Clara wondered what the sign meant.
Later she would learn.
Choose.
When instructed to kiss his bride, Elias went still.
Clara saw uncertainty.
Behind them, someone whispered:
“Maybe even he has limits.”
Laughter.
Clara’s face burned.
Elias heard none of it.
But he saw the room.
Saw mouths.
Saw Clara’s expression.
He leaned forward.
Then stopped an inch away.
Question.
Clara understood without language.
She nodded.
Elias brushed his lips against her cheek.
Barely.
Gentle enough that she felt almost nothing.
Laughter came again.
Clara did not lower her head from shame.
She lowered it because if she looked at Walter Crowe, she might commit murder in church.
Elias squeezed her hand.
Once.
She looked up.
He pointed toward the door.
Leave.
Together they walked out.
The laughter stayed behind.
The journey to Elias’s ranch took nearly three hours by wagon.
Snow fell steadily.
Clara sat wrapped in blankets.
Elias held the reins.
His body blocked much of the wind.
At first, silence felt unnatural.
Then Clara remembered silence was his whole world.
She studied him.
He seemed aware of vibration.
The wagon wheel striking a rock made him glance downward.
The horses shifting changed the reins against his hands.
He noticed movement constantly.
She wondered what silence felt like after thirty years.
Terrible?
Peaceful?
Normal?
At one point Elias looked toward her.
Caught her staring.
Clara looked away.
His mouth curved slightly.
He reached into his coat with one hand and gave her the notebook.
She wrote:
What?
He took it.
You stare.
Clara flushed.
You are very large.
He looked at his body.
Then at her.
Wrote:
Sorry.
Clara laughed.
A real laugh.
The first since agreeing to the marriage.
Elias could not hear it.
But he saw her face.
His own smile appeared.
The cabin surprised her.
She expected darkness.
Animal skins everywhere.
Dirt.
The sort of place town stories built around a mountain recluse.
Instead, the one-room main cabin was orderly.
Log walls.
Stone fireplace.
Wooden table scrubbed pale from years of cleaning.
Shelves lined with preserved food.
Iron stove.
Books.
Many books.
A bedroom separated by a simple doorway and curtain.
Elias carried Clara’s trunk inside.
He pointed toward the bedroom.
Then himself.
Then the fireplace floor.
Clara frowned.
He pulled the notebook.
Bedroom yours.
I sleep here.
Clara looked toward the single bed.
Then at him.
She wrote:
For how long?
Elias considered.
Until you ask otherwise.
Heat climbed Clara’s neck.
He pretended not to notice.
That night, Clara lay beneath thick blankets.
Elias slept on a bedroll beside the dying fire.
She watched through the partially open curtain.