool.
Eliza handed Samuel the photograph.
“Then don't tell her beauty doesn't matter.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because she'll think you're avoiding the question.”
Samuel sat.
Eliza continued.
“Tell her what you actually see.”
“All of it.”
“Not just what she fears.”
Samuel listened.
“And don't make her gratitude the price of loving her.”
He nodded.
Caleb smiled faintly.
Samuel looked toward his father.
“That what you did?”
Caleb considered.
“Eventually.”
Eliza laughed.
“Your father required considerable training.”
“Still does.”
Caleb kissed her temple.
Samuel looked disgusted.
“Please stop.”
Ruth laughed from the doorway.
Some things did not change.
By the time Caleb’s beard turned almost entirely silver, the stagecoach story had become family legend.
Each person told it differently.
Pritchard emphasized his crucial freight investigation.
Mrs. Henderson insisted she had solved everything with superior observation.
Caleb said Samuel screamed loudly enough to frighten horses in three territories.
Eliza corrected him every time.
“He was starving.”
“I know.”
“Then don't insult him.”
“He can't hear me.”
Samuel, now with children of his own, would call from across the room:
“I can.”
Everyone laughed.
But sometimes the story was told seriously.
Especially when somebody believed they had nothing left.
Then Eliza would explain.
She boarded that coach believing her daughter was dead.
Caleb boarded believing his son might soon join his wife.
Neither was looking for love.
Neither was looking for family.
They were surviving one mile at a time.
The first thing Eliza gave Caleb was not romance.
It was help.
The first thing Caleb gave Eliza was not rescue.
It was belief.
He believed her when records said otherwise.
He stood beside her without deciding for her.
He helped search.
Then waited until gratitude had enough time to become something freely chosen.