Over whether Clara worked too hard.
Over Silas taking dangerous winter trips alone.
One argument lasted two days.
Silas slept barn.
Not because banished.
Because stubborn.
On third day Clara rolled to barn.
“Are you done being idiot?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m done being angry.”
He looked.
“So am I.”
They reconciled.
Love did not eliminate anger.
It gave reason to return.
Elsie married schoolteacher and moved ten miles away.
Thomas became surveyor, perhaps influenced by Eleanor’s history.
He refused railroad job once because company wanted route through protected water meadow.
Clara was proud.
Did not say immediately.
Thomas said:
“You could compliment.”
“I am considering.”
“Ma.”
“Fine.”
She hugged.
Their children had children.
Clara became grandmother.
A baby slept on vast softness of her chest.
She joked finally someone appreciated size without politics.
Silas took photograph.
Grandchildren adored hot spring.
Clara instituted rule: no child below steps without adult.
Nobody obeyed perfectly.
Silver Spring almost became commercial resort once.
Investors offered enough money to make entire family wealthy for generations.
Clara was sixty.
Margaret dead by then.
New lawyer recommended.
Silas asked:
“Want sell?”
Clara looked around.
Open House.
Water channels.
Children.
Fields.
The spring beneath cabin.
“No.”
“What if descendants want?”
“Then trust.”
She created permanent conservation trust.
Family could use.
Not sell watershed outright.
Downstream water rights protected.
Hot spring could never become exclusive paid resort.
Lawyers argued restriction might reduce value.
Clara said:
“Good.”
Value was not only money.
At sixty-eight, Silas had first heart attack.
He survived.
Clara sat beside bed furious.
“You almost died.”
“I noticed.”
“You were splitting wood.”
“Wood needed split.”
“You are seventy.”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Practically ancient.”
He smiled weakly.
Clara cried.
Silas touched hand.
“I'm not going today.”
“You don't know.”
“No.”
“Neither do you.”
She pressed forehead to his.
“I hate this.”
“Me too.”
He recovered but changed.
Less labor.
More porch.
He hated.
Clara loved having him near.
They spent evenings reading old journals.
One night Silas said:
“I lied once.”
Clara looked.
“When?”
“First week.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“When you asked whether my father loved your mother.”
Clara went still.
“You said maybe.”
“Yes.”