“She hated me.”
“She hated all civilization.”
Thomas smiled.
Then his eyes filled.
“I’m glad you lasted.”
Lena touched his cheek.
“So am I.”
She died two years later.
Peacefully.
At ranch.
Surrounded by children.
In her final lucid afternoon, Eli brought apple pie.
She tasted.
“Too much cinnamon.”
He laughed.
“You’ve said that forty years.”
“Still true.”
Thomas sat opposite.
Lena looked at him.
“One week.”
He smiled through tears.
“I was wrong.”
“Very.”
“Did you know you’d stay?”
She thought.
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
“Really?”
“No.”
“When I arrived, I knew I would try.”
“That’s different.”
Thomas nodded.
Lena continued:
“Most permanent things begin as trying one more day.”
She looked around room.
At children.
Grandchildren.
Ledger on shelf.
Reid’s old coat hanging near door though he had been gone fourteen years.
“I didn't stay forty-eight years on first morning.”
“I stayed through breakfast.”
“Then supper.”
“Then winter.”
“Then because your father asked.”
“Then because you boys became mine.”
Thomas began crying openly.
Lena smiled.
“Do not make old woman comfort you.”
He laughed.
“Yes, Ma.”
She closed eyes.
The ranch passed to children through a structure Lena had written years earlier.
No single heir could force sale without others’ consent.
Water rights separate from merchant debts.
Open accounting.
She had learned from Prescott what not to leave behind.