By the fourth morning, the storm had cleared enough for Gideon to inspect the trail.
He returned after breakfast with frost clinging to his beard and snow packed around his boots.
Lydia was kneading bread dough at the table.
She had tied her hair back with a strip of blue cloth and rolled her sleeves to her elbows.
The large wooden chair stood nearby.
Her sewing book lay open beside the flour tin.
Gideon stopped in the doorway.
For a moment, he simply watched her.
The sight unsettled him in a way he could not explain.
For fourteen years, he had entered that cabin to silence.
Sometimes the dogs greeted him.
Sometimes a pot of stew waited because he had prepared it that morning.
But there had been no other person moving through the room.
No woman working dough beneath the window.
No soft voice humming an unfamiliar tune.
No second pair of boots beside the door.
Now Lydia stood at his table, flour dusting her fingers, and the cabin seemed larger and warmer than it ever had when he lived there alone.
She noticed him.
"You're letting the cold in."
He blinked.
Then quickly shut the door.
"Sorry."
She smiled.
"How is the trail?"
"Deep snow. Not impassable."
"To North Fork?"
"Hard going."
She pressed the dough beneath her palms.
"Can we manage it?"
Gideon looked toward the window.
"Maybe in two days."
Lydia nodded.
He watched her work.
Then asked, "Need help?"
She gestured toward a second bowl.
"You can wash the potatoes."
He stared.
"All of them?"
"Unless you know which ones are already clean."
A slow smile appeared beneath his beard.
He removed his coat.
Rolled his sleeves.
And began washing potatoes.
The dogs lay beneath the table, hopeful that something edible might fall.
For an hour, husband and wife worked beside each other.
It was an ordinary morning.
But Gideon felt something shifting inside him.
He had imagined marriage as a grand, difficult change.
A responsibility he might fail.
A promise too large for the life he understood.
Instead, it began with bread dough and dirty potatoes.
And he found himself strangely grateful.
After lunch, Lydia asked about Elias.
Gideon had been repairing a leather harness near the stove.
At the mention of his brother's name, his hands slowed.
"What would you like to know?"
"Whatever you can bear to tell me."
He looked up.
Lydia sat across from him with a needle and thread, repairing a tear in one of his heavy shirts.
She did not press him.
She simply waited.
Gideon set down the harness.
"Elias was eleven years younger than me."
Lydia smiled.
"Did he follow you everywhere?"
"Like a shadow."
"Did that bother you?"
"Every day."
She laughed softly.
Gideon looked toward the window.
"He used to take my tools without asking. Broke my father's best saw trying to build a sled. Once climbed onto the roof because he thought he could see all the way to Idaho."
Lydia smiled.
"Could he?"
"No."
Gideon shook his head.
"Fell through the chicken shed on the way down."
Lydia laughed.
For a moment, Gideon laughed too.
Then the laughter faded.
"He was clever. More clever than me."
"I'm sure that's not true."