Then, unexpectedly, she did.
One spring she found herself watching a woman nurse a baby outside church.
The ache arrived without permission.
She went home quiet.
Elias noticed.
Of course.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at her.
She sighed.
“Must you always notice?”
“Yes.”
She sat at the kitchen table.
“I thought I didn't want children.”
Elias stayed standing.
“Do you?”
“I don't know.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It is.”
He sat across from her.
Clara stared at her hands.
“Frederick wanted a son.”
“I know.”
“He blamed me after two years.”
“For what?”
“For nothing happening.”
Elias's jaw tightened.
“Did a doctor ever examine either of you?”
“No.”
“Then he knew nothing.”
“I know.”
She looked toward window.
“But now five years with you.”
Elias understood.
He reached across table.
Stopped before touching.
Even after all those years, he still asked with movement.
Clara placed her hand in his.
“I am sorry.”
he said.
“For what?”
“For the part of you that wanted it.”
Clara’s eyes filled.
“You wanted children too.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret me?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Absolute.
She smiled through tears.
“You didn't even think.”
“I have thought for years.”
The answer broke something open.
Elias continued:
“I would have liked a child.”
“I would like a hundred things life didn't give me.”
“I would like Nora alive.”
“My father kinder.”
“Two inches less height when doorframes are low.”
Clara laughed.
He squeezed her hand.
“But wanting something absent is not the same as hating what is present.”
She looked at him.
“I love what is present.”
“So do I.”
They did not adopt immediately.
There was no convenient orphan waiting to complete them.
Life was not a sermon.
Two years later, a woman named Ruth Callahan died in childbirth in Leadville.
Her husband had died in a mining accident months earlier.
She left behind a six-year-old daughter named Lucy.
Ruth was not family.
She had been one of Clara’s sewing customers.
The town arranged temporary care.
Clara visited.
Lucy hated everyone.
Especially Clara.
She threw a spoon.
Elias liked her instantly.
“She has judgment.”
Clara stared.
“She threw oatmeal at me.”