Clara gripped his shoulders.
The blue ribbon fell from her unfinished braid to the floor.
The mirror caught only fragments.
His hand at her waist.
Her dark hair around them.
Firelight.
Then Elias pulled back, breathing hard.
“Still sure?”
Clara stared.
“Do mountain men always ask this many questions?”
“Only frightened ones.”
She softened.
“You're frightened?”
“Terrified.”
“Of me?”
“Of getting this wrong.”
Clara touched his beard.
“You haven't.”
She kissed him again.
Later, the blanket remained folded beside the stove.
For the first time since their wedding, Elias did not use it.
The cabin became quiet.
Outside, snow fell against the window.
Inside, neither of them was lonely.
Spring arrived slowly.
Snow retreated from the meadow.
Water ran beneath ice.
Birds returned.
Clara stood on the porch one morning drinking coffee when Elias came behind her.
His arms wrapped around her waist.
Months earlier, the gesture would have made her stiffen.
Now she leaned back against him.
“You're distracting me.”
“From coffee?”
“Important work.”
He kissed her temple.
Clara smiled.
The mountains were changing.
So was she.
Not physically.
She was still soft.
Still round.
Still the woman who would never fit the eastern ideal that had governed so many years of her life.
But the mirror inside no longer felt like an accusation.
Sometimes she looked at herself and saw exactly what she had always seen.
Other times she saw what Elias saw.
Not beauty replacing everything else.
Beauty existing among everything else.
Competence.
Humor.
Fear.
Desire.
Stubbornness.
Intelligence.
Imperfection.
Life.
That distinction mattered.
Elias handed her an envelope.
“What is this?”
“Mail.”
“From Ohio?”
“Yes.”
Clara opened it.
Her former library director had written.
They missed her.
The geography roof had finally been repaired.
A new librarian had accidentally reorganized French literature under history.
Clara gasped.
“Criminal.”
Elias laughed.
Then she found another paper inside.
A letter from her aunt.
I hope Mr. Mercer has treated you kindly despite the difficult circumstances of such marriages.
Clara rolled her eyes.
Elias asked:
“What?”
“My aunt still thinks you're some desperate savage.”
“I am desperate.”
Clara looked over.
“For what?”
He leaned close.
She pushed his face away laughing.
“Breakfast first.”
“Cruel woman.”
She entered the cabin.
On the table sat the ledgers.
All balanced.
The carved swallow.
The old mirror.
And tucked carefully beneath its frame, her first letter.