Immigrants practiced English using actual land deeds and receipts instead of childish primers.
Margaret Bell taught a monthly legal class.
Josephine attended every one.
One winter evening, a fifteen-year-old girl stayed after class.
She was large.
Not as large as Josephine, but visibly heavier than the other students.
She stared at the floor.
“Mrs. Creek?”
“Yes?”
“My brother says no man will want me.”
The question cut deeper than Josephine expected.
She sat beside the girl.
“Do you want a husband someday?”
“Maybe.”
“Then perhaps you’ll have one.”
The girl looked unconvinced.
Josephine continued.
“Perhaps you won’t.”
The girl’s face fell.
“That isn’t the important part.”
“What is?”
Josephine held up the accounting book.
“This.”
The girl looked confused.
“Knowing what belongs to you.”
She touched her temple.
“This.”
Then her chest.
“And this.”
The girl swallowed.
Josephine smiled.
“If someone loves you someday, good.”
“And if nobody does?”
“Then you will still wake up as yourself.”
The girl slowly smiled.
Harlan waited outside with the wagon.
Josephine climbed beside him.
“What took so long?”
“A student.”
“Problem?”
“No.”
She looked toward the schoolhouse.
“Maybe the opposite.”
Years passed.
Josephine and Harlan built a life that neither contract had predicted.
They argued.
Frequently.
Harlan had a maddening tendency to buy horses without consultation.
Josephine developed an equally maddening habit of rearranging his equipment because she considered his system “organized chaos.”
Once, Harlan spent three days searching for a particular knife.
Josephine finally pointed toward a drawer.
“You moved it.”
“I put it away.”
“It was away.”
“It was on the table.”
“That was its place.”
“Tables are not storage.”
“Everything is storage if you leave it long enough.”
Their arguments occasionally ended with Harlan retreating to the barn.
Not because Josephine frightened him.
Though she claimed she did.
Because they learned that anger needed room.
They also learned how to return.
“I was wrong.”
Those words became common in their house.
Sometimes Harlan said them.
Sometimes Josephine did.
Neither enjoyed it.
Both respected it.
Their physical relationship matured similarly.
Josephine discovered that attraction did not require performing delicacy.
She did not need to hide beneath blankets.
Did not need to apologize when furniture creaked.
Did not need to pretend she weighed less.
Harlan never praised her by denying reality.
He did not tell her she was “not really that big.”
He knew exactly how large she was.
He loved her without editing her.
Once, after Josephine gained additional weight during a winter of reduced activity, she stood before a mirror looking unhappy.
Harlan entered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That face isn’t nothing.”
“My blue dress barely closes.”
“Get another.”
She glared.
“That isn’t the correct answer.”
He thought.
“You look beautiful?”
“Also not the point.”
Harlan sighed.
“I am terrible at traps.”
Josephine laughed despite herself.
Then she looked back at the mirror.
“I spent years being afraid of becoming larger.”
Harlan came beside her.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“A little.”
“Physically?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then we change what makes you uncomfortable.”