He looked at the laundry.
“Ben.”
From upstairs came:
“No!”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Clara almost laughed.
He took her suitcase toward the stairs.
She stopped him.
“I can—”
“Yes.”
He set it down.
“I remember.”
Good.
Her room sat across from Lucy and Rose’s.
Small.
Clean.
A narrow bed.
Washstand.
One window facing the mountains.
A quilt covered the mattress.
Not new.
Beautiful.
Clara touched it.
Nathan remained in the doorway.
“Mara made that.”
Clara withdrew her hand instinctively.
“I can use another.”
“No.”
“She made it for this room.”
“For guests?”
Nathan looked toward the quilt.
“For whoever came.”
Clara’s chest tightened.
Mara had prepared a room for another woman to enter her husband’s house after she died.
Clara could not imagine courage like that.
Or desperation.
Nathan said:
“You don't have to read the letter tonight.”
Clara looked at him.
“I do.”
He nodded.
“I’ll leave you.”
He started away.
“Nathan.”
He stopped.
“Why haven't you remarried?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Mara died eight months ago.”
“That is not what I asked.”
His jaw tightened.
“I haven’t wanted to.”
“Then why let the agency send anyone?”
“I wrote them after Mrs. Bell left.”
Clara frowned.
“You said Mara wrote them.”
“She did.”
“They kept the file open.”
“I wrote to close it.”
“They replied that Mara had prepaid placement through one year.”
Clara blinked.
“Prepaid?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Her own money.”
“How did she have—”
Nathan’s expression sharpened.
“She had money.”
Clara realized her mistake.
Not every frontier wife’s property disappeared entirely into a husband’s hand.
Nathan continued.
“She inherited two hundred dollars from an aunt.”
“I did not know she still had it.”
“She used part of it for this.”
Clara looked around the room again.
This dead woman had become increasingly present without appearing once.
Nathan said:
“I told them not to send anyone.”
“They wrote that unless I formally rejected the final candidate, they were bound to complete the placement.”
“And I’m the final candidate.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because Mara arranged something I still don't understand.”
Clara looked at the letter.
“Then perhaps we both should.”
Nathan’s face changed.
“The letter is yours.”
“But whatever she wrote concerns your family.”
He shook his head.
“If she wanted me to read it, she would have written my name.”
Clara studied him.