“Yes.”
“He is dead.”
“I know.”
“You cannot punch a dead man.”
“I have been considering that problem.”
Despite everything, she smiled.
Elias picked up the handkerchief from the shelf and set it on the table.
Then backed away.
Clara took it.
“You really have never been with a woman?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father took me into the mountains when I was thirteen.”
“That cannot be the entire explanation.”
“It isn't.”
“Then?”
Elias stared at the fire for a long moment.
“When I was twenty, my sister Nora married a man in Denver.”
Clara stayed still.
“He was handsome.”
“Polite.”
“Owned a business.”
“Everyone thought she was lucky.”
“He turned out not to be.”
Elias’s eyes remained on the flames.
“She came home once with a bruise beneath her sleeve.”
“My father told her marriage required endurance.”
“I told her to leave him.”
“She said she had nowhere to go.”
Elias glanced at Clara’s deed.
“I never forgot that.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left eventually.”
“Came here.”
“Stayed through winter.”
“Then pneumonia took her.”
Clara’s chest tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He looked at her again.
“After that, women and marriage became complicated in my head.”
“I didn't want to become the kind of man who believed paying for something entitled him to somebody.”
“So you simply avoided women for twelve years?”
“Not completely.”
Clara lifted an eyebrow.
Elias flushed again.
“I have spoken to them.”
She laughed.
“Remarkable.”
“I danced twice.”
“Twice?”
“One was my cousin.”
“That hardly counts.”
“I agree.”
“And the other?”
“A woman named Ruth at a harvest dance.”
“What happened?”
“I stepped on her foot.”
“Badly?”
“She married somebody else six months later.”
Clara smiled.
“You blame yourself?”
“I think it was decisive.”
The fire shifted.
Outside, the storm intensified.
Clara looked down at the deed again.
Then toward the bed.
The same bed that had frightened her.
Now it simply looked narrow.
She folded the document carefully.
“Elias.”
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
He did not move.
“Why?”
“Because I asked.”
“That is not enough information anymore.”
She stared at him.
He was serious.
Clara looked toward the chair beside the hearth.
“Sit there.”
He obeyed.