“I mean I wouldn't know how.”
“Neither will I.”
“You're their uncle.”
“That doesn't magically teach me what to do with a grieving ten-year-old girl.”
Emily looked at him.
“I have never cared for children overnight.”
“You taught twelve of them in that one-room school outside Laramie for three years.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“It isn't.”
He took the telegram back.
“I will care for them.”
“You do not owe them motherhood because you married me.”
“If all you can give them is kindness while they learn this house, that is enough.”
Emily felt something strange happen inside her.
The fear did not leave.
But another emotion appeared beside it.
A possibility.
Not replacement.
Not miracle.
Just possibility.
“Will they stay permanently?”
Daniel stared at the telegram.
“I don't know.”
“But probably.”
“What if they don't like me?”
Daniel looked at her.
“Then you'll have something in common.”
“What?”
“They barely know me either.”
Emily smiled.
He squeezed her hand again.
“Tuesday.”
she whispered.
“Tuesday.”
The fire settled lower.
Emily stared at the ceiling.
Only an hour earlier, she had believed her marriage was about to end because she could not give Daniel a family.
Now two children who had lost nearly everyone they loved were traveling toward their door.
She turned her head.
Daniel was watching her.
“What?”
she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That is not true.”
“No.”
He smiled softly.
“I’m thinking today turned out differently than planned.”
Emily laughed.
“For both of us.”
“Yes.”
After another quiet moment she whispered:
“Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Stay.”
His thumb moved once across her knuckles.
“I’m here.”
And for the first time since the doctor in St. Louis had told nineteen-year-old Emily that motherhood might never belong to her, she closed her eyes without feeling as though the future had already been decided.
Tuesday arrived beneath a gray sky.
Emily had spent the previous two days preparing as though the President of the United States were coming to inspect the ranch.
Daniel finally caught her carrying a fourth stack of blankets upstairs and took half from her arms.
“They are children, not visiting royalty.”
“They've been traveling for days.”
“Yes.”
“They'll be tired.”
“Yes.”
“They may be cold.”
“It’s September.”
“Wyoming does not care what month it is.”
Daniel smiled.
“True.”
Emily pushed open the door of the smaller upstairs room.
She had made two beds.
Then remade them.
Then changed her mind and separated them with a small table.
Clara might want privacy.
Samuel might be frightened alone.
She did not know.
That ignorance made her nervous.
She had placed a blue quilt on one bed and a green one on the other.
Daniel looked around.
“You repaired the curtains.”
“They were torn.”
“You also painted the shelf.”
“It looked miserable.”
“You put books there.”
“Children need books.”