“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked genuinely confused.
“You never asked.”
She almost threw the cloth at him.
Instead she laughed.
Reid looked pleased.
Lena hated that she noticed.
The bread took fifty-three minutes.
Reid paid twelve cents exactly.
Then placed another coin beside it.
Lena raised one eyebrow.
“For waiting by the fire,” he said.
“No.”
“For the extra wood.”
“No.”
“For tolerating me.”
“That might be worth something.”
He smiled.
She pushed the extra coin back.
He accepted defeat.
Before leaving, he wrapped the loaf inside his coat.
“You’ll crush it.”
“Then Emma will blame you.”
“She sounds unreasonable.”
“She is six.”
“Same thing.”
He opened the door.
Wind threw snow inside.
Then he paused.
“Thank you, Lena.”
It was the first time he had used her name.
She watched him disappear into the storm.
Reid continued coming.
Now Lena understood why.
That should have made everything simple.
Instead it made his visits more complicated.
Because once she stopped imagining pity, she began noticing him.
His hands.
Scar across one knuckle.
The way he removed his hat before entering even when nobody else did.
The slight unevenness in his walk from an old riding injury.
The fact that he always asked whether she needed flour brought from the mill because his wagon passed nearby.
She always said no.
Even when she did.
Especially when she did.
One morning in late February, he arrived with Emma.
The child stood partly behind his coat.
Small brown boots.
Dark green dress.
A wool cape too large for her.
Her eyes were gray like her father’s.
She stared at Lena.
Children usually stared.
Lena had learned to wait them out.
Emma did not look at Lena’s body.
She looked at her hands.
Flour covered them.
“You make it?”
Emma asked.
Lena smiled.
“The bread?”
The girl nodded.
“I do.”
“All of it?”
“Every loaf.”
Emma emerged slightly from behind Reid.
“How?”
“Flour, water, yeast, salt, patience.”
Emma considered.
“What’s patience?”
Reid said, “Something neither of us has.”
Lena laughed.
Emma did not.
“Can I see?”
Reid looked toward Lena.
“Only if Miss Lena says.”
Lena’s chest tightened at the title.
Nobody had called her Miss Lena since her mother died.
She stepped aside.
“Come around.”
Emma approached the worktable.
Lena gave her a small piece of dough.
The girl poked it.
“It’s alive?”
“In a way.”
Emma’s eyes widened.
Lena explained yeast as simply as she could.
Emma listened seriously.
Then asked:
“Does bread get sad?”
Reid looked away.
Lena knew the question was not about bread.
She answered carefully.
“I don’t think bread gets sad.”